Island Blues (2 page)

Chapter Three

“Island Ombudsman?” Sabrina was pretty sure she must have heard wrong, so she repeated the phrase with a different inflection to see if a word was hidden in the midst of the unintelligible syllables. She still remembered Chris Robinson in the fifth grade telling her “immature” was pronounced “eye-ma-turd” and getting her to repeat it to all his friends to their hilarious delight. “Is
land
Om
bud
sman.”

It didn't help. The five smiling faces continued to smile, and now they were nodding too.

Sabrina knew the best way to deal with this type of situation was to nod along and look intelligent.

“Ah! What an interesting idea!” She was happy to see that this answer pleased her audience.

“We knew you'd agree, Sabrina.” Sondra Lane of Sweet Island Music pushed back her veil of long dark hair. “You're the perfect person for this job. A former schoolteacher who is great with people, what more could we ask for? I knew it the minute Mary came up with you as a possible candidate.”

Sabrina narrowed her eyes a bit as she looked over at Mary Garrison Tubbs, who sat smug and satisfied at the end of the table. Mary's idea? That put a different spin on things. Sabrina would have to be sure to look for the floating surprise in the punch bowl.

“And everyone knows you're between jobs, Sabrina, so this works out perfectly. Can you start right away?” Nettie Wrightly, small, round, and twinkly, was the newest member of the council. As Sanitary Concessionary, in charge of distributing the highly sought-after septic permits, she was arguably one of the most powerful people on Comico Island. Without her say-so, nobody could build a new house or add on to their existing one.

“Please? Oh, um…I would like to hear a bit more about what the job would entail, if you wouldn't mind.”

Sabrina squirmed in the child-size desk, but no matter which direction she turned, there was no way to avoid having her thigh squeezed or her rump pinched. She suspected Mary had had a hand in the set up for this meeting. The five town council members were lined up in a row of adult-sized chairs at the head of Mrs. Lowry's third grade classroom, while Sabrina's tiny desk was positioned in front of them. She felt like a prisoner in front of a parole board.

“We only have ten more minutes before the children return from recess, so we need to make this expeditious,” Bill Large said, frowning at his fellow board members. “I want to note for the record that I still think this whole idea is ridiculous.” Bill was a very important man—to Bill. He represented the Lighthouse Estates contingent of Comico Islanders, recent transplants who lived in their expensive mansions in a gated community by the sea.

“We really don't care what you think, Bill,” Mary announced. “Hill, are you going to conduct this meeting anytime soon?”

“Ah, yes,” Hill said, on cue. It was the first time the mayor had spoken since Sabrina arrived, in a curious frenzy to know why the town council wanted to see her at ten o'clock on a sunny Monday morning. “You've seen the article, I suppose?” He asked the question vaguely to the back of the room, and Sabrina resisted the urge to turn around and see if there was someone standing behind her.

“I'm afraid not. What article?”

“But even
you
have noticed that relations between islanders and our visitors have been strained?” Mary asked, though her tone made it clear she was not at all certain of Sabrina's powers of observation or even her ability to butter bread without help.

“Of course. There's been a lot of them lately, and so many seem miserable. How can you be unhappy when you're vacationing on such a beautiful island?” Sabrina beamed at the group, but only Sondra smiled back.

“Oh, they have plenty of reasons to be unhappy if Vicki Carroway is booking their vacation. And she's booking more than half of the rooms and houses on the island now,” Nettie said, her face crinkling so it resembled a crumpled paper bag. “She's making it almost impossible for anyone to book their own rooms without going through her. And her customer service stinks! You know Sabrina, I've started a new religion based on the joyous rewards of providing good customer service. What happened to a nice smile delivered along with your cheeseburger? Why can't—”

“Look, old woman, I don't want to hear anything more about your religion of the month—” Bill Large cut in.

“Vicki Carroway doesn't care what groups she books,” Sondra Lane said loudly over their squabbling. “Like the ‘Maximum Security Prison Reunion' group last month. And she'll tell people almost anything to get them to reserve a room or cottage. Then they're disappointed when they get here and don't have an Olympic-sized pool or their own golf course. They can't sue, because they sign these iron-clad contracts.” Sondra shook her head, her hair swishing like a length of midnight blue silk. “And it's not like we can complain to her boss, because she's the president and owner of Paradise Vacations. Every time we try to pass an ordinance to stop her, she's one step ahead of us.”

“She's bringing money onto the island, people, are you forgetting that?” Bill asked with disgust. “Don't you think that's more important than a couple of whining tourists?”

“Some things are more important than money, Mr. Large.” Mary was frosty with a chill nip of scorn. “You may be happy with a dung heap in your front yard if someone paid you to store it there, but the rest of us—”

“I've seen your front yard, Mary, and while the sixty-seven Airstream certainly adds a touch of elegance to your flower bed and your urinal birdbath personifies class—”

“Why, you—”

“Please.” Hill clasped his hands over his ears. “Please stop.”

“I still don't understand what this all has to do with me.” Sabrina knew she sounded plaintive, but she couldn't help it. She was as unhappy as the next islander by the influx of disgruntled vacationers, but what did the town council expect
her
to do?

“Why, Sabrina,” Sondra said in surprise, making Sabrina feel like a dimwit, “we need someone to listen to their complaints and try to make things right. We need an ombudsman to act as a non-biased mediator between the visitors and the islanders.”

“But I've never heard of an island having its own ombudsman. Isn't there supposed to be someone responsible for these type of complaints, like, like…the Better Business Bureau or the Visitors Bureau?”

“We don't have either of one of those. The only thing we have is a welcome center.” Sondra looked uncomfortable.

“Comico Island has a welcome center?”

“We're getting off subject, dear.” Nettie's tiny cinnamon eyes were earnest. “We really we need an ombudsman.”

“Before it's too late!” Mary stood and began pacing in the space between Sabrina and the council members. Sabrina noticed that Hill flinched every time Mary got too close to him.

“If our tourists continue to leave unhappy, before too long no one will come back. Sure we may not always like the tourists, but we darn sure need their money.” Mary avoided looking at Bill Large as she said this. “If they all stop coming, none of us will be able to afford to live here. We need to make sure they leave happy, and that's your job, Sabrina.”

“But Vicki realizes this as well, doesn't she? If all of the people she books leave unhappy, soon she will be out of business.”

“And then she'll move on to the next place,” Sondra said grimly. “She's done it time and time again. She'll make as much money here as she can, and then move on, leaving us with her mess. I talked to a couple of people at the Small Island Association meeting last week, and several of their islands have already been victimized by Vicki Carroway and Paradise Vacations. They said there's nothing you can legally do, just wait until
she
decides to leave, and that's not until she's sucked you dry and ruined your reputation.”

“This is what she's doing to us.” Mary tossed a magazine to Sabrina. “She's already made a start at ruining our good reputation.”

Sabrina caught the glossy magazine. It was a popular coastal magazine, featuring a beautiful picture of Hurricane Harbor on the cover. Sabrina began to smile until she noticed the caption: “Comico Island: Paradise Destination or Hell on Earth?”

“The reporter booked a house through Vicki,” Mary said, “and he records the entire horrendous experience. This magazine is read by thousands and thousands of people. If we don't do something fast, we may lose all of our vacationers.”

A chorus of high-pitched voices began to echo through the halls. Mrs. Lowry's third grade class would soon be back to claim their room.

“Will you do it, Sabrina? We need to know right away, or we'll have to find someone else.”

Sabrina pretended to study the cover of the magazine to hide her agitation. Could she do this?

“I don't think—” she began, her heart heavy with disappointment.

“Please, Sabrina, you have such a rapport with people,” Nettie implored. “We heard what you did for that poor tourist woman yesterday, and look how much you helped my family last fall. You're wonderful with people, and you
like
to fix things for them. If you're doing it for fun anyway, why not get paid at the same time? We wouldn't know who else to turn to if you said no.”

Sabrina frowned and looked back down at the magazine. She
was
between jobs again, with no better idea of what she wanted to do than when she came to Comico Island six months ago. After her mother's death and her breast cancer scare, she had wanted to start over, to experience all of the zesty life she had been missing. That's why she gave up everything she knew in Cincinnati to move to Comico Island, with no plan except to start over, to try something different. But different didn't always equal better, and life was no easier to figure out on Comico Island than it had been in Cincinnati. The reality was that she gave up a comfortable home—languishing on the market in Cincinnati—and a good job with benefits to move to a vacation island with a limited job supply. So far, none of them had worked out. Would this one be any different?

She wished she could go home and think about this for a week or so, talk to her friend Sally, and Calvin, and figure out the best course of action. But they needed an answer now, and what in the world should she do?

“I'll do it,” she heard herself say, and stopped in surprise. “But only on a provisional basis,” she added quickly, before her rebel tongue could get away from her again. “I'm not sure—well, anyway, let's see how I do, and then we'll decide whether I'll stay on in this position.” They'll want to fire me in a week, she thought. I'll quit before that to save them the trouble.

“Wonderful!” Hill said, and everyone turned to him in surprise. He hurriedly looked down at his hands.

“I'll warn you,” Sabrina said. “I'm all thumbs when I first start a job. It takes me a little while to get the hang of it.”

“We've heard,” someone muttered. The door opened and children erupted into the room, their happy shouting and swinging ponytails swirling and eddying around Sabrina and the council members.

“Ms. Sabrina! Have you come to read to us again?” one child shouted, and another one asked, “When are you going to do another play for the kids? I want to be in it!”

In the hall, she listened as Hill, with loud prompting from Mary, administered the Ombudsman Oath, which bound Sabrina to confidentiality and impartiality. She was still dazed and assimilating what she had just sworn to do as Mary ran through some additional information.

“…we still need to hammer out some details, like your pay—Health insurance? I don't know about health benefits, Sabrina, but we'll get to that. Right now, though, here are the most recent letters of complaint. I would suggest getting over to the Shell Lodge right away, that seems the most pressing.”

A paper sack bulging with reams of paper was dropped into Sabrina's arms, and she staggered under the weight of the complaint letters.

“We're counting on you, Sabrina!” Sondra called as the council members left with expressions of relief, leaving Sabrina holding the bag.

Chapter Four

Hundreds of islands dotted the brilliant waters of the sound, clustered around Comico Island's belly for protection from the ferocious summer hurricanes. Most were uninhabited, though some held a single house or even small communities, and almost all were unreachable except by boat.

Shell Island was unusual in that a narrow causeway had been built eighty years ago, linking Comico and the smaller island. Shell Island was very private, and was only big enough for a single hotel, so officially it was considered part of Comico Island.

The causeway was lined with splashy flowers, and Sabrina drove slowly to enjoy the view of clear, swift-moving water framed by colorful blossoms. She had never been out to Shell Island, though she had heard about the island's hotel, the Shell Lodge. It was reputed to be breathtaking.

The hotel appeared at the end of a long, curving shell driveway, surrounded by lavish vegetation. She stopped the car, enchanted by the sight.

White shells covered every square inch of the outside of the large lodge, reminding her of the fancy gingerbread houses her grandmother used to painstakingly construct when Sabrina was small. Set point-end first into concrete, the whelk shells also decorated numerous walkways and the steps leading up to the lodge's massive front doors. It looked magical, unreal, like a castle out of a fairy tale.

Sabrina followed the driveway around to the side of the hotel where she found a parking lot filled with cars and trucks, as well as two Jeeps emblazoned with the Shell Lodge's logo. From this angle, she saw that walkways wound through riotous, gaudy bushes, stopping at several miniature cottages, each adorned with thousands of ivory shells, before meandering down to a small beach.

Sabrina followed the fanciful walkway up to the back entrance of the hotel and stepped through the screen door into a deserted dining room. It was mid-afternoon, but already she could smell delectable scents floating from the kitchen, promising a savory dinner to accompany the expansive water views.

“Larry, make sure you set out water pitchers and the coffee stations in the meeting room, they don't want us disturbing them once they start—”

The young man, dressed in a maroon Shell Lodge shirt and crisp khakis, stopped upon seeing Sabrina and smiled with professional charm.

“We've got light appetizers at the pool if you're hungry,” he said with cheerful enthusiasm. “I'm afraid the dining room doesn't open until five, though. To get to the pool, you follow that hall all the way down past the lobby and presto, like magic, the door will open onto the pool.”

“No, I'm not looking for food, though the smells coming from that kitchen might make me change my mind!”

The young man laughed, and stepped forward to offer his hand. His sandy hair was receding, and his nose was too pointy, but his laugh was infectious and his intelligent face attractive despite its flaws.

“I'm Matt Fredericks. Were you looking for a room, then? We've got a group in and we're all booked up. That's pretty unusual, so if you want to call back another time, I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate you. It's great that we're booked this week, but I don't like having to turn guests away. You hate to disappoint people, you know?”

Sabrina was having trouble getting a word in edgewise, so she waited until Matt took a breath and spoke before he could get started again.

“I'm Sabrina Dunsweeney, Matt. Do you own the Shell Lodge? It's captivating.”

“Isn't it? It's a family business, has been since my great-grandfather, Kenneth Fredericks, built the lodge back in the twenties to take advantage of prohibition.” He laughed at Sabrina's surprised expression. “There was a lot of money to be made during prohibition, if you weren't too scrupulous how you made it. And great-granddad was unscrupulous
and
ruthless, from what I've heard.

“A lot of high rollers came here on fishing and hunting trips back in the twenties, and my great-grandfather thought a hunting club where they could indulge in gaming and drink would make him a mint. He was right. John Barrymore, Ernest Hemingway, Errol Flynn, among others, all made their way to the Shell Lodge.”

“During prohibition? How could he get away with that? Didn't the police know what was going on?” Sabrina was interested despite herself.

Matt laughed. “Bribing the police became very popular during prohibition, along with designer flasks and adding mixers to drinks to hide the taste of inferior liquor. The sheriff of Teach County, Fitz Mitchell, was often here gambling and drinking along with the society swells. But just in case the Feds got too interested, there were drop-down walls in the gaming room that could be closed if they showed up, and baseboards along the walls pulled out to make a hiding place for the bootlegged liquor.”

“How in the world did they get all that liquor out here? Your grandfather wasn't making it himself, I'm sure.”

“Oh, no. Only the real McCoy would do. As a matter of fact, sometimes Bill McCoy himself would bring ships full of liquor and set up a rum row off shore—it was vital to be outside the territorial waters of the United States, you understand—and every night, entrepreneurial islanders in small boats would risk the Coast Guard to go bring back boatloads of fine liquor. And, of course, since it was supplied by Bill McCoy, people knew it was high quality and not watered down.”

“I suppose that's where we got the phrase ‘the real McCoy.'”

“Exactly! Anyway, after prohibition ended, Kenneth—my great-grandfather—kept the lodge open, though it would never again do quite as well. It was my great-grandmother who insisted on the shells. She didn't like the liquor, so she would spend a lot of her time making the shell walkways and shell fences. It was a labor of love, let me tell you, who else would have had the patience? Grandpa Guy, Kenneth's son, is still around, though mostly he just feels like staying in his room and playing Battleship. But anyway, enough about me, how can I help you, Sabrina?”

Sabrina felt the need to take a deep breath, but she knew she needed to speak fast or forever keep her peace.

“Matt, I'm looking for Gilbert Kane. I understand that he's staying here.”

“You're with the Hummers?” The politeness did not falter a bit, but Sabrina noticed a discernible cooling in Matt's expression. “Let's see, it's almost two o'clock. They got back from their morning, um—expedition, and went to lunch around twelve. They've been on their own since then, but they're due to meet at two-thirty. Shall I show you to the meeting room?”

Without waiting for her to answer, he turned and led Sabrina out of the dining room and down a bright hallway. Sabrina saw that some of the interior walls were adorned with shells as well.

“What did you call them…Hummers?” The hasty explanation Mary delivered outside the classroom was that a group headed by a man named Gilbert Kane was staying at the Shell Lodge and were very unhappy for some undisclosed reason. Nothing more.

“Yes, the Hummers. You're not one of them?” Matt slowed and peeked back over his shoulder.

“No, I'm the, uh, Comico Island Ombudsman.” Sabrina blushed as she said the title, and Matt's blank expression did not help matters. “I've been hired by the town council to try to improve relations between tourists and locals. I understand Mr. Kane has a complaint, and I'm hoping I can help.”

“I don't know what Vicki Carroway was thinking when she booked them, but there's no way we can accommodate—Hello, how are you enjoying your stay?” Matt nodded at a wrinkled couple, wrapped in bathrobes, who beamed at him in near-sighted delight.

“Off to get our massages! So nice that they do it down by the water,” the woman chirped. “But, dear, I have an itsby-bitsy little question for you…”

Sabrina waited a few minutes, but Matt was not one to use three words when he could use five hundred instead. She waved her thanks at him and moved off down the hall. She had some time to kill, and she figured she could find the meeting room by herself in that time.

She itched to go introduce herself to the chefs in the kitchen and find out what delicious concoction they were preparing—perhaps she could share her new recipe for tilapia and sweet corn potpie—but she knew from experience that they would be unlikely to appreciate the interruption. Her hand went to her head as she remembered a particular incident with a French chef and a copper saucepan.

And she was here to work, after all, not gossip with fellow gastronomists. She went through the main lobby, dominated by a large shell-encrusted fireplace, and peeked into the lounge, which was adorned with dollar bills instead of shells. Thousands of dollars' worth, she saw, noting that many of the bills were signed. Shaking her head in wonderment at the delicious bizarreness of the place, she went out to the pool where several people were lazing in the warm sun or eating scrumptious-looking appetizers.

“This is too much for a person to bear,” she said and promptly sat down at one of the poolside tables and ordered the grilled honey-and-orange-marinated prawns. When the waiter brought her food and iced tea, she asked him where the meeting room was located. She wanted to talk to him further about Gilbert Kane and his group of Hummers, but he was busy, so she contented herself with enjoying the delicious appetizer.

“How lovely,” she murmured, though she herself couldn't say whether it was the food or the beautiful view which inspired her remark.

She contemplated the sun-splashed scenery and browsed through the conversations at neighboring tables.

“I don't know if I can do this, Patti,” a low, urgent voice said directly behind Sabrina. “I mean, this morning was—”

“Sophie, girl, I agree with you,” a woman answered, her voice rich and creamy, despite being sprinkled with a tinge of anxiety. “It was plain ridiculous. But at this point, I'm willing to do about anything, aren't you?”

Sabrina snuck a look over her shoulder and found two women at the table behind her. One was young and cover-of-a-magazine beautiful, though she was skinny almost to the point of emaciation. The other woman was substantial with a glorious set of cornrows.

“Oh, Patti, it's just all so awful! I don't know if I can take this Hum any longer!”

With that, the pretty girl rushed out, her eyes streaming with tears.