Sail With Me

by Heights, Chelsea

  SAIL WITH ME

  A Novel by Chelsea Heights

  Dedicated to the love of my life.

  You know who you are.

  Chapter One

  “Push, Caroline, push!” Beads of sweat flowed down her face as she clenched the hospital bed with both hands. She never experienced pain like this before and thought she would surely die. With her chin pressed into her chest and her legs elevated in stirrups, she lifted her gaze and saw the midwife raising her baby from between her bloody thighs. Suddenly the agony of childbirth was gone and replaced with the overwhelming joy of becoming a mother. Warm blankets were plopped onto her swollen belly and Andrew Thomas was placed on top of them, looking directly at her with his huge brown eyes meeting hers for the first time. “I’ve waited so long to meet you,” was all Caroline could say before she saw those beautiful eyes roll to the back of his head exposing nothing but whiteness for a few brief seconds and then closing. The violent seizure started immediately and her perfect baby boy went from pink to blue in a matter of seconds. Caroline’s baby was taken away from her and rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit by a team of nurses and doctors. She had no idea she would never hold her newborn again.

  Chapter Two

  Detective Delaney Davenport sat in the comfort of her home behind her Ethan Allen desk tapping a pencil against her third can of Diet Coke. She couldn’t stop reading her most recent work e-mail, the one declaring she was again passed over for senior detective. The rejection she felt wasn’t new; being the only woman officer in a notoriously redneck police department of forty-five, she was accustomed to the animosity she felt from the other officers. Before taking the assistant detective position, she had been moving up the ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department quickly. Moving from the hustle and bustle of a big city and returning to where she grew up in southern New Jersey had been a surprise to everyone, but at the time love made her feel invincible and clouded her judgment. “What a bunch of crap,” she said out loud to herself. She closed the cover on her Apple MacBook and reached for her running shoes.

  She stretched on the porch, allowing the overhanging roof to protect her from the sun. New Jersey was experiencing a heat wave, breaking one-hundred-year-old records. It was only 7 a.m. and the thermometer hanging from her oak tree was already reading in the low 90s. It had a red cardinal on top, with a chipped wing. The broken bird was the only reminder left of her husband, if you didn’t count the anonymous letter and photograph she had stuffed away in the bottom of her beloved Coach bag. When he left, Delaney had chased after him, tearing the thermometer off of the great oak and cracking him across the head with it. She didn’t know if the wing broke from his thick skull or the fall to the ground. It didn’t make a difference; she had grown tired of his lies and broken promises and threw him out of her life.

  The Mullica Township municipal complex was one level of brick and stone overlooking the Little Egg Harbor Bay. Architecturally it was nothing spectacular to look at but it was surrounded by natural beauty. The city council had the foresight to leave as many natural trees and plants as possible, making it a very unassuming building in a town with barely one thousand residents. The weeping willows loomed over the structure, their long whip like branches gently swaying in the breeze. The native sea grasses wrapped around the foundation, providing homes to a variety of small creatures. Every spring, members of the ladies auxiliary club planted large groupings of annuals in varying colors, heights, and textures along the brick walkway leading to the main entrance of the complex. Wood benches were randomly scattered across the lawn, each having an engraved plaque in memory of a loved one. Having a bench with a family name became a status symbol in the small town, and it seemed relatives were coming to pay the one hundred dollar fee for a plaque and a bench before their family member was even buried. The whole thing made Delaney uncomfortable and she wondered if she should place a special request with the town hall not allowing anyone to put her name on a bench when she was dead.

  In the back was a moderate-sized patio area, made of New England slate in shades of gray and brown. Three round concrete tables with curved benches were placed in a triangle formation, each having its own yellow umbrella. Off to the side was a pergola which had been overtaken by a family of trumpet vines. The vines had become so invasive that you could barely distinguish where the pergola was once painted white. Now its posts and beams were wrapped tightly by the thick green vines with their bright red flowers hanging down forming a natural barrier from the sun. If you looked at the pergola long enough, you would question whether it was the nails holding it all together or the strength of a thousand vines.

  The patio backed up to the bay, where kayakers and children with fishing poles could be spotted any time of the day. On the opposite side of the bay was a sandy beach with an old steel swing set and slide. A white lifeguard stand with a slanted roof was perched in the center with a teenager sitting all day listening to his iPod and texting while watching children as their mothers gossiped with one another. Every day the Jack and Jill ice cream truck would visit and the sound of Mike ringing his bell would bring all the children racing from the water to get their daily treat. Ice cream sandwiches were four dollars and character popsicles five dollars. Mike the ice cream man was making a small fortune in cash and was known to make a second showing on the especially hot days. Mike was a local kid who had joined the Marines at the tender age of eighteen. When he was nineteen he was deployed to Afghanistan. At twenty he returned home a man missing his left arm. Now in its place was a prosthesis with two metal hooks on the end which he could somehow maneuver by using the muscles in his shoulder.

  The town had one traffic light and a general store, not so creatively named the Town Store, where you could purchase a sandwich, have your chainsaw sharpened, get horse feed, or mail a package all from the same person. It was the epitome of one-stop shopping. The upscale homes were spread over acreage, each on the minimum one-acre lot required by a city ordinance which had been in place for over fifty years. Over half the homes were on parcels of fifty acres, with horse stables and gated entrances. The majority of the townspeople were professionals, working at the University Hospital in neighboring Egg Harbor City. Most were employed as physicians, researchers, or upper management administrators. It seemed everyone else in town made a living off of these people by cleaning their homes, landscaping, and caring for their horses.

  Many of these families could be traced back for generations, their great-great-grandparents immigrating to this rural community from Ireland. These forefathers built the only church in town, the Methodist Church, which stood solitarily on a green hill overlooking the water. Around the church were acres of rolling emerald hills with gentle slopes displaying concrete gravestones with dates as far back as the 1800s. It was a traditional clapboard built white church, with huge stained glass windows from floor to ceiling. The bottom of each window was inscribed with the name of an original member, the husband’s name always being listed first and more prominently followed by the name of his wife who was always displayed on the bottom and in smaller letters, as if an afterthought. Colorful images of Jesus and crosses surrounded the interior walls of the church, and no matter where you sat, it felt like Jesus’ eyes followed. The building was filled with the original hand-carved wood pews, each engraved with the carvers’ initials on either side. The back of each pew held several bibles and hymn books, all in memory of passing loved ones. Atop the church was the traditional steeple, adding an additional thirty-five feet of height from the rooftop. On a clear night the illuminated steeple could be seen from a mile away.

  Wallace Drummond, a sixty-four-year-old with a tall slender body and a slight but off-centered hump in his back was the groundskeeper and historian for the chu
rch. He had large sun damaged hands, appearing to be more like aged brown leather than skin. His face looked its age and his sparkling blue eyes carried a heavy sadness. Wally had prominent ears, which only became more obvious as his white hair thinned. When he was young he was self-conscious of his big ears and would unsuccessfully attempt to push them up under a baseball hat. He wore his hat now not because of his ears but because he didn’t want his bald spot to burn in the midday sun. His polyester pants and white buttoned down cotton shirts were beginning to hang from his thinning frame, and just last month he added a new hole in his belt. His left breast pocket always held his reading glasses and a long thin cigar wrapped in a white handkerchief, even though he had stopped smoking over twenty years ago. Sometimes when the urge to smoke would hit he would walk the grounds with an unlit cigar hanging from his lips, and Wally swore just having the taste of the tobacco leaves in his mouth was enough to satisfy his desire without having to light up. In his pants pocket he carried a personal pack of Kleenex, not for himself but for grieving people whom he would often see during his course of the day. Next to his tissues was his pocket watch, a gift given to him on his tenth birthday from his grandfather Samuel Drummond. It was sterling silver, smooth, and shiny on the outside with a simple inscription on its cover, “Love, Grandpa.” Every morning he would open the watch to wind it but mostly to see the faded black and white photo of his beautiful wife Sara holding their only child, an infant named Gracie Anne. They died only hours apart, Gracie in her mother’s arms, and then Sara in his arms. He long ago stopped trying to figure out why he survived the flu epidemic while the two people he loved the most spent days struggling for every breath before leaving him. Wally spent three days digging their shared grave, having to break through the frozen ground. Plenty of men came with their own shovels and picks to help, but Wally refused all of them. He wanted to feel the earth in his own hands, and take out his anger with each swing of his shovel. He had no inhibitions, and openly sobbed with every heave of dirt onto the oak coffin. The frigid air carried the sounds of his grieving soul throughout the town.

  His brother Henry, ten years his junior, served as the congregation’s pastor. Henry was a large man, with a protruding belly always hanging over his belt buckle. As much as Wally worked outside cutting the lawn and pulling weeds around headstones, Henry sat in his air-conditioned office reading his bible and preparing for the next week’s sermon. His hands were soft, with short pudgy white fingers. He had one callus, on the inside of his right middle finger caused by having an incorrect grip on his pen. He always brought a plate of homemade cookies or pastries made by his wife Agnes. His office was filled with books on theology, philosophy, and business. Henry was acutely aware that most of his congregation was not actually Methodist, but included Catholics, Protestants, Episcopalians, and even a few Jews. He catered to all of them, assuring that enough money was collected every Sunday to keep the church doors open. Henry was notorious for greeting new people in town. Shortly after moving in he would ring their doorbells and introduce himself. He would always close with “I expect to see you on Sunday.” When someone would announce “Oh, but I’m not Methodist,” Henry was always quick to respond with “You live in this town, you’re a Methodist” before turning on his heel and walking away not giving the person a chance to disagree. Whether it was from guilt or a desire to belong, most people would show up and put their hard earned money in the collection plate.

  On occasion Henry would look up from his writings to watch his older brother through the office window weeping over the grave of his little family. Only once did Henry attempt to encourage Wally to move on with his life, which resulted in them not speaking for two years. He would never allow that to happen again. Wally and Henry had four sisters sandwiched between them but they were all deceased from an aggressive genetic form of breast cancer. Wally also dug their graves, but now had the luxury of using a tractor instead of his back. He hadn’t wept a single tear for any of his sisters, though he loved them dearly. Wally believed all his tears were poured into the grave of Sara and Gracie, and he had no more to give.

  Chapter Three

  Delaney arrived to work twenty minutes early and sat in her cubicle, ignoring the ringing phone on her desk. Her cube walls were empty, only random thumbtack holes where photos of her and Kevin use to hang. She had felt the eyes of her coworkers on her on the morning she came in and tore them all down and fed them into the shredding machine. None of the men in her office asked what was wrong; they already knew. It was Delaney who was the last to find out about her husband’s infidelity, and she felt like the town fool. She cried for months over the loss of her marriage and several more wondering what she had done wrong. She overheard other officers talking about Kevin and calling him the “happy humper” as they speculated how he got away with it for so long before Delaney found out.

  It had been a year after their divorce was final when Kevin died. He was drunk and screwing some nurse on a dock during low tide. It was reported in the Daily Post that when they were finished having sex, Kevin rolled off of her and then dropped ten feet into the water. It was summertime, the water was warm, but according to the woman Kevin had finished a six pack followed by a couple shots of whiskey during dinner. The Coast Guard spent twenty-four hours looking for him before the search was changed from a rescue mission to a recover mission. A diving team found his body four days later impaled by an underwater piling. Delaney heard his shirt was wrapped around his neck and his pants were still down around his ankles. By the time he was found the crabs had already eaten off his manhood and only a fleshy stump was left. She could never eat crabs again.

  “Davenport, wake up and smell the coffee,” shouted her chief, Marsh O’Malley. He was pushing fifty, overweight, balding, and smelled like ten years worth of cigarettes. His shirts were always stained with food and he was constantly sweating. All the hair had left his head decades ago and now sprouted from his nose and ears. His chins wiggled when he spoke and he didn’t have a neck. The department even had to purchase an extra wide chair for him to sit in. Delaney had briefly wondered what the taxpayers would think of that. He was arrogant and openly disdained her. He didn’t try to hide his feelings of having a woman cop on his police force. O’Malley made sure she had the oldest, most beat up cruiser in the lot, even when newer vehicles sat unused. Even during physical fitness training, when she beat all the men on the obstacle course, O’Malley stated it was only because they let her win. She outshot the men on the pistol range, ran faster, and solved more cases yet she was always passed over for promotion.

  Chief O’Malley plopped down a stack of manila folders onto her desk and waddled away. Delaney was grateful she didn’t have an extra wide chair in her cubicle. She skimmed through the tabs on the folders and noticed “Caroline” was scrolled across the top of one of them. Delaney opened her bottom desk drawer, dropped the folder in and closed it just as fast. She started reading through the other files, all petty small town issues; that was all she ever got. She grabbed the top one and her keys and headed toward the Town Store.

  Delaney pulled into the gravel lot and parked the unmarked cruiser under the shade of a huge oak tree. She pulled down the visor and glanced at herself in the mirror. She instantly regretted it. Her flaws were always magnified in bright natural light. She quickly closed it and leaned back in the driver’s seat. She could feel the sweat building between her back and the leather seat. She found herself thinking of Chief O’Malley sitting in his air-conditioned office while she was cooking in the patrol car. Her pants suit felt unbearable in the humidity and coupled with the one hundred plus degree heat she felt like a pool of sweat. The latest weather update said it would be another four days of record temperatures before things would begin to cool down. Delaney guzzled from her water bottle and put the car keys in her pocket, but left all the windows down.

  She didn’t verbally acknowledge it, but opening the door to the Town Store and feeling the sudden burst of cold air on her face
was refreshing. She could immediately feel the beads of sweat dissipating into the air and was instantly in a better mood. “Delaney, I was hoping the chief would send you. You’re the only cop in town with any brains,” William said as he handed her an ice cold can of Diet Coke. Delaney cracked the tab and hesitated just for a second before taking several gulps from the beverage. She could feel the burn in her eyes and when she looked up at William he chuckled and said, “Brain freeze, it’s written all over your face.” Wincing, she agreed with a nod and motioned with her hand for William to talk.

  William started telling her how a group of teenagers placed a red Life Saver on the floor of his store, just in front of the refrigerator which held the milk. The teens had pushed the candy just under the lip so it wouldn’t be stepped on. Delaney patiently listened to his complaint and watched as William’s hands moved all around as he told his side of the story. Delaney had learned from experience that everyone wanted the opportunity to tell their side of the story and it was better not to interrupt, just listen and take it all in while trying to pull out the important facts. William had owned the Town Store for most of his life and he lived right above it in a little apartment by himself. He had never married but was known to bring home a lady friend every now and then. It was common knowledge that if you arrived at the store and found it closed, it was because he had a woman upstairs. Seeing that this only happened a few times a year, it was more of an event than an inconvenience and provided people with something to talk about for the week.