Free Death in Vineyard Waters by Philip Craig Page A

morning and so had missed the action: police cars, coast guard helicopters, the works. John Skye would have phoned me the news, but John and Mattie and the girls had left for Colorado earlier in the week and probably didn’t know anything about it themselves, yet. Zee hadn’t called either; but why should she?
    I got a Molson from the fridge and took it and the paper outside and up onto the balcony, where I could look out on the Sound and watch the sailboats inch toward their night anchorages through the light evening winds. Cars drove silently along the road on the other side of Anthier’s Pond, going to and from Edgartown and Oak Bluffs. Bicyclists moved along the bike path beside the road, and beyond them the bright sails of windsurfers still glided back and forth along the beach; some of the June people were taking advantage of the fine weather and were stretching their beach time as far as they could. They neither knew nor cared that Marjorie Summerharp had just drowned not five miles from where they swam so safely.
    I drank my beer and read the article again. It still contained the same information; I hadn’t missed a thing. I thought it was probably just as well that the people on theboats and beaches knew nothing of the fate of Marjorie Summerharp or of the other dark events of Vineyard life. For them, after all, the Vineyard was a place in the sun, a gold-rimmed green gem set in an azure sea, where they could forget for a time the realities that would confront them soon enough when their vacations ended. They were pleased to live for a time in their summer dreams, and I was not about to deny them that pleasure. Time enough for hard times; no need to seek them out. Time enough to read of the deaths of kings and the ruin of lives.
    I finished my beer and drove down to the new drugstore at the triangle, where the Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs roads split coming out of Edgartown. There are a lot of newly built stores there, and I like them because I can reach them without having to drive through the A & P traffic jam. I bought a copy of the Boston Globe and read its version of the story. Marjorie Summerharp was a well-known figure in higher education circles, and the Globe writers had gotten considerable comment from her colleagues, all of which was tactful and complimentary and expressed regret in the proper tones, but some of which suggested that she had been ill and more than a little depressed over her health and impending retirement.
    A hint of suicide, I took it, although no one actually said that. Marjorie Summerharp in death received mostly rave reviews. I wondered if she would have been amused or irritated by them.
    The next edition of the Gazette referred to the official coroner’s report: death by accidental drowning. A trace of alcohol and sleeping pills was found, but insufficient to cause coma. Another tiny hint of suicide? The Gazette does not emphasize the unpleasant side of local stories when it can help it.
    Marjorie Summerharp had been elderly and not in good health. She had gone swimming at six in the morning as was her custom and apparently simply swam out too far anddrowned before she could get back to shore. That was all. Relatives had taken the body to Maine for burial. Dr. Ian McGregor, greatly upset by the death of his colleague, had concluded his work on the paper he and Dr. Summerharp had been working on and intended to publish it as scheduled in both of their names. The paper would be dedicated to her memory.
    Touching. Annoyed that the word had come into my mind, I examined the photo of him that accompanied the story. Broad shoulders slumped, Apollonian face drawn in sorrow, the picture of formal grief. Behind him, a bit out of focus, stood Zee and the chief of the Edgartown police, both solemn.
    Marjorie Summerharp had been dead for almost a week when I saw the photo, and I had spoken to no one about the matter. I had, however, been reading the Globe every day, looking