The Floating Corpse

by James Walker

  “Hi! You must be Mr. Frohman. Mister Gillette has been talking about you for weeks now! Pleased to meet you.”

  I stood and took her hand, but before I could respond, William stepped over. “Collin Frohman, this is Catherine. She keeps the order amidst the chaos in my home.”

  She laughed like an angel. “What he means is I do the cleaning and laundry.”

  William smiled and turned to gesture at the older woman. “And this is our epicurean master- Mrs. Woods.”

  “He means cook and dishwasher.” She said with a smile.

  “Don’t let them fool you, Collin. We couldn’t manage this place without either of them. “He looked at me and said, in a heartfelt voice. “They make this house a home.”

  Mrs. Woods kept the smile glued to her face, but I could see she was forcing it when she spoke again. “Catty and I…well, we just want you to know how sorry we are for your loss. We didn’t know him long, but the few times we spent with him…well, he was kind and gracious. He was a special man.”

  I was touched to see the two of them had tears welling in their eyes and I was afraid I was going to spring another leak, but Uncle Will saved the moment.

  “Now, now, Dana, no more tears,” he said kindly to his cook, “That’s enough said about it. We shall always keep him in our hearts, so, let’s just give our mouths a rest on the subject for a while. Lets’ eat instead,” he cried out, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  Everyone seemed more comfortable in action, so, as Mrs. Woods took the assortment of plates and bowls off the cart, Ozaki arranged them on the lazy susan and we all sat. I was pleased that Catherine took the seat next to me, especially when she took off her work apron and pulled the tie out of her pony tail and let her hair cascade across her shoulders.

  Lunch was quite a spread. As the susan turned lazily, stopping when someone picked out an item they wanted, I saw plates of meats and cheeses, salads and slaws, preserves, and every kind of condiment I knew of. Uncle Will took two slabs of the fresh baked bread and began building quite a sandwich, spearing pickles and olives to go with it as they went by. I took a little of nearly everything and started on my own.

  When everyone had taken what they wanted to start with, I turned to Catherine.

  “Catty? Is that what people call you?”

  She laughed that magical way again, “It used to be Katie when I was a little girl, but my younger brothers never said it right, calling me Catty and it stuck.” Then she grinned and added, “And they still talk like they have marbles in their mouths.”

  We all laughed at that and went back to our plates. I took a few bites of my sandwich, and then started looking around for something to wash it down with. I realized there were no liquids at all on the table. I saw William smirking at me from the corner of my eyes and realized everyone else at the table looked amused.

  William made a great show of craning his neck to search the table over and spin the lazy susan around. “My word!” he exclaimed in a stage voice. “I do believe we have forgotten something! Refreshments!” He turned to his man, who was obviously waiting for a signal. “Ozaki?”

  Ozaki jumped right up and walked over to the serving cart. He pulled the curtain back on the lowest shelf, to reveal what looked like a milk pail, only it was oval and twice as long. I could hear bottles sloshing in ice as he lifted it onto the top shelf and pulled away the cloth draped over it. Eight to ten bottle tops stuck up and Ozaki put three between the fingers of one hand and two in the other. Carrying them over, he deftly set a bottle in front of each of us. It was a strange looking bottle. About a third to a half the size of a wine bottle but instead of straight sides, they were curved, almost an hour-glass shape, and filled with a dark amber liquid. I turned the label and saw it was that new drink that caught on a few years back in the soda fountains across the country-Coca-Cola.

  “Have you ever had this before,” William asked. When I told him that I hadn’t tried the drink yet, he waggled his eyebrows at me as he leaned over and took the cap off my bottle. “Then you are in for a treat. Try some. It’s best straight from the bottle.”

  When I picked up the bottle, I was impressed. The curvature made it easier to hold, even with condensation making the outside slick. I tilted the bottle up and filled my mouth. It was an incredible sensation; ice cold, bubbly, and a sweet robust flavor that scoured out your palette, leaving a refreshing aftertaste. I was an instant Coca-Cola fanatic. I took another drink, then another. I nearly had half the bottle before Uncle Will spoke.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “Aside from one of Ozaki’s Sloe Gin Fizzes,” I assured him, “it’s the best thing I ever drank in my life.”

  “That is good,” Ozaki said. “It may be your rast drink if prohibition is passed. I hear there was a big march in Boston yesterday!”

  “Ha! I knew you’d like it! I have made it a staple in my diet as of late.” William pronounced.

  “Staple?” Mrs. Woods exclaimed, “You’d drink our whole stock up in a day -if I let you!”

  William looked a bit abashed at that, so, I said quickly, “I can see why! I would too! But when did they start putting it in bottles? And these curved bottles? I think they’re the cat’s meow.” I took another swig.

  “They only just begun to bottle it in the last year and these bottles are not yet availible to the general public.” He looked at me and winked. “We have an ‘in’ as it were -, even so, I can only procure six cases per delivery. I’ll let Catherine explain, for she is our connection to this nectar.”

  She rolled her eyes at his theatrics and said, “It’s my brother, Marquis, really. He’s been bringing us the Coca-Cola for a few months now. Mystery recipe however the name says most of what you need to know. Its cola with a tiny bit of cocaine.”

  I was surprised at that. “He’s a distributor?” I turned to my Uncle, “I thought I heard that the company gave the rights to the distributer licenses to just two fellows.”

  “That’s right”, Catty answered for him. “Marquis met one of them in Hartford last year and talked him into having the river from Hartford to the sound and one mile on either side as his territory.”

  I was impressed. I knew of some men with real money who couldn’t get a slice of that pie. I gave a low whistle, “He must be one glib so and so. I imagine he’s made a fortune off it by now.”

  Catty shrugged. “Oh yes, he’s got a silver tongue, my brother. Father says he could talk a seagull off a fishing boat.”

  “Or the occasional pretty young girl onto his boat for a river cruise.” Mrs. Woods put in. I gathered from her tone she didn’t approve.

  Catty ignored her and went on, “As far as making a fortune-that’s yet to come, like a lot of his schemes. He can only get six cases at a time for now, and the occasional one for the family, so he just supplies Mr. Gillette. Lucky for us, Marquis can’t stand the taste, so Mr. Gillette gets all six.”

  “Still, he sounds like a hustler!” I said.

  “Oh, yes, he is that-and more! He bought himself an old fishing schooner a few years back and started a company he calls, the ‘Connecticut River Express’. He started plying the river, buying seafood and taking it up to Hartford to sell it and picking up fruits and vegetables from the farms up north and then selling it here in town. He also delivers whatever folks want taken from here to there and sometimes even people book passage.” She laughed a little. “He’s the ambitious one of the family. He says that someday he’ll use boats, the railroads, and trucks to deliver things all across the country.”

  “That’s not such a bad idea,” I said, thinking out loud. “Folks will always pay more for something- somewhere else. In Denver Colorado people pay a sinful amount of money for a lobster that we could pick out of a tidal pool at low tide for nothing.” I turned to Catty, “Your brother sounds like he’s on the right tracks.”

  “And it doesn’t hurt that he’s extremely handsome and has a silver tongue. That dark, wavy hair and steel blue eyes has c
aught many a young girls’ fancy!” Mrs. Woods murmured, and then looked embarrassed when we turned our attention on her.

  “Mother says he has the devil’s tongue in his head.” Catty leaned towards me and said in a mock conspirator’s voice, “He’s broken a few hearts around town and ruined a few reputations too. I always tease him that he stays on the water because there’s always a father or brother waiting on shore with an axe handle!”

  We all laughed, and William said, “Now, Catherine! Every young man wants to sow some wild oat-though I will admit Marquis isn’t too choosy about who’s field it is”. He smiled and added, “He is a reliable and resourceful young man! Quite a few times he procured certain items I needed to make a window latch or door lock and he has come through for me- in a timely fashion and a reasonable rate.”

  “Well, he’d better!” Catty declared, “Or I’ll feed him to that river monster he’s always going on about!”

  Uncle Will rolled his eyes and sighed, “Don’t you start up about that, young lady. I am sick to death of hearing about the ‘River Monster’! I got a haircut last week and had to sit through a series of tall tales, superstitions, and downright lies-all centered around that fable. There is no mythical creature lurking in the river!”

  Catty smiled and shrugged, “I’m sure you are right, sir,” She agreed, sounding like she really didn’t, “but Marquis is quite insistent about what he’s seen.”

  “There are more things under this heaven and earth than your phirosophies arrow, Horatio!” Ozaki said with smug look on his face. He did love to give my uncle a good dig from time to time.

  “Bah! It’s not worth the breath it takes to discuss it.”

  Everyone at the table looked like they were having fun, tweaking my uncle, so I decided to join the fun. “It sure sounds interesting, Uncle Will. I, for one, would like to hear all about it.” I turned to Catty, “What kind of river monster are we talking here?”

  I could see that Catty was chomping at the bit to answer me, but she looked to William first, who rolled his eyes before he gestured for her to go ahead with the story.

  “No one knows what it is really. It started a few months ago, when folks that lived or worked near the river told of a great amount of bubbles that surfaced on the river from time to time. Nobody knew what could cause such an underwater release of air. Even Gordon, our town dockmaster, who thinks he knows everything, saw a bubble patch, that he says could only have come from something the size of a very large fish!”

  “Well, there you have it then,” I said. “You may just have a lost whale swimming around.”

  Catty wiggled her eyebrows, “That’s exactly what the sceptics said.” She cast a playful eye on my Uncle, “But there’s more to it. Last week, Mr. Hauer, our town storekeeper, was out scooping bait fish for the shad run, when he said a bubble patch came up right under his boat, scaring him so badly he nearly lost his balance. He said he was so mad he grabbed a rifle and started shooting into the water all around him, trying to wound or kill the beast. But he only got off a few shots before something hit his boat so hard, he was flung into the water. He claims something brushed his legs hard, but he managed to climb back into the boat before it got him!”

  Uncle Will snorted. “Carlton was probably a few sheets to the wind and just fell out of his boat! The ‘Monster’ was just a convenient way to save embarrassment.” He turned to me, “mind you, the man will tell you about the time he was confronted by Blackbeard’s ghost, every time you need a bag of sugar, if you let him.”

  Catty just shrugged, but Mrs. Woods took up the mantle, “I will admit that Carlton will stretch the truth quite some ways to tell a good yarn, but that doesn’t explain the bait boxes!” She paused her story for a moment to tell me what a bait box was, but I assured her I was familiar with the objects. I didn’t bother explaining that I had grown up around people who made their living by the tides and seasons. Satisfied, she went on, “You see, around here, folk put out their bait boxes a few weeks before the shad starts running. They trap minnows and other bait fish. That way they are ready when the run starts. Every year they hang them off the docks around town, but this year, half the folk that pulled up their traps to check them, found them crushed or torn apart.” She steely eyed her employer, “And these are honest working folks, not gossipers or tellers of tall tales.

  I’ve seen a few of the damaged ones for myself, my Son’s included. I tell you honestly that I don’t think a man in a rage with an axe couldn’t have crushed them better!”

  William just gave her a smile that said, ‘Well, there you have it then’, but she just rode over him,

  “Oh no, Mr. Great Detective, there were no clean edges or straight cuts! This wasn’t done with human tools!”

  Everyone looked to William for his reaction. He shook his head and put his sandwich down. Forming his fingertips into a steeple before him, he sighed and asked, “Dana, you are a sensible woman. You can’t really believe there is some mythical diabolical sea creature, swimming about the river, can you! The idea is absurd! Let me ask you this, why has it shown up now? I have lived here for six years-and you both have lived here your whole lives! So, why would this plague strike us now? Where did it come from and why? With half the town looking for signs of it, has no one actually laid eyes on the thing? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s a wayward shark, which swam up the river by mistake.”

  “A shark doesn’t blow air bubbles, “I pointed out. “And if it came close enough to capsize a boat or bite a bait box, someone would have seen a fin or a tail.”

  “Exactly, Collin,” William said, as if I proved his point, “There is no devil fish that could live up to that reputation for mayhem!”

  Catty had a sudden thought, “What if it were one of those dinosaurs? I read in a magazine that men are digging up huge bones from strange animals all the time?”

  I had to stifle a laugh. “They are not really bone, Catty. They have turned to stone and are called fossils. Those animals have been dead for hundreds and hundreds of years. Maybe even a thousand.”

  “Right again! It’s good to see you learned more than sass at University!” William chortled, “More than likely this is no more than someone’s idea of a bad jest.”

  Mrs. Woods went back to her lunch, obviously disagreeing with her boss, and Catty simply smiled and shrugged, “You’ll never convince Marquis of that. He’s been talking on and on about it for weeks.”

  William laughed, “Knowing the entrepreneur in your brother, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was whipping the town into a state of hysteria, just so he could double his rates!”

  Catty smiled and picked up her bottle of soda pop and held it like a toast. “As long as he keeps bringing us these at a fair price.”

  “Here, Here.” William answered, and we all took a slug. That ended the great ‘River Monster’ debate for the day.

  The rest of the lunch was pleasant. Uncle Will relaxed and told us some great stories about my father and we talked about the town, the country, and even of the Great War. We were all surprised when Ozaki finally got up and announced he had things to do before the sun went down. We had frittered away a good part of the afternoon.

  4

  William jumped to his feet and hastily helped me out of my chair in his enthusiasm to tell me all about the castle. After a few minutes, I could see why Ozaki retreated. Uncle Will had more facts and figures than a city tax assessor and he delivered in a style that rivaled P.T. Barnum himself.

  He told me of the tonnage and gage of the steel girders that made the frame and the many thousand stones that covered it. I was a bit concerned as he described that some of the castle didn’t even have mortar, just rocks carefully stacked, one on another! I began to see why my father described it as a ‘great stone heap’. He droned on about the walkways and their pitches to keep water from pooling. He pointed out the windows and the doors, the balconies and how they were all blended into the style of castle he wanted.

  I’ll
admit, I only listened with half an ear. I was already in awe of the place without the statistics and couldn’t help looking up and down each side as we walked around the building. He showed me the outside of the conservatory then we went down a few steps and past what he called his workshop. A few more steps up and we came to the massive carved wood front doors and then we went up some more steps onto a veranda that overlooked the courtyard, which lead us right back to where we had our drink earlier. It was an easy walk around the perimeter, giving the illusion it wasn’t as big as it looked from the drive but when I looked around, the shear tonnage of stone and the work it took to place it was awe inspiring.

  He must have seen something on my face, because he suddenly stopped and said, “I’m boring you to tears, aren’t I Collin. I’m sorry, I just get carried away. This project has been my life for the past six years.”

  “No, no, Uncle Will. It’s fascinating. I’m just overwhelmed. I love the place!”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “Not that I wouldn’t have minded staying on the Polly with you either! I loved the time we spent on her. She was like a second home to me growing up. Where is she, anyways?” I asked, looking out over the river.

  He walked over to the other side of the veranda and pointed. I stepped up and looked down to see the old girl sitting pretty at a dock with eight pilings. She was roped off to the pylons in what looked like a big cat’s cradle. Then I noticed the platform that jutted out from the side of the bluff.