A Case of Vineyard Poison by Philip R. Craig

me everything.”
    David Greenstein got up and started helping.
    â€œYou don’t need to do that,” said Zee. “You’re guests.”
    â€œYes they do,” I said. “If we’re going to get down the beach before noon, we’ve got to get started.”
    â€œI used to do this all the time when I was living in Evanston,” said David Greenstein. “If I had time to cook these days, I’d still do it.” He piled plates on plates, and hooked fingers through the handles of coffee cups, and headed for the kitchen, followed by Quinn.
    We were in the Land Cruiser driving south before Quinn got back to the issue of Zee’s fleeting riches. While we crawled through the A & P traffic jam, she told him her tale.
    â€œAnd the bank says it was a computer glitch, eh?”
    Zee nodded. “My hundred thou was there for the weekend, but was gone on Monday. That’s all I know. Sic transit moolah. I presume that means our relationship is over. Sigh.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” said Quinn. “Maybe we can still work something out.”
    Going on through Edgartown, Zee played travel guide for David Greenstein. She pointed out Cannonball Park, so called because of its six-inch muzzle-loading cannons and its stacks of twelve-inch cannon balls, and confessed that she hadn’t the slightest idea why the cannon balls and cannons weren’t the same size.
    â€œWhy is that?” she interrupted herself to ask me. Zee sometimes thinks, or pretends to think, that I know more than I do.
    â€œIt’s like those big vee formations that geese fly in,” I said. “One arm of the vee is almost always longer than the other one. You know why?”
    â€œI’m not sure that I want to hear this,” said Zee, suddenly suspicious. “Oh, all right. Why?”
    â€œBecause the long arm of the vee has more geese in it.”
    â€œHaw!” laughed Quinn. When he was really amused, he put two haws in a row.
    â€œThat’s how it is with these cannons and cannon balls,” I explained. “They aren’t the same size because the cannon balls are bigger than the cannons.”
    Zee, who was sitting beside me in the front seat, turned back to David Greenstein. “Now you see what you’ve gotten yourself into. A week of jokes like that and you’ll be begging to get back on the recital circuit.”
    â€œI’ve heard worse,” he said. “In fact, I’ve told worse. Maybe we can have a bad joke contest sometime. Of course Quinn won’t be allowed to compete because he tells the worst jokes in the world and would win hands down.”
    â€œThat’s because I’m an ace reporter for the Boston Globe,” said Quinn. “My whole career is a joke. Compared to me, you guys are just amateur jesters.”
    We took a right on Pease Point Way, rolled past the cemetery and the fire and police stations, and drove on out toward Katama. The road was full of mopeds whose riders were headed for South Beach, and the bike path was full of bikers going the same direction. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I thought all of the travelers had the right idea.
    Zee kept up her travelogue as we drove down past the farm on the great plains, the condos and new houses by the Herring Creek, and, at the end of the pavement, through the crowds of cars, bikes, and people at the beach. I slipped into four-wheel-drive and we headed east over the sand toward Chappy.
    We drove along the inside track, following the south shore of Katama Bay. There were clammers and quahoggers in the bay, and a lot of four-by-fours parked ormoving along the beach. It was a busy day. To our right, along the ocean shore, the air was full of kites. Still, the beach was uncluttered compared to the places where two-wheel-drive vehicles could go.
    There was, as expected, a huge gathering of trucks and Jeeps down by the clam flats near Chappy. The families belonging to