A Ghostly Light

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Isn’t one of the coins I found a Liberty Head design?”

  “That’s a nickel. These were solid gold twenty-dollar coins.”

  “I take it they were worth a little more than twenty dollars?” Luz said.

  “Their face value came out to about twenty-eight thousand dollars,” said Cory. “But real value was sixty million.”

  “Sixty million dollars?” I squeaked.

  He sat back and smiled, apparently pleased by my reaction.

  “Now that’s what I call buried treasure,” Luz pondered.

  “Indeed,” said Cory. “That is a treasure worth killing over.”

  • • •

  As Luz and I walked back to the car, I checked the time: a little after three o’clock. If I took Luz back to San Francisco, it would put me in the thick of rush-hour traffic on the Bay Bridge to Oakland. But it was early enough to miss the worst of the traffic if we went the other way, through Corte Madera and Larkspur Landing, where we could pick up the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge and cross over to the East Bay, near Point Moro.

  “Feel like some bun-burying?” I asked.

  Luz frowned. “Is that a Turner Family thing?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is. My mother used to like to do what she called ‘bun-burying,’ which meant exploring new places.”

  “Why not just call it exploring?”

  “Because ‘bun-burying’ is way cooler.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Luz said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Instead of me taking you straight back to San Francisco, why don’t we take the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge to the East Bay and stop by Point Moro to check on the supplies for Lighthouse Island. Then afterward we go to Dad’s house for dinner?”

  “Sign me up,” Luz said. “I’m always game for burying buns.”

  “You’re a tough sell, you know that?”

  “I like your dad’s cooking.”

  I texted Dad to let him know Luz would be joining us for dinner, then hopped on the freeway in the direction of Larkspur Landing and the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge.

  Luz had never been to Point Moro, which was no surprise; most locals, even, didn’t know it existed. It wasn’t easy to find: To get to Point Moro from 580 southbound, we had to cross the bridge, exit the freeway, get back on the freeway going the other way, head back toward the bridge, and take the last exit at Point Molate. Miss that last exit before the bridge, and you have to pay the toll and go clear back to San Quentin before you could turn around again.

  “It’s sort of spooky out here,” Luz said as we drove along the winding, seemingly deserted road, past NO TRESPASSING signs, abandoned ships, and hills of chaparral.

  “There is a sort of Deliverance quality about it,” I agreed. “‘Funky and junky’ is, I believe, how the Point Moro pirates refer to their town.”

  “Point Moro pirates? Is this a baseball team, or . . . ?”

  “Just the locals. They fly a pirate flag. It’s all in good fun,” I said. Then added with a shrug, “I’m pretty sure.”

  Luz shot a glare in my direction.

  “Hey, you said you were game for bun-burying,” I said. “Where’s your adventurous spirit? Besides, you told me you liked pirates.”

  “Fictional pirates, not the real McCoy. Long John Silver is a morally ambiguous character, as is Jim Hawkins for that matter. Robert Louis Stevenson also wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was big on moral ambiguity. As I like to say, ‘people are complex.’”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t come along to meet pirates. I came because I was promised a home-cooked dinner.”

  “You should have come over last night. Dad made enchiladas.”

  “What? Now why would you tell me something like that, after the fact? That’s just plain mean.”

  “I’m sure he’s cooking something equally tasty for tonight.” I laughed and turned onto the little switchback that led past a few small houses, shacks, and RVs that hadn’t been moved for a very long time. A dog barked and chased the car for a few yards before giving up, and a flock of seagulls squawked as they vied over the contents of a torn trash bag. But otherwise all was quiet.

  The road led down to Point Moro’s small harbor. On the docks near the barge that ferried supplies to the island, I spotted a delivery truck from Garfield Lumber, and a van from Eddie’s Electrical. The Callisto was tied up behind the barge.

  I parked in a spot nearby, and we got out and chatted with the delivery drivers and the perennially grumpy barge pilot, Lyle, who complained about the police questioning him “incessantly.” But despite the grumbling, he confirmed what Stan and the other suppliers had told me on the phone: All was going well, and the deliveries to the island were on schedule.

  “Where’s Duncan?” I asked, not seeing the Callisto’s pilot.

  “Grabbing some lunch at the Gentleman’s Café,” said the guy from Eddie’s Electrical. “He says they make a mean grilled cheese.”

  “Eats more than he works,” groused Lyle.

  “We’ll check it out,” I said, thanking the men.

  “On schedule’s good, right?” asked Luz as we turned toward the café. “So why do you look so worried?”

  “On schedule’s great, of course it is,” I said. The café was built on stilts at the edge of the water, and my heavy work boots clomped loudly on the wooden treads. “It’s just that we’re usually behind by now. There’s a difference between the printed schedule and the real schedule. The printed schedule has a lot of padding in it to allow for the inevitable delays.”

  “Okay, but . . . isn’t being ahead of schedule usually considered a good thing? Besides, there’s plenty of time to fall behind. You’re . . . what? Three days in?”

  I nodded. “It’s just a little too easy.”

  “Oh, sure. Other than a man being murdered on the island, it’s been clear sailing.”

  “Oh! Good point. Other than that. But still, the schedule worries me . . . the last time a job started out this well, a water main burst and flooded the basement.”

  Luz smiled, lifted one eyebrow, and opened the café door. A little bell tinkled overhead. “Did you walk under a ladder? Or maybe a black cat crossed your path?”

  “What can I say?” I said. “We in construction tend toward the superstitious.”

  The café was empty except for Fernanda, lurking, solemn and silent behind the counter. The pool table and dartboard were awaiting the crowd, a 1970s-era jukebox sat forlornly in the corner. Give that particular item a few more years, I thought, and it would demand a small fortune at an antiques shop.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Fernanda listlessly handed us two menus.

  “Have you seen Duncan?” I asked.

  “He ate lunch, but left about fifteen minutes ago,” Fernanda said.

  “May I use the restroom?” I asked.

  She nodded and waved me in the direction of a narrow hallway.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Luz.

  “No worries.” She slipped onto a vinyl-topped stool at the counter and asked Fernanda for a cup of coffee.

  Upon my return Fernanda and Luz were chatting away like long-lost sisters, speaking over each other in rapid Spanish and laughing. Sitting next to a cup of coffee was a small plate of what looked like homemade cookies.

  “Oh, hey, Mel, do you know Fernanda?” Luz asked.

  “Sort of.” I held my hand out and she shook it with a shy smile. “Nice to officially meet you, Fernanda.”

  “Fernanda’s people are from a town not far from where my grandmother grew up, called Mezquitíc, in Jalisco,” said Luz.

  “Small world,” I said, settling onto the stool next to Luz. Fernanda held up the coffeepot, and I nodded.

  “Fernanda also has an opinion about what hap
pened out on Lighthouse Island,” said Luz.

  “Is that right?”

  “Hay fantasmas,” Fernanda said. “Waquisha tell me there’s ghosts. She says I shouldn’t go out to the island.” Her eyes brightened, and she smiled. “Sometimes Duncan asks if I want to go.”

  I remembered Waquisha challenging Major Williston when he suggested there might be a ghost in the tower. Interesting.

  “How do you know Waquisha?”

  “Her father lives on a boat here in Point Moro. She was living there for a little while.”

  “She was?”

  Fernanda shrugged and looked away, as if she wasn’t sure she should be telling me these things. “She moved, though.”

  Luz said something else in Spanish. It was a good reminder: I needed to sign up for an adult education course to learn the language better. I knew a little construction site Spanish, which meant I could tell someone to put on a hard hat or saw a plank at a particular angle, and I had a decent vocabulary when it came to tools. But as soon as the conversation turned to topics other than construction, I was left in the dust.

  I was pretty sure Luz was trying to get some information from the waitress, so I bided my time, sipping the very weak, very hot coffee and looking around the café.

  Behind the counter where we sat was a small bulletin board displaying the California health code, a worker’s bill of rights, and a business license. There was also a school photograph of a little girl, and alongside it, a treasure map.

  Another map? I got up to study it more closely. The “X” was on the west side of the island, opposite to the spot where Landon and I had dug up the coins.

  “Where did that map come from?” I asked Fernanda at a pause in her conversation with Luz.

  “Duncan give it to me. It’s pretty, no? I’m going to bring it to my daughter.”

  “Do you happen to know some local sailors, named Major Williston, Paul Halstrom, and Terry Re?”

  She shook her head. “I know faces, maybe, but not names.”

  That gave me an idea: I texted Alicia, and asked her to send me a photo of Thorn. I asked Fernanda for a refill, mostly so it wouldn’t be so obvious that we were pumping her for information. Coffee here was served in an old diner cup with a saucer, rather than a mug. Really, I thought, give this cup a good scrubbing and like the jukebox it would soon be worth some money. I doubted anything in the café had changed since the Nixon administration. Point Moro was like a time warp.

  My phone beeped. Alicia was nothing if not efficient.

  “How about this man?” I asked, holding out my phone. “Does he look familiar?”

  Fernanda looked at the photo of Thorn with his smug smile and nodded.

  “He’s a friend of Waquisha.”

  “You’re sure? This man is a friend of Waquisha’s?”

  She nodded. “They eat here together.”

  “This was the man who died on the island,” I told Fernanda.

  “Ay, Dios mío.” Fernanda made the sign of the cross. “No, really? How sad.”

  “Fernanda—”

  The bell tinkled and two men entered the café. They were both tall and bearish, with bushy beards and grimy baseball caps, and looked as if they hadn’t seen a shower in a while. My first thought was to wonder how the petite young Fernanda held her own with patrons like this, but then they greeted her by name, and she returned their smiles. From their brief conversation about her daughter, I gathered they were locals.

  Fernanda took the men’s orders and headed toward the kitchen to make their sandwiches.

  Luz and I thanked her, left a big tip, and walked out into the late afternoon.

  Fog was starting to roll in, and the foghorn sounded.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “About what in particular?” Luz said.

  “Do you think she was telling the truth?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “She said she didn’t know much, but knew all about Waquisha . . .”

  “We’re strangers here, Mel. She was probably just being discreet until she got a sense of us. She told me she lives in the apartment upstairs. She might not be good with names, but I think she knows exactly who comes in and out of this place. And probably all the residents know each other—she said Waquisha used to live here on her father’s boat.”

  “I guess I should call Detective Santos. If he hasn’t talked to Waquisha yet, or Fernanda for that matter, they might be able to give him some information.”

  “And who is this Waquisha, anyway?” Luz asked. “Cool name.”

  “She’s a new employee. Jeremy hired her to be his carpentry assistant.”

  “You really think she had something to do with the murder of Alicia’s ex?”

  “I think something’s going on. According to Fernanda, Waquisha knew Thorn well enough to have lunch with him. I’m assuming it was more than once, otherwise Fernanda might not have recognized him. So was it just a coincidence that Waquisha, who was friends with Thorn, started working for Turner Construction just as we started work out on the Bay Light?”

  Luz frowned. “That does seem odd. But maybe you should talk to Waquisha first, before bringing the police into it.”

  “That sounds like something I would say. Aren’t you one of my loved ones who is always telling me to leave things to the police?”

  “I am. I do. It’s just in this case . . .” Luz trailed off with a shrug. “Fernanda saw Waquisha eating lunch with Thorn. It doesn’t mean they were buddies, or anything of the sort. Maybe she just happened to bump into him while waiting on the docks. It wouldn’t be that unusual.”

  “True. Thorn had a certain charm about him, I suppose.”

  Luz added, “Fernanda mentioned that Waquisha’s dad is from a pretty bad neighborhood in Richmond. He did time for armed robbery—a stupid mistake made a long time ago—but he’s on the straight and narrow now. He has a small woodshop, does some carpentry jobs, and is trying hard to stay out of trouble. I would hate for the police to start nosing around for no reason, is all. It’s hard enough to rebuild a life after something like that.”

  “So you believe in redemption for certain criminals, but not for men who abuse their wives?”

  “All I’m saying is that it’s worth a conversation with Waquisha. I’ll go with you, be your backup.”

  “Yes, because we’re quite the crime-fighting duo.”

  “Exactly.”

  I gazed at the motley assortment of vessels in the harbor. There were plenty of small sailboats, a couple of dubious-looking fishing boats, and a few larger “yachts” that had seen better days and appeared to be inhabited full-time. “Did Fernanda tell you which boat was Waquisha’s father’s?”

  “It’s not here. She said he left on a fishing trip this morning, and isn’t expected back for a couple of days.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Maybe. But coincidences do happen in real life, Mel. Why don’t you give your carpenter a call, the one who hired her?”

  Good idea. We took a seat on a bench and I called Jeremy. After chatting for a few minutes about the project, I asked, “How did you meet Waquisha?”

  “She found me, actually. Right there at the docks, at Point Moro. Said she needed a job and seemed to know her way around woodworking equipment. You said I should keep my eye out for an assistant, so I thought I’d give her a try.”

  “How’s it working out so far?”

  “She’s been really great. She’s quiet, but I find that refreshing. She keeps her head down, gets her work done, and she’s got a real feel for wood. Why are you asking? Something wrong?”

  “No, just checking in. Do you have a home address for her?”

  “She listed her father’s place in Point Moro as a permanent address, but she told me she’s been couch-surfing with friends, lo
oking for an apartment. You know how rents are around here. I have her cell phone number, you want that?”

  I thanked Jeremy and dialed Waquisha’s number. No answer. Then I texted her, asking her to call me back ASAP.

  Again I wondered: Should I inform Detective Santos that Major Williston might have stolen a folder from the California Historical Society, and that Waquisha had been spotted eating with Thorn? Did any of it mean anything?

  I would give Waquisha an hour to call me back, and then decide.

  Chapter Twenty

  Traffic moved along at a good clip on the way to Oakland until we hit the merge with I-80, where things came to a near standstill. I’d read somewhere that this stretch of freeway—from El Cerrito, past Berkeley and Emeryville, to the maze that led to the Bay Bridge to the west, Oakland to the east, and San Jose to the south—was one of the most congested in the nation. It might be an apocryphal story invented by frustrated commuters who had spent too much time sitting in a parking lot that was supposed to be a freeway, but it sure felt apt.

  “You know what I like about this stretch of road?” asked Luz.

  “What could anyone possibly like about this stretch of road?”

  “It actually travels north and south, but the signs are marked 80 east and 580 west. It never fails to amuse me that the cars are going in all four directions at once.”

  I chuckled. “That’s a remarkably upbeat way of looking at a nightmarish traffic jam.”

  “You know me: I’m a glass half-full kind of person.”

  “That is so not true.”

  “Anyway, I almost forgot: Have you been back to that house in Oakland? The one that freaked you out?”

  “I’ve been a little busy,” I said. Also, I had been avoiding thinking about it.

  That reminded me: Brittany, my Realtor friend, had sent a text thanking me for taking a look at it and hoping I was feeling better. I needed to get back to her, but “no texting and driving” was such a mantra for me where Caleb was concerned that I couldn’t bring myself to break the rules, no matter that we were barely inching along.