Death in the Polka Dot Shoes Read Free Page A

offend. In this case, I knew it would be a long drive back to Washington from Parkers, and after the memorial service I would need the distraction of a good cigar.
    Bucking the tide of people and stumbling down the hill toward me was my father’s best friend and retired Field and Bay Magazine photographer, Mansfield Burlington, a strange but very proper duck who chose Parkers for a home some 40 years ago. He was tall, thin, constantly smoked a pipe, often wore a bow tie, and carried himself with a stiffness sometimes mistaken for aloofness. I once saw a picture of Mansfield in some magazine that showed him with his cameras slung around his neck in Venice, Italy while two pigeons tried to land on his head, apparently confusing him with a Michelangelo statue. There was no explanation for why Field and Bay had sent him to Italy. In fact, Mansfield was quite a warm fellow, a great listener and a craftsman. He could touch a piece of wood and turn it soft and brown, yielding the most beautiful flow of varnished grain imaginable. He could build things.
    â€œNeddie,” he called, “I’m so sorry about your bother. Almost went out on his boat once. How are you?”
    â€œFine Burl,” I said, surprised at first that I even remembered the more familiar nickname, but then remembering that everyone called him Burl. Mansfield was far too formal for daily use, and it sounded so English. In fact, Mansfield Burlington was born in Minnesota, and was Scandinavian. After photographing the world for nearly twenty years, he had a minor fame of his own. Young photographers familiar with his pioneering use of color and a tenacious sense of purpose in getting the right picture, still dropped by his house for pointers. People said he liked the water so much because he descended from Viking warriors. Locals held him in reverence because he had the touch with wood, an almost mystical connection in which he could run his finger lovingly along a strip of walnut and it would become a table. When he started building a skipjack in his barn, people would drop by on Sunday afternoons just to see the progress, like viewing a sculptor in his studio.
    â€œBurl,” I repeated, “did you ever finish that skipjack?”
    â€œYes,” he said with a pleased smile, “rolled her out of the barn at the turn of the century. She’s docked beside the Tonsund. Come see her.” The Tonsund was a forty-foot sail boat named for Mansfield’s Sherpa who had guided him safely up some Tibetan mountain more than thirty years before. Not insignificantly, Mansfield had saved Ton-sund’s life on the way down by amputating his frozen toes with a pen knife. For a fellow with such formal bearing, Mansfield made the deepest and most lasting friendships.
    â€œSorry about your brother,” Mansfield said. “A good man. Knew the water.”
    He stopped to light his pipe, stepping back to avoid a falling ash that just missed his tweed coat. It was a knarled old pipe, black around the bowl from countless flames and as natural as the bark of an oak tree. He had fondled the briar, leaving so much oil and sweat on the bowl that it looked almost soft, like fine leather.
    â€œToo bad he got wrapped around that Resort,” Mansfield said as the flame from his match died out.
    I picked up on that immediately, knowing nothing about any resort. “What Resort?”
    â€œOh, you haven’t heard about the big fight,” Mansfield said, almost with excitement. “They’re trying to build a hundred acre resort right here on the Jenkins. We call it the hijenks project,” Mansfield said. “Going to ruin the crabs. Pollute this whole Bay.”
    â€œAre you involved, Burl?” I asked. “Environmentalists up in arms?”
    â€œWe’re doing what we can,” he said. “It’s the future of the Bay. No more skipjacks.”
    Mansfield started building his skipjack when I was in high school,