“How about this barn over here?” Zee asked.
He pointed to a sketch of a building that was way down the hill from the main house.
“It’s marked ‘sheep,’” Zee said. “It’s a sheep barn.”
I put my finger right on the spot that was Lovey’s Cove. “I like it, Zee. Say Kyd’s boat, the Revenge, is anchored right here.”
Then I slid my finger over the ridge, stopping right at the sheep barn. “It’s a pretty clear path from the cove to the sheep barn, and more likely that Gertie had a reason to spend time with the sheep,” I said. “Getting the wool to do her darning and her knitting, especially when Lemuel was around.”
“Not baaaaaaaaad, Dev,” Booker said, imitating the bleating of a sheep. “Not bad at all. Here we’ve been looking for a cow barn, when maybe all along Lemuel Kyd was counting sheep at the same time he was counting his gold doubloons.”
“Let’s give this back to Harry,” Booker said, closing the heavy volume. “It’s time to get our noses out of the books and snoop around the old Thaw homestead.”
Zee hesitated. “But, isn’t that trespassing?” he asked.
“Why, Ezekiel Dylem,” I said, “you know there’s proper, professional sleuthing in my very DNA. Booker and I aren’t about to break the law. My mother would have me grounded for the rest of the summer.”
Zee ran ahead and pushed open the door.
I looked at Booker and raised my hands, palms up. “Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes—each one of them trespassed to solve a case. Am I right?”
“I know they’re your idols, Dev, but they’re fictional,” Booker said.
“But they’re real sleuths in the pages of good books,” I said. “Honestly, is there a better detective than Sherlock Holmes that ever existed?”
“How about Commissioner Blaine Quick?” Booker asked. “Look, we’re flesh and blood. And we don’t have any connections to the Chilmark Police Department. So let’s start by going to the Thaw farmhouse and knocking on the front door, just to keep us legitimate.”
“But I thought your grandmother said the house is kind of deserted.”
“Well,” Booker said, “we’ll just have to cross that cove when we get to it.”
14
The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road at the crest of the hill after the wide overlook that offered a spectacular view of Menemsha Pond and the Vineyard Sound beyond it. Once I saw how high the hills were on this end of the island, I understood why we couldn’t have biked out here.
“The old Thaw property is your second driveway on the right,” the driver said. “Walk straight in till you see the house with three white chimneys.”
“Thanks very much,” I said to him. It was only ten thirty in the morning, but the sun was hot and I could smell the salty ocean air, not far from where we stood. “Let’s go, guys.”
I trudged up past the first driveway. There was a hand-painted white sign that said TURNBULL WAY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I looked down the neatly mown path but couldn’t see any houses before the bend in the road.
Fifty feet later we came to TRAVIS LANE. I stopped in the middle of the graveled drive and waited for Booker and Zee. “This way in,” I said. “And there’s no mention of private property, like the other road, and there’s not a NO TRESPASSING sign.”
Zee reached for Booker’s hand. His green plastic pail and shovel, which I had encouraged him to bring in case we picked up any more treasure, hung from his other hand.
We walked for four or five minutes before the house came into view. The overgrown shrubs on the side of the road led all the way up to the old stone wall that separated the driveway from the path into the house. The beach rosebushes were dead and the plantings that probably once had been vibrant colors were wilted and splayed on top of the browned-out grass.
I quickened my pace and headed for the front door of the old farmhouse. It didn’t look like parts of it were as old as others I’d seen, but it now sat abandoned on this isolated hilltop.
I took two steps up and lifted the brass door knocker, which still had the THAW name inscribed on it. Even before I knocked, I was pretty certain no one would answer. There were no cars next to the house, and no sign of life around it.
I tried the knob but the door didn’t open.
“Are we trespassing yet?” Zee asked. I knew if he got too nervous he would start to freak out. I would, too.
“Nope. Just looking for the owner.”
I stepped down and peered through the glass into a window. It was what my mother liked to call a “great room,” a large living space with a huge fireplace on one end and lots of sofas and chairs inside.
“That’s what’s left of the cow barn,” Booker called out. “Just that broken-down old wooden frame.”
I followed Booker and Zee off to the left, to the once-tall building that had housed the Thaw herd. The roof was still held up by the original walls, and part of the hayloft was supported by solid old beams. But I bet it had been a long time since any cows had slept there.
Booker walked ahead of me, rounding behind the house as he scrolled through the photographs Zee had taken of the deeds in the record books.
“Wait until you see this view,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing.”
The Thaw property was in a perfect spot. From its unusual height, you could see all the land that sloped down to the pond, the entirety of the pond across to the actual village of Menemsha, and then beyond Vineyard Sound to the Elizabeth Islands. On a sunny day like this, it looked as if you could see forever.
Zee walked back to stand on the deck, which was clearly a recent addition, with its barbecue grill and a fire pit surrounded by lounging chairs.
“Down below!” Zee yelled. “Someone has been digging up the land.”
Booker and I jogged down the slope, in the direction of the pond.
“Nothing sinister, Zee,” he called back. “Looks just about the size of a swimming pool.”
“Artie did say that some Hollywood producer bought this place from the Thaws, started to fix it up, and never came back,” I said.
Zee saw his opportunity and seized it. He went flying down the hill, got down on his knees and began shoveling the earth that had already been loosened and moved by the workers who had started construction on the pool.
“Hey, Zee,” I called out, “what are you up to?”
“The construction workers made it easy for me to dig right here,” he said. “Who knows what I’ll find?”
“I like your thinking,” I said.
Booker was studying his photographs, turning his phone in all angles. “I don’t see any sign of the camp. Do you?”
It should have been somewhere between the cow barn and the stone wall that separated the property from the Denman farm, which I could see in the distance.
“All gone,” I said.
“And it looks like that stand of cedar trees on the top of that ridge below Zee is hiding whatever is left of the sheep barn, right?”
“I think so,” I said. “You stay here with Zee. I’m going to walk from the sheep barn around to Lovey’s Cove, and then back here to the porch behind the house. I’ll be out of sight for a few minutes, but I want to see where a pirate might find a secret hiding place.”
“Okay, I’ll take some photographs.”
I went to the bottom of the hill, below the pool area, then climbed up the ridge, with the house at my back.
The sheep barn was still there but hidden from sight of the farmhouse because it was at the bottom of a steep incline. I ran toward it and had to catch my breath when I landed smack up against it.
Unlike the other buildings, it was in fine condition. It had been rebuilt and the trim around the barn door and windows was painted in a gray-blue color that suited the old country look of the structure.
I pulled at the door
but it didn’t open. I stood on tiptoes and looked in the window. It had been redesigned as an office. There was a long table in front of the window, facing the pond, but nothing on it—no books, no lamp, no papers.
Now my imagination had taken hold. I walked back from the door of the sheep barn, making my way over tree stumps, avoiding the poison ivy branches as I walked, and winding up with one foot on the shoreline and the other in a couple of inches of water.
For a few minutes, I was young Gertie Thaw, my heart pounding in my chest, making my way around the point of land that jutted into the pond and led me directly to Lovey’s Cove. I could almost see the Jolly Roger blowing in the breeze, and I was overjoyed that the Revenge and its crew had navigated their way into the secret landing that would give them safe haven on the property.
The only thing that interrupted my few minutes of make-believe was the sound of a siren. I lifted my head and saw the flashing red light of a police car at the top of the hill, pulling up to the front door of the old Thaw farmhouse. Not only was my chest pounding, but my knees were shaking badly, too.
15
“It’s my fault, Officer,” I said, panting after running uphill and circling the house, to find the Chilmark cop standing over Zee. “Not his.”
“Are you digging for trouble, son?” the khaki-uniformed officer asked.
Zee was kind of frozen in place, his shovel in his hand, sitting cross-legged in the giant hole that was supposed to become a swimming pool.
“I did that once, sir,” I said. “Never again.”
“What’s that, young lady?”
“Zee doesn’t mean any trouble, sir,” I said. No need to tell the officer about my fossil dig in Montana. That was trouble. “It was all my idea to come up here.”
Booker was walking up from the pond, where he had gone to take pictures. I waved to try to hurry him up.
“Are we trespassing?” Zee asked. He was pretty agitated, so I put my arm around his shoulders. “Are you going to arrest us?”
The officer scratched his chin. The plastic tag pinned to his shirt showed that his last name was Brewer.
“Normally, I’d have to think you were trespassing,” Officer Brewer said, “but this hunk of land is for sale, son, so the owner has been encouraging everyone in town to send folks up to look it over. Would you like to buy an old farm?”
We each breathed a huge sigh of relief—about the law, not about the sale. “My allowance won’t stretch that far,” I said.
“Mine either,” Officer Brewer said. “Mrs. Denman’s the neighbor who saw you from her kitchen window and called over to the station. She said there was some unusual activity here.”
“We didn’t do anything unusual officer,” I said. “We’re very law-abiding. Zee—well, all three of us—have this thing about pirates, and we were coming up to the old Thaw farm to see if we could look at the cove where Lemuel Kyd hid from the Spanish.”
“We even knocked on the front door to ask if the owner would mind if we walked around,” Booker said.
“You didn’t go in the house, did you?” he asked.
“No, sir. We’d never do that,” I said. My hands were behind my back and I crossed my fingers on both of them. If the front door hadn’t been locked, who knows what I would have done to try and get to the bottom of the mystery of the doubloon?
“Then there was nothing for Mrs. Denman to worry about,” Brewer said. “The owner is some kind of big deal in the movie business, which does not make him a big deal in Chilmark at all. The house is completely empty, so I’m not sure why she worries so much whenever she sees movement on this hilltop.”
“Then it’s okay if we poke around?” Booker asked.
The officer put his hands on his hips and shook his head. Whenever my mother took that position, I knew it was time to move on from whatever I was doing.
“I’d say your poking is done for the day,” Brewer said. “Get your young friend to take his pail and shovel to the beach for the afternoon. There haven’t been any pirates sighted on this pond in a couple of hundred years.”
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t any more buried treasure,” Zee said.
“Move along, son,” Brewer said. “There’s more pirate booty at the Inkwell than there is on this place. You ought to go down to Oak Bluffs.”
Booker and I both turned our heads to look at the officer.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “Did you mean there’s pirate treasure at the beach?”
“That’s the word at the police station,” he said. “Heard it this morning from one of my fellow officers who lives in Oak Bluffs. The story’s all over town.”
Zee was up on one knee. “That must be my—”
Booker grabbed Zee’s shoulder faster than I could blurt out “don’t say it.”
“Must be your imagination, cuz. Let’s get moving.”
Zee was standing up between Booker and me. “But I’m hungry now. I don’t want to go to the beach.”
“Are you three staying up here in Chilmark?”
“No, sir,” Booker said. “But my grandmother gave us money to buy lunch at Larsen’s Fish Market. Can we walk there from here?”
Officer Brewer pointed his finger. “Larsen’s is in Menemsha, that small village directly across the pond. Due north, if you swim. A lot longer on foot. But it will only take me five minutes to drive you there.”
None of us were happy to leave the Thaw farm, but we didn’t have a choice.
“You ride up front with me, son,” Brewer said to Zee, smiling at him and trying to put him at ease. “I bet you’ve never been in a police car before.”
Booker looked at me and winked as we climbed into the rear seat. Courtesy of my mother and her job, the two of us had been in dozens of NYPD RMP’s—radio motor patrol cars—the way some kids are spoiled by using Uber. And we’d ridden with Sam Cody and my mother in the commissioner’s spiffy black SUV, lights flashing and sirens blaring, more times than I could count.
“This is cool,” Zee said, taking in all the police equipment on the dashboard.
Officer Brewer made a U-turn and headed back to State Road, explaining to Zee what each one of the devices did.
“Curses,” I whispered to Booker. “Foiled again.”
“I think it’s the villain who says that line in old cartoons.”
“Well, we’re the good guys, but I am feeling foiled.”
The road wound and turned and we went downhill and up again, past the Chilmark General Store, through Beetlebung Corner, and around the bend to the tiny fishing village of Menemsha.
Officer Brewer stopped his car in front of Larsen’s Fish Market, a cool looking gray-shingled building that sat right on the harbor.
“You kids know your way back to town?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “We’ve got bus passes.”
“Good,” he said. “The bus stops right there, in front of the Texaco station, and comes about every twenty minutes.”
Booker opened the door and I slid over and got out.
“Remember,” Brewer said, “there’s no point snooping around the Thaw property till you save your pennies—or some pieces of eight—and come up with the money to buy it. The FOR SALE sign will be posted by morning, and you won’t be quite so welcome once that goes up.”
“I understand, sir,” Booker said.
We thanked him for the ride and I pushed open the screen door of the market.
“Wow!” I said. “This smells so good.”
Zee made a run for the open cases near the fish counter. “Look, Booker. Live lobsters. Tons of them.”
Somehow I didn’t think they’d be alive for long. Those crustaceans were a popular Vineyard dish.
On the opposite side was a glass-fronted refrigerator. LOBSTER ROLLS was written on a card taped to the door.
“Boy, do they loo
k good,” I said.
The lady working behind the counter called out to us. “They’re on sale today,” she said. “Two for the price of one.”
Booker gave me a thumbs-up.
I reached in and pulled out the fattest rolls, the two that looked like they were stuffed with the most lobster meat. Then I opened the next compartment and got three bottles of water.
We were about to carry our lunch outside to eat on the dock, but when the door opened, I couldn’t move.
A man and a kid my age came walking through it and stood face-to-face with us.
“Hey, Ezekiel,” the kid said, forcing a smile as he looked at us. Then he said hello to Booker and me, too.
“Hey, Ross,” Booker said. “Wassup?”
Ross Bagby, of course—one of the carousel bullies—and the older man must be his father.
Ross just shrugged his shoulders. I didn’t know whether his passive manner was due to Zee’s warning about the shark or the fact that his father was by his side. Either way, there was no sign of his rudeness today.
“Thanks, by the way,” Ross said to Zee. “Turns out there were sharks near the Chatham beach yesterday, so the lifeguard got everyone out of the water.”
He was looking down when he spoke. Then he picked his head up. “Your app is awesome.”
Zee seemed pleased by the compliment.
But I couldn’t even look at the Bagbys’ faces. My eyes were glued to the front of their T-shirts. Both Ross and his dad had stains all over them—large splotches of fresh red blood that had dripped down the front of their clothes.
16
“New friends, Ross?” his dad said, reaching out his hand to shake ours. “I’m Cole Bagby.”
“Good to meet you, sir,” Booker said. “Yeah, we met yesterday.”
“Islanders?”
“No, no, we live in Manhattan, too. We’re visiting my grandmother in O.B.”
“Well, you’ve got the best eats on the Vineyard right in your hands,” Mr. Bagby said, holding the door open for us to leave. “Are you feeling okay, dear? Sorry, I didn’t get your name. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
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