people.”
The Dorset Beach Club was located at the end of a narrow and perilously bumpy little dirt road that snaked its way back through a half mile of marsh and wild brambles off of Old Shore Road. It was a private dirt road. No sign on Old Shore marked its presence. In fact, the roadside brush was so overgrown at the beach club turnoff that if you weren’t looking for it you would never know it was there.
Which, this being Dorset, was the whole idea.
In fact, Mitch wasn’t even sure he was bouncing his way down the right dirt road until he reached a grassy clearing filled with beat-up old Ford Country Squire station wagons, Mercedes diesels, and Subarus. Then he knew this had to be the beach club-in Dorset, the richer they were the junkier their ride. Only the working poor drove shiny new cars.
At the water’s edge sat a modest, weathered gray shingled cottage-style clubhouse that looked as if it had been built in the 1930s. Mitch got out, corn bucket in hand, and made his way around to the beach-side on a raised wooden walkway, passing through a portal directly into a different time and place. Here, on a wide wooden dining porch beneath a striped blue awning, Mitch found properly attired club members being served their proper lobster dinners by hushed, respectful waiters in white jackets. Proper attire for men was apparently defined as a madras sports jacket and Nantucket red pants. Proper attire for women was anything Katharine Hepburn might have worn to a summer concert under the stars in, say, 1957. A rathertinny sound system was playing soothing, vaguely Polynesian-sounding music. Not a single one of these members was under the age of seventy. Actually, not many appeared to be under the age of eighty. They seemed lifelike enough, although none of them actually spoke and all of them moved in slow motion, as if this were a dream. Standing there on the walkway with his bucket, Mitch had the astonishingly powerful feeling that this was a dream, that none of it was real, just his own Jewish schoolboy fantasy of what a private club like this might have been like in bygone days.
Mitch had experienced these paranormal phenomena several times before since he’d moved to this place. He’d taken to calling them Dorset Interludes.
Dodge had instructed him to continue past the dining porch to the long wooden veranda that faced the sand. Here there were showers and changing stalls, a cold drink stand and other amenities for beachgoers. Umbrella tables and built-in barbecue grills were provided for members who wanted to cook out and eat right there on the beach. It was all pretty unassuming considering just how exclusive the beach club was. Three letters of recommendation and a certified check for $10,000 were required-and that was the easy part. The hard part was that the membership roll capped out at a strict maximum of two hundred families, meaning that in order to get in you had to know people and then those people had to die. Not that it looked as if it would necessarily be a long wait, given the median age of the members who were politely gumming their lobster and corn back there on the dining porch.
Of course, the main attraction of the club was the beach itself- and a very nice, wide stretch of clean white beach it was, the sand so immaculate it looked as if it were raked hourly. No trash, no doggy poop, and above all, no beer-bellied pipe fitters from New Britain with their loudmouthed wives and squalling kids. Only the right sort of people were to be found on this beach. People who belonged here. Mitch didn’t and he never would and he knew this. But he plodded his way toward the barbecue grills anyway, footsteps thudding heavily on the wooden walkway. He was not here to fit in. He was here to bury the hatchet with Tito Molina.
The Crocketts had commandeered two umbrella tables at the far end of the veranda, where they were sharing a pitcher of iced margaritas with Will and Donna and Jeff. Tito and Esme hadn’t arrived yet. A big spread of cheeses and crackers was laid out on the table. No one seemed to be touching any of it. They were too busy drinking and talking, their eyes bright, voices animated.
“Hey, it’s macho man,” called out Donna, who was the first to spot him.
“Mitch, you look like you just went three rounds with Roy Jones Jr.,” observed Will.
“How does the jaw feel?” asked Jeff, who sat huddled under the umbrella with a beach towel over his exposed knees. Being a redhead, he burned easily.
“It’s really not so bad as long as I don’t smile, talk, or eat.”
“Where’s our resident trooper?” asked Dodge as he refilled everyone’s glasses. The pitcher was already half empty-they’d gotten a serious head start.
“I’m afraid she couldn’t make it.”
“That’s an awful shame,” clucked Martine, who was stretched out languorously on a lounge chair in the sun, looking tanned, terrific, and not a day over thirty-five in her snug-fitting black one-piece swimsuit. Martine’s hips were slim, her legs long, shapely, and smooth. She glanced fondly up at Dodge as he brought her a refill, stroking his arm with tender affection. Then she turned her inviting blue-eyed gaze on Mitch, drawing him effortlessly toward her. “But I’m so glad you could join us.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Mitch, his mind straying back to that word Bitsy Peck had just used to describe the Crocketts-cannibals. “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful,” she murmured, gazing at the soft glowing sky over the Sound.
“It will be raining by midnight,” Dodge predicted. “My left knee aches-old lacrosse injury.”
“Darling, I always thought it was your right knee,” Martine said teasingly.
“It’s always been the left,” he kidded back.
“Oh, goody, Berger brought corn,” observed Donna, her eyes gleaming at Mitch. She already seemed a bit tipsy. “Some men bring flowers and champagne, others bring hog feed. Speaking as one of the hogs, I say thank you.”
“Speaking as another one of the hogs, I say you’re welcome.” Mitch delivered the bucket to Will, who was building a fire in one of the grills out of seasoned hardwood chunks and mesquite. Dressed in a tank top, nylon shorts and leather flip-flops, Will could easily be mistaken for the club’s lifeguard. To Mitch he also seemed a bit less lighthearted than the others. Distracted, maybe. Was it being around Martine when both her husband and his wife were around? Mitch wondered.
“Seriously, Mitch, how is your jaw?” he asked with genuine concern.
“Seriously, it hurts like hell. I really don’t like getting hit.”
“But you’re okay to eat?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” said Mitch, his stomach growling as he checked out their dinner-racks and racks of baby back ribs, potato salad, red cabbage slaw, fruit salad, brownies.
“For what it’s worth, I’ve known Esme since she was in pigtails,” Will said. “She’s always had good instincts about people. If she likes somebody, there’s some good in there.”
“I believe it.”
“Care to try a margarita, Mitch?” asked Dodge.
“I’ll settle for a beer, thanks.” Mitch fetched a Dos Equis out of the cooler, popped it open, and settled into a deck chair with it. “This is nice here,” he said, taking a long, thirsty gulp.
“You’ll have to be our guest more often,” Martine said lazily, crossing her ankles. “We vastly prefer it down at this end. You’ll find all of us club rebels down here. That dining room crowd is so stuffy.” A cell phone rang in the canvas tote bag next to her. She reached for it. “I’ll bet that’s Esme. She’s always late… Hi, sweetie,” Martinesaid into the phone, nodding her blond head at them. “We’re all here waiting for you… It’s lovely out, although Daddy is absolutely convinced it’s going to rain. His right knee’s acting up.”
“Left knee,” Dodge interjected, grinning at her.
“Sweetie, when are you two-?” Now Martine’s face fell, her brow furrowing. “What do mean, you’re not… No, I absolutely don’t understand. This is very important. You know it is. Tito needs to- Esme? Esme, are you still there?…” Martine flicked off the phone, sighing, and tossed it back into her bag. “She couldn’t get him to come. They quarreled about it and he drove off in a huff. Everything with them is such a battle, Dodge. I wish we could do something.”
“They have to work it out for themselves,” Dodge said. “It’s their marriage.”
Now Mitch heard sharp footsteps coming their way.
“Oh, great, here comes Little Mary Sunshine,” muttered Jeff.
Chrissie Huberman was marching toward them, the wooden veranda shuddering under each of her onrushing strides. The publicist’s face was set in a determined scowl, her fists clenched. She did treat Dodge and Martine to a great big toothy smile when she arrived at their table. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Crockett!” she exclaimed, all sugar and spice for the parents of a prized client. But then Chrissie abruptly whirled, stuck her finger in Mitch’s face and
