“Where in the world did you hear that?” Abby asked. None of the material off the Internet had mentioned an earthquake.
“Somebody told me. I don't remember . . . Oh yeah, it was probably Ed Willoughby at the drugstore when I was waiting to get a prescription filled for Eileen. There's a bug going around school, you know, and she caught it, so I was in there.”
“I heard the desk was at Bayside Souvenirs for a while,” Margaret Blackstock, secretary to the principal at Green Harbor School, chimed in. She picked up the glasses hanging by a chain around her neck and placed them on her nose so she could peer at Abby. “And have you heard what happened to Donna Morgan? She fell in her back room there at the store a couple days ago and did something to her neck. I certainly can't believe the necklace had anything to do with that, but apparently Donna does.”
The little group around Abby had suddenly grown, and everyone was looking at her for information and explanations. Abby knew rumors expanded and twisted like weeds as they traveled from person to person, and here was dismaying proof of that. These rumors had, in fact, not only grown and twisted, they’d turned into a giant, jungle-sized weed of misinformation.
This was also an unhappy reminder that even though most people professed disbelief in the power of a curse, there was still an uneasy smidgen of “Could there be something to this?” simmering under that disbelief. She realized she’d unintentionally played a part in all this by including the computer printout about the curse in with the information she’d given to Gordon Siebert, which Judee had then distributed. It was time to set things straight.
“Okay, everybody, with all these inflated rumors going around, I need to clarify some things here and now.” Abby raised her voice to include everyone who had gathered around. “I did find a necklace in my desk at the museum. A very beautiful necklace, and apparently quite valuable.”
“I heard it's worth thirty million dollars!” Janet Heinz said. “Wish we could look in some cubbyhole here at the church and find something worth thirty million dollars. Think of all the good we could do with it! But all I ever find are lost gloves and scarves.”
“When I heard about Abby's finding this fancy necklace in her desk, I dug around in mine at school,” Margaret Blackstock said. “I found four pennies and a package of bubble gum so hard it broke when I dropped it.”
People laughed at this, including Abby. But all she could think was, Thirty million dollars, ten times the estimate Gordon Siebert had made on the necklace's value! With rumors raising the value like an overinflated balloon, the number of greedy pretenders rushing to claim the necklace just might sink the island.
“The necklace is indeed valuable, but I think that figure is considerably exaggerated. The stone in it may or may not be a blue diamond known as the Blue Moon that apparently disappeared some years ago. It's certainly not been proven yet.” Thinking what other rumors needed to be squelched, Abby added, “Neither the necklace nor the desk in which it was found ever belonged to either of my grandmothers. We’re still trying to locate the former owner of the desk. And the necklace has been turned over to the authorities until the rightful owner can be located.”
“Don't you get to keep it if the owner doesn't turn up? You’ll be the richest person on Sparrow Island!” someone called, although Abby didn't look quickly enough to see who.
“I’m sure the rightful owner will be found,” she said firmly. “And it doesn't take a fancy necklace to make me rich in everything that's important. Now, about this so-called curse. I’m very sorry to hear about Donna Morgan's accident, but the necklace had nothing to do with it.”
“Right. If you’ve ever seen the mess in that back room of hers, it's a wonder she didn't fall over something a long time ago and break her neck,” someone agreed, and there were muffled chuckles.
“This information about the so-called curse came off an Internet Web site, and I think we all know that, although there is a lot of valuable information on the Internet, there is also much misinformation,” Abby stated.
Aaron lifted his hand. “But bad things apparently have happened to various people and places in connection with that blue diamond.”
“Bad things happen to people and places everywhere all the time,” Abby said bluntly. “They’re a fact of life. If people start looking, sometimes they see connections where none exist. In any case, there is one important point to remember here: God is in control, not some inanimate object. We have nothing to fear from a necklace.”
Hugo, standing near the edge of the group, lifted his hands in applause. “Well said, Abby.” A spattering of further applause followed.
That seemed to create a natural end to the conversation. People started gathering up their leftovers to take home. Hugo wound through the crowd to Abby's side while she was putting her empty deviled egg dish in a plastic bag.
“Would you believe that I even got a call at home from someone saying that I, as your supervisor, should insist that you take the necklace off the island immediately, even if it did belong to your grandmother.” He shook his head in disbelief both at the demand and the erroneous connection with Abby's grandmother.
“Someone you know?”
“I asked, but the person wouldn't give a name, except to say that as a tourist she was very nervous about staying on an island where that necklace was located.”
“She? It was a he who called me with the same demand. I hope we don't have some sort of paranoid conspiracy going on here.”
“I want to think they’re just misguided people with paranoid delusions and too much time on their hands. But sometimes people like that can be real troublemakers.”
Abby nodded. “The truth about my finding the necklace in the desk is incredible enough, and then to have the facts so embroidered and twisted is almost scary. I’m going to call Donna Morgan and see if I can nip her little story in the bud.”
“Good idea. I’ll talk to Ed Willoughby at the drugstore too. I have to go in tomorrow for another prescription. I doubt he really believed any of what he was passing along to Al. He's a sensible guy. But he does like to talk. He seems to feel obligated to pass along whatever he hears.” Hugo glanced up as a tallish, thin man with bushy brown hair approached. “William, hello! Good to see you. I didn't realize you were here today.”
“I’ve been keeping out of sight. That's what a good newspaperman does, you know. Stays in the background.” He nodded knowingly. “That's how he hears all sorts of interesting things people might not say if they knew he was listening. Things they’d rather he didn't know. And I heard lots of interesting things today.”
William Jansen had become a newspaperman fairly late in life, after having spent his younger years as the CEO of his family's diaper manufacturing business in Chicago. Abby had never seen anything wrong with that background, but she’d heard he was a bit touchy about it and no one ever mentioned it to his face. He was an excellent, conscientious newspaperman, although big news was scarce on the island, so he tended to make the most of any tiny incident.
Now he eyed Abby as if calculating how big a story she might provide. Abby was thankful when Hugo spoke up first.
“Sure, we have some news for you. Abby is working on a new exhibit for the museum, ‘Bird Flight and Early Human Flight.’ And Ida Tolliver has recently come to work for us part time.”
William was not detoured by Hugo's diversionary tactics. “And Abby found a valuable necklace in her desk at the museum. She admits that herself.”
“Surely you’re not thinking about publishing anything about that,” Hugo protested. “We’re already getting too many calls from people trying to claim the necklace with some phony story. And I think you’d really be doing the community a disservice to print anything about that foolish curse.”
“I have no intention of printing unconfirmed rumors or irresponsible gossip.” William, sounding affronted, straightened his narrow back. “But there are facts here. The finding of the necklace is a fact, a newsworthy fact.”
> “Yes, I suppose it is,” Abby agreed reluctantly. “But it's not necessarily a fact that the stone in the necklace is the one called the Blue Moon. That's merely an interesting possibility. And the curse connected with the Blue Moon, which may or may not be the blue diamond I found,” she emphasized again, “is strictly a matter of unfortunate coincidences strung together by overactive imaginations.”
“We’d really appreciate it if you could hold off for a while,” Hugo added. “Abby is working on locating the real owner, and she promises to tell you everything if she finds that owner.
Right, Abby?”
“Right.”
“An owner possibly named Claudine or Clarissa?” William said with a sly tilt of his head that suggested he knew more than they thought he knew, and wanted them to know that.
Abby couldn't help laughing. The rumor mill had churned out a new payload of misinformation.
Hugo glanced at Abby for confirmation, then said to William, “We’ll tell you one small bit of information, if you promise to keep the whole thing under your hat for a while.”
William hesitated, as if weighing the possibility of a good news story now against a better one later. Finally he nodded, and Abby knew that meant they could count on him not to add fuel to the blaze of rumors.
“We’re trying to find someone named Claudia,” Abby said, purposely lowering her tone to a confidential level. “There's a definite connection between the necklace and someone with that name. You’re in a position to know a lot of people, so if you come across anything to do with someone named Claudia, we’d appreciate your letting us know.”
William nodded as if pleased to be taken into their confidence. “I can do that. But this is news,” he warned. “And I’m not going to hold off printing it for long.”
ABBY AND MARY WERE HEADING out to the van, Finnegan using his strength to help Mary's wheelchair over some rough places in the parking lot, when Abby heard someone calling. She turned to see Sandy McDonald running to catch up with them. “I’m sorry to bother you, but could you keep Bobby for the rest of the afternoon? Neil is working today, which is why he isn't here, of course. And now the nursing home in Seattle just called—” She lifted the cell phone still in her hand. “—so I need to make a quick run over there to check on Dad.”
“I hope it's nothing serious?” Abby asked, concerned. Sandy's father had been in a nursing home for some time now. She and Neil were paying much of the cost of his care there, not easy for a couple also trying to save for their son's college education.
“I don't think it's serious. But he was recently moved to a different room in the nursing home. A better room, actually, but he's having some problems adjusting. I think I just need to go over and reassure him.”
“Bobby's always welcome to stay with us,” Mary assured her.
Abby echoed the sentiment and added, “We’ll put him to work.” She lifted a palm and looked skyward. A few anemic patches of blue now showed between the clouds. “The rain's stopped, at least for a while, and the weeds are growing like, well, weeds around the house.” Bobby had now run up to join them and she asked him, “How about it? Are you up for helping me pull weeds today?”
Bobby grinned and lifted and bent his arm to show what might, by a big stretch of the imagination, be the beginning of a muscle. “Look at that,” he proclaimed. “I can pull the biggest weed in your yard.”
BOBBY CHANGED INTO some old gray sweatpants and a shirt at the McDonald house. After Abby had also changed into work clothes, they tackled weeds in one of the flower beds. Mary let Finnegan come out with them for his daily play and exercise time. Even Blossom, after haughtily checking the weather from the sliding glass doors, deigned to come outside. She wandered through the wet grass, pausing to lift and shake her paws after every few steps. After a few minutes she chose to return to the deck and fastidiously clean her feet while Finnegan, unmindful of the wet, romped and played happily.
Weeds pulled easily from the soft ground. Bobby said he was still working on the ornithopter model, but he wanted to order another bigger one that he thought would be better for the exhibit. Abby had to laugh. Typical Bobby, the young perfectionist. Mary came out to join them for a while, then went back inside to call her daughter in Florida.
Abby and Bobby talked as they worked, subject matter wide ranging, as usual. From the question of whether a worm accidentally chopped in two turned into two whole new worms, to a discussion of why God made mosquitoes and cockroaches, and would Abby make a trip to Mars if she had the chance. “I would!” Bobby declared enthusiastically.
After an hour or so, the knees of Abby's old jeans were muddy and soaked through, and her shoes were caked with mud too. Bobby's mud wasn't limited to knees and shoes. Abby hadn't actually seen him roll in the dirt, but he certainly looked as if he had. Mud everywhere, from nose to toes.
“Okay, shower time.” Abby stood up and stretched muscles and joints that seemed to have stiffened into temporary cricks.
“We’re going to give Finnegan a shower?” Bobby asked eagerly in what Abby suspected could be a deliberate misinterpretation of her words. “Awesome!”
Abby laughed. “No, the shower is for you. It's only Finnegan's feet that are dirty.”
Bobby looked down as if he hadn't realized until then that he was dirty at all. She thought for a moment he might protest. But he glanced at Abby, apparently decided he already knew the answer to that question, and just said, “Then can we watch Animal Planet afterward?”
Abby walked over to the McDonald house with Bobby so he could pick up more clean clothes. They both left their muddy shoes outside when they returned to the house. Upstairs, Bobby's shower wasn't necessarily the world's shortest, but he was in and out before Abby got the tangles brushed out of her hair. The murmur of Mary's voice drifted up the stairs as Abby came out of her own shower. Mary and her daughter always talked at least weekly, and at least once a month they shared a really long marathon chat. This was apparently one of those times.
Bobby was just closing the front door when Abby came downstairs in a comfortable long skirt and sweater. Finnegan, not in his working harness or cape on this relaxed afternoon, was with Bobby.
“Was someone at the door?” Abby asked, surprised.
“It was some guy on a bicycle. He wanted to know if he was on the right road to the lighthouse. I told him this was the right road, all right, but it was a long ways to get there.”
The San Juans hosted quite a number of bicyclists in good weather. Touring the islands by bicycle was an activity popular with the more athletic-minded tourists. Yet this was an unlikely day for it. Abby suddenly felt uneasy about the bicyclist. She dashed to the window, but he’d already reached the main road and she could see only the top of a hat as he turned north. That direction would take him to the lighthouse, but . . .
Abby turned to her sister. “Did you see him?”
Mary put a hand over the phone. “No. Nancy was telling me about this terrible rash little Nicholas has, so when the doorbell rang I just told Bobby to answer it.”
Abby knew people in some areas wouldn't send a child to answer an unknown caller at the door. Here on Sparrow Island, however, people seldom gave a thought to the dangers that concerned people in big cities. And certainly nothing had happened. Bobby was safe and sound, looking totally unconcerned. Still, Abby felt uneasy.
“It wasn't someone you knew?” she asked Bobby.
“Nope. Never seen him before.”
“That's all he wanted, just to know if he was on the right road to the lighthouse? He didn't ask about anything else?”
“You mean like the necklace? Mom and Dad were talking about that. So were some of the kids at school.”
To hear that rumors about the necklace had invaded even the school was not welcome news, but Abby didn't want to make an issue of it. So all she said was, “But he didn't say anything about that?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
“H
e was kind of, uh, well, scruffy looking.”
“Scruffy looking how?”
“I don't know if it was a funny looking beard or he just hadn't shaved for a few days, but he sure looked like he needed a shave. Dad would never go around looking like that. I think his hair was dark, maybe even black. But I couldn't see much of it because he was wearing a hat, and he had it all scrunched down over his ears. Kind of a dirty ol’ hat. But he seemed nice enough,” Bobby added hastily. His folks had taught him not to judge by appearances. “Finnegan came to the door with me, and the man said he was a nice looking dog and asked if he was mine.”
“What did you tell him?”
Bobby looked puzzled, as if he wondered if Abby thought he might lie about the dog's ownership. “I said no, that he was Mary's service dog, and he helped her do things because she's in a wheelchair. And that you and Mary always said he was a real part of the family now, that you couldn't get along without him. Even if he did sometimes like to dig holes in the backyard when he was out there playing.”
Bobby apparently saw something in Abby's expression that made him ask apprehensively, “Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh no. Of course not. And you’re right. Finnegan is a real part of the family.”
“I didn't like one thing about that guy. When he asked me about Finnegan, he said ‘This your dog, son?’ I don't like someone I don't even know calling me son. He's not my dad.”
Abby tousled Bobby's hair. “I’m sure he didn't mean any harm.”
“I don't think he's going to make it to the lighthouse,” Bobby added.
Mary was off the phone by now. “Why not?”
“Because he sounded, you know, kind of wheezy. Like when you’ve had a bad cold or cough or something. It's a long ways to pedal a bike all the way to the lighthouse and it gets pretty steep in places too.”
Abby nodded agreement, but she was thinking something else. Wheezy. Which might be a different way of describing that audible rasp she’d heard in Jules Gamino's breathing when she was on the phone with him.
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