Island Intrigue

by Wendy Howell Mills

  He stared at Brad for one long moment. “I’ll be back, Bradford Tittletott, and I won’t forget this as long as I live.” He turned and disappeared into the whispering marsh grass.

  Brad gazed after him, unable to shake the feeling that he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  ***

  Brad Tittletott awoke with a start, struggling against the sweaty sheets wrapped around his arms and neck. His heart was thrashing inside his chest and for a moment he worried that he might be having a heart attack. He took several deep breaths and tried to sort dream from reality. He was safe in his bed. Fifteen years separated him from that terrible day when he had betrayed his best friend, and tasted the first bitter fruits of being an adult. It was all over, the past dead and buried.

  Then he remembered what was happening and stiffened with fear.

  It wasn’t over. No, it wasn’t over by a long shot.

  ***

  Sabrina walked along the edge of the sound the next morning, shivering in the cool morning air as thin and clear as ice water. Clumps of spindrift like white cotton candy rolled along the edge of the shore, and waves of scrabbling fiddler crabs scattered at her approach.

  Ahead of her, the familiar footsteps marched in front of her in the drying sand left by the retreating tide. Once again, the man who left the footsteps, or the ghost of Walk-the-Plank Wrightly as she had grudgingly begun to think of him, had been before her.

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it, Calvin?” She savored the choppy blue water topped with luscious whitecaps, and the sun-brightened marsh grass shuuushing in the breeze. The wind was a constant companion on Comico Island, she had noticed, and today it was running friendly fingers through her hair, tugging at her clothes and tickling at her ears.

  Calvin’s eyes were on a flock of geese floating in the shallows farther down the beach. There were hundreds of them, honking and splashing their wings at each other. Sabrina stopped at a fallen tree and sat down to watch the birds. They hadn’t noticed her approach, and were busy feeding, grooming, resting, and doing whatever else a bird does on an impromptu pit stop.

  “Cheep, cheep,” Calvin called to them, but his little voice failed to reach the large, graceful birds.

  “And what would you do if they came for you?” Sabrina asked. “You probably would look like a pretty good appetizer to them.”

  Calvin cheeped indignantly and Sabrina laughed.

  Today, the footprints had veered off into the marsh a little ways back, and Sabrina considered following to see where the footprints led. But one look at the marshy, muddy ground inside the tall marsh grass and she changed her mind.

  “He must be part duck to get through that mess.”

  She glanced at her watch, considering what she had to do today. At three-thirty, the boys would be coming over for the play rehearsal.

  Nettie was pleased, though surprised, at her grandson’s interest in the theater. Sabrina wondered that she hadn’t heard anything about the play before. Thierry Wrightly just laughed and clapped his son on the back.

  “Gone and got yourself into it this time,” he said and Terry threw him a desperate look.

  “I’ll make sure he’s there on time,” Nettie promised. “I’ll send him right after school.”

  Sabrina decided she liked Nettie, though the old woman was a bit strange. But who didn’t have their little foibles? Sabrina’s mother used to wash her hair ten times a day, and insisted that Sabrina wash the bed sheets every day. One day she came home to find her mother trying to stuff Grandma’s antique clock into the washing machine, along with the toaster. And Mama was a sweet, wonderful woman. Just goes to show that you can’t judge people.

  Sabrina thought back to Nettie’s comments the night before about the pirate Walk-the-Plank Wrightly: He’s mad at the Tittletotts for being the sneaky, lying Towners that they are. It sounded as if the grudge she bore was personal. What was behind the bad blood between the Tittletotts and Wrightlys? Sabrina remembered that Lima spoke about a feud between the two families, but that must have been over years ago. Feuds in this day and age were obsolete.

  But the animosity was there, dark and strong, in both the Tittletotts and the Wrightlys. Despite this, Brad and Thierry were as thick as thieves. What was that all

  about?

  More importantly, Sabrina was puzzled over what Nettie revealed about Lora. Why was the old woman looking at pictures drawn by a disturbed child twenty-five years ago? Why did she put the pictures under the hurricane hatch?

  “I’ll just have to wait and see what Nettie has to say today,” Sabrina said.

  The beach petered out into a bulkhead that surrounded the property of the Old Wrightly Cottage, and Sabrina climbed the sand path to the backyard of the cottage. The phone was ringing as she fed the two gray cats and she rushed to answer it.

  “Never retire, Sabrina,” said a gravely, oh-so-familiar voice over the telephone line.

  “Sally, don’t say that.” Sabrina was used to her best friend’s flights into depression since she retired from teaching.

  “It’s not that I even want to teach anymore. Sometimes I think I’ll be happy if I never see another snot-nosed brat again. But then I’ll see them at the bus stop, and I miss every one of my children, even the pain in the butt ones.”

  “I know what you mean,” Sabrina said. “I miss mine.”

  “You may miss your kids, but you’re not missing the weather, that’s for sure. They’re calling for sleet tonight.”

  “Goodness, already?” Sabrina glanced out the window where the sun was shining warmly.

  “This is Cincinnati, remember? Maybe I’ll come visit you. It’s not as if the Helpful Ladies Group will miss me, or the comatose patients I visit at Good Samaritan Hospital. They gave me the comatose ones because they say if anyone could talk a person out of a coma, I could.”

  Sabrina smothered a smile. “What else has been going on?”

  “Well, I took some of the kids from my Monetarily Challenged Kids Club to the Boofest at Union Terminal. I swear all these kids want to see anymore is blood and guts. If someone doesn’t get decapitated or burned alive, then they’re just not interested. And then Jean Kirkle has decided to try out for the May Festival Chorus, and you know she sounds like a howling banshee when she sings, but of course we all tell her she sounds wonderful.”

  Sabrina sighed, feeling homesick.

  “Sabrina,” Sally’s gruff voice was gentle, “how are you feeling?”

  “Well…I’m not sure, Sally. My ankle’s been hurting a little, I think I twisted it running in my heels, and my knee is scraped, and I’ve got this bite on my foot…”

  “Sabrina. You know what I mean. You’ve just had a tumor removed from your breast. I know you like to avoid the subject, but…”

  Sabrina twisted the phone cord tightly around her fingers. Mr. Phil, or the smooth, firm lump in her breast that her doctor had identified as a Phyllodes tumor, was gone, but the fear would remain with her the rest of her life. This time it wasn’t malignant, but what about next time?

  “I’m tired, that’s all. So much has happened, it just seems easier sometimes to sleep.”

  “That’s to be expected, honey. You’ve been through the wringer the last couple of months. First your mother dies, and then you’re diagnosed with that tumor. You need to rest and get back your strength.”

  “Sometimes I wake up and wonder what in the world I’ve got to live for.”

  Sally snorted. “You just need some time to recover and decide what you’re going to do now that you don’t have to think of that old woman every minute of your life.”

  “It’s like I don’t know how to act anymore. All these years, I knew exactly what I was doing and who I was. And now…”

  “Your mother died just three months ago, honey. You’ve spent your entire adult life taking care of her. And I know she was a tyrant, honey, don’t you contradict me! You did everything for her, and all she could do was criticize you. You’re
just feeling a little bit of relief and a lot of sadness. It’s to be expected.” Sally’s voice was no-nonsense.

  “The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize I’m just a string of halfhearted failures. I’ve never cared about anything much. I go through the motions when I’m teaching—“

  “You’re a good teacher! A little distracted, maybe…”

  “Every date I’ve gone on has been lukewarm and I didn’t care—“

  “That’s because your mother would scream at you every time you went on a date. It wasn’t worth it and you knew it.”

  “I’ve tried writing poetry, I’ve tried acrobatic swimming. I took that “Self Improvement Through Useless Bits of Knowledge” class and all I learned was that dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle and that a housefly hums in the middle octave, key of ‘f.’ I even tried to get my medical degree through that ‘Be-a-Doctor-in-Five-Weeks’ program and I didn’t last two weeks! The only thing I’m good at is my cooking—“

  The silence was deafening. Sabrina forged on. “I guess I’m saying I want to care about something, follow through with it. Does that sound strange?”

  “No, honey. I think if you cared a little more about yourself—“

  “I take six vitamins a day and brush my hair five hundred times nightly!”

  “Cared about yourself a little more,” Sally repeated, “you’d see that the rest of it comes naturally. You’ve been acting like an old woman your entire life. You’ve made a good start buying all those bright new clothes and changing your hairdo. If you didn’t do something, you were going to end up in an insane asylum.”

  “Is that such a bad thing? Sometimes I think it would be a relief to be insane. There are no expectations. Sane people are boring.”

  “Listen to you! You already sound better than you did. I guess going out to that backwoods little island was a good idea after all, as much as I was against it at first.”

  Sally was horrified when she learned Sabrina planned to come to an isolated island nobody ever heard of, in the middle of nowhere. When Sabrina found the tiny speck of land labeled “Comico Island” on the map, she had known one thing for certain: it would be nothing like Cincinnati. That was all that really mattered.

  They talked for a few minutes longer and then the two friends said their good-byes. For a few minutes, Sabrina wished with all her heart she was back at home, putting together her lesson plan or grading papers. What kind of teacher was she, taking off in the middle of the school year?

  A very tired and confused one, she decided. She realized that she missed Sally, but she wasn’t really homesick. After all, she had a new place to explore, a new Sabrina to discover! With a feeling of adventure, she sat off to town.

  Children of all sizes and descriptions were walking or riding bikes in the same direction as she was walking. Sabrina waved at Terry as he came out of Nettie’s Cookie Shop.

  “Don’t forget this afternoon!” she called. His smile was sickly as he hurried off.

  Sabrina followed the parade of children over the bridge, the old boards creaking and groaning under their pounding feet, and down Tittletott Row. They turned off on a road to the right, where Sabrina surmised the school must be. There was a burned-down building on this corner, one that she had noticed before, but now she wondered if perhaps this wasn’t Brad Tittletott’s former office.

  In a good mood, Sabrina tripped up Post Office Lane and stopped outside Sweet Island Music, where a table with books always stood. Wind chimes hung all around the store’s porch and chimed pleasantly in the breeze.

  Sabrina picked out an old Ngaio Marsh mystery and went inside the store to pay the suggested fifty cents. She recognized the pretty woman with long black hair behind the counter as one of the ladies with whom she shared the griddle cake stand.

  “Hi!” Sabrina said. “I remember you.”

  Sondra Lane laughed and extended her hand. “And I remember you. Or more importantly, I’ve heard about you. I’ve never seen such a voracious grapevine until I came to this island! Let me see, you drive a red convertible and you’re staying in the Old Wrightly Place. You’re a Dunsweeney, but not related to Helen, and you feed the cats. How am I doing so far?”

  “What, you don’t know my dress size?”

  “Give us time.” She laughed. “My partner Katie and I own this store.”

  Music instruments of every description hung on the walls, as well as books, wind chimes and beautiful sun catchers. Near the back, a colorful selection of Halloween costumes hung on a rack. The sounds of a tortured trumpet bugled from the back room.

  Sondra grimaced. “Katie’s busy giving music lessons right now, or she’d come say hello. Are you on the island to stay or just to visit?”

  “To visit.” Sabrina realized that a little part of her wished she never had to leave.

  “The natives been giving you the run around? For an island that relies on tourism, some of our people can be rather standoffish.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “That bad?” Sondra laughed. “Sometimes it takes a while for them to warm up to visitors. Katie and I don’t bite, though, don’t worry. We’ve lived here for about five years, and we thank the Lord every day we made the decision to come here. I used to be an advertising agent, made tons of money, and lived in a beautiful house. I was absolutely miserable! Stressed out all the time, fighting traffic, the whole bit. Now I make about the quarter of the money, but I’m happy every day. That’s what counts to us.”

  “It sounds wonderful.” Sabrina fished in her purse for two quarters.

  The two women said their good-byes and Sabrina went out into the lane. She wasn’t surprised to hear the familial shrieks coming from the post office and she smiled as she climbed the steps of Tubb’s Community Store to sit beside Lima. Bicycle Bob was nodding off on the bottom step.

  “Hullo, Miss Sabrina,” Lima said. “Me and Bicycle were just talking about the state of the world today. What’s your opinion?”

  Chapter Ten

  “I can’t say I’ve been paying attention to the state of the world, Lima,” Sabrina said. “What do you think?” Which of course is what the old rascal wanted her to ask.

  “Well, the way I see it, the rich get richer, the middle class gets more self righteous, and the poor stay at home and watch that talk show host, what’s his name, Jerry Springer. That’s what I think.” Lima huffed with amusement, slapping his knee.

  “If it wasn’t for the Jerry Springer Show, we wouldn’t have anyone to whom we could feel superior.” She paused, and then plunged ahead. “Speaking of class division, I was wondering why there’s so much conflict between the Wavers and Towners? I mean, you’ve all been here the same amount of time, you’ve all grown up together, go to the same school and church, why hate each other?”

  “We do have more than one church,” Lima said in an injured voice.

  “Do you?”

  “The High Tide Church over in Waver Town is for the Baptists. The other one is over near the ocean, the Higher Tide Church, and it’s for those fundamentalists folks, the ones who are so busy worrying about the rest of our souls that they don’t notice they’re beating their children and cheating on their spouses. Me, I’m not into any of that religion stuff. I’m half tempted to join Nettie’s religion, whatever it is today.”

  “What about the feuds?” Sabrina was determined not to be sidetracked.

  “Just always been like that, I guess. It was a lot worse when we didn’t see them all the time, before the bridge across Down the Middle Creek. From early days, we’ve been different types of people. The Wavers were the fishermen, and the Towners, were, well, the Towners. Now that we see them all the time, I guess some of them aren’t so bad. Some’s worse than others, of course.”

  “So,” Sabrina persisted, “what about the feuds? You said there were feuds between some of the Towners and Wavers.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Lima leaned back in his chair. “That’s surely true. Back
in the fifties, I remember Seimo McCall towed Ken Tubbs’ boat out into the inlet and hit it with a shot gun, sent it right to the bottom. He said Ken was badmouthing him around town. Well, then Ken Tubbs refused to sell Seimo anything from the store until Seimo paid him back for his boat and Seimo’s poor wife had to take the mail boat to the mainland to go shopping. It was uglier than a devil’s blow, and everybody was on one side or the other.”

  “Goodness. And the Wrightlys and Tittletotts also have a feud going on?”

  Lima nodded, and chewed on his toothpick for a bit. “Yup. That’s been going on since the seventeen hundreds, of course.”

  “Since Lord Tittletott exposed Wrightly as a pirate,” Sabrina supplied.

  “Yup,” Lima said, shooting her a dirty look. He didn’t like his story being preempted. “But it just got dirtier and dirtier over the years. About a hundred years ago, a Wrightly daughter disappeared, just never came home one day, and the last person she was seen with was a Tittletott. The Wrightlys get together, there was a big clan of them in those days, and they march over to the Tittletott House and go all through the house looking for the girl, and of course they weren’t gentle about it neither. Pretty much trashed the place. Well, the girl showed up a year later, turns out she ran off with a gypsy fellow. Those two families been at each other’s throats for as long as anybody can remember. And then there’s what happened to Rolo Wrightly and Bradford Tittletott, not fifteen years ago.” Lima stopped and Bicycle Bob said “Yep” in his sleep.

  “Who’s Rolo Wrightly?” Sabrina had a tingling feeling that she was getting close to something.

  “He’s the oldest Wrightly son, Roland Thierry Wrightly. He’s Thierry’s older brother, but he left oh, nearly fifteen years ago, because he attacked a woman, and she lost her baby, and then he set her house on fire. His best friend, Bradford Tittletott, turned him in. It was a bad affair, and Rolo took off in his papa’s boat and we’ve never seen him again. Good riddance, I say.” Lima looked at Sabrina sideways. “Broke Ms. Lora’s heart when he left. He was her favorite, you know. She had her stroke right after she heard he left.”