Death Dance

30

"I think it's romantic."

"It makes my skin crawl. Creepy, not romantic."

"It's exactly what you get for lying to the guy. Especially, may I add, for using my name and giving me the added delight of mothering four little monsters. I almost asked him to join us for dinner tomorrow night."

"Spare me," I said. The Temptations were singing "I Can't Get Next to You," as I added two logs to the fire and opened the second bottle of wine. "It was a weird thing for the guy to do."

"That's the difference between us. You're always seeing perverts and madmen where I would find adventure and, well, sexiness. Thanks for giving him my name."

"Sexiness?"

"Well, it was a very sexy move. Admit it. To drive all the way up here from Edgartown with flowers for you. Have you forgotten how it's supposed to feel when a guy hits on you? Especially when he's cre-ative about doing it?"

Joan had called the phone number on the note that Bolin left at the door before we sat down for dinner. He had recognized me from the photographs in the paper and the evening news stories after the arrest of the Silk Stocking Rapist several months earlier. He knew I was pulling his leg from the first answer I gave and decided to play with me.

"In my business we call it stalking. Now I'll be up all night worried that the guy might actually find you in the D.C. phone directory. How's that for guilt?"

"You've been in your line of work too long."

"How did he know where I lived? That's not in the book."

"It's a friendly island. He told the kid who pumps gas in Men-emsha that he forgot which driveway was yours and got a very cheerful and accurate set of directions."

"So what did you say to him?"

"That we have a full house this weekend. I promised I'd pass his number along to you and maybe you'd call him next time you're here. It's against my better instincts, Alex. I'd much rather check him out."

"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."