Vineyard Deceit
Page 24
“Not anymore. I’m a sailor, a mariner. I go down to the sea in ships. My detecting days are over. I’m a captain. Forget Helga Johanson.”
Later, we lay in our bunks looking out of the hatch at the stars in the September sky. I was thinking of how many sides there are to people, how complex even the simplest seeming of them are, and how contradictory they can be in both their thoughts and acts. Zakkut, both doctor and murderer; Nagy, both protector and killer; the Padishah, both despot and hopeless movie fan; Amelia Muleto, gardener and jewel thief; Willard Blunt, at once vengeful, gentle, suicidal, and pacifistic; none of them only what they seemed. Probably even Bonzo was more than I might guess.
A northeast wind slowly swung the stern of the boat around until we could see the dark mass of the Gay Head hills blocking out the lower western stars. The sight reminded me of the latest tale about Manny Fonseca, and I laughed.
“What is it?” asked Zee’s voice from the other bunk.
“Did you hear about Manny Fonseca?”
“No. What?”
“I saw his wife, Helen, downtown a couple of days ago. She had a hard time keeping a straight face. Seems that Manny got hold of some old family records and found out that one of his grandmas was a Vanderhoop from Gay Head. Manny’s an official Wampanoag Indian! All these years he’s been insulting himself! His wife thinks it’s really funny, but Manny is fit to be tied. Who’s he going to light into now?”
Zee laughed. “Poor Manny. He’s had a tough end-of-the-summer. Amazing.”
Amazing, indeed. Manny Fonseca was another of those people who were more complex than they perhaps wanted to be. I was still alive thanks to his fanaticism about pistols, which I had seen as a comic minor vice. And now he was a Wampanoag, the last thing in the world he wanted to be. Could Amy Lowell find a pattern in all this?
“Speaking of amazing,” said Zee. “We are not being amazingly bright. Here we are, lying inside on these bunks that are so narrow only one person can get in one, and outside the stars are shining. We should be out there sleeping together on the deck and save these bunks for a time when it’s cold or raining or something.”
The wind came around more to the north, and the stars swung across the open hatch. The water lapped the Shirley J.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I said, and threw back my blanket.
Zee was ahead of me. We put our foam mattresses on the deck and arranged our blankets and crawled in. Zee snuggled up against me.
“This is better.”
It certainly was.
“And another thing,” said Zee. “Now I really do think you should plant a little garden without a fence, just for the bunnies. Because if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have been off in the woods, and . . .”
“Another good idea,” I said.
“I have lots of good ideas,” she said sleepily. “Aren’t the stars beautiful?”
“Yes.”
We held one another there between the dark waters and the glittering sky, afloat on Middle Earth, halfway between heaven and hell, until, at last, we slept.
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THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD MYSTERY SERIES BY PHILIP R. CRAIG
A Beautiful Place to Die
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #1)
Death in Vineyard Waters
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #2)
Vineyard Deceit
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #3)
Vineyard Fear
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #4)
Off Season
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #5)
A Case of Vineyard Poison
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #6)
Death on a Vineyard Beach
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #7)
A Deadly Vineyard Holiday
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #8)
A Shoot on Martha’s Vineyard
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #9)
A Fatal Vineyard Season
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #10)
Vineyard Blues
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #11)
Vineyard Shadows
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #12)
Vineyard Enigma
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #13)
A Vineyard Killing
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #14)
Murder at a Vineyard Mansion
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #15)
Vineyard Prey
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #16)
Dead in Vineyard Sand
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #17)
Vineyard Stalker
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #18)
Vineyard Chill
(Martha’s Vineyard Mystery #19)
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by Philip R. Craig
Originally published in hardcover as The Doubleminded Men
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ISBN 978-1-5011-5355-6 (ebook)