Time After Time

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  Without taking her eyes from the tube, Susy said, "I'm not a couch potato. I'm a sofa potato. Caroline says rich people say 'sofa.'

  "Well, Caroline is wrong, and we're not rich." Liz picked up the remote and shot Big Bird out of the TV sky. "Now git."

  Susy groaned at the injustice of it all, then scampered out of the Great Room to join Bradley and Caroline. Liz, carrying her cup of decaf, went over to poke the dying fire back to life, then sat on one arm of the leather easy chair where Jack sat hovering over the sports section of the Saturday paper.

  "Did you hear that?" she asked her husband.

  "Hmmm," he said without looking up. "Something about vegetables."

  "Hey. Coach." She folded his paper over itself. "Remember me?"

  Jack looked up with a quiet smile. "Of course. You're my life's blood, the cream in my coffee, the object of my adoration — but. You haven't pitched three straight shutouts for the Red Sox."

  She rolled her eyes and said, "How can I possibly compete?"

  Jack reached over and rubbed her swollen belly with his hand. "Keep this up, I'll have my own franchise soon."

  "I don't think so," she said, smiling.

  "Seriously, Liz: how do you feel?"

  Liz shrugged and said, "Great. Better than with Susy. I think I've convinced myself that this is a miraculous pregnancy."

  Jack's look turned sly. "Want me to run through how it happened one more time?"

  As near as they could figure, Liz had gotten pregnant on the night of the fund-raiser, between dinner and the bunny hop. The night had been filled with miracles; this was just the biggest one. Liz kissed the top of Jack's head and said, "Enjoy your paper while you can."

  The doorbell rang and Liz sang out, "Never mind, Netta; I'll get it.''

  She walked down the long marble floor of the entry hall, covered with skid marks from the bicycle race that Netta and Liz's parents had engineered on the night before, and swung open one of the massive double doors that faced onto the circular graveled path outside.

  The caller was Detective Gilbert, whom she hadn't seen since the day she sat at the station, reading through the dozen stolen letters, looking in vain for clues to Eddy Wragg's motives.

  Her first reaction was panic — surely Wragg had escaped — but the bemused smile under the big mustache on the detective's handsome, fine-boned face reassured her.

  He suspended a folded, crumpled, dirty letter from two fingers in front of her. "Guess what the janitor at the shelter found when he changed a light bulb in one of the ceiling fixtures?"

  "No way!" she said, mimicking Caroline's favorite phrase. "Come in, come in," she cried, grabbing the detective by the arm and dragging him over the threshold.

  Liz pelted him with questions that had no answers as she hurried him into the Great Room where Jack still clung, without hope now, to his paper.

  Detective Gilbert said, "The handwriting's clear enough, and so's the motive. This Victoria St. Onge character seems to've had another one of her fits of kleptomania, and — well, read it yourself."

  He handed Liz the soiled sheet of paper. Nestling on the rolled arm of Jack's leather chair, she unfolded the last known letter of Victoria St. Onge, dated the month before the sand-pail dinner party.

  'My dear Mercy,' Liz read aloud,

  I believe I have finally succeeded in storming the gate—East Gate, that is. I truly believe it would be a simpler matter to climb over the wall to Mrs. Astor's Beechwood than it is to gain entry into the inner circle of John and Lavinia Eastman. However, by insinuating myself aboard their yacht as the guest of a guest, I did manage to make some headway.

  John Eastman has no use at all for me — I am forced to that conclusion, since he scarcely said a word to me, but kept in the company of two or three close friends who shared his love of sporting pursuits.

  Liz glanced up at Jack with a wry look and then resumed.

  Lavinia Eastman, however, appeared to find me amusing, and it is on her that I pin my hopes. I should add that it may all come to nothing, since, alas, I have been naughty again.

  Jack snapped to attention as Liz read on:

  One of the ladies came aboard wearing an extraordinarily long rope of black Tahitian pearls, bound by a diamond clasp the size of a pie-cherry. Fearing she might lose it overboard, the guest removed her necklace and left it atop a bureau in one of the staterooms.

  It did not remain there long.

  I suppose it was owing to her extreme vanity — in any case, I took it upon myself to relieve her of the jewelry and tucked it out of sight until such time as I could retrieve it. As you know, I have a head for such things.

  At the end of the cruise the necklace was discovered missing. The crew and servants, naturally, were questioned closely. One of them, a steward, was taken into custody, as he had a previous experience of petty theft. (Mrs. Eastman is too soft-hearted by half.) Perhaps an examination of the yacht will turn up the jewels. But — perhaps not. We shall see.

  Detective Gilbert interrupted at that point and said, "The rest of the letter is a description of fabric."

  Liz glanced over the remainder of the letter. "So it is. She looked up and said to Jack, "Have you ever heard anything of this incident?"

  He shook his head. "I can call my dad — although it's a little early for him, California time."

  "It's not too early for Palm Beach. You could call your mother."

  "Yeah, okay." He turned to Gilbert. "Do you mind waiting?"

  "Not at all. I was thinking — if no one has any information, would you object to a search of your yacht? I understand it's been in the family since the time of this letter?"

  "Can do. Just give me a minute to make the call first."

  He went out to call Barbara Eastman. Detective Gilbert, who'd never been at East Gate before, looked around and said, "Lotsa room for a growing family."

  Liz smiled. "That end — with the toys and bulletproof slipcovers — has been handed over to the kids. It's tough when you don't have a rumpus room in the basement."

  The two shared a working-class laugh together and chatted about kids, and then Jack came back.

  "No luck there," he said. "She's never heard anything about it. When did you want to search the boat?"

  "Now!" said Liz. "Can we?"

  In five minutes they were on the road, Detective Gilbert in his car, Jack and Liz in theirs.

  "If Susy finds out about this, we're dead," said Liz. "But I think she bought the bit about seeing the lawyer."

  "Y'know, I used to be a pretty honest guy before I had kids," Jack said thoughtfully. "Now I lie all the time."

  Liz sighed and said, "It's easier than arguing with them. Life's too short. How's your mother?" Liz added, her train of thought ending up with Barbara Eastman.

  "Doing well. She misses him, of course. But at least she got him up and running again. It leaves her free to go ahead with the divorce without guilt."

  Automatically she and Jack reached for each other's hands. It was amazing, Liz realized, how in tune they were about everything to do with love. About everything, really. Her one great lapse was baseball; his, parties for grown-ups.

  After a thoughtful silence, she said, "Do you think I should have an all-women, personal shower for Tori, or should we have an appliance shower, with couples, for Ben and her?"

  "God. All women personal. Please. I'm begging you."

  With that simple maneuver, Liz made her announcement to Jack that she'd be taking over the Great Room for an extravaganza unmatched since — well, since his birthday a month earlier.

  She squeezed his hand. "I love you, you know."

  He smiled. "Me too, you conniving witch." After a minute or so, he said, "What do you think about a baseball theme for Bradley's birthday? June — it's baseball season. Just a thought," he said absently. "Oh, wait. By then the baby—"

  "—will still be too young to blow up Bradley's party," Liz said, remembering her infamous debut at East Gate.

  "Plent
y of time to do that," Jack said reassuringly. Then: "Why are we going to the boat, anyway? There's not going to be any necklace there. It's had a hundred years to be found."

  "But it hasn't been, as far as we know. You have to humor me and Detective Gilbert on this. We won't take long."

  ****

  They searched, all three of them, for four straight hours. The boat was ice-cold below, but Liz pretended that she didn't notice. Starting with the staterooms, they turned the boat inside out, pulling out the drawers, taking up the floorboards, taking up the berthboards — anything that wasn't screwed down was removed, searched, and replaced. From there they moved into the main salon, repeating the process; and from there to the galley, the wheelhouse, even the engine room and the forecastle.

  No pearls.

  Liz had taken frequent quick breaks and made the men coffee while they continued the search — Detective Gilbert, with the discipline born of his years on the force; and Jack, with mounting impatience and concern for Liz.

  The recovered letter got picked up and reread until they all knew it by heart. Something about it bothered Liz; she couldn't figure out what. It was while she was taking her third pregnancy-induced pee of the search that it hit her. No one would write, "I have a head for such things." In that context they'd say, "I have a penchant," or, "I have a weakness," or whatever.

  Head. It was almost a Freudian slip.

  On a hunch, she decided to search the bathroom she was in — the head, as Susy would undoubtedly insist she call it. Small, exquisite cupboards were too recently painted to give her much hope. But they were still empty of supplies, since the boating season hadn't begun yet, and Liz was able to feel behind them and all around without much trouble.

  At the back of the linen closet was a small horizontal hole — meant for air circulation between the closet and the hull — which was just big enough for Liz to slip her hand into. With mounting hopes she probed the dark gap, feeling for jewels and finding nothing but very, very cold air.

  Disappointed, she tried another ventilation hole, and then another. In the third one she felt something.

  Fat round beads, a string of them.

  "Jack!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Come quick!"

  He showed up in five seconds with a look of panic on his face, matched by Detective Gilbert, who stood peering over his shoulder into the small compartment.

  She was half-kneeling in a bizarre contortion with her hand still in the hole. "I've got 'em! I've got 'em!"

  "What're you doing?" cried Jack, scandalized. "You'll hurt yourself, twisting like that!"

  "I'm fine, I'm fine. I just ... don't ... want ... to drop them," she said, carefully unhooking the strand from something sharp that protruded out of the back of the closet — a too-long screw tip, she assumed.

  With infinite care and in utter silence she began pulling the rope of pearls through the hole, fearful that at any moment the century-old string that held them might be too rotten to hold, and she'd lose it all. But the string held, and she was able to pass the rope of pearls intact to Jack.

  At first glance, the pearls seemed ruined. They were covered with green fuzz, unpleasant to hold. But even in that condition, there was no denying their majesty. "They are huge," Liz said, staring in awe at the moldy beads.

  The diamond that was mounted on the clasp wasn't as big as a pie-cherry — more the size of a plump raisin. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor wouldn't be impressed, but Liz sure was.

  She rubbed the mossy coating from one of the beads, revealing an exquisitely dark pearl: dusky, gray, as exotic as the Pacific islands it came from.

  "Wow," whispered Detective Gilbert.

  Jack handed the necklace carefully to the detective. "Who was the owner, I wonder? Who are the heirs?"

  Those questions never occurred to Liz. Her knee-jerk response had been: finders keepers. She blushed to realize that she hadn't thought beyond that. It made her love Jack all over again, just for his integrity.

  "We can find out," said Detective Gilbert, fingering the stone. "Between the Daily News and the police archives, we should be able to tell. I predict a bunch of lawsuits, though."

  Jack was thinking of something else besides lawsuits. "Hold it ... I wonder if it's possible ... yeah. Has to be."

  He laughed at some recollection and said, "Last year Cynthia said that someone called the yard, asking the name of the Eastman yacht. She told him the Déjà Vu without thinking, then asked me if that was all right. I said sure and never thought about it again, even after the fan-belt episode. After all, David Penny obviously knew the boat; he wouldn't have been the one to call."

  "You're thinking it was — who — Wragg?" asked Liz.

  "Yep. And I think the moron saw the DeeJay and got the two names confused — hell, they're both old wooden boats — and ransacked the DeeJay instead of the Déjà Vu. Wait'll I tell Jay. He'll think it was worth it just to be able to tell the story over sundowners."

  "Well, that's that," said Detective Gilbert. "The case may finally be closed."

  It was hard to tell who was the most relieved. "Just make sure somebody tells Wragg that we found this, okay?" asked Liz.

  They stepped out of the boat into a brisk, cold, southwest breeze. Spring came hard to cities by the sea.

  Detective Gilbert flipped up the collar of his jacket and said, "Nice yard you have here."

  "It's been touch and go," Jack said, "but I think we've turned the corner. The International Yacht Race is sending a fair amount of business our way."

  Liz slipped her arm through Jack's and said exuberantly, "And Jack's not selling -- thanks to a lady who's the wisest shareholder I know -- so those jerks can just put that in their pipe and smoke it."

  Both men looked at her strangely, but she didn't care. She was wonderfully content with finding the pearls, wonderfully pleased with herself for figuring it out. Susy would have to be told: Liz wanted credit from her nautical daughter even more than she wanted it from Jack. Head. Ha.

  They went back up the ramp that led from the float to the pier above. Detective Gilbert shook their hands and wished them well with the new baby, and then he hurried to get out of the wind.

  "All set to go home, Columbo?" asked Jack.

  "You bet."

  Liz turned and looked back at the Déjà Vu, pulling restlessly on its docklines. She could — almost — see Christopher Eastman on the afterdeck, looking up at her with a glint in his eye and a laugh on his lips.

  She blew a kiss down from the pier: it got carried away on the wind.

  Beyond Midnight: A Tale of Modern Salem—Reviews

  "BEYOND MIDNIGHT has a terrific plot, a wicked villain, and a sexy hero. But the novel ventures beyond sheer entertainment, and it is easy to see why Stockenberg's work has won such acclaim. The theme and setting create a terrifying scenario, even without the supernatural elements: a chilling correspondence between the events of Salem's witch-hunting hysteria and contemporary allegations of ritualistic abuse in preschools. A good read that makes you think. Comes awfully close to—dare I say it?—literature."

  —Katherine Hennessey Wikoff, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  "Full of charm and wit, Stockenberg's latest (following Time After Time) is truly enthralling."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "A pair of well-matched protagonists, a precocious three-year-old, a relentless ghost, and a conniving nanny combine to produce an engrossing, well-written story that should keep readers captivated to the end."

  —Library Journal

  "Entertaining and fun. BEYOND MIDNIGHT'S shining strengths are its insights into parenting and relationship issues, its brazen humor, its writing style, its to-die-for hero, its cunning villain, and its intriguing supernatural overtones."

  —Kristi Lyn Glass, editor, Gothic Journal

  “When it comes to unique, eerie and engrossing tales of supernatural suspense, author Antoinette Stockenberg is in a league of her own. BEYOND MIDNIGHT is a gripping and chilling page-turner o
utlining two families’ courageous battle against an insidious evil with a charming face. Outstanding reading!”

  —Romantic Times

  "Antoinette Stockenberg creates another winner with this fast-paced and lively contemporary romance with a touch of the supernatural thrown in to make an interesting storyline even more exciting. Contemporary romance at its best. Five stars."

  —Harriet Klausner, Affaire de Coeur

  "Ms. Stockenberg is a marvelous story teller who writes with humor, wit, and real experiences that we can relate to. Totally absorbing ... a superior tale with just the right combination of greed, hysteria, obsession and romantic passion. Spectacular! A terrific story that had me anxiously turning the well-written pages."

  —Literary Times

  "BEYOND MIDNIGHT is typical of Stockenberg's excellent paranormal romances, with extremely strong characters, and an intriguing and original plot."

  —Melinda Hughes, Gothic Journal

  "Helen Evett, owner of a thriving pre-school in Salem, becomes the object of a modern witch hunt that endangers her family, her business, and her enchanting newfound love. This is the sort of paranormal romance that draws you in—a believable, emotionally involving ghost story, with an appealing story of love."

  —B. Dalton's Heart to Heart

  "Meticulously researched and detailed, BEYOND MIDNIGHT brings Salem and its history to striking life. Antoinette Stockenberg, a premiere voice in paranormal, gives us yet another keeper."

  —Linda Opdyke, New Reality Reviews

  "This second chance at love story is ultimately satisfying, mystically entertaining, and a perfect book to take along to the beach."

  —Linda O'Connor, The Time Machine

  "An excellent blend of love, family life, murder, suspense, and history that will thoroughly entertain the reader."