The Legend of Fuller’s Island

by Jan Fields

  “It also looks deadly,” Ian added. He turned to Ellie. “Have you been in there?”

  She shrugged. “Once, with some friends. The floorboard fell through over there.” She pointed to a spot where the undergrowth looked a bit less thick. “One of the guys fell through and broke his leg. We had to get rope and pull him out. We got in so much trouble for that.”

  “Do you think Jim and Alice could be in there?” Annie asked, taking a step into the building. “Down in that hole?”

  Ian quickly reached out and caught Annie’s arm. “I think I don’t want you to end up down there.”

  “What are we doing here if we’re not going to look?” Annie asked.

  “I have an idea,” Ellie said. “If you want … .”

  “What?” Ian said, his tone reluctant.

  “I brought rope,” Ellie said. “We could rope together and one of us could walk that way. Close enough to look, anyway. If there are people down there, you’d see.”

  “OK,” Ian said. “I’ll go.”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not a good idea. You weigh the most. You’re gonna go through the floor easier and be way harder for us to hold onto. It needs to be someone light. I reckon I’m the lightest, and I’ve been in there before.”

  “I don’t like you taking that kind of risk,” Ian said.

  Ellie shrugged. “It’s the best idea, but you’ll need to walk in partway,” she said to Annie. “We need to rope together in short lengths so that we have the leverage to keep us out of the basement if the floor breaks.”

  Ian was shaking his head as Annie said, “Fine. I can do that.”

  “No,” Ian told her.

  “I’ll be following Ellie,” Annie said. “So I’ll be walking on boards that already held her. I don’t weigh that much more than she does. I’ll be fine.”

  Ian made a frustrated sound that reminded Annie a bit of a growl, but he helped them rope together, checking the knots carefully. “You’ve had some practice with this,” he told Ellie.

  “I do a little rock climbing,” she said.

  Annie smiled. “You like adventure.”

  Ellie nodded, smiling a little herself. “Yeah.”

  “You remind me of Alice,” Annie said. “She was always coming up with ideas to get us half-killed when we were young.”

  Ellie laughed. “Billy says that about me sometimes.”

  Finally the ropes were secure, and Ellie began her careful walk into the room. Annie’s job was to keep the rope between them taunt while still letting the girl move. She also watched where Ellie put her feet, knowing she’d have to walk in those footsteps as soon as the rope ran out.

  When it did, Ellie looked over her shoulder and called out. “The floor is pretty good at first, but it gets kinda spongy after about ten feet. Be sure to keep taunt then.”

  Annie nodded, too nervous to speak. She stepped out into the room. As Ellie said, the floor felt firm under the rope of vines. She still moved slowly and carefully. With each step Annie took, Ellie took one forward toward the open spot in the floor.

  The passage across the room went painfully slow, and Annie could feel the pounding of her heart. “OK,” Ellie finally called. “I can see the hole, but the floor is bad here. I can’t go much closer. Hold tight, Mrs. Dawson!”

  They moved in inches then, and Annie could see Ellie leaning forward, searching into the darkness. “I’m going to have to use my flashlight,” the girl said. She fished in her shirt pocket for the small LED flashlight. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Come on back,” Ian urged.

  “I think I can move a little closer,” Ellie said.

  “Just come on back!”

  Annie felt the pull of the rope as Ellie crept closer by inches again. Suddenly the rope jerked hard forward in her hands at the same time that Ellie shrieked. Annie held on tight and threw herself backwards. She felt the answering jerk of the rope around her as Ian hauled her backwards hard. That’s going to leave a mark, Annie thought as the rope tightened painfully around her ribs.

  Annie was almost sitting, scooting backwards slowly as Ian continued to pull.

  “I’m OK,” Ellie called. “The floor gave but y’all caught me. I’m not hurt.”

  “Time for everyone to get out of there,” Ian said.

  “Coming,” Ellie said. “You can stop pulling so hard. I need to breathe.”

  Annie stood again, letting the rope slack slightly in her hands, the rope around her middle still felt uncomfortably firm, but she wasn’t being dragged toward the door anymore.

  As Ellie moved back toward Annie, Annie backed toward the door to keep the rope fairly taunt. Finally they were all outside the building again. That’s when Annie noticed Ellie held something in her hand. “What’s that?” Annie said.

  “It’s what I was going after when the floor crumbled away under me,” Ellie said, handing a bit of soft fabric to Annie. “It was caught up in some of the vines.”

  Annie held the light scarf in trembling hands. She recognized it. It was one of the ones Alice often wore to keep her hair from flying around too much when she was driving her convertible. She looked up at Ian. “It’s Alice’s,” she said. “She could be in that hole.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ellie said. “I got a pretty clear view of the hole when I was about to fall into it. There’s some kind of cinder-block room down there, but it’s not all that big. I would have noticed a person in it.”

  Annie sighed in relief. “Still, Alice was in here. This is definitely her scarf. Someone should come back with the equipment to really look down there.”

  “We’ll show it to Chief Harper,” Ian said.

  “Just keep my name out of it,” Ellie said. “I do not want any trouble from this.”

  “We promise,” Annie said. “But I’m not done looking. We found one clue. There could be others.”

  They waded through the brush to circle the brick building. On the other side, they found a narrow paved road leading away from the building. The pavement was covered with sticks and rotting leaves, but still offered the best walking they’d had since stepping onto the island.

  Ahead, they saw more brick buildings. One had a row of small windows and a tall chimney. The other was two stories with tall arched windows on the lower floor and smaller ones on the upper. Ellie led the way toward the buildings. “I’ve been in both of these,” she said. “They’re in better shape, though the stairs are horrible in that one. The third big building—the main house—is further down the road.”

  “Do you know what the buildings were used for?” Annie asked.

  Ellie shrugged. “There’s not much left in them, but there are some old metal beds in that one.” She pointed to the two-story building. “So I guess people slept there.”

  They walked to the doorway of the long one-story building and looked inside. “I think this might have been a carriage house originally,” Ian said. “Or a stable, but clearly it’s been used for something else later.” A long metal table in one part of the room seemed held together by rust and spiderwebs. Other rusted heaps of metal hid their original uses in their decay.

  They backed out of the doorway and walked to the two-story building. The structure was in terrible shape with the ground around it littered with bricks that had fallen out, leaving dark gaps in the walls. In places, the wooden window frames had twisted, pulling away from the wall and hanging loose. If there was an unbroken pane of glass, Annie couldn’t see it.

  They stepped carefully over the brick and entered the covered passage that led to the door. Ian looked warily at the roof over their head, as if expecting it to fall on them at any second. Surprisingly, the building still had an intact door, though it had warped into the frame. Ian had to put his shoulder to it, pushing hard to scoot it open enough for them to slip in. “Be careful of the floor,” he warned.

  The floors were filthy and littered with plaster that had fallen from the walls, but they felt solid. The place was a maze of small rooms with nar
row beds. Each room had a metal washstand with metal shelves mounted on the wall over it.

  “Patient rooms?” Annie suggested.

  “Maybe,” Ian agreed.

  They walked down a hall that opened into a more spacious foyer, though the walls were just as broken, showing lathe strips everywhere. A wrought-iron spiral staircase offered access to the upstairs. The stairs and railing were uniformly covered in flaking rust, but under the rust, the beauty of the hand-forged metal was still visible.

  “Is it safe to climb?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said. “After seeing someone fall through a floor, I never went up any of the stairs anywhere.”

  Annie walked close and peered up. Ian shook the railing, but it didn’t move. He stomped the bottom step, but it held under his feet. “I’ll go take a look.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Annie said.

  Ian turned to give her a look, but Annie merely smiled at him. Finally he sighed and started up the stairs. “I’ll just stay here,” Ellie said.

  The upstairs offered more rooms but no more signs of Jim and Alice. They walked back down carefully. “So now there’s just the main house?” Ian asked.

  “I think so,” Ellie said. “These are all the buildings I’ve ever seen.”

  “Then we better head for there next.”

  They walked down the littered road. Once they broke free of the thickest overgrowth, they spotted the house. It must have been lovely at one time. It was red brick like the outbuildings, but the entrance was a lovely arched brick with what must have been white trim. More arches marked a narrow veranda on one side with tall windows behind it. On the other side of the entrance, a bay window jutted out toward them with more of the tall windows. Both the veranda and the bay window had narrow railings above them, as if to allow access from the second floor onto their roofs.

  “This looks like it’s in much better shape,” Annie said.

  “Before I was born, people say there was talk of restoring it or something,” Ellie said. “I think some folks still come out and hack at the kudzu once in a while. Least it looks like it. I’ve never seen anyone out here.”

  That alone made it mysterious enough to give Annie hope. They walked to the entrance door. Two screen doors, their paint chipped and frames slightly bent, helped protect the nicer wooden doors beyond. Tall windows on either side of the doors held completely intact glass. “That’s almost spooky,” Annie said, pointing at the glass.

  Ian opened one of the screen doors and tried the door beyond. It was locked, not just stuck. The other door was equally unresponsive. “We’ll have to find another way in,” he said.

  They circled the house where a white-painted side porch jutted well away from the tall windows of the rooms beyond. Annie walked to one window and peered in. The room looked empty and far less strewn with rubble than the other buildings.

  At the back of the house, they found another door. This one opened with some brute force from Ian. They stepped into the old kitchen. The many windows brought light into the room, making it almost cheery despite the rust and decay. They walked through the rooms of the house quietly. Though all showed signs of neglect in chipping paint and plaster, they also hinted at the original beauty of the house with its carved fireplace mantels and beautiful dark wooden trim.

  Though beautiful, the house was also clearly empty. Finally they trooped back down to the kitchen. As they walked toward the door, Annie stopped. Something near the old cast-iron stove had caught her eye. Whatever it was shone a bit in the light, and the black paint on the stove itself was far too old to shine.

  “What are you looking at?” Ian asked as Annie walked toward the stove and bent down.

  “I’m not sure,” Annie slipped her hand under the ornate edge of the stove, shuddering at the soft brush of cobwebs. Her hand touched something smooth, and she pulled it out. It was a cane. She held it up. “This is Jim’s cane. I recognize it.”

  Ian reached out and touched the head of the cane. “There’s something on it. Something dark red and crusty.”

  “Eww!” Ellie exclaimed as she leaned in between them to peer at it. “Do you think that’s blood?”

  “I think it might be,” Ian said. “And I think Chief Harper might need to take a much closer look at this island.”

  Annie looked in horror at the head of the cane. “Blood?” she whispered.

  “Don’t panic,” Ian told her. “If that’s what it is, there isn’t much of it. It mostly tells us Jim was here.”

  “He doesn’t exactly get around well without his cane,” Annie said. “Leaving it behind is bad. You know it is.”

  “It’s not good,” Ian agreed. “But let’s take this one step at a time. It’s time to go to the police.” He turned to Ellie. “I know you don’t want your boat seen, but we need to go back to the mainland now.”

  Ellie looked at the cane, then nodded grimly. “What are a few years of being grounded?”

  14

  My father was afraid. I knew that from listening behind the sofa. Still, he was not a man who admitted fear easily. The Fullers were soldiers, leaders, men of action and valor. Father would not see himself differently, even when the thought of a curse haunted his own dreams as much as it did mine. He came to the mainland the next day and insisted Mother and I return to the island. He wasn’t fooled by Mother’s insistence that it was her fears that kept us away. One look at me told the truth. I was terrified!

  —Steven Fuller, 1925

  The ride back to the mainland was made mostly in silence. For one thing, seeing Ellie’s boat in the clear light of daylight left Ian speechless. Annie doubted Ian would let either of them get in that particular boat again. On top of that, the blood on Jim’s cane brought fresh worry about him and Alice. And Annie suspected Ellie had worries of her own. The teenager watched the shoreline sharply as they crossed back.

  Once they landed, Annie thanked Ellie and promised not to mention her name when they spoke with the police. Then she and Ian left for the police department. They found Doris looking as thrilled to see them as she had on their previous visit.

  “We would like to speak with Chief Harper,” Ian said. “We have some things he needs to see.”

  She looked at them silently for a moment, and Annie could almost hear her preparing to refuse, but finally she slipped off her stool. “I’ll see if he’s available,” she said over her shoulder as she disappeared.

  Just as Annie was beginning to wonder if Doris had simply slipped out a back door to leave them standing in the lobby forever, the heavy-set woman huffed back to her stool, and one of the doors opened to reveal Chief Harper. If anything, the older man looked thinner and more tired than when they’d spoken to him before.

  “So, still in our fair town?” he asked pleasantly.

  “We’ve been out to Fuller’s Island,” Ian said. “And we found a scarf belonging to Alice MacFarlane. We also found Jim Parker’s cane. There’s something on this cane, and we’re thinking it might be blood.”

  Chief Harper raised an eyebrow and took the cane from Ian. He looked it over closely, sniffing the dried splotches. “Could be,” he said. “Maybe someone used it to drive one of the local possums out of their pantry. They’re nearly as bad as raccoons, just not as smart.”

  “Maybe you could have your lab test it?” Annie asked. “To see if it’s human.”

  The chief laughed. “This isn’t an episode of CSI, lady. We don’t have a lab, unless you count our local pharmacy. Heck, the closest thing we have to a coroner is the vet. How do you know this is Jim Parker’s cane?”

  “I’ve seen him with it,” Annie said.

  The chief looked over the cane. “It’s not especially fancy. I imagine lots of folks have this cane.”

  “Surely you’re not going to ignore evidence,” Annie said.

  “Evidence of what?” the chief asked. “That they were on the island? We know they were on the island. Bob Maynard rented them a boat for the day, and they br
ought it back. If your friend lost her scarf or your other friend beat a snake to death with his cane, that’s not evidence of anything we didn’t already know—they were on the island. But my man searched, and they’re not on the island any more.”

  “You won’t even go back out there?” Ian asked.

  “I’ll send someone back out to look again,” the chief said. “As soon as I can spare a man to beat bushes on an empty island, looking for adult tourists who didn’t know they were supposed to check in with dad. And I’ll get back to you if you’re still in town.”

  “Thanks so much,” Ian said, his voice nearly dripping with sarcasm.

  “You’re welcome,” the chief said. “And as long as we’re exchanging thanks—thanks for getting Nora Harlow all het up. That woman can wear out a rock when she thinks she’s chasing a story for that newspaper of hers.”

  “Good for Nora,” Annie said. “I’ll have to thank her.”

  “Well, why don’t you rush along and do that,” the chief said, handing Ian back the battered cane. “And I’ll let you know when we search the island again.”

  Ian was shaking his head in amazement as they left. “I can’t believe the chief cares so little about the disappearance of two people.”

  “Two tourists,” Annie said. “Do you think he’s in on covering this up?”

  “I don’t know,” Ian said. “He may truly just not care.”

  “Well, I’m glad to know the Nora apparently does,” Annie said. “Maybe we could go see her after we change. I smell like a swamp.”

  Ian leaned close and sniffed Annie’s hair. “Still smells like sunshine and peaches to me.”

  Annie looked at him in surprise. “I don’t use peach shampoo.”

  “Must just be you then,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I never know when you’re being charming or just teasing me.”

  Ian took Annie’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm as he walked. “Whichever one you like better, that’s the one I was going for,” he said.

  When they reached the inn, they found Mary Beth sitting on the porch. She hopped up as soon as the SUV turned into the drive, hurrying out to the car. “I’m so glad to see you both,” she said. “But I didn’t expect you back until dark.”