Double Trouble: A Ryan/Lehrer Mystery

By Jim Lacey

The disappearance of a controversial history professor from his sailboat on the Connecticut shore initiates a web of intrigue that brings an attractive cast of characters to New York City and Washington, D.C. There they blunder into a world of violence involving terrorism and assassination. The story is a page-turner, upbeat, romantic at times, and full of surprises.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Lacey
• Release date: Jul 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452326115

Jim Lacey

Jim Lacey is an analyst at the Institute for Defense Analyses and a professor of conflict and global issues at Johns Hopkins University. Lacey was an embedded journalist with Time magazine during the invasion of Iraq, where he traveled with the 101st Airborne Division. His opinion columns have been published in The Weekly Standard, The National Review, and The New York Post. Lacey is the author of Takedown, Fresh from the Fight, and Occupation of Iraq. He lives in Alexandria, VA.

Book preview

Double Trouble is an entertaining page-turner. The disappearance of a controversial history professor from his sailboat on the Connecticut shore initiates a web of intrigue that brings an attractive cast of characters to New York City and Washington, D.C. They include savvy and hapless academics, a popular administrator who is not what he claims to be, a smart and attractive law student, a middle school teacher with a shadowy past, a super mom, and two precocious kids. What begins as a halfhearted exploration of a local mystery at a small state college in New England by amateur sleuths Jim Ryan and Rob Lehrer leads to the discovery of the Knights of Malta’s involvement in terrorism and the shenanigans of the state department in Latin America during the Reagan administration. Double Trouble is cheerful, romantic at times, and full of surprises. Readers who like upbeat conclusions will not be disappointed.

Double Trouble

A Ryan/Lehrer Mystery

Jim Lacey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental

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.Copyright © 2010 by James F. Lacey

This book is dedicated to my wife Bobbi, love of my life, who has put up with me and encouraged my work for upwards of fifty years.

Prologue

Sister Maria Isabel wept. The young girl, a child really, had died in childbirth; she had been registered under the name Ramos, but Isabel knew from documents that her real name was Vasquez. She had grown fond of the girl during the three months of her stay, an emotional involvement nuns are not supposed to encourage. Nevertheless, she grew to love the abandoned girl as the child she herself would never have. To lose the girl and, after caring for them, to lose the toddlers as well was a heavy burden to bear. There had never been any word from the lover, himself probably a naïve boy, and the girl’s father--or perhaps it was her grandfather--wrote but one letter, after being informed of the girl’s death. In an elaborate script he had given brief instructions. The girl was to be buried in the convent cemetery and the infants, in time, put up for adoption. The stationery was embossed with a pretentious family crest, and the only concession to humanity was the instruction that the girl’s stone should be engraved with her true name and a bas-relief of her patron saint, Teresa of Avilla.

The stone stood in a remote corner of the cemetery. Sister Isabel had occasionally visited on Saturdays all these years, often with a single flower from the convent garden. The stone itself was a tall, black, gothic slab inscribed simply TERESA VASQUEZ, 1921-1937, Requiescat in Pace. The bas-relief to the right ran the full length of the stone. St. Teresa was pictured in her Carmelite habit, holding a book and a quill. However, her hair was uncovered, and her upturned face did not express baroque piety or mystical ecstasy but, Sister Isabel felt, dismay--dismay at a wasted life, an indifferent world, an implacable God.

Sister Isabel had rarely encountered other visitors to Teresa’s grave, although there were often flowers, rumored to have been brought by troubled young women. One Saturday, however, years later, as the now elderly nun knelt on the pebbled ground, she felt a presence behind her. Turning, she saw a tall man in black. Pablo Vasquez, he said and knelt beside her.

One

Paul Donnelly sat in the cockpit of his beamy Nimble 24, looking aft across the shallow inlet to Jupiter Point and the few modest but absurdly expensive summer cottages on the narrow peninsula. He was vigorously smoking a harsh menthol cigarette and sipping on his third--or was it his fourth?--martini from a tall plastic cup. There was no more ice or vermouth aboard, but he had an ample stash of cheap vodka and plenty of large olives. Paul was considering whether to look for Regina at the Surfmaid or wait for her to come crawling back. Just because he had a bit too much to drink and was feeling affectionate was no reason for her to swear at him and bolt. She’d surely cool off and return to the boat eventually, Paul thought, since they’d driven to Spicer's on a toot, as she called it, in his car. He decided to stay put and have another drink, since his wife Catherine would be just as furious if he came home sloshed as she would be if he slept on the boat. And he’d be in better shape to face the music in the morning.

Though it was only about four in the afternoon, the sky was dark and ominous. With storm clouds and the rumble of thunder in the offing, the air looked and smelled like early evening. A sudden thermal lifted the limp yacht ensign, and Paul watched small whitecaps driven across the protected inlet by the fresh breeze. The tidal current was quickly retreating. He was glad that Papa Bear was not out on a mooring as Catherine had wanted, but safely in a slip. Looking around and seeing no one, Paul stood on the transom to take a pee. He was surprised to feel the weight of someone stepping aboard in the bow, and satisfied that Regina had capitulated, Paul did not even bother to turn around. An angry oath was followed by a firm push in the small of his back. Then Paul felt the shockingly frigid and dark water.

******

Regina Dobson sat at a table for four in the Surfmaid with a mug of coffee for company. The antique port and starboard signal lamps affixed to the woodwork behind the horseshoe-shaped bar suggested the stern of a trawler. The place was noisy with locals, not the boating crowd who took over on weekends even this early in the season. Though several cars had been parked at the marina, there did not seem to be much chance that anyone Regina knew would suddenly appear like a white knight. Not that Regina was a damsel-in-distress. She was 5’11" in her bare feet and seemed even taller with her erect posture, steel-gray hair, and imposing presence. Regina dismissed the idea of taking a cab to a local motel, since she had to give her last final exam at nine the next morning. The only option seemed to be to make her way back to Papa Bear, get Paul into his Honda, commandeer the keys, and drive back to Wyndham. Papa Bear was just the right name for Paul’s chunky boat and a good description of Paul himself, Regina thought. Just then a lanky figure in a stained sweatshirt, with an unkempt mop of hair, dirt under his fingernails, and smelling vaguely of fish or urine, slouched into the chair across from her and carefully placed a pint of Guinness on the table. It took a moment for Regina to realize he wasn’t a local hitting on her but Russ Giovanni.

You alone, Professor? Russ ventured, lighting up an unfiltered Pall Mall.

For the time being. You look like shit.

Been fishing. Had no luck until a bunch of blues began to boil up the water by the Ledge Light. Caught five of the bastards--could have caught all I wanted. Sharp teeth, Russ said, showing Regina a cut on his right hand. So the smudges on his shirt were dried blood. Want a couple? They’re pretty good eating, specially the cheeks.

Thank you, but no. Regina didn’t want to owe Russ too many favors, since it looked like she’d be hitching a ride to Wyndham with him. She had first met Russ at the Donnelly’s barn of house in Mansfield at boozy parties on Sundays supposedly for watching NFL football. She felt that Russ, with his ferret-like face, was a rather sleazy number to be mixing with the college faculty on such a palsy basis: sometime history student, adventurer in Mexico and points south with suggestions of drug connections, a once notorious barroom brawler, and now, of all things, a social studies teacher at Wyndham Middle School.

And what brings you here, all by your lonesome, I mean.

Regina decided to play it straight. I came down with Paul Donnelly on a toot, and we had a bit of a row.

Go for a sail, did you?

Didn’t get past the vodka bottle. Regina wondered why she was being so candid. Maybe because she had matched Paul drink for drink? And I don’t feel like making up with him right now.

No need for that. I’ve got my pickup--kinda messy, but it’ll get us back to Wyndham. Besides, I don’t remember seeing Paul’s boat, not that I was looking for it. Russ would have motored by Spicer's slips en route to his boat trailer at the public launch. I could never figure out why Paul doesn’t dump that boat.

Why so?

Well, Russ began, in a voice he must use with a class of middle-school kids, he’s afraid of it. He never sails solo, and whenever I’ve gone out with him, he motors half way to Fishers Island, raises the sails, heads east or west depending on the tide for about fifteen minutes, comes about, heads back, turns the engine on about half a mile from the dock, and motors in. It’s white knuckles all the way, and he isn’t happy till we’re in the slip and he can break out the booze.

That sounds like Paul, Regina added. "Today, he was finding reasons not to sail even before we reached the marina--had doubts about the weather. And he seemed relieved when the engine wouldn’t start. Could be he uses the boat mostly to party."

Seems so. Once I asked if he ever figured how much it cost every time he went for a sail, considering renting the slip, winter storage, engine overhauls, maintenance, insurance, registration, and so on. He said that’s not the way to think about it. He preferred to calculate how much he’s saving by not having a cottage on the Cape like Don. Don Leon was Wyndham State’s flamboyant vice president for academic affairs.

Another clap of thunder sounded, this time almost overhead. The door swung open, and a tall figure in yellow rain gear--slicker, boots and Gloucester fisherman’s hat--sidled in and slammed the door on the weather. He hung the wet hat and slicker on a hook, broke out in a big grin, pulled up a chair, and joined Regina and Russ.

Welcome to the party, Regina said. If this keeps up, we’ll have half of Wyndham here. Been sailing in the rain, Tom?

Best time to sail, he answered, and ordered a hot toddy from the waitress, who was being very friendly. Tom Slade was tall and thin with a lantern face, a prominent jaw, and a huge curled mustache, which went well with his pageboy-length auburn hair. He knew everyone in the Surfmaid, including the owners, who had once been students of his. But I guess it was a good idea to come in before these squalls hit. What have you got there? he asked, indicating Russ’s fragrant backpack.

Blues. Want a couple?

Sure thing. I was gonna have supper here, but those blues will do just fine. For a sociology professor, Tom Slade had many unexpected talents. He could fix any kind of engine and was a good cook and outdoorsman. Romantic females from sixteen to sixty found him attractive, an attribute that annoyed some of his male colleagues.

The late afternoon spun out. There was talk about Wyndham State, where Russ was taking an idiotic graduate education course and Regina and Tom taught. They talked about perennial areas of contention at Wyndham, such as general education requirements and Jim Ryan’s push to impose writing-intensive courses on all departments. When Tom offered to buy a round of drinks, Russ had another Guinness and Regina stuck with coffee. Without anything being said, it became clear that Tom would drive Regina home in his BGT, and at about five thirty, Tom and Regina got up as if by arrangement and left Russ sitting behind another full pint. Should we check on Paul? Regina asked as they were leaving.

No need, I’m sure he’ll be okay, said Tom. He’d never go out and get himself in trouble in weather like this.

Won’t be the first time he slept one off on the boat, added Russ.

The ride home was entirely predictable. Occasional chitchat, restful silence as the small sports car wound its way up Route 32, and the expected casual inquiry whether Regina could use company or would like to share the bluefish that had been relegated to the tiny trunk.

No, I’m fine, Tom, and thanks for the ride, Regina answered just as casually, as the MG pulled up outside her attractive Victorian house in the hill section of town. You had to watch your reputation in Wyndham, where the curious eventually learned what just about everyone was up to. Regina had a thing for Wyndham’s police chief, Jack Cahill, and she was reluctant to admit, even to herself, that the toot with Paul was meant to give Jack a nudge. The lights were on in the top floor of her house, which meant that Rob Lehrer was home, probably working on his article about expressions of emotion among peasants in medieval German paintings.

*******

The hefty manager of the Dean’s Office thought he had come up with a clever name for a watering spot in a college town. It sported a lively lounge with a gleaming mahogany bar, comfortable stools, and more than a dozen heavy, hardwood tables with captain’s chairs, four to a table. Beyond the lounge was a restaurant that served huge portions of mediocre American cuisine, featuring small, kitchen-baked loaves of warm white bread, heavy gravies, bright orange carrots, and overcooked greens. The lounge was the only spot in town where businesswomen could respectably down a couple of drinks with lunch. The noontime crowd usually had a table or two of secretaries and bank tellers, and a few more of lawyers, local politicians, and businessmen. On Thursdays and Fridays the Wyndham State crew began to arrive at about 3:00 p.m., mostly faculty, one or two administrators, and even older students like Russ Giovanni.

This Friday the thirteenth in May both ends of the Wyndham spectrum were represented. Russ Giovanni sat quietly smoking his Pall Mall and sipping his pint of Guinness, while Don Leon, the popular vice president for academic affairs, was working on a Cuba libre and talking with gusto about one of his hobbyhorses, professional conferences, with Rob Lehrer and Liz Carmen. Rob, balding, short and stocky, with an ample, disheveled beard, was Wyndham’s entire German department; he wore a natty cashmere jacket he said he had picked up for $4.00 at the Salvation Army store on Route 6. Liz Carmen, one-time concert pianist and now chair of the music department, was decked out like a 50s bohemian in an outfit that showed off her zoftig figure but called undue attention to her jowly, fifty-year-old face. Her popular and somewhat scandalous weekend-long parties were legendary, with their generous supplies of hard liquor and soft drugs. Bright and personable, Don was the darling of most of the liberal arts faculty, particularly the women, and he did not arouse the antagonism faculty usually felt for administrators. Don, dressed casually in fashion jeans, a blazer, and a bright paisley shirt, had a café-au-lait complexion, a sparkling smile, and an abundance of lustrous black hair.

So Liz, what did you learn in Vermont? Don had the week before brought several faculty to a conference on experiential learning at a ski resort in the wilds of Vermont.

Not a helluva lot, love. It was mostly bullshit, Don dear, and you know it as well as I.

How so?

Let’s all sit in a circle. Liz mimicked, and babble on about our marvelous experiences in the classroom. Give me a break! Liz was already a bit high.

There must have been something worth while!

Yeah, the booze-inspired camaraderie in your suite evenings after the flag went down. You said you like to live life on the edge, which explains the fun you have doing loopy things and taking risks.

Rob?

"I liked the sweet little blonde who passed around muffins during coffee breaks. But we’ve heard all about experiential learning any number of times at your faculty development sessions. You might think up another term, Don. Faculty development is so condescending. And all too often a waste of time and money."

And what would you do with the so-called faculty development funds? Granted, hardly anyone shows up any more--and maybe for good reason.

Turn the funds over to the faculty! Support research, reading papers at conferences, that sort of thing.

"What would you do with, say, $10,000?"

Well, why not give ten $1000 grants. To present at conferences or complete research.

"Let’s make it six for $1500 each. Call them Professional Activity Grants. That would leave $1000 for your committee to pay for operating expenses, including maybe a couple of meals at Altnaveighs. You will head up the committee, Rob?"

I should know by now never to make suggestions.

Fine, I’ll recruit four additional victims. A committee with more than five never can get anything done. What do you say, Liz, are you in?

Hell no, Don. I’d rather apply. Haven’t been to Vienna in years.

Will graduate students be eligible? Russ asked. I’d like to do some research. In El Salvador.

That will be for the committee to decide.

You set me up, Rob remarked, stating the obvious. Don responded with a Smiley Face, a grin, half way between a Mona Lisa smile and the hapless expression of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman that Don and others had picked up from Jack Cahill, Wyndham’s police chief. Cahill (rhymes with jail, as he says) flashed it to avoid answering unwelcome questions. Though the grimace meant, That’s none of your business, the target usually felt privy to some secret and assumed his worst suspicions had been validated.

*******

It was after five when Chief Cahill arrived at the Dean’s Office with a copy of the Wyndham Chronicle tucked under his arm. He took a quick look around and headed for the Wyndham State contingent, the liveliest group, now occupying two tables pulled together. The initial foursome had been joined by Ted Carlyle and Jim Ryan. Russ was talking sotto voce with a sexy redhead, presumably another graduate student.

Cahill, who always seemed to wear the same soft, charcoal-gray suit with the same open-necked black shirt and black loafers, taught one course each semester on law enforcement at Wyndham and, given the choice, much preferred academic shop talk to the predictable arguments about the Red Sox and the Yankees inevitable every spring. As Jack pulled up a chair, Liz, pretending to flirt, interrupted a story Ted Carlyle was telling about a gig he played recently. When do we get to see you in uniform again, Jack? she asked. The love of her life had been a police detective in Malibu half a lifetime ago.

You’ll have to wait till Memorial Day, Liz. Though Cahill looked great in his uniform, like a Civil War colonel in dress blues, he donned it only for official ceremonies. What was that about your band, Ted? Ted taught music at Wyndham, but seemed to devote more time and energy to his five-piece band, which specialized in the oldies he sang in a raspy baritone. It was called, not surprisingly, the Golden Oldies Quintet. Ted had just mentioned they had a gig Saturday in New York and another the following week in Washington, D.C.

At the White House, no doubt, Liz had said.

At the Washington Plaza, actually, Ted replied.

That’s a lavish hotel, Jenny, the redhead, commented, and comfortable, if you don’t get dizzy finding your way around the curvy halls.

You were telling a story about a gig, Liz insisted.

Yes--we had this gig outside Chicago. Ted continued. "I always buy a ticket for my bass fiddle, and the day before the flight I got a call about seating arrangements for me and Mister Bass. I said I’d take care of everything on the plane.

"There’s usually a single empty seat in first class to stow the fiddle on. This time the stewardess insisted I remove it from first class to economy since the ticket was economy, sooo I lugged it all the way from the front to the rear of the packed plane. When the first officer came aboard, she took a quick look around and told the stewardess--excuse me, Liz, I should say flight attendant—that the fiddle should go in first class. Sooo once again I lugged it up the narrow aisle bumping into everyone on the way to the front of the plane.

"‘I’m so sorry,’ the stewardess said, when I got back to my seat.

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Mr. Bass doesn’t drink. You could bring me his complementary champagne.’ We became chummy, and she--her name was Angela--brought me splits of champagne for the rest of the flight! Everyone enjoyed Carlyle’s yarns, suspect though they were. He was a stocky man in his fifties, with a red, rough face, and bushy gray-black hair. No one could figure out where his energy came from. He commuted daily from Rhode Island, spent just about every weekend on a gig, and managed to down a couple of martinis almost every afternoon at the Dean’s Office. As he was about to leave, Chief Cahill said, This might interest you, Ted, handing him the Wyndham Chronicle. You’ve got a sailboat, right?

Carlyle read, Man Drowns in Groton. An unidentified man, described as about forty-five years old, was discovered apparently drowned near the beach east of Jupiter Point in the town of Groton late yesterday. Authorities on the scene said the drowning appeared to be accidental, but the incident remains under investigation. No other details were available at this time.

That’s pretty close to home, Russ added. Tom Slade and Paul Donnelly sail from Spicer's--right next to that beach.

It’s closer to home than you think, Jack said softly, pausing to get everyone’s attention. The drowned man, according to the Groton P.D., was Paul Donnelly!

*******

After leaving the Dean’s Office Jim Ryan and Rob Lehrer headed for Chaplin along Route 6 in Jim’s faded red Beetle or Käfer as they sometimes called it. Jim had paid for the car in Manhattan and picked it up at the Wolfsberg factory in 1964 when he and his wife Barbara had spent a year in Munich while he did research for his dissertation.

Rob and Jim went back a long way: they met as undergraduates at St. Peter’s, a Jesuit college in Jersey City, spent two semesters as exchange students in Bern, Switzerland, upon graduation, and had also enjoyed a summer together at a NEH seminar in Zürich in 1973. It was unusual for two students from the same college to be awarded government grants to the same European university and even more extraordinary that, years later, they would each be among the twelve scholars participating in H.W. Janson’s seminar on Swiss art, especially since neither of them had proper credentials in art history. It seemed inevitable that they would eventually end up teaching at the same college. The Ryans tried to make sure that Rob had a home-cooked dinner every Friday.

A lifelong New Yorker, Rob had never bothered to learn how to drive a car and managed to get around Wyndham by walking or peddling his one-speed bike, but he had no objection to hitching a ride with Jim, Regina, or even on occasion with his students. You seemed to think there was something wrong with the newspaper account about Paul Donnelly, Rob said. I never got to know Donnelly very well. He seemed to belittle just about everything with a facile or cynical comment.

"That was his way of avoiding profundity. Just for fun we were assembling a list of modern proverbs. ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with one false step; the examined life is not worth living; we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it; Those who can’t forget the past, are destined to repeat it,’ that sort of thing. We had dozens of them."

And the accident?

"I’ve sailed with Paul almost once a week, often with Barb and Catherine along. I’ve never known him to sail alone. In a couple of pieces I’ve written for Messing About in Boats I refer to him as Captain Caution. He’s a nervous wreck at the tiller and forever shouting at Catherine. In one article I compared him with Tom Slade, who I dubbed Captain Carefree. Once when I was aboard, Paul’s centerboard touched a sandy bottom and you’d think the Titanic had just hit the iceberg. He almost had a stroke. Tom Slade likes to find out-of-the-way gunkholes, circle the Dumplings, and cut corners. When we hit a rock in Mumford Cove--wham!--he smiled and said, ‘Well, now we know where the damn thing is!’ I can’t imagine Paul, drunk or sober, venturing out alone--and in threatening weather."

"Well, the Chronicle didn’t provide much by way of details."

True enough, Jim replied as he turned into his driveway, surprised to discover that Barbara’s Fiat wasn’t there or by the garage of Wylie house where she sometimes parked. His daysailer, Chatterwug, a classic melonseed skiff, looked handsome on its trailer at the side of the house.

Kamilla, the thirteen-year-old Wylie girl, a pretty coffee-colored kid with big brown eyes and straight black hair that hung down to her butt, was taking care of Jim’s two children. On the kitchen table were the remnants of a junk-food dinner--cheeseburgers and tacos--and an envelope with JIM! emblazoned on it in red. Barbara was a super mom, a skilled printmaker of woodcuts and lithographs with a Ph.D. in history from Yale, articles published in prestigious journals, a book contract, and a spotty career as a gypsy scholar teaching courses at several colleges, including Wyndham. She nevertheless turned out elaborate, well-balanced meals and managed to chauffeur the kids to team sports, get-togethers with other kids, as well as church and scouting events. Barb had obviously left before feeding the kids. Jim opened two bottles of Becks, which he poured into half-liter clay krugs, souvenirs of Munich beerhalls. How about a wurst? he asked.

Fine with me.

Jim took four all-beef Stop & Shop hotdogs from the fridge, began to nuke them in the micro, and found some rolls, mustard, and chips. What I really miss about Zürich is the Bier vom Fass and the bratwurst we used to get at that corner schnell Imbiss in Niederdorf. The Pils held its head forever, nice thick, white foam. This imported stuff isn’t the real thing. He began to read Barbara’s missive. Catherine called about Paul, he announced, and Barb left for Mansfield as soon as she got Kamie to take care of the kids. I guess I’d better go there myself in a bit. How about you?

I’d just as soon stay here and take care of the kids in case Kamie has to go home to do school work. Rob was extraordinarily easy to get along with. Jim and he had hitchhiked from Barcelona to Rome and then to Copenhagen without having a single disagreement. He was also completely at home with the Ryan kids.

Nine-year-old Ben overheard the last comment as he came rattling into the kitchen astride his green, heavy-duty plastic jeep. Play chess with me, Rob? he asked, and then added, almost as an afterthought, Who’d you think killed Paul Donnelly?

*******

The quickest way to get to Mansfield from Chaplin is to head down Tower Hill Road, pick up 198 to Route 6, turn right toward Wyndham, and then take 203. As he made the turn onto Route 6, Jim noticed that the parking lot outside Sherman’s Corner was packed as it usually is on Friday nights, and he couldn’t avoid thinking about the times he had spent there with Paul Donnelly.

Sherman’s was an unusual roadhouse, with a variety of customers throughout the day. The breakfast crowd arrived between six and ten for outsized portions of scrambled eggs, bacon or sausages, and strong coffee. At about eleven or so the lunch crowd showed up for huge hamburgers with any combination of melted cheese, fried onions, bacon, dill chips, or sweet relish. The schmoozers began to drift in at about three o’clock. There was no supper crowd as such but Bette Sherman would fry up some onions from time to time since the tempting smell kept hamburger orders coming. In the evening the serious drinkers appeared, a few to do shots macho style, some to party at tables with pitchers of beer, and others to solemnly sip bar whiskey with a spritz of soda or ginger ale. Bette’s motto was simplicity, and if you wanted anything besides bacon and eggs or hamburgers, you were out of luck. She also refused to make fancy drinks, like kaluah sombreros, which she sneeringly called girly drinks. Jim found Bette simpatico, and they often played cards or chess on Saturdays.

Jim had spent a couple of hours many an afternoon there with Paul Donnelly and other regulars. Sherman’s Corner was known for its unusual mix of clientele: swamp Yankees, Chaplin denizens, construction workers, quail and rabbit hunters, trout fishermen, an occasional lawyer or salesman, and a few professors from Wyndham and UConn. The mood of the place changed almost daily. One day it was festive, with the crowd joking and buying each other drinks; another day it was quiet, with almost everyone playing chess or kibitzing; occasionally, there would be a