The Secrets of Taylor Creek

by Michael Merson

  The photos of the three of them would or could be used to blackmail Johnny into contributing money toward Ben’s campaign or ruin his life if Johnny refused. But, would he use the photos for that?

  I’m to be his wife, and that would harm him too. Wouldn’t it? She asked herself.

  Emma looked over at Libby and thought, she’s the whore, not me, right?

  Chapter 27

  Saturday, July 10, 1965

  Stormie had gotten up early and rushed to get herself ready for the day. She showered and spent more time than usual in front of the mirror, trying to conceal her bruised eye that had gotten darker. She had decided to wear her hair in a ponytail just in case they decided to go for a swim.

  Wait! A swim! What type of bathing suit should I wear? She asked herself.

  A one piece! No, wait a two piece! No, that’s too revealing, or is it? She thought as she held the two swimsuits in her hands.

  “Sissy!” She yelled loudly, and after a moment with no response, she screamed louder. “Sissy! Are you here? Sissy!

  “Yes, Mrs. Stormie, I’s comin’!” Sissy answered a few seconds before she entered the room, out of breath.

  “Should I wear this one or this one?” Stormie asked excitedly as she held the bathing suits out toward Sissy.

  “Is that all you wanted? Girl, I should tan your hide. I was getting them biscuits out of the oven when you started screaming. I thought you done fell or something. You scared me half to death.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m just nervous about today.”

  “What you got to be nervous about?”

  “I don’t know,” Stormie said shyly and then turned away.

  “Girl, you ain’t falling for this man, is you?”

  “No… I’m a married woman!” Stormie shot back quickly and then walked over and hung the two-piece bathing suit back up.

  “Yeah, a married woman that ain’t had no man give her any attention in a long time,” Sissy whispered deviously as she whipped the dishtowel toward Stormie, popping her in the butt before walking out of the room.

  “I heard you!” Stormie yelled down the hall. “Besides, you don’t know what I’ve had and not had!” She added.

  “I knows! I knows everything about my baby girl!”

  “You think you know!” Stormie yelled louder.

  “Whatever, Baby. But that man will probably like the two-piece that you’ll decide to wear anyway!” Sissy yelled from the end of the hall.

  ***

  Stormie and Sissy worked quickly, getting the boat ready and packing the food for the day trip. Stormie was nervous yet excited at the same time, and she ran around,

  Like a chicken with its head cut off! As Sissy put it.

  Sissy was also excited and happy for Stormie but worried as well. She knew Ben was a very arrogant and vengeful man who would never allow anything that he believed was his to be taken away, and Stormie was his. Sissy believed that he would kill Stormie before seeing her with another man. It wasn’t that he cared about or loved Stormie because he didn’t. Ben was the type of man who was more concerned about his reputation and how he would look in the eyes of others if Stormie ever left him for another.

  Stormie was standing in the boat with her hands on her hips, looking around, double checking, and then triple checking everything when Nathan pulled into the driveway. Sissy was standing on the dock and she waved for him to come over. Nathan saw that he had made the right decision to wear the swim trunks. He spent an hour mulling it over in his room, before finally putting them on and driving over.

  He saw that Stormie wore a thigh length, white cotton pull-over cover that he could see through, which revealed a white two-piece bathing suit.

  Stormie looked at Nathan as he walked in her direction, and her heart suddenly started beating faster.

  “Sissy, what am I doing? She asked.

  “Livin’ Baby. You finally livin’ like you should’ve been doin’ for all these years now.”

  “Hello,” Nathan said as he walked onto the dock.

  “Hello,” Sissy and Stormie replied at the same time.

  “Is there anything I can do to help get us on our way?” Nathan asked.

  “No, we’re all set, come aboard,” Stormie answered.

  Nathan stepped down into the boat with a small bag in tow that contained clean clothes and his .45.

  “Can I help you down, Ms. Sissy?” Nathan asked as he got in and turned toward Sissy with his hand raised in her direction.

  “I ain’t gonna go anywhere. I don’t like boats,” Sissy answered.

  “It’s just the two of us,” Stormie announced as she started the motor.

  “Okay then,” Nathan said as he sat in the empty seat next to her.

  “Where we goin’?” Stormie asked loudly over the roar of the motor.

  “Phillips Island.”

  “Okay.”

  Nathan sat in the seat, trying not to stare at the boat’s attractive captain as the two of them bounced over the waves. Stormie adjusted the trim until the boat was skimming across the water as if it were on glass. She piloted the watercraft, as well as any man, could ever do. She looked over at her passenger, and the two shared a smile. They cruised under the Arendell Street Bridge, bringing them into Gallants Channel, where Nathan had been the day before with Willie and Sam.

  After a few minutes, Stormie turned the wheel to the left and pointed the bow in the direction of an island. Nathan observed what he believed was a brick chimney that sprouted out from amongst the few trees on what he believed to be an uninhabited island.

  She tapped Nathan on the shoulder and pointed at the anchor that was sitting on the deck of the boat near the front.

  “Can you pull us onshore and set the anchor?” She yelled over the roaring motor once more.

  Nathan nodded yes and moved toward the front. As they got closer to the bank, he jumped from the boat into the warm, shallow water. He then pulled the boat forward onto the sandy beach and anchored it as Stormie turned the motor off.

  “What is this place?” Nathan asked.

  “It was a fish plant a long time ago, but it burned down sometime in the 50s,” she answered as she walked toward the front of the boat.

  “The sheriff marked an ‘X’ on a map that he included in the file he gave me, which I think is right over there,” Nathan explained as he pointed to the south.

  “Nathan, why are we here? What are you looking for?” She asked after jumping from the boat onto the beach.

  Nathan hadn’t shared that information with anyone except Preacher. Even the boys didn’t know what he was looking for the previous day. He looked out at the water and then back to her green eyes and decided to finally share what he kept a secret from others.

  “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a mound of sand on the beach.

  Stormie grabbed a towel and laid it on the beach for the two of them to sit on. Nathan began from the beginning. He explained that the missing girls had disappeared over three different weekends. He didn’t stop explaining everything until he got to the point where the two of them were currently sitting on the beach together. He even told her about being followed and how someone had shot at him in the cemetery.

  “I’ll be, I don’t know what to say,” Stormie commented as she looked down at her feet that she was using to dig in the sand.

  “There’s not much to say. I just got to keep charging forward, hoping to find another piece of the puzzle, and that’s why I’m here. Delia Snipes’ body was found over there by Warren Prater,” Nathan explained as he stood up.

  “What do you expect to find over there?”

  “Nothin’ at all, but I’ve gotta look,” Nathan said as he started off in the direction on the map.

  “I’m coming too,” Stormie announced as she got up and followed him down the beach.

  When they arrived at the point on the map, Nathan searched in a circle about 100 yards out from where he believed the ‘X’ on the map was located. Stormie followed a
nd helped him search, although she didn’t know what exactly she was supposed to be searching for.

  The two stayed on the beach for about an hour before getting back in the boat and heading off in the direction of Harlowe Creek. Stormie controlled the boat once more over rougher water until they reached the area Nathan pointed to on the map. He didn’t have high expectations of finding any evidence at the other two locations, and his expectations were even lower for finding anything in the middle of Harlowe Creek. That was where Ida’s body was recovered from the water.

  “Is there anywhere else you’d like to go?” Stormie asked as they slowly drifted back toward Taylor Creek.

  “No. Who own those houses over there?” Nathan asked as he pointed toward the shoreline.

  “A few people in town and some folks from out of town that vacation here.” She answered.

  “They’re nice houses. Who owns that one?” Nathan asked as he pointed toward a beautiful early American plantation home with a long drive that seemed to disappear into a tunnel of Spanish Moss that flourished on the sides and over the top of it.

  “That’s the Arrington House,” she announced.

  “Really! I thought you called your place the Arrington House.”

  “No, my place is the Arrington ‘Home’,” She replied while emphasizing the word home. To Stormie, the two words were very different, in not only their spelling but their meaning.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, you see, a house is something you live in that provides shelter. A home does that as well, but a home is where you’re loved. That house is where Benjamin Arrington was born and raised,” she explained

  “I get it.”

  “Good, so where to now?” She asked with a flirtatious smile.

  “How about someplace where we can see a lighthouse,” he answered back.

  “I like the way you think,” she said and winked at him.

  Chapter 28

  Ben waited for the call to come in before he and Emma left for the day. Emma had become impatient as she had grown tired of hearing Ben talk about the FBI agent over breakfast. She wanted to be on Tybee Island soaking up the sun on what she believed to be a glorious day that the two of them were supposed to be enjoying together.

  Emma paced back and forth in front of Ben, who was sitting on the bed.

  “I don’t know why we just don’t go,” she said.

  “Emma, I told you that we’ll go after I speak to Dwight. Now stop that pacing. You’re wearing out the carpet.”

  “Why am I here?” She asked as she stopped and stood in front of him.

  “Because I need you darlin’.”

  Need, always need, never love, she thought to herself.

  “Like you needed Libby and me last night?”

  “Yes, and then some,” he answered as he looked up and reached for her hand.

  “You’re probably the only person who really knows me. I need you.”

  Emma looked down and smiled.

  That’ll work, for now, she thought to herself right before the phone rang.

  “Hello,” Ben said as he picked up the phone and placed it to his ear.

  “It’s me,” Sheriff Carter announced on the other end.

  “I figured. What do you got?”

  “You ain’t goin’ to like it.”

  “What ain’t I goin’ to like?”

  “I followed him this morning, and he went over to your place.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “He ain’t there, and neither is your wife. They went out on her boat.”

  “My wife and Agent Emerson went out on the boat together? Where’d they go?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t got a boat. I don’t like how close he’s getting to you… to us.”

  “Don’t worry Sheriff, this will help us.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do. You just watch them when you can. And from now on, start letting other people around town know that they’ve been seen together. A lot. Don’t make a big deal of it, just kind of let it roll off your tongue in front of others.”

  “Okay. But what’s that going to do?”

  “Dwight, haven’t you heard of a murder-suicide. It happens when two people, who were once lovers, are no more. Usually, one of them, the married one in our scenario, tries to end it, but the other one can’t take the rejection, so he, Agent Emerson, kills Stormie and then himself.”

  “Problems solved,” Sheriff Carter declared.

  “Problems solved is right.”

  Ben hung up the phone and sat there on the bed, smiling and shaking his head.

  “It makes me nervous that you can come up with these plans so quickly, Ben.”

  “It’s only to take care of our problems and to help get us closer to the Governor’s Mansion,” Ben explained as he pulled her onto the bed with him.

  ***

  Nathan and Stormie finally reached Cape Lookout, where he stood at the base of the lighthouse, looking up at the 163’ tower while admiring the black and white diamond pattern that adorned the side of it.

  “It’s 207 steps to the top,” Stormie said as she walked up behind him.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. This old lighthouse was put into operation in 1859. In 1864 confederate soldiers tried to destroy it, but as you can see, they were unsuccessful.”

  “Sounds like there’s a lot of history here.”

  “There is good and bad, like any other place.”

  “That’s the way the world is,” he added.

  “So, tell me about yourself, Mrs. ‘Stormie’ Arrington,” he said playfully while emphasizing her name.

  “Well, before I got married, my name was Josephine; Josephine Mary Jane Abrahams,” she said loudly as she looked to the blue sky above.

  “Go on, tell me more,” he encouraged.

  Stormie smiled because it felt good that someone else wanted to know her and took the time to talk to her. She liked the attention. She continued telling Nathan about herself. He learned that her father, Joseph Thomas Bannerman, was killed in Key West, Florida, on September 9, 1935, the same day she was born, when a strong hurricane swept through the area where he worked with 300 other people building Highway 1. Joseph was an engineer and had gone out with a surveyor to take some measurements when the storm pushed through.

  “He never knew that my mother had gone into labor with me. My mother said that she thought the world was coming to an end. I mean there she was giving birth to me as a record hurricane beat down on her. She found out about three days later that my father had been killed. They put up the Great Hurricane Monument near Highway 1 to honor the 300 people that were killed that day. I don’t remember it, but my mother and I attended the unveiling in 1937.”

  “How did Josephine become Stormie,” he asked, encouraging her to continue past her father’s death.

  “Apparently, I was a bit of a smart-aleck growing up and had a dislike for authority and discipline. I would, on some occasions, share my opinion when confronted by either, as Sissy explains it anyway. Folks eventually put two and two together, with the night I was born and my apparent dislike for authority and would say things like, ‘oh, you better watch it now, look at her. There’s a storm a-brewing’. As you can imagine, I went from being Josephine to Stormie.”

  “I think I can see that,” Nathan acknowledged as the two of them walked back toward the boat to eat lunch.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m a lady now, can’t you tell?”

  “I can. So, where’s your mother?”

  “She passed away when I was ten years old,” Stormie answered and looked away.

  “I’m sorry. Who raised you from then on?”

  “My daddy and Sissy. You see, my mother met Arthur Charles Abrahams, a cotton farmer from Alabama, who she eventually married. He adopted me and gave me his name on the same day he married my mother.”

  “Sissy, how long ha
ve you known her?”

  “Since I was about three, I guess.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Well, I remember Sissy just being there one day. The way my daddy explained it was that one late rainy evening in November, Sissy just showed up naked and beaten on our doorstep.”

  “What!”

  “Yep, they didn’t know where she came from, who she was, or what happened to her.”

  “That’s amazing! Didn’t they ask her what happened?”

  “I don’t know really, and she’s never said anything to me about it either. My parents asked around, and no one ever claimed to know her. They figured she was about fifteen years old and abandoned. Sissy was there in my life from then on. When I was growing up, she played with me, fed me, and after my mother passed, she kind of stepped in.”

  “How’d she get the name, Sissy?”

  “That’s all me. She never told anyone her name, and a few days after she’d been with us, my mother caught her feeding me, and she started calling her Sister. I couldn’t say Sister when I was three, so she became Sissy.”

  Over lunch, Stormie continued to tell Nathan about her life and how, after her daddy died, she’d met Ben, who had come into town on business. She told him how, over time, he would stop by, and eventually, he asked her to marry him. After they were married, she and Sissy moved to Beaufort, where he was an established attorney.

  Nathan learned that her father, Arthur, had amassed a considerable amount of wealth over the years, and when he died, he’d left it to Stormie. She had kept the house and farm in Alabama but sold much of the land around it on the advice of Ben.

  Stormie and Nathan talked for hours, but eventually, they loaded the boat and headed back to her home on Taylor Creek very slowly. As they cruised, she would occasionally stop the boat and explain different points of interest along their route. She eventually stopped the boat, dropped anchor, and pointed out the wild horses that ran free on the outer banks of Shackleford Island.