The Seasons of the EmmaLee: One grand ship. Two love affairs, decades apart. An idyllic summer resort town torn apart by betrayal, murder and shattered dreams. (The Charlevoix Summer Series Book 1)

by Michael Lindley

  As they reached the end of the channel, the water’s surface began to undulate in slow gentle swells coming in from the lake. Sally felt a breeze freshening on her face. She looked back to the right at the beach in front of her house. The house was hidden from view behind the tall dunes and trees. It was such a clear day that out on the far horizon she could just make out the gray mass of Beaver Island. She had been standing with the Hansen’s and Alex Clark and they had all been silently enjoying the beautiful sights coming out into the big lake.

  She felt the rumble from the boat coming up through her shoes as the captain powered her up. She looked over at Alex and he smiled back at her. She thought again of her mother and similar trips she had made on this boat out to Fisherman’s Island and other wonderful places in these northern lakes. Reaching for the heavy bag hanging on her shoulder, she felt the hard lines of the photo album she had brought along.

  The ride out to Fisherman’s Island was calm and uneventful. Soon they were anchored a hundred yards off the western shore of the small island. The island rested in shallow water not more than a long stone’s throw from the mainland. At times of low water people could wade easily from the beach, which was part of a large state park. It was heavily wooded and edged by a long sandy shoreline.

  Alex came forward and invited them all to come down below for lunch. It was a wonderful meal and Megan helped serve. The wine was cold and Sally couldn’t help but indulge in a second glass when offered. The conversation ranged from the past weekend’s boat parade to Alex’s plans for the EmmaLee for the rest of the summer.

  When they finished, everyone went back up on deck for dessert and coffee. They were all sitting around a table on the rear deck in the shade from the sun. As they finished the dessert of apple pie and more of Megan’s cookies, Sally reached into her bag and brought up the photo album.

  “I thought we might try again to take a look at some of these old photos today,” she said.

  Megan ran around the table and hugged her. “Do you have pictures of your mom on the EmmaLee?” she asked.

  “There are several, little lady,” Sally said. “Pull a chair over here and we’ll take a look.”

  The Hansens, Alex, and his daughter positioned themselves around Sally at the table so they could all see. She placed the old book down and rubbed its worn cover. She pulled the cover open to the side. Everyone pressed closer to see the first picture. It was a shot taken of the EmmaLee from another boat as it made its way across Round Lake. It was a magnificent shot of the boat showing several uniformed crew members and other passengers at the rail. The boat’s ornate bowsprit pointed out ahead. Several small flags were flying from the foremast.

  “She looks like a miniature Queen Mary from this angle,” George Hansen said, with admiration in his voice. The written caption read, The EmmaLee, Round Lake, 1939.

  Sally turned the page. There were two more black and white photos of the ship. The first was taken from the city docks back across Round Lake to the EmmaLee, docked at her boathouse on the south shore. The other showed the boat coming out of the channel toward Lake Michigan and had been taken from the south pier. You could see the tall dunes of the lakeshore back in the distance behind the ship.

  She turned the page again and they all looked down at a picture of a family posed in front of the main cabin of the ship. “This is my mother’s family,” Sally explained. “That’s her in the middle with her two brothers. She must have been around eighteen when this was taken.” The boys wore dark sport coats and ties with white pants and shoes. Sally’s mother Emily was dressed in a long frilly white dress with toes of white shoes peeking out. Her hair was styled up on top of her head.

  “Your mother was beautiful, Sally,” said Alex, “and your grandmother.”

  George chimed in, “Yes, she was quite a looker, if I may say so.”

  Sally laughed. “And my grandparents, Stewart and Margaret Compton. He was in the car business in Detroit.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of his career,” Alex said.

  On the opposite page was a close-up shot of Emily Compton taken in the same dress, probably on the same day. It was a shot from her waist up and she was standing at the rail of the ship with a glorious smile and loose strands of her hair blowing across her face in the wind.

  “This is my favorite picture of my mother,” Sally said.

  “It’s quite beautiful,” Elizabeth Hansen said.

  “Your mom was so pretty,” little Megan said. “Do you know which cabin she stayed in when she was little?” she asked. “I wonder if she stayed in my cabin.”

  “I really don’t know, honey,” Sally said. “I do know they went on many trips like the one we’re on today as a family. In fact, there’s a picture somewhere in here of the children playing on the beach over there on the island. You can see the boat in the background.” She turned several pages until she found it.

  George shook his head, “It’s like time has come back around and we’re here again in 1939.”

  “Sally, these photos are incredible,” Alex said. “Would you mind leaving the book onboard for a few days?” he asked.

  “No, not at all,” Sally answered.

  Megan interrupted, “Daddy, you said we could go fishing. Can we now?”

  Everyone agreed and Alex called a deckhand over to round up the equipment. In a few minutes, they had poles over the side off the stern of the boat. Within moments, Megan shrieked with joy, “I’ve got one! I’ve got one! Look, Daddy, it’s a big one.”

  Her father helped her reel in a nice green-sided smallmouth bass. It was about fourteen inches long. Sally quickly got a camera from her bag and took a picture of the fishing party with Megan in front, holding her fish.

  “I was thinking of having the dinghy lowered and going ashore to check out the island,” said Alex. “Would anyone like to join me?”

  “Daddy, I want to keep fishing.”

  The Hansens declined and said they wanted to stay and help Megan.

  “Sally, how about a little treasure hunting excursion over to the island?” he asked.

  “Sure. Are you sure you don’t want to come along, Megan?” Sally asked.

  The little girl shook her head, intent on watching her line down below.

  Sally and Alex agreed to put on their swimming suits and were soon in the small boat, Alex rowing over to the island. The water was bright and crystal clear and Sally could easily see the many-colored stones on the bottom of the lake. The boat hit bottom and they both climbed out to pull it up on the shore.

  They started off along the shoreline, walking together. “Thank you for sharing more of your family’s history today,” Alex said.

  “I hope it gives you a better feel for the ancestry of your boat and how much it meant to my mother’s family back in those days.”

  They walked along for a while in silence, then Alex stopped to pick up a stone he saw in the shallow water. “Is this a fossil or something?” he asked.

  She came over and looked at the stone. “It’s a Petoskey Stone, and yes, it is a fossil. They’re all over up here along the rocky lakeshores. People collect them and polish them and make them into all kinds of crafts. I can’t believe you’ve never seen a Petoskey Stone.”

  “I don’t think we have these back East.”

  “Just look how much you’re learning on this trip,” she said, and laughed and it felt good. She enjoyed being with Alex and she refused to feel guilty about it. Gwen had been invited, so it wasn’t as if she had been sneaking off with him this afternoon.

  “I don’t want to dredge up darker times, but I was worried about you yesterday. I’m really glad to see you’re feeling better,” Alex said.

  “I’m fine,” she said, leaving it at that. “How about a swim? It’s getting hot up here on the beach. Let’s swim over across the channel there to the main beach.”

  He followed her into the deeper water, taking his time to let his body acclimate itself to the cooler temperature of the big lake water
. He watched Sally dive in and porpoise out into deeper water until she couldn’t touch anymore and then she started to swim in a slow, graceful stroke. He held his breath and prepared for the shock and followed her toward shore. He caught up with her about half way across the narrow channel.

  “God, that water’s cold!” he said. They reached shallow water and he watched her begin walking up onto the sandy shore. He couldn’t help notice the pleasing proportions of her body in the swimsuit. As he joined her on the shore, the warmth of the sun on his back was a welcome relief. They walked along down through the water’s break for a while without talking.

  Sally stopped and looked out over the water. They could see the EmmaLee resting calmly out past the small island.

  “Alex…” she paused. “Alex, yesterday was about old memories I’ve tried to keep hidden away for a long time.”

  He came up beside her. “You don’t have to talk about it if…”

  “No, I think I really do need to talk about it.” She stepped back and sat down in the sand. Alex joined her. She started to speak in a slow, quiet voice. “I had a daughter. Her name was Ellen. She was nine years old when she died in a boating accident.” Sally stopped and swallowed, looking down at the sand, digging a small hole with her feet. “My parents were also lost.”

  Alex put his hand on her shoulder in comfort. “Sally, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Ellen had gone on a trip to Chicago with my parents on their sailboat. She was so excited to go. They were taking a couple of weeks to go down there, then cruise back up the Wisconsin coast. I couldn’t get away to join them. I was already divorced at that time. I had the gallery and I just couldn’t get away. My ex-husband was living in Chicago and Ellen got to see him when they were down there.” The hole at her feet was growing deeper and she had pushed a large pile of sand out in front of her. Alex just listened and let her proceed at her own pace.

  “I talked to her almost every night of their trip. She was having a wonderful time. My parents were treating her like a little princess and taking her to all kinds of interesting places along the way.” She paused for a moment. Alex could see the pain in her face and the tears building in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands. “I haven’t talked with anyone about this in so long.”

  Alex put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her over next to him. She put her face on his shoulder and let the tears finally break loose. They sat for several minutes without speaking.

  She looked up at him, “I’m sorry.”

  “I think you’ve needed to get this out for a long time.”

  “My old photo albums… the ones we were going to look at yesterday,” Sally continued. “The last one is filled with pictures of my parents and my daughter. I haven’t opened it since they’ve been gone. I had wanted to take it down yesterday and share those pictures with you and Megan, and let you see my daughter.” She paused, catching her breath. “I just couldn’t do it.”

  “Being around Megan must be hard?” he asked.

  “Well, it sure caught up with me yesterday,” she said. “But, Megan is a wonderful little girl and I’ve really had so much fun being around her these past few days.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Alex asked.

  Sally took a deep breath. “The day my father chose for the crossing back over the lake from Wisconsin looked like it was going to be a good weather day. He was very cautious about the big lake and he was a good sailor. They had a very good boat. It was fifty or so feet, a really nice old cruiser my dad had designed and built. They had cruised all over the Great Lakes on it for years. About mid-afternoon, they were somewhere near half way across the lake. They radioed the Coast Guard that they were having engine problems. An hour or so later they called in to say they were underway again. About twenty miles out from the Michigan coast they ran into some weather, just fog at first. Apparently, a weather system had shifted and pushed down farther than expected from the north.” She had to stop for a moment.

  “Are you sure you want to go on?” Alex asked.

  She nodded. “The Coast Guard told me the next morning that a freak thunderstorm had blown up over the northern part of the lake with extremely high winds. They had been out in it and seen waves and swells as high as 10-15 feet. My father radioed in an emergency call just before dark. He said they were trying to make it over to the shelter of the Manitou Islands down off from Grand Traverse Bay. He called again to say he was having engine problems again and they were adrift. He couldn’t keep the boat into the weather and they were taking on water.” She looked over at Alex. “He gave them coordinates of their position. They were apparently still about ten miles out from South Manitou. The man with the Coast Guard told me they were out in water over 400 feet deep.” She picked up some sand in her hands and watched it sift down into the hole she had made. “We never…we never heard from them again.”

  There were no more tears now. She sat looking out at the water. Alex didn’t know what he could possibly say. He held her more closely to him.

  “The Coast Guard received a call in the early morning from a freighter in the area. They called in to report a collision with a small boat during the storm. My dad’s boat had apparently drifted into the shipping channel. The Coast Guard searched the area that night after the storm passed and into the next morning. They finally found some debris on the water about midday, some cushions and a few other things. Then, they found floating wreckage from the boat, smashed fragments from the hull. We never found them, Alex. We never found the boat. The water was too deep for a salvage crew. They’re still out there.”

  “Sally, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you.”

  “I’ve always felt I should have been with them,” Sally said. “I know I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, but I should have been there with her. I just can’t help but think about how frightened she must have been.”

  Alex sat with her there in the sand, trying to hold back his own tears. He knew her pain. He knew nothing he could say could begin to make it go away.

  Chapter Twelve

  I grew up with the McKendry boys. Jonathan, of course, was my best friend. I have memories as far back as kindergarten with Jonathan. We were always running as a pair. For the most part, we kept our noses clean, but we got into a few scrapes. His brother, Luke was just enough older he wouldn’t spend much time with us, even as little kids. We looked up to that boy anyway. Even though he had been born with a weak leg and he often took abuse from older kids in town, there were times he seemed larger than life to me and Jonathan.

  One summer, Luke must have been eighteen or so, he took me and Jonathan out in one of their boats. We headed down to the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix. It was pretty exciting to be out there all alone with no adults onboard. We were laughing and sitting up on the seats, feeling the wind blow our hair back and yelling at the top of our lungs. It made us feel grown up just being out there alone with Luke. I remember him sitting there quietly driving the boat, keeping a lookout for other traffic. Every few minutes he’d light up another cigarette.

  We slowly cruised down into the South Arm, this narrow little stretch of lake that runs a few miles down to East Jordan. We passed the old car ferry at Ironton and waved to the Captain. A little further on we came to Holy Island and pulled around into a small cove behind the island and the west shore of the lake. It was getting on into early evening by then and the wind had died and the light was shining that soft brilliant glow in the trees you see just before dark.

  Luke pulled us up on the shore next to the short bridge that connected the island to the mainland. It was a low bridge that had a worn wooden rail on each side. Luke had us throw an anchor over and we sat there below the bridge listening to the day slip away, and the frogs and crickets taking over.

  Luke took out his pack of Camels and took another smoke. He handed the pack over to me and Jonathan. I guess we were about twelve, or so and taking the cigarette pack was like we were a
ll of a sudden ten years older and living in a man’s world. Jonathan and I looked at each other and tried to act cool like this was no big deal. We both took a smoke. Luke lit a match and held it for us to light up. I’ll never forget the taste of that first smoke in my mouth. We started talking about all sorts of stuff with Luke, like we had always been running with him.

  “You boys been gettin’ any women this summer?” he asked us.

  Me and Jonathan just started laughing like two kids would.

  He just shook his head.

  “You two ever do a back flip off this Holy Island bridge?” he asked.

  I remember looking over at Jonathan. He gave me this look and I knew we were in for it. He looked so strange sitting there with a cigarette in his mouth. Jonathan said, “Hell yes!”

  Well, we all stripped down to our shorts and jumped over the side onshore. It was kind of weedy and muddy, and we mucked our way up to the road and onto the bridge. The road was gravelly and hurt my feet to walk on it. We were tip-toein’ and holding on to the rail of the bridge to keep our balance. We got out to the center of the bridge and Luke climbed kind of awkwardly up onto the rail, dragging his bad leg along with him. He motioned for us to come up next to him. Me and Jonathan climbed up and we were all three standing there on the top of the rail, looking down at the water. It felt like we were fifty feet in the air, but it couldn’t have been more than eight, or ten.

  Luke slowly turned around, his arms out to help keep his balance, until his back was to the water. He looked down at us, “Back flips, boys.”

  Jonathan elbowed me in the ribs, “Come on.”

  We both turned and stood there with Luke with our backs to the lake. My legs were shaking and I thought I was gonna fall.

  “Tuck your legs boys, nothin’ to it,” Luke said.

  I looked over at Jonathan and he had this big smile on his face like he was having the best time ever. We looked back at Luke and he was staring straight ahead, concentrating real hard. He took a deep breath, then squatted down with his arms held straight out. It was like slow motion watching him. It seemed like it got real quiet, like the frogs were all watching us, too. I started wondering about how deep the damn channel was and getting scared about sticking my face in the bottom and breaking my neck.