A Case of Vineyard Poison (7 page)

I leaned against the Land Cruiser and watched him go down and make his throw. He was beginning to get some reach on his casts. His line arched out and the plug hit the water with a splash. About four turns of the reel in, a blue hit the plug and Dave was on.

“Wahoo!” He turned his head and looked at us, beaming.

We watched him bring the fish in, and all of us were grinning when he came up to the truck. It's hard not to smile when somebody is as happy as Dave was with that second fish.

“Quinn, my boy,” he said, laughing, “this is even better than you said it would be! This guy just about wiped me out. What a battle!”

When you first start fishing, you wear yourself out on every fish. Later, you learn to use your energy more efficiently, although a really good fish can still tire you and a run of them can do you in completely.

“Lunchtime,” said Zee. “You need to reenergize.”

We rinsed the sand from all of the fish and put them in the fish box, then stood the rods in the rod holders on the front bumper and drove to our favorite spot in the
lee of the tall reeds by Pocha Pond. By some fluke, no one was there ahead of us, so we had the place to ourselves.

We put down the old bedspread, and got out the cooler, and dug in.

After a bit, Zee looked at Dave and Quinn and said, “You two guys have been out in this sun about long enough for your first day. Best if we go back home right after lunch, so you can find some shade.”

Wise advice.

“You sound very maternal,” I said.

“I'm practicing for after we get married.”

“How about taking Dave on the rest of the four-wheel-drive tour, first?” suggested Quinn.

For friends and other occasional guests, I offer two tours of the Vineyard: the two-wheel-drive tour around the island's main roads, through its towns, up to Gay Head and back; and the four-wheel-drive tour out to the far reaches of Chappaquiddick via the beaches. Pocha Pond was about a third of the way along the four-wheel-drive tour.

Zee looked at me. “Why not? It's a beautiful day. And if these guys are in the truck, they'll be out of the sun.”

“Right you are,” said Quinn, his fair Irish skin already dangerously pink.

“You be the tour conductor,” I said to Zee. “I'll scale the fish, then I want to get some stuffers to replace the ones we ate last night. By the time you get back, I should have my bucket full.”

“I'll stay and give you a hand,” said Dave.

“No you won't,” said Zee. “You've been out in the sun long enough already. You can go quahogging tomorrow.”

I took the fish box out of the truck and my scaler out of my tackle box. Then, with Zee driving and Dave
beside her and Quinn in the rear seat, the others set off up toward Dike Bridge, which lay low against the trees up where the water narrowed.

I scaled the bluefish, then waded out and began raking circles for the big quahogs that live in Pocha. While I raked, I thought about David Greenstein. Sometimes you take to someone right away. I felt that way about Dave, It was clear that Quinn, normally as cynical as any other practitioner of his distrustful trade, felt that way, too. And there was no doubt that Zee did. It would have been hard for her to have felt any other way, since he was her favorite musician and was miraculously right here in the flesh instead of out there on the airwaves or embodied only in a tape or disk.

Still, when I thought of Zee's feelings for him, I felt a twinge of jealousy that I didn't like. I made myself remember a sign that hung above one of the doors in my house. There were two words printed on it: no sniveling. I don't like snivelers, and I was not going to be one. Maybe if Emmy Lou Harris suddenly showed up at my house, I would be as happy and starstruck as Zee seemed to be in the presence of David Greenstein. Besides, what was wrong with being as delighted as Zee was being? Was I grumpy just because another man made her happy? What kind of jerk was I becoming?

I had a bucket of nice stuffers and was polishing off a Sam Adams taken from the cooler when the Land Cruiser came swaying back along the sand track leading from the bridge, passed over the beach at the edge of the pond, and came to a stop.

“Terrific,” said Dave, stepping down. “I don't know why you ever go home. I can see why those people out on Cape Pogue live there. This place is beautiful.”

“Fishermen everywhere,” said Quinn. “Fish everywhere. What a day. I see you've been busy while we played tourist.”

“Home, home,” said Zee. “These guys are getting red, and I forgot the lotions.”

Brown Zee and brown me needed no lotions, but our pale guests did indeed need some. We packed the gear, put the rods on the roof rack, and went home via the tiny On Time ferry, which transfers travelers from Chappy to Edgartown. It being Dave's first trip to the Fabled Isle, it seemed appropriate that he make a crossing on the On Time, which is always on time since it has no schedule.

As we waited for the ferry and then crossed with the three other cars that filled its deck, lovely white Edgartown sparkled in the sun. Boats swung at their moorings and anchors in both the inner and the outer harbors, and other boats crossed in front and behind the ferry, passing through the narrows linking the inner harbor to the sound. On the top of the town dock, tourists leaned on the railing and looked at the boats. Fisherfolk sat beneath them between the pilings and trailed their lines in the water.

“Dynamite,” said David Greenstein.

Zee gave him a warm smile. She thought it was dynamite too. So did I, for that matter. It's hard to beat Martha's Vineyard on a summer day.

We stopped at the Midway Market for gasoline and a
Globe.
The policemen and golfers who gather at the Midway for early morning coffee and gossip had long since dispersed, but the parking spaces were still jammed with cars. Summer had definitely arrived.

As we drove home, Quinn leafed through the paper
until he found what he was looking for. A short note in the Arts and Entertainment section reporting that the eminent pianist David Greenstein had been taken ill and had not appeared at Symphony Hall, as scheduled. His manager assured the public that MV. Greenstein would soon be back in the public eye, although it was uncertain whether he would perform tonight.

“You see?” said Quinn. “No problem.”

“Until tomorrow,” said Dave. “Or Monday, or Tuesday.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Quinn.

“I'm not worried about it,” said Dave'. “That's why I've got a manager. I pay him a lot to worry for me. I'm not even going to think about music for a while. I feel the way I used to feel when I played hookey from school, and I like it. Guilt mixed with freedom. Heady stuff.”

“That's the ticket,” said Quinn approvingly.

“That's how I feel about money I owe,” I said. “I figure that the guy I owe it to is the one who should worry, since he's the one who doesn't have it. No need for both of us to be in a stew.”

“You don't owe anybody any money,” said Zee. “That's what's infuriating about you. You're the only person I know who doesn't owe anybody a cent.”

“The secret of my success is not to buy much,” I said. “I catch my own fish, I go clamming, I have my own garden, my dad left me my house and land, and this truck is umpteen years old and paid for, like everything else I own. It's not hard to be out of debt if you don't buy anything.” I put my hand on Zee's brown thigh. “What's more, I'm about to get hitched to a woman with a steady job, and that means not only no debt, but money in the bank.”

“A lot you know about women,” said Zee, patting my
hand. “I come with built-in costs you can't even guess.” She turned to Dave. “Actually this island is an expensive place to live. Everything has to be brought in by boat, and because it's hard and expensive for people to get over to the mainland where they can get bargains, island prices get jacked up to the sky. It takes a good deal of money even to be poor on Martha's Vineyard. We've got one of the highest winter unemployment rates in the state, and the welfare lines are pretty long. Jefferson, here, is the exception to the rule. There aren't many people on this island who don't owe anybody money.”

“I make a lot of money,” said Dave. “More than I can spend. But I can remember what it was like when I was a kid. We were always sailing pretty close to the wind.”

“Don't let the chamber of commerce hear that “more than I can spend' part,” I said. “They'll be glad to show you how to get rid of your dough.”

“Heck,” said Zee, batting her lashes, “I can show him how to do that all by myself.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Quinn. “This guy is my mark, not yours. I didn't bring him down here so somebody else could rip him off! Get back there, Mrs. Madieras! Back, girl! You've already made your choice of men, however foolish that choice was, considering you could have had me.”

“I'm my mommy's boy,” said Dave. “She owns my heart and soul. If you don't think so, ask her.”

“Your mom's okay,” said Quinn. “A little possessive, maybe, but okay. I admit that she thinks I'm a bad influence, but, hey, no hard feelings. She's proud of you, my lad! It's too bad none of her friends know anything about classical music, otherwise they might know what she's talking about when she brags about you.”

We drove down my sandy driveway and unloaded in front of the house. I carried the fish box back to the bench behind my shed, where I do my filleting, and got to work.

Dave came out and I showed him how to take the fillets from the bones. He wanted to try it, so I let him. He did all right, considering it was his first time. When all of the fish were filleted, I threw the bones back into the oak brush so the bugs and worms and birds would have something to eat, and took the fillets into the house. In a few days, the fish bones would be bare. Meanwhile, the southwest wind would carry the smells away from the house. The oak brush back there was thick with fish bones.

Zee was already out of the shower, and Quinn was in. Dave was next, and I was last. The outdoor shower is one of man's great inventions. No steamy mirrors, no worry about splashing the walls or dripping on the floor. By the time I got out, the others each had a piece of the
Globe
and were reading and drinking beer. It seemed like a good plan, so I joined them.

Dave was reading the business section. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “here's a story about computers and payrolls. Listen to this. ‘Money is deposited over telephone lines. The coded messages to withdraw from one account and deposit in another are so brief that they may take less than a second to send. The problem is that if the message is garbled at either end, the wrong amount of money may be sent or the money may end up in the wrong account.' ” He looked at Zee. “That sounds like what happened to you last weekend.”

“The bank said it was a computer glitch,” nodded Zee, who was brooding over the sports page, wondering once again what was wrong with the Red Sox.

“It's not always a glitch,” said Dave. “It says here that it's possible that a clever computer person might, for instance, send a coded message that would indicate that money had been received when in fact it never had been sent. That if all of the messages making up, say, a payroll were diddled with, the thief might be able to funnel a fortune off into some other account and get away with it.”

“Sounds too easy,” said Zee. “I'll bet they have computer cops to catch those guys. Anyway, you know it wasn't me who funneled that hundred thou into my account, because if it had been me, I'd have taken it out in cash and I'd be spending the money down at the Harborview right now, being waited on hand and foot by devoted servants, instead of here with you characters being entertained with the sports pages of the
Globe.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “Here you are surrounded not by paid lackeys, but by ardent admirers ready to heed your slightest whim. Nothing could be better for you. What's more, tonight you get to eat a supper that I'll personally cook. The Harborview has nothing comparable to offer.”

“Well, all right,” said Zee. “I can be happy here. But only if I get the crossword puzzle. Who's got it?”

“Rats,” I said, and handed it over.

But I was thinking about what Dave had said, and later I read the article myself. Interesting, even to a computer illiterate like me.

I wondered if being computer illiterate was going to prevent me from becoming a successful twentieth-century criminal. It seemed likely. If not that, some other flaw in character or talent would forbid such ambition. Oh well.

I mixed up some stuffing, put it between bluefish fillets, and put the fillets in the fridge, where they would keep until suppertime. While I was there, I got myself a Sam Adams.

“I thought you stuffed the whole fish,” Said Dave, who was watching from the kitchen door and drinking a beer of his own.

“That's one way to do it. This way, though, you don't have to mess with the bones.”

“Ah.”

“Every trade has its tricks. For instance, did you know that you can boil lobster in your microwave, and save all that messing around with a big pot of water on your stove?”

“You don't have a microwave.”

“No, but one comes with Zee when we get married. She has a television, too. She comes fully equipped.”

“She does indeed. Does she have a camcorder? If she has, you can film your lobster cooking in your microwave, then watch it all on your television set.”

“It'll probably be good for me to enter the twentieth century before it ends.”

The telephone rang. It was Tony D'Agostine calling from the police station.

“I thought you might be interested to know the results of the autopsy on the Ellis girl,” said Tony.

“I am. Something toxic, I presume?”