CHAPTER 7
I was up at six a.m., showered, and dressed in shorts, T-shirt, and Top-Siders: suitable attire for a quick change into biohazard gear or whatever they call it.
I did my Hamlet routine regarding my piece-to carry, or not to carry, that is the question. Finally, I decided to carry. You just never know what the day is going to bring. This might be a nice day to paint Ted Nash red.
By 6:45 a.m., I was traveling east on Main Road, through the heart of the wine country.
It occurred to me as I drove that it's not easy trying to pull a living out of the soil or the sea, as many of the locals did. But the vineyards had been surprisingly successful. In fact, to my left, as I passed through the hamlet of Peconic, was the most successful vineyard and winery, Tobin Vineyards, owned by Fredric Tobin, whom I'd met once briefly and who was a friend of the Gordons. I made a mental note to call on the gentleman and see if he could shed any light on the case at hand.
The sun was above the trees, off to my right front, and my dashboard thermometer said 16 degrees centigrade, which meant nothing to me. Somehow I'd screwed up the computer, and I was on the metric system. Sixteen degrees sounded cold, but I knew it wasn't. Anyway, the sun was burning off the ground mist and sunlight filled my overpriced sports utility vehicle.
The road was gently curved, and the vineyards were more picturesque than the potato fields I remembered from thirty years ago. Now and then a fruit orchard or cornfield kept the vineyards from becoming monotonous. Big birds sailed and soared on the morning thermals, and little birds sang and chirped in the fields and trees. All was right with the world, except that Tom and Judy were in the county morgue this morning; and very possibly there was a sickness in the air, rising and falling with the thermals, carried on the ocean breeze, sweeping across the farms and vineyards, and carried in the blood of humans and animals. And yet, everything seemed normal this morning, including myself.
I turned on the radio to an all-news channel from New York City and listened to the regular crap for a while, waiting for someone to say something about a mysterious outbreak of whatever. But it was too early for that. I tuned to the only local radio station and caught the seven a.m. news. The news guy was saying, 'We spoke to Chief Maxwell by phone this morning, and here's what he told us.'
A grumpy-sounding Max came out of my speakers, saying, 'Regarding the deaths of Nassau Point residents Tom and Judy Gordon, we're calling this a double homicide, robbery, and burglary. This has nothing to do with the victims' work on Plum Island, and we want to put these speculations to rest. We urge all residents to be alert and aware of strangers and report anything suspicious to the town police. No need to be paranoid, but there's somebody out there with a gun who committed murder, robbery, and burglary. So you have to take some precautions. We're working with the county police on this, and we think we have some leads. That's all I have to say at this time. I'll talk to you later today, Don.'
'Thanks, Chief,' said Don.
That's what I like about this place-real down-to-earth and homey. I turned off the radio. What Chief Maxwell forgot to mention was that he was on his way to Plum Island, the place that had nothing to do with the double murders. He also forgot to mention the FBI and the CIA. I admire a man who knows how and when to gaslight the public. What if Max had said, 'There's a fifty-fifty chance the Gordons sold plague viruses to terrorists who may be plotting the destruction of all life in North America '? That would cause a little dip in the Dow at the opening bell, not to mention a stampede for the airports and a sudden urge for a South American vacation.
Anyway, it was a nice morning, so far. I spotted a big pumpkin field to my right, and I recalled the autumn weekends out here as a kid, going nuts running through the pumpkin patches to find the absolutely biggest, roundest, orangest, and most perfect pumpkin. I remember having some disagreements with my kid brother, Jimmy, on the choice every year, but we settled it fairly with a fistfight that I always won since I was much bigger than he was. At least the kid had heart.
The hamlet after Peconic is Southold, which is also the name of the whole township. It's about here where the vineyards end and the land narrows between the Sound and the bay, and everything looks a little more windswept and wild. The Long Island Rail Road tracks, which begin at Penn Station in Manhattan, paralleled the highway to my left for a while, then the road and the tracks crossed and diverged again.
There wasn't much traffic at this hour except for a few farm vehicles. It occurred to me that if any of my fellow travelers to Plum Island were on the road, I might see them at some point.
I drove into the village of Greenport, the main metropolis on the North Fork with a population, according to the sign, of 2,100. By comparison, Manhattan Island, where I worked, lived, and almost died, is smaller than the North Fork and has two million people piled on. The police force I work for has thirty thousand men and women, making it bigger than the entire population of Southold Township. Max, as I said, has about forty officers, if you include me and him. Greenport Village actually had its own police force once, about a half dozen guys, but they pissed off the populace somehow and were voted out of existence. I don't think that can happen in New York City, but it's not a bad idea.
Sometimes I think I should get Max to hire me-you know, big-time, big-city gunslinger rides into town, and the local sheriff pins a badge on him and says, 'We need a man with your experience, training, and proven track record,' or something like that. I mean, would I be a big fish in a small pond, or what? Would I have ladies stealing glances at me and dropping their handkerchiefs on the sidewalk, or what?
Back to reality. I was hungry. There are virtually no fast-food chains out here, which is part of the charm of the place, but also a pain in the ass. There are, however, a few convenience stores, and I stopped at one at the edge of Greenport and bought a coffee and a plastic-wrapped sandwich of mystery meat and cheese product. I swear you can eat the shrink wrap and Styrofoam, too, and not notice the difference. I grabbed a free weekly newspaper and had breakfast in the driver's seat. The newspaper, coincidentally, had an article on Plum Island. This is not uncommon as the locals seem very interested in this mist-shrouded island of mystery and all that. Over the years, I'd picked up most of my information about Plum from local sources. Now and then the island made the national news, but it was safe to guess that nine out of ten Americans never heard of the place. That might change real soon.
This article I was now reading had to do with Lyme disease, another obsession of the residents of eastern Long Island and nearby Connecticut. This disease, carried by deer ticks, had assumed plague-like proportions. I knew people who had Lyme; though rarely fatal, it could screw up a year or two of your life. Anyway, the locals were convinced that the disease came from Plum Island and was a bio-warfare experiment that had gotten loose by mistake or something. I would not be overstating if I said the locals would like Plum Island to sink into the sea. In fact, I had this image-like the scene in
Properly fortified, I continued on, still keeping an eye out for my new colleagues.
The next hamlet was East Marion, though there doesn't seem to be a Marion around-I think it's in England, as with a lot of other East' places on Long Island. Southold was once Southwold, after the place in England where a lot of the early settlers came from, but they lost the 'w' in the Atlantic or someplace, or maybe they traded it for a bunch of 'e's.' Who knows? Aunt June, who was a member of the Peconic Historical Society, used to fill my little head with all this crap, and I guess some of it was interesting and some of it stuck, but maybe it stuck sideways.
The land narrowed to the width of a causeway, and there was water on both sides of the road-the Long Island Sound to my left and Orient Harbor to my right. The sky and water were filled with ducks, Canada geese, snowy white egrets, and gulls, which is why I never open the sunroof. I mean, these birds eat prunes or something, then come in like dive-bombers, and they
The land widened again, and I passed through the super-quaint, ye-olde hamlet of Orient, then ten minutes later finally approached Orient Point.
I passed the entrance to Orient Beach State Park and began to slow down.
Up ahead, on the right, I saw a flagpole from which flew the Stars and Stripes at half-mast. I assumed that the flag's position had to do with the Gordons, and therefore the flagpole was on federal property, no doubt the Plum Island ferry station. You can see how a great detective's mind works, even at seven-something a.m. with
