“Oh my God,” breathed LouAnne.
“They lynched you?” whispered Bortnicker. “On your own property?”
“Until I was good and dead. And then, after inflicting spiteful atrocities upon my corpse, they buried me at the foot of the tree from which I was hanged.”
“And are you still there, sir?” said Chappy, who had regained his composure.
“That I am. And that is why we are all here. For some reason, there was an occurrence that had caused me to reappear in this place of both pride and sorrow. I feel that if I could only be properly interred with my wife, it just might put things to rest. Forever.”
“You want us to do you a favor?” blurted Ronnie.
He smiled thinly. “Girl dear, it’s the least you could do for an old ancestor, don’t you think?”
“How...did you know?” she managed, her voice a child’s whisper.
“Because, my love, you’re the very image of her. A little lighter in tone, perhaps, though it’s hard to tell in this infernal gloom. But you most definitely have her spirit, and thereby her allure.”
“I’d never let you lay a finger on me,” she spat at him.
“Don’t be so quick to judge. Life’s circumstances sometimes put us in ... precarious situations.” His words hung in the frosty air.
“But enough about me. This whole experience tonight has been exhausting, and I don’t know how much time I have left. So I ask: Are you curious enough to find my grave?”
“That’s why we’re here, sir,” said T.J. “If you’ll lead the way.”
“Good lad, but there could be a problem. I don’t know how far beyond the walls of this house my ... existence ... reaches.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“That it is. Follow me, then.” He seemed to glide walk from behind his desk to the doorway, becoming more transparent by degrees as the seconds ticked. The group looked at each other for a moment; then T.J. took the lead and they followed, Chappy bringing up the rear.
Tarver made his way toward the back of the house and a rear servant’s entrance that must have led to a long since destroyed cookhouse. Amazingly, he passed right through the wooded door, which T.J. quickly yanked open so as not to lose the pirate on the rear terrace. But by the time they had all exited, the apparition was barely visible.
“Bah, it’s as I feared.” He turned to T.J. “There’s a rather large cedar tree five hundred paces or so straightaway from this door, in a fairly wooded area. You’ll locate me somewhere near, I’m sure.”
“And what if we find you?” asked LouAnne.
“Dear lass, I want nothing more than to be properly interred with my wife. It’s my sense that if this occurs, you’ll not see me again.” He turned to Ronnie, who held Bortnicker’s hand. “And as for you, girl dear, understand that I truly loved Maruba, and that I am sure she had the compassion to forgive me before she left this world. I hope to see her again, wherever I’m going—”
“But—” said Ronnie, as with a chilling breeze, the pirate vanished.
“He’s outta here,” said Bortnicker.
“Remarkable!” gasped Chappy.
T.J. took a long breath. “Okay, so what now?” he said, searching his teammates’ eyes.
“I say we go find him,” volunteered LouAnne.
“But how?” said Ronnie. “We don’t have any equipment.”
“There’s a maintenance shed near the garden,” said Chappy. “Come on.”
Luckily for them, the shed was unlocked and contained shovels and even a large flashlight, which the boys quickly scooped up.
“We’re good to go,” said T.J. “But his directions were pretty vague. A big tree in a wooded area? Jeez Louise.”
It was then that Bortnicker had another one of those head-jerking fits.
“What’s up with you, man?” said T.J.
“Nothing,” he replied after another unnerving exchange of nods with Chappy. “Just follow me.”
They started walking across the large expanse of the back lawn, eventually reaching and passing the remains of foundations of the slave quarters, then entering an area which reminded T.J. of the Railway Trail he had run with LouAnne in the mornings. It was disorienting, but Bortnicker seemed sure of himself, picking his way over fallen branches and around bushes.
“What’s the deal on Bortnicker, Cuz?” LouAnne whispered sideways as they walked along.
“Don’t know. Just stay with him.”
Finally they came to a small clearing which featured the truncated remains of what must have been an immense cedar. “This is it, Big Mon.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Ronnie, swatting a mosquito on her neck.
“Trust me.” Then he brightened a bit. “Hey, T.J., remember when we read Treasure Island in fourth grade? That scene when Long John Silver’s men went to dig up the loot, shovels over their shoulders? This is just like it!”
“Except we’re digging up a corpse.”
“Well, yeah.”
“What say we get started, gents?” suggested Chappy, who’d brought a pickaxe himself. “Miss LouAnne, if you’d be so kind as to shine the torch for us?”
And so the three males bent to their work, which at first was easy as they broke through the loamy surface, occasionally throwing a small rock to the side. But it became more difficult the deeper they went, and the width of the hole began to widen when they had no luck at the initial target. Time passed. The girls, sitting together on a rock, made small talk, and LouAnne tried to comfort the still-traumatized Ronnie, who had learned more about herself and her country in the last week than she ever probably wanted to know.
“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,” sang Bortnicker.
“Yo ho-ho and a bottle of rum!” countered T.J.
“Drink and the devil had done for the rest—”
Clink!
“Blast it,” muttered Chappy, “we’ve hit a rather large rock.”
“Wait a minute,” said T.J. “Maybe they covered him with stones before they threw the dirt on top. Bortnicker, help me move this.”
The two boys worked their fingers over the two-foot square slab and flipped it away. Something white lay beneath.
“I see bone!” cried Bortnicker.
Immediately the girls sprang to the edge of the hole and peered in.
“There’s more rocks!” said T.J.
“Can we help?” asked Ronnie.
“Come join the party,” replied Bortnicker.
The girls hopped in the hole and heaved aside more stones as Chappy and the boys uncovered the dirt topcoat. In a matter of minutes an entire skeleton, which appeared to be buried face down, was visible.
“Whoa, Nellie,” was all Bortnicker could manage.
“But how do we know it’s him?” asked LouAnne, her hands smeared with dirt.
“Give me the light right here, Cuz,” he said, pointing to a spot. “I think I see something shiny.”
She directed the beam to the area of one of the skeleton’s hands. A gold ring encircled the bones of the middle finger. T.J. gently removed it. “Shine the light on it, Cuz,” he whispered after brushing the ring off. A close examination of the inner band revealed the initials “WT”.
“Bingo,” said T.J.
“Incredible,” said Chappy as they all knelt around the skeleton. “I would never in a million years have believed—”
“Freeze!” came a stern voice from behind them. “Hands on your heads, the lot of you!”
“Uh-oh,” said Bortnicker.
Two men stood above them with large, blinding flashlights. “And who are you?” asked the smaller, older one, who had a neatly trimmed, grayish goatee and a blue uniform with a tie. His tone was firm, his elocution perfect.
“We’re the Junior Gonzo Ghost Chasers,” said LouAnne defiantly. “Who are you?”
“I, young lady, am Inspector Thomas Parry of the Bermuda Police, and this is PC Harold Crocker.” Parry nodded to a husky Afro-Bermudian police bobby, complete
with tall hat, light blue short-sleeved shirt, and navy Bermuda shorts. He leaned over the hole. “Dear Lord, who is that?”
“That, Inspector Parry,” said Bortnicker in his best Beatle accent,” is the earthly remains of the great Bermudian pirate Sir William Tarver!”
“Stop fooling around,” said T.J. to his friend. He looked into Parry’s flashlight beam. “Inspector,” he said in his most even tone, “how did you know to find us here?”
“I received a call from Mrs. Tilbury at the National Heritage Trust that an inspection of the house might be in order given that an unfortunate occurrence took place here recently — that, and her suspicions trespassers might be about this evening. We saw the minivan and motorbikes and looked around. The house was empty, but then we came out back and heard some ghastly singing—”
“Busted,” whispered Bortnicker to T.J.
“And wait...Nigel Chapford, is that you in the hole with these intruders?”
“Afraid so, Inspector,” said the popular Chappy, wiping his hands on his trousers. “If you don’t mind me asking, could we move this conversation to a more appropriate place? We’re all getting rather gritty in here.”
“Yes, of course.” Parry turned to Crocker, who awaited his orders. “Contact HQ and have them send some vehicles to cordon off this area. We’ll also need a forensics team, an ambulance, and the coroner.”
“Yes, sir!” said Crocker smartly and hurried off to radio in what would be the most interesting event to occur on the island in years.
* * * *
“So, wait a minute,” said Tom Sr. as the dirty group sat around a large table at Police Headquarters in Hamilton. “You guys took it upon yourselves to steal the bikes and go up to that house alone? Are you crazy?”
“Dudes, that wasn’t in the script,” agreed Mike, whose hair looked even more disheveled than normal.
“It’s lucky they allowed you one call,” continued Tom Sr., “but after realizing what you did, I’m not sure I shouldn’t have let you spend the night in the clink, which you still might.”
T.J., who had never seen his father this angry, tried to smooth things over. “Dad,” he said calmly, “we weren’t going to leave this island without finding the truth. When Mrs. Tilbury cut us off so close to our goal, we had to give it a shot on our own. And it worked! We actually talked to the ghost of Sir William Tarver!”
“No way!” moaned Mike, slapping his forehead. “I blew another chance to see a ghost?”
“‘Fraid so,” said Bortnicker. “But Ronnie here brought him out all over again. Heck, she even found out she’s related to him!”
“No way.”
“Yes way! But, unfortunately, it’ll never make the TV show.”
“Don’t be so sure,” said LouAnne with a sly smile. “While Parry was walking us back to the house I hung back a little and listened to the EVP recorder, which I’d switched on when we entered the house and just left running. And I gotta tell ya, even though it was in my pocket, I’ve got the whole conversation on tape.”
“Tarver’s whole story?”
“Every last word, Cuz,” she smiled, holding up the player. “And you can bet—”
“I’ll take that, young lady,” said Parry, entering the questioning room. “Are there any other recording devices on your person? Any of you?” He plucked the recorder from LouAnne’s hand.
The group shook their heads sullenly.
“Right. Well, I’ve spoken to Mrs. Tilbury. She is not pressing charges, though you’re all underage anyway—except you, Nigel, who should have known better—but your presence is requested at a meeting in the Heritage Trust office at 9:00 a.m. sharp. Until then you are free to go on your own recognizance, but under no circumstances are you to divulge a word of this to anyone or attempt to leave the island. Do I have your word on this?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom Sr.
“May I drive them back to their hotel?” asked Chappy.
“Yes, you may, and you will drive them tomorrow morning as well, because I’m positive Mrs. Tilbury will have some choice words for you, Nigel Chapford.”
“I’m sure she will,” he replied with the faintest hint of a smile.
“Mike and I will take the bikes back,” said Tom Sr. as they exited the building ahead of the breaking dawn. “Ronnie, Inspector Parry said he’d have an officer run you back home, but we’ll need you tomorrow morning as well, I think.”
“No problem, Mr. Jackson,” she said. “I think my dad will want to come, too. That is, if he doesn’t kill me when I get home.”
The teens tiredly piled into Chappy’s minivan, and he gunned the motor. “Quite an evening,” he observed in his typical understated manner.
“Ya think?” said LouAnne with a yawn.
Chappy maneuvered the car down Front Street and left the downtown for South Road.
“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” said T.J. “What was going on between you and Bortnicker at the house, Chappy?”
“What do you mean, Mr. J?”
“Aw, c’mon, Chappy, I saw you guys giving each other those looks.” He turned to his friend. “Spill it, Bortnicker. How did you know where to go every time? What was up with that?”
“Well,” said Bortnicker, removing his thick glasses to give them a polish with his tee shirt, “you might not believe this, but somebody was whispering in my ear the whole time. At first it was weird, but then it was kinda cool.”
“Who was it?”
“To tell you the truth, Big Mon,” he said with a crooked smile, “it sounded a lot like John Lennon.”
“No way!” cried T.J. and LouAnne together.
“I’m afraid he’s quite right, folks,” said Chappy, his eyes on the road. “Old John loved it here. Maybe, like Captain Tarver, he’s decided to pop in occasionally.”
“Wait a minute. He’s talked to you before?” said T.J. incredulously.
The driver turned and looked him dead in the eyes. “All the time.”
“Now I’ve heard it all,” said T.J., throwing his hands in the air.
“I think it’s the perfect occasion for some tunes,” said Bortnicker.
“Agreed, Mr. B,” said Chappy. “Might I suggest A Hard Day’s Night?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap...
Constance Tilbury hated to be kept waiting. As she sat at her enormous desk, drumming away with a pencil on its polished top, she again checked her wristwatch. 9:06. Her anger rose with every second.
How dare these film people come to her island and take advantage of Bermudian hospitality? How dare they go back to that house, in the dead of night like common thieves, against her orders, and start trashing the grounds? How dare—
“Mrs. Tilbury?” The young man at the front desk, who looked terrified, had stuck his head in the door.
“Yes, what is it?” she snapped.
“Your, uh, guests are here to see you.”
“Well, it’s about time,” she harrumphed. “Send them in.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, of course, all of them. We have some serious business to conduct!”
“Yes, right, I’ll fetch them,” he said, regaining his Bermudian polish.
Seconds later the door flew open, and in stepped the obnoxious Weinstein fellow, who at least had the decency to leave that ghastly black tee shirt of his behind, followed by the American teens, led by the cute one with the good manners. But who were these other people? A fortyish white man with a stylish haircut, blue shirt and khakis; a black man she knew as a taxi driver on the island; a rather large black woman in tee shirt and jeans, accompanied by one of Tilbury’s former employees—what was her name? Pemburton? There was also a roughhewn, bald black man who smelled like he’d washed up on the beach; a trim black man in boat captain whites accompanied by a striking mocha-colored girl with bushy corkscrewed hair; and—thankfully—Inspector Parry from the Bermudian Police. By the time he stepped inside her roomy office seemed to h
ave shrunk.
“Oh, Charles!” she called to the front desk man. “We’ll need some folding chairs, I believe.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Tilbury,” said Mike cautiously. “Before you say anything, I’d like to thank you on behalf of my team for allowing them to go home early this morning and not have to spend time in jail.”
She waved him off as the chairs arrived, all of the visitors grabbing one and snapping it open. Within seconds, they were all seated before her.
“If everyone’s comfortable, let us proceed—”
No sooner had the words left her lips then there was a knock on the door.
“What now?” she cried.
“Hello, Auntie,” said Lindsay Cosgrove. “Sorry I’m late.” She opened a folding chair she’d been handed in the lobby and set it down next to Tom Sr.
“You’re with these people?”
“Oh, yes. Tom here, who is T.J.’s father, is overseeing a rather extensive renovation of the clubhouse over at the Coral Bay Golf Club. We’ve become good friends these past few days.” She reached over and squeezed Tom Sr.’s hand, at which point Bortnicker nudged T.J. in the ribs.
For a few moments the elderly woman was speechless. Then she cleared her throat and plowed ahead. “We are here today to discuss the deplorable behavior of these young people—who were apparently aided and abetted by our own Mr. Chapford—as they not only trespassed on the grounds of Hibiscus House but proceeded to dig up the back lot! I’d like an explanation, and I’d like it now.” She sat back in her seat, waiting for some brave soul to step forward.
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