Death in Vineyard Waters (13 page)

Marjorie Summerharp had become involved almost as a fluke. She had gone to London for purely social reasons to visit friends (Ah, I thought, she
did
have some!) and had bumped into McGregor at a theater during intermission. He had not even known she was abroad. But as fate would have it, he had a day or two earlier come across a play in the Pavier library that, although its author was unnamed,
seemed to McGregor to be in the style of William Ireland, the well-known forger of Shakespearean dramas. Knowing of Dr. Summerharp's interest and expertise in such matters, he had invited her to examine the document. She, having become a bit bored with socializing, accepted the invitation and thus arrived at the Pavier manor house and was in the library examining the Ireland forgery when McGregor happened to pull out a previously unexamined volume and, totally unexpectedly, found the play they were now presenting to the public.

The two scholars immediately suspected that they might have stumbled on a manuscript as authentic as Ireland's was obviously fraudulent. But Marjorie Summerharp was by inclination and experience a professional skeptic, and Ian McGregor had no wish to join the parade of scholars and experts who had been gulled in the past, so both had agreed to keep silent about their find and to subject it to the closest of scrutinies until they could be certain of its character.

I remembered McGregor saying that the love of drudgery was the test of a vocation. Cops and scholars had that much in common, at least. Both jobs took lots of patience. But my patience, unlike McGregor's, was not the literary kind. I couldn't imagine doing what he and Marjorie Summerharp had then done: spend two years testing a manuscript.

First they made long searches to see if such a play might have been mentioned in some other document, some list, some reference, some notation; then they communicated with other scholars and institutions—university libraries, the Folger, the many initials and telephone numbers I'd found.

And of course the secret was soon no secret at all. Rumors and speculation crept and then ran through the world of scholarship. Cameras and modern devices had been brought in. Photos had been taken, scientific tests had been conducted. The precious book itself had been secreted out to the laboratories of the British Museum and there had its paper, ink, typeface, and binding materials put to tests that
could not prove that the work was of the proper period but could also not prove that it was not.

And now the book was again in the Pavier library, a domain closed to all entry but McGregor's and Summerharp's.

I picked up the draft of an introductory statement by McGregor telling of the untimely death of his colleague and of the invaluable contributions she had made to the project. It was quite well written, expressing affection for her in life, sadness at her death, and determination to get on with the scholarship so important to both of them. He was a smoothie, I thought. Then I wondered if I'd have thought that if he wasn't right now out on a windsurfer with Zee. So I put the smoothie thought back down in the pit whence it had come.

I put the manuscript back in the desk where I found it, relocked all the drawers, wrote some notes, locked up the library and the house, and went home. I was tired and didn't feel too smart.

9

Because life will not stop for me, I kindly stop for it. One of the pleasures from such stops is food. I opened a can of artichoke hearts in water, drained them, chopped them, and mixed them up with Parmesan cheese and mayo, put everything into a baking dish and shoved it into a 350 oven. While it baked, I got the Stoli out of the freezer and poured myself a glass. To add just the right touch of nip, I added a tiny pickled chili pepper I'd canned last summer. Superior stuff to an olive or onion. I got out the crackers and put them on a tray, finished my excellent ultimate martini, and poured
myself a follow-up Dos Equis. When they were nicely done, I took the baked artichoke hearts out of the oven and carried them, the crackers, and beer up onto my balcony, where I sat and ate and thought.

The sun was still warm on my shoulders, but there was a cool evening breeze moving through the trees and fussing with my hair. Beyond the garden, beyond the pond, beyond the road on the other side where the cars were moving back and forth between Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, the sailboats were walking silently across the flat blue water. Nearer to the beach, the smaller sails of the windsurfers raced brightly to and fro. Was one of them Ian McGregor's?

I dipped crackers into the baked artichoke hearts and thought of tomorrow morning's fishing date with Zee. That was better than thinking about Ian McGregor's surf sailing. Then I thought about the Marjorie Summerharp business for a while. John Skye would be getting back in a day or two. Maybe he'd know something about the dead woman that would help me figure out what had happened to her.

Man does not live on hors d'oeuvres alone, so I finally went down and thawed out a chowder I had in the freezer and had a couple of bowls of that. I love chowder. While I ate, I listened to a tape of Beverly Sills singing songs from
La Traviata.
It pleases me to know that Beverly and I both live on the same island in the summertime. Sometimes I cry when I listen to her sing.

As I was finishing up with the dishes, the phone rang. It was Ian McGregor. There was an odd note in his voice, a formal stiffness. He asked how things had gone. I told him everything except the part about reading his manuscript.

“No progress, then?” He seemed indifferent, rigid.

“Not yet. I'd like to talk to a couple of people. Maybe you know where I can find them. They were at the cocktail party.”

“Who?”

“Two professorial types. Bill Hooperman and Helen
Barstone. They both knew Marjorie Summerharp. Maybe they know something.”

“I can't imagine what.”

“I'm just grabbing straws.”

He had the numbers. Both of them lived up island near Menemsha.

“You should talk to Tristan Cooper, too,” he said coldly. “Marjorie took a copy of our manuscript up to him just the day before she died. Maybe she mentioned something to him that might be useful.”

“I thought I would do that. I want to see the Van Dams, too.”

“The Van Dams?”

“Hooperman and the Van Dams crossed swords with Marjorie at John's party. Maybe they were mad enough to do something to her.”

“I find that difficult to imagine. Bill Hooperman? I don't think so.” There was contempt in his voice.

“He tried to take a swing at Marjorie. Didn't she mention it?”

“No. Did he really?”

“He was drunk and John said he apologized the next day, but he really did try to take a swing at her. Has Tristan Cooper returned the manuscript yet? And if so, what did he think of it?”

“I'm going to pick it up later this evening. Sunday I'm leaving for the mainland. I have an appointment with the publishers the next day.”

“I'll let you know if I learn anything.”

“Do,” said McGregor. “Zee spoke to you, I imagine.”

“Not since this morning.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sure she will.” His voice was without color.

“What about?” I asked, but as I did he hung up.

I called Bill Hooperman, the academic pugilist.

If you wish somebody was dead and the somebody dies,
sometimes you feel guilty. Hooperman admitted that kind of guilt to me with a kind of innocence that almost charmed me. He even thanked me for having stepped between him and Marjorie. But he offered no information about her death. “I can't tell you a thing. I don't want to speak badly of the dead, but frankly I found her to be a bitter and cantankerous woman. She was cruel and spread a lot of malicious gossip about her colleagues. She herself was more petty than the people she accused of being so. It takes one to know one, I often thought.”

“Can you think of anyone she might have met on the beach the day she died? Did she ever mention anybody she knew here on the island who might have been down there that morning?”

“I never heard of anyone you don't know about already, but then I wouldn't have, since she and I did not meet socially.”

“You met at John Skye's cocktail party.”

“That was at John's invitation only, I assure you. Marjorie and I scarcely spoke.” He paused. “Of course, I was interested in the project she was working on. Several of us were interested in that.”

“So that's one reason you came to the party?”

“Yes. I was also there because Tristan Cooper had been invited, but the Shakespeare document was the principal subject of interest. We were all curious for the details, but I'm afraid we didn't get much in that regard. McGregor and Marjorie were quite tight-lipped about their paper. We all went home knowing no more than before.”

But filled with John Skye's booze and roast beef. To say nothing of venom.

“I understand that you and Helen Barstone have been interviewing Tristan Cooper.”

“Yes. Marjorie's sarcasm notwithstanding, Tristan's work merits a wider audience than it's received, particularly in legitimate academic circles. There is increasing evidence supporting
his theories of pre-Columbian Euro-American trade and explorations. Helen and I plan to publish our interview with him and hope to get a book out of it.”

“Would Tristan Cooper take Marjorie's criticism seriously enough to want to harm her?”

“Harm her? Tristan? Good heavens, no! What a thought! Why, she and Tristan had argued about the matter for so many years that there was no heat left in the debate. She was absolutely sure he was wrong and he was absolutely sure he was right and never the twain did meet. Not emotionally, at least. In fact, the two of them got along famously, I thought.” His voice became conspiratorial. “There are rumors, you know, that he and she were more than friends when both were at Weststock. Perhaps they remained so, in spite of their intellectual differences.” Then he slid away from the joy of gossip. “No, Mr. Jackson, Tristan is too much the academician to become outraged by a difference of opinion. The only matter that fires his passion is the security of the ancient stones on his farm. A threat to them might rouse him to wrath, but certainly not Marjorie's carping.”

I thanked him and rang off. Then I called Helen Barstone.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I remember you. You left the party early.”

“You surprise me.”

She laughed. “I keep an eye on certain men.”

I asked her about Marjorie Summerharp and she stopped laughing. “She always took whatever opportunity was available to sneer at degrees in Education, especially advanced ones. Since I had my doctorate in Ed, I felt the sting more than once. Aside from that, I rather liked her. She was a tough old bird and she knew her stuff.”

“You seemed pretty protective of Bill Hooperman when the two of them tangled.”

“Ah, yes. Bill, you see, sometimes needs a bit of protection. He's inclined to take things too personally, and when that happens I just lead him away and distract him. His
little fevers never last long, and afterwards he's always repentant in a boyish way that's actually rather charming. He was quicker than usual the other evening, and I think he might really have struck Marjorie if you hadn't stepped in.”

“You don't think he stayed angry, then?”

“Bill? Still angry at Marjorie? Heavens, no. He was very embarrassed, and I ended up comforting him rather than giving him the motherly lecture I intended. Where did you learn to handle yourself so well, Mr. Jackson? I was impressed.”

“I lived a misspent youth. Is Dr. Hooperman often violent?”

She seemed to smile over the phone. “He gets red in the face and sputters. And he curses and fumes. But he's a teddy bear at heart. I think he was probably one of those chubby boys who got straight A's and never had a fight. You don't strike me as the same type.”

“You and Dr. Hooperman have been working with Tristan Cooper. Do you think Dr. Cooper resented Marjorie Summerharp's sarcasm about his interest in the idea of pre-Columbian contacts between America and Europe?”