Plum Island (39 page)

I pushed down on the lumpy bed. “Do you nap here?” She smiled. “Sometimes. It’s a feather mattress.”

“Osprey feathers?”

“Could be. They used to be all over.”

“They’re making a big comeback.”

“Everything’s making a big comeback. Damned deer devoured my rhododendrons.” She led me out of the bedroom and said, “You
wanted to see the archives.”

“Yes.”

She showed me into what had probably been a good-sized bedroom, and which was now filled with file cabinets, shelves, and
a long oak table. She said, “We have original books and documents going back as far as the mid–sixteen hundreds. Deeds, letters,
wills, legal decisions, sermons, army orders, ships’ manifests and logs. Some of it is fascinating.”

“How did you get into this?”

“Well, I suppose it had something to do with growing up here. My own family goes back to the original settlers.”

“You’re not related to Margaret Wiley, I hope.” She smiled. “We have family connections. Didn’t you enjoy Margaret?”

“No comment.”

She went on, “Archive work must be a little like detective work. You know—mysteries, questions to be answered, things that
need to be uncovered. Don’t you think so?”

“I do, now that you mention it.” I added, “To tell you the truth, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I found
a musket ball once. Somewhere out here. Can’t remember where.” I added, “Now that I’m old and infirm, maybe I should take
up archive work.”

“Oh, you’re not that old. And you might enjoy it. I can teach you to read this stuff.”

“Isn’t it in English?”

“Yes, except that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English can be difficult. The spelling is atrocious and the script is
sometimes hard to decipher. Here, take a look at this.” She offered a big looseleaf binder that was on the table. Inside were
plastic sleeves and in the plastic were old parchments. She flipped to one of the pages and said, “Read that.”

I bent over the book and looked at the faded script. I read, “Dear Martha, Don’t believe the rumors about me and Mrs. Farnsworth.
I’m loyal and true. How about you? Your loving husband, George.”

She laughed. “That’s not what it says.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Here, I’ll read it.” She pulled the binder toward her, and said, “This is a letter from a Phillip Shelley to the royal governor,
Lord Bellomont, dated 3 August 1698.” She read the letter, which to me had been indecipherable. The letter was full of “my
lords” and “haths” and “your humble servant” stuff. The guy was complaining about some injustice regarding a land dispute.
I mean, these people came across the ocean to a new continent and had the same gripes they had in Southwold with a “w.”

I said to Ms. Whitestone, “Very impressive.”

“There’s nothing to it. You can learn it in a few months. I taught Fredric in two months, and he has no attention span.”

“Really.”

“The language isn’t as difficult as the script and the spelling.”

“Right.” I asked her, “Can you give me a list of members?”

“Sure.” We went into the office, and she gave me a paper-bound membership directory, then slipped on her sandals.

I asked her, “How did you get this job?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know…. It’s a pain in the butt. This was another one of Fredric’s stupid social-climbing ideas. I was
the archivist here, which I didn’t mind doing. Then he proposed me as president, and whatever Fredric wants, Fredric gets.
Plus, I’m still the archivist. Flower girl and president and archivist of the Peconic Historical Society.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Sure. Let me call the shop.” She did, and I poked around the office a bit. I heard her say, softly, “I may not be back this
afternoon.”

No, Ms. Whitestone, you may not be if I have anything to say about it.

She hung up, and we went downstairs. She said, “We have small receptions and parties here. It’s nice at Christmas.”

“That reminds me—are you going to Mr. Tobin’s soiree on Saturday?”

“Maybe. Are you?”

“I thought I would. In the line of duty.” She suggested, “Why don’t you arrest him in front of everyone and take him away
in handcuffs?”

“That sounds like fun, only I don’t think he’s done anything wrong.”

“I’m sure he’s done
something
wrong.” She led me to the front door, and we went outside. It was getting warmer. She locked the door and took the Post-it
note off. I said, “I’ll drive.”

I started my vehicle with the remote. She said, “That’s a nice feature.”

I said, “It’s good to detonate car bombs from a distance.”

She laughed. I was not joking.

We got into my sport utility vehicle, and I threw it into reverse, purposely leaving my door ajar. The female voice said,
“The driver’s side door is ajar.”

Emma said, “That’s a silly feature.”

“I know. It sounds like my ex-wife. I’m trying to kill it. The voice, not my ex-wife.”

Emma played with the computer buttons as she asked me, “How long have you been divorced?”

“Actually, it’s not official until October first. In the meantime, I’m trying to avoid adultery and bigamy.”

“That should be easy.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. I pulled out of the parking area and said, “What do you like? You pick.”

“Why don’t we continue the mood and go to a historic inn? How about the General Wayne Inn? Do you know it?”

“I think so. Isn’t that John Wayne’s place?”

“No, silly. Mad Anthony Wayne. He slept there.”

“Is that what made him mad? Lumpy mattress?”

“No … are you historically challenged?”

“Totally clueless.”

“Mad Anthony Wayne was a Revolutionary War general. He was the leader of the Pennsylvania Volunteers.”

“Right. Their big single was ‘My Heart’s on Fire and You’re Sittin’ on My Hose.’ ”

Emma Whitestone stayed silent awhile, wondering, I’m sure, if she’d made the right decision. Finally, she said, “It’s on Great
Hog Neck. I’ll direct you.”

“Okay.” And off we went to a place called the General Wayne Inn, located in a place called Great Hog Neck. I mean, could I
get into this scene? Did I miss Manhattan? Hard to say. If I had big bucks, I could do both. But I don’t have big bucks. Which
got me to thinking about Fredric Tobin, who, as it turns out, also doesn’t have big bucks, and there I was envying him, figuring
he was on top of the world—grapes, babes, bucks—turns out he’s broke. Worse, he’s in debt. For a man like Fredric Tobin, to
lose it all would be the equivalent of losing his life. He might as well be dead. But he wasn’t. Tom and Judy were dead. Connection?
Maybe. This was getting interesting.

But time was running out for me. I could play cop for maybe forty-eight more hours before I was shut down by the Southold
PD, the NYPD, and the Suffolk County PD.

Ms. Whitestone was giving me directions as I ruminated. Finally, she asked me, “Are they leveling with us about the vaccine?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“This had nothing to do with germ warfare?”

“No.”

“Or drugs?”

“Not that I can determine.”

“Burglary?”

“It looks that way, but I think it has to do with a stolen vaccine.” Who says I’m not a team player? I can put out the official
bullshit as well as anyone else. I asked Ms. White-stone, “You have another theory?”

“No, I don’t. I just have this feeling that they were killed for some reason we don’t yet understand.”

Which is exactly what I thought. Bright woman.

I asked her, “Have you ever been married?”

“Yes. I married young, sophomore year in college. Lasted seven years.” She added, “And I’ve been divorced seven years. Add
it up.”

“You’re twenty-five.”

“How did you get twenty-five?”

“Forty-two?”

She said, “Turn right here. Right is toward me.”

“Thanks.”

It was a pleasant drive, and we soon found ourselves on Great Hog Neck—which is yet another peninsula that juts into the bay,
lying somewhat east and north of Nassau Point, sometimes called Little Hog Neck.

I’ve noticed that around here there are three main sources of place names—Native Americans, English settlers, and realtors.
The latter have maps with nice names that they make up to replace yucky names like Great Hog Neck.

We passed a small observatory called the Custer Institute, which Mrs. Wiley had mentioned, and I got a briefing on that and
on the American Indian Museum across from the observatory.

I asked Emma, “Were the Gordons interested in astronomy?”

“Not that I knew about.”

“You know they bought an acre of land from Mrs. Wiley.”

“Yes.” She hesitated, then said, “That was not a good deal.”

“Why did they want that land?”

“I don’t know…. It never made sense to me.”

“Did Fredric know about the Gordons’ buying that land?”

“Yes.” She changed the subject to the immediate environs and said, “There’s the original Whitestone house. Sixteen eighty-five.”

“Still in the family?”

“No, but I’m going to buy it back.” She added, “Fredric was supposed to help me out, but … That’s when I realized he wasn’t
as well off as he appeared.”

I didn’t comment.

Like Nassau Point, Hog Neck was mostly cottages and some newer weekend homes, many of them gray-shingled to look like ye olde.
There were some fields that Emma said had been common pastureland since colonial times, and there were woods here and there.
I asked, “Are the Indians friendly?”

“There are no Indians.”

“All gone?”

“All gone.”

“Except the ones in Connecticut who opened the biggest casino complex between here and Las Vegas.”

She said, “I have some Native American blood.”

“Really?”

“Really. A lot of the old families do, but they’re not advertising it. Some people come to me actually wanting to expunge
relatives from the archives.”

“Incredible.” I knew there was a politically correct thing to say, but every time I try to do PC, I blow it. I mean, it changes,
like weekly. I played it safe with, “Racist.”

“Racial, though not necessarily racist. Anyway, I don’t care who knows I have Indian blood. My maternal great-grandmother
was a Corchaug.”

“Well, you have nice color.”

“Thanks.”

We approached this big white clapboard building set on a few acres of treed land. I actually recalled seeing the place once
or twice, when I was a kid. I have these childhood memories of places in my mind, still-life summer scenes, sort of like looking
at slides through a viewfinder. I said to Ms. Whitestone, “I think I ate here with my family when I was a wee lad.”

“Quite possible. It’s two hundred years old. How old are you?”

I ignored this and asked, “How’s the food?”

“Depends.” She added, “It’s a nice setting, and off the beaten path. No one will see us, and no one will gossip.”

“Good thinking.” I pulled into the gravel driveway, parked, and opened my door a crack with the engine still running. A tiny
little bell chimed and the schematic of my vehicle showed a door ajar. I said, “Hey, you killed the voice.”

“We don’t want your ex-wife’s voice annoying you.”

We got out of the vehicle and walked toward the inn. She took my arm, which surprised me. She asked, “When do you get off
duty?”

“Now.”

L
unch was pleasant enough. The place was nearly empty and had undergone a recent restoration, so if you let your imagination
go, it was 1784 and Mad Anthony Wayne was stomping around ordering grog, whatever that is.

The food was basic American, nothing tricky, which appeals to my carnivorous tastes, and Ms. Emma Whitestone turned out to
be a basic American girl, nothing tricky, which likewise appealed to my carnivorous tastes.

We didn’t discuss the murders, or Lord Tobin, or anything unpleasant. She was really into history, and I was fascinated by
what she was saying. Well, not really, but history coming from Emma Whitestone’s breathy mouth was not too hard to take.

She went on about the Reverend Youngs, who led his flock here from Connecticut in 1640, and I wondered aloud if they took
the New London ferry, which got me a cool look. She mentioned Captain Kidd and lesser-known pirates who sailed these waters
three hundred years ago, then told me about the Hortons of lighthouse fame, one of which built this very inn. And then there
was the Revolutionary War General, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, after whom, she said, East Marion was named, even though
I argued there was probably a town called Marion in England. But she knew her stuff. She told me about the Underhills, the
Tuthills, and a little about the Whitestones, who were actually Mayflower Pilgrims, and about people with first names like
Abijah, Chauncey, Ichabod, and Barnabas, not to mention Joshua, Samuel, and Isaac, who weren’t even Jewish. And so on.

Ping!
Whereas Paul Stevens had bored me senseless with his computer-generated voice, Emma Whitestone had me bewitched with her
sort of aspirating tones, not to mention her gray-green eyes. Anyway, the net result was the same— I’d heard something that
caused a delayed reaction in my usually awake brain.
Ping!
I listened for her to say it again, whatever it was, and I tried to recall what it was and why I thought it was significant.
But to no avail. This time, however, I knew it was on the tip of my brain, and I knew I’d have it out very soon.
Ping!