Death in Vineyard Waters Read Online Free Page B

on whom they have a serious crush. I flicked a glance down at Zee. Did I detect a narrowed eye? I did. A missing smile? Yes, indeed. Zee jealous of a thirteen-year-old? Could be. Me jealous of Ian McGregor? I turned back and said to John, “Who are all of these people? I don’t think I know a single one of them.”
    â€œI should hope not,” said Skye. “These are all academic types. This island crawls with them in the summertime. This particular selection consists of friends, more or less, of Marjorie and Ian.”
    â€œMore Ian and less me,” said Marjorie Summerharp. “I know a lot of them, but I’d hardly call them friends. I don’t have many friends in academia.”
    â€œAnd no wonder.” Skye grinned. “You’re not nice to them when they bungle or do shoddy work. You get on their cases in public places.” He glanced at me. “In the learned journals,” he explained. “Many very impolite things are said in those journals, and Marjorie has said more than her share of them.”
    â€œNot more than my share. Just my share. And rarely a misdirected barb, I fancy. You have no idea, J. W., how stupid highly educated people can sometimes be, or how vain or petty or, worse yet, how sloppy and deceiving they can be in their thinking or in the quality of their research.” She allowed herself an icy smile. “I confess that I enjoy puncturing their balloons.”
    â€œAnd are there many such dimwits here?” I asked.
    She glanced around. “Some. Not all. Hooperman there, the one looking down the front of that young woman’s dress, barely got his Ph.D. Wouldn’t have gotten it, if I had my way. Second rater. Mediocre thesis, mediocre exams, mediocre man.”
    â€œHow’d he get by?”
    â€œMediocre examiners. I was outvoted. And I told him so.”
    â€œYou often are outvoted, my dear,” said Skye.
    â€œVery true. And Barstone there, the woman with the bosom Hooperman is admiring. A genuinely third-rate mind. A Doctor of Education, no less. As John here knows, I maintain that no one who has been trained as an educator has ever had a single original or useful idea about education. The only interesting educators have been people trained in some other area of study. Still, Barstone commands the attention of many an institution of higher, they say, learning and is paid handsomely as a consultant on matters educational. A more sanctimonious fraud I’ve rarely met inside of academia. I take the whole notion of a school of education to be an oxymoron.”
    â€œLike Face Rump Roast,” suggested Skye.
    â€œExactly so. Dr. Barstone is not here, Mr. Jackson, because of me, because she knows that whenever possible I advise institutions not to hire her. Rather, she is here because of my colleague, Ian McGregor, who collects women as honey collects insects.”
    I flicked an eye down toward Zee and noted a bit of a blush, which indicated she’d been listening. She was watching McGregor and Jen the disgusting flirt, who were smiling and talking as they walked up toward the house. I felt sorry for her suddenly. She was smitten, and there is no one more disconcerted than an intelligent woman surprised by such feelings. I had no wise advice for those so swept away. After all, I’d been smitten by Zee. And still was. I had no more choice about it than Zee had about her attraction to McGregor.
    â€œYou’re in excellent form, Marjorie,” said Skye. “Is there anyone here you do like?”
    â€œWell, you’re tolerable, John. And Mattie is a fine young woman aside from her taste in second husbands. Ian may be a womanizer and an occasionally violent hothead, buthe’s done sound work on this project of ours. And J. W. here knows his clams, as does Ms. Madieras. People who can dig clams are possessors of at least rudimentary virtues. I doubt if the rest of these people can find clams anywhere