Death on a Vineyard Beach (7 page)

“So good of you to have come.” He shook our hands. “Your driver is my grandson, Vincent. This is my wife, Angela. Angela, these are the young people I've been telling you about.”

Angela Marcus shook hands with Zee. “Welcome. Luciano didn't tell me how beautiful you are.” Then she took my hand and held it. “And you, Mr. Jackson. How can I thank you for what you did?”

“I was just in the right place at the right time. No thanks are necessary.”

“Well, you have them just the same. Come in, come in.”

“An amazing house,” said Zee.

Marcus beamed. “First a drink, and then a tour, if you'd like. We're quite fond of our house, and we love to show it off.”

We went up a circular stairway and out onto an immense veranda that surrounded a swimming pool. There, a young woman stood near an umbrella-topped table that was encircled by comfortable lounge chairs.

“Priscilla, please bring us some drinks.” Marcus turned to us. “What would you like? My wife and I will have gin and tonics. I have both Italian and Greek wines, in honor of the countries of my ancestors. All of my other liquors are American, since I am an American and believe in buying American goods. It is an idiosyncrasy of mine. I hope, therefore, that you don't like scotch.” He gave a small laugh.

“Vodka,” said Zee. “On ice.”

“Two,” I said.

“With anything? A twist? An olive?”

“With two ripe olives, if I have a choice,” said Zee.

“With a twist,” I said.

Marcus glanced at Priscilla, who nodded and went into the house.

I looked to the south. The lawns fell away down the hillside, where I could now see walking paths lined with flowers. Beyond the lawn were trees, and beyond the trees, at the foot of a long slope of land, was what looked like a cranberry bog. On the far side of the bog was Squibnocket Pond, and beyond the pond was Squibnocket Beach, where there is wonderful bass fishing. Then there was the sea and the little island of Noman's Land, which somehow manages to be both a bird refuge and a navy bombing range.

Luciano Marcus came and stood beside me. “Terrific view. I never get tired of it. But it's not the only one. Come over here.”

We walked to the east side of the veranda. From there we could see Menemsha Pond, with Menemsha village on its far side. Beyond it, the north coast of Martha's Vineyard faded to the east into the haze that hid Cape Cod. It was as fine a view of the island as I had seen.

“I keep my boats in the pond,” said Marcus. “I like to go out for fish, or sometimes Angie and I will take the boat over to Buzzards Bay just for the ride, or maybe to New Bedford, for lunch. I used to sail, but now I don't do that so much, so probably I should sell the sailboat. But you know how it is. I say I'm going to do it, but I never get around to it. So the sailboat just sits there at the dock. A
hole in the water into which you pour money, just like they say.”

Priscilla reappeared with a tray of drinks. We took them, and she went away. Marcus looked at Zee, and smiled. “Two ripe olives in vodka. I never saw that before. Come on, let us show you our place. I think you'll like it.”

The house was on the side of the hill, its huge windows looking out over Squibnocket Pond. It was built into the ground rather than upon it, and depended on the natural elevation of the hill to provide it with the sweeping vistas it offered its inhabitants. It was a candidly modern house, making no pretense of being traditional in any way. It was built on many levels and was fronted on the topmost of these by the huge veranda where Priscilla had served us our drinks.

A walkway led from the veranda along the crown of the hill, then dipped down to a tennis court that was cleverly tucked into the earth and hidden on three sides by surrounding oak trees so that Zee and I were surprised when we first saw it. A four-car garage was built under the court, as were storage rooms and the small apartments where, we learned, Thomas Decker, Vinnie, and some of the grounds-keepers lived. Stairs led from the garage to the tennis court, and an underground passageway led to a lower level of the house. I noticed dog kennels on the far side of the apartments.

Marcus pointed here and pointed there, happy with his home. “The president of the outfit that designed the place studied under Frank Lloyd Wright. You know about Wright? Quite a guy. I read a book about him, and when I decided to build here, I found this pupil of his and gave him the job. He did all right.”

The architectural firm that had designed and built the house had indeed done its work well. It had taken great care to use the configurations of the land to maximum advantage when planning the house, toward the ends of not only grand and comfortable living, but security and complete privacy. For all its size and modern grandeur, the house, like the tennis court, was difficult to see from the public road that links Gay Head to Chilmark, or by most
other houses in the area. Only from the direction of Squibnocket Pond could it clearly be seen: a white slash across the top of the green hillside. It presented no roofline, being built into the rock and soil of the hill, and only the winter smoke from its vast fireplace chimneys gave any sign, said Marcus, to people on the public roads or in neighboring homes that a house was there at all. There was, in fact, a lawn over part of the main house and over the attached guest house farther down the hill, and Marcus confessed to taking pleasure from the fact that even from that grassy roof, the buildings were next to invisible.

The outer walls of the house were white, and the wood of the terrace and decks was natural in color. There were huge earthen pots of flowers on those decks. In spite of its modern design, there was something Aegean or Mediterranean, and a sense of antiquity or timelessness, about the place. Marcus, who believed that he could trace his lineage back to medieval Greece and Rome, savored this ambiance.

His cellar was, as he had said, stocked with the wines of Greece and Italy, and his house had been decorated by New York's second most expensive firm.

“The most expensive did not have good taste,” confided Angela Marcus, with a smile. “I'm no interior decorator, but I know bad taste when I see it.”

Throughout the house could be found classical pieces of sculpture. We paused before three particularly intricate panels.

“These are Roman,” said Marcus. “They call 'em fourth style panels. They came into my hands in a business deal. Later on I learned that they came from a Roman villa excavated in Sardinia. I don't think whoever took them did it quite on the up and up, if you know what I mean. But I like them, so I keep them.” He flashed me a veiled look.

In the master bedroom, one wall was decorated with a floor mosaic of the second century, portraying scenes from the
Iliad.

“This came from a Roman villa outside of Toulouse, and was supposed to go to a museum in Paris. Instead, it got over here to a guy who found out that I liked things like that, and got in touch with me. Nobody ever came looking
for it, so now it's mine. You like it? Those old Romans were really something.”

These classical works were not the only decorative arts in the house. Interspersed with them were maps, globes, and bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes that reflected Marcus's interest in geography and political history.

“I always liked maps,” said Marcus, touching an atlas. “Even when I was a little kid. And I like to read about why things happen. History. It's interesting to me. Now that I got the time, I read. It's good. Everybody should read. I wish I could get Vinnie to do it.” He shrugged.

Paintings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century masters hung on the walls, and a Calder mobile floated in a corner of the living room that looked out upon the veranda and pool. The furniture of the house was modern, clean-lined, and comfortable. The rooms were large and uncluttered, yet never cold or impersonal since wherever my eyes roamed they found some object of interest or beauty to occupy them.

The kitchen was huge, filled with work counters, ovens, freezers, and cabinets that held every sort of pot, pan, and appliance. It was capable of producing food for large parties at short notice, and was, at the moment, rich with the fragrances of cooking foods. The cook, however, was not in sight.

“Jonas, that's Priscilla's husband, is our cook,” said Angela Marcus. “He must be up in the gardens, looking for some herb he needs. He runs this kitchen with an iron hand. When we were young, before we had much money, I used to do all the cooking, but Jonas is better than I ever was. He caters to Luciano and me and no one else. Mediterranean and American food, like we like.

“When he can't find what he wants in our gardens, he shops at island markets. He's very picky. Only the freshest vegetables and meat and fish will do. If something he wants isn't available on the island, he has it flown in from New York or Boston. He keeps a big account book where he lists all of his expenditures, and he gives Luciano a report every month. I don't think Luciano even looks at it. He just pays the bills.” She laughed.

In the garage were four cars: the black Cadillac sedan I'd seen in Boston and three identical green, four-door Jeep Grand Cherokees, like the one that had picked us up that evening. All four vehicles had darkened windows.

“Like I told you,” said Marcus. “I believe in buying American whenever I can, except for Greek and Italian wines.”

“And Greek and Italian olive oils,” amended his wife.

He put his arm around her. “Yeah, except for that, sweetheart.”

Zee, who approved of signs of affection between married folks, smiled up at me.

“Privacy is hard to get,” explained Marcus. “We like ours, and I'm lucky that I have the money to buy it. Other people have to put up with a lot of long noses.”

We walked out along a flower-lined pathway. Luciano Marcus had his wife's hand in one of his. With his other hand, he gestured while he spoke.

“We got about three hundred acres here, and men to take care of it. Angie and I like to walk, so we have these paths winding around. You almost can't see them, but they're there. It's nice to walk on an evening like this.”

Around us were rolling meadows and carefully tended trees and shrubs. The flowers lining the path smelled sweet. We paused at a small overlook, and Marcus pointed down the long hill below us.

“We have blueberries down there. A lot of them. See the bushes? And beyond the bushes, bending out of sight beyond that rise in the ground, is my cranberry bog.” A hard note was suddenly in his voice. “That bog has produced cranberries for as long as anybody remembers. It's a damned fine bog, and I plan to keep it.”

I glanced at him, and saw Angela pat his arm and gently steer him on along the path.

In various places on the property, there were native oaks, beetlebung trees, swamp maples, wild cherries, and ancient-looking apple trees. Although the grounds gave the impression of being in an informal, almost natural state, they were in fact so carefully designed and maintained that a crew of well-paid men would be needed to tend them.
Those same men, I thought, would preserve not only the beauty but the security of the estate. Luciano Marcus, for all his apparent openness, was a man who made no bones about liking his privacy.

We crossed the driveway and paused again. Marcus looked at me. “You notice the mailbox when you came in?”

“I did.”

“I thought you might have. You see the name?”

“Gubatose.”

“That's right. Gubatose, not Marcus. That's so people will think somebody named Gubatose lives here, not somebody named Marcus. It works, too. Not many people have come up my driveway. When they do, they come to that gate. When they get there, they mostly turn around and go back. Sometimes somebody climbs over the gate and walks on up the driveway. You know who they meet?”

“An armed guard?”

Marcus laughed. “No. They meet a pleasant guy who tells them he's renting the Gubatose house for the summer, and then tells them that his Gubatose and their Gubatose are, too bad, different people, and who, gently but firmly, like they say, takes them back to their cars and watches them drive away. You know how we know to go down there and meet them?”

“The video camera in the tree?”

“You saw that, too. Good. Not many people notice it. I have others here and there around the place, so people won't come wandering through without me knowing about them. And at night we got dogs. My glass has been empty too long. Let's go back to the house for a refill.”

“We have gardens, too,” said Angela. “But we can look at them another day.”

“Angie has the green thumb you hear so much about,” said her husband, proudly. “My thumb is black. Whatever plant I touch wilts and dies, so I stay out of Angie's gardens, and let the men tend to the grounds.” He laughed.

As we came up onto the great veranda, we found two men were standing on its west side, looking down the rolling meadow toward Squibnocket Pond. Vinnie the driver
held powerful field glasses, and the other man was bent over a telescope. Both the binoculars and the telescope were directed at the pond. Beside them, mounted on a tripod, was a camera with a long telephoto lens.

“Birders,” said Vinnie, as we walked out behind them.

The man with the telescope grunted. “Probably.” Hearing us, he turned. He was the bodyguard I'd seen in Boston.

“Thomas,” said Marcus. “Meet Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson, this is Thomas Decker. You met briefly in Boston, and Thomas spoke to you on the phone the other day.”

Thomas, not Tom, Decker was a medium-sized man with red hair and freckles. I remembered his gun as well as his face. His face was hard and he had a firm grip. “How do you do? Let me add my thanks to you for what you did in Boston.”

“There's no need for thanks.”

“You have them anyway.” He showed a thin smile. “If it hadn't been for you, I'd be out of a job.”