“Or an e-reader.”
“Banish the thought,” she said with a smile. “Oh, that reminds me of one thing I read: The lighthouses had their own little lending library of sorts. A box of all sorts of books—novels, poetry, the Bible—would be delivered by the regular supply boats or tender ships. After a few months they would swap out the box for a new one.”
“A lighthouse bookmobile. How cool is that? I used to love the bookmobile when I was a kid. So, can you tell me anything about the woman who kept the Bay Light on Lighthouse Island?”
“This is what I’m telling you: There was some information on her in the stolen file.” I could practically see the wheels turning in Trish’s head as she stared at her computer monitor, clicking her mouse furiously. “I’m sure I could dig up exact names and dates, if you could give me a little time. Boy, it really steams me that someone would steal that file. What’s the deal? We digitize as much as we can, but scanning everything in the collection is a huge project, and it’s not as if the historical society is rolling in money. The files always have tidbits of information not found elsewhere: newspaper clippings, archival notes, and ephemera that we haven’t had the time or resources to upload. What this society needs is a sugar daddy.”
I smiled. “Maybe I should introduce you to Ellis Elrich. He appears to be a true lover of history. You could work your magic on him.”
“You ever introduce me to him, don’t think I won’t. Wait—here she is. I remember because the names were so interesting, and so apt: from 1899 to 1905, the official keeper of the Bay Light was George Vigilance. The job then went to his wife, Ida.”
“Did they have any children?”
“According to this, they had one son, Franklin Prescott Vigilance. But . . . ah . . . I remember now.”
“Remember what?”
She let out a sigh. “There was a tragedy; their young son disappeared, and George had an accident while searching for him, and died.”
“The boy disappeared?”
“Probably drowned. It was a common hazard, as one might expect on an island. But young Franklin’s body was never recovered.”
“And his father, George, died while looking for him?”
“According to the report filed with the Lighthouse Authority, his wife, Ida, said George was working on the clockworks at the top of the tower when he thought he spied little Franklin’s red-and-white-striped shirt on the shoals. He ran to find him, but in his haste tripped and tumbled down the lighthouse steps, all the way from the top, breaking his neck.
“Ida found him at the bottom of the stairs.”
Chapter Seventeen
There was a lot of that going around.
Trish looked up from the computer and blinked.
“And Ida took over after George’s death?” I asked.
She nodded. “Ida Vigilance was the official keeper for the next ten years.”
I was betting Ida stayed on at the Bay Light a lot longer than that. I supposed it wasn’t absolutely certain that the vision I’d seen at the top of the tower was Ida Vigilance, but it made sense. And I was going to assume the little boy who had pointed to the tower was Ida and George’s young son, Franklin. So Ida remained on Lighthouse Island alone, true to her name and ever vigilant, lighting her lamp, mourning her husband, and searching for her missing son for ten years?
That would be enough to drive the most down-to-earth person around the bend.
“What happened to Ida Vigilance, in the end, do you know?”
Trish shook her head. “It just says here the lighthouse was decommissioned in 1953. Since then it’s been run with electronics.”
“And do we know anything else about Ida? Where she grew up, anything like that?”
“I don’t know anything off-hand—the Coast Guard history focuses more on George than Ida, which is typical. But it’s a good bet her maiden name was Prescott. Naming conventions at that time meant a son often carried his mother’s maiden name as his middle name. I could look into it for you, if you’d like. We have an excellent genealogical collection. Family history buffs help keep us in business.”
“I would appreciate anything you could find.” A large group of children, chattering excitedly, was being ushered into the archive by two harried-looking young women.
“A third-grade class on a field trip,” explained Trish. “They’re here to look up information on San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition.”
“Just one more thing before I let you go: Have you ever heard of a pirate treasure associated with Lighthouse Island?”
“A treasure?”
“I found a treasure map.” I pulled the paper out of my satchel and spread it carefully on the counter. The old paper crackled and crumbled at the edges.
Trish looked skeptical, but pulled on a pair of white gloves before handling it. “Where did you find this? Is it genuine?”
“I think so, though I can’t be certain. I found it on the island.”
She put on a pair of magnifying glasses that enlarged her eyes to a ludicrous degree, then studied the map.
“There’s no way to tell if the paper’s genuinely old without testing the materials,” she murmured, hunched over the drawing. “But from what I can determine just by looking at it, it seems real enough. And from the way the ink is faded, and the scrollwork on the cursive, it does look like it’s at least a hundred years old. Still, I would doubt this was drawn by an actual pirate. My bet would be an avid fan of Treasure Island. Did you know? Robert Louis Stevenson was almost singlehandedly responsible for the famous images associated with pirates: the one-legged captain with the parrot on his shoulder, the map with the ‘X,’ and even the idea of buried treasure itself.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Apparently the idea for the story came about when Stevenson drew a map to entertain his stepson one rainy day in Scotland. Or at least that’s how I always heard it. Later he expanded on the idea for the novel.”
“As a matter of fact, I found a copy of Treasure Island in the Keeper’s House on Lighthouse Island, just yesterday.”
“You mean an old edition? Do you know the year of publication?”
“I didn’t check the year, but I think it belonged to the Vigilance family. It was inscribed to little Franklin.”
Her eyes lit up. “I’d love to see it.”
“I’ll bring it next time I come.”
“Great.” Her gaze flickered over my shoulder at the children, who had been shepherded into the reading room and were now squirming in wooden chairs at long tables. “I should go do my spiel. But first I have to know: Have you looked for the treasure yet?”
“Yes, but all we found was a couple of coins. Not much of a treasure, if you ask me.”
“One never knows.” She straightened and took off the magnifying glasses. “Sounds like you need a numismatist.”
“A what, now?”
“An expert in old and rare coins.” She tapped something into the computer and wrote a name—Cory Venner—and phone number down on a piece of scrap paper.
“Cory’s an acknowledged coin expert. And he’s not a dealer, he’s a historian, so he won’t rip you off. If the coins are worth anything, he can tell you.”
“Thanks. That’s a good place to start, anyway.”
“Let me know what happens. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can dig up anything about a buried treasure on an island in the bay. Get it? ‘Dig up’?”
“Funny,” I said. Dingo wasn’t the only one fond of bad puns.
“But, Mel, here’s the thing about buried treasure,” Trish said with a smile. “It almost never happened. It’s a popular Disney narrative, I realize—thanks again, Mr. Stevenson—but in real life, if treasure was left anywhere, it was usually squirreled away in someone’s home or in a natural formation, such as a cave. And there was no map dra
wn; that invites theft. Which is why folks still occasionally stumble onto a cache of something, because the fellow in charge died and took the secret to the grave.”
“Okay, but . . .” I felt loath to give up my childhood fantasies of pirates. Not to mention that a hidden treasure might have served as the motive for whoever killed Thorn. “It can’t hurt to try.”
“You never know.”
“Exactly. Okay, thanks for all your help, Trish. I’ll let you go mold young minds.”
“I love this age,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “They’re still young enough to think librarians are cool.”
“I didn’t feel that way about old Mrs. Ulmer at Lincoln Elementary, but you are cool,” I said. “And if you’re ever at a loss, put on those magnifying glasses. Guaranteed to make eight-year-olds crack up.”
“What, you think I don’t already know that?” She gave me a wink and turned to the third graders, who were oohing and aahing over a diorama one of the teachers was holding up. It showed what the San Francisco and San Pablo bays had looked like back in the days of the Barbary Coast.
The model even included a little pirate ship, passing through the Golden Gate, long before the iconic bridge was built.
• • •
I called Cory Venner, told him Trish had referred me, and he invited me to stop by later in the afternoon. Then I headed to Matt’s house to inspect the final carpentry work in the library, and to meet with the Atlas Elevator mechanic and the backflow inspector.
Afterward, I girded my loins and picked up Luz so she could escort me to my acupuncture appointment, and then to lunch. On the way, I caught her up on the latest with regard to Alicia’s situation.
I didn’t have the emotional strength at the moment to vie for on-street parking in Chinatown, so I opted for the underground Portsmouth garage. Here, the floors were labeled with different names: Peace, Happiness, Joy. I parked on the Panda floor, in the Bravery section. I needed all the bravery I could get. We took the elevator up to Portsmouth Square, where clusters of old men hunched over small concrete tables, playing cards or chess or mah-jongg—or standing around, betting on the players.
In one corner of the square was a monument to Robert Louis Stevenson.
“Funny,” I said, gesturing to the stone tribute. “I haven’t thought of Robert Louis Stevenson in years, but yesterday I was looking at an old copy of Treasure Island, and today Trish mentioned him, too.”
“I love that book. Always liked pirates.”
“I like the Disney version. Not sure I’m up for the real thing.”
“True enough,” she said as we walked up Clay Street, past a bakery, an herb shop, and several restaurants touting specialties from different regions of China. The streets were decorated with bright red paper lanterns, which were probably hung up for the tourists, but I liked their cheery presence.
“One thing I always found intriguing,” Luz continued, “was that Robert Louis Stevenson lived in this area for less than a year, but there’s a school and a state park named after him, and a museum dedicated to his work in the wine country. It’s like people are obsessed with the man.”
“Really? What was he doing in San Francisco?”
“He fell in love with a woman named Fanny Osbourne at an artist colony in Europe, or somewhere like that. But she was married, with kids. She started the process of divorce but was advised to stay in the family home in Oakland in order to gain custody of her children.”
“So Stevenson waited here for her? That’s awfully romantic.”
“Only for a romantic soul like yours,” she said, elbowing me lightly. “But here’s an interesting tidbit, given your current occupation: Stevenson came from a family of lighthouse designers.”
“There are families of lighthouse designers?”
“I wouldn’t imagine anymore, but yes, back in the day. He was Scottish—hey, just like the monastery you were constructing for Elrich. Maybe there’s a connection.”
“In what way?”
“Dunno,” she said with a shrug. “I’m trying to take a page out of your book, making obscure random connections in the hope they shed some light on something. Elrich seems to have a fascination with Scotland, and there were a lot of lighthouses in Scotland. So maybe that’s why he decided to redo the Bay Light.”
“I think he decided to redo the Bay Light because he wanted to make Alicia happy. Simple as that.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“You know what I need?”
“What?”
“A billionaire friend who buys me islands just to keep me happy.”
“Don’t we all,” I said with a chuckle. “So, Luz, I knew you liked poetry, but had no idea you were such a literature nut.”
“I’m not, I just really like Treasure Island. Used to write essays about it all through college; it was my go-to example for anything I had to write about.”
“This was your trick for getting into Princeton?”
“Exactly.”
I never tired of walking through Chinatown. As a kid we used to come here on field trips, eating rice-paper-wrapped candies and buying cheap trinkets from the crates sitting on the sidewalks outside the shops. I loved the smell of the incense, the unfamiliar vegetables, the roasted ducks hanging in the restaurant windows. Even the wildly touristy Grant Street had its charm. But of course the lesser-known alleys were my favorites; Hang Ah was one of these.
“All right, it’s right through that door, second floor. Can’t miss it,” said Luz, pointing the way. “I’m going to go peruse cheap silk items I don’t need but won’t be able to resist. Meet you in the dim sum place on Sacramento in an hour.”
Given the locale and Dr. Weng’s name, I had expected something exotic, an office that smelled of unfamiliar herbs and featured unintelligible charts and things written in Chinese characters. Instead, the waiting room was decorated like a 1960s theater museum. There were framed movie posters, mostly Hitchcock and film noir, as well as an antique motion picture camera and old film canisters.
My attention was riveted, however, on a poster of a wide-eyed, terrified-looking Jimmy Stewart trying to force himself up the staircase of a tower. The movie’s title was splashed across the poster in lurid yellow: Vertigo.
“Great movie,” said a man in a white lab coat as he came out of an inner room. He was dark-haired and pleasant-looking, only a couple of inches taller than I was, with a compact build but large, graceful hands. “Underappreciated by critics when it first came out, like a lot of great art. Have you seen it?”
“Um . . . a long time ago, maybe. Or maybe I’m thinking of North by Northwest. I get the Hitchcock movies mixed up. All except for The Birds—that one made an indelible mark on my very young brain.”
He chuckled and held out his hand to shake. “I’m Vincent Weng.”
“Mel Turner,” I said, shaking his hand. “Thanks for fitting me in, Doctor.”
“Please, call me Vincent. Have you ever had acupuncture treatments, Mel?”
“Never.”
“When we say ‘needle,’ most people think about getting a shot. But it’s not like that at all—these are very tiny needles. You might not even feel them.” He led the way down a short hall and into a room with a comfortable-looking reclining chair. Calming, Asian-style flute music was playing in the background, there was a small trickling wall fountain in one corner, and the lighting was soft.
He sat on a wheeled stool and gestured that I should take the comfy seat.
“So, Luz tells me you’re phobic about heights. How long have you felt this way?”
“A few months. I never even thought about it before, used to scamper over roofs since I was a kid.”
“And what happened a few months ago?”
“I was in a fight, on a roof, several stories up.”
“That sou
nds scary,” he said. His voice was matter-of- fact but kind.
I nodded. “It was. But . . . the thing that keeps coming back to me is the man I was fighting with. He was”—I cleared my throat—“he fell. I tried to keep him from going over, but I couldn’t. He . . . screamed as he fell.”
Weng’s dark eyes focused on me, gentle and unwavering. I looked away, fighting tears and nausea, and blew out frustrated breath. How long was I going to let this plague me?
“Bad dreams?” Weng asked after a long pause.
I nodded.
“Repeatedly trying to save this person from going over?”
I nodded again. “I keep seeing his face in that last moment, when he knew he was going to fall. And hearing the scream.”
Weng took no notes, just kept his attention completely on me. He had me stick out my tongue, and looked at all sides of it. Then he took my pulse—not like a nurse would, but in several different places on both wrists. He bent his head, concentrating, for several minutes.
“Other significant life changes in the last few months?”
“Not really . . .” I worked like mad, spent time with my dad and Caleb and Stan and . . . “Except, I have a new boyfriend.”
He smiled. “Well that’s good, right?”
“Right.”
“Or . . . not?”
“How do you mean?”
“You look a little unsure.”
I was mentally prepared to allow this man to stick me with needles. Not to ask searching questions about my attitude toward romance.
“But then,” said Weng, standing up and turning away, prepping a tray, “your love life’s not really any of my business, is it? Unless, of course, it is tied to the acrophobia.”
“How do you mean, tied to the acrophobia?”
“I really don’t know.” He instructed me to push back in the chair and encouraged me to arrange the pillows to make myself comfortable. “You’re probably thinking, ‘Just stick me with needles and make my problems go away, I’m not here to be psychoanalyzed.’” Then he wheeled his stool next to me, and brought the tray over on a table.
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