Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide (16 page)

The boards that had been nailed across the door lay with rusty nails protruding. She replaced them as best she could, pushing the nails back into their holes. It didn’t look exactly as it had before, but it didn’t look too different.

The air seemed almost cool after the close atmosphere of the house. Isabel pulled her damp shirt away from her body. Crowbar in hand, she returned to the trailer.

The blue-and-white patterns were exactly the same. She held the bottle and the shard under a table lamp. Not only were the patterns identical, but the thickness and weight of the glass seemed similar to her untrained eye. There were probably tests that could determine the truth once and for all, but for now she would assume they had come from the same place.

Which meant— what?

For one thing, it meant Harry Mercer was involved in whatever was going on in the house. His puzzling reaction to the porcelain bottle was not so puzzling now. Harry, she was sure, had known about these broken pieces.

Isabel was stung. She had responded to Harry, made love with him. The encounter had been ill-considered, even wrong, but full of tenderness. Or so she had thought. Now, she had to ask herself what his underlying motives were.

She snapped off the lamp. What was going on here? Cannonballs, a pewter pitcher— these objects seemed to be historical artifacts. Given the corroded cannonballs and the diving equipment, she guessed they might have been taken from a shipwreck. Harry, and whoever else was involved, wanted to keep their activities secret. That’s why they had commandeered the broken-down, deserted Anders place, the old house nobody cared about.

This must have been going on while Merriam was still here, living in the trailer. Merriam, her eyesight and hearing not as sharp as they used to be, would have been fairly easy to fool.

Or would she? Merriam’s “accident,” the “fall” Isabel had found so hard to credit, began to seem even more sinister. The idea that Harry might have been involved made her sick.

The anonymous letters. Isabel had suspected Harry of sending them. She could understand now why he would want her to go away, leave him to whatever secret operation he was involved in.
Now you can go back where you came from, you whore.
She thought of his promise to put a stop to the letters. What could be easier, if he was writing them himself?

All right, she had been stupid. She admitted it. She waited for the flood of heat to subside from her face.

It must be against the law to take objects from shipwrecks without permission. Surely there were regulations governing it. Shipwrecks would have historical value, archaeological importance.

Underwater archaeology, you might call it.

Clem Davenant had used that term, talking about his son’s diving accident. Was Clem involved, too?

The thought of something more valuable than cannonballs came into her mind.

Sunken treasure? Oh please. That was a topic out of kids’ adventure stories. Chests spilling over with coins, bars of gold, ropes of pearls, surrounded by cartoon fish blowing cartoon bubbles.

There had been cases in recent years, though. She reached into a hazy memory of newspaper articles skimmed on the subway. Sunken treasure, from Spanish galleons and other ships, had been found from time to time— down in the Keys, off South Carolina, in Bermuda, the Bahamas, or somewhere. Gold was recovered, millions of dollars’ worth.

What she remembered best, better than she remembered anything else, was that treasure hunting was a business these days. It was carried on by well-financed consortiums with high-tech equipment and legions of experts. She had trouble squaring this with rusting cannonballs and a locked tackle box— she had just remembered the tackle box— in a bedroom in a derelict house.

She looked out at the house. The dining room window had been open a crack. That would be how he got in and out— on the other side, where she wouldn’t see. She’d been easy to fool.

The other question was the porcelain bottle. John James had given that bottle to Merriam in 1922. How did it connect with the broken pieces of porcelain in the enamel dishpan? John James Anders had not been a scuba diver, or any sort of diver. The bottle could have washed up in the storm, she supposed, although it seemed too fragile to have stayed in one piece.

She wished she could stop thinking about Harry. The idea that he had used her so cynically didn’t square with what she thought she knew of him. Clearly, he still resented the way she had treated him years ago. Was he using the house to get back at her, somehow? He wasn’t like that. She didn’t
think
he was like that.

In an effort to clear her mind, she tried to work on
The Children from the Sea.
The sketches she had done of Kimmie Dee were full of verve, but right now she couldn’t connect to them. She was sitting with her chin in her hands, staring at the beige Formica of the tabletop, when the telephone rang.

It was Clem Davenant. “I got a call this afternoon, out of the blue. I may have a buyer for your property,” he said.

“A buyer?” She could hear how vacant she sounded.

“Remember you said you’d probably have to sell?”

Sure, she’d said she’d have to sell. Of course she remembered. But that would be sometime in the future, not a mere day after she’d said it. “I didn’t know you thought selling was such a good idea.”

“I don’t, particularly. Am I dreaming? I was sure you said—”

“You’re right. I did say it. What’s the story?”

There wasn’t much of a story so far. Clem had gotten a call from a developer in Bay City, strictly exploratory. Clem had put the man off until he could talk to Isabel. “I thought you might like to come here for dinner and discuss it.”

“I can’t keep coming to your place for dinner. Eve is going to think I’m a terrible freeloader.”

“Actually, Eve will be at choir practice.” While Isabel took this in, he went on. “I was going to bake a red snapper. It’s my specialty. I haven’t made one in a long time.”

She could ask him about the underwater archaeology project. She was sick of the trailer and her thoughts. She accepted the invitation.

When she arrived Clem, his face flushed from the kitchen heat, was wearing a red-checked apron over Bermuda shorts. He said, “I’ll get you a drink and put you on the porch for a few minutes, all right? Do you like garlic?”

“I love garlic.” Within minutes, she was settled on the back porch with a gin and tonic, while he rattled around in the kitchen. The lawn under the moss-hung trees was dappled with the last rays of the sun. It was almost as if things were normal, instead of threatening, disturbing, and possibly dangerous.

Soon, Clem joined her. As they sipped their drinks, the smell of garlic and Parmesan cheese began to fill the air. He chatted about the Bay City developer. The man wanted to build a subdivision of town houses. He had had his eye on the Anders property for a while. “He told me he had contacted Miss Merriam once and offered to buy it, but she didn’t even want to discuss it. When he heard she’d passed on, he didn’t waste any time getting back in touch.”

“He certainly didn’t.” Isabel wondered whether her irritation was because of the developer’s indelicacy or her own ambivalence. She pictured rows of identical town houses, streets with names like Seashore Drive. What would the subdivision be called? Cape Estates? Sunny Shores? “If Merriam was so determined not to sell, it seems crummy to start doing deals before she’s been dead a week.”

He looked surprised. “If I’d known you felt this way, I would have told him to back off.”

“I’m sorry. I’m confused. I’m not sure what I want to do.”

She gave his shoulder a conciliatory pat and was surprised when he caught her hand and squeezed her fingers briefly. He got up and said, “Better check on the snapper. It can get overdone if it’s in a minute too long.”

The snapper was delicious. The developer wasn’t mentioned again, and Isabel couldn’t quite shake the idea that he had been no more than an excuse for the occasion. Clem talked freely, asked questions about her work and her life in New York, listened to her intently. As yet there had been no opportunity to bring up underwater archaeology. She noticed that he made excuses to touch her, brushing against her when he refilled her wineglass, ushering her into the living room for coffee with his hand on the small of her back.

She sat on the sofa. He poured the coffee, handed her a cup, and took a chair nearby. He said, “I’m glad you were willing to come here tonight, Isabel.”

“I’ve enjoyed it.”

“This is the first time since Andrea left that I’ve wanted to be with somebody.”

“I’m flattered.”

Yet she was uncertain about Clem. She wasn’t sure anyone could overmatch the darkness that had him in its grip.

He put his cup aside and moved to sit by her, taking her saucer out of her hand and putting it on a side table. When he kissed her, his ferocity was startling. He was very strong, his grip painful. His mouth ground against hers until she could hardly breathe. There was no tenderness here, no companionability, no mutuality— only his raw, desperate need.

At last, she managed to pull her head away. “Don’t, Clem.”

He wound his arms tightly around her, straining against her. His breath rushed, hoarse and ragged, next to her ear. He said, groaned, a word that might have been her name. She thought,
Eve
—
choir practice
—
neighbors,
and prepared herself to fight. “Stop it!” she gasped.

He shivered, pulled back, and said, “Oh God. Oh no.” He let her go and sat forward, his face in his hands.

Isabel cooled her lips with cold fingertips. Her face prickled. It had happened so fast. She could still taste her last swallow of coffee.

“Sorry,” Clem said, his voice tight.

Isabel was still too astonished to speak. All right, she had seen it coming, but— Clem Davenant? He was so proper, so buttoned-down.

“Don’t walk out. Don’t leave,” he said. “Wait a while, all right? Eve will be back pretty soon.”

Warily, Isabel began, “Clem, I can’t—”

“Just stay, don’t walk out. Here. Your coffee’s still warm.” He handed it to her, the cup clattering against the saucer.

She took it and drank. It was only lukewarm.

He retrieved his own cup and returned to sit beside her. After a few minutes, he said, “I haven’t been functioning. As a man, I mean. For a while it didn’t matter, but now I’m getting— desperate.”

“I understand.”

“It doesn’t give me the right to prey on you.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

He said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to bend your ear about Edward again.”

She had wanted to talk about Edward, hadn’t she? “I don’t mind.”

“No. It’s time to stop imposing, on you and everybody.”

“Actually, I was wondering about something. The underwater archaeology project you mentioned.”

“The
Esperanza?
It was stupid.”

“What was the
Esperanza?”

He grimaced. “The Spanish ship Edward and I were diving for. At least, it was the excuse.”

Rusting cannonballs, square-headed nails, a pewter pitcher. “That was your project?”

“Right. Come and look.” He seemed relieved to have something to talk about.

She followed him down the hall to the room where, on her first visit, she had found him looking at his shell collection. He flicked on the light. The shells were still there, delicate and beautiful in their glass case. A desk stood under the windows. The walls were lined with bookcases overflowing with books and documents. “I hate this stuff. I want to get rid of it all,” Clem said. “It’s just that I can’t. I try, and I can’t.”

He opened a drawer, brought out a fat accordion file, and tossed it on the desk.

Isabel picked up the file and glanced through it. Pages of calculations, notes, a rough map.

“The search for the
Esperanza,”
said Clem with sarcastic solemnity. “The last great father-son adventure of Clem and Edward Davenant.”

This was not a coincidence. There had to be a connection between Clem’s project and the artifacts she had found in the house. Isabel said, “The
Esperanza
was a Spanish ship?”

Clem shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts and looked out at the night. “Yes, she was Spanish. The
Esperanza
was what they called a
patache,
an all-purpose packet boat. A
patache
wasn’t a prestige vessel— more of a scout or an escort to an armada. Some
pataches
did carry treasure, though. The
Esperanza
did. Edward and I looked into this, you see. Read up on it. That was part of my plan.”

“Your plan?”

“To get him interested in scuba diving. So he could get some healthy outdoor exercise. I thought: What could appeal to a twelve-year-old kid more than a treasure hunt?”

Clem continued to look out into the darkness. “It was an excuse, that’s all,” he said. “If we’d been serious, we’d have had to follow a lot of regulations, get permits from the state. It was a fantasy.”

“How did you learn about the
Esperanza?
”

“The
Esperanza
is no secret. There are plenty of books about treasure hunting and Spanish wrecks. The
Esperanza
gets mentioned sometimes, along with a lot of other ships that are out there somewhere.”

He turned to face her. “You know, Spain shipped gold and silver and other stuff over from the New World for several centuries. When a ship sank, the Spaniards hated to let it go. They put a lot of effort into salvaging it themselves, but that wasn’t always possible. A lot of treasure was left down there. You don’t hear much about treasure wrecks in these waters, but the ships used to leave Veracruz, in Mexico, and sail along the Gulf Coast to Havana, so it isn’t inconceivable. Or at least, that’s what Edward and I figured.”

He took the file from her and shuffled through it with shaking fingers. “Edward got interested. He liked it. I didn’t force it on him. That’s what I have to remember.”

“What happened to the
Esperanza?”

He put the file down. “The
Esperanza
left Veracruz as part of an armada in 1725, heading for Havana. They ran into bad weather and the other ships lost sight of her. She was never seen again. They kept close track of these things in Spain, and in the archives it was noted that her cargo included gold, silver, and Chinese porcelain. That’s most of what I know about the
Esperanza.
The rest is conjecture.”