Berried to the Hilt (9 page)

Charlene poured me a cup of coffee as I pulled up the stool next to Matilda.

“Matilda’s been researching Davey Blue,” Charlene told me.

“I heard he dated one of your ancestors,” I said to Charlene.

“That’s the most likely scenario,” Matilda said, running a hand through her close-cropped white hair. Her eyes shone with excitement behind her glasses.

“What did you find out?” I asked.

“Well, it was a long time ago, and with pirate ships, there aren’t a lot of records.”

“I guess not,” I said.

“But from what I’ve been able to find out, his ship was last recorded in the Portland area in late April of 1631. There’s no record of it after that,” she said.

“So he was in Maine,” I said. “How did you connect him with Charlene’s great-great-great-great-aunt, or whatever she is?”

“Cranberry Island is an unusual place—and a wonderful place to be a historian. Because so many families have been here for so long, a lot of the history has stayed with the families—and on the island itself.”

“Like family bibles?” I asked.

“Bibles, photos … even diaries.” She gave me a pointed look; I had managed to lose an important diary not too long ago, and she still hadn’t forgiven me. “We also have correspondence that folks have donated for preservation. The Kean family was particularly prolific,” she said, looking at Charlene.

“My grandmother kept trunks of letters up in her attic. When she died, we gave them to the museum,” Charlene explained.

“And some of them went back to the seventeenth century. Incredibly well preserved, too; I’m hoping to install a special storage case for them, to prevent further degradation.”

“Was there anything in them about Davey Blue?” I asked.

“Not specifically,” she said. “There’s a legend on the island that one of the Kean girls got mixed up with a pirate, but it wasn’t until a few years ago, when Charlene donated materials she found in the attic, that we found any indication there might be truth to the story.”

I knew Charlene’s family had donated many old documents to the museum, but had never heard anything about Davey Blue. “Did she write to him?” I asked, wondering how exactly one sent a letter to a pirate—and how, if so, it would have ended up in Charlene’s grandmother’s attic.

“Nothing so direct, I’m afraid. But there are two letters from a series, written by Genevieve Kean to her sister Felicity in Portland, that may indicate a connection. Genevieve lived in a house right by the pier, not too far from where the museum is, but the house was torn down a long time ago—probably in the 1700s. That’s when the other islands were settled; Cranberry Island was the first, and there were only three families here in the beginning.”

“No wonder the Kean girls were frustrated with their options,” Charlene said, her eyes sparkling as she sipped her coffee.

“What was in the letters?” I asked, trying to gently guide Matilda back to the topic of Davey Blue.

Matilda sighed. “They’re a wonderful record of early life on Cranberry Island. Absolutely amazing. All kinds of things—the fishing, the weather conditions, the difficulty in procuring goods from the mainland, particularly in winter. Did you know some of the islanders slept with their bread in their beds, to keep it from freezing?”

“Tell her about Eleanor,” Charlene said, impatiently.

Matilda smiled. “You’ll have to come down and see them,” she said. “There were two letters in particular that caught my interest,” she said. “Your ancestor had a beautiful hand—and a wonderful way with words.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Genevieve was a typical mother, I guess,” Matilda said, chuckling. “She was having trouble with her third daughter, an impulsive seventeen-year-old beauty named Eleanor. Evidently Eleanor was not delighted with her marital prospects on the island, although one of the Selfridges was courting her.”

“See? The women in my family have always had taste,” Charlene said.

Matilda let the comment pass; as the Selfridges had been the primary museum benefactors, I could understand the conflict of interest. “As I was saying,” she said, “Genevieve was hoping for a match with one of the Selfridge boys. But Eleanor was not enamored of the young man in question, especially after meeting an unsavory gentleman who had taken shelter from a storm in the harbor.”

“A pirate?”

“Genevieve doesn’t say,” Matilda said, “but she certainly was not impressed by the man. In her opinion, he was an ‘ill-mannered and lawless man who styles himself a sea captain,’” she quoted from memory. “She never mentions his name, unfortunately. The timing is right, though.”

“Girls always do go for bad boys,” Charlene said with a sultry smile. “Who wouldn’t want to date a pirate captain?”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Like any good parents, Genevieve and her husband forbade her to see the man, and were much relieved when he and his ship departed.”

“Without Eleanor,” I said.

“Without Eleanor,” Matilda said. “But he returned six months later. His ship never came into the harbor, but was spotted off Cranberry Point.”

“That’s not far from the inn!” I said.

“Or Smuggler’s Cove,” Charlene pointed out. Smuggler’s Cove was a cove a little ways from the inn; although its entrance was covered at high tide, at low tide, you could just make it inside. There was a large, dry cave inside, with mysterious iron rings embedded in the rock, for tying up boats. No one knew who had put them there, or when. Rumor had it that it had been used by smugglers during Prohibition—and maybe even pirates in earlier times.

“Maybe Eli is right, and it was a pirate hideout,” I said.

“We may never know,” Matilda said. “I was hoping to ask one of the marine archaeologists to take a look at the cove. I have no idea how old those iron rings are.”

“But tell her about Eleanor,” Charlene said.

“Ah, yes. Eleanor. Well, the girl just disappeared,” Matilda said.

“While the ship was off the coast?” I asked.

She nodded. “She claimed to be going out for a walk, and never returned.”

“Probably escaping with her pirate lover,” Charlene said.

“The poor woman,” I breathed. I couldn’t imagine losing a seventeen-year-old daughter like that.

“According to Genevieve’s letter—she was very distraught, you could see it in her handwriting—the ship was seen heading out to sea within hours of the girl’s disappearance. And then a terrific storm bore down on the island.”

“Oh, no,” I said.

Matilda looked grim. “Exactly. They never found or heard of the ship again, but several ship’s timbers were sighted in the water the following week—along with three dead bodies.”

I shuddered. “Not Eleanor’s?”

“Not Eleanor’s,” she said. “But the girl never returned, and her parents eventually had to presume that she had died when the ship—whichever one it was—went down.”

“What makes you think it might have been Davey Blue’s ship?” I asked.

“We’ll never know for sure,” Matilda said, “Genevieve never names the captain, or the ship. But I found a reference to the
Black Marguerite
being in the area at the time. I haven’t found any supporting evidence for the first visit to the island, but at the time of Eleanor’s disappearance, a log from a captain based out of Mount Desert Island mentions a sighting of a ship matching the description of the
Black Marguerite
, cruising the waters about fifty miles south of here.”

“And does the timing line up with Eleanor’s disappearance?” Charlene asked.

“Yes,” Matilda said. “Legend has it the captain was making a run to the Caribbean, but he doesn’t appear to have made it. Like I said, the last sighting of the
Black Marguerite
was in Portland, in April of 1631. Three weeks before Genevieve’s letter was dated.”

“I wish we had more to go on,” Charlene said.

“After almost four hundred years, it’s amazing we have as much as we do,” Matilda pointed out.

I was still dwelling on the girl’s disappearance. “How awful, not to know,” I said. There had been one night when Adam’s lobster boat hadn’t come in—and my niece Gwen had been on it. Charlene and I had spent a long night in the store, huddled over the shortwave radio, praying for news. I could only imagine how I would feel if my seventeen-year-old daughter vanished into thin air.

“Early death was much more common back then,” Matilda reminded me. “No penicillin meant the slightest cut could cause fatal blood poisoning. Many young women died in childbirth. And then there were measles, tuberculosis … all the diseases modern medicine has made almost obsolete.” The historian pushed her glasses up on her nose and gave me a sad smile. “There were many, many tragedies. That’s one of the reasons families were so big—to replace the offspring that were lost.”

“It must still have been a blow, though.”

“Yes,” Matilda agreed, a look of regret on her weathered face for the girl who had vanished close to four centuries ago. “It certainly was to Genevieve.”

“Was there anything specific that Eleanor had—a locket, a piece of jewelry—that could still be down there?” Charlene asked, twirling a lock of her caramel-colored hair, her blue eyes unusually dreamy. “Something the archaeologists might be able to find and identify her with? If she was on the ship, that is.”

Matilda shook her head sadly. “If so, there’s no mention of it anywhere. If she had a locket with initials on it, perhaps, but there’s no mention of any particular jewelry, and any clothing or paper would long since have been destroyed. History is often like that—trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle when you’re missing most of the pieces.”

The mention of puzzles made me think of Cranberry Island’s more recent tragedy—and the reason I had stopped by the store. “Speaking of puzzles,” I said, looking at Matilda, “What do you think of Eli’s cutlass being found in the bushes by the pier?”

“I’ve known Eleazer all my life,” she said, “and he treated that artifact like a favorite child. He never would have tossed it into the bushes like that.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” I said. “He says he gave it to Carl Morgenstern, the marine archaeologist, but Carl claims he never met with Eli.”

“Did Eli bring it over to the inn?” Charlene asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Claudette’s over visiting him right now; I asked her to find out for me. Part of the reason I came down here was to find out if anyone had seen Eli talking with Carl.”

“If so, I haven’t heard about it,” Charlene said, surveying the women chatting in low, excited tones on the couches, “and I think I’ve heard just about everything there is to hear on the subject of Eli over the last twenty-four hours. Folks have talked about nothing else.”

I felt my hopes deflate; Matilda, too, looked worried.

“They’re charging him with homicide, then,” Matilda said, looking bleak.

I sighed. “That’s what John tells me.”

“It’s ridiculous. I know he was hotheaded about the shipwreck, and angry at
Iliad
, but Eli would never have killed that man!” Charlene said.

“Any word on Evan Sorenson yet?” Matilda asked. Evidently I wasn’t the only one who found his disappearance—and the timing of it—suspicious.

Charlene shook her head. “Nope. Nothing on the
Lorelei
, either.”

“Do you think Evan might have killed Gerald McIntire?” I asked.

“I don’t know him that well, to be honest,” Matilda said. “But it is suspicious.”

“It’s almost like Eleanor’s disappearance,” Charlene said.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I said. “The boat disappearing, and Eleanor … it’s the same thing, just a few centuries later.”

“Poor Ingrid,” Matilda said, shaking her head. “I saw her yesterday; she’s a wreck. Evan had just gotten back from … from a difficult time,” she said, “and seemed to be doing so well, too! It’s such a pity.”

“Do you know if Evan was seeing anyone?” I asked. “Did he have a girlfriend somewhere?”

“I know he went over to Mount Desert Island a lot, but I don’t know if he was romantically involved with anyone.”

“
I
heard he was getting into poker,” Charlene said. “And that he wasn’t very good at it.” She sighed. “Maybe he tried to follow Davey Blue to the Caribbean, to shake free of his gambling debts.”

“I hope that’s all it is,” said Matilda.

“It’s still a felony offense,” I reminded her.

Matilda pressed her lips together in a grim smile. “It’s better than the alternative.”

The oven repairman still
hadn’t turned up when I got back to the inn.

“Did he at least call?” I asked Gwen, after ensuring that lunch had gone off without a hitch.

She shook her head. “He was supposed to be here by two,” she said. “John left him a message a few minutes ago—he’s down in his workshop now.”

I sighed. “I guess it’s time to put plan B into action.”

“What—borrow an oven? Or light a fire in the back yard?”

“No,” I said, checking to be sure I still had clams in the pantry and then picking up the phone. “I’m placing an order with Little Notch Bakery.” The little bakery in Southwest Harbor made killer pies and bread. I made a quick call, reserving two pies and enough small loaves of sourdough breads to make bread bowls to hold clam chowder. I added an order for two dozen blueberry muffins, as well. It was more expensive than baking everything myself, but it was an emergency situation. And it was a beautiful day for a trip in the skiff. I hoped the cold air would clear my head.

“Could you pick up a few of their cinnamon rolls for me?”

“Done. Need anything else from Southwest Harbor?” I asked.

“I’m running low on a few tubes of paint,” she said, “but the best store is in Northeast Harbor. I’ll ask Adam to take me over to the mainland later this week.”

“How’s he doing with everything?” I asked.

She shrugged. “He’s angry at Evan, of course—but more worried about him than anything. And Eli.” Gwen pulled her sweater tighter around her. “Any word on how he’s doing?”

“Claudette’s over visiting him today,” I said. “I’ll ask her when she gets back. Tom found him a good attorney.”

“I can’t believe Eli would do something like that,” she said.

“I’m hoping we can prove he didn’t,” I said, pulling on a jacket and glancing at my watch. It was three o’clock; if I made it back by five, I’d have plenty of time to get things together for dinner. All I had to do was put together clam chowder and a salad; Little Notch was providing the dessert.

I stepped out the back door a moment later, glad to be heading out on the water for an hour or two. The fresh air and the waves always soothed me—and after the week I’d been having, I needed all the soothing I could get.

I was halfway down the walk to John’s workshop—my plan was to see if he wanted to join me for the trip—when a muffled sob reached my ears.

Huddled on a slab of granite near the shore was Audrey, the Iliad archaeologist, her head cradled in her hands.

I hurried down to the water’s edge and crouched beside her, gently putting a hand on her back. She jumped as if I’d shocked her.

“Are you okay?” I asked as she wiped furiously at her eyes. Her tanned skin was splotchy from crying.

“Fine,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Just upset about Gerald.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “It must be hard losing someone you’ve spent so much time working with. You must have been very close,” I said.

She gave a bitter laugh. “Not as close as I’d thought.” Swiping at her eyes, she took a shuddery breath. “He played me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I thought we had something special … and then I find out he’s engaged to some floozy from California.” She stared out at the dark cobalt water. “After everything we’ve been through together, everything I’ve done for him—he was a two-timing bastard,” she said, her voice charged with fury.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, wondering what exactly she’d done for him—and whether she’d found out about his engagement before or after Gerald’s death. “Did he tell you?”

“Of course not,” she said scornfully. “He was a coward. My sister found the engagement notice and forwarded it to me.”

“Before he died?”

Her eyes flicked to me; she reminded me of a spooked horse. “No,” she said shortly. “Afterward.” She stood up and brushed at her pants. “I’ve got work to do. Thanks for talking with me, but I really need to get going.”

She strode up the hillside quickly, her slender athletic frame buffeted by the wind from the water. Interesting, I thought as I turned back toward the carriage house. Eli and Carl weren’t the only two to hold a grudge against Gerald McIntire.

At his workshop, John greeted me with a kiss. “The repairman’s running late,” he said. “He says he’ll be here at four.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’m headed over to Little Notch to pick up some bread and pies. Want to come with me?”

“I’d love to, but I should probably wait here—in the event the repair guy actually manages to make it over to the island.”

“Probably a good idea,” I said. “It’s a shame, though—I’d love the company.”

“So would I,” he said with a grin. I watched as he plucked a small, wooden boat from a small fleet and began sanding the edges. The sweet, clean aroma of fresh wood permeated his workshop, and suspended sawdust gleamed in the air where the light from the studio windows streaked across the room. I thought of Audrey, huddled on her rock—and the venom in her voice. “I think I may have another suspect, by the way.”

He paused in his sanding. “Who?”

I relayed the conversation I’d had with Audrey down by the water.

“Interesting,” he said. “It would be a true crime of passion. And if they’d gone out to the wreck site together … she could have killed him and scuttled the vessel.”

“How would she have gotten back?” I asked.

“That is a problem,” he said. “Unless she had help.”

I sighed. “That would indicate planning, though, and it seemed more a crime of passion.”

“And we don’t even know when she found out about the fiancée,” he pointed out.

“Something about her eyes made me think she was lying to me,” I said. “But I wish there were a way to confirm when she got the news.”

John eyed me sternly. “You’re not thinking of breaking into her computer, are you?”

I felt my cheeks flush. He knew me too well.

“It’s illegal, Natalie.”

“I know,” I said.

But I didn’t promise not to look.

_____

Normally, I would enjoy a trip in the skiff on a gorgeous day, particularly when it involved a visit to Southwest Harbor and the always delectable-smelling Little Notch Bakery. The little town, with its old clapboard buildings, was as quaint as always. I almost always took the opportunity to window-shop and admire the colorful artwork displayed in the shining plate glass windows, but the charms of Southwest Harbor were lost on me today. Even the beckoning shop windows—not to mention the seductive aroma of baking bread and the rows of gorgeous-looking pastries at the bakery—couldn’t distract me from my worries. My mind kept returning to Eleazer.

The young woman behind the counter handed me a box with my order; I tossed in a few sweet rolls and a tasty-looking apple turnover, and stepped back into the tangy fall air, the smell of fresh bread rising from the box in my arms. It was a short walk to the dock, and before I knew it, I was pointing the skiff back toward Cranberry Island.

The wind was fierce on the way back to the inn; dark clouds were tumbling into the blue sky from the north, and I wasn’t surprised to see the
Ira B
moored near the dock when the inn came into view. Had the university archaeologists managed to retrieve the ship’s bell? I wondered as I moved the box of baked goods to the dock and tied up the
Little Marian
.

At the inn, Gwen was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear the sound of voices in the parlor as I unloaded my haul in the kitchen. John had left a note on the table—the repairman wasn’t going to be able to make it until tomorrow morning. I patted myself on the back for the foresight to buy muffins. Instead of the overnight French toast I’d been planning on, I’d serve cheesy scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, with fresh blueberry muffins alongside.

I glanced at the clock. I needed to start the chowder soon, but I wanted to see if Claudette had made it back—or if the university team had made any new discoveries at the wreck site. Ten minutes wouldn’t kill me, I decided—as long as I was efficient.

I slipped through the door to the dining room just as Carl and Molly rounded the corner from the parlor.

“How’d it go today?” I asked.

“Not as well as we’d hoped,” Carl said.

“Weather started coming in, and the current got bad, so we called it off for the day,” added Molly.

“Did you manage to bring anything up?” I asked.

Molly’s sunny smile faded a bit. “We tried, but the lift bags weren’t quite big enough, and the current was rough. We’re going to get some new bags and give it another shot when there’s less wave action.”

“So, no luck?” I asked.

“A few concretions,” she said. “But nothing identifiable. The dive chilled me to the bone, though—I was thinking of starting a fire, if that’s okay.”

“You’re welcome to,” I said. “There’s wood and matches next to the fireplace, and newspaper for kindling; I can do it for you if you need me to.”

“I’ve got it,” she said, with a wink. “Years of Girl Scouts.”

I laughed. “I’ll leave you to it, then. But I’m sorry you didn’t find anything more helpful today.”

“We’ll find something soon enough, I’m sure. Once I’ve warmed up a bit, I’ll probably head back to the
Ira B
in a little bit and see what we can do with what we hauled up. Doesn’t look like gold or silver bullion, but you never know what you’ll find.”

“Not that we’re looking for gold or silver,” Carl cut in reprovingly. “Our concern is the historical value of the ship.”

“Of course,” Molly said, her freckled face flushing pink. “It’s just a lot easier to date a wreck when you’ve got coins.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But if we get the bell …” He glanced at me and trailed off suddenly.

“You found the ship’s bell?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Molly said, backpedaling.

“How would that help?” I asked.

“It might help identify the ship,” she said. “
If
we could find it—and if the information on it hasn’t been eroded.”

“I’ve heard metal often ends up rusting into a big chunk if it’s been under water for a long time,” I said.

Carl nodded. “It’s called a concretion; the artifact gets buried in it, along with anything nearby. It can envelop not just the metal, but any object close to it—even leather and wood.”

“How do you get it off?”

“Sometimes we chip it off,” he said. “We also use electrolysis—putting the metal into a charged, sodium hydroxide solution—to soften up the concretion and preserve the artifact. It can take years, though,” he said.

“Gosh. And I thought electrolysis was just to get rid of unwanted hair,” I said.

Molly grinned. “Unwanted hair, unwanted rust …”

“So, if you manage to track down the bell,” I said, “how long do you think it would take to identify it?”

“It would depend on the condition of the bell, and the level of concretion,” Carl said. “And whether we’re able to locate it.” Which I knew they likely had. Why was he being so cagey? “Unless we have the artifact, I’m afraid, there’s no way to tell.”

I decided to push my luck. “How exactly does someone lay claim to a shipwreck? I thought it was finders keepers, but I understand there may be more involved.”

The two exchanged glances, and it was Carl who spoke. “If you find artifacts that can positively identify the ship, you can register the claim in court.”

“So you would be able to lay claim to the wreck,” I said.

“The university would, yes. It gets dicey if you’re talking about naval ships; one of the big treasure hunting companies found a eighteenth-century Spanish ship called the
Merchant Royal
. They pulled up a hundred thousand pounds of gold.”

“Wow. No wonder it’s big business. Do they get to keep it?”

She shook her head. “They’ve been fighting about it in court for years, but the court ruled in favor of Spain not too long ago.”

“I just hope the Spanish treat the wreck as an archeological site,” Carl said, shaking his head. “Of course, everything’s been disturbed, so the site’s no longer intact …”

“They did map it first,” Molly pointed out. I was a bit surprised to see her defending a treasure hunter.