Spirits of the Pirate House (9 page)

The boys heard a rustling behind the front
counter and made their way over. “Mr. Goodwin?” said Bortnicker,
unable to ascertain the source of the sounds.

“Not here,” was the muffled reply.

“We were told to ask for Ronnie if Mr.
Goodwin was out,” he said impatiently.

“You found her,” said the girl as she rose
up, a dust cloth in her hand. She stood at around the boys’ height
of 5’6”, with shoulder length hair that projected in tight
corkscrews and framed her face. But what gave Ronnie Goodwin her
stunning good looks was the way her milk chocolate-colored skin was
set off by turquoise eyes that mirrored the Bermudian waters
surrounding the island.

T.J. was taken aback, mostly because he’d
been expecting a guy to be working in the dive shop, but Bortnicker
was positively mesmerized. T.J. had seen that look before, and it
was always a cause for concern. If his friend ever came face to
face with a pretty female he tended to gawk and invariably say
something stupid. Just this past year a girl named Giulia DeCarlo
had, on a dare from her mean-girl cronies, asked Bortnicker to
dance at their school’s Valentine’s Day social. Now, Giulia was
fairly attractive (though the three pounds of makeup she applied
daily went a long way into producing the final effect), but
Bortnicker was completely unprepared to deal with a girl who was
quite clearly out of his league, so he had mumbled some kind of
excuse and escaped to the safety of the boys’ restroom as DeCarlo’s
gang howled. And of course, he’d acted like an idiot with LouAnne,
with whom he’d decided a courtly kiss of the hand was appropriate
when he’d first met her in Gettysburg, vexing T.J. to no end.

But this ... this was scary.

“Well, my full name’s Veronique,” she said
with that soft Bermudian lilt, “but to everyone else I’m just
Ronnie.” She extended her hand, and T.J. cut his eyes sideways to
see if Bortnicker would take it. When he froze, T.J. stepped in and
shook with her.

“I’m T.J. Jackson,” he said politely, “and
this strange person with me is my friend, Bortnicker. We’re here
about a charter trip that The Adventure Channel’s arranged?”

Ronnie fixed her gaze on Bortnicker, and a
wry smile creased her full lips. “I’ve heard so much about you
guys,” she said pleasantly, extending her hand again to Bortnicker,
who managed to shake it while smiling crookedly. Of course. Mike
had been here already; it was all a setup. T.J. smiled to himself.
Well played, Weinstein
, he thought.

“Let me show you around the shop,” said
Ronnie, moving from behind the counter gracefully. She was wearing
a Bob Marley tee shirt knotted at her midriff and a pair of faded
cutoffs. The girl wasn’t what T.J. would call voluptuous, but
Ronnie Goodwin wasn’t too far off.

They followed her around as she described the
equipment and how Blue Lagoon conducted their rentals. From what
T.J. could tell, she was quite knowledgeable. As if reading his
mind, she said, “I’ve been working here for ten years now. Started
tagging along with Dad when I was four or five.”

Finally, Bortnicker spoke. “Get a lot of
tourists here, I guess.”

“That’s
all
we get, actually. The
majority are friendly, but some are fairly demanding. We’re booked
most days of the week, sometimes twice a day. My dad has an
assistant who either serves as first mate on the bigger boat or
takes people out on the
Reef Seeker II
if we’re double
booked.”

“How’s business?” asked Bortnicker,
struggling to make conversation.

“Oh, we do all right,” she said with a wink.
“My dad’s owned the business since the late 90s, when he bought out
the original owner, who was retiring. This was one of the first
certified dive shops on the island. Dad spent a lot of years here,
working his way up to first mate, and scraping together enough
money to someday own his own place. Mr. Osgood gave Dad a pretty
good deal because he’d been such a loyal employee.”

“Well said, young lady!” applauded an
athletic, dark skinned man who had slipped in the rear door.
“You’re making me sound quite the hero.”

Embarrassed, Ronnie skipped over and kissed
him on the cheek. “Oh, Daddy, you know you’re the best Divemaster
in Bermuda. You’re just too modest to admit it.”

“Shh, child,” he whispered, giving her a
quick hug. “I take it these are our American TV stars?”

“Uh-huh. This one with the Paul McCartney
eyes is T.J. And this man of few words is Bortnicker.”

Jasper Goodwin shook hands with the pair as
Bortnicker went a pinkish red. “Great to have you here, boys. Let’s
have a seat and chat.” He pulled a few cane chairs over to a card
table littered with brochures featuring different Bermuda
attractions. Ronnie took a seat next to Bortnicker, raising his
already high level of self-consciousness.

When they were all settled, Jasper unrolled a
detailed chart that said
Sites of Bermuda Shipwrecks
.
“Right,” he began. “Now, look at this map, boys. As you probably
noticed on your flight in, Bermuda is ringed with coral reefs. In
fact, the first British colony started here in 1609 came about
because a ship called the
Sea Venture
that was bound for
Virginia hit the rocks here. Salvaging the contents of wrecked
ships in our relatively shallow and clear waters became a major
industry for the settlers and was later sanctioned by Governor
Nathaniel Butler. Bermudian salvagers of one stripe or another
would continue this practice even after World War II.”

“So there are lots of wrecks around the
island?” asked T.J.

“Well,” said Goodwin, rubbing his
grey-flecked black goatee, “look for yourself. This chart alone
features 30 or so wrecks that have been identified. Overall, there
have been reports of over 250 sunken vessels at various depths,
ranging from the 1600s to the present. Oops—please excuse me for a
moment.”

The passengers from
Reef Seeker I
had
by now gathered their gear and come inside, escorted by a
whipcord-thin white man in a Blue Lagoon Dive Shop golf shirt and
white cargo shorts. Jasper approached each and every client,
inquired as to whether they’d enjoyed themselves—they most
certainly had—and pointed out the various tee shirts, tank tops and
hats bearing the Blue Lagoon logo that they might want to purchase
as a keepsake of their underwater adventure. Ronnie hustled over to
the cash register to run them up, and the white man handed out
certificates to the clients to commemorate the dive. When they’d
all been seen to, Jasper and his daughter rejoined the boys, who
were still pouring over the chart.

“Sorry, gentlemen, business and all that,”
said Jasper.

“No problem,” said T.J. “Seems like they had
a great dive.”

“Oh, yes. Today we had optimum
conditions—water temperature 80 degrees and around 100 feet
visibility. So, we checked out some marine life and then dove on
the wreck of the
Constellation
, an American schooner that
sank in 1943. Perfect for recreational divers.”

“I’ll go wash down the boat,” called the
white man, who had finished lugging the air tank inside for
refilling.

“Brilliant, Skeeter. I’ll join you in a bit.”
Jasper traced a calloused finger along the South Shore, which was
sprinkled with ship icons and names. “All right, boys. What I’m
pointing to here is the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, the oldest cast-iron
lighthouse in the world, located in Southampton Parish. I believe
you’re staying nearby at the Jobson’s Cove Apartments?”

“Right,” said T.J.

“Okay, well you must realize that the
lighthouse didn’t go up until the mid-1800s, not that shipwrecks
didn’t occur way after that and even today. But back in the 1700s
it was quite difficult to see at night, even in clear weather under
a bright moon.

“A few months ago I took a small party out to
a wreck called the
Mary Celeste—
”

“I saw that ship on
Deep Sea
Detectives
!” broke in Bortnicker.

“I thought you said he was quiet,” Jasper
said playfully to his daughter.

“Well, TV people
can
be rather
dramatic, Daddy,” she replied, rubbing Bortnicker’s shoulder
supportively.

“I suppose. Anyway, I got everyone in the
water and then decided to have a dip myself, maybe catch a lobster
or spear a hogfish for dinner. And the most extraordinary thing
occurred.”

The boys inched closer on their seats like
they used to with Capt. Kenny.

“I was swimming along, hugging the bottom,
when I topped a rise and then looked down. Now, we had a couple
hurricanes blow through during the fall, and it must’ve disrupted
the landscape down there dramatically, because I came upon the
remains of the timbers of a very old ship.”

“Cool!” said T.J. “And no one had ever seen
it before?”

“Apparently not. It was like Neptune had
pulled back a curtain for me or something.

“Of course, it’s not like you see in cartoons
or whatever—an intact ship sitting upright on the ocean bottom. As
I said, I found the outline of the ship’s ribs and some ballast
stones. There were even a few coral-encrusted cannon lying
about.”

“Any treasure?” said T.J.

Jasper Goodwin gave a hearty laugh. “No,
boys, no pieces of eight, or emeralds winking at me from the ocean
floor. The ship—which appears to be what we call a Bermuda
Sloop—lies in less than 30 feet of water, so I would imagine most
of whatever it held was salvaged years ago. That doesn’t mean
there’s nothing left there, however.”

“Why do they call it a Bermuda Sloop?” asked
Bortnicker.

“Well, basically because the design was
conceived on the island, a fore-and-aft rigged vessel with anywhere
from one to three sails. It was sleek and highly maneuverable,
which was essential to pirates who wanted to surprise the more
unwieldy treasure galleons you see in those fanciful Johnny Depp
movies—”

“I think he’s cute, actually,” Ronnie
whispered in Bortnicker’s ear, her warm breath making his eyes
widen.

“—
and then escape quickly around the
reefs and small islands both here and throughout the Caribbean.
Later the vessels were used in the merchant trade, but the sturdy
construction of Bermudian cedar was highly rot-resistant, and the
low density of the wood made the ships lighter, faster, and more
durable. What little wood I found was cedar.”

“But how could you possibly connect it to
William Tarver?” asked T.J.

“Good question. Well, it was no secret that
Sir William had made his fortune through privateering, though he
remains a somewhat shadowy figure in Bermudian history. If your
investigation team is going to truly prepare for this enterprise, I
can’t stress enough the importance of a trip to our Maritime Museum
to speak with a Bermuda historian. But there’s long been a rumor
that somehow, Tarver’s ship—a Bermuda Sloop called the
Steadfast
, sank off the southern coast of the island. How
and why is equally mysterious, and so far any information that
might be known by the historical authorities has not been freely
shared.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t cooperate with
your group. In fact, it must have been the National Heritage Trust
that contacted The Adventure Channel in the first place. And I
suppose that someone mentioned my claim to your people as well,
because here you are.”

“Your claim?” asked Bortnicker.

“Oh, yes, let me explain. To be brief, our
government enacted in the 1960s a series of strict laws to restrict
the removal of any artifacts—including those classified as
treasure—from wrecks in our local waters. If someone such as myself
discovers a wreck and they want to dig on it, they must, for a
nominal fee, file an exclusivity claim with the island’s Curator of
Wrecks. Then, they must turn over all that is found to the
government.”

“So there must be a lot of guys out there
with salvage permits,” said T.J.

“Actually, no. Most discoveries go
unreported, because the finder wouldn’t want to turn over those
wonderful doubloons and silver bars, would he? So they are dived
upon illegally, and whatever is found gets sold through back
channels.”

“So, why did you apply for a permit,
then?”

Goodwin sighed as his daughter shook her head
slowly in disappointment. “I figured that most of what was of any
value was long gone—”

“And you’re disgustingly honest!” cut in
Ronnie, before Jasper silenced her with a stern look.

“I’m looking at this from a purely historical
perspective. That’s why I welcomed the opportunity to have you boys
join me here.”

“But we’re not exactly crack archaeologists,”
said Bortnicker. “Besides, our schedule will give us only a couple
diving days, max.”

“Well, I’ll take all the help I can get. If
we can find just one artifact that is linked to Sir William or the
Steadfast
, it would be incredible.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, a monogrammed piece of silver or china.
Or, of course, the ship’s bell. I was able to make out the
inscription of the year on one of the cannon, and it fits the
period, so we are, as you Yanks like to say, ‘in the
ballpark’.”

“So, when do we dive?” asked T.J.
eagerly.

“Well, I have scheduled us for Tuesday and
Thursday of this week. Let’s start with that and see how much time
you’ve got to give it. You’ve brought your certification
credentials, I hope?”

The boys immediately fished the PADI cards
Capt. Kenny had awarded them from their wallets and flashed them
proudly.

“Splendid. So many of our clients are new to
the sport and most just want to poke about the reefs and look at
tropical fish, so it’s refreshing to meet people your age with an
interest in history—”

“And in a great man,” said Ronnie with a
definitive air.

“You think so?” asked T.J., happy to at last
hear from someone who was willing to even discuss Sir William
Tarver.