Bermuda Schwartz

by Bob Morris

  “The sisters who look after the chapel.”

  “Sisters as in nuns?”

  Barbara nods.

  “But they aren’t your typical nuns. They’re part of a small nondenominational order that lives on the property. Both men and women. It’s like a commune, a collective. Some of the nuns are even married to some of the men.”

  “No, not your typical nuns at all.”

  “I think they take a vow of celibacy.”

  “I’ll pray for them,” I say.

  The door to the chapel is open. We peer inside. There are only four rows of pews with room for no more than a couple of dozen worshippers.

  Two women kneel in a front-row pew. One is quite old, her white hair pulled back in a braided bun. She is large and round and soft looking, wearing a tunic of coarse gray fabric draped over a long skirt made from the same cloth.

  The other woman is much younger, in her thirties perhaps, her dark hair cropped short. She wears a yoke-necked dress of light blue, a longsleeved white blouse beneath it.

  The older woman chants a verse of psalm, then the younger woman repeats it with a slightly altered tone. The words are Latin, not that I can make out any of them.

  “It’s the old Gregorian method of chanting,” Barbara whispers. “Quite lovely, isn’t it?”

  I nod. Because it is quite lovely—ageless, soothing, all that.

  The women finish singing and spot us by the door. They smile and nod hello. “Please, join us,” says the older woman.

  “You don’t mind?” Barbara says.

  “Oh, my goodness, no. We’d be delighted,” the older woman says. “Sister Eunice just arrived yesterday to help us with our work here. We were letting our voices get to know each other.”

  “I’m afraid my voice is being a bit standoffish,” Sister Eunice says. “Sister Kate must indulge me.”

  “Nonsense,” Sister Kate says. “You sing beautifully.”

  Barbara steps inside and goes to a pew in the back row. She kneels, closes her eyes, and prays.

  I kneel beside her. I pray the prayer I always pray on those rare occasions when I frequent a church: “Dear God, let good things happen. And if you can’t do that, then let the bad things be less bad. Thanks a lot. As for my part of the deal, I’ll try to do better. Amen.”

  Barbara finishes her prayer and sits back in the pew. I do the same.

  Sister Kate holds up a stainless-steel tuning fork and thumps one of its tines with a finger. She matches its note with her voice and begins another chant. Sister Eunice chimes in when it’s her turn.

  We sit listening to them for twenty minutes or so and, yeah, I start feeling all warm and holy. I mean, it’s not a moment of epiphany with the fiery hand of God reaching out to embrace me. And I am not so overwhelmed by the experience that I feel a need to speak in tongues or put aside my venal, corporeal ways to seek eternal salvation. Nothing like that. But it is elevating, and I’m getting a nice little buzz just being here.

  The cozy little chapel is comforting in the same way that the stand of cedar trees creates its special sanctuary. It is utterly humble. The altar is a plain pine table. A simple brass crucifix hangs on the wall behind it.

  My gaze drifts upward to the ceiling. A rough-hewn beam runs the length of it. A second beam intersects it, acting as a brace. It’s a nifty combination of form and function—both roof support and a large cross, sheltering parishioners from above. The beams are not cut from single pieces of timber, but cobbled together from various types of wood. It took some work to put it together and the effect is like a piece of sculpture. It’s beautiful.

  When Sister Kate and Sister Eunice finish singing, Barbara and I thank them for sharing their voices with us. An alms box sits by the door and I slip some money through its slot.

  On the wall behind the alms box, there’s a bronze plaque.

  “In thanks to Sir Teddy Schwartz,” it reads. “Whose hard work and determination restored this chapel to its original condition following Hurricane Emily in 1987.”

  “Have you seen this before?” I ask Barbara.

  “No, matter of fact, I’ve never noticed it.”

  Sister Kate sees us studying the plaque.

  “Are you acquainted with Sir Teddy?” she asks us.

  I’m tempted to say, “Yep, Barbara’s aunt is sleeping with him,” but instead, I just tell her: “Yes, we know him.”

  Sister Kate’s face fairly radiates with her smile.

  “He’s our patron saint, Sir Teddy. When Emily came through, she lifted the roof right off the chapel, broke it all to pieces,” Sister Kate says. “We’re not a wealthy order, by any means. Sir Teddy more or less adopted us. He put the chapel back together again. Did all the work himself.”

  “I was admiring the ceiling,” I say.

  “Oh, isn’t it lovely?” Sister Kate says. “It took Sir Teddy months to complete that. The woodwork had to be just so.”

  At that moment, a bus pulls into the chapel’s small grass parking lot. Camera-toting tourists pour out the doors and start heading for the chapel.

  “Oh my,” says Sister Eunice. “Where did all those people come from?”

  “The cruise ships are in town,” says Sister Kate. “Get used to it.”

  49

  After only a few near-death experiences on the drive back from the botanical gardens, Barbara and I make it to Cutfoot Estate and park the mopeds in the garage.

  “So what’s on your agenda for the rest of the afternoon?” I ask her.

  She checks her watch.

  “Well, it appears as if I am already late for my four o’clock meeting with the tent people.”

  “Tent people?”

  “Yes, you know, the people who rent tents and tables and chairs and things. Titi asked me to come up with an idea for how everything should be laid out for the party. I would guess that they are in the backyard at this very moment, so I better not keep them waiting any longer,” she says. “And what are your plans, darling?”

  “Think maybe I’ll contemplate the origins of the universe, smooth out the wrinkles in a new quantum theory of thermodynamics, that sort of thing.”

  She looks at me.

  “Planning a nap, are you?”

  “I find that it sharpens my skills of contemplation.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t get my heart set on it if I were you.”

  Barbara looks past me to the front door. I turn to see Fiona McHugh hurrying outside. Boggy is with her. She waves and they head our way.

  “I believe someone might have plans for you,” Barbara says.

  She gives me a kiss, then hurries off.

  Fiona and Boggy wait for me by the Morris Minor. I walk over to join them.

  “Good news,” Fiona says. She holds up the GPS that she took from the boat.

  “You get new batteries for it?”

  “No, Boggy did something to it and it fired right up.”

  I look at him.

  “Since when did you become a GPS technician?”

  He shrugs, doesn’t say anything.

  “I think it might have had a short or something,” Fiona says. “This was Ned’s personal GPS, not one that belonged to the dive shop. Needed a password.”

  “And you figured it out?”

  “Easy. He always used the same thing—Lebowski.”

  “As in The Big Lebowski?”

  She nods.

  “He was a giant fan of the movie, was always making me drink White Russians with him.” She takes a moment to enjoy the memory. “Anyway, the GPS has at least three months worth of data stored in it. At the beginning there’s a variety of coordinates, all over the place. But in the last few weeks, there have been considerably fewer positions, in an increasingly tighter cluster.”

  “As if he were zeroing in on something.”

  “Right,” she says. “The last half-dozen or so entries, leading up to the day he was killed, are all the same place.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

>   “I’m thinking we go to Teddy Schwartz’s house and ask him to take us out on his boat.”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Sure, why not? There’s still three or four hours of light left,” she says.

  “And what are we going to do when we find this spot?”

  “Why, jump in, of course. Schwartz has scuba gear, doesn’t he?”

  I don’t say anything.

  Fiona says, “I need to do this, Zack. I need to know what Ned was doing out there, what he was looking for.”

  I open the car door.

  “OK,” I say. “Let’s go.” She hops in the front seat. Boggy stays put. “You coming with us?” I ask him.

  “No, Zachary. The palms, I must take the hose to them.” “Take the hose to them? That’s cruel and unusual punishment, isn’t it? This is Bermuda, Boggy, not Singapore.”

  He just looks at me. Then he turns and walks away. Sometimes he’s just no fun, no fun at all.

  50

  Teddy Schwartz’s car sits in his driveway, but he doesn’t answer when I ring his doorbell. We walk behind the house to the dock, where Miss Peg is moored. No sign of him there either.

  I step over to the boathouse, stopping at a small window by the door. The drapes are drawn, leaving just a sliver of an opening. I peek through it.

  Teddy sits hunched over the workbench that had been covered by a tarp when I was there with Boggy just a couple of days earlier. His back is to me. A high-intensity halogen light sits to one side, beaming down on whatever it is that he’s working on.

  I rap on the door. Teddy jerks around. He’s wearing a headband of some sort. There’s something hanging down from it, over one of his eyes. Then I recognize it—a loupe, like jewelers use when they are doing close-up work.

  Teddy removes the headband, turns off the lamp, and carefully drapes the tarp over the workbench. Then he steps to the door and opens it, smiles when he sees it’s me.

  “Well, Zack, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “We interrupting you from anything?”

  “No, no, not at all. I was just piddling around.”

  He closes the boathouse door behind him and steps outside.

  I make the introductions between Teddy and Fiona, and we briefly discuss logistics for Ned’s service the next day.

  “Miss Peg is gassed up and ready to go. I’m glad she can be of service,” Teddy says. “Now, can I get the two of you a drink or something? It is getting to be that time of day.”

  Teddy takes Fiona by the arm, begins ushering her toward his house.

  He says, “Have you tried a Dark ‘n Stormy, Miss McHugh? It’s our national drink, you know. A shot of Gosling’s, a splash of ginger beer, a slice of lime. Just the thing for a warm afternoon.”

  “Perhaps another time,” she says, “because we were wondering if Miss Peg might be of service right now.”

  Teddy stops.

  “Now? Whatever for?”

  Fiona tells him about visiting Deep Water Discoveries and finding the GPS aboard the boat Ned had used.

  “I’d just like to ride out to the site that’s marked on the GPS, take a look around,” she says. “Here, let me show you.”

  She pulls out the GPS, switches it on. She punches a few keys. The coordinates flash up: N32° 18.024/W064° 52.622.

  Teddy studies the display screen for a long time, doesn’t say anything.

  “Know the general vicinity of where that might be?” Fiona asks.

  Teddy looks at her, his eyes hooded now, his expression grim.

  “No,” he says.

  “Well, that’s certainly understandable. There’s a lot of water out there,” Fiona says. “Still, it would be easy enough to find. I can’t imagine that it’s …”

  “I really don’t think it’s a good idea, Miss McHugh,” Teddy cuts her off.

  “But there’s still plenty of daylight left.”

  “Miss McHugh, I told you, I’d prefer not to do it. Not today.”

  The tone of his voice makes it clear there’s no further need for discussion. And there’s no further mention of drinks.

  51

  “Well, that was certainly awkward,” says Fiona as we pull out of Teddy Schwartz’s driveway and wind our way back to Somerset Road. Next stop—Ned’s house on Bedon’s Alley.

  “Yeah, there was something a little off about the whole thing.”

  “It was like this giant mood shift. One moment he’s the gracious gentleman, anxious to pour us cocktails, all friendly and everything. The next he’s ready for us to leave.”

  “Starting from the moment you brought out the GPS.”

  She looks at me.

  “You think he recognized the coordinates?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, you’ve looked at those coordinates a couple of times. Can you tell me what they were?”

  Fiona thinks about it.

  “Thirty-two something, sixty something. Things like that just don’t stick with me.”

  “They don’t stick with most people. That’s why they have GPSs. To remember those things for us. An old hand like Teddy Schwartz, all the dive sites he knows, there’s no way he recognizes them by their specific coordinates. No, it wasn’t that.”

  “Was it just the sight of the GPS? Knowing that we had it, that it belonged to Ned?”

  “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “But why?”

  We’re still muddling that over when I spot the street marker for Bedon’s Alley. I whip off Somerset Road and follow Bedon’s Alley to a cul-de-sac. A yellow cottage sits under a stand of eucalyptus trees.

  I pull the Morris Minor into the driveway, look at Fiona.

  “You up for this?”

  She nods.

  “Yeah, I think so. Has to be done.”

  We get out of the car and walk up to the front porch of the house. The front door is partly open.

  Fiona knocks.

  “Hello …?”

  No answer.

  Fiona gives the door a push, steps inside. I follow her.

  For such a small place, it’s a big, big wreck—sofa and chairs overturned; drawers pulled from cabinets, the contents scattered everywhere; the refrigerator open and food spilled all over the kitchen floor.

  “A dog’s breakfast, this is,” Fiona says.

  “That another colorful Aussie colloquialism?”

  Fiona ignores me as she picks her way across the living room, negotiating a path toward the bedroom. She moves past a small mountain of books. The bookshelf that once held them is a heap of splintered wood.

  As Fiona nears the bedroom door, she lets out a gasp, freezes. Then she raises her arms, backs away from the door.

  A small, dark-haired woman steps from the shadows of the bedroom. She holds a speargun, cocked and ready to fire, a three-foot steel shaft with its double barb leveled at Fiona.

  “I’ll shoot,” the woman says.

  She’s twitchy, on the point of hysterics.

  She wears a faded chambray shirt that falls to her knees, baggy khakis with the cuffs rolled up, red Converse sneakers.

  “Just take it easy,” I say.

  She swivels, points the speargun at me. But the odds aren’t in that shot. She aims again at Fiona.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Ned’s sister,” says Fiona.

  The woman shakes her head. “You’re lying!”

  “No, no, really.” Fiona reaches for a pocket.

  The woman stiffens, raises the gun. “Don’t move!”

  Fiona freezes.

  “I was just getting my wallet so I can show you some ID.” Fiona’s voice is calm, soothing. “Is that all right … Polly? That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  The woman nods.

  “OK, show me,” she says.

  Fiona pulls out her wallet, flips it open. The woman leans in and looks at it. She’s skeptical. She studies Fiona, thinking.

  “You’re really Ned’s sister?”

  “Yes, r
eally,” Fiona says. “I swear.”

  “OK, if that’s the case,” says the woman, “what did Ned give you?”

  “What did he give me?”

  “Yes, what did Ned give you before he left Australia? If you’re really his sister then you’ll know that.”

  For a moment it seems as if Fiona doesn’t have an answer. Then it comes to her.

  “Jack Black,” she says. “His dog. A Clumber spaniel. I had to leave him with my mum and dad.”

  The woman relaxes, but now she has the speargun trained on me.

  “So who is he?”

  “A friend,” says Fiona. She opens her arms. “We’re here to help, Polly. Really.”

  The woman hesitates, then drops the speargun. She covers her face with her hands.

  “Oh, my God,” she sobs.

  And Fiona rushes to embrace her.

  52

  A few minutes later, we’ve restored a small semblance of order to the living room. Fiona shares the couch with Polly. I hold down one of the chairs.

  “I got here just a few minutes before you did,” Polly says. “The first time I’d been back in three days, ever since Ned …”

  She stops, chokes up. Fiona pats her back, comforts her.

  “I’ve been staying with a girlfriend not far from here. I couldn’t face everything. But then I just figured, you know, get over it, Polly. It’s time to get on with your life. Plus, I’d left a lot of my stuff here. Clothes, my yoga mat, a bunch of personal things. I’m really attached to my yoga mat. It centers me, you know? Anyway, I couldn’t put off coming by here any longer,” Polly says. “But I walked in and saw all this and I just freaked out. And when you drove up and got out and came walking in, well, I just totally lost it. That speargun, it was Ned’s. I don’t even know how to work it.”

  “Well, you were faking it pretty well,” I say. “You must have gone out on the boat with Ned and seen him using it.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t even know how to dive.”

  “And you work at a dive shop?”

  “Yeah, go figure, huh? The owner of the dive shop, he’s a regular at the Onion. That’s the other place I work. Matter of fact, I’m supposed to pull a shift tonight. I really didn’t want to, but this friend called up begging me and …”