Findings

by Mary Anna Evans

  Rather than admit these doubts to Emma, she took the coward’s way out. She made a joke of the question. “I don’t see how we could be safer. You could drop Joe naked in the middle of the Sahara desert, and he’d find a way to make a deadly weapon.”

  Liz turned away from the grill long enough to say, “Joe? Naked?”, but there wasn’t enough heart left in her to craft an appropriately ribald comment. And there wouldn’t be, not until Chip came home.

  In the mirror above the bar, Faye had been watching Nita and Wayland eat. It seemed that the sheriff hadn’t been able to come up with a good reason to hang onto them. Every now and then, one or the other cast an appraising glance at Faye’s back. She’d seen them. Their interest in her wasn’t just a paranoid fantasy on Faye’s part. She knew it was real.

  Nita said something to Wayland, and they both looked Faye’s way, one last time. Then they pushed their chairs back from the table, stood up, and walked away, leaving their dirty plates behind.

  ***

  There was no more infuriating way to cap off a miserable day than suffering petty theft. Joe had spent the evening doing good deeds like busing Liz’s tables for free. He did not deserve to lose one of his few possessions.

  “Somebody took your john boat?” Liz was too polite to add the next obvious word: Why?

  Joe’s john boat looked just like everybody else’s. It was beat up, full of junk, and it smelled like fish. Joe used all the fish guts and scales that he cleaned off assorted fish carcasses as fertilizer, burying them in his garden plot on Joyeuse Island, which meant that his john boat didn’t have a putrid smell. It smelled like fish in a good way. So if the thief wanted a john boat, Joe’s might have smelled like the best option. But why would anybody steal something like that, when there were so many nicer boats moored at the marina?

  “Kids,” Liz had said to the sheriff, when he arrived to investigate. “I bet it was kids looking for a joyride. If Joe knew what was good for him, he’d use a padlock and chain to make sure that ugly boat never leaves the dock. I happen to know that Joe has never once done that.”

  “Neither does anyone else,” Faye said. “Nobody ever took it before.”

  “What do you think, Sheriff? Kids?” Liz asked.

  “Coulda been kids. Coulda been your kid.”

  Faye had watched Liz work like a slave all night, and she’d known that the woman was trying to block out her worry over Chip. The sheriff’s comment crashed through Liz’s protective armor, and she tottered for a second before flopping onto the bar stool beside her.

  Faye, for once, remembered that she didn’t have to say quite everything she thought. So she didn’t point out to Liz, Joe, and the sheriff that the boat could also have been stolen by someone who had Chip, so that he could be taken…where? And what condition was he in? The Gulf was a very good place to hide a body, and a boat would be a necessary part of that plan. She kept this idea to herself, because everybody around her knew it as well as she did.

  ***

  Faye’s bed was comfortable. Really comfortable. Emma and Douglass had never spared a penny when it came to pleasant surroundings. The sheets were smooth, the comforter was light and soft, and the mattress cradled her body so well that she fully expected to see a Faye-shaped mold when she got out of bed the next morning. She was seriously considering parting with enough money to make her own bed just as plush as this one.

  Too bad she was alone in this sumptuous bed. And she’d be alone in her own bed, if she ever got back to it. Maybe she always would be.

  With these cheerful thoughts dancing in her head, Faye arranged three downy pillows as a backrest, so she could sit up in bed and read until she got sleepy. That way, she wouldn’t have to think.

  This was going to be hard, since thinking was what she did best.

  She surrounded herself with paper—pages and pages of Cally’s oral history, and pages and pages of the Bachelders’ letters. She was having trouble making Cally’s story dovetail with Jedediah Bachelder’s, simply because of the difference in format.

  The letters were chronological. Even better, they were dated.

  Cally had just rested in a rocking chair and spun an old woman’s tales. Her stories danced from her girlhood as a house slave to her old age in the Depression years and back to the waning days of the Civil War. Faye couldn’t keep it all straight. It was time to construct a timeline.

  She sharpened a pencil and laid a legal pad in her lap. On the first lines, she wrote,

  Prior to the breakout of the Civil War in April, 1861: According to Jedediah Bachelder’s letters, he and his wife Viola visited Courtney and Cally Stanton on Joyeuse Island.

  Corroborating note: Cally Stanton’s reminiscences corroborate at least one visit by a family of Bachelders prior to the Civil War. There may have been more.

  On the next line, she added,

  November 13, 1861: Jedediah Bachelder writes a letter that begins proceedings to free his slaves.

  The next few entries came in quick succession.

  January 7, 1863: Jedediah Bachelder writes his wife, telling her that he is being sent on a diplomatic mission to England. He believes he was selected to negotiate an alliance with the English solely because his lack of slaves gives him credibility in Europe.

  Corroborating note: Such diplomatic missions are known to have taken place, including a well-known trip headed by a prominent planter named Duncan Kenner.

  September 10, 1863: Bachelder writes his wife of the failure of his mission to England. He mentions an emerald necklace that was also mentioned in an earlier letter. The sale of his family’s plantation has forced him to find a new hiding place for the necklace. He reminds her of their visit to Joyeuse and tells her of getting Courtney Stanton’s help in finding a hiding place on the island. He tells her the necklace’s hiding place, under a newly built summer house.

  Corroborating notes: A contemporaneous account recorded by Cally Stanton mentions a summer house. An emerald and a gold finding found in the possible location of the summer house suggest that the necklace was indeed buried there.

  Sometime in 1864: The pen and note paper used by Bachelder change, as well as the handwriting. This is believed to be the time when he lost the services of his secretary and valet and was forced to travel alone. There is little information on where he traveled during this time period, nor why “a minor public servant” has left Richmond for such a protracted period of time. A period of war and social turmoil seems like an odd time to embark on constant travel.

  Corroborating note: Cally Stanton’s oral history confirms that Bachelder had lost his secretary and valet prior to his single wartime visit to Joyeuse in 1863.

  April 18, 1864—Bachelder writes a second letter to Viola about the necklace and its hiding place, because he fears that the first one did not reach her.

  June 30, 1864—Viola writes her husband, confirming (though in veiled language) that she received the letter telling her where to find the necklace.

  Cross-checking Bachelder’s account with Cally’s, Faye added an entry just below his letter of September 1863.

  Corroborating note: Cally Stanton’s oral history confirms Bachelder’s wartime visit to Joyeuse, sometime after Courtney Stanton’s death in

  Faye’s pen stopped. She wracked her brain for the date of Courtney Stanton’s death. It was fairly late in the war, but when?

  Then she remembered. The Civil War began in April 1861 and it ended in April 1865. She remembered when Courtney Stanton had died, because it was just a year short of the end of the war, in April 1864. She penciled April 1864 into the corroborating note, then she glanced back over the timeline to check for accuracy before she went ahead.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  Something didn’t add up. That meant she had to follow the thread through time again, and again if necessary, until she could get it unsnarled.

  Cally had mentioned that Courtney was dead when Bachelder visited, and
Courtney died in 1864. But Bachelder’s letter describing his trip to Joyeuse was dated 1863.

  Even worse, there was a clear contradiction between Cally’s account and Jedediah Bachelder’s, one that was more fundamental than just a confusion over dates. Cally clearly said that Courtney was dead when Bachelder visited. And Bachelder clearly said that Courtney helped him hide the necklace, even going so far as to build a summer house over it.

  Had Cally misremembered the visit? Her description of the loneliness that had made her so happy to see her friend Jedediah Bachelder—or Jed, as she had called him—rang so true. A widow would not forget when her husband died.

  When Cally’s reminiscences were taken into account, only one explanation fit the facts as presented in the Bachelder letters that she possessed: Cally’s friend Jed visited Joyeuse Island twice during the war. The first time, he had worked with Courtney to hide the emerald necklace. It was possible that they worked in secret, without Cally ever even knowing he’d been there. Later, he returned, and this was the visit that Cally had described.

  Now that the snarls in the timeline were untangled, Faye’s mind should have rested easier, but this new information only stirred up more uncertainty. Cally’s story mentioned Bachelder saying that people were after him. He’d said nobody could know where he was going, not even his trusted valet and secretary. Yet they’d presumably traveled with him when he purchased the necklace and during his previous trip to Joyeuse Island, when he and Courtney had buried the necklace. Why could they travel with him when he was carrying a fortune in emeralds, but not later? What information would have been more sensitive than that?

  And why did people want to know where he was? Was it just because he was a Confederate official? Or was there something more?

  She gathered her papers and put them in her briefcase. It was time to sleep. Well, it was time to try to sleep. She and Joe needed to go back to Tallahassee and get a look at the last few Bachelder letters. Maybe they would explain their author’s peculiar behavior.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It took the hazy light of dawn, lit by the pink and gold glow of a sun still hiding below the Gulf of Mexico, for Faye to see her heart clearly.

  Why had she sent Ross home alone? She didn’t want to leave Joyeuse, it was true, but she’d always known that the day would come when she’d have to go back to the mainland. There was a reason that nobody besides Faye had lived full-time on Joyeuse Island since Cally died in the 1930s. Cally had lived so long that her daughter, named Courtney after her father, was old and infirm before her mother died. Courtney’s daughter—Faye’s grandmother—had moved to Tallahassee when she was widowed, so she could get secretarial work and, though her mother had been recalcitrant, she’d taken Courtney with her.

  Faye’s mother had been born in Tallahassee, and she’d grown up there. So had Faye. All the family’s women had talked of moving back to the home place—for sixty years, they had talked about it—but only Faye had been bullheaded enough to do it. She’d managed to survive out there and be happy, it was true, but the cost had been high in terms of money and effort and heartache.

  Paying work was on land, which meant she spent much of her time in boats and cars, trying to get to it. Pretty much everybody in the world, except Joe, was on land, too, and none of them wanted to live on a Godforsaken island. So she spent a lot more time in boats and cars, just trying to fulfill her human need for companionship.

  Moving to Atlanta wouldn’t mean selling Joyeuse. Ross had said they could go there on weekends, and Joe could look after the place. Only Joe wasn’t going to stay there forever. When he’d come to Joyeuse, he’d needed a place to hide from a world where he didn’t fit. Well, there was a place in the world for Joe now. He was driving, and in school, and making plans for…

  What were Joe’s plans? She’d never asked him, because she didn’t like to think of him being gone.

  Imagining her great white house, empty and alone, after she and Joe had left it behind felt like plunging a knife into a wound that had only begun to heal. No. She couldn’t do it. Joe might have to leave, but she didn’t ever have to go.

  But the knife wouldn’t leave her alone. Joyeuse without Joe was…unimaginable. She’d been terrified of Atlanta, afraid of being alone in a city of strangers, but this loneliness was worse. She couldn’t bear it.

  If Joe left, she couldn’t bear it.

  Before the sun cleared the horizon, Faye knew that she could move away from Joyeuse and be happy. But she would never be happy anywhere if Joe wasn’t there.

  What would she do if he decided to go anyway?

  ***

  Breakfast was hard. Joe persisted in doing things that made Faye intensely uncomfortable…things like saying, “Good morning.” When he asked if she’d slept well, she nearly jumped out of her chair.

  He sat beside her, which was good, because she didn’t have to look at him, and she wasn’t in the direct line of fire of a sharp pair of green eyes that missed nothing. Trying to hide something from a hunter was a fool’s game. Joe could surely read the tremble in her hand as easily as he knew which way a hunted rabbit would jump.

  Faye soon found that the fact that Joe was outside her direct range of vision didn’t help matters much. He’d neglected to tie back his hair, and she could hear the soft rustle as it moved over his shoulder every time he turned his head. She could see long bronze fingers lightly gripping a silver fork as it speared a bit of pancake. Forcing herself to focus on her own fork, she took a bite of her own pancake, but her mouth was dry. It would have been easier to chew dirt.

  Emma slid into the seat across from Faye and smiled like a woman who knew a secret. Faye couldn’t take it any more.

  “I’m not real hungry. Just leave my plate here, and I’ll eat something later.” She needed to leave, and taking her plate to the kitchen would take too long. “I’ve just got to get some exercise, and if I don’t take a walk now, it’ll be too hot.”

  Joe put down his fork, and Faye’s heart stopped. He was going to offer to go with her, and then she was going to have to make conversation. She couldn’t talk to him yet, because she didn’t know what she was going to say.

  Emma, who continued to look like a woman who knew more than she should, forked another pancake onto Joe’s plate. “Here. Eat this so it doesn’t go to waste.”

  Faye had nearly gotten away, but Emma wasn’t through with her. “Take your coffee,” she said, holding the cup out to Faye. “It settles the stomach and clears the mind.”

  Faye needed both of those things pretty bad. She took the cup and made her escape.

  ***

  Lapping water bathed Faye’s feet. She was an islander, and water in any form usually soothed her soul. Not today.

  Why did she even think that Joe might want her? She was thirty-eight—pushing forty, if she were to be brutally honest with herself. He wasn’t even thirty yet. And he was so damn good-looking that his gravitational pull attracted women the way the sun drew comets.

  When Joe walked into a public place, women drifted in his direction without even knowing they were doing it. Little girls smiled at him. Older women laughed at his jokes, even when he hadn’t made any. Women his own age circled him like wandering planets, and he hardly even noticed. Every now and then, he took one out on a date, but it rarely went beyond that.

  How did Faye look to Joe? Like one of those older women who lingered in his presence because they just liked to gaze at him? Telling Joe how she felt about him felt dangerous. It could be utterly humiliating.

  She needed time to figure this out, which was unfortunate, because she needed to go to the rare book library and Joe would insist on going with her. He took this bodyguard thing very seriously.

  While on the subject of serious issues, it occurred to Faye that she had no idea what to wear to the library. If she wore anything other than her everyday work garb—t-shirt, army surplus pants, and boots—Joe would notice. Of course, the point
was that she wanted him to notice. But if he said anything as personal as, “You look nice,” she was likely to scream.

  That meant she’d have to wear the usual gear, but maybe she had something in her suitcase that would make her look a little less like Joe’s dowager aunt. Maybe a red t-shirt, close-fitting, with a little scoop to the neckline. She felt sick to her stomach. Remembering Emma’s advice, she took a sip of her cold coffee.

  It would have been a lot easier just to run away to Atlanta with Ross.

  ***

  Joe’s car was about as old as Faye’s had been before she totaled it, so the engine sounded like a steel barrel crammed full of aluminum cans, then flung into a rocky canyon. Faye found the noise distracting. This was good.

  The car was small, forcing her to sit closer to Joe than her comfort zone—which was increasing by the minute—preferred. This was not so good. It was time to talk about something safe, like murders or emeralds.

  “Did I tell you what we’ll be looking for at the library today?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “Cally’s tales and Bachelder’s letters seem to contradict each other. The only way they could both be right is if he made two trips, and she didn’t know about the first one.”

  “And that’s important because…why?”

  “Mostly because I don’t like unanswered questions.”

  “I noticed.”

  “But also because Cally’s words give me the feeling that there was something different about his second trip.” Faye struggled to articulate exactly why she felt that way. “He said that people were after him, and he’d lost his traveling companions. Or maybe he got rid of them on purpose. I want to know why he came back. I really doubt he came to get the necklace while the war was still on. And he made another trip later that was a much more obvious time to fetch it.”

  “You think he talked about his reasons in his letters?”