On my left, about a mile away to the north, I could see where the flat tillable land suddenly rose up, like a wall, so steep it couldn't be farmed, and the slope was covered with trees and bush. This was, in fact, the bluff whose north slope fell into the sea, but from here, you couldn'tsee the water, and the sharp rise appeared to be a range of low hills.
Mrs. Wiley had a heavy foot, and we scooted past tractors and pickup trucks.
A sign told us we were in the hamlet of Peconic. There were a good number of vineyards on both sides of the road, all identified by wooden signs with gilded and lacquered logos, very upscale, promising expensive wines. I said to Beth, "Potato vodka. That's it. I need only twenty acres and a still. Corey and Krumpinski, fine potato vodka, natural and flavored. I'll get Martha Stewart to do cookbooks and suggested accompaniments to the vodka-clams, scallops, oysters. Very upscale. What do you think?"
"Who's Krumpinski?"
"I don't know. A guy. Polish vodka. Stanley Krumpinski. He's a marketing creation. He sits on his porch and says cryptic things about vodka. He's ninety-five years old. His twin brother, Stephen, was a wine drinker and died at thirty-five. Yes? No?"
"Let me think about it. Meanwhile, the overpriced acre seems more odd when you consider the Gordons could have had the same acre on a lease for a thousand dollars. Is this relevant to the murders or not?"
"Maybe. On the other hand, it could be nothing more than bad judgment on the Gordons' part, or even a land scam." I said, "The Gordons could have figured out a way to reverse the sale of the development rights. Therefore, they have a waterfront acre for twenty-five Gs that as a building plot is worth maybe a hundred. Neat profit."
She nodded. "I'll talk to the county clerk about comparative sale prices." She glanced at me as she drove and said, "You have formed another theory, obviously."
"Maybe. Not obviously."
She stayed silent awhile, then said, "They needed to own the land. Right? Why? Development? Right of way? Some big state park project in the works? Oil, gas, coal, diamonds, rubies…? What?"
"There are no minerals on Long Island, no precious metals, no gems. Just sand, clay, and rock. Even I know that."
"Right… but you're on to something."
"Not anything specific. I have this like… feeling… like I know what's relevant and what's not, sort of like one of those image association tests. You know? You see four pictures-a bird, a bee, a bear, and a toilet bowl. Which one doesn't belong?"
"The bear."
"The bear? Why the bear?"
"It doesn't fly."
"The toilet bowl doesn't fly either," I pointed out.
"Then the bear and the toilet bowl don't belong."
"You're not… Anyway, I can sense what belongs in the sequence and what doesn't."
"Is this like the pings?"
"Sort of."
Mrs. Wiley's brake lights went on, and she swung off the highway onto a dirt farm road. Beth, not paying attention, almost missed the turn and two-wheeled it behind Margaret.
We headed north, toward the bluffs on the dirt road that ran between a potato field to the left and a vineyard to the right. We bumped along at about thirty miles an hour, dust flying up all over the place, and I could actually taste it on my tongue. I rolled up my window and told Beth to do the same.
She did and said, apropos of nothing, "We're approaching toidytoid and toid."
"I do not speak with that kind of accent. I do not find that amusing."
"I hear ya."
Mrs. Wiley swung off onto a smaller rutted track that ran parallel to the bluff, which was only about fifty yards away now. After a few hundred yards, she stopped in the middle of the track, and Beth pulled up behind her.
Mrs. Wiley got out, and we followed suit. We were covered with dust and so was the car, inside and out.
We approached Mrs. Wiley, who was standing at the base of the bluff. She said, "Hasn't rained in two weeks. The grape growers like it that way this time of year. They say it makes the grape sweeter, less watery. Ready for harvest."
I was brushing dust off my T-shirt and eyebrows and really didn't give a damn.
Mrs. Wiley went on, "The potatoes don't need the rain either this time of year. But the vegetables and fruit trees could use a good soaking."
I really, really didn't care, but I didn't know how to convey this without sounding rude. I said, "I guess some folks are praying for ram, and some are praying for sun. That's life."
She looked at me and said, "You're not from around here, are you?"
No, ma'am. But my uncle has a place here. Harry Bonner. My mother's brother. Has a farm bay estate down in Mattituck. Or is it a bay farm estate? Anyway-"
"Oh, yes. His wife, June, passed away about the same time as my Thad."
"That would be about right." I wasn't totally blown away that Margaret Wiley knew Uncle Harry-I mean, the full-time population out here is, as I said, about twenty thousand, which is five thousand fewer people than work in the Empire State Building. I don't mean that all twenty-five thousand people who work in the Empire State Building know one another, but-anyway, Margaret and, I guess, the late Thad Wiley knew Harry and the late June Bonner. I had this bizarre thought that I'd get Margaret and crazy Harry together, they'd marry, she'd die, Harry would die, and leave me thousands of acres of North Fork real estate. I'd have to first bump off my cousins, of course. This sounded a little too Shakespearean. I had the strong feeling I'd been out here too long in the seventeenth century,
"John? Mrs. Wiley is speaking to you."
"Oh, sorry. I was badly wounded, and I have some residual consciousness lapses."
"You look awful," Mrs. Wiley informed me.
"Thank you."
"I was saying, how is your uncle?"
"Very fine. He's back in the city. Makes a lot of money on Wall Street. But very lonely since Aunt June died."
"Give him my regards."
"I will."
"Your aunt was a fine woman." She said it with that inflection that means, "How'd she get such a dork of a nephew?"
Margaret continued, "June was a good amateur archaeologist and historian."
"Right. Peconic Historical Society. Are you a member?"
"Yes. That's how I met June. Your uncle was not interested, but he did finance a few digs. We excavated the foundation of a farmhouse that dated to 1681. You ought to see our museum if you haven't."
"In fact, I was going to see it today, but this other thing came up."
"We're only open weekends after Labor Day. But I have a key."
"I'll give you a call." I looked up at the bluff rising out of the flat earth. I asked Mrs. W, "Is this the Gordons' land?"
"Yes. You see that stake over there? That's the southwest corner. Down the trail here about a hundred yards is the southeast corner. The land starts here and rises to the top of the bluff, then down the other side, and ends at the high-water mark."
"Really? Doesn't sound too accurate."
"Accurate enough. It's custom and law. High-water mark. The beach belongs to everyone."
"That's why I love this country."
"Do you?"
"Absolutely."
She looked at me and said, "I'm a Daughter of the American Revolution."
"I thought you might be."
"My family, the Willises, have been here in this township since 1653."
"My goodness."
"They came to Massachusetts on the ship after the Mayflower, the Fortune. Then they came here to Long Island."
"Incredible. You just missed being a Mayflower descendant."
She replied, "I'm a Fortune descendant." She looked around, and I followed her gaze. South of us stretched the potato field to the right and the vineyard to the left. She said, "It's hard to imagine what life was like in the sixteen hundreds. Thousands of miles from England, woods where those fields are now, cleared by ax and ox, unknown climate, unknown soil, few domestic animals, an unreliable source of clothing, tools, seed, gunpowder, and musket balls, and hostile Indians all around."