How Did Kennedy Get Back to Edgartown?
On TV he said that he had Gargan and Markham drive him to the ferry crossing. The last scheduled ferry had already left—though it was possible by special arrangements to have service resumed. On a sudden impulse, Kennedy said, he jumped into the water and swam the 250-yard channel separating Chappaquiddick from Martha’s Vineyard, “nearly drowning once again in the effort.” Finally, he said, he collapsed in his hotel room, going out only once before morning to talk to a man he identified as a clerk. Russell E. Peachey, actually a co-owner of the Shiretown Inn, later told TIME Correspondent Frank Merrick that he did indeed see Kennedy at 2:25 a.m., dressed in a suit coat and trousers that appeared dry. Kennedy complained that party noise from an adjacent building was keeping him awake, and inquired what the time was. To Peachey, Kennedy did not seem to be acting or talking strangely. As in the phase of his story concerning his escape from the Oldsmobile, his recapitulation raises odd que
