“For the power, I suppose,” Pop said, and gave me a quick lesson on South Carolina politics. Local governments operated under one of three different setups, one of which the mayor was just a figurehead and had no real power. But Rumton was incorporated under the strong-mayor form. The council consisted of five members, but ultimately one person controlled the little town: its mayor. Outright he or she made all the important decisions including those regarding town assets, budgets, and zoning ordinances.
It was information I should have already gathered. “You mean to tell me that Riley completely controls what happens in this town? And if Lester became mayor, he would run things?”
Pop nodded. “He’d rule the town.”
“That’s crazy,” Avery said.
“System works okay, long as people are smart enough to elect a good mayor.”
“Like you, for instance,” I thought out loud.
“Ne’er thought ‘bout being mayor. Nobody else did either, after Cappy, because nobody ran.” Pop shrugged. “Riley’s not so bad at it, really. He’s just a little too trusting at times.”
As I cleared our plates, Flush materialized to wait for leftovers. There weren’t any, but I gave him a dog biscuit and he nuzzled my hand in appreciation. I wondered how it would be to lead such a simplistic life. As long as Flush’s food bowl got filled a couple times each day, and he got some attention from Pop, he was perfectly content.
“Well I’ve got some news for you,” Avery said after I’d finished the dishes. “Somebody already did some surveying. It was recent, too. I found some markers.”
Things were getting more strange by the minute. How could surveyors could traipse around Rumton, undetected?
“Could have been somebody that lives ‘ere,” Pop said. “Or, surveyors could’ve come through quiet-like. We get visitors every so often. Grandkids and such. So it wouldn’t be all that unusual to see out-of-towners.”
“True.” Avery smiled. “Two buddies of mine are at work right now, on the shipwreck site.”
The news caught me by surprise. “They are?”
“Brent and Tom. You’ll meet them later. And by the way, their bags are in the two rooms next to yours, so if you see Bandit hightailing it up the hall with something in her paws, try to get it back.”
“Are they volunteering?” The additional help would be great, but I worried about paying them.
“Of course, they owe me one. Besides, the promise of Pop’s cooking hooked them. Checking out the shipwreck is just a bonus.”
“Excellent! I can’t wait to meet them.” A diversion of two shipwreck-hunting masculine hunks would surely take my mind off Justin. Plus, having the extra manpower was a good thing. With Lester in town, I was up against the clock. The more people working, the better. Especially since somebody had been doing some land surveying. I asked Avery where he’d found the markers.
“Area bordering the Intracoastal Waterway, on the north end of town.”
“Be willing to bet it’s the same land the town owns,” Pop said. “Riley mentioned selling some land awhile back. But he’s always rambling on ‘bout something they discussed on the council.”
An already bad feeling in my gut suddenly got worse. “So not only is Lester acquiring options from individuals, but he’s already spoken to Riley about buying the town’s assets. But why would he want it? I’ve seen it on the charts, but what exactly is the waterway?”
Avery explained that the waterway ran a north-south route along the east coast. A string of both natural and manmade channels that periodically dumped into the ocean, it was basically a three-thousand-mile-long “highway” for boat traffic.
“The original purpose was to move supplies during wartime,” he finished, “but today the Intracoastal Waterway has grown into a playground for pleasure boaters and a cash cow for land developers.”
“Well, assuming Lester is behind the property markers, why would he survey the land near the waterway?” I said, thinking aloud. “He can’t build anything there because of the wetlands. That’s why the town never put in a public boat ramp.”
We moved outside and spread out in the courtyard. Avery studied some hand-drawn sketches he’d made. “It wouldn’t be difficult to fill in wetlands, and create developable property. It’s just a matter of moving dirt around to create high and dry areas, and low drainage areas. Then you stick fountains in the water retention ponds, import some ducks and call them lakes. You’d elevate the houses on pilings, like beach houses. It would be one heck of a view, too. Imagine your house backing up to the marsh, with the waterway just beyond. You could sit and watch the boats go by. In fact, you could build your own pier right across the marsh that led to your own boat dock.”
“But filling in wetlands is illegal.” Even I knew that. Messing with estuaries upset the delicate balance of the ecosystem. “And you said that environmental protection regulations are super strict.”
He shrugged. “They are. But developers will fill in wetlands all day long if the numbers mesh. Waterway property is the next best thing to oceanfront right now, and it brings astronomical selling prices! Three or four thousand dollars for a residential patch of dirt. We’re talking a lot that is only, say, eighty to a hundred feet wide.”
“So how do people get away with screwing up the environment?”
“They’d have various authorities to deal with including the Army Corps of Engineers. But theoretically, a person could do what he wanted. Especially if he controlled the town. If he got caught and the authorities came after him, he’d claim ignorance. Say his surveyor told him everything was a go and he didn’t know he was breaking the law,” Avery theorized. “He’d take a slap on the hand and pays the fines.”
In business, everything always boiled down to the numbers. That much I knew. “So he just figures the fines as a cost of doing business. And has a good lawyer to keep him out of jail.”
“Exactly. Once construction is underway, he could even apply for permits to build a community dock and marina. Say it’s for the public good and all that.”
“Which would allow a boater to go anywhere,” I said, the picture coming together.
My brain raced with possible scenarios as I tried to imagine why Lester was interested in Rumton, and I wondered how long his eye had been on my small town. In the next instant, it occurred to me that’d I’d somehow taken ownership of the pro-bono project. Had I really just thought of Rumton as ‘my small town’?
Chapter 12
Keeping the handset cradled between my head and shoulder, I made angry doodles on a scratchpad and relayed the Lester situation to Aaron.
“This could be good timing, Jaxie. Perhaps some interest from an investor is just what the town needs.”
The doodles grew larger and darker as my frustration grew. “But, the timing is too coincidental. Lester is already acquiring options from residents to buy their property, plus Avery found markers near the waterway that appear to be from a recent survey. Pop just called Riley, uh, I mean the mayor, and he confirmed that Lester offered to buy the town’s land. They’re going to vote on selling it.”
“The waterway property?”
“Right. It’s about a two-mile stretch.”
The door opened and a couple of guys bounded through toting supply bags and diving gear. Figuring them to be Avery’s scientist friends, I waved hello and did a quick survey of my own. Handsome in an athletic way, they sported the same hip outdoor gear that Avery wore. A nice trio of manly men. Although I hadn’t been thinking of anyone except my vice president, since I’d plastered my lips to his in Rumton’s moonlight.
Aaron’s tone became rigid. “You’re smart to be cautious, but you might be overreacting. Lester is a businessman. If he’s considered Rumton for his think tank venture, he would be smart to do survey work in advance. The same goes for buying options. That’s an insurance policy for him.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” I persisted, even though I
had nothing concrete to back up my reservations. Not even a bad feeling. A horrible feeling.
Suddenly sounding tire, Aaron sighed. “I’ll see what I can find out about Lester Smoak. Meanwhile, you just sit tight and keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
I hung up with a muffled curse and decided to forget Lester and my boss for the time being. There were two very interesting newcomers standing in front of me that were much more deserving of my attention. I unleashed my best smile, relieved to realize that I hadn’t totally forgotten how to flirt. “You guys must be Avery’s friends.”
I automatically scanned their hands when they introduced themselves. It was habit. Brent wore a wedding band but Tom didn’t. Aiming the smile in his direction, I teasingly asked if they’d dug up a buried treasure chest. After all, I was tired of thinking about Justin. I was ready to reclaim my mind, to direct it where I wanted it to go.
Flirting back, Tom returned the smile and stole a look at my chest. “No signs of an actual treasure yet, but it sure is fun to look.”
I closed the notepad and made a show of sliding my bright orange Waterman pen into a front shirt pocket. “So what are the possibilities, do you think?”
“Very good,” he answered in a voice thick with double meaning. He was a player, it seemed, who liked to have fun.
As I mixed glasses of powdered Gatorade for my thirsty newcomers and continued to check out the single one, a memory of Justin’s kiss washed through me. It left me unexpectedly drenched with desire, and then, anger. What the heck was he doing back in my head? Seriously? I couldn’t even enjoy ten minutes of being the ‘old’ Jaxie? The one who was part of Atlanta’s pulsing, popular, and elite crowd? Justin had shunned me, and besides, he wasn’t my type. Plus, there was a gorgeous, straight, single and willing researcher right in front of me.
Tom saw the confusion in my face. “Something wrong, Jaxie?”
“No, no. I just remembered something I have to do.”
“Okay. Well thanks for the drinks. We came back to get a new snorkel and some equipment, but we’re heading right back out.”
Brent guzzled his drink and grinned at the sizzling interaction between me and Tom. “Ready, partner? Let’s roll.”
I took their empty glasses. “Be careful out there. And thanks for everything you’re doing.”
Backing through the door, Tom graciously bowed. “Glad to be of service. See you tonight.”
The second they were gone, I silently scolded myself for allowing Mister Research Analyst to force his way into my thoughts. In a moment of weird timing, the phone rang. I knew Justin was on the other end before I picked up. I wanted to answer with, ‘will you please get off my mind?’ But I said hello instead.
“Got some news for you, Jaxie,” he said. “One word. Nothing. I can’t find anything on a ship named The Aldora. So trying to determine what she might have had on board when she sank is a dead end. We’ll just have to wait and see what Avery’s guys turn up.”
My hope for a sunken treasure fizzled. “Thanks for trying.”
Dead air time ensued while neither of us said anything. He waited for me to say something and I stubbornly didn’t. After all, he had called me.
“This isn’t all bad news, you know,” he finally said.
“Really? Why is that?”
“Because it tells us some things. One, The Aldora was not a famous ship with a famous captain, per se. Unless of course it had just been bought, or stolen, right before it sank, and the new captain re-named her first.”
“Interesting.”
“Also, I found out that Aldora was a somewhat common woman’s name in the seventeen hundreds. English origin. Means noble. So chances are, your sunken ship was named after a woman. Could have been a father naming it after his daughter. More likely, it was a love-stricken man, naming it after the girl who stole his heart.”
As if someone changed my mind’s channel by remote control, the late night walk with Justin replayed in my memory, uninvited. The scene fast-forwarded to his declaration of interest in me: Jaxie, I’ve been crazy about you for a long time. Ever since you came to work at the agency.
“Great!” I said brightly, shaking my head to clear out all thoughts of him and I together. It would never work. “Maybe I’ll discover something from the locals, on a woman named Aldora from the eighteenth century. It’s a long shot, but you never know. Besides, word has spread about your brother’s find. Everybody knows about the shipwreck. Pop said you can’t keep a secret around here.”
“True.”
“So, uh, thanks for checking on The Aldora.”
Another brutal silence hit my ear and memories of Justin’s visit to Rumton pushed their way back into my conscious. I wondered if his thoughts mirrored mine—being in his arms, in the middle of the street, bathed in blue moonlight. And the possibility for more of the same. Endless, sultry, shameless, decadent possibilities.
“So how are you,” he said.
Pissed off, I wanted to answer. For letting you get into my head. “Look, Justin, you know I don’t do long-term relationships,” I blurted, and my eyelid twitched hard enough to force itself shut for a moment. “I, uh, just want to make sure you know that. So it’s probably for the best that we didn’t, uh, you know…” Sleep together.
He cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.
“I had a great time with you driving to Myrtle Beach, and going out to Duckies for the karaoke,” I plowed on. “I think it might even be fun to go out sometime, when I’m back in Atlanta. But I’m not looking for a serious relationship. I just thought you should know that. You know, to be fair.”
A long pause traveled the line before he said, “I understand everything perfectly well. But thank you for clarifying things, Jaxie.”
“Okay, right, then. Well, okay, then. Good.”
“Now, back to my original question. How are you?”
My resolve dissipated and I wanted to get his take on the Lester situation. I relayed the entire story about coming across Lester at Bull’s place, and how he planned to save the day. And how Aaron seemed to be siding with the people. And I finished by admitting my suspicions. “It’s not that I’m taking this whole thing personally, because I’m not. I mean, I’m the first to agree that results are what matter – not how you get there. If I thought this guy was legit, I’d be thrilled that he waltzed in here and saved my butt. But he’s hiding something, I just know it.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“I may not know much about small town life, and I don’t understand why in the heck these people choose to live here. But I do know big city businessmen. I deal with them all the time. And this guy is not your average businessman, or investor. He says exactly what everyone wants to hear. Gives me the willies.”
“Willies?” Justin chuckled. “I don’t have enough information to make an informed decision on the matter. But I am curious. Why do you care?”
“What do you mean, why do I care?”
“Why do you care who Lester Smoak is, or isn’t?”
Bandit climbed into my lap and for once, sought attention rather than food. I petted her back. “Because if he’s not telling the truth about his real intentions, then he has something to gain at somebody else’s expense. He wants to keep it a secret because if Rumton residents knew the real story, they’d chase his ass out of here.”
“Okay,” Justin said. “Let me ask again. Why do you care?”
“Because I don’t want these people to be hurt!” I almost shouted.
“You’ve developed a conscience about the assignment? I thought you just wanted to slap something together and get out of there.”
“Oh, go analyze some spreadsheets or something, you jerk!” I slammed down the phone for the second time in half an hour. My only regret in doing so was that I hadn’t thought of a better exit line.
I rubbed my eyelid with one hand and Bandit with the other while I pondered what to do next. It occurred to me that Aaron was supposed to be visiting
soon. Sheila said so. But he had still not mentioned anything to me about traveling to Rumton. And in hindsight, he hadn’t seemed shocked at the news about Lester Smoak, almost like he’d known about the man in advance of my phone call. Had someone else already told him?
Not only did I feel inadequate, but also paranoid. Aaron was a fair boss. I’d never had reason to distrust him before and it felt disloyal to second-guess him now. Maybe I was not being impartial. Regardless, I was not one to sit back and wait on answers. I checked my smart phone to find the number I wanted, tapped the name, and dialed Atlanta.
“Chuck, hi. It’s Jaxie.”
There was an annoying pause while he digested who was on the other end of the line before he spoke. “Well, well. Jaxie Parker. Haven’t heard from you in a long time.”
“Right, well. We’ve both been busy,” was all I could think of.
“What can I do for you?” His voice sounded formal, as though I were an old business acquaintance instead of an old fling. We’d had utterly amazing sex for two solid months, in fact. Once in his motorhome, while doing an all-weekend stakeout to watch a police captain who’d been suspected of dealing cocaine. Chuck was older than my usual boyfriends, but he looked exactly like Harrison Ford and had a smile that made my legs wobbly. Plus he never went anywhere without a gun, which made him dangerous in a sexy sort of way.
“I need some help, and you’re the only ex-cop and private investigator I know…;personally.”
He sighed, then laughed. “You know I’d do anything for you, Babe. Lay it on me. Whatcha got?”
I gave him a day-in-the-life-of Jaxie, over the past weeks, starting with me getting sent to Rumton and ending with the mysterious investor. “I have no idea what to look for, but can you try to find something on this guy Lester? I don’t want my boss to know I’m checking him out, because he said he’d take care of it. But I want a second opinion and I’ll pay your usual rate. By the way, what is your usual rate?”
He laughed. “You can’t afford me, Babe. But give me everything you’ve got on this man and I’ll do some digging. On the down-low. And, don’t worry about my fee,” he added. “I may need a favor from you some day.”
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