Plum Island (41 page)

“Not without my glasses.”

“Right there. Look.” She attempted to connect a bunch of stars for me, but if there was somebody up there named Andromeda,
I didn’t see her. To be polite, I said, “Oh, yeah. Got it. She’s wearing high heels.”

Emma directed my gaze farther east and said, “There’s Pegasus. You know, the winged horse of the Muses.”

“I know. I had him to win in the fifth race at Belmont last Saturday. Came in fourth.”

Emma had learned to ignore me and continued, “Pegasus was born of the sea foam and the blood of the slain Medusa.”

“It didn’t say that on the scratch sheet.”

“Do you want to get laid again?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop being a wiseass.”

“Consider it done.” And I meant it.

So, what a night—a bright, nearly full moon overhead, a gentle shore breeze, the smell of sea and salt, stars twinkling in
the deep purple sky, a beautiful woman, our bodies floating, rising and falling with the slow, rhythmic swells. It doesn’t
get much better than this. All things considered, this was a lot better than my somewhat unpleasant near-death experience.

Which got me thinking about Tom and Judy. I looked up at the sky and I sent out a nice thought to them, a sort of hello and
goodbye, and a promise that I’d do everything I could to find their killer. And I asked them to please give me a hint.

I guess it was the feeling of total relaxation, the sexual release, or maybe looking up at the constellations, connecting
the points of light—whatever it was, I had it now. The whole picture, the pings, the points, the lines, it all came together
in a sort of rush, and my brain was racing so fast I couldn’t keep up with my own thoughts. I yelled, “That’s it!” and exhaled
so much air that I sank.

I came to the surface sputtering, and Emma was there beside me, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I’m terrific!”

“Are you—?”

“Captain Kidd’s trees!”

“What about them?”

I grabbed her by the arms, and we treaded water. I said, “What did you tell me about Captain Kidd’s trees?”

“I said there’s a legend that Captain Kidd buried some of his treasure under one of the trees up by Mattituck Inlet. They’re
called Captain Kidd’s Trees.”

“We’re talking about Captain Kidd the pirate, right?”

“Yes. William Kidd.”

“Where are these trees?” I asked.

“Just due north of here. Where the inlet empties into the Sound. Why do you—?”

“What’s with Captain Kidd? What does he have to do with this place?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“I thought everyone knew—”

“
I
don’t know. Tell me.”

“Well, his treasure is supposed to be buried somewhere around here.”

“Where?”

“
Where?
If I knew, I’d be rich.” She smiled. “And I wouldn’t tell
you.”

Jeez. This was mind-boggling. It all fit … but maybe I was totally wrong…. No, damn it, it fit. It fit everything. All those
disjointed pieces, which had looked like the Chaos Theory at work, now fell into place and became the Unified Theory, which
explained everything. “Yeah….”

“Are you all right? You look pale or blue.”

“I’m fine. I need a drink.”

“Me, too. The wind is getting cold.”

We swam back to shore, grabbed our clothes, and ran back naked across the lawn to the house. I got two thick bathrobes, then
retrieved Uncle’s decanter of brandy and two glasses. We sat on the porch, drinking, watching the lights across the bay. A
sailboat glided over the water, its white sail ghostly in the moonlight, and thin wispy clouds raced across the starlit sky.
What a night. What a night. I said to Tom and Judy, “I’m getting it. I’m getting close.”

Emma glanced at me and held out her glass. I poured her more brandy and said, “Tell me about Captain Kidd.”

“What would you like to know?” she asked.

“Everything.”

“Why?”

“Why … ? I’m fascinated by pirates.”

She regarded me for a moment, then asked, “Since when?”

“Since I was a kid.”

“Does this have to do with the murders?”

I looked at Emma. Despite our recent intimacy, I barely knew her, and I wasn’t sure I could trust her to keep this to herself.
I realized, too, I’d been overly excited about Captain Kidd. Trying to be cool now, I asked, “How could Captain Kidd be related
to the Gordons’ murders?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m asking you.”

I said, “I’m off-duty now. I’m just curious about pirates and stuff.”

“I’m off-duty, too. No history until tomorrow.”

“Okay.” I asked, “Will you stay the night?”

“Maybe. Let me think about it.”

“Sure.”

I put some Big Band dance music on my tape player, and we danced on the back porch in our bare feet and bathrobes and drank
brandy and watched the bay and the stars.

It was one of those enchanted evenings, as they say, one of those magic nights that are often a prelude to something not so
good.

M
s. Emma Whitestone chose to spend the night. She rose early, found the mouthwash, and gargled loud enough to wake me up. She
showered, used my hair dryer, finger-combed her hair, found a lipstick and some eye stuff in her bag, which she applied in
front of my dresser mirror while standing in the altogether.

As she pulled her panties on, she stepped into her sandals, then slipped her dress on over her head. Four seconds.

She was a sort of low-maintenance woman who didn’t require a lot of life-support systems for an overnighter.

I’m not used to women being ready before me so I had to rush through my shower. I slipped on my tightest jeans along with
a white tennis shirt and my docksiders. I left the .38 locked in my dresser.

At Ms. Whitestone’s suggestion, we drove to the Cutchogue Diner, a real 1930s icon. The place was packed with farmers, deliverymen,
local merchants, a few touristos, truck drivers, and maybe one other couple who were getting to know one another over breakfast
and after sex.

We sat in a small booth, and I commented, “Won’t people gossip if they see you in the same clothes you wore yesterday?”

“They stopped gossiping about me years ago.”

“How about
my
reputation?”

“Your reputation, John, can only be enhanced by your being with me.”

We were a bit tart this morning.

She ordered a huge breakfast of sausage, eggs, home fries, and toast, commenting that she hadn’t had dinner last night.

I reminded her, “You drank your dinner. I offered to go for pizza.”

“Pizza is not good for you.”

“What you just ordered is not good for you.”

“I’ll skip lunch. How about dinner?”

“Sure. I was going to ask.”

“Good. Pick me up at six at the florist.”

“Okay.” I looked around and spotted two uniformed Southold cops, but no Max in sight.

The food came, and we ate. I love other people’s cooking.

Emma asked me, “Why were you so interested in Captain Kidd?”

“Who? Oh … the pirates. Well, it’s fascinating. I mean, that he was right here on the North Fork. I sort of remember that
now. From when I was a kid. No pun intended.”

She looked at me and said, “You were all fired up last night.”

After my initial outburst last night, which I’d regretted, I had tried to play it cooler, as I said. But Ms. Whitestone was
still curious about my curiosity. I said to her, “If I found that treasure, I’d share it with you.”

“That’s very sweet.”

I said, as nonchalantly as possible, “I’d like to go back to the historical society house. How about this afternoon?”

“Why?”

“I need to buy my mother something in the gift shop.”

“If you join the society, I’ll give you a discount.”

“Okay. Why don’t I pick you up at, say, four?”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

I regarded her across the table. Sunlight fell on her face. Sometimes, the morning after—and I really hate to say this—but
sometimes, you wonder what the hell you were thinking the night before, or worse, you wonder if you have a grudge against
your dick. But this morning, I had a good feeling. I liked Emma Whitestone. I liked the way she packed down two fried eggs,
four sausages, a heap of home fries, buttered toast, juice, and tea with cream.

She glanced at the clock behind the counter, and I realized she didn’t even wear a watch. This lady was something of a free
spirit, and at the same time was president and archivist of the Peconic Historical Society. It was a nice contrast, I thought.

A lot of people smiled at her and said hello, and I could see she was well liked. That’s always a good sign. If it sounds
like I was falling in love for the second time that week, that might be true. However, I wondered about Emma Whitestone’s
judgment in men, specifically Fredric Tobin, and perhaps me as well. Possibly she was not judgmental regarding men, or people
in general. Maybe she liked all men. Certainly Fredric and I couldn’t have been more opposite. Her attraction to Fredric Tobin,
I suppose, was probably the bulge in the hip pocket of his pants, whereas with me, it was certainly the bulge in the front
of my pants.

In any case, we chatted awhile, and I was determined to stay away from the subject of pirates or Captain Kidd until the afternoon.
Eventually, however, my curiosity got the better of me. A long shot popped into my head, and I borrowed a pencil from the
waitress and wrote 44106818 on a napkin. I turned the napkin around and said, “If I played these lottery numbers, would I
be a winner?”

She smiled between bites of toast. “Jackpot,” she said. “Where’d you get those numbers?”

“Something I read. What do they mean?”

She looked around and lowered her voice. She said, “Well, when Captain Kidd was held in a Boston jail charged with piracy,
he smuggled a note to his wife, Sarah, and on the bottom of the note were those numbers.”

“And?”

“And everyone has been trying to figure it out for the last three hundred years.”

“What do you think they mean?”

“The most obvious answer is that these numbers relate to his buried treasure.”

“You don’t think it was the number on his dry cleaning slip?”

“Are we being silly again?”

“Just kidding. Get it? Kidding?”

She rolled her eyes. In truth, it was a bit early for my humor. She said, “I don’t want to discuss this here. The last wave
of Kidd-mania hit here in the 1940s, and I don’t want to be accused of starting another mass treasure hunt.”

“Okay.”

She asked me, “Do you have any children?”

“Probably.”

“Be serious.”

“No, I don’t have any children. How about you?”

“No children. But I’d like to.”

And so forth. After a while, I returned to the subject of numbers and in a whisper asked her, “Could those numbers be map
coordinates?”

She clearly didn’t want to discuss this, but replied, “That’s the obvious thing. Eight-digit map coordinates. Minutes and
seconds. Those coordinates are actually somewhere around Deer Isle, in Maine.” She leaned across the table and continued,
“Kidd’s movements when he sailed back to the New York area in 1699 are pretty well documented, day by day, by reliable witnesses,
so any visit to Deer Isle to bury treasure was unlikely.” She added, “However, there’s another legend surrounding Deer Isle.
Supposedly, John Jacob Astor did find Kidd’s or some other pirate’s treasure on Deer Isle and that was the start of the Astor
fortune.” She sipped her tea and said, “There are dozens of books, plays, ballads, rumors, legends, and myths surrounding
Captain William Kidd’s buried treasure. Ninety-nine percent of them are just that—myth.”

“Okay, but aren’t those numbers that Kidd wrote to his wife solid evidence of
something
?”

“Yes, they mean
something
. Yet even if they are map coordinates, navigation in those days was too primitive to pinpoint a spot on the ground with any
accuracy. Especially longitude. An eight-digit coordinate of minutes and seconds can be hundreds of yards off using the methods
available in 1699. Even today, with a satellite navigation device, you can be off by ten or twenty feet. If you’re digging
for treasure, and you’re off by even twenty feet, you could be digging a lot of holes. I think the theory of grid coordinates
has been put aside in favor of other theories.”

“Such as?”

She drew an exasperated breath, glanced around, and said, “Well, here—” She took the pencil and napkin and gave each number
its corresponding letter in the alphabet and came up with DDAOFHAH. She said, “I think the last three letters are the key.”

“H-A-H?”

“Right. Hah, hah, hah. Get it?”

“Hah, hah.” I studied the letters, frontwards and backwards, then turned the paper upside down and said, “Was Kidd dyslexic?”

She laughed. “It’s no use, John. Better brains than mine and yours have been trying to decipher that for three hundred years.
For all anyone knows, it’s a meaningless number. A joke. Hah, hah, hah.”