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.
Emrna 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?"