Seventh Chapter Page 2

  “Hey there, pretty lady.”

  “Hey, Sully,” I responded to the local bar owner and all-around flirt. “I’m surprised to see you here. You don’t seem like the political sort.”

  “Normally I’m not, but Jeffrey Riverton has been making some noise about buying up a bunch of properties on Main Street, and I’d hate to see that happen. Our little piece of heaven is quaint. It’s the independent business owner who’s going to keep it that way. Glen Pierson understands that. I think Quarterly does as well.”

  “What about Brenda Tamari?”

  Sully shrugged. “I figure she doesn’t really have a shot at one of the seats, so my efforts are better served backing Pierson and Quarterly.”

  I frowned. “Why don’t you think Brenda has a shot? Is it because she’s a woman?”

  “It’s exactly because she’s a woman. The island council has historically been a group of powerful men. I realize that idea might be a bit antiquated, but I don’t see it changing anytime soon. You’re new to the island, so you may not realize that the folks in these parts want to adhere to tradition, and right or wrong, our tradition is that the council is a meeting of men.”

  I rolled my eyes. When I’d moved from New York to Gull Island, I knew I was going to have to learn to deal with a slower pace and a more conservative culture, but I hadn’t known the move was going to transport me back to the fifties.

  ******

  By the time I was able to sneak out of the meeting and return to the resort, where I lived with my half brother, Garrett, and ten other writers, Jack had arrived. We quickly caught up on our evenings while we wolfed down sandwiches. Usually, I took the time to prepare a meal, but we didn’t want to be late joining the others in the living room. When I’d walked through, I’d seen George had already set chairs around the fireplace, and several of the writers had already gathered to chat.

  “Three house fires in three weeks is really concerning me,” I said as I dug into my tuna on toast.

  “It does seem like a pattern is emerging. Not only does it look like all three fires were intentionally set but they’re similar in terms of size and location as well.”

  “I can’t believe we’re dealing with another arsonist after what happened last year.”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess arson is fairly common. All we can do right now is wait and see how it all turns out. How did the question-and-answer session go?”

  He agreed with my opinion that it would be nice to have a female presence on the council, and also understood the importance of tradition and those who would fight to keep it. I made a comment about a tight race having the potential to create friction, and Jack said the campaign would most likely get nasty in the final weeks before the election in November. To this point, both Brenda and William had played nice, but Riverton had been campaigning hard since this past June, and I had the sense that Glen Pierson was about to start playing dirty as well.

  As soon as we finished eating, we headed into the living room to join the others. George, a writer of traditional whodunit mysteries, started off the weekly meeting of the Mystery Mastermind Group at the Gull Island Writers’ Retreat with a formal statement of the issue he was presenting.

  “Thank you, everyone, for allowing me to speak on behalf of one of our temporary renters, Bosley Newman. Bosley isn’t only a fellow author I admire greatly; he’s been a good friend for over thirty years. As you all know, Bosley has been working on a historical novel that’s based on the history of the lighthouses along the East Coast. The book includes facts relating to each lighthouse, as well as the folklore and legends surrounding each of the ten structures he’s highlighting.”

  We knew all this, but everyone listened politely while George worked through the background. Providing a formal setup, whether it was necessary or not, had become our tradition. “Bosley arrived on Gull Island two weeks ago to research the lighthouse on Skull Island for the seventh chapter in his book. I believe most, if not all of you have had the opportunity to chat with him. The two of us have been getting together every couple of days to discuss his progress. The last time I spoke to him was on Friday of last week. He told me that he’d uncovered an amazing secret that might very well affect some individuals living on Gull Island today. He didn’t go into any detail then, but we made plans to meet for lunch on Saturday. He never showed. I left several messages on his cell and have gone by his cabin on numerous occasions since he missed our lunch. In the past, if he’s had to cancel plans we’ve had, he’s always called to let me know about it. The fact that he isn’t returning my calls has me concerned.”

  “It sounds like you’re worried Bosley has met with foul play,” Brit Baxter, writer of chic lit, commented.

  “The thought has crossed my mind.”

  “Do you know where Bosley planned to go on Friday?” I asked as I scooted closer to the crackling fire to ward off a chill I couldn’t quite shake. “Did he have interviews set up?”

  “He told me that he’d been looking through some old diaries that morning, but he didn’t say where he was headed later that afternoon. He might have been following up on the secret he believed he’d uncovered, but he also mentioned earlier in the week that he needed photographs of the lighthouse for the book, so I suppose it’s possible he might have rented a boat and gone out to the island. But he may have taken care of the photos earlier in the week and not mentioned it.”

  “How far away is the island?” I wondered.

  “About an hour by boat,” George answered.

  “Is the lighthouse operational?”

  George shook his head. “Not for almost a century.”

  There was silence in the room as everyone took a minute to digest what he had shared. The cold cases we’d worked on in the past had been relevant to an extent, but other than the missing-sister case we’d worked on over the summer, none had been urgent. A writer who had been missing for a few days did seem to add an element of immediacy.

  “How old is this lighthouse exactly?” Jack asked.

  My brother, Garrett Hanford, who had recently graduated from a wheelchair to a walker after suffering a stroke, said, “It dates back more than a century, although the island’s history goes back farther than that.”

  Jack raised a brow. “So this secret Bosley was talking about could be centuries old?”

  “Perhaps,” George answered. “If I had to guess, though, I’d say whatever Bosley found most likely originated within the past hundred years.”

  “Is the island inhabited?” I asked.

  “Not currently,” George answered.

  “The lighthouse was first built in the early 1800s by English settlers,” Meg informed us. “It was manned and operational until the 1920s, although the village was mostly deserted following a devastating hurricane in 1893.”

  “So the lighthouse keeper lived on the island alone after the village was deserted?” I said.

  George nodded. “The accounting of what happened is sketchy, but there are documents that claim he lived alone there over a thirty-year span. There are other stories that state that while the hurricane devastated the island, there were some inhabitants who held fast and stayed to rebuild. I’m not certain of the exact timeline, but, as I said, I know the island is completely deserted now and has been since 1924, when the lighthouse was completely abandoned.”

  “Why was it abandoned?” Jack inquired.

  “It’s said the lighthouse was deserted after the last lighthouse keeper died under mysterious circumstances,” George explained. “The fact that the term mysterious circumstances has been used in relation to the death of this man makes me wonder if the secret Bosley uncovered has something to do with that event.”

  “So, you’re thinking it was Bosley’s research that might have gotten him into trouble with someone committed to protecting this secret?” suggested Clara Kline, a writer of paranormal mysteries.

  “Perhaps,” George said.

  “As interesting as this sounds, I’m about to head
out on my book tour, so I don’t think I’ll be able to help out with this one,” Alex Cole, a fun and flirty millennial who’d made his first million writing science fiction when he was just twenty-two, informed us. “If you haven’t figured things out by the time I get back, I’ll jump in then.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Good luck with the tour. The book’s fabulous.”

  “Thanks. The tour is going to be grueling, but I should be back by Thanksgiving.”

  “We’re planning to do dinner here again,” I informed Alex. We’d shared our first holiday meal a year ago, and it looked as if it was going to become a tradition.

  “Have you spoken to Rick about your concern about the disappearance of your friend?” Vikki Vance, my best friend and a romance author, asked George.

  “I mentioned it to him, but I don’t have enough information to file a missing persons report. At least not yet.”

  “I can do an internet search to see if he’s visited any of the chat rooms he prefers or his social media sites,” Brit offered. “I seem to remember him saying he belonged to several chat rooms frequented by academics and historians. If I can find him in any one location, I should be able to map his movements from there. I should also be able to figure out if he’s been online since you last spoke to him.”

  “I’m not sure how I can help with this one, but I’m willing to do whatever you need,” Vikki offered. “Gull Island is a small community. It shouldn’t be hard to piece together his actions in the days leading up to his disappearance. It sounds as if he was out and about interviewing people.”

  “He spoke to me on several occasions,” Meg said. “I know he also met with Sam Castle, Ron Remand, Zane Carson, and Billy Waller.”

  “Council members and descendants of the four founding fathers,” I said for those who didn’t have this piece of information.

  “He asked me about Trout Kellerman a few days back as well,” Garrett added.

  Kellerman was a fourth-generation fisherman who knew a lot about the area. There were others who had similar backgrounds. I was certain if Bosley had been thorough, the list of men and women he’d interviewed had been extensive.

  “Maybe we should put our heads together and come up with a list of people Bosley would most likely have spoken to,” Jack suggested. “Once we have it, we can backtrack.”

  “We should start a whiteboard,” I added.

  “I’ll grab one,” Alex offered.

  “Thank you, everyone,” George said as Alex headed up the stairs to the room we used as a communal den. “I appreciate your help with this matter. As soon as we have our list, we can talk to everyone Bosley might have spoken to. Maybe he said something to someone that will provide a clue as to where he might be now.”

  I got up and refilled everyone’s coffee cups while we waited for Alex to return. Clara had made pumpkin cake with sour cream frosting, and I served that as well. The fire in the kitchen was burning cheerily, providing for a level of warmth that hadn’t quite reached the larger living room despite the large stone fireplace that took up almost an entire wall. I loved living in this big old house with Garrett and Clara, but the insulation was pretty much nonexistent, and it got quite drafty during the winter months. I sliced the cake, grabbed some plates, then went back to the living room to serve it.

  ******

  After the meeting broke up, Alex, Brit, and Vikki went back to their cabins, and Garrett and Clara went into the den to watch a movie. George and Meg went out for coffee, and Jack and I took our dog, Kizzy, out for a walk. Jack had recently moved into the cabin he’d built on the south end of the beach. He still owned his mansion on the hill, but he’d said more than once that he intended to sell it once he was settled. The only problem with the three-bedroom, two-bath cabin was that it didn’t have a garage. There was outdoor parking for the writers’ retreat residents, but Jack had an expensive sports car that really needed to be kept indoors. If he did sell the mansion, where he had the car now, he’d either have to store the car somewhere or sell it.

  “What do you think about Bosley’s disappearance?” I asked as we drifted from the walkway that wound through the resort to the sandy beach.

  Jack slipped his hand into mine. “I’m not sure. The fact that he’s missing concerns me. George has known him a long time, and he seems convinced he wouldn’t simply disappear. But Brit thinks he might go off on his own and lose track of time. I guess we can’t know which it is until we start digging into whatever clues I hope Bosley left for us to follow.”

  “I hope this isn’t too hard on George. He hasn’t seemed his usual robust self lately. I almost wonder if he’s dealing with a medical issue he isn’t talking about.”

  Jack picked up a stick and tossed it down the beach. Kizzy ran along the waterline, kicking up sand and water as she hurried to retrieve her prize. “I suppose he’s getting to the age where health concerns are more common,” he agreed. “All we can do is help him as much as we can so the entire burden of finding his friend doesn’t fall on his shoulders.”

  Kizzy rambled up and shook her wet fur all over Jack and me. Then she set the stick at Jack’s feet and waited for him to throw it again. Jack obliged. “I wonder if there are any articles about the lighthouse or Skull Island archived in the newspaper’s database. I’ll make a note to do a search tomorrow. And I think we should talk to Rick. If nothing else, he should be able to pull any other police reports relating to Skull Island.”

  “The island has been deserted for almost a century. Do you really think there’ll be reports?” I asked.

  “I realize there are no residents currently living there, but all the islands in this area attract boat traffic and weekend campers. It’s possible there could have been incidents that would have generated reports. If not, at least we’ll know nothing really gnarly has occurred there in the past few decades.”

  I couldn’t help but think of other islands nearby where I knew murders and mysterious deaths had occurred. The images in my mind made me cringe.

  “I think this little lady is going to need a shower before we let her loose in the cabin,” I said when Kizzy ran up, dropped her stick, and rolled in the sand.

  “It’s a good thing I had the foresight to put an outdoor shower on the deck. We’ll rinse her off, then hang out in the kitchen on the tile floor until she dries. I don’t want wet dog in my bed again.”

  “You could make her sleep in her own bed on the floor,” I pointed out.

  “I could, but I kind of like her keeping my feet warm.”

  I rolled my eyes. Jack talked the talk, making it seem as if he was the boss in his relationship with the adorable bundle of fur that had captured both our hearts, but it didn’t take a genius to see it was Kizzy who ran the show.

  Jack called her over and turned on the outdoor shower as soon as we arrived at his place, using the handheld wand to hose her off, then stepped back while she shook. Once she’d gotten rid of most of the water in her coat, he grabbed a towel from the cabinet near the shower and dried her the rest of the way. “I have a bottle of wine. Do you want to come in?” Jack asked.

  I hesitated. “I’d love a glass of wine, but it’s getting late.”

  “So stay. We’re both going in to the newspaper tomorrow. We can ride there together.”

  I glanced at the main house, then back at Jack. I stayed over with him on a semiregular basis, so Garrett and Clara knew to lock up if I wasn’t home when they went to bed. I had a key if I did come back. “Okay,” I agreed. “I guess it would be nice to share a bottle of wine. I wanted to talk to you about the article for the Harvest Festival anyway. I’m meeting Brooke for breakfast to discuss the specifics.”

  “Will you need a car to meet her?”

  I shook my head. “No. We’re meeting at the little café just down the street from the newspaper. The festival is going to run Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon, so Brooke wants to be sure we have a big spread on the event. There are several new venues this year, as well as t
he classics everyone looks forward to.”

  “I saved pages two and three for the article and photos,” Jack informed me. “We’ll need to have it formatted by the end of the day tomorrow. I need to follow up on a few things in the morning, but I should be able to work on it in the afternoon.”

  “Are you still planning to volunteer?”

  Jack nodded. “I told Brooke to sign us up for several shifts, as long as we had them at the same time. I’d like to have a chance to take some photos for the newspaper, and maybe interview a few people so we can do a follow-up in the Halloween edition.” Jack took my hand in his. “I’d also like time to take in the events with my girl. Last year we were so busy, we didn’t really enjoy the festivities.”

  “I’m really looking forward to this year. I was thinking of doing dinner at the house on Halloween again. I know Alex will be away, but I think everyone else will be around. We can make nachos and watch cheesy horror movies.”

  “Sounds like fun. We’ll need some pumpkins to carve.”

  “We can pick some up this week. I want to stop by the dime store to pick up some little gifts to send to Abby and her kids.”

  Abby Boston was a young widow raising five children. The Mastermind group had sort of adopted her and her children during her pregnancy with her daughter, Tammy. After the baby was born and Abby had been able to collect the life insurance money her husband, who had been a firefighter, had provided for her, Jack had helped her out with a down payment on a house in Georgia, where she had two cousins and an aunt. Abby and her children seemed to be doing well and didn’t actually need our help any longer, but everyone had grown fond of the little family, and we all sent gifts from time to time.

  “It looks like you have a call.” I nodded to Jack’s phone, which was on silent but was vibrating.