Island Intrigue (9 page)

“His mother took off when he was two,” she murmured to Sabrina. “Raised him like my own.” She smiled mistily at Terry, and raised her voice so he could hear. “Sid's not old enough to have picked up all the Tittletott traits. Give him time.”

Terry looked rebellious and closed his book. “I think he's nice. And I like his Uncle Bradford, too. Dad likes him, so why shouldn't I?”

“Your dad's been playing with the devil,” Nettie muttered.

“Ahem,” Sabrina said, trying to break the tension in the air. “I wanted to thank you for letting me stay in your mother-in-law's house. It's very homey, she must have been a wonderful person.”

Nettie turned and appraised Sabrina. “Ah ha, I see you've already picked up the vibes. Just enough to make you curious, right?”

Sabrina shook her head and smiled. “All right. I'll admit it, I'm fishing for information.” And she proceeded to tell Nettie about the pictures she had found under the hatch in the floor.

“Pictures?” Nettie lowered her voice, but Terry was leaning forward so he could see the TV in the living room. “From twenty-five years ago? But what would they have been doing under….? Goodness.” Nettie stood in thought, her finger tapping her leathered face. “Goodness, goodness. I wonder if that's why, but no…I don't understand.”

“What do you remember?”

“A week before she fell and hit her head, Lora had me go up into the attic and pull down a crate where she kept some files. I asked her what they were, and she said she had kept work from her favorite students all though the years.”

“You think she might have pulled those pictures out of one of those file folders?”

Nettie shrugged. “It makes sense doesn't it? Why else would she have had pictures from twenty-five years ago?” Something was troubling Nettie, and she avoided Sabrina's eyes.

“Nettie?” Sabrina questioned softly.

The older woman was silent for a moment. “It's just that…I saw some of the file folders she pulled out. We called them the ‘rat pack' when they were kids, they were that inseparable. I remember wondering why Lora was looking though their folders.”

“The rat pack?”

“Yes. Of course, they're all grown up now. Brad and Gary Tittletott. Virginia Garrison, now a Tittletott. And…my sons. Thierry and Rolo Wrightly.”

There was silence in the room, broken only by pounding beat of the TV.

“If she was looking for those pictures—and why would she be after all this time?—why would she pull out all their folders? Surely she would remember which one of them had drawn those pictures. It's not something you forget.”

But Nettie was shaking her head. “Lora's memory has been spotty since her stroke. I wouldn't be surprised if she remembered that one of the rat pack drew those pictures, but not which one. As to why she was looking for them after all this time…We may never know.” She paused. “I want to see the pictures. I'm afraid…yes, I want to see those pictures. Do you mind if I come by tomorrow?”

“That would be fine.” Sabrina stood. She could see how shaken Nettie was, though she wasn't sure why. Something else was going on here, something she didn't understand. Calvin scratched at her neck as he woke.

“I think I'll be heading along,” she said and Nettie didn't protest. “Thank you for inviting me over.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.” Nettie ushered Sabrina through the living room to the front door. “Maybe next time you come over you can meet Hichacokolo and English Jane.” She seemed to be making an effort to change the subject.

“That would be nice,” Sabrina said, and tripped over something under the living rug. Dock glanced over at her, and then back at the TV. Thierry laughed out loud.

Sabrina looked down and saw the outline of another hatch under the rug, like the one in her house.

“Watch out for the hurricane hatch,” Nettie said. “It'll get you every time until you get used to just where it is. Then you kind of unconsciously avoid it without thinking about it. I call them the island's version of a burglar alarm.”

“What is it for?”

“A hurricane hatch,” Nettie said. “When the waters come up high enough, you open the hatch and the water comes up through the hatch instead of washing the house away. Don't you have hurricane hatches in Cincinnati?”

Chapter Nine

“Tell them the truth, Brad! Tell them what really happened!” Rolo's voice cracked, wavered upward into a falsetto as he leaned forward to grasp the shoulder of his best friend.

Brad's eyes burned, but he tried to keep his voice steady. “I can't, Rolo, please, don't you understand? I can't help you.”

The wind rushed through the marsh grass, crinkling the crimson leaves of the huge oak tree above their heads—why did he remember that so vividly—and a sea gull called, high and accusing.

“I can't believe this,” Rolo said, his voice low. His dark bushy hair was tied at the base of his neck with an old piece of leather, and his blue eyes were shining with tears of anger and disbelief. “I just can't believe this.”

“I brought you some food, and some money. Here. Stay here at the treasure tree until tonight, and then you can take a boat and get across to the mainland.”

He was proud that he managed to keep his voice calm. It was amazing what you could do if you had to. His mother's favorite saying, usually so annoying when she said it over and over again in that self-righteous tone of hers, was oddly comforting today. Take care of today and tomorrow will take care of itself.

Rolo straightened. He understood now. “You won't tell the truth even if I do? Is that what you're saying?”

Brad looked down. His throat constricted, and he tried to forget the pain he had seen in his best friend's eyes, the disappointment and the rising hate. Tomorrow will be just fine and dandy, he told himself with desperate determination.

“You know I can't.”

Rolo was silent and Brad did not look at him.

“All right, I'll do it. Who would believe a Wrightly anyway? I would ask you to tell Virginia good-bye for me, but I guess I can't trust you to do that either. You're probably glad to get me out of the way so you can have her.” Rolo's voice was cold and hard, all emotion suppressed fiercely.

He stared at Brad for one long moment. “I'll be back, Bradford Tittletott, and I won't forget this as long as I live.” He turned and disappeared into the whispering marsh grass.

Brad gazed after him, unable to shake the feeling that he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.

***

Brad Tittletott awoke with a start, struggling against the sweaty sheets wrapped around his arms and neck. His heart was thrashing inside his chest and for a moment he worried that he might be having a heart attack. He took several deep breaths and tried to sort dream from reality. He was safe in his bed. Fifteen years separated him from that terrible day when he had betrayed his best friend, and tasted the first bitter fruits of being an adult. It was all over, the past dead and buried.

Then he remembered what was happening and stiffened with fear.

It wasn't over. No, it wasn't over by a long shot.

***

Sabrina walked along the edge of the sound the next morning, shivering in the cool morning air as thin and clear as ice water. Clumps of spindrift like white cotton candy rolled along the edge of the shore, and waves of scrabbling fiddler crabs scattered at her approach.

Ahead of her, the familiar footsteps marched in front of her in the drying sand left by the retreating tide. Once again, the man who left the footsteps, or the ghost of Walk-the-Plank Wrightly as she had grudgingly begun to think of him, had been before her.

“It's a beautiful day, isn't it, Calvin?” She savored the choppy blue water topped with luscious whitecaps, and the sun-brightened marsh grass shuuushing in the breeze. The wind was a constant companion on Comico Island, she had noticed, and today it was running friendly fingers through her hair, tugging at her clothes and tickling at her ears.

Calvin's eyes were on a flock of geese floating in the shallows farther down the beach. There were hundreds of them, honking and splashing their wings at each other. Sabrina stopped at a fallen tree and sat down to watch the birds. They hadn't noticed her approach, and were busy feeding, grooming, resting, and doing whatever else a bird does on an impromptu pit stop.

“Cheep, cheep,” Calvin called to them, but his little voice failed to reach the large, graceful birds.

“And what would you do if they came for you?” Sabrina asked. “You probably would look like a pretty good appetizer to them.”

Calvin cheeped indignantly and Sabrina laughed.

Today, the footprints had veered off into the marsh a little ways back, and Sabrina considered following to see where the footprints led. But one look at the marshy, muddy ground inside the tall marsh grass and she changed her mind.

“He must be part duck to get through that mess.”

She glanced at her watch, considering what she had to do today. At three-thirty, the boys would be coming over for the play rehearsal.

Nettie was pleased, though surprised, at her grandson's interest in the theater. Sabrina wondered that she hadn't heard anything about the play before. Thierry Wrightly just laughed and clapped his son on the back.

“Gone and got yourself into it this time,” he said and Terry threw him a desperate look.

“I'll make sure he's there on time,” Nettie promised. “I'll send him right after school.”

Sabrina decided she liked Nettie, though the old woman was a bit strange. But who didn't have their little foibles? Sabrina's mother used to wash her hair ten times a day, and insisted that Sabrina wash the bed sheets every day. One day she came home to find her mother trying to stuff Grandma's antique clock into the washing machine, along with the toaster. And Mama was a sweet, wonderful woman. Just goes to show that you can't judge people.

Sabrina thought back to Nettie's comments the night before about the pirate Walk-the-Plank Wrightly: He's mad at the Tittletotts for being the sneaky, lying Towners that they are. It sounded as if the grudge she bore was personal. What was behind the bad blood between the Tittletotts and Wrightlys? Sabrina remembered that Lima spoke about a feud between the two families, but that must have been over years ago. Feuds in this day and age were obsolete.

But the animosity was there, dark and strong, in both the Tittletotts and the Wrightlys. Despite this, Brad and Thierry were as thick as thieves. What was that all

about?

More importantly, Sabrina was puzzled over what Nettie revealed about Lora. Why was the old woman looking at pictures drawn by a disturbed child twenty-five years ago? Why did she put the pictures under the hurricane hatch?

“I'll just have to wait and see what Nettie has to say today,” Sabrina said.

The beach petered out into a bulkhead that surrounded the property of the Old Wrightly Cottage, and Sabrina climbed the sand path to the backyard of the cottage. The phone was ringing as she fed the two gray cats and she rushed to answer it.

“Never retire, Sabrina,” said a gravely, oh-so-familiar voice over the telephone line.

“Sally, don't say that.” Sabrina was used to her best friend's flights into depression since she retired from teaching.

“It's not that I even want to teach anymore. Sometimes I think I'll be happy if I never see another snot-nosed brat again. But then I'll see them at the bus stop, and I miss every one of my children, even the pain in the butt ones.”

“I know what you mean,” Sabrina said. “I miss mine.”

“You may miss your kids, but you're not missing the weather, that's for sure. They're calling for sleet tonight.”

“Goodness, already?” Sabrina glanced out the window where the sun was shining warmly.

“This is Cincinnati, remember? Maybe I'll come visit you. It's not as if the Helpful Ladies Group will miss me, or the comatose patients I visit at Good Samaritan Hospital. They gave me the comatose ones because they say if anyone could talk a person out of a coma, I could.”

Sabrina smothered a smile. “What else has been going on?”

“Well, I took some of the kids from my Monetarily Challenged Kids Club to the Boofest at Union Terminal. I swear all these kids want to see anymore is blood and guts. If someone doesn't get decapitated or burned alive, then they're just not interested. And then Jean Kirkle has decided to try out for the May Festival Chorus, and you know she sounds like a howling banshee when she sings, but of course we all tell her she sounds wonderful.”

Sabrina sighed, feeling homesick.

“Sabrina,” Sally's gruff voice was gentle, “how are you feeling?”

“Well…I'm not sure, Sally. My ankle's been hurting a little, I think I twisted it running in my heels, and my knee is scraped, and I've got this bite on my foot…”

“Sabrina. You know what I mean. You've just had a tumor removed from your breast. I know you like to avoid the subject, but…”

Sabrina twisted the phone cord tightly around her fingers. Mr. Phil, or the smooth, firm lump in her breast that her doctor had identified as a Phyllodes tumor, was gone, but the fear would remain with her the rest of her life. This time it wasn't malignant, but what about next time?

“I'm tired, that's all. So much has happened, it just seems easier sometimes to sleep.”

“That's to be expected, honey. You've been through the wringer the last couple of months. First your mother dies, and then you're diagnosed with that tumor. You need to rest and get back your strength.”

“Sometimes I wake up and wonder what in the world I've got to live for.”

Sally snorted. “You just need some time to recover and decide what you're going to do now that you don't have to think of that old woman every minute of your life.”

“It's like I don't know how to act anymore. All these years, I knew exactly what I was doing and who I was. And now…”

“Your mother died just three months ago, honey. You've spent your entire adult life taking care of her. And I know she was a tyrant, honey, don't you contradict me! You did everything for her, and all she could do was criticize you. You're just feeling a little bit of relief and a lot of sadness. It's to be expected.” Sally's voice was no-nonsense.

“The more I've thought about it, the more I realize I'm just a string of halfhearted failures. I've never cared about anything much. I go through the motions when I'm teaching—“

“You're a good teacher! A little distracted, maybe…”

“Every date I've gone on has been lukewarm and I didn't care—“

“That's because your mother would scream at you every time you went on a date. It wasn't worth it and you knew it.”

“I've tried writing poetry, I've tried acrobatic swimming. I took that “Self Improvement Through Useless Bits of Knowledge” class and all I learned was that dot over the letter ‘i' is called a tittle and that a housefly hums in the middle octave, key of ‘f.' I even tried to get my medical degree through that ‘Be-a-Doctor-in-Five-Weeks' program and I didn't last two weeks! The only thing I'm good at is my cooking—“

The silence was deafening. Sabrina forged on. “I guess I'm saying I want to care about something, follow through with it. Does that sound strange?”

“No, honey. I think if you cared a little more about yourself—“

“I take six vitamins a day and brush my hair five hundred times nightly!”

“Cared about yourself a little more,” Sally repeated, “you'd see that the rest of it comes naturally. You've been acting like an old woman your entire life. You've made a good start buying all those bright new clothes and changing your hairdo. If you didn't do something, you were going to end up in an insane asylum.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Sometimes I think it would be a relief to be insane. There are no expectations. Sane people are boring.”

“Listen to you! You already sound better than you did. I guess going out to that backwoods little island was a good idea after all, as much as I was against it at first.”

Sally was horrified when she learned Sabrina planned to come to an isolated island nobody ever heard of, in the middle of nowhere. When Sabrina found the tiny speck of land labeled “Comico Island” on the map, she had known one thing for certain: it would be nothing like Cincinnati. That was all that really mattered.

They talked for a few minutes longer and then the two friends said their good-byes. For a few minutes, Sabrina wished with all her heart she was back at home, putting together her lesson plan or grading papers. What kind of teacher was she, taking off in the middle of the school year?

A very tired and confused one, she decided. She realized that she missed Sally, but she wasn't really homesick. After all, she had a new place to explore, a new Sabrina to discover! With a feeling of adventure, she sat off to town.

Children of all sizes and descriptions were walking or riding bikes in the same direction as she was walking. Sabrina waved at Terry as he came out of Nettie's Cookie Shop.

“Don't forget this afternoon!” she called. His smile was sickly as he hurried off.

Sabrina followed the parade of children over the bridge, the old boards creaking and groaning under their pounding feet, and down Tittletott Row. They turned off on a road to the right, where Sabrina surmised the school must be. There was a burned-down building on this corner, one that she had noticed before, but now she wondered if perhaps this wasn't Brad Tittletott's former office.

In a good mood, Sabrina tripped up Post Office Lane and stopped outside Sweet Island Music, where a table with books always stood. Wind chimes hung all around the store's porch and chimed pleasantly in the breeze.

Sabrina picked out an old Ngaio Marsh mystery and went inside the store to pay the suggested fifty cents. She recognized the pretty woman with long black hair behind the counter as one of the ladies with whom she shared the griddle cake stand.

“Hi!” Sabrina said. “I remember you.”

Sondra Lane laughed and extended her hand. “And I remember you. Or more importantly, I've heard about you. I've never seen such a voracious grapevine until I came to this island! Let me see, you drive a red convertible and you're staying in the Old Wrightly Place. You're a Dunsweeney, but not related to Helen, and you feed the cats. How am I doing so far?”