by Matt Lincoln
“Right, sorry,” Collins muttered, looking down at his hands in his laps.
“No worries,” I assured him. “It’s a valid concern. But once this all blows over, I think you’ll find that a good crime story is more of a draw than a detractor when it comes to tourism, especially in a museum like that. People will like to think it has something to do with pirates or something.”
“Does it?” Collins asked, his eyes widening as he shot his head up to look at me. There was an excited gleam in his eye now, beneath all the worry.
“I have no idea, but thanks for illustrating my point,” I chuckled, shooting him a grin.
“Good one,” Wallace guffawed, pointing at me, and I had a feeling that this guy would laugh at pretty much anything.
“So you said you talked to Diane, my boss?” I asked him, and he nodded in confirmation. “Were you the ones who went down to the bed-and-breakfast to talk to Paulina, then?”
“Oh, that old broad?” Wallace asked, his face breaking into a smile at the mention of the bed-and-breakfast owner. “Yeah, we spoke with her. She always loves some gossip, and this is the best this town has seen in… well, maybe ever. She’d do anything to get a taste of some more, so it wasn’t hard to convince her to let Martha stay there with you. Collins here will head up the protective detail we’ll have on the place.”
“Excellent,” I said, nodding to the officer in thanks. “We’ll be seeing more of you, then, since Tessa and I are staying there, too.”
“Looking forward to it,” the officer said, looking a little relieved at this reassurance that he wouldn’t be all on his own making sure no one broke into the bed-and-breakfast to shake down Martha and make good on their threats to the old woman.
“Anything else we can do for you, Agent Marston?” Wallace asked, resting his hands on his protruding belly again.
“Just one thing,” I said, leaning forward in my seat. “I’m wondering if any of you guys have noticed anything out of the ordinary around here lately?”
“You mean other than what happened today?” Bauer chuckled, shaking his head, and we all laughed weakly.
“In addition to today,” I clarified. “Anything that might be related to today’s attack, or even that you noticed, but you don’t think could be related. Anything could help. No one knows the town better than the guys who patrol it, after all.”
“There’s not much out of the ordinary around here,” Wallace said, running a hand across his face as he considered this. “Everything’s pretty routine.”
“There was that kid who set off the fireworks last week,” Collins suggested with a shrug. “But I doubt that has anything to do with any of this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Wallace laughed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “Happens pretty much every year. The same group of kids sets off illegal fireworks over the water over spring break. This year, one of the kids lost a couple of fingers. Nasty accident, his mother was hysterical.”
“I can imagine,” I chuckled. “But no, I doubt that that had anything to do with it.”
“There are those people who bought the old Hawthorne house by the water,” Bauer pointed out. “That was kind of weird.”
“Oh, yeah, it was,” Collins agreed, pointing at the other officer as he nodded in agreement. “I don’t know who’d want to live in that old creepy place.”
“The Hawthorne house?” I repeated, looking between the three police officers. “What’s that?”
“Oh, it’s just this old house that the kids like to use to scare themselves on Halloween,” Wallace scoffed, waving a hand dismissively in the air at this. “These two played a part in it when they were growing up if I remember correctly.”
Collins and Bauer exchanged a sheepish look.
“You… could say that,” Collins admitted reluctantly, turning to me to explain. “You see, there are all kinds of ghost stories about an old pirate who used to live in that house when he was keeping his ship here for a while, centuries ago. We liked to go in there on Halloween and get some younger kids to come in and scare ‘em.”
“An old pirate?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at this piece of information. “Which pirate?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Collins said, shaking his head. “Some people said Blackbeard. Some said Brownbeard. Some even said Captain Hook. Who knows, it’s all baloney, anyway. I never saw any ghosts there.”
“I seem to remember you thinking you saw one once,” Bauer snickered at him, and I got the sense that these two went way back as Collins’s face turned beet red.
“Yeah, well, that window was creaking funny, okay?” he asked, not looking at his friend as he diverted his attention to his hands in his lap yet again.
“Alright, alright,” Bauer chuckled. “I’m just messing with you, man.”
“Okay, so you said someone bought the house?” I asked. “Who owned it before?”
“Oh, it was city property,” Wallace sighed. “Repossessed from the old owners, who knows how long ago. It’s been sitting there falling apart for as long as I can remember. Until now, that is.”
“Alright, so who bought it?” I asked. “Is someone living there?”
“Yeah, that’s the weirdest thing,” Wallace said, scrunching up his brows at the thought. “I’ve never met them. I know somebody bought the place from the city, everybody does. But they never show themselves. I think somebody lives there. I’ve seen people moving around inside. And it’s looking more livable now, at least. I couldn’t imagine someone trying to sleep in there before. There was some construction work for a while, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, I remember that, too,” Bauer said, nodding along. “It wasn’t any company from around here, though. Not that I blame whoever hired them. I don’t think any locals would set foot on the property, no matter what they offered in payment.”
“It’s that big of a local legend?” I asked, leaning forward again. “Interesting. Can you think of any reason someone would want to buy it?”
“No idea,” Wallace chuckled. “I mean, it’s a nice property and all, right on a private beach. So I could see some out-of-towners getting the idea that it would make a good rental if they fixed it up enough. But the way I see it, it’d cost a fortune just to get it into shape, anyway. Might as well tear the thing down at that point and build something new.”
“They redid it anyway,” Bauer shrugged. “Must’ve wanted to preserve the building for some reason, maybe for marketing purposes. It’s true that out-of-towners might relish the opportunity to stay in a haunted house, even if no one around here would be caught dead in there.”
“They’re not renting it out, though,” Collins pointed out. “Paulina knows all about the rentals in town, and her friend at the city commission keeps her updated on her competition. She would’ve been blabbing all over town if somebody was renting the old Hawthorne house out. No way she’d let that slide.”
The other two men chuckled along with Collins at this, and I smiled.
“I’ll have to ask her about it later,” I said. “In the meantime, can you send me the address for the house? And check in with the city and see if you can get any information on who bought the house and who they hired to fix it up?”
“Sure thing,” Wallace said with a disinterested shrug. “I doubt it’ll have anything to do with any of this, though. It’s just something out of the ordinary, which you asked for.”
“Even so, I appreciate you bringing this to my attention,” I said with a nod. “You never know what can turn into a lead in this business. You’d be surprised.”
“I can imagine,” Wallace chuckled.
“Can you tell me when this acquisition occurred?” I asked. “When was the house sold?”
“Oh, I’d say about a year ago,” Bauer mused, sticking out his lower lip as he tried to remember. “Construction went on for about six months.”
“Was it loud?” I asked. “Did anyone talk to the workers? What about the neighbors? Did they ever see anything?”
>
“The neighbors live across the bay,” Collins laughed, shaking his head. “And any sounds were probably drowned out by the water. It’s pretty rough in that area. No, the Hawthorne house is pretty well away from everything and everybody, and I always kind of got the sense that that was by design.”
“Understood,” I said with another nod. “Does it even have an address? Will it be difficult to find?”
“Oh, you’ll find it, alright,” Wallace assured me with a low laugh. “No real address, but you’ll find it. Even refurbished after the construction, it’s hard to miss. Just drive north along the shore, and you’ll get to it, eventually. You’ll know it when you see it, sticking out on that rock into the water.”
“Alright, then,” I said, my stomach churning a little in excitement at the thought.
This talk of an old pirate had me hopeful. Was it Grendel? Or was it a coincidence, just an old tall tale like Bauer and Collins thought? There was only one way to find out, and I decided that I would make a point to visit the Hawthorne house that day. I would make the time.
“We should get on down, then,” Wallace said, clapping his hands on his thighs and rising from behind Martha’s desk. “The forensics team might need some help, and I’m sure those people downstairs could use some corralling.”
“There are still people downstairs?” I asked, thinking back to the many shots that had rung out in the library. I was surprised that everyone hadn’t fled the building at the sound of them.
“Oh yeah, the whole building went on lockdown,” Bauer explained. “The security guard initiated it. Didn’t want the perps getting away.”
“I knew I liked that kid,” Wallace grinned. “He’ll make a good officer. Better than you lot.”
He winked playfully at Collins and Bauer and crossed over to open the door leading back into the hallway of offices.
We all headed downstairs on the elevator, and when we got to the lobby, there truly was chaos to behold. Tessa and some other officers were trying in vain to corral a mass of crying, terrified tourists and assure them that everything was okay now. Pierce, the intern, was cowering behind the front desk, gripping it until his knuckles were white, watching the scene unfold, while his boss, Martha, sat beside him on a stool, stony-faced and glassy-eyed.
“Alright, alright, alright!” Wallace hollered, holding up his hands and walking out into the crowd when we exited the elevator, his booming voice carrying through the whole area and over everyone else’s nervous talking. “Everybody, follow me out onto the front lawn here, and we’ll take all your statements. Then you can go on home, okay?”
This seemed to satisfy the nervous crowd, as Wallace emanated the kind of authority necessary to calm them, and slowly but surely, the tourists and police dispersed until it was only myself, Tessa, and the museum’s employees left in the front lobby area.
“Alright, then,” I said, turning to face Martha and Pierce as the remaining security guard and tour guides pressed against the walls. “We’ve been cleared to take you back to the bed-and-breakfast, Martha, and you’ll have a protective detail on you at all times. I spoke to Officer Collins myself, and I’m confident that he’ll take good care of you.”
“What about us?” Pierce asked, his face slack and his eyes now glassy like Martha’s.
“I think that everybody should just go home for a while,” I suggested, giving the room a weak smile. “It’s been a rough day, and let’s face it, nobody’s going to want to come back for a tour anytime soon. Let things die down for a while. The police will keep an eye on the museum and make sure everything’s alright. Everybody else, you deserve some rest after the day you’ve had.”
No one seemed to want to argue with this, and one by one, the museum employees gathered their things and left, until it was just Tessa, Martha, and me left in the lobby.
“Why don’t we go back to the bed-and-breakfast?” Tessa suggested. “Then Martha can get some rest, and you and I can catch up and see what our next move is.”
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. I’d already brought Tessa into the middle of a gunfight, and I wasn’t about to risk her any further. I opened my mouth to say something, but she stopped me, pressing a hand against my chest.
“I know that look,” she said dryly. “And no, you’re not ditching me. We’re in this thing together.”
I knew better than to try to argue, at least not then, and Martha did look like she was about to expire.
“Alright,” I said with a nod, meeting her eyes. “We’re in this together.”
21
Ethan
We took Tessa back to the bed-and-breakfast, with Officer Collins and his partner following close behind us in an undercover police car, where Paulina met us at the front desk.
“Oh, Martha, I heard!” the old woman cried when she saw us, scurrying out from behind the desk and spreading her arms wide to embrace her friend. “There, there, it’s alright. We’ll take good care of you.”
She patted Martha on the back as the other woman collapsed into her arms and then led her upstairs to her room, leaving Tessa and me alone at the foot of the stairs.
“Quite a morning, wasn’t it?” Tessa asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
“It’s not morning anymore,” I remarked, glancing down at my watch. It was edging on three in the afternoon already. It simultaneously felt like it should be far earlier and far later in the day.
“Really?” Tessa asked, her eyes nearly bugging out of her face as she pawed at my wrist to see my watch for herself. “I didn’t even think to look at the clock in all that time, I guess.”
I felt my stomach grumble and realized that I was starving.
“What would you say about a late lunch early dinner kind of situation?” I asked her, thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to wait until dinner after all that shooting and everything.
“I think I could get on board with that,” Tessa grinned. “Though you’ll have to promise there won’t be anyone opening fire on us this time.”
I groaned as I remembered, yet again, the last time that I had dragged Tessa into one of my messes, and we’d been attacked on a date at a restaurant in New York.
“You really need to stop hanging out with me,” I told her, only half-joking. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“I knew what I was getting into,” she quipped, winking at me as she took a step up the stairs. “I’m going to freshen up. Meet you back here in fifteen?”
“Agreed,” I said, watching her wistfully as she disappeared up the stairs and to our room. I really was worried that I was going to get her killed one of these days, but she kept insisting on coming along with me. And it wasn’t like I could argue with her. That was a losing battle, I knew.
Paulina reappeared before I had a chance to decide what I was going to do with these fifteen minutes.
“Oh, Ethan, I heard that you were a real hero this afternoon!” she cried when she reached the bottom of the stairwell.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, ma’am,” I mumbled, feeling a tinge of heat rush to my cheeks. “Just doing my job.”
“Don’t be so modest,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “Who knows what poor Martha would’ve done if you weren’t there to help her today?”
I kept it to myself that I wasn’t so sure that I wasn’t the whole reason these people had started bothering the poor museum manager in the first place. After all, what were the odds that someone else was after the Dragon’s Rogue at the same time I was and that they discovered this place at the same time I did? It was possible, I supposed, though unlikely.
No, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all somehow my fault.
“Wait, Paulina?” I asked as the old bed-and-breakfast owner was headed back toward the kitchen where we had eaten breakfast. “I meant to ask you something if you don’t mind?”
“Oh, anything for you, dear, anything for you,” Paulina said, halting in her tracks and smiling up at me.
“Oh, such nice boys, I’ve known them since they were this tall!” the old woman gushed, holding a hand out at her waist to illustrate.
“Yes, they seemed very nice,” I agreed with a smile. “But anyway, they told me about this old Hawthorne house out on the bay, and how someone bought it a while back? I was wondering if you knew anything about that. Are the new owners renting it out? The officers thought that you might know.”
“Such a strange thing, isn’t it?” Paulina said knowingly, shaking her head. “I just don’t understand it.”
“Don’t understand what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her in confusion.
“Why anyone would buy that old house, of course!” she cried as if this should be obvious to me, someone who had never been to Newport News in my life before yesterday. “It was old, so old that they should’ve just torn it down ages ago! Would’ve, if it wasn’t for all the ghosts.”
“You believe those old stories?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at her. “I got the impression that it was just kids playing around.”
“Oh, don’t mess with any ghosts, young man,” she said, giving me the stern, pointed look of a concerned mother. “You never know what’s out there. That’s what I like to say.”
“I suppose that’s true enough,” I chuckled, thinking of Holm’s and my strange mission to Haiti once more. “But anyway, do you know who bought it? Or if they’re renting it out? It could help with my case.”
“Really? You think that has something to do with all this business with the museum?” Paulina asked, her eyes widening, and I remembered that I was speaking with the town's busy body.
“Um, yes,” I said, clearing my throat. “I mean, it might. It’s just a hunch. They could have no relation to one another, for all I know, so please keep this between us for now.”
“Oh, of course,” the old woman said, looking happy enough to do this. I figured that as much as she wanted to blab to everyone she knew, she was even more flattered to be in the confidence of a federal agent.