Death Dance (40 page)

"You don't know who he is or what he does or
whether—"

"You said yourself he had a nice face—intelligent
and sensitive."

"So did Ted Bundy have a nice face. You'd better take your
night—cap and go upstairs to bed before you come up with any
other clever ideas."

Joan slept late on Saturday morning while I took my coffee out
on the deck and started reading the draft of her new novel, a
brilliantly perceptive tale of obsession and revenge among
Southamp—ton's toniest social set. It was fun to try to
identify the people she skewered in the book with her witty dialogue
and clever observations. By the time I showered and dressed, Joan had
come down, ready to plan the day.

"It's fabulous. You just nail the whole scene so perfectly."

"Did you finish?"

"Not yet. Why?"

"The legal stuff, the part about the husband changing his
will? I want you to tell me if it's accurate."

"I hope you had some help, Joanie. I haven't touched trusts
and estates since my law school class. It's a really arcane specialty."

"One of the T-and-E partners at Milbank, Tweed talked me
through it. I just wanted to be sure it makes sense to you. Looks like
a glorious day. How about a walk on the beach?"

"I'm game. Grab a sweatshirt from the closet in your room and
take a scarf. The sun feels great but the wind is really kicking up."

The ride to Black Point Beach took half an hour, the slowest
part of the drive on the winding dirt road—full of ruts from
the winter storms—that cut off into the woods and led out to
the private stretch of pristine white sand that bordered the Atlantic
Ocean. There were several cars parked near the walkway across the
wetlands, so we took off our shoes and trekked across the dunes to the
east, our footprints the only trace of activity in that magnificent
meeting place of land and water.

This was the spot I came to whenever I needed my spirit and
strength restored. It had been the favorite place on earth for my
fiance, Adam Nyman. We came here days after his accident to scatter his
ashes, so that he seemed forever a part of this landscape, a vista that
took my breath away each time I visited again.

Joan knew that, and she knew from my stories that the last
time I sat high above the shoreline on this very dune, I had brought
Mike Chapman here to comfort him, to try to console him, after
Valerie's accident. I tried to stop thinking about the cases and
personalities that had occupied all my waking hours during the
week—Talya Galinova, Joe Berk, Ralph Harney, Hubert
Alden—but it was hard to do even in this setting.

I warned Joan to stay on the path, pointing out the poison ivy
to the right and left. We were making small talk, I supposed, as she
tried to distract me from the more serious connections this beach
conjured up in my heart and mind.

"You know who we had dinner with in D.C. last week? Cynthia
Lufkin."

"She's amazing, isn't she."

"Smart."

"Very smart."

"Gorgeous," Joan said, wrapping the scarf around her neck
against the fifteen-mile-an-hour winds whipping off the water.

"Beyond gorgeous. And extremely generous. I'm a huge fan."

"It kills me that on top of all that she's really nice, too.
Don't you hate that?"

"It's a rare combination," I said, laughing at Joan's comment
as I reached the crest of the tallest dune, watching the blue surf
pound against the packed sand.

Joan passed by me and backed down halfway to the beach,
putting up her hands as though to stop me. "Enough about Cynthia. Time
to talk about me. Will you sit?"

"What's going on?" I zipped my sweatshirt and parked myself on
the ground.

"Look, I know what this—this beach—means
to you, and I've got something terribly important to ask you. And it's
the only place in the world I can even raise this question to you,
because it's only here that you can give me an answer and know whether,
emotionally, it's an honest one."

"What are you talking about?"

"How long have Jim and I been engaged? It seems like I've
waited longer than anyone besides Sleeping Beauty to get married,
right? Well, we'd like to do it this summer. And we'd like to do it on
the Vineyard."

"Nothing could make me happier. Are you crazy? What's to ask?
I'll put up some tents just in case of weather, the gardens will be at
their peak, I've got the best caterer. Joanie, I can't think of
anything that would please me more than throwing a wedding for you." I
started to get up to embrace her and she pushed me back down onto the
sand.

"It's not that, Alex. I mean it's not
just
that. Jim and I would like you to marry us."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Prosecutors aren't judges. What are you
thinking?"

"I know you're not a judge. Leave it to Jim to come up with
this. He's done all the research. Did you know that in Massachusetts
all we have to do is make an application to the governor, with a letter
of recommendation and twenty-five bucks, and whoever it is we choose
can be the celebrant of the wedding?"

"I had no idea. I've never heard of such a thing."

"You get a one-day pass, that's all. A cousin of Jim's did it
on Nantucket last year and it was the most divine wedding I've ever
seen. Please tell me you'll do it, Alex? What could be more perfect
than being married by my very best friend? You'll write a personal
little ceremony—"

"You're the writer," I said, searching for excuses.

"Hell, you're the English Lit major. You've written more
summations—longer ones—than half of my stories.
It's not about the writing. It's the intimacy of it, that's what Jim
and I want. We've each been divorced, so religion doesn't seem to be a
big piece of this. We'd just both love to have my best friend celebrate
our vows."

My eyes welled up with tears.

"My dear, dear Alex. I'm not trying to make you cry. We want
you to be part of our joy, of our marriage."

I stood up and this time she let me embrace her. "Don't worry
about the tears, Joanie. I can't think of any greater compliment than
this."

She grasped my elbows and pushed me back. "But you've got to
look at me, Alex. The hardest part of asking you to do this is knowing
what a flood of memories this will open up for you and bring back. It's
inviting you to look in the face of everything that you and Adam were
about to embark on when he was killed. It's your magical hilltop and
your home and—"

"And this time it's your turn, Joanie. I couldn't have faced
this ten years ago, I'm certain, so you're right to be concerned. For a
long time after Adam's death, I didn't go to weddings, not anybody's.
Hell, I couldn't even bear to look at ads for gowns or jewelry or china
in all the magazines. I used to bawl when the Tiffany catalog showed up
in the mail with endless pages of wedding and engagement rings."

She followed me down the dune and to the edge of the sand,
where the bubbles in the surf sat like froth as the waves rolled back
out to sea.

"You never forget, Joan, that's for sure. But all of that pain
is in a different place now," I said, turning to face her. "I never
come home to this island without imagining what it would be like if
Adam was here with me, and I never will. But the memories of being here
with him are wonderful ones, the best ones of my life. And celebrating
your marriage ceremony would be just about the happiest assignment I've
ever had."

"So it's a yes?" she said, walking east toward Quansoo, the
adjacent beach, where we could see people gathered around what looked
to be a giant excavator.

"If you really want to put this event in the hands of an
amateur I guess I'm it."

"Excellent. We've got to figure out what we're wearing. We can
go shopping together for dresses next time I'm in the city."

"What else can I help with?"

Joan's mind was racing now. She'd clearly been holding back
until she raised the issue of the ceremony with me. "We've got to tie
up some rooms at the island inns."

"How many people?"

"You know if it were up to me, it'd be a cast of thousands.
Jim wants it small and cozy. We're somewhere between his forty and my
closest five hundred. Think you can get Mike to come?"

"Joanie. I know what you're thinking."

"You always do."

"He hasn't even started to grapple with Val's death. Mercer
and I are just beginning to draw him back into work again, so give him
time to adjust."

"Give him too much time and some lucky girl will be in there
offering just the right kind of solace."

"I work with him, Joan. I've never had a better partner,
someone I could trust as much as I do Mike. He and Mercer cover my
back, they think with me, they're the very best in the business. If we
take this in a different direction, that entire professional
relationship goes by the boards. You're hopelessly romantic."

"Somebody has to be, don't you think?" she said. "What's going
on up ahead?"

"They must be opening Tisbury Great Pond."

"What do you mean?"

The southern shore of the Vineyard, almost twenty miles of
barrier beach, was dotted by a series of ponds, large and small. "Those
oysters you like so much? They come from that body of water," I said,
running up the nearest dune and pointing out the Great Pond. "A century
ago, the Wampanoags figured out the importance of the moon and the
tidal changes in getting saline water from the ocean into the clam and
oyster beds in here."

"What'd they do?"

"They used to come down here with oxen and dredge an opening
out to the sea. Now the local shellfish constable oversees things. They
use heavy earth-moving equipment to make an artificial channel into the
pond every spring, and a couple of other times a year."

"That's a huge gap they've created."

"Probably sixty, seventy feet across."

"What's everyone looking at?"

"The local newspaper said the opening was supposed to be
yesterday. But it doesn't always take the first time they try. The
Native Americans were so damn smart about the tides." We were side by
side on the dune, staring out at the ocean. "Mesmerizing, isn't it, the
ebb and flow? If it's high tide and you've got a four-foot sea, but the
pond is only three feet high, the water rushes right back in and fills
the trench. The beach tends to heal itself, so it usually takes
twenty-four hours—and a bit more shoveling—to make
sure the gap stays open."

"Wouldn't you like to watch?"

Joan and I walked the last quarter of a mile. The giant black
excavator had blocked from view the rescue vehicle that had lumbered
over the sand to park beside it.

We jogged the last few yards and joined the huddle of men
standing around the small truck, its open back revealing a vinyl body
bag.

"What happened?" I said, recognizing one of the volunteer
firemen from the Chilmark station.

"Some smartass decided to test the waters last night.
Inaugurate the opening of the cut by putting on his wet suit and
bringing his surfboard down to the beach. Got caught in a pretty fierce
rip and disappeared. Rescue crews searched half the night with no luck,
till just about daybreak. He—his body—just got
thrown back up here an hour ago. Nothing to see, Alex," he said, trying
to steer me out of the way. "Nothing left to do but say a prayer."

I
nodded to Joan and we started back over
to Black Point.

"Talk about putting a damper on a lovely afternoon. Don't you
ever feel spooked by this?" she asked me.

"By what?"

"By death, Alex. How death seems to follow you wherever you
go."