Pickups and Pirates (Southern Relics Cozy Mysteries Book 3)

by Bella Falls

  “I think it’s a credit to the lieutenant in how much care he received that he doesn’t like you,” interjected Luke. “That means they were able to successfully remove his memories of the actions of the encounter without disturbing that which makes up his mental and emotional core.”

  Even if a part of me agreed with my boyfriend deep down, I still couldn’t help wishing they had tweaked things a teeny tiny bit so that the deputy would at least be nicer when I did him a favor. “I guess,” I conceded. “Let’s go check out Ellie and Pop’s stand.”

  “How can you still be hungry?” He placed his arm around my shoulder. “You’ve already finished that funnel cake and a whole serving of candied-apple hushpuppies with a Cheerwine glaze. I’d figure by now, you’d be full and buzzing from the sugar rush.”

  Putting my sunglasses back on, I flashed him a big smile and patted my stomach. “It’s like you don’t know me at all. There’s always room for more food when you’re at a festival. Ooh, I could totally go for some sweet tea, too. Come on, let’s go get our grub on.”

  Odie checked the time on his spell phone. “As long as we don’t miss the lecture at two o’clock. That’s the whole reason I came today.” He paused when he caught the rest of us staring at him. “What?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought your lovely wife had forced you to come.” We walked in the direction of the food stands down by the water. “I figured you’d think this was all silly like Luke does.”

  “Odie is a huge history buff when it comes to the subject of pirates.” Crystal jerked her thumb at her husband. “It’s the one thing that, once he gets started, I can’t get him to stop talking about.”

  The big guy’s cheeks glowed red. “I’m not up to speed on every last little fact. Just mainly interested in what they call the Golden Age. Not that any knowledge I might have learned would rival whatever you’ve experienced, Luke.”

  My boyfriend’s muscles tensed for a moment. He hated when his long-lived life put distance between him and my friends. “To be honest, I never dealt with any buccaneers directly. Only heard of them through minor dealings in trade,” he stated, dashing my fantasies of him as a sword-wielding rogue.

  “Actually, did you know that the term buccaneer didn’t always refer to a person who was a pirate?” Odie asked with renewed enthusiasm as we marched forward together.

  “Really?” Crystal encouraged.

  Her husband nodded, his hands gesturing more and more the longer he spoke. “It came from these guys who lived in places like Tortuga who smoked meat and sold it to the ships that landed there. I think the houses where they smoked the meat were named boucanes in French and the smoked jerky they sold was called viande boucanée. Although I think I mangled the pronunciations.” Odie shot a shy glance at Luke.

  “No, you’re basically right. The term literally means ‘jerked meat.’” Luke released my shoulders and switched to holding my hand, squeezing it.

  I returned the gesture, proud of him for not correcting our friend or showing him up. “But how did that turn into slang for pirate?”

  “Those ships they sold the meat jerky to were the ones that would go after shipments being brought to and from the Caribbean. And those crews eventually became known as lawless pirates, so the term evolved to fit the men instead of the original meaning,” Odie finished, a little breathless from talking fast while walking.

  We got in line for the Ellie’s Diner food stand. I patted my friend’s husband on the back. “That’s really cool. I think that earns you an Ellie burger.”

  “Excellent,” the big guy said. “If I tell you more, will it earn me some fries as well?” He winked at me over his wife’s head.

  The line moved fast, and I spent a few quiet moments watching Pops work the grill flipping burgers while Ellie fussed at Wesley while he finished each order.

  My mouth dropped when I caught sight of our friend Cate, who came into view carrying a plastic container full of cut tomato slices stacked on top of another full of what looked like pickles swimming in their own juices. “What are you doing here?” I shouted.

  She handed off the vegetables to Wesley and wiped her hands on the apron tied around her waist. “One of their regulars dropped out for today, so Wes rang me up and asked for my help. I was supplying them with fresh toppings for the burgers anyway, so I figured why not.”

  A million questions popped into my head, the first about why Wesley was calling her and the second about why her cheeks turned a very bright pink when she spoke his name. But Ellie interrupted our exchange, whipping out a small pad and pen. “Lovely to see you, Ruby Mae, but you gotta stop distracting my team. As you can see, we’re hoppin’ like crazy here.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Ellie,” I apologized. “Can I get two burgers, a thing of fries, and some sweet tea?”

  The older lady huffed and pointed at the chalkboard by the counter. “You gotta order from the special menu. That’s my husband’s brilliant idea, although I told him to keep it simple.” She shouted her sass loud enough he could hear her.

  “It’s workin’ with the customers, ain’t it?” he replied while flipping the sizzling meat on the grill. “Plus, I told you it would be fun, woman. You remember what that is, don’t you?”

  Amused by their banter, I read through my options. Someone with more patience than the sweet lady waiting on us had written out options with a pirate theme. “Ooh, the Black and Bluebeard burger sounds amazing. I love blue cheese,” I exclaimed. “And can I get the treasure chest of tater tots, too?”

  Odie raised his hand. “Which one of these is most like your signature burgers at your diner?” he asked once Ms. Ellie called on him.

  “The Buccaneer is the exact same thing,” she said, pointing at the board. “You want one of those?”

  “Whatever he orders, put it on my tab.” I bumped the very pleased guy with my hip, which barely moved him a millimeter.

  Luke grabbed us a picnic table right by the docks. We sat down together and ate while watching boats with different pirate-themed flags sail by.

  “I’m glad that hurricane’s path is projected to head out to sea. The weather is just too good to miss out on right now,” I said, sipping on my iced tea.

  “Well, we’ll have to keep up with the latest reports,” Crystal countered, stealing one of my tots from my cardboard treasure chest holding them. “Those storms can be fickle and turn on a dime.” She attempted to take another one of my crunchy treats, but I slapped her hand away.

  We all busied ourselves with finishing our lunch in the afternoon sun. While munching on my burger, I tried to imagine what it would be like being a crew member on one of the ships back in the day. Unlike what Hollywood portrayed, I’d bet they were stinkier and not nearly as sexy.

  Crystal engaged her husband in some private conversation, and I took the opportunity to whisper to Luke, “Did you really not deal with any pirates at all?”

  His eyes sparkled. “I might have suppressed a little of the truth. Although I wouldn’t want to douse our friend’s spirit by letting him know that most of those considered privateers or pirates were regular people with very boring names like William or George.”

  I dipped a tot in ketchup and held it up for him to eat. He captured it in his mouth and sucked the sauce off the tip of my finger with mirth. “I’m not sure what to believe from you anymore, but if you ever want to play dress up, I’d very enthusiastically play the wench to your pirate.”

  His eyes widened with heated excitement, and he swallowed hard. “You know, there were also lady pirates as well. Maybe you should be the one to dress up in leathers and a sword.”

  Crystal threw an ice cube at me. “Cool down, you two. Odie says we gotta go if we’re gonna make the lecture.”

  I wiped my mouth with a napkin and stood up. “Let’s go, Booty Barnacle.”

  We let our friends lead us in the direction of the nearby Maritime Museum. Luke smacked my behind in play. “That’s what your booty will get if you kee
p using that name.”

  “Promises, promises,” I teased, running away from him to join my friends as they turned down the sidewalk to the museum. I stopped and read the sign for the lecture. “Hey, Luke. Turns out you were right about there being equal opportunity in the job of piracy.”

  When we entered, a volunteer handed us a flyer with the full name of the lecture printed on it. ‘Bonny’ Ann Bonnet, Pirate Queen or Wronged Woman: How History Remembers A Strong Female. My cousin Dani motioned for us to take the seats she saved a little too close to the front.

  As we waited, a loud argument rose above the quiet murmur of the audience from a nearby room. The voice of a woman exclaimed, “No, you will not be presenting a counter argument to my presentation, Nigel. And you do not have permission to record any of this. If you want to continue spreading lies and speculation, then do it on your own show. Not in my museum.”

  Dani leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, “Rissa’s been arguing with this guy who’s supposed to be some big online adventure nut for about fifteen minutes before you got here.”

  A man with rugged good looks stomped out of the side room with a grimace on his face. Instead of leaving, he took a seat across from us, typing something with furious speed into his phone.

  Rissa, our friend from the coven and Director of Education for the museum, poked her head out to look at the audience. I waved at her and gave her an encouraging thumbs up. Tilting my head, I let her know where the jerk she was arguing with was. She mouthed a thank you and took a deep breath before emerging to a smattering of claps.

  I leaned in to whisper to Luke, “If he even tries to ruin this for her, I’m gonna cream his corn.”

  “I do love a good strong woman,” my boyfriend replied. Luke perked up and rubbed his leg against mine. “This lecture suddenly got a lot more interesting.”

  Chapter Two

  Rissa did her best to ignore the audible coughs and derisive chortles from the front row where Nigel, the man she’d been arguing with, antagonized her throughout her presentation. I gave her immense amounts of credit for not chucking the electronic device she used to advance her digital presentation on the screen.

  “Ships’ logs and other written records recovered from Rackham’s prior estate in Nassau more than suggest his clear relationship with Ann Bonnet.” The museum’s educational director clicked onto a slide with a close-up image of highlighted words scribbled in ink that read:

  “Without my Ann, I would have never chosen this path where, instead of doing harm, I am able to give those who wish to leave the life of rack and ruin a chance to better their lives.”

  Nigel raised his hand but didn’t wait for her to call on him. “Isn’t it true that there are those who say that the person named in this narrative was not Ann Bonneville, or Ann Bonnet as she was supposedly known, but a servant called Ann within his household?”

  Rissa gripped the edges of the wooden lectern. “While her last name is never confirmed in the writings that have been collected, there are other written accounts that are catalogued where Ann Bonnet is named in full and in complete connection to Jack Rackham.”

  Nigel snorted, “But you’re completely ignoring—”

  “I will ask again for any and all questions to be held until the end of the lecture,” Rissa cut him off, turning to another slide of a historical drawing depicting the layout of a large estate. “Here we see the building and land purchased by Rackham when he gave up his life at sea and chose to open his home to others who wished to go through reformation from privateering or piracy into normal society.” She shot Nigel an annoyed glance. “The reason we can state the purpose of his use of property is because Jack kept meticulous logs and records of what he once looted from ships to what he spent to help others live. If we accept the prior statement from his own handwriting, he credits his change in lifestyle to Ann, who should be acknowledged by historians as his wife and true partner, although only a few have come out in favor of that hypothesis.”

  Luke nudged me with his shoulder. “Look over there,” he whispered, nodding his head in the direction of a young woman holding her phone by her purse in an attempt to hide her discreet recording of the lecture. Nigel turned in his chair to face the girl and rolled his eyes in a dramatic fashion.

  I clicked my tongue in disapproval. “After he was told specifically not to film for his own use.”

  Without calling attention to myself, I checked around me to make sure everyone was listening to the lecture. Feeling secure I wouldn’t get caught, I conjured a small amount of my fire powers and spellcast a quick heating hex on the young woman’s phone.

  “Ouch!” she yelped, shaking her fingers as if they hurt. Her phone she’d been trying to hide clattered on the floor. A little puff of smoke curled up from the device.

  “What?” I asked my chuckling boyfriend in an innocent whisper. “Serves them both right,” I added under my breath.

  The young woman interrupted the lecture by getting out of her seat and retrieving her phone from the floor, swearing out loud when she saw that it was toast. She stomped out of the room and Rissa moved on to the meat of her presentation.

  “The Maritime Museum’s interest in Ann Bonnet goes beyond her connections with Jack Rackham. It is believed that after his death in 1719, she fled the Bahamas and captained the ship Neptune’s Rose all the way up to the Carolina coastline.” Rissa switched to a photo of an old colonial map. “It was in the well-known Graveyard of the Atlantic where many a crew lost their ship to the treacherous waters off our shores here. And this is where Dr. Wilfred Simons, author of the book A Pirate’s Life for She and professor at Queen’s College in London, posits that we may one day find the wreckage of the Neptune’s Rose and be able to study any items that might give us a better insight to the incredible woman that Ann must have been.”

  With curious interest, I studied Nigel’s face to see if he would counter the claim, but he sat hunched in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a surly pout. Without the ability to video any other dramatic outbursts, it seemed he had nothing to say.

  Rissa bowed her head for a moment before beginning her conclusion to her talk. “Dr. Simons included the accounts of Mary Read, another female credited with captaining her own crew, who wrote about her friend Ann and how she had met her death in a watery grave somewhere in the Atlantic near here. However, without any correspondence of her own or more concrete accounts of the mysterious Ann Bonnet, it would be a fallacy to claim with one hundred percent accuracy that we know who she was or what her life was like.

  “What the museum hopes, and truly what I am hoping I can help discover in my lifetime, is that someone will find the missing piece that puts the puzzle together. That, instead of being local lore alone, someone finds the wreckage of the ship that can be confirmed as Neptune’s Rose. And that one day, strong females like Ann Bonnet will get their due in the history books. Thank you.”

  The audience applauded the presentation, but the clapping died down when Nigel stood and faced all of us. “Since Ms. Ward brought it up, I think it only fair to tell you that my entire purpose for being here today is to share with you the adventure of the search for Neptune’s Rose. Unlike what was said during the presentation, I am in possession of something that narrows down the exact location. My assistant will be standing outside with flyers on how you can donate to my quest, and tune into my channel where I will be sharing videos of my progress.” With boisterous enthusiasm, he high-fived and shook hands on his way out of the small auditorium.

  Unable to tell the difference between the real lecture and the rude interloper, a lot of the people in attendance assumed the event had ended and got up and left, interrupting Rissa’s opportunity to answer any questions and bringing it all to an abrupt end.

  Once we filed out of our row, Odie rushed up to the stage to gush to Rissa and ask her some historical questions. Crystal listened beside her husband while I waited with Luke and Dani close by.

  “That was
you, wasn’t it?” my cousin asked with a shake of her head. “You cooked her phone.”

  “Not sure what you’re talking about. Hey, let’s go congratulate Rissa,” I deflected with a smug smirk.

  When we got to the lectern, Odie was hanging onto everything that our coven friend was saying. “Yes, you’re right that the original name of Ann’s ship had been Neptune’s Tide and once belonged to Gentleman Jack Rackham. But his own logs plus those of where he had docked notated the change in name. While we don’t have any records to prove it was due to his relationship with Ann, it is something that I personally believe Jack did out of love. Although as a scholar who works at a museum, I’m not supposed to romanticize history quite so much.”

  “As your former mentor, I don’t approve of trying to interpret facts to fit our theories,” a woman’s raspy voice interrupted from behind us. “But then again, I know you museum workers have to do something to get the public’s attention, so I guess I’ll let you off the proverbial hook.” The scent of freshly-smoked cigarettes wafted off of the gray-haired lady as she pushed past us to the front and held out her hand. “Pretty good show, Ms. Ward. Even I was impressed with your abilities to not stumble when that ignoramus tried to trip you up.”

  Rissa’s eyes sparkled. “Thanks, Auggie.” She received the praise with embarrassed pride. “Oh, let me make some introductions. Professor Augusta Waters, these are my friends. This is Crystal and her husband Odie. Dani and Ruby Mae are cousins. And, I’m sorry, but I don’t know your boyfriend’s name, Rue.”

  “Hey,” Rissa’s former professor popped off. “I know you. You’re that genius mechanic down at Walter’s garage who fixed my old Rover. My baby still purrs like a kitten no matter where she and I go.”

  My man bowed at the waist. “Luke Manson at your service, ma’am,” he stated with old-fashioned etiquette. “And I’m glad to hear that your classic vehicle is in fine working condition.”