Death in Vineyard Waters (4 page)

“You're in excellent form, Marjorie,” said Skye. “Is there anyone here you do like?”

“Well, you're tolerable, John. And Mattie is a fine young woman aside from her taste in second husbands. Ian may be a womanizer and an occasionally violent hothead, but
he's done sound work on this project of ours. And J. W. here knows his clams, as does Ms. Madieras. People who can dig clams are possessors of at least rudimentary virtues. I doubt if the rest of these people can find clams anywhere outside of the fish market.”

“Actually,” said Skye, turning to me and smiling, “Doctors Barstone and Hooperman are perfectly legitimate academicians. But Marjorie also disapproves of them because of what they're doing down here.”

“Indeed I do,” said Dr. Summerharp agreeably.

“And what are they doing?” I asked without caring.

“Working with Tristan Cooper,” said Skye. “Tristan was Marjorie's predecessor as chief seventeenth-century honcho at Weststock. When he retired she got the Renaissance chair.”

Marjorie Summerharp snorted and took a gulp of her drink.

“Marjorie hasn't forgiven him for abandoning Shakespeare and company for things prehistoric,” said Skye, “or Hooperman and Barstone for taking him seriously.”

“Tristan,” said Marjorie Summerharp, “was the finest in his field. When he left the college to chase these prehistoric phantoms of his, legitimate scholarship suffered a terrible loss.”

“Not a fatal one, though,” observed Skye. “You took over where Tristan left off and no one suffered a whit.”

“Nonsense. Everyone suffers when a great mind disappears.”

Skye arched his eyebrows. “Well, Tristan didn't exactly disappear, Marjorie.”

“He did for me.” She emptied her glass.

I looked at her lined face, considering the passion that lay behind her voice.

“Tristan Cooper,” explained John, “was always a maverick, but is even more so in his old age. He's become an advocate of some unconventional anthropological and archeological notions, to wit—that America, more particularly New England and specifically Martha's Vineyard, contain
persuasive evidence of pre-Columbian contacts with European and African culture. As a matter of fact, he thinks he's got some convincing evidence right on his own farm in Chilmark.”

“Utter rubbish,” said Marjorie Summerharp. “Tristan has slipped a cog. Tragic.”

“Professors Barstone and Hooperman disagree with you . . .”

“Nitwits.”

“. . . They're here to work with Tristan, J. W. Study his work. Raise the question of whether it's legitimate . . .”

“Make some money selling nonsense to the popular press,” said Marjorie Summerharp with curled lip.

“. . . Give his ideas serious professional exposure.”

“Those two? Ha!”

Skye grinned. “You can judge him for yourself. I think that's his pickup coming in now.”

3

I glanced at Marjorie Summerharp. She was turning her empty glass in her hand and looking toward the driveway. I followed her gaze and watched a middle-aged Chevy four-by-four pull into the yard and disgorge a brown old man. He glanced around, waved an arm at us, and came rapidly across the lawn.

There was a simian quality about him. His arms were long and his legs slightly bowed. His face was wrinkled and the hair grew thin at his temples. His ears and hands were large, and he moved with a feral grace in spite of his years. I calculated that he must be in his eighties, but when he neared us I saw that his eyes were bright and youthful. They
were focused on Marjorie Summerharp. I wondered if I only imagined a hint of color on her cheek.

“Marjorie. You look wonderful.” He took her hand and swiftly kissed her. He turned to Skye. “John, good of you to invite me.” He released Marjorie Summerharp's hand and shook Skye's, then my own. His bright eyes met mine. “I'm Tristan Cooper. You look familiar.”

“J. W. Jackson. My father used to hunt on your duck pond. He took me along sometimes. A long time ago.”

“Of course. It's been years. You look like him. I read that he was dead. He was a good man. Do you shoot?”

“Yes.”

“Hunt at my pond this coming season.”

“Thank you.”

Then he was looking at Zee and taking her hand and introducing himself and she was smiling her wonderful smile as she gave him her name.

“You are a great beauty,” he said, studying her.

“Thank you.”

He flicked his eyes to me. “You are a fortunate young man, sir. This lady has great life within her.” He held her hand with both of his and looked back at her. “Gaia.” He smiled. “Do you know of Gaia?”

“No,” she said, looking at him with the smile still on her face.

“The earth goddess,” he explained. “Mother of the titans. The Romans called her Tellus.”

“I'm afraid I know nothing of mythology.”

He pressed her hand and then released it. “No matter. She is the oldest of divinities, the nourisher of all that exists. You strike me as Gaia in modern dress, as it were.”

“Thank you.”

“You are a fortunate man, sir,” he said again, looking at me.

“I'm glad you think so.” Behind him I saw McGregor and Jen the disgusting flirt enter the house.

Zee, charmed by Tristan Cooper's remarks, gave him a
healthy grin. “I dare say the ladies, young and old, have beat a path to your door. We're suckers for a silver tongue.”

“You never change, Tristan,” said Marjorie Summerharp. “Always an eye for a beautiful woman.”

“More so than ever,” he agreed cheerfully. “It has been one of the surprises of my growing old to discover that my libido has not aged with the rest of me. You ma^. think me an old fool, Marjorie, but I have a young id.”

“I don't consider you a fool, Tristan, I only consider your studies foolish.” Marjorie Summerharp's bony face seemed softer than I'd seen it before. “Your place is in Renaissance Studies, not in these romantic prehistoric postulations.”

“Your err on three counts in a single sentence, my dear,” said Cooper briskly. “My work is neither romantic, prehistoric, or postulational. There is both physical and written evidence supporting it, as you've seen yourself.”

I wondered how many men could get away with calling Marjorie Summerharp “my dear” and correcting her diction at the same time. Not me, certainly.

“I've seen your evidence, Tristan,” she said in a tone no more testy than usual, “and I'm not persuaded of your thesis. You are inclined, I fear, to interpret your data so as to support your presumptions. It's a common mistake, but a disappointing one.”

“If you were more of a linguist, Marjorie, your criticism would bear more thought. You should not restrict yourself to modern languages, as I've often told you, but master ogham, Celtic, and Phoenician at the very least.”

“I know, I know. I should also learn Algonquin, Iroquois, and Hopi if I'm to grasp your evidence. It's a circular argument, Tristan.”

It seemed to be an old debate between old friends (colleagues? lovers?), but I was more interested in Zee, whose eyes were upon the two elderly academics but whose thoughts seemed elsewhere.

I said, “Zee, why don't you and I go up to the house and
see if Mattie needs any help? Thanks to all I've taught you about cooking, maybe we can both lend a hand.”

She gave me a quick, wondering look. I took her arm. “See you later,” I said to John and Marjorie Summerharp and Tristan Cooper and led Zee away.

“Am I so obvious?” asked Zee.

I put a smile on my face and looked down at her. She shook her head and looked straight ahead. We got to the kitchen door and I drank down my rum. “Look,” I said. “I'm going to get a refill. I'll see you inside.” I squeezed her hand and left her and walked down to the table holding the liquor. There I poured myself another Mount Gay on ice. When I looked up at the house again, Zee was not in sight. Inside, I expected. I took a drink and walked back to join John Skye and his guests. I felt empty and thinly metallic, as if I were the Tin Woodman of Oz, without a heart, rusty in the joints.

“Back alone, I see,” said Marjorie Summerharp with a crooked smile. Tristan Cooper's untamed eyes flicked between the house and me. I groped for a neutral subject of conversation.

“Tell me about your other guests,” I said to John. But Marjorie Summerharp replied.

“The women are friends of Ian McGregor or wish they were. I believe a couple are ex-mistresses. He doesn't keep any woman long. The men are the mistresses' husbands or lovers or perhaps wish they were. All of them enjoy free drinks and food and no doubt meet regularly at cocktail parties all summer long exchanging gossip and partners.”

“You give them too much credit,” laughed Cooper. “It would take some of these folks all night long to do what they wish they could do all night long. They may think sex, but I doubt if it goes much farther than that.”

“Then I imagine they fumble as much as they are allowed to,” retorted Dr. Summerharp. “I'm an old woman, but even I could still fumble if I wished.”

I liked the thin smile she threw at Cooper. I looked through her years and saw her as a young woman teaching at Weststock College in a Renaissance Department chaired by Dr. Tristan Cooper. She looked like she could do more than fumble. Then I was back in time present and she was again old and tough and ironic.

“Why are they really here?” I asked John Skye.

“They all have some interest in this Shakespeare project, and Bill Hooperman and Helen Barstone are also concerned with Tristan's work. Bill and Helen are both Renaissance people in addition to their other academic interests. Helen had a master's in sixteenth century before she took the Ed.D. that Marjorie so loathes, and Bill's doctorate is in seventeenth century. Something similar is true of most of the others. This is a sort of a prepublication gathering. Ian and Marjorie are putting the finishing touches on their article, and this was my last chance to get some of their colleagues together for a few best wishes and some talk about things to come once the article is printed. It'll be a big deal in literary circles.”

“And these hounds will all be delighted to say they were right here on the launching pad. Celebrity by proximity, as it were.” Marjorie Summerharp drank her martini. “Not that I really care. I've already tendered my resignation, effective at the end of this coming term, and once I'm gone I honestly don't give a damn about how much mileage these leeches might get from our work.” She looked into her glass, then dug out the olive and nibbled at it. “Besides, as Yogi said, it ain't over till it's over. Maybe they're all wrong. Maybe we won't do the article after all. Maybe God will strike us dead first. Maybe we'll change our minds and decide we've goofed and the document isn't real after all. Who knows? Many a ship has floundered in sight of port.”

Skye squinted at her. “I take it that you're not serious,” he said.

She gave him a smile that was almost warm and her hand
touched his arm. “Oh, I'm serious, all right, but I expect everything to proceed on schedule. I think I was just wishing there was some way to screw certain of my colleagues before I depart their company for the last time. Tristan, here, is to be our final arbitrator. In spite of his follies with prehistoric theories, he's still the best person to judge our work with the Shakespeare document. We'll give him the final draft next week at the latest. If he okays it, we'll publish in the fall.”

“I'm shocked by your description of your colleagues,” I said. “I always thought that the groves of academe were stocked with high-minded intellectuals who lived above all the petty passions of lesser folk.”

“You don't look shocked,” said Marjorie Summerharp.

“It's all inside,” I said. “Truly manly men like myself are trained from youth to show no emotion.”

“But behind that mask . . .”

I nodded. “Exactly.”