Anchored Inn

by Karen MacInerney

  "Wonderful," I said, stepping aboard and sitting down near him. John hopped in after me; the young woman running the vessel untied the ropes and started the motor, and we were off.

  "How far is it?" I asked Rebecca.

  "Not too far," she said with a shrug, zipping up her down jacket and huddling into it, hands jammed into her pockets. Brandon's eyes were focused on the horizon, but he drummed his gloved fingers on the gunwale, in a rhythmic manner that probably would have annoyed me if I could hear it over the sound of the motor, the boat cutting through the waves, and the wind.

  It was a chilly, gray morning, with a bit of wind on the water, making the ride somewhat choppy; I was glad I wasn't prone to seasickness. As the island receded, I dug a hat out of another pocket and pulled it down over my ears, wishing I'd thought to bring a scarf as well. As John reached for my hand, I glanced at him, smiling, and then looked back at the inn, a swell of gratitude and pride filling me.

  The gray-shingled building nestled into the island as if it had always been there, tucked back into dark green pines and firs interspersed with the bright red and gold of deciduous trees. The blue window boxes held bright yellow mums and ivy, and the field below the inn, which in spring was a swathe of lupines, swept down to the rocky coast, the path to the dock lined with beach roses, the winey-scented blossoms of summer now replaced by golden-orange rose hips. The raspberry bushes by the tree line were turning from lime green to yellow, and I could spot the blueberry bushes dotting the cliffs next door by their brilliant rust-red color. Even the two apple trees I had planted a few years back next to the carriage house had turned a beautiful gold; I loved their blossoms in the spring, and the tart fruit they produced, but they were beautiful in any season.

  The morning mail boat chugged by not far from us, heading for the Cranberry Island pier, and I squinted at it, hoping to see Tania, but everyone was under cover in the back, so it was impossible to tell. The lighthouse on the end of the island stood tall and proud, and I could make out the houses of some of the wealthier summer people, including the Jamesons, whose white mansion commanded a knoll with a sweeping view of the ocean. I'd only met Ed a few times since moving to the island; they had a gorgeous sailboat that he used to go back and forth from the mainland, and they kept to themselves, although occasionally I spotted a few children Charlene assured me were theirs tooling around the island. Since half the joy of living on Cranberry Island was the community, I didn't understand his reasoning, but some people like their privacy, I guess. Charlene told me he'd given a few lavish parties when she was young and the house had belonged to his parents, but those had faded, and he'd become something of a recluse, coming to the island less and less over the years.

  "Look!" John said, pointing out an osprey wheeling overhead. As I looked up, it passed right over the boat, then winged toward the island, searching for breakfast in the waves below.

  Before long, Cranberry Island shrank into the distance, and we were alone on the open water. Not for the first time, I was thankful for navigation equipment; with cloud cover and no landmarks in sight, it would be far too easy to be lost. I felt a wave of sympathy for the poor sailors who had gone down all those years ago... and for those they had taken down, including Eli's ancestor. Were we about to see the U-Boat that had terrorized Cranberry Island during World War II? Could it even be the submarine that had dropped two spies off on the mainland in the forties?

  That was one of the things I loved about this part of the world: the history. It was everywhere, from the inn itself, to a secret compartment at the bottom of the lighthouse... we'd even discovered an old pirate ship deep under the waves a few years back.

  And now, quite possibly, we were going to identify the remains of a vessel that hadn't been seen in 80 years.

  Brandon continued drumming his fingers and staring out to sea while Antoine's eyes were trained on the GPS and the horizon. Rebecca was busy tapping away on her cell phone, and Eli, who was seated across from us, looked both excited and grim.

  "How's Claudette?" I leaned in to ask Eli, talking loudly to be heard over the sound of wind and water.

  "Better," he said. "The treatments seem to be working." Eli's wife Claudette had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's not long ago; I was glad to hear that she was improving. For a while, we'd been afraid it was something untreatable; although the treatments were an inconvenience, it was much better than the alternatives.

  "I'm so glad," I told him. "And how about the grandkids?"

  "They were just up over Labor Day weekend," he said. "Claudie even had enough energy to bake cookies with them."

  "Cookies?" I asked, blinking. Claudette was known for her strict no-sugar stance.

  "Chocolate chip," he said. "Full sugar. She's a sucker for her grandkids."

  "Did you get a few?"

  "She let me have two," he said. "That she knows of," he added with a wink.

  I laughed and pulled my piece of apple cake out of my pocket. "You want this? I had a big breakfast; I don't think I can manage it."

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  "I wouldn't offer if I wasn't," I said with a grin, watching as he took it eagerly; he always loved my baking, and it made me happy to see him smile.

  He'd just finished off the last crumbs when a large research vessel came into view. Brandon sat up straighter, his eyes fixed on it, and even Rebecca stopped typing, instead holding up her phone to take a picture.

  "There she is," Eli said as we approached the white vessel, which looked to be about a hundred feet long and was equipped with all kinds of antennae and satellite dishes. The young skipper slowed our boat and came around to the back of the research vessel, which was outfitted with a satellite dish and all kinds of antennae that jutted up into the blue sky. Eli jumped up and help him tie the ropes. Once we were secured, the young woman cut the engine and climbed the short ladder, then turned around held out a hand for Rebecca, who took it and gave her a grateful smile—the first real expression I'd seen. I followed, with John behind me, then Eli. Brandon and Antoine, to my surprise, were last off the boat.

  We were greeted by a short woman wearing round glasses, her hair scraped back into a ponytail. She wore a bright orange jacket and rubber boots. "Good morning, Mr. Marks," she said. "It's good to see you again."

  He shook her hand. "Everything ready?"

  "We've got the submersible ready to go down," she said, pointing to a vehicle on the back of the boat that reminded me of the Mars Rover. "We'll have cameras so that those on the boat can watch. I'll be joining you on the way down."

  He gave a short nod in response.

  "If you'll come with me, we'll get you ready to go down. The rest of you can head inside with the crew," she directed us, indicating a young man in a heavy black jacket and red gloves. "There's coffee, and some breakfast if you're hungry."

  "Thanks," I said, and we all followed him into the cabin, where a man and a woman were hunched over laptop computers.

  "Hello!" said the woman, who was about my age and had curly red hair. "Come for the big reveal?"

  "We did," Eli confirmed, looking at the laptop open in front of her. The screen was filled with a sonar image of the ocean floor. I could see what looked like a boat nestled into valley on the sandy bottom.

  "Is this it?" John asked quietly.

  "That's what we're thinking," the woman said. "I'm Maureen, by the way. I'm one of the scientists working on this; Philip here is the captain." The man nodded, smiling.

  We all introduced ourselves. When Eli spoke up, the captain looked at him. "You're the one who lost an ancestor to a U-Boat, then, right?"

  "That's right," Eli confirmed, his eyes straying to the screen.

  "How much will we be able to see?" John asked.

  "The video should be fairly clear," Maureen said. "Depending on how cloudy the water is; there's a bit of chop, but it shouldn't affect the lower depths as much."

  "How deep is she?" Eli asked.

  "About 200 meters," she said
. As she spoke, she glanced out the window. "They're about to go down. If you'll wait here, I'm just going to do one last check."

  We waited in the cabin with the captain, watching through the window as Maureen hurried out to the deck and supervised Brandon and another crew member as they clambered into the submersible. A few minutes later, the big rover-looking vehicle was swung out over the side and began sinking into the dark water. Before long, it was out of sight.

  "We're live," Maureen said as she hurried back into the cabin and turned on a big monitor near the front of the cabin.

  The screen instantly filled with blackish green, little white spots swirling around. Something darted across the screen, flashing silver... a fish, most likely.

  We watched, feeling a growing sense of anticipation, as the submersible continued to descend. Finally, after what felt like forever, the view seemed to bump a bit, and an image of the desolate sea floor emerged.

  "All right," she said, then clicked on the radio she'd been holding. "You both okay down there?"

  "Affirmative," came the answer.

  "You've got the coordinates?"

  "Affirmative," the radio crackled again.

  "You're on the right track. Go slowly," she warned.

  "Will do," the voice said. I glanced out at the dark water; it was hard to imagine that the murky scene on the screen was happening almost directly below us.

  There wasn't much on the bottom of the sea. I spotted one crab scuttling into the distance, and the remains of an old-style wooden lobster trap which must have been lost decades ago; whatever had been inside it had long since escaped.

  And then, as we watched, a gray, monolithic tube came into view, a small school of fish in front of it darting away from the beam of light.

  "There it is," came the voice on the radio. I caught my breath.

  "Is that really the U-Boat?"

  "Looks like it," Eli said in a low voice as the beam traveled up the side to end abruptly.

  "He's right," the red-haired scientist confirmed. "I don't know which one yet, but it's definitely not one of ours. And I'd say it was hit," she said as the beam focused on a metal plate that had been severed from the rest of the submarine. The tube looked as if it had been ripped into pieces by an angry child. I felt my chest tighten as I thought of the poor men inside.

  "Torn to pieces," Eli said.

  I tried to imagine what it would be like to have the explosion, and the lights going dark, and the water rushing in, but it was too much to consider. I focused on the screen as the beam moved away from the broken-up vessel and back into the empty sea bed.

  The view returned to the sea floor. It had only gone a few yards when the submersible bumped into a strange-looking object on the floor of the ocean. Something shiny flashed in the light as the camera receded.

  "Wait," Maureen ordered. "What's that?"

  The submersible moved forward, training the light on the ocean floor. I could make out the shape of what looked like an anchor. Below it, as the beam moved, something flashed again.

  "What is it?" I asked as the camera zoomed in.

  "It looks like… a pendant?" John said, and then we all sucked in our breath.

  Because the pendant lay on top of the collapsed remains of a ribcage.

  5

  "Could that be one of the submariners?" I asked, staring at the skeletal remains.

  "Maybe," Eli said doubtfully, "but I don't know why it would be right under an antique anchor."

  "Focus back in on the necklace, please," the scientist radioed the submersible. As it did, Eli let out a long sigh.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I think I recognize that necklace," he said. "And the person who wore it wasn't a sailor."

  I looked at him. "Whose is it, then?"

  He sighed. "A girl who disappeared a long, long time ago. Emmeline Hoyle's niece, Mandy."

  John sucked in his breath.

  "How can you tell?" I asked.

  "She got that necklace from Emmeline on her confirmation day. Hope, Faith, and Charity," he said. He was right; I could make out the cross, the anchor, and the heart, all in gold.

  "Oh, man," John breathed. "You're right."

  "You knew her?"

  "I hung out with her for a few summers; all the teenagers on the island did."

  "That must have been scary when she disappeared."

  "It was," he said. "At first we thought she ran off to the mainland, but when she didn't come back..." He shook his head.

  "We still don't know for sure that it's her," I said. "There could be more than one necklace like that."

  "There could be," Eli said, staring at the screens. "But what are the odds it would be right next to the killick that used to sit outside the museum?"

  A chill swept through me as I stared at the screen. "A killick?"

  Eli looked at me. "It's an old-style anchor with a piece of granite in a wooden frame. I'm a boatwright. And that's the same killick that sat outside the museum for more than twenty years. It went missing at the same time Mandy did."

  John's face was set in a grim look. "We've got one disappeared young woman and we've discovered what we think might be another. It's not been a good couple of days."

  "Who else is missing?" Eli asked.

  "Tania," John said.

  Eli shook his head. "I hope she comes to a better end than Mandy."

  My stomach churned as the camera panned away from the golden necklace and John said, "I'm calling the mainland police."

  We'd started the morning with excitement, but the gruesome discovery had cast a pall over the proceedings. And there were still all the young German sailors that had been trapped in the U-Boat, too. I was glad when the submersible came back up; looking at the choppy, dark-blue water, studded here and there with lobster buoys, it was hard to imagine what was hidden far below.

  The submersible popped open, and Brandon and the crewmember clambered out. As Brandon peeled off his wetsuit, he began talking for the first time. "We were the first ones to see it. After all these years. It's interesting that U-Boats usually go down in one piece."

  "I didn't know that," Rebecca said, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Maureen is sending a copy of the video. Would you like to release it to the news outlets?"

  "Yes, once you've finished the release. I'd like to let the German government notify the families first, though, once we've absolutely confirmed the U-Boat's identity," he said. "Do they really think that other body isn't part of the U-Boat crew?"

  "It's not," Eli said grimly, and told him what he'd told us.

  Brandon's facial expression didn't change, but he blinked a few times. I got the impression he had taken some kind of blow, but he sounded wooden when he spoke. "I'm sorry that that young woman turned up. Her family should have some closure, too, I suppose."

  "I suppose," Eli said. "I just can't believe we found her. On the whole ocean floor, what are the odds? It's almost like she wanted us to find her."

  I shivered. "The question is, who put her there?"

  "It'll be hard solving a case that old," John said.

  "And is her murderer still on the island, or was it a summer person?" I wondered.

  "She disappeared in June twenty years ago," Eli informed us. "Could be either."

  "And the mail boat doesn't have passenger records," I said. "That's too bad."

  "You're assuming whoever it was took the mail boat," John said. "The person who did this must have had access to a boat of their own."

  "Of course," I said. "They had to get the body and the anchor out to sea." I looked at Eli. "You're sure about the anchor? And the necklace?"

  "I'm sure," he said. "I just wish I knew who did it."

  "So do I," I said, wondering if someone on Cranberry Island might have been carrying such a dark secret for twenty years.

  Eli stopped by the Cranberry Island store on the way home to pick up some sweets, which meant the entire island knew what was going on by the time I started prep
ping dinner.

  "Eli says he knows who it was," Charlene said, "but he wouldn't tell me. He did say it was the killick that sat outside the museum. Since that disappeared twenty years ago, it wasn't too hard to figure out who he was thinking of."

  "What conclusion did you come to?" I asked.

  "Mandy Hoyle. She disappeared one June night and never turned up again; the same night as the killick, as it turns out. No one ever connected the two, but now it makes sense."

  "What did people think happened?"

  "Oh, everyone said she ran off with a boy from the mainland; she was kind of boy-crazy. But when she didn't turn back up, that theory kind of went cold, and we all figured something bad had happened. There was a whole group of teenagers who hung out together at the time, but no leads."

  "Who did she hang with?"

  "Tom Lockhart and John, for starters," she said.

  "John said he spent some time with her," I said. "Who else?"

  "Me," she said, looking at me, tears forming in her eyes. She wiped them away. "Mandy and I were friends; we weren't super close, but we hung out together sometimes. We liked to hunt for sea glass together, and she and I both smoked our first cigarette down below the pier at low tide." A wistful smile passed over her face, and her eyes were unfocused. "I still think about her sometimes," she said quietly. "I was hoping she was off living a good life somewhere, but..." She trailed off.

  I squeezed her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. That's got to be such a horrible feeling."

  "It is," she confirmed. "And the thing was, I have no idea what happened to her. Even now. Only I know for sure it wasn't good."

  "No," I agreed, and sat in silence for a moment, keeping my grieving friend company. "Any ideas what might have happened?"

  "No," she said. "I wish I did."

  "She wasn't involved with anyone at the time, was she?"

  "Not that I knew of," Charlene said. "She and Tom went out a few times, but that was earlier... they weren't together anymore. And if she was seeing someone, I think she would have told me. Besides, that kind of thing is hard to hide on an island this size, as you can imagine."