“One of the strangest tales to come from this area concerns an old timer named Tolchester, nicknamed Captain, who spent his later days in a small house near the shoreline, close to the quarantine buildings. He claimed descent from clipper ship captains. He was known to row his boat out almost daily to the West Bank shoal and sit with a small net working the shallow water for shellfish. He’d often be seen plunging his net over and over even though he brought up nothing but mud and sand. It was thought by his neighbors he was perhaps a little mad and best left alone. He’d be at his spot in such a timely way the steamer captains coming into the upper bay would check their clocks at seeing him and give him a steam toot.
“Then one very freezing day in the winter of 1910 the old man was discovered dead at home dressed in his fishing clothes with his boots still on. He sat stiffly upright in a rocking chair in front of his cold fireplace. He had died a few hundred yards from his boat and the shoreline. Whether he was coming home from a trip or getting ready to go out no one was able to discover. His neighbors and many of the townspeople came forth at his funeral. Some of the steamer captains pitched in and set up his boat on his front lawn. That jolly boat, fresh with a new coat of white paint, still rested proud when last visited by this author. It was a fitting monument to this old gentleman.”
Mary had closed her eyes concentrating as Katy read. She said, “I was told as a child his rowboat was given to the family back before the Civil War. They brought the boat up here from New Jersey. Some said it was a part of the tea clipper that his ancestor Captain Tolchester wrecked offshore.”
“So the old man who went out in the boat was a relative of the Captain Tolchester we are asking about?”
“He claimed to be. However, he would have been very young when the clipper captain was drowned.”
Mary went on, “They are such good people here. Most of the staff of the historical society I knew. I think they are all dead now. I haven’t been in the library, must be five or more years. Certainly not since my legs gave out. Used to have tea and discuss books.”
She shrugged. “One time this room was full of visitors. We even had the Captain’s boat pulled up on the lawn with plants around it. Mother put them in. Friends would come and repair and paint the craft.”
She looked at Katy. “I been sick. I had to sell this house to pay medical bills. These days I just rent an apartment like everyone else. The landlord’s daughter, you met her at the door, she comes and gets rent once a week. She helps me with Social Security, bless her.”
“We didn’t see any boat outside,” said Cutter.
“I think last year the final piece of the old keel was destroyed by the landlord’s lawn mower.” She smiled. “Bless him, he wanted to pay me but of course I wouldn’t let him.”
Mary started back working on the cups. “I don’t entertain much anymore. I fixed us some hot tea though. I thought you might be thirsty in all this hot weather.”
She placed a silver tray in front of them and carefully put out some placemats and napkins with the china. When she wheeled into her small kitchen, Katy whispered to Cutter that the mats were easily worth a thousand dollars apiece as pre Civil War laces. “The china is rare Canton,” she added.
Mary came back. “I guess you two are all right to show you something.” Mary wheeled over to a large cardboard poster of the Statue of Liberty held against the dirty plaster wall by a string hooked over a nail. She reached up with a pole and disengaged the string. The poster rested on her pole as it came down and she put it on the floor. Revealed were three oil paintings, each about a foot square in size and protected by richly enameled black frames. All had smudges on their edges as though they had been in a smoky fire.
Katy could not help a quick sigh of surprise as she saw the artwork. She gripped Cutter’s hand. The paintings, all portraits, were mounted in a triangle arrangement, one at top and two side by side below. The top one was of a smiling young man in a high collar blue jacket. His right hand held a large curved knife across his chest like a narrow shield. The one below it to the left was of an elderly Oriental man sitting in a plush chair, the colors of the room and his robe bright reds and blues. At the bottom right of the ensemble the portrait was of a beautiful young Chinese woman with a green jewel hanging from her neck.
With her back still to them, Mary said in a low tone, “They look so happy don’t they? They did not know the misery that faced them.”
She turned and wheeled back to them. “I keep these pictures hidden. Folks around here might break in and steal them. They are the last of my family’s heirlooms that mean anything to me.”
“That looks like Captain Tolchester, the clipper ship captain. Is it?” asked Katy.
Mary nodded. “The young man is the Captain Tolchester you are asking about, painted when he was in Canton. The Chinese man was an important Chinese merchant named Fusang. The girl was his daughter Meikuo.”
“How do you know this?”
“There was a romance between the two young people. My mother read me the Captain’s old letters when I was a young girl.”
“Where are those letters?”
“All gone, I’m afraid. We children read them over and over and wore them out ‘til they crumbled to pieces.”
She looked back at the display. “So much hope a person has when they are young,” she said, “Then we get sick.” She coughed again and put one of the lace napkins to her lips.
Katy stood up to examine the painting of the young woman.
Mary said, “Here, let me show you.” She wheeled over and took down the artwork. Coming back she handed it to Katy who studied it carefully then gave it to Cutter.
Mary added, “One of the letters mentioned that the stone in that necklace was a very famous emerald that had been mined in South America. The story was that the Captain was in love with the woman but she died. The paintings were delivered to my ancestors by another clipper captain, a friend of Captain Tolchester.”
“Do you have that other captain’s name?” asked Katy.
“Oh, Lord, child, none of those records are left, I’m afraid. It was a long time ago, you see.”
She paused then said, “I take down these paintings once in a while. They show the hope and expectation the people had then. It gives me strength to get through my calamity. You should be happy you are young and healthy, not old and sick.”
She brightened. “You must have tea.” She poured for them, the cups tiny and holding barely a taste.
“Do you have any information on the ship?” asked Katy.
Mary watched as Katy and Cutter sipped the tea. “There was never much said about it, except it was very fast.” She paused. “I still have the Bible from the wreck.”
“May I see it?” asked Katy, glancing at Cutter.
The old woman wheeled back and turned her chair quickly. Beneath the wheels several roaches scurried.
“You should have a cat,” Cutter said.
“I hate cats,” she said. “Never could stand them slinking around.”
She coughed and said, “I inherited this house and have kept it as it was. My great uncle’s room has never been changed. When I was younger I had it on the tour for the historical society up in the Narrows. Things changed in this part of town. The good people left or plain died of old age, like I’m doing. I’ve lived too long.”
She wheeled towards a side door. “I’ll show you his room,” she said as she took a key from her lap. She opened a padlock and released a hasp on the door. When it opened, a stench of mold was released.
“I’ll have to put on the light,” she said. She and her chair disappeared into the darkness of the chamber.
Cutter and Katy stood at the doorway. A weak bulb was fitted to an antique china vase. As it switched on, they observed a sitting room, with a cot against the back wall and a table in the center surrounded by three chairs. To the left was a tiny whitewashed fireplace with tumbled wood logs still set in the tarnished andirons. Beside the cot was a washstand with a white china bo
wl and water pitcher.
Mary beckoned them to enter. She pointed to the large Bible on the table. “Take a look but please be careful. It was in bad shape when it came out of the water and it’s worse now, all these years.”
Katy bent over, carefully holding it as she turned its cover back. The front page had an inscription, barely visible in the dark mold.
She read the words to Cutter, smiling as she did and knowing they had found the right man, “Captain Richard Tolchester, Brig Peregrine, New York, March 1832.”
“Check out the red ribbon inserted in the book,” said Cutter.
“The ribbon came in the book,” Mary said.
Katy turned the pages to the reference, the ribbon almost ready to crumble in her hands. “It‘s Genesis with a line marked in ink.”
“Read it.”
“ ‘…the fowl of the air,’ ” she quoted.
Cutter looked over her shoulder. “What’s written nearby in the margin?”
“Here let me see.”
The old woman wheeled forward until she could lean over the book. She said, “Why, you’re right. I never saw that.”
The words were etched in faded ink. “It’s like the line of a poem,” said Katy. She read:
“That a falcon can find a hawk.”
Cutter said, “He might be writing about his ship, the Peregrine. That bird is a falcon. If so, what does he mean by a hawk?”
He thought for a moment, then added, “The only hawk in the race is Strand’s boat, America, which has an eagle symbol.”
“The coincidence occurs more than a century late,” grinned Katy.
“I don’t understand,” said Mary. “They talked funny in the old days, didn’t they?”
Cutter noticed a pair of unpainted oars resting against the wall. “These are from your great uncle’s boat, Mary?”
“The day after he was buried, some of the men from down to the beach brought them up her and left them. “
Cutter examined the oars and shook his head, indicating they were simple wooden oars with no mark on them. Behind the opened door and against a back wall, Cutter noticed a mahogany desk. He pointed it out to Katy.
She said, “Chinese export. A beautiful example.”
Mary moved quickly to the first room. She said over her shoulder, “I don’t know where he got the desk. He didn’t have much money.” She was busy again with her teapot.
Before he left, Cutter could see stacks of old papers stuffed in its cubbyholes.
“Perhaps some of the letters from China might be in that desk,” he suggested to Mary who was moving her hand trying to hurry them out of the room.
Mary had now become very agitated. “Oh, land no. Those are just family. Nothing you two would be interested in, I’m sure.”
Katy and Cutter sat again but Mary was busy putting away her tea cups without talking. Katy tried a few remarks but Mary simply grunted. She seemed as furtive as she had been when they first arrived as if afraid she had told them too much.
Katy signaled Cutter they should leave. She said, “We certainly thank you for the history and for the tea. Is there anything we can get for you?” They stood with the hall door open, facing the darkness and the far noises of the street.
“Come and see me when you can,” Mary said, cheerful again. “If you find out anything more about my ancestor I’d like to know. I’ll frame it to hang on the wall for visitors when I have another tour of the house.”
Outside getting into the car Cutter said, “Did you get the feeling she knew more than she was telling us?”
Katy nodded. “We got the house tour version all right. I’d like a few minutes without her around to go through the papers in that desk. It’s priceless Chinese export furniture.”
Cutter observed, “Maybe the furniture was transported back from Canton along with those portraits. Did you notice the smoke stains on the portraits? It’s the same kind of damage as the big portrait of Captain Tolchester at the tea company headquarters.”
“Why would she lie about the papers?”
Cutter shook his head. “Covering up. There’s no doubt she thinks she’s going to be robbed living in this neighborhood. Right now, though, there’s nothing more we can get out of her. I guess we’ll have to keep trying elsewhere.”
Cutter looked for the car that had been following them. It was nowhere to be seen. They drove into the city and spent the night at their favorite hotel. They planned to drive back to Maryland in the morning.
After dinner, he heard her calling him as he was finishing his shower. He walked into the bedroom, still toweling himself. Katy was standing there, naked, pointing to the Johnson Company ad blaring on the television. He put his arm around her waist so their bodies touched. Cutter knew the ad by heart, having seen it many times during the marketing approval process last spring.
“Welcome aboard the Peregrine, the ship with the fight of our native American falcon,” the narrator said in a Maryland waterman’s accent. The video fed over the ship’s large rear sail where the United States flag fluttered in the wind. “A determined crew ready for the challenge,” he said. The picture moved down onto the boat deck and picked up the happy faces of the captain and the male and female crew in their Peregrine black and white polo shirts. “An American design and spirit,” he continued, accompanied with a bar of Star Spangled Banner music mixed with ocean wave noise. The video then panned to the sharp bow cutting through the seawater. “There’s no limit to what we can achieve together.” The camera aimed out from the ship and over the blue water towards the far horizon. “Johnson Company, yessir, gives us winning products for the world,” printed over a graphic of the company’s new Chinese-made color televisions.
Katy joked, “It’s a good spot. I’d like to see more tan shoulders of the sailors. The men are handsome.”
“They are supposed to be heroic sailors, not sex symbols.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy interviewing the women for the crew,” she kidded him, stroking his bare chest with the palm of her left hand.
“Maybe we should have shot them in bikinis,” he said as he pulled her to him.
She held him off for a moment. “I was thinking about that falcon and hawk notation.”
“What about it?”
“Well, a peregrine is a falcon and an osprey is a fish hawk,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yes, I thought of that.”
“Both boats sank on the same day within a hundred miles of each other. If we could find a way to prove that the Peregrine was chasing the Osprey, that would explain the notation in the Bible.”
“As far as we know the two ships never sailed anywhere near except in that last storm.”
“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
She grinned and then moved into his arms. “I know something that does make sense.”
Chapter 7
June 18, 9 AM
New York
“You’re thinking about Jamie?” He felt Katy’s hand on his back, gently stroking his bare shoulder. They were still in bed at the New York hotel.
He nodded.
“I recognize when you turn into a father. Your face gives you away. It lights up with excitement. Other times, when your mind is on the race, it darkens with worry and concern.”
“Maybe it clouds up when I think about my son. Did you like Jamie’s girlfriend?” he said over his shoulder. He turned and looked at her, beautiful in the new sunlight, wearing only a tee down to her waist, her bare leg touching his.
“Yes, they came to see me alone before they left for the race.”
“I didn’t know.”
“They took me to lunch. The two of them were so much in love I felt like I was going out with little children. I admire them, and her especially.”
“Why?”
“She seems driven to do well with her life. The fact she has chosen Jamie is a real compliment to the boy, in my opinion. She’s not the type to go along with fools.”
“Her father is the same way. Honest and dedicated to doing a good job.” His smile returned and he continued, “I’m surrounded by people who hide information from me. Doc Jerry was aware of this too. You should have told me.”
“Jamie didn’t let me tell. I asked him if I could. Anyway, it’s all very innocent. He wants to get married at his mother’s hacienda in Buenos Aires. He was afraid you might disapprove. Apparently you and your former wife don’t speak.”
“It’s more than a hacienda. It’s like a castle. Why did he talk to you and not me?”
“Because I’m new, I guess. I don’t judge. I’m not loaded up with flotsam of the past.”
“Yeah, I can see that makes a difference.”
“It does to him. It’s not he doesn’t love you. He needs to have his own life. He can talk to me without worrying about old issues between you and your former wife.”
“Like when I deserted them in the middle of a village war back in Africa?”
“I don’t think you did that on purpose.”
“Thanks, but I did,” Cutter said in a low voice. Then he brightened. “Rosa's home is like a paradise, especially the gardens. Her family’s from old Spanish and Italian descendants. Some of her land came from the Spanish king or something, her father told me.”
“She’s Jamie’s mom and she’s important. She always will be.”
“Rosa and I met when I was in Argentina on one of Bill’s projects. I spent several weeks touring the cattle ranches. Actually I was pretty good on horseback. Anyway, I found one that was a good investment for Bill’s money. I had to stay there as the guest of the owners.”
“They were Rosa’s parents?”
“They were. They had several ranches for me to look over. She arrived one day bumping up the huge road to the main house in a German sports car, hair flying.”
“You just happened to admire pretty girls.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Anyway, I didn’t have to worry about my poor Spanish with her. She was just back from school in New York with a fresh MBA. She and I went over the business accounts for at least a week working on Bill’s proposal. Even then, she was a very cold and efficient kind of lady. I didn’t see it then.”
China Jewel Page 7
