by DOUG KEELER
“Never trust a man with a feather sticking out of his helmet.”
Another laugh. “That’s what Oglethorpe thought. The British had settled Charleston, the Spanish were garrisoned in Florida, and Georgia was the land in between these two warring empires. England was determined to stop Spain from expanding, so Spain tried to cripple the British Colonies economically. The Colonies relied on cheap labor, which is one of the reasons reason why slavery thrived. So Spain let it be known that any escaped slaves that crossed the St. Marys River and made it into Florida would become a free man.”
“No kidding.”
“You’ve heard “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” before haven’t you?”
“Saw ‘em in concert a few years ago.”
She ignored this and said, “The first free settlement for African Americans was located just outside St Augustine. It was called Fort Mose. When Florida was ceded to the British under The Treaty of Paris in 1763, the freed blacks, along with the rest of the Spanish population, relocated to Cuba.”
I was impressed. And not just with her legs.
“You seem to have a pretty good handle on your history.”
“I should. I have a Ph.D. in American History from William and Mary College.”
“And that’s what you do...you’re a historian?”
“I’m a part-time professor. I teach a course in early American history Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Savannah State.” She paused and looked over at me. “I also own a little four bedroom Bed & Breakfast here in town. I don’t have any guests at the moment, but I’ve got two couples checking in this weekend.”
“Frilly curtains, creaky antiques, braided rugs and lace doilies...that kind of Bed & Breakfast?”
“It was when I bought it five years ago. I’ve tried to update it and bring it into the twenty-first century. You’ll have to come stay with me sometime.”
Since I rated staying at a B&B about as enjoyable as listening to knife and fork radio programs, I left that alone. Instead, I asked, “How does one go from getting a Ph.D. at Bill and Mary, to owning a B&B in Darien Georgia?”
“It’s William and Mary wise guy. And I’ll tell you my story over lunch.”
We pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car. On our way inside she hooked her arm through mine. I love it when women do that.
I asked her, “Would you have really doused me with pepper spray?”
“Who says I won’t on the way back to your car. So you better behave Eagle Scout.”
“I have a confession to make.”
“Let me guess,” she said, looking up at me. “You were never an Eagle Scout.”
I shook my head. “I’m a polygamist from Utah with nineteen wives?”
“I’ll bet you’ve never even set foot in Utah. But even if that were true, you’d divorce all nineteen of ‘em after you met me.”
This was one free-spirited woman, completely comfortable in her own skin. Did I mention her legs?
~ ~ ~
Hammerheads overlooked the Altamaha River. But instead of heading into the main dining room, Natalie took me upstairs to the oyster bar. It was a casual place, with a scarred, horseshoe-shaped bar, tables constructed of old wooden barrels, and some neon beer signs hanging on the walls.
Natalie led the way to an empty table in the corner. “Be right back,” she said.
She walked over and gave the bartender a big hug. After a minute or so, she returned with two ice cold draft beers. “I took the liberty of ordering you a beer. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Bless you, my dear.” She sat, and we clinked glasses.
“You know, this used to be a high stakes poker room.” She took a sip of her beer. “In fact, McIntosh County was once a lawless place run by a crooked sheriff. There were all types of misdeeds: gambling, prostitution, that sort of thing. Not only that, but back in the seventies and the early eighties, we were a favorite destination for drug runners bringing marijuana up from Columbia. The pot smuggling reputation hung over the county like the sword of Damocles.”
“Sounds more like the bong of Damocles.”
“Nobody likes a wiseass.” She looked at me and smiled. “I told you I’m a history professor and an innkeeper. What do you do?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you when I mentioned I have a confession to make. I’m a private investigator working on a murder case.”
“Claire Robertson, am I right?” I nodded. “It’s just awful,” she said. “I saw the news this morning and couldn’t believe it.”
“Did you know her?”
“Not very well. Claire was a member of The Preservation Society. She took most of the photos of the Reynolds Mansion for the calendars we sell in the museum. She also took the photograph on the cover of our brochure.” She paused and gave me a contemplative smile. “Since Claire worked out on the island, she rarely attended any of our meetings, which are held on the first Wednesday of every month. She was so beautiful; it was impossible not to notice her.” Natalie was silent for a while, then said, “Claire and I had something in common. We dated the same guy, but not at the same time.”
Chapter Sixteen
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names
Chinese Proverb
Now obviously, this revelation was of interest to me. Particularly if this was the guy Claire dumped Bill Taylor for. But I didn’t want to seem insensitive to my new lady friend, so I chose my words carefully. I said, “Ahh.”
“Don’t worry. He and I stopped dating a year and a half ago.”
“Does he live here in Darien?”
She shook her head. “He’s an archeology professor from North Florida University. Fancies himself a modern day Indiana Jones. He’s been excavating at Chocolate Plantation on the north end of Sapelo for several years.” Really? Jack Hutchins forgot to mention that to me. I guess it slipped his mind.
I didn’t want to tip my hand that I’d met the idiot archeologist only yesterday, so I said to her, “Chocolate? You’ve got some interesting names floating around down here.”
Natalie nodded. “No one knows for sure where the name Chocolate originated, but the first English Settlement at Chocolate occurred sometime in the mid-1700’s. That’s when Sapelo was claimed by Mary Musgrove and her husband, Thomas Bosomworth.”
It was like I’d entered some kind of strange alternative universe. The town was named for a Panamanian outpost. The plantations were named for candy bars. Bosomworth was named for some very worthy...
“Ray, are you listening to me?”
“What’s that?”
“I was saying Mary Musgrove was the daughter of an English fur trader and a Creek Indian mother. She served as the interpreter between General Oglethorpe and Tomochichi.”
Tomochichi, chief of the Yamacraws, is a big deal around here. He played a pivotal role in the peaceful founding of Savannah. In fact, he and Oglethorpe became such great friends, that they even sailed across the Atlantic together to meet King George. When he died, Tomochichi was laid to rest in Wright Square.
I said to Natalie, “It was Tomochichi who started Savannah’s “to-go” cup tradition since he always traveled with Indian firewater in a deerskin canteen.”
“Is being a wiseass a normal part of your investigative technique?”
“Sorry. We were talking about the archeologist. What is he doing on Sapelo, looking for Blackbeard’s buried treasure?”
She shook her head and smiled. “He’s researching plantation life in the early 1800’s. But you know, Blackbeard wasn't the only one rumored to have buried treasure on these islands. Supposedly R.J. Reynolds buried hundred-pound bags of gold on Sapelo.”
Gold? I let that ferment for a moment, then asked, “Why would Reynolds bury gold on the island? Wouldn’t it be safer to just put it...you know, in a safe?”
“You have to understand this is all conjecture. But apparently in the late nineteen-fiftie
s, Mr. Reynolds was convinced that the world markets were on the verge of collapsing. So he squirreled away millions in bearer bonds inside a safe in the mansion and buried the gold on the island. Why didn’t he store the gold in the mansion? Nobody knows for sure, but some have speculated it was because he didn’t trust his wife.” She paused and leaned toward me. “He was on wife number three at that point, and they were heading for a divorce. He even became convinced she was trying to kill him.”
This was getting interesting. But being interesting didn’t necessarily mean it was consequential. I asked, “So where’s the gold?”
“After divorcing his third wife right here in Darien, Reynolds got married for a fourth time. But his health was failing. He’d been a heavy drinker and smoker for years, and was suffering from severe emphysema. So sometime in the early 1960’s, he went to Switzerland to try to regain his health, but he died soon afterward under mysterious circumstances. Supposedly he dug up the buried gold and took it to with him. But rumors have persisted for years that he didn’t dig it all up and that some of it is still hidden out on Sapelo.”
In my best pirate voice, I said, “Let’s keelhaul Indiana Jones and keep the loot for ourselves.”
Natalie laughed. To ensure we were talking about the same guy, I asked her, “Does Indiana Jones have a name?”
“Of course he does…Harrison Ford. Just kidding. His name’s Jack Hutchins. He and Claire just started seeing each other.”
An image of Jack Hutchins sitting in Cavanaugh’s office popped into my head. No question, he lied to me. Was it because he didn’t want to jeopardize his funding opportunity with Cavanaugh’s Sea Grant? Or maybe he didn’t want his wife to find out he was a philanderer. Either way, I decided Hutchins warranted further scrutiny.
I said, “I guess it was too soon to be serious.”
“Jack doesn’t do serious,” Natalie said, crossing her legs. “He rotates between dating his students when he’s in Florida, and someone older like Claire or myself when he’s digging out on the island. The reality is he’s a turd. He has a little ponytail and wears a diamond stud in his left ear.”
“You know what they say, there’s an asshole beneath every ponytail.”
She laughed again. The witty and clever Ray Fontaine was on a roll. Just then, the waitress sailboarded out of the kitchen. She blew through the dining room and dropped off a couple menus. Before she left our table, Natalie said, “Can we order a dozen raw oysters and a dozen oysters Rockefeller?” She looked at me and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind, but I can’t get enough of ‘em.”
Two dozen oysters, was she trying to tell me something? “I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
She chuckled. “Have you ever met a woman who truly knows what she wants? Besides, I like to be surprised. Keeps life interesting.” She changed the subject. “Do you want to ask me some questions? I assume you didn’t show up on our porch by accident.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. Like I mentioned, I was up at the Sapelo visitor center this morning and found the Preservation Society brochure. So I decided to come down and have a look around. Obviously, I’m trying to figure out who might have a motive to kill Claire.”
Natalie said, “The news made it sound like it might be tied to the Savannah harbor expansion. Is that true?”
“Too early to tell.” With a touch of subtlety, I added, “Were you jealous when Jack started seeing Claire?”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Should you be?”
“You tell me. You’re the investigator.”
“Look, I’m just trying to piece together what was going on in Claire’s life.”
“Well, to answer your question, I wasn’t the least bit jealous. Jack and I stopped dating well over a year before he and Claire became an item.” She looked at me with those liquid brown eyes. “He and I were never serious, and I was the one who ended the relationship, not him.”
After a failed relationship or a bend in the old career path, we all tend to accumulate a few battle scars. It comes with the territory. Believe me, I know. Still, I wondered about the issues that put an end to their relationship, and if Natalie was shining the hot light on Hutchins as a way to extract a little revenge.
I asked, “What did you think when you heard Claire had been murdered.”
Natalie considered the question for a moment. “After listening to the newscaster speculate that it might have something to do with dredging the Savannah River, I figured she must have angered the wrong person. Someone with a stake in having the river deepened. Who do you think killed her?”
“I don’t know. Obviously there’s the river angle, but I need to talk with Jack Hutchins to see if he can clear up a few items for me.”
She looked at me for a moment, then said, “I can assure you Jack had nothing to do with it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Jack’s a wuss. Actually that’s not fair. He’s a pacifist, and wouldn’t step on a spider. He’s also a peacemaker...hates to argue, always in control of his emotions. The man avoids confrontation at all costs. It used to drive me crazy. Sometimes you need a good knock-down- drag-out to clear the air. Lord knows I did some things to infuriate him, and could never get a rise out of him.”
Fat chance. She could get a rise out of any man with a pulse. “Would you mind if I asked how the two of you met?”
“Of course not. We met at the Marsh Landing ferry dock over on Sapelo. I’d been out on the island leading a tour of the Reynolds mansion and was waiting on the ferry. Jack walked up and introduced himself. Turns out we were both college professors, so we had that in common.”
I asked, “Do you know any of the other people that work out on Sapelo? I’m talking about some of Claire’s co-workers.”
“I think the only co-worker of Claire’s I’ve ever met is Tim Jenkins. He’s one of the research scientists at the Marine Institute.”
“What’s he like?”
She took her time in answering. “Seems like a nice guy. I think he’s married. Has a home down on St. Simons. I’d say he’s probably in his late fifties. Looks like a scientist. You know, kind of rumpled and wears thick glasses.”
We talked for the next ten minutes or so, though very little of what we discussed seemed directly related to the case. Natalie told me more about the Preservation Society, and the work they did on Sapelo.
She also knew many of the folks that lived around here, and quite a bit of local gossip. I realized I should be doing something more constructive than just having lunch with a beautiful woman, but after Frank Chambers, I’d used up most of my leads.
The oysters came. Between bites of shellfish and sips of beer, Natalie filled me in on more of the local lore, including the names of Georgia’s three signers of The Declaration of Independence.
“One of the signers,” Natalie informed me, “was Button Gwinnett. He owned St. Catherine’s Island, which is just north of Blackbeard.” She slurped a raw oyster from its shell, a move I found incredibly erotic. “Gwinnett was the second person to sign The Declaration.”
“After John Hancock,” I said, remembering Mrs. Doyle’s seventh-grade civics class.
“Very good,” Natalie replied, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “After the Revolutionary War, Gwinnett was killed in a pistol duel with Lachlan McIntosh just outside Savannah. Today his signature is considered the rarest of all the Declaration signers. In fact, it’s one of the most valuable signatures in the world. One recently sold for over seven hundred thousand dollars.”
I gave a low whistle. “I’ve got Willie Mays’ autograph. Are you telling me Gwinnett’s signature is worth more than my Willie?”
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On the size of your Willie, silly.” She laughed until she wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you asked for it.” She laughed again. “You should’ve seen your face.” Ha,
ha, ha.
I took a long slug of my beer and regarded her for a moment. She was beautiful, smart, interesting, educated, free spirited, and outwardly successful. Plus, she didn’t take any of my crap. I believe I was smitten.
A number of people stopped by to say hello to her, and it was obvious she was well known and well liked, which I took to be a good sign. But I had to keep reminding myself that Natalie had fallen under the spell of Jack Hutchins, and I wondered what the attraction was.
In any case, we kept the banter going, keeping it light and breezy. I looked at her and asked, “How did you get bitten by the history bug?”
“I picked it up from my grandmother. She used to tell me stories of how our family arrived on The Anne.”
“Who’s LeAnn?”
“Not LeAnn...The Anne. The third ship to arrive at Plymouth Massachusetts in 1623. Everyone knows the Mayflower was the first ship to arrive in 1620. The Fortune was the second to make the voyage. The Anne was the third. My ancestors on my father’s side go all the way back to Plymouth Rock.” This is America. Nobody cares about third place. No wonder I’ve never heard of The Anne.
Natalie filled me in on how she came to own a B&B in Darien, and I told her the story of how I ended up in Savannah. When I got to the part about barbecuing Troy Holden’s Mercedes, her eyes grew wide. “You did not,” she said.
“Word of honor,” I replied.
Loosening up and letting our guards down, we polished off the rest of the oysters, then went to town on a seafood platter and a basket of peel and eat shrimp. And for a little while there, I actually forgot about the murder investigation.
When we finished eating, I paid the check and we stepped outside.
We got back in the Audi and Natalie drove me back to my car, but not before showing me where her Bed and Breakfast was located. It was a rambling old Victorian, with a rounded turret, whimsical gingerbread trim, and a wide wrap-around porch. It sat back from the street behind a white picket fence. A stately live oak lorded over the lawn, and on the left side of the house, a stone pathway led to a colorful flower garden.
