A Case of Vineyard Poison Read Online Free PDF Page B

said Peter Dennison. He reached a thin arm across in front of the woman and shook my hand. He looked tall and lanky, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. “We came to get the moped. It belonged to Kathy. We’ll have to see what her family wants to do with it.” His eyes floated past me. “Nice garden.”
    â€œThe police have the moped,” I said.
    My voice went right past Beth Goodwin. “Peter has a garden, too,” she said, in that awkward way that people have when they don’t know what they should be saying.
    â€œI’m sorry about your friend,” I said. “Do they know yet what happened?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I just can’t imagine! She was never sick. Then to have this happen. It’s awful to have to tell people. We had to tell the Katama Caterers. That’s where she worked, you know. And think of her parents, and poor Gordy, and the others. How they must feel . . .”
    Peter Dennison shook his head. “She was the healthiest person I knew.”
    â€œI imagine they’ll do tests,” said the woman vaguely, her voice trailing off.
    Peter Dennison took a deep breath. “If the police already have the moped, we’d better get going,” he said apologetically.
    I stepped back. “I am sorry about your friend,” I said again. “And, yes, they will do tests, but I don’t know if they’ll do them here or on the mainland, so it may take some time before they know the results.”
    â€œI’ve told the police that I want to know,” said Beth Goodwin.
    â€œI’m sure they’ll tell you.”
    The pickup drove away. It had New Jersey plates, and there was an NYU sticker on the rear window. It looked as if the three of them had come up from school together to work on the island for the summer. But as someone said, life is what happens when you plan something else.
    Life is also what keeps going on for the rest of us after it’s stopped for the Katherine Ellises, so I went back and finished my morning’s work in the garden. I had flowers along the front and back fences, next to the house, and in hanging pots suspended from tree limbs beside some of the bird feeders. My veggies were in raised beds inside of old railroad ties that I’d had hauled down from America. A long time back, the Vineyard had its own railroad, but those ties had rotted long ago. The Depot gas station in Edgartown is a memory of the old railroad line, and occasionally people still come across rusty railroad spikes.
    I had a lot of fledgling weeds that were planning to seize control of my flowers and veggies. If you could find a commercial use for weeds, you could make a fortune. They grow when you want to grow other things and they grow when you don’t want to grow other things. When you fertilize your veggies and flowers, you fertilize your weeds, too. There is a moral in this weed lore, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was. I weeded until my weeding capacity was all used up, then had a beer.
    It was a beautiful day. Katherine Ellis would have loved it. I pushed her away from me. If I had never heard of her, or if I’d only read about her death, she’d be just as dead, but I wouldn’t feel this way. It was because I’d seen her and because she’d died on my land that she was on my mind.
    I put together a sandwich and washed it down with another beer while I listened to a tape of Ricky Scaggs singing about troubles with women. Ricky sang well, but he seemed to have even more problems than I did, so he didn’t cheer me up too much. When Ricky was done and the sandwich was gone, I was wishing that Zee was with me. But she wasn’t, and I had company coming, so I got my small basket and rubber gloves and went clamming.
    Normally, I like clamming whether I’m with company or alone. With company, I can clam and talk at the same time; alone, I can clam and think about