Death in Vineyard Waters (23 page)

I looked, saw nothing, looked harder, and saw more parallel lines dissected by a single long line. “Ogham?”

“Indeed! When I mentioned ogham to my more traditional colleagues, they tell me the marks were made by colonial plows! Plows! How did they plow the top of this chamber, eh? I've gotten no answer to that question. Well, what do you think?”

I looked at him. He stood like a man out of ancient time, his simian head cocked to one side, his bright young eyes aglitter in the summer sunlight. “I think that someone went to an awful lot of trouble to create a hoax, if this is a hoax. But then I know of a lot of people who went to an awful lot of trouble to create hoaxes. There are con men who will sacrifice everything for a good con. A shrink could probably explain it.”

He stared at me, then grinned, then laughed. “Yes, of course. Of course you're right. But who was the con man who built these structures all over New England? Who built the stone circles, the chambers, the dolmen? He was a busy chap, eh? Moving stones weighing tons, aligning stones with the solstices and equinoxes, building dolmen? And never being seen while all about him other colonialists were farming these lands, building homes and villages, keeping journals, and going about the work of colonial life. An amazing
fellow, our con man. An invisible con man, eh? Come along back to the house.”

He started off, and after a final look at the dolmen I followed.

His cottage was filled with books and papers, but he led me first to a shotgun hanging from two pegs on the wall of his living room. “Have a look at this. You're a gunner. Your father and I used to shoot together sometimes. Do you remember?”

“Yes.” I took the gun, a Remington twelve-gauge, and opened it. It was empty. A box of shells sat on a shelf above the pegs. I threw the gun to my shoulder. It felt smooth and good. I handed it back to him and smiled.

He replaced it on the pegs. “I don't shoot much anymore, but I enjoyed it when I was doing it. I have no objection to hunters who eat what they shoot. I do disapprove of trophy shooters, though. Let me get you a drink.”

“Beer will be fine.”

“I have Whitbread. A luxury I cannot give up.”

“A fine beer.”

He brought two beers and waved me to a chair. “You asked me about ogham. Do you know anything about it?”

“No.”

“I'll not bore you with details. Ogham is a kind of writing engraved in stone. It was first noted in Ireland in the early eighteenth century but not successfully translated until seventy-five years later. As you saw at the Altar, the letters of the alphabet consist of parallel lines. There are twenty or more letters, and they are represented by sets of one to five lines placed above, below or across a guideline. At the Altar, the guideline was the corner of the stone itself. Remember? That message translates ‘This stone is Bel's.' Bel is the Celtic sun god. He is Baal, the god of whom you read in the Bible. The ogham on the roof of the chamber we entered says that it is a temple of Bel. There are similar chambers, writings, and monuments all over New England, all over the New World, in fact.”

“Celtic sailors did this?”

“Colonists, more likely. Traders and explorers at the very least. Celtics here, but Iberians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Semites here and elsewhere. They came across the same way Columbus did later; they caught the trade winds and the currents that he followed and were carried right across to the Americas. And they went home again the way he did, by following the northern winds and currents. For thousands of years, I suspect. Some went south to Brazil, some to Central America and Mexico, others north. They went up the Mississippi and its tributaries, they came to New England, they brought their religions and their languages and left these monuments behind them.”

“For thousands of years. Why are there no records?”

“There are records. In Celtic writings, in Libya, here in inscribed stones. But no one read them, or if they were read they were dismissed as myth or fiction. But now, I believe, the evidence is beginning to accumulate sufficiently to persuade all but the hopelessly boneheaded. The linguistic evidence alone should be persuasive.” He gave a crackly laugh. “Have I converted you? Have I betrayed myself as a frustrated evangelist? Will you stay for lunch?”

“Yes. Will you tell me more?”

“Ha! Is the pope Polish? Is a professor wasting your time when his lips are moving? Of course I will tell you more. But first, some lunch. I am a poor cook, I fear. Peanut butter has kept me alive for the last forty years.”

“Peanut butter will be fine.”

We ate peanut butter sandwiches and washed them down with beer as we sat in his book-filled cottage. I asked him about Sanctuary.

“Do the Van Dams use the boats down at the beach for their personal use?”

“I've never seen them in a boat. They say they don't really like boats. They hire someone every season to give sailing lessons and take people fishing. Why do you ask?”

“Just curiosity. What do you think of them and their business?”

He emptied his glass. “They are the salvation of these ancient stones I've shown you and of others you've not yet seen. If it were not for them, I would have been forced to sell some of this land to developers, and the stones would not, I fear, have survived.”

“Surely you could have included clauses in the sales agreement to keep the stones secure.”

“As long as I lived to insure such clauses. But after my death I cannot imagine their survival. The site of the Altar is the finest homesite on the property, after all, and land developers are not concerned with ancient history. But now the Van Dams pay me a healthy rent. They are excellent tenants. I have been able to begin paying off my debts and still keep eating! In another year or so, I hope even to set something aside for my declining years. With the income from Sanctuary, I will be able to live out my life and will the property to a proper land preservation group and be certain that the stones are safe. As for the Van Dams' beliefs”—he shrugged—“I have read of worse and seen worse in practice. It is my impression that they do their clients no harm and might even do them some good.”

“The synthesis of emotion, sensation, intellect, and spirit?”

“Stolen from Jung, I believe, who no doubt got the idea from somewhere else.”

“Marjorie Summerharp considered them panderers.”

His face lost expression. “Marjorie, poor child, had a bad word for almost everyone, including me. I ceased to take her criticism seriously many years ago.”

“She said she might do an exposé on Sanctuary. Do you know what she was talking about?”

“You're very curious about Sanctuary.”

I told him about the time and tide problems regarding Marjorie Summerharp's death. “I'm just checking out possibilities. You know the Van Dams better than most people
do. Do you think they could have been angry enough at her to do her harm?”

“Do her harm? Murder her, you mean?” He stared at me. “I take it that you're serious. Yes, I see that you are. Very well, then. I have never seen any indication that the Van Dams have any violent inclinations whatsoever. They are laid back, if I may use a youthful idiom.”

“And if she threatened an exposé?”

“What sort of exposé?”

“Prostitution seems to be what she had in mind. Some of those young lovelies and young Adonises are doing more than mowing grass, guarding gates, and teaching sailing. Synthesizing emotion and sensation, as it were.”

His mouth worked. “How would Marjorie ever get an idea like that?”

“Another person suggested the same thing. She saw something when she was visiting the place. Since then the Van Dams have installed that gate so they won't get any more surprise callers.”

“Do I know this other person?”

“You've met. A young woman I know. She seemed pretty sure of herself.”

“That's a very serious accusation. Did this young woman give you details?”

“Some. Since then I've learned enough to know her suspicions are justified. Do you think the Van Dams would consider a threatened exposé sufficient motive for murder?”

He sank into his chair, thought written on his forehead. Then, “No, no, I cannot imagine it. I would guess that they would first brazen it out. Then, if that failed, I rather expect they would fault underlings and promise reform—and if that failed, I imagine they would simply disappear, no doubt to reemerge elsewhere, Palm Springs or Bar Harbor or wherever wealthy clients might be found, with the same sort of organization. Murder is too violent an act for so mellow a folk as the Van Dams.” He looked up at me and smiled.
“No, my friend, even if Marjorie's threat were known to them, I cannot see the Van Dams as motivated to murder. That, of course, is the opinion of a totally amateur criminologist. I see that you have finished your lunch. Would you like me to speak of things I actually know something about?”

I said that I would and for the next hours listened to a brilliant zealot give an argument, rich in detail, that^ ancient European, African, and Asian people had indeed explored and colonized the New World. He spoke without notes, but occasionally dove into a pile of books or papers to extract a photograph or drawing illustrating a point. He spoke of languages and place names, of epigraphy, symbols and art styles, of artifacts and maps, of animal and plant dispersions, of stone monuments, and of Old World sagas and histories mentioning the New World. Suddenly he stopped.

“Good lord. Two hours! No one can stand two hours of such lecturing! You've had enough!” There had been a sort of cold fever in his face and voice, and now the fever was forced away and replaced by a dry-lipped smile. “Off you go, my lad. But do come again. There's more for you to see. I believe I have a burial marker that may be Iberian.”

As we shook hands outside, he put a hard old hand on my shoulder. “It was good to see you, J. W. I've not had so attentive an audience in years! I'm a vain old goat and I enjoyed myself today. Do you think your young friend Zeolinda would fancy visiting my ancient monuments? Why don't the two of you come up together? We can explore the place and have a drink together afterward. I'd like that very much. Nothing an old man likes more than a beautiful young woman listening to him.” He laughed. “Or pretending to.”

“I'll ask her. I think she might.”

“Splendid! The sooner the better!”

As I drove away, I glanced in the rearview mirror. He stood outlined against the sky like a creature out of time. He lifted a long arm and waved a large brown hand slowly back and forth until I drove out of sight.

In Edgartown I found the chief, who looked at me with the expression of a man who didn't need any more problems.

“What's the matter with you?” he asked as I came up.

“Nothing.”

“Good.”

“Maybe. Part of the nothing is the nothing that I've heard from you. Did your patrolmen see Ian McGregor or Marjorie Summerharp driving around that night? You were going to let me know, remember?”

“Was I? Well, as a matter of fact, one of the men does remember seeing that little English sports car of McGregor's out on the road that night.”

“What time?”

“He didn't log it. He thinks it was two or three in the morning. The car had that surfboard on the roof, otherwise he probably wouldn't have remembered it at all.”

“McGregor and Zee Madieras were out dancing at the Hot Tin Roof that night. McGregor left Zee at home at about two. Your man could have seen him coming home. Anybody remember seeing that old Nova of Marjorie Summerharp's?”

“Nobody remembered seeing the Nova. It wasn't a very memorable car.”

“Did you get any response from the ad in the paper?”

“Nothing useful. Several civic-minded types said they were on the beach that morning at one time or another, but nobody saw Marjorie Summerharp or a boat near the beach or anything else that might help.”

“Nothing, again.”

“Nothing may be bad for you, but it's good for me. I could use a little more nothing happening. It's the somethings that give me trouble.” His eye roved the street. “I see that you and the beautiful Zeolinda are again keeping company before the youthful professor has even gone back to America.”

“Your spies tell you true.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You'll let me know if anything useful turns up?”

“Sure.”

“Sure. Just like last time.”

“Just like that.”

I bought fishing line and leader material at the tackle shop and found a parking place at the A & P. While I pushed my carriage around, I wished the dissertations from Northern Indiana University would arrive.

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