A Fatal Vineyard Season Read Free

true that people who live on the rough edges of society are those most susceptible to violence. Most of it is done by them and to them, and they can’t seem to help themselves. Jesus said the poor will always be among us; so, too, will life’s losers.
    But not all killings involve them. Some involve people like the Crandels. And me.
    When I’d opened the Crandel house the previous spring, I’d doubted if an ancient faucet in a little bathroom off the Crandel kitchen would last the summer and had so told Betsy Crandel, the matriarch of the clan, when she’d called me in May to tell me when they’d be getting down to the island.
    Ever cozy with a dollar, which might partially explainwhy the Crandels had so many of them, she had said they’d see how long it would last. And, in fact, it had lasted all summer. But in early September, a couple of weeks before the Derby was scheduled to begin, I got another call from Betsy Crandel.
    She told me that the faucet was definitely on its last legs and had to be replaced, that she and Stanley were going to Switzerland for the rest of the fall and wouldn’t be back on the Vineyard until spring, but that their niece Julia and her friend Ivy Holiday would be arriving in a week or so and would be using the house for a while, after which I could close it up for the winter.
    Ivy Holiday, eh? That was interesting. Julia Crandel, I recalled, was the current actress in the family.
    â€œI’ll order another faucet,” I said, “but it’ll take a few days to get here.”
    â€œThat’s fine, J.W.,” said Betsy. “When it comes in, you just install it. I’ll tell the girls you’re coming, so they’ll be expecting you. How was your summer?”
    â€œWe’ve been trying to learn how to be parents to two kids instead of just one, and so far we’re finding out that it’s a lot different.”
    â€œThat’s wonderful! There is nothing like a family!”
    Women are quite capable of discussing and watching children for hours at a time. Betsy was no exception, so I changed the subject before she got going on the joys and tribulations of her decades of parenting.
    â€œI think Zee met Ivy Holiday when she was out in California. Isn’t Ivy the one who caused such a stir at the Academy Awards ceremony?”
    â€œOh, you saw that, did you? Some people were scandalized!” Betsy herself sounded more amused than scandalized.
    Actually, I hadn’t seen the show, but it had been greatly commented upon in the papers for the next several days, and Zee had followed the stories with interest.
    â€œI read about it,” I said.
    â€œTaking off her blouse like that,” said Betsy with a laugh. “My, my! She’s certainly political!”
    The scandal was that Ivy Holiday, who had just handed out the Best Supporting Actress award, had then taken control of the microphone to rage against the exploitation of women as sex objects in films and, to make her argument more dramatic, had shed her upper garments in front of a TV audience of millions before walking bare breasted off the stage, chin held high.
    A lot of humor and pious talk about moral standards had resulted from Ivy’s performance, but not much had changed with regard to moviemakers treating women as sex objects. My own response had been mild interest in the question of just how Ivy’s bared bosom was intended to serve as a repudiation of the exploitation of women in films. But then I never did have much of a grasp of symbolism.
    Anyway, Ivy was now coming to the Vineyard. Zee would be pleased to hear it. She and Ivy had met and apparently hit it off well during Zee’s brief visit to Hollywood as an actress.
    The precise extent of Zee’s own time on the silver screen was supposed to be soon revealed to us because Island of Emeralds, the movie that had been partially filmed on the Vineyard, and in which Zee had a whole line of