Bermuda Schwartz

by Bob Morris

  “Why’s that?”

  He looks at me, a grin emerging on his face, like he’s filled up inside and can’t hold it back.

  “Because I found her, that’s why. Well on twenty-five years ago.” He slams the table again, only this time it’s in exultation. “Now how’s that for a surprise from Teddy Schwartz, eh?”

  He slides his chair out from the table, gets up, paces around the room. It’s as if a giant burden has been lifted, energizing him. He puts his hands on the table, looks across it at me.

  “I’ve been waiting to tell someone I’d found that ship for all these long years,” he says. “And, I’ve got to say, it feels good to finally let it out.”

  “You never mentioned it to anyone?”

  “Just one person,” he says. “Peg.”

  “Your wife.”

  “Yes, dear, dear Peg. I told her. It was near her final days when I found the Santa Helena. Stumbled across it really, just like Ned did. That’s the way it is with salvaging. Sometimes you see this one little something, doesn’t look like it could be much of anything. But you go after it. And it turns into something big.”

  “What was the little something you saw?”

  “A soul-saver, like the one Ned found, only this one it was green. Peg’s favorite color. I took it as a sign from above. Not that I’m one to believe in such things. But Peg was. Oh, she was a believer, a believer in all things great and good. I took it right home and gave it to her. Two months later, she was holding it when she died.”

  Teddy reaches in a pocket, pulls out his hand, opens it. A green piece of glass in the shape of a beetle rests in his palm.

  “I’m never without it,” he says.

  There are tears in his eyes. I give him a moment, then I say: “So you knew right away it was the Santa Helena that you’d found?”

  “Had a pretty good idea. The vast majority of wrecks in these waters came after the mid-seventeenth century. But finding a soul-saver? That marked it as something else, something else entirely. Late fourteen hundreds or thereabouts. Took a couple weeks for me to get the proof that finally nailed it.” He thinks about it, chuckles. “Funny choice of words that was.”

  “The reliquary?”

  “Yes,” he says. “The Reliquarium de Fratres Cruris. There wasn’t much else left of the Santa Helena. The ship’s timber and whatnot, it was scattered all about. She’d been covered up by another wreck, one that came along about three hundred fifty years later. So what little that was left of her was well camouflaged, almost indistinguishable from the ship atop her, which had all sorts of boilers and engines and metalwork. Big worthless stuff that no treasure salvor, not even a desperate one, would go to all the trouble of looking under for what most likely was naught.

  “I got lucky. A tropical storm had come through just a couple of weeks earlier, must have shifted things around some. It popped out that soul-saver, a couple of other things, too. Made it almost easy to find the reliquary. It was shining up at me, out of the sand. Battered it was, crumpled and worn, pieces of it stripped away, some of it ate up by critters and time. But the heart of it, yeah, that was still there.”

  “The piece of the True Cross, you mean, it was still inside?”

  He looks at me.

  “I’ll not pass judgment on what it was or what it wasn’t. I’m not a believer, you know. That’s where Peg and me differed. She was a churchgoer, a godly woman through and through. Worshipped Jesus Christ as her lord and savior. Me, I’ve got religion, but that’s a thing between my god and me.”

  “Still, you understood the significance of the reliquary, knew the lore that surrounded it.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’d studied it in and out. I’d read stories about the Santa Helena, researched the possibilities. Had dozens of books that referenced her as bona fide and just as many that said she never existed. Had my mind mostly made up that it was all just fibbery and sham. And then …” He stops, a faraway look on his face. “Got the reliquary up on the boat, wasn’t expecting to find anything but mud and rot inside, torn up as it was. Surprised me, it did. But the water, it’s cold down there. Things hold up better than you might think. And the wood it was well sealed in glass. About yea big,” he says, making the shape with his hands. “About the size of a roof shingle, not even that.”

  “So, what did you do with it?”

  “Ah, the question of all questions,” Teddy says.

  “I have to ask.”

  “Yeah, you do. And if I were in your shoes, then I’d ask, too. Let’s just say that we talked about it, Peg and me. We talked about it long and hard. In the end, I did what she asked me to do.”

  I wait for him to tell me more. He smiles.

  “That’s all you’ll get from me on that. I did what Peg asked me to do,” he says. “End of story.”

  77

  Teddy sits down, folds his hands on the table. He says, “But I suspect you have other questions …”

  I reach into a pocket, pull out the sketch of the reliquary that I took from Teddy’s boathouse. I unfold it and place it on the table in front of him.

  He looks at it, then at me.

  “Appears as if you’ve done a bit of salvaging yourself,” he says.

  “I just want to know what’s going on.”

  He leans back in his chair, folds his arms across his chest.

  “What do you think is going on, Zack?”

  “I’m not sure, but that boathouse of yours …”

  “Interesting place that boathouse, isn’t it? All sorts of things in there to catch a person’s attention. What caught yours?” He flips a hand at the sketch. “Besides this, I mean.”

  “Your workbench, mainly. It was covered with a tarp the first time I walked in there, the day we went out on your boat.”

  “The same day I should have known that something was up. I’d left the boathouse locked, always do. That’s why it threw me off to find you in there. But I was in a hurry to get out on the water, do what I had to do, and so I didn’t pursue it.”

  “You went straight to the workbench and looked under the tarp to see if something was missing. What was that something, Teddy?”

  He answers by pointing at the sketch on the table.

  “The reliquary?” I say.

  “No, not the real one, not the one I found,” he says. “But a damn fine imitation, if I don’t say so myself.”

  I think about: the precision tools, the books about metalwork and silversmithing, the jeweler’s loupe Teddy was wearing the day that Fiona and I dropped by to visit unannounced.

  “You were making a replica of the reliquary?”

  “I’d already finished it, actually.”

  “A hobby of yours or something?”

  Teddy smiles.

  “Started off as a hobby. The odd piece of jewelry, gifts for Peg. Became something of a necessity though, especially after Betty’s bat got stolen.”

  The scepter, Schwartz’s Scepter, the gem-laden treasure that had been on display in his museum.

  I say, “Rumor always has been that the scepter wasn’t really stolen, that you’d sold it to a rich collector and substituted a fake for it.”

  “I much prefer the word ‘replica’ to ‘fake,’ if you don’t mind. But, point of fact, the scepter really was stolen. By whom, I have no clue. A damn clever somebody, that’s all I know,” he says. “It grieved me, yes, but mostly it embarrassed me. Humiliated me. Here I’d fought the government for years, saying that the scepter was best left with he who found it, that I and only I could guarantee its safekeeping. And then I let it get snatched away.

  “I didn’t report the theft. Again, the humiliation. But I immediately shut down the museum, under the pretext that I was remodeling, making some improvements. Ha! The only thing that improved was my skills as a goldsmith. Took me nearly a year to craft a replica of the scepter. Was right proud of it, too.” He sighs. “Sadly, it didn’t fool the experts. In the end, I suffered the humiliation of losing the scepter anyway.”


  “So why make a replica of the Reliquarium de Fratres Crucis?”

  “Because the original, shall we say, looks nothing like it once did. And I wanted to put an end to it once and for all.”

  “Put an end to what?”

  “People getting killed over the damn thing.” He shakes his head. “It’s my fault, all my fault. Had I only made public that I’d found the Santa Helena back when I found it, then none of this would have happened.”

  “Why didn’t you make it public?”

  He looks at me.

  “Have you not been listening to me? It was our secret, me and Peg’s. Something twixt the two of us. Something as close to holy as I ever expect to know. And when she died, it was a secret that I did not wish to share.” He closes his eyes, lets out air. “Then came those first two, Peach and Boyd. I kept an eye on them out there. They knew what they were doing, all right. They were getting close, right close. And then …”

  He stops, shakes his head.

  “After their murders, that’s when I started to work on the replica of the reliquary. It was difficult, finding French silver from that era, finding the right grade of copper and all, the same materials that they would have used back then. I worked on it in fits and starts, got her almost done. But the steam, it went out of me. Until Ned arrived, that is.”

  “So Ned knew that he had found the Santa Helena?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He just knew the wreck was old, older than anything that had ever been found in these waters,” Teddy says. “I liked Ned. He was a fine one. I figured he was due his glory, that he would wear it well, go on to greater things. So, I finished making the replica, had it looking more or less the same way it was when I pulled it from the water, right down to that tiny piece of wood at the heart of it. I was planning to salt the wreck with it. But then …”

  He looks at me, tormented and torn.

  “He died. He died because of me.”

  “No,” I say. “He died because someone killed him. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  He sloughs it off, won’t hear it.

  “That night at dinner, at the Mid Ocean Club, when you told me the way he died, about his eyes, same as the others, I decided right then that I could wait no longer, that if someone wanted that reliquary so badly that they would kill for it, over and again, that I would give it to them. Or at least trick them into thinking they had what they were looking for.

  “And then, after I got it set in place at the wreck site, my intent was to keep a vigil on Miss Peg, at safe distance, of course, monitor who came and went from the spot where I had put it until …”

  “Hold on,” I say. “You’re telling me that you took the replica out there to the wreck site?”

  Teddy looks at me.

  “You can be a thick one sometimes,” he says. “I didn’t really care to go out there alone, thought there might be safety in numbers. It was good to have you and Boggy with me that morning at Sock ’Em Dog. And why else do you think I suited up and saw to it that you lagged so far behind me?”

  “Your dive bag,” I say. “You had the replica in it. That’s when you put it out there.”

  Teddy smiles, nods.

  “Yeah, put it right where I found the original. Near the hub of the Victory’s paddle wheel.”

  Before I can muster a reply, the door swings open, the two guards come in. One of them takes Teddy by the arm.

  “Time’s up,” the other one says.

  They start to lead him away.

  “Wait,” I say. “Just a few more minutes.”

  “Sorry, sir. Superintendent’s orders,” says the guard. “This is all for today.”

  78

  All hell breaks loose bright and early the next morning at Cutfoot Estate. I’m out with Boggy and the gardening crew, preparing the hole for the final Bismarck, when the auger seizes up in the limestone. The backhoe operator tries to free it and succeeds not only in snapping the bit, but rupturing a hydraulic hose. It flails like some furious serpent, spewing fluid in every direction, coating the lawn in an oily sheen.

  A perfect time for Aunt Trula to step down from the terrace to investigate the commotion. She strides onto a slick spot and spills ass over teakettle onto the grass.

  The only thing hurt is pride, which in her case is a whole lot of hurt.

  “Where is Barbara?” she demands as I help her to her feet. “I need her out here this instant!”

  “I’ll find her,” I say. “By the way …”

  “What?” Aunt Trula snaps.

  “Happy birthday.”

  Turns out, Barbara is still in bed, where I’d left her a couple of hours earlier. Not like her, not like her at all. I give her a kiss and rouse her awake.

  “You OK?” I ask as she stretches and yawns.

  “Oh, fine, just fine.” She smiles. “Just needed to catch up on my sleep, that’s all, get ready for the big day.”

  A few minutes later we are standing on the terrace, surveying the scene, plotting damage control.

  “We’ll get bags of white sand, spread it in the grass,” Barbara says. “That should solve the problem of people slipping or tracking oil on their shoes.”

  “I suppose, but I am more concerned with that thing,” says Aunt Trula, nodding at the auger. “We can’t very well have a giant metal rod poking out of the ground like that.”

  “We could always get some brightly colored streamers, have the guests make a circle and pretend it’s a maypole,” I say.

  Aunt Trula and Barbara look at me. They don’t say anything. They don’t need to.

  “I’ll get to work on it,” I say.

  “You absolutely must get that last palm tree planted,” Aunt Trula calls after me. “Four on one side, three on the other. That simply will not do. There must be symmetry!”

  I walk to the scene of the disaster. I’m thinking that from this day forward, whenever I’m off-center and seeking balance in my life, I shall rally myself by hearkening the words of dear Aunt Trula: “There must be symmetry!”

  Boggy and Cedric have rounded up a sledgehammer and chisel. The hole is only big enough for one person at a time, and so we take turns, pounding away at the limestone. It is slow, slow going.

  By early afternoon, the tent people have arrived and are putting tables and chairs in place. The caterer has brought three trucks and a troupe of chefs has taken over the kitchen. The floral designer and a half-dozen assistants are fretting over bouquets and wreaths and table arrangements.

  I take my turn in the hole. I put chisel in place, pick up the sledgehammer, and swing. Chips of limestone fly every which way. The auger remains locked in rock. I reset the chisel and pound it again. And again and again.

  It’s hot in the hole. I’m sweating. The work is mindless. Still, vagrant thoughts fall into place, of salvage permits and sunken ships, ancient glass gewgaws in the shapes of beetles …

  I swing the sledgehammer, hit home, and the auger is free. I help the backhoe operator reset the bit.

  And then I crawl out of the hole.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell Boggy.

  I hurry up to the bedroom, find the sheet of paper that Polly gave me, the one with her phone numbers on it. I call the first number, Deep Water Discoveries, and she answers. I ask her a few questions, and she tells me what I need to know.

  I call the Oxford House and ask for Fiona McHugh.

  “I’m sorry,” says the desk clerk. “But Miss McHugh just stepped out.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No, but the same gentleman who called on her yesterday arrived here again to pick her up. The way they were dressed it appeared as if they might be going boating.”

  I call Westgate Prison and ask for the superintendent’s office. I get his secretary and after a few minutes of wrangling I get the superintendent himself.

  “There is absolutely no way that I can allow you to speak with Mr. Schwartz,” the superintendent says.

  “But
it’s urgent. I have to …”

  “Then take it up with Mr. Schwartz’s attorney. He found out about your coming here yesterday and demanded that I not let it happen again. So I suggest …”

  I hang up the phone. I call Inspector Worley’s office. He’s not there.

  “He accompanied the commissioner to a subcommittee meeting at Parliament regarding the police service budget,” says a secretary. “I expect he will be tied up the rest of the afternoon.”

  There’s no one left to call.

  I hurry to the backyard. The auger is out of the hole. Cedric and Boggy are putting a sling around the eighth and last Bismarck so it can be set in place.

  I pull Boggy aside.

  “Come with me,” I say.

  79

  As we wait for a gap in traffic so we can pull out of Cutfoot Estate, I spot a blue Toyota parked near the entry gate of the place next door. I can’t tell how many people are in it. Too far away.

  I turn onto the road, heading for Somerset and Teddy Schwartz’s house. The blue Toyota zips into traffic a few cars behind us.

  I tell Boggy where we’re going and why we’re going there. I tell him about the phone calls, what I learned and what I didn’t learn and what I think it all means. It only takes a few minutes. By the time I’m done, the Toyota has moved up a slot or two.

  I see a sign for Heron Loop Road. It’s a scenic detour that reconnects with the main road about a mile ahead. Barbara and I drove it on our moped outing.

  I whip onto Heron Loop Road. I’ve only gone fifty yards or so when I see the blue Toyota in my rearview mirror.

  “Looks like we’ve got a friend,” I say.

  Boggy adjusts the side mirror. He looks in it, says: “It is only one person.”

  “Can you make out who it is?”

  “No, too far.”

  The Toyota keeps its distance as we follow Heron Loop Road back to the main road. It hangs back even as we stop and wait to turn. Once we’re about a quarter mile down the main road, I spot it again in the rearview mirror.