Plum Island

by Nelson DeMille

  Emma nodded. “And that’s why the Gordons bought that land from Mrs. Wiley—a place to rebury the treasure … Captain Kidd’s Ledges.”

  “That’s right. Does it make sense to you or am I crazy?”

  “You’re crazy, yet it makes sense.”

  I ignored this and continued, “If there’s ten or twenty million bucks at stake, you do it right. You take your time, you cover your tracks before anyone even knows you’re making tracks, you anticipate problems with historians, archaeologists, and the government. You’re going to be not only rich, you’re going to be famous, and you’re going to be in the spotlight for better or worse. You’re young, handsome, bright, and in the money. And you don’t want any problems.”

  She stayed silent awhile, then said, “But something went wrong.”

  “It must have—they’re dead.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while. I now had a lot of answers, and I still had a lot more questions. Some of them might never be answered, since Tom and Judy Gordon, like William Kidd, had taken some secrets to the grave with them.

  Emma finally asked me, “Who do you think killed them?”

  “Probably their partner or partners.”

  “I know … but who?”

  “I don’t know yet. Do you have any suspects in mind?” She shook her head, but I think she had a suspect in mind. I’d confided a lot of information to Emma Whitestone, who I really didn’t know. But I have a good sense of who to trust. On the chance that I’d misjudged, that she was part of the plot, then it didn’t matter because she knew all of this anyway. And if she went and told Fredric Tobin or someone else that I’d figured it out, so much the better. Fredric Tobin lived very high in the tower, and it would take a lot of smoke to reach him up there. And if someone else were involved that I didn’t know about, then the smoke might reach him or her, too. There comes a time in an investigation where you just let it rip. Especially when time is running out.

  I pondered my next question, then decided to go for broke. I said to her, “I understand that some people from the Peconic Historical Society were on Plum Island to do a survey of possible digs.”

  She nodded.

  “Was Fredric Tobin one of those people?”

  She actually hesitated, which I guess was out of an old habit of loyalty. Finally, she said, “Yes. He was on the island once.”

  “With the Gordons as guides?”

  “Yes.” She looked at me and asked, “Do you think … I mean … ?”

  I said to her, “I can speculate about motive and method, but I never speculate out loud about suspects.” I added, “It’s important that you keep all of this to yourself.”

  She nodded.

  I looked at Emma. She seemed to be what she appeared to be—an honest, intelligent, and pleasantly crazy woman. I liked her. I took her hand, and we played hand squeezies.

  I said, “Thank you for your time and knowledge.”

  “It was fun.”

  I nodded. My mind went back to William Kidd. I said, “So they hanged him?”

  “They did. They kept him in chains in England for more than a year before he was tried at Old Bailey. He was allowed no legal counsel, no witnesses, and no evidence. He was found guilty and hanged at Execution Dock on the Thames. His body was covered with tar and hung in chains as a warning to passing seamen. Crows ate the rotting flesh for months.”

  I stood. “Let’s get that drink.”

  CHAPTER 23

  I needed a major pasta fix so I suggested dinner at Claudio’s and Emma agreed.

  Claudio’s is in Greenport, which as I said has a population of about two thousand, which is fewer than the number of people in my condo building.

  We traveled east along Main Road. It was about seven P.M. when we entered the village, and it was getting dark.

  The village itself is not as quaint or ye olde as the hamlets; it was, and still is, a working port and a commercial fishing town. There has been some gentrification in recent years, boutiques, trendy restaurants, and all that, but Claudio’s remains pretty much the same as it was when I was a kid. At a time where there were very few places to dine on the North Fork, there was Claudio’s, sitting on the bay at the end of Main Street, near the wharf, just as it had been since the last century.

  I parked, and we walked out on the long wharf. A big, old three-master was permanently moored at the wharf, and there was a clam bar nearby, people strolling, and a few motor vessels tied up whose passengers were probably in Claudio’s. It was another nice evening, and I commented on the fair weather.

  Emma said, “There’s a tropical depression forming in the Caribbean.”

  “Would Prozac help?”

  “A baby hurricane.”

  “Oh, right.” Like a baby lion. Hurricanes were nice to watch in your condo in Manhattan. They weren’t nice out on this spit of land less than fifty feet above sea level. I remembered an August hurricane out here when I was a kid. It started as fun, then got scary.

  So, we strolled, we talked. There’s an excitement in the early stages of a relationship—like the first three days— after that, you sometimes realize you don’t like each other. It’s usually something the other person says, like, “I hope you’re a cat lover.”

  But with Emma Whitestone, so far, so good. She seemed to enjoy my company, too. In fact, she said, “I enjoy being with you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, you’re not like most of the men I date—all they want to do is hear about me, talk about me, discuss art, politics, and philosophy, and get my opinion on everything. You’re different. You just want sex.”

  I laughed.

  She took my arm, and we walked to the end of the wharf and watched the boats.

  She said, “I was thinking … if Tom and Judy had lived, and they announced that they’d found this fabulous treasure—a pirate’s treasure, Kidd’s treasure—then the newspeople would have been all over the place, like they were when the Gordons were murdered. They were all over Southold asking questions of people on the street, filming Main Street, and all that.”

  “That’s what they do.”

  “So, it’s ironic that they were here to report the murders of the Gordons instead of their fortune.”

  I nodded. “Interesting observation.”

  “I wonder if the newspeople would have come to the Peconic Historical Society for the treasure story.”

  “Probably.”

  She said, “You know, as I was saying before, there used to be treasure-hunting frenzies. As recently as the 1930s— the Depression—and right into the late 1950s, Kidd-mania would sweep over this area, usually started by some stupid rumor, or some minor find of coins on the beach. People would come from all over and start digging up the beaches, bluffs, the woods … that hasn’t happened in a while…. Maybe times have changed.” She asked me, “Did you play pirate when you were a kid?”

  “I was thinking about that…. I remember now hearing about pirates out here when I was a kid. But not too much….” I added, “My aunt was a little more sophisticated. She was into Indians before Indians were in.”

  “My family was into the early settlers and the Revolution. I do remember talk of pirates…. I have an older brother, and I remember him playing pirates once or twice with his friends. I guess it was a boy thing. Like cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians.”

  “I guess. Now they play narc and dealer.” I added, “But there was this kid—no pun intended—up in Captain Kidd Estates.” I told Emma the story of Billy the treasure hunter.

  She commented, “It comes in circles. Maybe pirates are in again.” She asked me, “Did you ever read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island?”

  “Sure did. And Poe’s ‘The Gold Bug.’ Remember that dumb clue with a sketch of a goat—baby goat—a kid. Get it?”

  “Got it. Did you ever read Washington Irving’s Wolfert Webber?”

  “Never heard of that one.”

  “A terrific pirate story,” she informe
d me. She smiled and asked me, “Did you ever see any of those old swash-buckler movies from the 1930s and 1940s?”

  “Loved ’em.”

  She said, “You know, the English language has few words more intriguing and romantic than words like pirate, buried treasure, galleon … what else?”

  “Swashbuckler. I like that one.”

  “How about the Spanish Main?”

  “Right. Whatever that is.”

  And so, standing on the wharf near this big, old three-master, with the sun setting, we played this silly word game, coming up with words and phrases like buccaneers, doubloons, cutlasses, eye patches, peg legs, parrots, walking the plank, desert islands, booty, plunder, pillage, the Jolly Roger, treasure maps, treasure chests, X marks the spot, and—scraping the bottom of the rum barrel—phrases like, “Shiver me timbers” and “Ahoy, me hardies.” We both laughed, and I said, “I like you.”

  “Of course you do.”

  We walked back along the wharf toward Claudio’s, actually holding hands, which I hadn’t done in a long time.

  Claudio’s was busy for a weeknight, and we sat at the bar and had a drink while a table was readied.

  As I said, this is an old place, built in 1830, and claims to be the oldest restaurant in America that has been run continuously by the same family—the Claudios, since 1870. My family had trouble sharing the kitchen and bathroom every morning; I couldn’t imagine doing it for a hundred and thirty years.

  Anyway, according to what a bartender told me, the building was once an inn when Greenport was a whaling port, and the bar where Emma and I sat was transported here by barge from Manhattan in eighteen-eighty-something.

  The bar and the shelves behind it are all mahogany, etched glass, and Italian marble, and it’s vaguely foreign and exotic with none of the ye olde colonial look that’s more common in this area. In here, I can imagine I’m back in Manhattan, especially when I smell the Italian food from the restaurant side. Sometimes I miss Manhattan and places like Little Italy, where the Feast of San Gennaro was right now in progress, for instance. If I was back in New York City, Dom Fanelli and I would be down on Mulberry Street this very night, stuffing our faces at each outdoor food stand and ending the evening in some coffeehouse. Clearly, I had some decisions to make about my future.

  Emma asked for a white wine and the bartender said to her, “We have six different local whites by the glass. Any preference?”

  “Yes … Pindar,” she replied.

  That’s my girl. Loyal and true. Won’t drink her ex-lover’s wine in front of the new beau. I’ll tell you, the older you get, the more baggage you have to carry, and the less you’re able to lift it.

  I ordered a Budweiser, and we clinked glasses. I said, “Thanks again for everything.”

  “What historical lesson did you most enjoy?”

  “The history of the feather bed.”

  “Me, too.”

  And so forth.

  On the walls were lots of memorabilia, black and white photos of the Claudio ancestors, old photos of past sailing races, old Greenport scenes, and so on. I like old restaurants—they’re sort of living museums where you can get a beer.

  It was also in Claudio’s, back in June, where I’d first met the Gordons, which is one of the reasons I’d wanted to come here, aside from my stomach demanding red sauce. Sometimes it’s good to physically return to a particular scene when you want to recall something that happened there.

  I found myself remembering my parents, my brother and sister, sitting at these tables, discussing the day’s activities and planning the next day. I hadn’t thought about that in years.

  Anyway, I left my childhood memories, which are better recalled on a shrink’s couch, and I put my mind back into June of this year.

  I’d come here, to the bar, because it was one of the few places I knew. I recall still feeling a little shaky, but there’s nothing like a bar and a beer to buck a boy up.

  I ordered my usual cocktail, a Bud, and immediately noticed this very attractive woman a few stools down. It was pre–tourist season, early weeknight, raining, and there weren’t many people at the bar. I made eye contact with her. She sort of smiled, and I moved in. “Hi,” I said.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “My name is John Corey.”

  “Judy Gordon.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, except for my husband, who’s in the men’s room.”

  “Oh….” I now noticed the wedding ring. Why can’t I remember to look for the wedding ring? Well, but even if she’s married, and she’s alone—but I digress. I said, “I’ll go get him for you.”

  She smiled and said, “Don’t run off.”

  I was in love, but I gallantly said, “See you around.” I was about to move back to my original bar stool when Tom showed up, and Judy introduced me.

  I excused myself, but Tom said, “Have another beer.”

  I’d noticed they both had these sort of out-there accents, and I figured they were early tourists or something. They had none of the New York abruptness I was used to. Like the joke goes, the guy from the Midwest goes up to a New Yorker on the street and says, “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me how to get to the Empire State Building, or should I just go fuck myself?”

  Anyway, I didn’t want to have a drink with them, feeling awkward, I guess, that I’d tried to pick up his wife and all that, but for some reason that I’ll never completely understand, I decided to have one drink with them.

  Well, I can be taciturn, but these were such open people that before long, I’d told them about my recent misfortune, and they both remembered seeing the story on TV. I was a celebrity to them.

  They mentioned they worked on Plum Island, which I found interesting, and that they’d come directly here from work by boat, which I also found interesting. Tom had invited me to see the boat, but I put it off, not being that interested in boats.

  It came out that I had a house on the water, and that’s when Tom asked me where it was and to describe it from the water so he could visit. I did, and to my surprise, he and Judy had actually shown up a week later.

  Anyway, we all got along very well in Claudio’s, and an hour later, we were having dinner together. That had been about three months ago, not a very long time, but I felt I knew them well. I was finding out, however, that there were things about them I didn’t know.

  Emma said, “Hello? John?”

  “Sorry. I was thinking about the first time I met the Gordons. Right here at this bar.”

  “Really?” She asked me, “Areyouveryupsetabout…?”

  “I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed their company.” I added, “I’m taking this a little more personally than I thought I would.”

  She nodded. We chatted about this and that. It occurred to me that if she were in cahoots with the killer, or was in any way part of the plot, she’d try to pump me a little. But she seemed to want to avoid the whole subject, which was fine with me.

  Our table was ready, and we went to this sort of enclosed patio that looked out toward the bay. It was getting noticeably colder, and I was sorry to see summer coming to an end. I had tasted my own mortality—literally tasted it when my blood came running out of my mouth—and I suppose the shorter days and the chilly wind reminded me of the fact that my summer was over, that little Johnny, who’d been so bug-eyed over the musket ball, had finally grown up as he lay in the gutter of West 102nd Street, with three musket ball holes in him.

  America is a country of second and third chances, a place of multiple resuscitations, so that, given enough retakes, only a total idiot can’t eventually get it right.

  Emma said, “You seem distracted.”

  “I’m trying to decide if I want to start with the fried calamari or the scungili.”

  “Fried is not good for you.”

  “Do you miss the city?” I asked her.

  “Now and then. I miss the anonymity. Here, everyone knows who you’re sleeping with.”


  “I suppose so, if you parade all your boyfriends in front of your employees.”

  She asked me, “Do you miss the city?”

  “I don’t know…. I won’t know till I get back.” I excused myself, saying, “I have to go to the potty.” I went to my car and got the potty, which I brought back in the gift bag.

  I put the bag down in front of her, and she asked, “Is that for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, John, you didn’t have to … Should I open it now?”

  “Please.”

  She reached inside the bag and pulled out the pot, which was swathed in pink tissue paper. “What is … ?”

  I had this sudden panic attack. What if the old bird in the antique store was wrong? What if she’d confused Emma Whitestone with someone else? “Wait,” I said, “maybe you shouldn’t open it—”

  Other diners were looking now, curious, nosy, smiling.

  Emma unfolded the tissue paper, revealing the white chamber pot with pink roses. She held it up by its jug handle.

  A gasp arose from the crowd. Or at least it sounded that way. Someone laughed.

  Emma said, “Oh, John! It’s beautiful. How did you know?”

  “I’m a detective.” Aw, shucks.

  She admired the chamber pot, turning it, looking at the potter’s mark and all that.

  The waiter came by and said, “There are rest rooms in the rear if you’d prefer.”

  Well, anyway, we all got a nice chuckle, and Emma said she’d plant miniature roses in it, and I said that would definitely keep people from sitting on it, and so forth. We ran out of potty humor and ordered dinner.

  We had a pleasant meal, talking and watching the harbor. She asked me if I’d like her to spend the night again, which I did. She opened her purse and pulled out a toothbrush and a pair of panties. She said, “I’m prepared.”