Nelson DeMille - Plum Island

"Why did they want that land?"

"I don't know… It never made sense to me."

"Did Fredric know about the Gordons' buying that land?"

"Yes." She changed the subject to the immediate environs and said, "There's the original Whitestone house. Sixteen eighty-five."

"Still in the family?"

"No, but I'm going to buy it back." She added, "Fredric was supposed to help me out, but… That's when I realized he wasn't as well off as he appeared."

I didn't comment.

Like Nassau Point, Hog Neck was mostly cottages and some newer weekend homes, many of them gray-shingled to look like ye olde. There were some fields that Emma said had been common pastureland since colonial times, and there were woods here and there. I asked, "Are the Indians friendly?"

"There are no Indians."

"All gone?"

"All gone."

"Except the ones in Connecticut who opened the biggest casino complex between here and Las Vegas."

She said, "I have some Native American blood."

"Really?"

"Really. A lot of the old families do, but they're not advertising it. Some people come to me actually wanting to expunge relatives from the archives."

"Incredible." I knew there was a politically correct thing to say, but every time I try to do PC, I blow it. I mean, it changes, like weekly. I played it safe with, "Racist."

"Racial, though not necessarily racist. Anyway, I don't care who knows I have Indian blood. My maternal great-grandmother was a Corchaug."

"Well, you have nice color."

"Thanks."

We approached this big white clapboard building set on a few acres of treed land. I actually recalled seeing the place once or twice, when I was a kid. I have these childhood memories of places in my mind, still-life summer scenes, sort of like looking at slides through a viewfinder. I said to Ms. Whitestone, "I think I ate here with my family when I was a wee lad."

"Quite possible. It's two hundred years old. How old are you?"

I ignored this and asked, "How's the food?"

"Depends." She added, "It's a nice setting, and off the beaten path. No one will see us, and no one will gossip."

"Good thinking." I pulled into the gravel driveway, parked, and opened my door a crack with the engine still running. A tiny little bell chimed and the schematic of my vehicle showed a door ajar. I said, "Hey, you killed the voice."

"We don't want your ex-wife's voice annoying you."

We got out of the vehicle and walked toward the inn. She took my arm, which surprised me. She asked, "When do you get off duty?"

"Now."

Lunch was pleasant enough. The place was nearly empty and had undergone a recent restoration, so if you let your imagination go, it was 1784 and Mad Anthony Wayne was stomping around ordering grog, whatever that is.

The food was basic American? nothing tricky, which appeals to my carnivorous tastes, and Ms. Emma Whitestone turned out to be a basic American girl, nothing tricky, which likewise appealed to my carnivorous tastes.

We didn't discuss the murders, or Lord Tobm, or anything unpleasant. She was really into history, and I was fascinated by what she was saying. Well, not really, but history coming from Emma Whitestone's breathy mouth was not too hard to take.

She went on about the Reverend Youngs, who led his flock here from Connecticut in 1640, and I wondered aloud if they took the New London ferry, which got me a cool look. She mentioned Captain Kidd and lesser-known pirates who sailed these waters three hundred years ago, then told me about the Hortons of lighthouse fame, one of which built this very inn. And then there was the Revolutionary War General, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, after whom, she said, East Marion was named, even though I argued there was probably a town called Marion in England. But she knew her stuff. She told me about the Underbills, the Tuthills, and a little about the Whitestones, who were actually Mayflower Pilgrims, and about people with first names like Abijah, Chauncey, Ichabod, and Barnabas, not to mention Joshua, Samuel, and Isaac, who weren't even Jewish. And so on.

Ping ! Whereas Paul Stevens had bored me senseless with his computer-generated voice, Emma Whitestone had me bewitched with her sort of aspirating tones, not to mention her gray-green eyes. Anyway, the net result was the same — I'd heard something that caused a delayed reaction in my usually awake brain. Ping ! I listened for her to say it again, whatever it was, and I tried to recall what it was and why I thought it was significant. But to no avail. This time, however, I knew it was on the tip of my brain, and I knew I'd have it out very soon. Ping !

I said to her, "I feel the presence of Mad Anthony Wayne here."

"Do you? Tell me about it."

"Well, he's sitting at that table by the window, and he's been sneaking glances at you. He's giving me dirty looks. He's mumbling to himself, 'What hath he got that I haveth not?'"

She smiled. "You're crazy."

"Haveth not got? Or goteth not?"

"I'll teach you eighteenth-century English if you stop being a jerk."

"I thank thee."

Well, before we knew it, it was three p.m. and the waiter was getting antsy. I hate to interrupt the flow and energy of a case to chase panties — delectus interruptus . It's a fact that the first seventy-two hours of a case are the most critical. But a fella has to answer certain biological calls, and my bells were ringing.

I said, "If you have time, we can take a spin in my boat."

"You have a boat?"

Actually, I didn't, so this might not have been a good line. But I had waterfront property and a dock, so I could say the boat sank. I said, "I'm staying at my uncle's place. A farm bay estate."

"Bay farm estate."

"Right. Let's go."

We left the General Wayne Inn and drove toward my place, which is about twenty minutes west of Hog Neck.

As we traveled west along Main Road,'she informed me, "This used to be called King's Highway. They changed the name after the Revolution."

"Good idea."

"Funny thing is that my alma mater, Columbia University, was called Kings College, and they also changed it after the Revolution."

"I'll tell ya, if we have another revolution, there are a lot of names I'd like to change."

"Such as?"

"Well, first, East Seventy-second Street where my condo is. I'd like to call it Cherry Lane. Sounds nicer." I continued, "Then there's my ex-wife's cat, Snowball — I'd like to change his name to Dead Cat." I went on with a few more name changes, come the revolution.

She sort of interrupted by asking me, "Do you like it out here?"

"I think so. I mean, it's nice, but I'm not sure I fit."

She informed me, "There are a lot of eccentrics out here."

"I'm not eccentric. I'm nuts."

"There are a lot of those, too." She added, "This is no rural backwater. I know farmers with Ivy League degrees, I know astronomers from the Custer Institute, and there are the vintners who studied in France, and the scientists from Plum Island and Brookhaven labs, plus academics from Stony Brook University, artists, poets, writers, and — "

"Archivists."

"Yes. I get annoyed when people from the city think we're hicks."

"I certainly don't think that."

"I lived in Manhattan for nine years. I got tired of the city. I missed my home."

"I sensed a certain city sophistication about you, coupled with a country charm. You're in the right place."

"Thank you."

I think I passed one of the more important tests on my way to the sack.

We were driving through farm and wine country now, and she said, "The autumn is long and lazy here. The orchards are still heavy with fruit and many of the vegetables haven't been picked yet. It can be snowing in New England around Thanksgiving, and we're still harvesting here ." She asked me, "Am I rambling on?"