The time came and she donned a pair of jeans, the peacoat and the baseball cap. She snapped off the television and the lights and went to the windowpanes to listen to the creaks of the old motel and the sough of the wind. She didn't know how long she'd stood there before she turned and grabbed up the plastic room key and hurried out the door. Stars spread across the sky but the night was unpleasantly damp. Her nose leaked clear liquid, but she burned like one of those stars, hoping her light would shine and seek out the only one who could help her.
The beach was quiet except for the slap of water on the shore and the whistle of the breakers. Exhilarated, she ran until her breathing made her slow, then she meandered toward the point of land where the lighthouse stood before it was jerked from its foundations and prodded to an alien forest, away from its eternal duty. Through the star-lit darkness, she could make out the circular depression where it had once stood, where she had been a witness to its conscientiousness – its obliviousness to the brutality of the sea and men. Out in the water, a long, black, manmade thing protruded from the swells. It looked like a giant plastic bag trying to keep the sea from overrunning the stretch of beach where the lighthouse had stood. Man had tried for a century to beat back the sea, but he'd finally had to admit defeat.
She glanced around her.
She was absolutely alone. No birds, no crabs, no Lawrence. Not a figment of the busy turmoil caused by a shipwreck and seen ten miles out by C. P, the surfman. Nothing, but the maritime graveyard.
Sitting on a dune, she rested her chin on her knees and stared out at the dark rolling surf, not caring that her bottom was soaked and cold. Then she felt a presence. Startled, she looked behind her. A figure came out of the darkness, from the direction of the relocated lighthouse where she'd seen Missi and Spence gearing up for a romp under the beacon.
Lawrence?
“My God,” she said. The man wore dark clothing; a mariner's hat covered his face.
It is.
She jumped to her feet.
“Who is there?” the voice called.
Lawrence? She couldn't bring herself to call his name.
He stepped closer, removed his hat and demanded, “Who …?”
Their recognition was simultaneous, and she felt a knot in her gut, the tightening of a noose.
He looked at her with skepticism written on his features. “Ann?”
Her heart about tore at its seams. “Rod.”
He cocked his head. “What are you doing here?”
Her lower lip trembled. She shook her head, trying to find her voice. “I guess, the same as you.”
His eyes, which had been kind, questioned. “Checking turtle nesting sites?”
If she let go, she’d laugh herself into hysteria. “No.”
He stared for a few seconds. “Then what?”
“It's – it's a public beach.”
“It's part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.”
Her mind stuck, somehow absurdly – a word person without words. “I know.”
He turned to look up the beach, then back at her. “You know what I'm getting at, Ann. Why are you down here?”
“It's – where I belong.”
“Belong? It's where I belong, not you.”
She wanted to pound his chest, break through the blockage of him. “You don't understand.”
“No, I don't. You cause a sensation, you leave, as you should have, and now you're back. What is it with you?”
No use bringing up re-opening the Deering investigation. “I have to find a way – a way to put the matter to rest.”
“It’s dying down,” he said, his voice brittle. “I went a whole day today without having a reporter on my ass – not being reminded of a nightmare that somebody put into my head.”
From her bleak depths she summoned her fighting spirit. “I hope you enjoyed it to the fullest, because it’s not going to last. A reporter from Atlanta, Missi McNamara, is on the story. She got here at the same time I did.”
“Where is she?”
Apparently Spence was keeping Missi a secret from his best friend. She said, “Nearer to you than you think.”
“The name sounds familiar.”
“She wrote the column asking the media to lay off you.”
He spat, “I owe her a big thanks.”
She put her hands in her coat pocket and stared at the surf. “I remember you promising me that you would work at understanding what I went through.”
“I listened, didn't I?”
Biting her lip, she studied him for a moment. “But did you really hear?”
He cocked his hip. “What do you hope to accomplish?”
“Acceptance, maybe.”
“Acceptance? My acceptance?”
She crossed her arms. “Aren't we full of ourselves?”
“You don't make sense. I suppose that's normal for someone who writes fiction.”
“I don't write fiction.”
“No but you sure as hell embellish on the few facts that float in the historical records.”
“Speaking of historical records – I have put in a request to the archivists in D. C ...”
His jaw tightened and so did his fists. “Tell me you didn't.”
“Something happened to those men, the crew. The historical records show that they were never found. They could have been murdered. There is no statute of limitations for murder.”
“Just like Poblo, you want to re-open that case.”
“I don't care what Poblo wants.”
“What can they find out now? Everybody's dead that had anything to do with it – including my great-grandfather. And I know what happened to him. You do, too. What more do you want from him. You're fixated, like a spurned lover.”
She felt a hollowness in her chest. “We talked about that. Lawrence wasn't my lover.”
“But you wished he was.”
“No.”
“I don't believe it.”
“You don't believe much about me.”
He finger-combed his hair. “I don't want you to do this.”
“It's for my satisfaction only. I'm not writing a book.”
“What your doing – it'll get out. There's Pablo, too. You promised not to speak about my great-grandfather.”
“He was an honorable man, you're acting like he had some kind of secret life that would be exposed.”
“For God's sake, Ann.” He hit his hat against his thigh. “You said you knew him. What kind of secret could he have had?”
“Maybe it's you who has a secret.”
He grabbed her arm. “Stop it.”
Even through the peacoat, the wrenching hurt, and she flung his hand off her arm. She whirled away and looked back at him. “Goodbye. I'm sorry it's this way between us.” She started to run.
He grabbed the back of the coat, bringing her to a halt, and then let go. “Where's this reporter so I can avoid her?”
A caustic retort rose to her lips and with it a victory of sorts. She danced back. “Last time I saw her she was with Spence Reilly.”
He dashed toward her and caught the lapels of her coat. “Are you making that up?”
“I don't make things up. Now let go of me.” He eased his hands off her coat. “Go ask Spence. See if he tells you the truth. I can tell you how they spent several hours together this afternoon, including some in his house in Rodanthe.”
“So you've been spying on Spence?”
“I followed Missi here when I saw her talking to Poblo in Manteo.”
“What?”
“You got a hearing problem?”
His lip curled. “When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
“He's back in Hatteras.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I know he's packing up to leave. There's a moving van at his house.” His lips pressed so hard against each other, he appeared to have none. She thought she could read his mind. “I passed your cottage. Your Jeep wasn't i
n the drive.”
He put his hat on. “You've been busy.”
“I want to know where the players are.”
“And now that you do?”
“Wait and see. Go to D. C.”
“Tonight, did you follow me from my house to Cape Point and plan this meeting on the beach? You know that I routinely check the nests.”
“I am not a stalker.”
“You could have fooled the hell out of me.”
“I didn't know there were nests here. I know about the ones in Hatteras. Even if I did, the last thing I wanted was a confrontation with you.”
“What did you expect?”
“In time, that we could talk and I could tell you of my plans. We had an understanding that you seem to have forgotten.”
“That was before you put Poblo up to grandstanding.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You want to investigate the Deering case at the highest level, so you put him up to making your story public.”
“Go on believing what you want. It makes my conscious easier.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I know I tried, Rod.” She struggled to keep her tone even. “I know I kept my part of the bargain when the Atlanta media besieged me, when my boss ran me out of town, when my parents suggested I see a shrink. I didn't follow you here, but I hoped when we did meet, we would be on better terms. I loved our evening together. I wanted to at least be friends.”
“Ann, you spoke to Poblo freely. You told that idiot everything. You should have known better.”
“I was foolish, I admit it. I never dreamed – how could I know? You were there in the museum that day, too. You even scoffed about the voyage in front of Poblo and Doris. I bet you didn't think Poblo would call in the media.”
His eyes contradicted his scowl, as if he realized his own culpability and denied it at the same time. “No, it didn't enter my mind that Poblo would do something like that. I still think…” He looked up at the stars, his mouth pressed with regret. “I don't know, Ann.”
Her heart skipped against her chest wall. She laid her hand on his arm. “I can't change your mind, but look, Missi's going to keep this story rolling forward. I can't do anything about it now. If I could somehow discredit her, I would. Maybe she and Spence will mess up. I can't do anything about Poblo. He's got his own agenda, and the way he's going, he'll shoot himself in the foot before it's over. What I can't understand is you. I have kept quiet, and you have kept quiet. I kept my bargain.”
He looked at her hand on his arm. “You talked to that columnist.”
“It was a mistake. She was a friend I thought I could trust.”
“So much for promises.”
She let her hand fall away from him. “What do you intend to do?”
“I intend to continue to keep my mouth shut,” he said. “And if Spence says nothing, if the museum maintains its no-comment attitude, and if you say nothing, then Poblo looks like a fool, or a spinner of yarns, and it ends.”
“Does it?”
“Obviously not, with you in Washington.”
“Face it, Spence is going to talk. It's called pillow talk in the business.”
“Spence won't say anything to that woman. He knows exactly how I feel. We've been friends since boys. He wouldn't betray me.”
“You didn't see them at the lighthouse this afternoon, and you didn't see them go into his house. I've been around Spence, and I know Missi very well.”
He put his hands in his trouser pockets and looked for a moment like he might confess something.
She said, “You know your buddy pretty good, don't you?”
He sighed deeply. “Go home, Ann. Get out of my life.”
He walked away, up the road toward the lighthouse.
She called after him. “When I know the full story.”
He turned back, taking three long strides and, with his voice breaking, said to her, “I was going to call you when – everything died down. I felt maybe I was too hard on you. I felt something very special for you – that night.” His eyes closed, and then opened with a shade of sorrow in them. “But you being back here, I know you'll always bring disaster whenever you show up.”
With that, he turned and rushed off.
She walked back to the motel, feeling like a cat walking toward a house where the inmates don't like cats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
--
It had been another bad night, which meant another bad hangover. She woke up seeing Rod in her head, wondering if he knew that she was staying at the Seashore Suites. Had he followed her? Traced her there? She doubted it. He wasn't the type. He was probably at home or walking on some shore brooding and hating her.
She heard his cracking voice again. “I was going to call you when – everything died down. I felt maybe I was too hard on you. I felt something for you – that night.”
Before she even brushed her teeth she logged onto the internet and put her password into the newspaper's login line. Every word she read, she read through Rod's marble blue eyes, and felt his ire with a kindred snarl on her own lips.
The headline:
Where Is Ann Gavrion?
By Missi McNamara
Ann Gavrion, the esteemed senior editor of Southern Monthly magazine has left the city. Where are you, Ann?
That's what Poblo Quitano wants to know. He is counting on her to give him his reputation back. He was fired from his job at The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, and is certain, with the onerous cloud hanging over his head, that he will not get another job with a maritime museum. He also is requesting, under the State of North Carolina’s Open Records Act, that The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum turn over their security camera videos of the day he met with Ms. Gavrion when she researched the investigation of the shipwrecked Carroll A. Deering.
After being fired, Mr. Quitano applied for a job with another North Carolina maritime museum, but he doesn't think he has a chance. He said, “I presented my resume. The interviewer looked it over, and asked me a few questions. Then he commented favorably on my qualifications, but said they would not be making a decision because of budget cuts. This, after they advertised for a conservator on their website.”
Mr. Quitano has a MA in history, and a PhD in maritime history with specialized training in conservation. He is responsible for the physical well-being of objects, and the examination and treatment of the collection – the protection from further deterioration (cleaning, desalination, etc.)
Mr. Quitano's problems began when he met Ms. Gavrion on the shore, near where a small schooner had been washed up in Hurricane Waldo. He said, “She was looking for Lawrence Curator. My associates and I did not know a Lawrence Curator, but we know a Rod Curator.”
But Ms. Gavrion was not looking for Rod Curator. “She did not seem to know him,” Mr. Quitano said. “I later learned that Rod Curator's great-grandfather was a commander in the Navy and that he investigated the stranding of the Carroll A. Deering on Diamond Shoal in 1921. His Navy vessel went down in the Bermuda Triangle, I believe.”
Mr. Quitano said that Ms Gavrion appeared distraught and confused that day at the shore. “She looked like she had been in a shipwreck. The next day when she came to the museum, she talked about the crew aboard the Deering as if she'd gone on a voyage with them. I believed her. Maybe she was dreaming, but I don't believe she thinks so.”
Lawrence Curator's great-grandson, Lawrence Rodrick Curator is on the board of the museum, and Mr. Quitano blames Mr. Curator for his ouster, saying, “He was the driving force.”
Mr. Quitano believes that Mr. Curator had him ousted because of Ms. Gavrion's ghost voyage with his great-grandfather Lawrence Rodrick Curator. Mr. Quitano states: “I believe that he thinks it is his ancestor who is being mocked. It was not my desire to mock his ancestor. I revere ancestors – everyone's ancestors. I think it is wonderful if one of mine could come back and help me solve a riddle, but he apparently does not think like I do.”
Mr. Quitano does not believe Ms. Gavrion and Mr. Curator are friends. “When they were in the museum, they looked daggers. He hates what she is saying. No, they are not lovers at all.”
This humble reporter did not ask that question, but it would be logical to ask since Ms. Gavrion and Mr. Curator maintain their silence, seeming to be of one mind.
-
Ann looked away from the computer screen and coughed. When she looked at the screen again, she couldn't read for the tears in her eyes. I'm sorry, Rod, truly sorry.
In the bathroom, she swallowed aspirin and water and wiped her eyes. The mirror was not her friend this morning. She looked like a hungry-eyed waif.
-
Back at the computer, she continued reading:
Mr. Quitano said that Ms. Gavrion maintains that her ghost journey aboard the Carroll A. Deering was not an illusion. She believes she journeyed to South America with Lawrence Curator, who's been dead ninety years.
Mr. Quitano said. “When I spoke with her that day in the museum, she was full of wonder. I know in my heart it was a fabulous journey for her. She came to find evidence to bear out her story. We have photocopies of some of the investigation they conducted after the ship went aground. We searched through them. She found her evidence. I was there.”
Mr. Quitano believes that the cameras in the museum will back him up. “The cameras could show when she came in, what she did, and when she left. And that I sat at the computer with her. The images are saved on videotapes with a time and date stamp.”
What about it, Mr. Museum Director. Let's get Poblo Quitano his reputation back.
--
BNN had gone farther, calling for the museum's computer hard drive. Then Ann saw a familiar house flash on the screen. It was a white-columned antebellum behind a high black fence. Oh my God!
Inside, the camera panned the library and came to rest on her mother and father sitting together on a rose silk couch, her mama holding her daddy's hand.
THE GHOST SHIP Page 22