Homecoming By The Sea

by Kathi Daley

  I sat down in the chair, which was arranged to face the ocean. The sun was just beginning its descent. It was going to be a beautiful sunset, just as I’d imagined. “Did you get hold of Trevor?”

  “I did. He’ll be here at eight with pizza. Is Woody coming?”

  “No. He called me earlier and said he wasn’t able to reschedule his prior commitment. I’ll fill him in tomorrow.” I leaned back in the chair, taking a sip of my wine as the warmth of the setting sun warmed my face. The sea was calm, and the air barely moved with a gentle breeze. It was odd, but in some ways, I felt as if I’d suddenly woken from a dream and found myself home.

  “What are you going to name her?” Mac asked.

  “Name her?” I turned my head slightly.

  “The dog. You’re going to keep her, aren’t you?”

  I frowned. “I can’t keep her. I’ll be going home in a few weeks.”

  “They don’t allow dogs in New York?”

  “Of course they do, but I live in an apartment and I have a job that keeps me away from it for most of the hours of every day.” I took a sip of the wine. “That’s why Tucker lives with my mom. She has a house and a yard and is home most of the time.”

  “If you aren’t going to keep her, what are you going to do with her?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to think about it. I guess I’ll keep her here for a week or so in case someone’s out there looking for her. If I don’t find her people, I guess I’ll ask the new vet to find her a home.”

  Mac didn’t answer, but there was a very doubtful look on her face. I knew what that meant.

  “I’m not keeping her,” I insisted.

  “Uh-huh; we’ll see.”

  “It’s not an option.”

  Mac raised a brow before taking a sip of her wine.

  I looked at the dog curled up so peacefully with Alyson. Suddenly, I knew this was exactly what it would be like to have a child. My heart warmed at the thought before I chased it away.

  “The dog should have a name even if she’s only with us for a short time,” Mac insisted.

  “How about Skunk? The inside of my car smells so bad, I’m seriously considering burning it and getting a new one.”

  “I suppose you could do that. If you really wanted to.”

  I hesitated. “I wasn’t really going to burn the darn thing.”

  “I know. But if you wanted to, you could afford to buy a new car without missing a beat.”

  I shrugged. “I guess. I told you Amanda came from money. Old money and a lot of it.”

  “You did tell me that, but somehow it never fit with what I knew of Alyson. I guess this is the first time I’ve considered what you had to walk away from.”

  I turned away. Suddenly, the conversation had become a lot more serious than I’d intended. The sky began to turn orange as the sun dipped toward the horizon. I glanced at the dog, whose gray coat was now a soft reddish gold. “How about Sunset?” I said. I looked at Mac. “For the dog. We can call her Sunny.”

  Mac smiled. “I like it.”

  Sunny thumped her tail even though she didn’t bother to lift her head.

  “I think she likes her new name,” Mac said.

  “Yeah. I think she does at that.”

  Chapter 8

  As promised, Trevor arrived at eight o’clock with a six pack of beer and a pizza. Mac and I both elected to stick with wine, so he popped the top on his beer can and joined us at the dining table, where I’d set out plates and utensils as well as a large green salad to go with the pie. It felt welcoming, homey, dining on the cobalt-blue dishes my mother had picked out when we’d lived here together. The dishes were a perfect contrast to the rich color in the cherrywood table, which went nicely with the pale gray walls framed with white crown molding. The house had been such a mess when we first moved in, but after a lot of time, love, and elbow grease, we’d managed to accomplish our goal of bringing the feeling of the sea and the sky indoors.

  Sunny was awake after her nap. She greeted Trevor but seemed content to watch us eat from the nearby rug. Mac had mentioned the dog to Trevor on the phone, so when he stopped for the beer, he’d picked up a ball, a chew toy, and a stuffed doggy for Sunny to play with. She seemed to appreciate all her gifts but had curled up with her stuffed puppy with such care and nurturing that it almost seemed as if she thought it was a real animal. I wondered if she’d had pups at some point. I’d ask the vet when we went in for our follow-up.

  “I bet she’s going to be a beauty once you brush her out,” Trevor said.

  “Her coat is an exceptionally rich color. I don’t suppose you’re in the market for a dog?” I asked.

  Trevor raised a brow. “You found her. According to the rules of nature, that makes her your dog.”

  “Maybe, but I’m only here for a few more weeks. I can’t keep her for the long run.”

  Trevor took a bite of his pizza. “I see.”

  I see? What did that mean? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to put a damper on the peacefulness of the evening, so I changed the subject. “I was thinking it would be fun to go surfing while I’m here.” I looked at Trevor. “It’s been a decade, so I imagine I suck, but it’s still something I’d like to try. Do you ever have a day off? A whole day?”

  “Pirates Pizza is closed on Mondays. We could go then. Spend the day at the beach. Bring food to grill and maybe build a bonfire when the sun goes down.”

  “I’d absolutely love that.” I turned to Mac. “Are you in?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll go to a beach that allows dogs so Sunny can come.”

  I grinned as Sunny thumped her tail without looking up from her comfy position. It seemed as if she already knew her name, which wasn’t likely, though she seemed to respond to it.

  “I was going to wait to bring up the murder until we were finished eating, but I wanted to remember to tell you that I ran into Walter Brown today,” Trevor informed us. “He came in for lunch.”

  I remembered Walter Brown was the retired doctor Woody had spoken to, a volunteer at the museum and a friend of Booker’s. “Did he have anything to add to the notes Woody had in his file?” I asked.

  “He told me that Woody interviewed him the day after Booker’s body was found. At the time, he couldn’t imagine who would kill such a nice, generous man, but he’s had time to think about things and he’s come up with a very loosely developed idea.”

  “And what would that be?” I asked.

  Trevor took a bite of his pizza before he answered. He chewed slowly, swallowed, and washed it down with a sip of his beer. “Walter told me that Booker had confided in him about some health issues he’d been dealing with in the months before his death. It seems he had a very minor heart attack about eight months before he was murdered, which caused him to take a realistic look at himself. Walter thinks that was about the time he spoke to Caleb about the donation to the museum.”

  “That makes sense. I’m sure when you get to be Booker’s age, you think about your own mortality quite a bit,” I said. “I don’t know his exact age, but I imagine he was in his late seventies or early eighties.”

  “Seems right,” Trevor agreed. “Anyway, Walter said it was after his heart attack that Booker seemed to change his approach to certain things. He became a lot more careful about what he ate and drank, as well as the amount and intensity of the exercise he got, but he also seemed to become a bit more reckless.”

  “Reckless?” I asked.

  “Walter said Booker wanted to leave behind a legacy. And not just the donation of a new wing to the museum or the house to the historical society; he wanted to do something important, noteworthy. He thinks Booker realized he didn’t have a lot of years left, and he decided to jump into the pool of life and grab on to as many different experiences as he could, hoping one would lead to the type of legacy he had in mind.”

  “Booker was already the type to look for life experiences,” Mac pointed out. “He’d traveled the world and done mor
e than most by the time we’d met him.”

  Trevor nodded. “True. But the life experiences he sought earlier in his life were exactly that—experiences. Walter felt Booker wanted to put his name on some sort of academic or artistic endeavor. He wanted to create something or discover something. He wanted his name to come up in conversation years after he was no longer with us.”

  “So, he wanted to do something like prove that the cargo from the Santa Isabella ended up right here in Cutter’s Cove,” Mac said.

  Trevor shrugged. “Walter didn’t know about Booker’s theory about the cargo, so he didn’t mention that specifically, but he did indicate that he was looking to do something just like it.”

  “Let’s take a minute to deconstruct this,” I said. “Several things seemed to have occurred at around the same time. First Booker suffered a minor heart attack that put him in touch with his mortality, or at least we assume that’s what occurred, and then at just the moment when he was looking for something that would put him on the map, so to speak, he found out that items had been donated to the museum that seemed to confirm his theory that the Santa Isabella sank in the water off Cutter’s Cove, not farther south, as most assumed. It makes sense that he might decide to take hold of this clue he felt he’d been provided and run with it by looking farther into the idea that the missing cargo was right here in Cutter’s Cove.”

  “Makes sense,” Trevor replied. “The question is, how did he plan to go about proving his theory and possibly even finding the cargo?”

  “I wonder if he found something else,” I mused. “Something more that would have pointed him in a direction.”

  “Mac, you said you planned to look at the stuff you guys found in Booker’s secret drawer this afternoon. Did you find anything interesting?” Trevor asked.

  “I did, although I didn’t stumble onto anything to suggest where the cargo might be or what Booker hoped to prove by searching for it. Hang on; I’ll get my notes and catch you up on what I know.”

  “It looks like everyone is done with the pizza,” I said to Trevor. “Let’s clean this up and move the discussion into the living room.”

  Trevor began stacking the bright blue plates one atop the other. “I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done in just a few days.”

  “I spent some time dusting the downstairs and ran the vacuum around. The windows need washing, but I thought I’d hire someone for that, and I haven’t even touched the upstairs other than my bedroom and the guest room Mac took.”

  Trevor went into the kitchen. “I know a guy who can do the windows and any other heavy work you want to hire out. His name is Vern. He’s a good guy. Hard worker. And he doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. Or I guess you could talk to Sam Sutton about having Carter Carson do it. Might give you a chance to chat with him about his time at Booker’s.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll call Sam tomorrow.”

  Trevor grabbed a pad and a pen that were on the counter from earlier in the day. “I have the number. I have Carter do things for me at the restaurant when Vern isn’t available.”

  I stuck the number on the refrigerator so I wouldn’t forget to call the following morning. Trevor and I returned to the living area just as Mac looked up from her computer. We settled onto the overstuffed furniture and waited for her to begin.

  Mac settled back into a large comfy chair, stacking a pile of papers on the ottoman in front of her. “First off,” she began, “the papers we found in the envelope were mostly photocopies of documents. There were a few copies of pages from old books as well. I haven’t had time to look at them closely, but it appears everything in the file is a copy of something old. Very old.”

  “We can go through them tomorrow when we have more time,” I suggested.

  “That’s what I figured as well. I hoped to have time to work on them today, but I had a few things to do for work and I wanted to focus on finding out what I could about the items on the thumb drive.”

  “And what did you find on that?” I asked.

  “Not a lot. The drive contains files. Some, such as ships’ manifests, are easy to access; others are secured with passcodes. I’m sure I can get into the protected files without too much trouble, but it could take time with the limited equipment I have here, and I didn’t have time to work on them today. I have some work to do tomorrow for my employer, but I should have more time to commit to our project than I did today.”

  “Nothing really jumped out?” I asked.

  Mac looked up. “I didn’t say that. I did find one thing that could explain a lot. One very big thing.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You have my attention.”

  “As we’ve already discovered, the Santa Isabella was a cargo ship that dealt mostly with perishables such as silk, tobacco, and slaves, as well as handcrafted items such as pottery, glassware, and pipes. While the cargo of transport ships had value, they usually didn’t take on gold and precious jewels so as not to attract pirates. I found something in Booker’s notes in his secret hiding place. It seems he saw an entry in the log he found stating that the captain of the Santa Isabella had agreed to take on twelve trunks of gold coins. The coins aren’t listed anywhere on the manifest. Only in the captain’s log.”

  “So, the captain was moving the gold under the radar,” I said.

  “That appears to be the case.”

  “And while old dishes and pipes don’t seem to be valuable enough to kill a man over, a dozen trunks of gold coins certainly would be,” Trevor said.

  “Exactly. I’m unclear, however, whether Booker shared the information about the gold with anyone. So far, no one has mentioned it to us. I’m also unsure whether the log Booker found really belonged to the Santa Isabella. Booker seemed to think it did, and he was a very intelligent, educated man, but it seems odd to me that the log would just be sitting in a used bookstore, where it seems he found it. The ship sank more than a century and a half ago. Where has it been all this time?”

  “Good question,” I acknowledged.

  “Booker was a brilliant man, but he was also a dreamer. It seems the chance of his finding gold buckles from the Santa Isabella on the beach near Cutter’s Cove forty years ago, and then a captain’s log from the same ship in a used bookstore, only to be followed by boxes of cargo from the same ship in the weeks before he died, is pretty unlikely.”

  “So how can we find out if the log is legitimate?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mac admitted. “I think we should proceed as if something is there but keep in the back of our minds that Booker’s death may not be related to the ship or its cargo at all.”

  “Maybe we should ask him about it,” I suggested.

  “Ask him about it?” Trevor asked.

  “When we went to Booker’s house today, he was there. In the library,” I said gently.

  “What do you mean, he was there?” Trevor asked.

  “His ghost was there. Monica was in the library for all but a few minutes, so I couldn’t have a long discussion with him, but he didn’t remember his death. He remembered the events leading up to it, though, and then he remembered floating over his body.”

  “That must be so weird,” Trevor said.

  “I imagine it is. I’d like to have a longer chat with his ghost. He should be able to tell us if he told anyone about the gold coins. Real or not, they could serve as a motive for getting him out of the way. I’m hoping if we can speak to him, he’ll be able to help us narrow things down. But I’m not sure if I should tell Monica about my ability to see ghosts and her uncle’s presence in the house, or if I should try to get in and talk to Booker alone when she isn’t there.” I looked at Trevor. “She was the one who introduced us to him. How do you think she’d react to being told there’s a ghost in the house where she now lives?”

  Trevor paused before answering. “I’m not sure. I didn’t know her all that well in high school, and she moved away after we graduated. She only came back after Booker was killed, and I’ve only
run into her a few times since. I remember her as being pretty open-minded, but I can’t say for sure how she’d react to living with her uncle’s ghost.”

  “Maybe we should arrange for you to speak to Booker alone, Amanda,” Mac suggested. “He might have an opinion on Monica’s reaction.”

  “I guess we can come up with a reason to go back to the library. You can come up with a reason to get Monica out of the room, can’t you, Mac? Maybe ask her to show you something, or use the I-need-a-drink thing again. Hopefully, Booker will be there and I can talk with him while you’re gone.”

  Alyson, who had disappeared when we’d moved to the living room, suddenly reappeared. “Alyson has joined us,” I informed the others.

  “Alyson has joined us?” Trevor asked with a look of confusion on his face.

  I looked at him sheepishly. “Oh, I guess I haven’t filled you in.” I quickly explained about Alyson and my split personality. I could tell that Trevor was surprised and somewhat confused, but he was a trooper so he didn’t question my sanity as most would have. He simply made a few jokes about always wishing there were two of him and moved on. I returned the conversation back to Booker’s murder as quickly and smoothly as possible.

  “You spoke to him for a lot longer than I did today,” I said to Alyson. “Did he say anything we should know about?”

  Alyson sat down on an empty chair. “Mostly we just talked about what it was like not to have form. When you told Booker he’d been murdered, he was both shocked and irate. He never imagined he hadn’t died of natural causes. If you ask me, he’d be as determined to find his killer as you are.”

  “Good. We can use that.”

  “How about a little help here?” Mac said.

  I told Mac and Trevor what Alyson and I had just said. It certainly would be easier if they could see her as I did. Better yet, it would be best if I could somehow figure out how to get her back on the inside. I wondered, though, if her being on the outside was the reason I could speak to and understand Booker today.