The Haunted Island (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 9)

by J A Whiting

  “You’d think so.” Lin’s mind raced with possibilities. “Unless his research doesn’t take him to that part of the island.”

  Viv huffed. “It’s not a big island. What the heck is he doing on it? I just don’t trust that guy.”

  And neither did Lin.

  19

  It was a little after 11pm, when Lin’s drooping eyelids made it impossible to finish the crossword she was working on in bed forcing her to close her puzzle book and set it on the side table. Nicky was snoozing next to Lin on the bed and he didn’t move a muscle when she shut off the light and snuggled under her covers.

  Despite having felt exhausted before closing her eyes, she woke at 3am and was unable to fall back to sleep so she padded to the kitchen for a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen island. As soon as she took a seat in the dimly-lit kitchen, her mind began to race over the details of the case. The ghost hadn’t made an appearance in days and Lin worried they weren’t making the necessary progress to solve the mystery.

  Find out the truth. I want to go home.

  What is the truth? What was William Irons doing on Canter for Dr. Benjamin Mitchell? How did he sustain that head injury?

  Lin flipped up the screen of her laptop and hit the power button. In a few seconds, she was doing an internet search on the name Benjamin Mitchell. The articles she’d read with Viv a few days ago came up and Lin scanned them again.

  Benjamin, born in 1850, had a medical degree from Yale. He married later in life and had one son, Francis, who was born in 1906. Samuel is Benjamin’s grandson. Benjamin was considered by many to be an eccentric genius. He worked on Canter Island when the smallpox epidemic hit the area. The man had a home on Nantucket and a townhome in New York City. He was a successful investor and businessman who made a fortune.

  Lin searched other articles for more information and found some interesting facts in the next one she opened.

  Benjamin Mitchell was fifty-six-years old when his only child was born.

  Doing a quick mental calculation, Lin concluded that Benjamin was forty-years old when he started working on Canter. She knew he remained there for ten years.

  Skimming through other articles, Lin eventually found Benjamin’s obituary online. The doctor died in 1914 at the age of sixty-four.

  When she read the next line, she flinched.

  When Dr. Benjamin Mitchell passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he had an eight-year-old son, Francis, and had been divorced for seven years.

  The man had retired from the medical profession at the age of fifty, made New York City his home base, and in the remaining years of his life, concentrated on his many investments and businesses.

  Lin looked up and stared across the room.

  A self-inflicted gunshot wound. Why would the doctor take his own life? Was it because of his failed marriage? That couldn’t have been the reason since he’d been divorced for years. Was his health failing? Did his business deals go wrong? Did he lose his fortune?

  Lin wanted to speak with Samuel about his grandfather to find out if he knew the answers to her questions, but wondered if he might consider her inquiry to be intrusive. Maybe she could bring up the subject of the grandfather and his work on Canter, and see if Dr. Mitchell was open to discussing the topic.

  Checking the time, Lin wished she could talk to Viv about what she’d discovered, but knew her cousin would not appreciate being woken up at 4am.

  Nicky walked into the kitchen with sleepy eyes, sat down with his back legs sprawled out, and let out a big yawn which must have been contagious because Lin’s mouth opened wide in a yawn to match the canine’s.

  “Come on, Nick,” Lin said, “let’s go back to bed.”

  Feeling tired from her 3am researching, Lin walked around the corner of Samuel Mitchell’s house to the rear yard with Nicky at her heels and stopped short when she saw the doctor and his assistant sitting on the patio sipping coffee in the early morning light.

  “Oh, good morning,” Lin said to the men.

  “Lin. Nice to see you,” Mitchell said, standing up. “How about a cup of coffee?”

  Lin declined with a thank you.

  “Come and join us anyway.” When Mitchell gestured to one of the chairs, his assistant, Roger, seemed to frown at the intrusion.

  “I really should get to work,” Lin said. “There’s a lot to do today.”

  “Speaking of which,” Roger said before scurrying away, “I’d better get to my desk.”

  When Roger shut the back door with a click, Mitchell asked, “Can you spare a few minutes?”

  Reluctantly, Lin took a seat opposite the doctor.

  “The work you and Leonard have done looks terrific. And the kitchen is coming along swimmingly. I hit the jackpot when I hired your landscaping company and your friend, Jeff.” Mitchell gave the young woman a beaming smile.

  “I’m very glad you’re happy with everything.” Lin wasn’t sure if now was the right time to bring up Mitchell’s grandfather, but decided there was no time like the present. “I understand your grandfather worked on Canter Island during the smallpox epidemic.”

  The smile faded from Mitchell’s face. “Yes, he did. He worked there for about ten years, he hired on as an administrator, but saw patients when things were busy.”

  “Did he work at a different hospital after leaving Canter?” Lin knew that Benjamin had retired, but didn’t want Mitchell to know she’d been researching his family history.

  “No, he didn’t continue in medicine. I’m told my grandfather enjoyed business more than anything else and that was where his true interest was. He retired from caring for patients and focused on his business interests.”

  “Were his business interests in the medical field?” Lin asked.

  “He preferred real estate,” Mitchell said. “He invested in new companies, bought and sold businesses.” The man smiled. “He was a real tycoon. Very, very successful.”

  “Did he have a lot of children?”

  “Only one son, my father, Francis. My grandfather married late in life. My dad was born when my grandfather was in his fifties.”

  “Was your father a doctor as well?”

  “He was, yes. It must be in our genes.”

  “Did your grandfather do research?” Lin asked.

  “Not to my knowledge,” Mitchell said. “He liked the business side of medicine, my father told me that my grandfather preferred the administrative work.”

  “You never met him?”

  “He died decades before I was born,” Mitchell said with a shake of his head. “What I know of him was told to me by my father. My father was only eight-years old when my grandfather died. My dad told me my grandfather was a busy man who didn’t have much time for children. He wasn’t demonstrative and never showed any affection to my father. What my father knows about Benjamin was gleaned from reading about him and from what my grandfather’s associates said about him. My grandparents divorced when my father was little so my dad didn’t feel he knew his father at all.”

  “How old was your grandfather when he died?” Lin asked.

  “He was sixty-four. He died in 1914.”

  “He was ill?”

  Mitchell slumped slightly in his chair and didn’t answer right away. “My grandfather took his own life.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Lin said. “It must have been very hard on your father.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Mitchell said, “My dad was stoic about it. He never felt close to his father. I don’t believe the loss hit him in a deep way.”

  “Was your grandfather despondent over bad business deals?” Lin knew she was probably entering territory where she had no business, but Mitchell didn’t seem to mind the question.

  “His businesses and his finances were doing just fine,” Mitchell said. “My grandfather was known to be a very serious person, but he became depressive and anxious over the years following the birth of my father. My grandmother told my father that her husband seemed to
undergo something of a personality change which brought out a darker side of the man. He was moody and forlorn. It was partly the reason for the divorce.”

  “It’s a sad story,” Lin told the doctor.

  “Thankfully, my father didn’t inherit the melancholy aspect of my grandfather’s personality. My father was a kind man, loving, optimistic. I knew I was important to him. I was lucky to have a father like that.”

  Lin smiled. “I was raised by someone similar. It makes all the difference to a child to know they are valued and loved.”

  “That’s very true.” Mitchell nodded. “My father and mother lived into their eighties. They had long and happy lives.” The doctor seemed to be deep in thought and then a smile passed over his mouth. “My father told me once that he and my grandfather had a nice chat one day. My dad seemed to hang on the memory of it. He told me my grandfather was in his study, one day, sitting by the window looking outside. When my dad walked past the office door, my grandfather called to him. My dad thought he’d done wrong and was relieved when he realized that wasn’t the reason for being invited into my grandfather’s study.”

  “It was a rare thing to be called into the study?” Lin asked,

  “Indeed, it was. When my dad walked into the room, my grandfather rolled a coin over the wood floor to him. It was a gold doubloon.”

  Lin almost fell out of her chair.

  “Do you know what that is?” Mitchell asked.

  Lin nodded, thinking of her ghost and how he tossed a doubloon onto Anton’s deck.

  “My father was astonished by the coin. My grandfather told my father that there was pirate’s treasure on Canter Island and that he’d searched for it after hearing about the legend, but all he found were a few doubloons.”

  Lin’s heart began to race.

  Mitchell chuckled. “My dad was never sure if his father was making up a tale to impress his son or whether the story was actually true. Dad kept the doubloon in his safe and passed it down to me. I think it was symbolic of one of the few times my grandfather showed interest in him.”

  Lin swallowed. “Did your father ever go to Canter to look for treasure?”

  “My father didn’t believe in silly stories.”

  “When you were on Canter for research, did you look around for the treasure your grandfather claimed was there? Have you ever gone back to Canter?”

  “I didn’t look for anything and I haven’t been back to Canter.” Mitchell smiled. “I don’t believe in fairytales.”

  Lin thought about the doctor’s impressive wealth … and wasn’t sure if he was telling her a tale … or not.

  20

  “Eve Silver Holden was an ancestor of mine,” Connie Gallin sat at a café table with Lin and Viv in the bookstore. In her early to mid-seventies, Connie, a runner, was slim and trim with short silvery hair and chocolate brown eyes.

  Joyce Parker, the researcher who wrote the article on Canter with Dr. Mitchell, knew Connie as a common descendant of Eve Holden and asked the woman to get in touch with Lin. Connie had old letters and memorabilia from some of her ancestors and she had heard stories passed down through the generations.

  “I have a small cottage in the Cliff area. It’s been in the family for years. I come to the island for the summer,” Connie said. “I enjoy history and have dabbled with our family tree. Eve Silver Holden came to America from England in 1888 and lived on-island for the rest of her life. She and her husband had five children who remained on Nantucket their entire lives. The next generation left the island to work on the mainland.”

  “Eve Silver Holden had a sister, Merry,” Viv said. “Merry was married to William Irons.”

  “That’s right,” Connie nodded. “Merry had a little daughter. They both came to Nantucket from Brighton, England in the winter, December 1889. Her husband, William, followed six months later.”

  “But William was detained on Canter Island when his ship arrived,” Lin said.

  “Yes, poor man,” Connie shook her head sadly. “I’m sure he had no idea that he would be detained on Canter and would never see his family again.”

  “Do you know if William’s cause of death was smallpox?” Lin asked.

  Connie’s face registered surprise at the question. “We’ve always assumed he died of smallpox, contracted from one of the other detainees.”

  Lin couldn’t explain the other possibility of William dying from a head injury without telling Connie she’d seen the man’s ghost so she stayed quiet on the matter. “William’s stay on Canter seemed unnecessarily long.”

  “That’s true. Our guess is that he passed the quarantine period without showing any sign of the disease, but stayed to make some money on Canter when he was offered temporary work. We believe William caught smallpox while working and then died from complications of the illness.”

  “Do you know who hired William?” Viv questioned.

  “It was one of the administrators, a doctor, Dr. Benjamin Mitchell,” Connie told them.

  “How do you know?” Viv asked.

  “William wrote some letters to Merry. One of them mentions the doctor. Dr. Mitchell needed an able-bodied man to help with some projects on the island.”

  Lin leaned slightly forward. “Did William say what the projects were?”

  “Not specifically, no. He talked about cutting down some trees, clearing a bit of land, doing a lot of digging,” Connie said. “It sounds to me like some preliminary work for a building project, perhaps a dormitory to house those who were under quarantine or maybe an addition to the hospital. There were so many people quarantined back then. It was nearly an epidemic. Dr. Mitchell was probably trying to find a good site and then planned to bring in workers to begin construction.”

  “Have you seen William’s letters?” Lin asked.

  “I have seen them.” Connie smiled at the thought of the correspondence between William and Merry. “The old letters give us a tiny glimpse into past times. I’ve spoken with my husband who is arriving in two days. I’ve asked him to bring along the letters that I have that were written between Merry and William. I thought you might like to see them.”

  “We’d love to see them,” Lin smiled. “Thank you so much.”

  “Did William ever mention anything about Dr. Benjamin Mitchell?” Viv asked.

  Connie’s pleasant smile disappeared. “William said the doctor could be difficult and demanding and wanted William to work more than what he’d originally asked for. When William worked the longer hours, the doctor conveniently forgot to pay him for the extra time.”

  “Did William confront the doctor about being short-changed?”

  Connie’s expression clouded. “He did, but the doctor dismissed his complaint by telling William he was lucky not to have smallpox and to be able to make some money while he was on the island.”

  Viv groaned at the doctor’s misuse of William’s time and effort.

  Lin told Connie, “We’ve spoken with someone else who had a relative on Canter. The man’s name was Patrick Brown. He was sent to quarantine on the island. He eventually came down with the disease and passed away, but in his letters home, he talked about an immigrant who was detained on suspicion of smallpox. The man was approached by Dr. Benjamin Mitchell to do some work for him. Patrick Brown’s letters mention that he thought it odd for a doctor to ask a patient to work for him. The detainee was eventually cleared and released from the island.”

  “Did Mr. Brown say what kind of work the detainee was asked to do?” Connie questioned.

  “Walking around the island, doing some digging,” Viv said. “Much like what William Irons was asked to do.”

  “It must have been to find new building sites,” Connie sounded sure of the idea. “The number of smallpox patients and the number of those held in quarantine flooded the island during that time. My guess is there weren’t enough workers around so the doctor had to hire a detainee to help with some of the work that needed to be done.”

  “It makes sense,” Lin sai
d. “Patrick Brown wrote how unkind the doctor seemed. How the doctor didn’t seem to care about those who were ill.”

  Connie’s eyes widened. “That’s terrible. I hope the doctor was just straight-out busy and his hurried manner came across incorrectly as disinterest.”

  “You said your ancestor, Eve, stayed on Nantucket for the rest of her life,” Lin said. “What about William’s wife, Merry? Did she stay on-island with her sister, Eve?”

  “She did not,” Connie said. “I have a letter to Merry from Eve. It was written and sent after Merry returned to England. From what I was able to glean from the writing, Merry left Nantucket shortly after receiving news that William had died and had been buried on Canter. She was understandably distraught and despite Eve’s urging her sister to stay with her, Merry left and returned home with her young daughter.”

  “Do you know when Merry died?” Viv asked.

  “I don’t, no. From family stories passed down through the generations, I believe Merry never remarried.”

  “Do you know where she lived in England?” Lin asked.

  “She was from Brighton. I was led to believe Merry went home to Brighton.” Connie added with a sigh, “A very sad story, isn’t it? A young family carrying hopes of a new life in Nantucket who make a long journey only to have their dreams shattered.”

  “It’s a terrible story.” Lin thought of the many others whose stories ended in sadness like Merry’s and William’s … and then her attention turned to the question of what really had happened to William on Canter. Was his head injury the result of an accident? Or was it from some other cause … a more sinister cause?

  Connie promised to get in touch with the cousins when her husband arrived on-island with the old letters and Lin and Viv thanked the woman for her time and for sharing her ancestors’ information with them.

  When Connie left the bookstore-café, Lin told Viv what she’d learned that morning from Samuel Mitchell. “Roger, the assistant, seemed pouty that I’d barged in on their morning coffee on the patio and excused himself to go inside.”