A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard

by Philip R. Craig

  “Oh, Daddy!” cried a twin. “You’ll let them use the house, won’t you? You wouldn’t deny your children the opportunity to be movie stars, would you? You wouldn’t either, would you, Mom?”

  Daddy and Mom looked at each other.

  “Now, don’t push your parents so hard,” said Mondry diplomatically. “This is a big decision. When a movie company comes in for location shots, it takes over the whole place. Not everybody wants to put up with it.” Then he flashed his California smile. “Say, would you kids like to take me out and show me around the place? I’d like to look at that barn, too, while I’m here. You have horses there, from the looks of it. I’d like to see them. Maybe we can get them in the movie, too.”

  Maybe I’ll make both you and your horses into stars. Words to win the hearts of teenage girls. Drew was a real smoothie. I watched the twins lead him to the barn and wondered if he waved the big screen in front of every good-looking woman he met, or just in front of those I knew.

  “Well, what do you think?” asked John, looking at his wife.

  “I think it would be fun!” said normally practical Mattie, with a big grin. Like daughters, like mother.

  “Done, then!” said John. “If they want to use the place, they can do it. And if they can use you and the girls as extras, that’s even better.”

  So far, I was the only one I knew who hadn’t been offered a job as an extra. Was it because my classic good looks might be resented by the male star? I looked down at Joshua, who looked back up at me. “What do you think?” I asked him.

  That might be it, he replied gravely.

  I’d read several stories about the movie-to-be in both the Gazette and the Vineyard Times, but couldn’t recall the casting, so I asked.

  “Who’s going to be in this movie, anyway?”

  Mattie knew. “Kevin Turner and Kate Ballinger and Martin Paisley.”

  Their names had been in the local papers all summer, but I could only see the woman in my mind. She was one of those actresses who was really beautiful but could look less than that if her role required it.

  “Kevin Turner is the new swashbuckler,” said Mattie, observing my blank face, “and Martin Paisley is the Dracula guy.”

  “I thought that was Bela Lugosi.”

  “There’ve been a lot of Draculas since Bela Lugosi! Martin Paisley is the latest one. He played Chopin, too. In Blood and Ivory. Maybe you remember him in that movie.”

  “I heard it was terrible.”

  “It was terrible, but he was good. So pale and wan that he just broke your heart.”

  “He didn’t break my heart,” said John. “It was a very sappy movie. Jeez, drops of blood on the piano keys, already. He was a pretty fair Dracula, though. Not as good as Bela, of course.”

  Of course not. They got Frankenstein’s monster right the first time, too. A classic is a classic is a classic, and they should leave them alone.

  “Kevin is the famous womanizer,” said Mattie. “On and off screen. A trail of broken hearts. They say he’s the new Errol Flynn! I can hardly wait to meet him!”

  “Swords and daggers and heaving bosoms,” said John.

  “He won’t win any Oscars, but he can swash and buckle with the best of them. Of course, he should never try to remake Robin Hood or Captain Blood or They Died With Their Boots On. The original Flynn did them as well as they can be done.”

  More classics. Hollywood’s golden age.

  “Flynn was the reason I went to Weststock for my undergraduate work, you know,” said John. “I refused to attend a college where I couldn’t take up fencing. I planned on becoming the world’s champion. And it was all because of Flynn movies and Fairbanks movies. I found out that Weststock had a fencing team, and that was good enough for me. I got my degree in English, but I actually took a multiple major in foil, épée, and saber. I was pretty good, too, but naturally not as good as Flynn or Fairbanks. They never lost.” He looked up at the weapons and mask on the wall. “That was a long time ago.”

  “But the blood still runs hot!” said Mattie, grabbing him in both arms. “My hero!”

  John grinned a jaunty grin, twirled an imaginary mustache, and made a couple of parries and thrusts with a pointed finger.

  “Ha! Take that, you villain! You’re safe, my lady. The evil baron will trouble you no more!”

  They kissed.

  Ah, romance! I was glad to see that it never died.

  Drew Mondry and the twins came back into the house on the best of terms, having charmed one another to the fullest extent of their considerable abilities.

  “Well, folks, what do you say?” asked Mondry. “Your place looks like a perfect location. I’d like to make a deal with you, if I can. There’ll be some money in it, of course.”

  “And there’ll be us!” exclaimed a twin. “That’ll be part of the deal!”

  “If I can talk the casting director into it,” corrected Mondry.

  “Try! You can do it!” cried the other twin. “Daddy, Mom, our lives will be ruined forever if you don’t let them use our house!”

  “Well, we certainly don’t want your lives ruined,” said her mother.

  Hands were shaken, twinish sounds of happiness were heard, good-byes were finally accomplished, and Mondry and I drove away.

  “Quite a family,” said Mondry.

  “Indeed.”

  “The girls are terrific. My daughter is just a little younger.”

  “They want to be stars, for sure.”

  “Well, I can probably get them into some background shots, at least. Being a star isn’t what people think. You have to want it to put up with the grief.”

  “How’d you get into the business?”

  He waved a hand. “I’m a pretty good-looking guy, and I acted a little in high school, so I played around with the bug. Went out to Hollywood and made the rounds. Got an agent. Supported myself any way I could. Made some commercials. Wore out my shoes. Found out that my face wouldn’t do it for me and that I didn’t want it bad enough, I didn’t have the fire in the belly. But I liked the business, so I stayed on the fringe. Then I got the big break I needed.” He glanced at me with a smile. “I met a girl and married her.

  “She had a brother who had the fire I didn’t have. He got big, and because I was married to his sister, I got jobs I probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Don’t get me wrong; I’m good at what I do. But there are a thousand other people who can probably do it just as well. The difference is they never married Kevin Turner’s sister.”

  “You’re married to Kevin Turner’s sister? The same Kevin Turner who’s going to be in this movie? Lady-killer Kevin?”

  “That’s right. Kevin is Emily’s little brother, and I work on all of his pictures. I work on others, too, and I think I can make it now even if he retires or goes into a monastery or something; fat chance of that, but I probably wouldn’t be in the business at all if it wasn’t for him making sure I got my foot in the door.”

  Real life is odder than any fiction, as many have observed.

  “I don’t think I’ll be around watching them make this movie,” I said, “so tell me what they’ll be doing here on the island.”

  “Well, I’ve seen the script, so I know what they think it’s going to be about, although that may change before they’re through. It’s a rare movie that ends up the way it was originally planned.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “The idea here is to tell two stories at the same time: the original pirate story about burying the treasure back in the eighteenth century, and the modern story about treasure hunters trying to find it. The plan is to flip back and forth between the stories, with the same actors playing roles in both centuries. Kevin, for example, is going to be the eighteenth-century pirate who buries the treasure, and a twentieth-century descendant of his who, a couple of hundred years later, comes to the Vineyard to find it. Kate Ballinger plays the pirate’s woman and Kevin’s modern mistress, and Martin Paisley will play the modern schola
r who researches the treasure story and the eighteenth-century man of letters who was the brains behind the original pirate raid that got them the treasure.”

  “It sounds like they’ve got a script that will let your brother-in-law swing on ropes and have sword fights and drive fast cars, too, while he makes lots of love to the ladies.”

  “You bet. And maybe that’s all it’ll be. On the other hand, it could be a pretty good movie, with the modern characters learning something about themselves and their own lives as they find out more about the pirates.”

  “Where’s your money laid down?”

  “Only my bookie knows.”

  I looked at my watch. “You have time to do some reading about real pirates on the Vineyard?”

  He brightened. “Yes. That might be useful.”

  So I took him down to the Vineyard Museum, one of the island’s treasures, and we went into the library.

  — 16 —

  The library of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum includes a lot of island treasure stories. I brought books to Drew Mondry, and he began to read.

  In the August 14, 1811, edition of the Baltimore Whig, there is a memorandum from the Port of Philadelphia that includes the following report by Captain Dagget of the brig Fox:

  About the 20th of July last, was found in the surf, on the south side of Martha’s Vineyard, by an inhabitant, an open boat, the tracks of three men and the appearance of something they had been dragging after them, was traced over the sand till it was lost on the upland, the same day, in the vicinity of the place, three men apparently foreigners, applied to a boatman, to put them on the main, he carried them to New-Bedford, the men said they had been cast away—they had a large sum of money with them. On the 2nd inst. near where the boat was found, the leg of a man was discovered sticking out of the sand: the jury of inquest being called, he was dug out and found to be a man with his throat cut, and a knife lying by him; had been dead too long to ascertain whether old or young; had on a pair of canvas trowsers and short bluejacket.

  Twelve years later, on January 18, 1823, Miss Hannah Smith made this entry in her journal:

  We are informed today that the people of Edgartown have been exploring and digging Chilmark beach in quest of gold, which they suppose was buried there eleven years ago by four pirates that landed there and murdered one of their crew.

  One of the pirates had lately been convicted when on his deathbed in New York, and confessed the treacherous act. He confessed that they hove their captain and mate overboard, robbed the vessel of all gold and silver, scuttled and sank her, and escaped in the boat which they left on Chilmark beach.

  He confessed, likewise, that after knocking the man down three times they cut his throat because he stood out in a violent manner and would not join them in their wickedness, and declared that he would not have anything to do with their money.

  Likewise that when they landed they thought themselves on Long Island and they were about to make their escape to New York with their booty swung across a pole on their shoulders. But the fog clearing up, they found their mistake, buried their booty on the beach, and hired George West to carry them immediately to New Bedford, for fear they might be detected. Captain West said at the time that on their passage the pirates fell a-quarreling about their passage money, and he dare not speak nor stir for fear they would throw him overboard, for they had the appearance of murder in their visage.

  A third report about these particular pirates and their buried hoard has it that one day, years after Captain West had ferried his scary passengers to New Bedford, two strangers arrived on foot at a house on Squibnocket Beach and asked to stay there for a few days, explaining that they were naturalists interested in marine curiosities. Oddly, these naturalists preferred to make their studies at night, and two or three days later hired a wagon in Holmes Hole, which they did not return until the next day, after which they departed the island, never to be seen again. Local residents later found a hole some twelve feet across in a marsh, and concluded that it lay on what might have been a bearing range for buried treasure.

  So the bad guys (a couple of them, at least) apparently escaped with the loot. Not for the first time, or the last, as any cop can tell you.

  “I like it,” said Mondry. “Maybe we can bury somebody with the treasure in our film.”

  I brought him more books telling stories of other Vineyard treasures: the tale of the kettle in the sandbank beside North Road, where a single gold coin remained after the kettle disappeared; the tale of the lady who buried her money and valuables near Beck’s Pond to save them from the British during the Revolutionary War, but who could never find the cache again; and the tale of the old pirate who, on his deathbed, told of a trove buried “where two brooks empty into Vineyard Sound,” but which later searchers could never find.

  We read about the three treasure hunters who dug at midnight by a large rock near Tarpaulin Cove. They had just struck a buried chest with their shovels when the earth opened and nearly swallowed one unfortunate chap, who was barely saved by his friends. Uncanny noises were heard, and the three fled, never to return.

  Other rocks figured prominently in other Vineyard treasure stories. There was the mysterious Money Rock north of Indian Hill, and a flat rock on the old Mayhew Luce farm, beneath which, it was said, pirates were fond of hiding their loot. And of course there was Moonbeam’s tale of the Blue Rock of Chappaquiddick, where the farmer witnessed murder on the beach.

  Good stuff, all of it. Admittedly, Joshua went to sleep while Mondry and I were reading, but what does a kid know about the important things in life?

  “Great,” said Mondry, pushing away the last tale and looking around at the book-filled shelves of Vineyard history and lore. “This is some kind of place. If we need to do any research about the island, I know the place to come.”

  True. Libraries are the real treasures in most towns, full of riches and people who’ll help you find them. Some librarians look very severe, but I suspect that most of them are born romantics, who really believe that there is no frigate like a book to take us lands away, nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry.

  We left the library and I walked Mondry past the great lighthouse lens and through the other museum buildings.

  “Dynamite,” said astute Drew. The more I was with him, the less I found to dislike. Rats.

  We got back in the Range Rover, where he ruined my gentle mood. “Well,” he said, “about all I have left to do here before I head back to L.A. is take your wife out, and try to talk her into working on this film. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who photographs better.”

  I felt that green feeling.

  “How do you know she photographs well?” I knew she did, because I had lots of pictures of her, but how did Mondry know?

  Because he had pictures of her, too. Ones he’d taken when we’d all gone scouting the island together. While he’d been photographing the locations that interested him, he’d also taken snaps of Zee and Joshua and even me. He showed them to me now.

  Zee glowed at us from the photos, most of which she clearly never knew were being taken. She was smiling at Joshua, pointing to something she thought Mondry should note, grinning at me, talking with Toni Begay, looking out over the Gay Head cliffs.

  Being Zee.

  “Your wife is a fine person,” said Mondry. “But she’s also a very great beauty. And her personality jumps out of these photos. I really think she’s got what it takes to be in films.”

  “You can make your case to her,” I said. “Then she can decide.”

  “I know you’ve said you don’t mind. I hope that’s really true.”

  “It’s true,” I lied.

  “Good.” He looked again at the photos. “God, she is really something. You must be really proud of her.”

  Pride has always perplexed me. I felt it when looking at Zee or Joshua, but never knew why, since what I saw in them had nothing to do with any accomplishment of mine. And I distrusted the feelin
g when it came from anything I was or did; those times, it struck me as nonsensical. But then, most of the deadly sins are just forms of silliness and stupidity. I should know, being intimate with all of them, including, especially right now, jealousy and covetousness.

  “She’s something, all right,” I said. I looked down at my son. “You think so, too, don’t you, Josh?”

  Josh agreed, even though he didn’t wake up to say so.

  At our house, Mondry shook my hand, thanked me for everything, and asked me to tell Zee that he’d call her about seven.

  I said I’d do that, and he said he’d send me a check for my work. Then he smiled at Joshua, and drove away, and I went into the house to fix supper.

  That evening, right on schedule, he did call and Zee said, sure, she’d meet him for lunch tomorrow before he caught an afternoon plane to Boston on his first hop back to California.

  “You really don’t mind my doing this?” she asked when she hung up.

  Everybody was asking me that. “Not a bit. I could probably get used to being married to a movie star with an income in the millions.” I put an arm around her waist and pulled her to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “I have an idea,” she said, smiling.

  But just then Joshua woke up and began to babble and whine. Zee shook her head, unwound herself from me, and headed for his room. “You know,” she said over her shoulder, “it’s a wonder people ever get a chance to have another kid after they’ve had the first one. There’s no more privacy!”

  It was a familiar observation, and she was right; but somehow a lot of parents managed to avoid single-child families. I suspected we might, too.

  The next day’s Vineyard Gazette had the latest dope on the killing. The Gazette is properly famous for its idiosyncratic prose style and its total focus on the Vineyard and nothing else. If half the world were destroyed by a giant meteor, the Gazette would report the fact only if some islander happened to be involved. Normally the Gazette underplays tales of violence and evil island doings, preferring to extol the positive aspects of Vineyard living, but this edition made much of Ingalls’s death because he had been in the center of the Norton’s Point wrangle, because the Gazette was unabashedly pro-environmentalist in both its editorial policies and its story selections, and because murders were, in fact, a rarity on the island.