From King’s Wharf, we took the ferry to historic St George, where we picked up a pocket map of the town at the King’s Square Visitor’s Center not far from a huge bronze sculpture of George Somers, who founded the place in 1609 when his ship, Sea Venture, wrecked on a nearby reef. We strolled along the narrow lanes, exploring Bridge House and the Old Carriage House before stumbling onto Somers Garden, named after old George himself.
We toured the quiet garden – sunk several feet below street level and thoughtfully planted with native specimens – pausing at a charming little moon gate to take pictures.
‘ “Somers intended to return to Bermuda to collect additional provisions for the Virginians in Jamestown,” ’ Ruth read from the brochure we’d picked up, ‘ “however, he died on the return voyage. In the event of his death he asked to be buried in Bermuda. His nephew partially honored the request by taking out Somers’ heart and entrails and burying them…” ’ Ruth paused and caught Julie’s eye. ‘You’ll like this, Julie. Says here that the nephew sent his uncle’s body back to England in a barrel of rum but buried his innards here.’
Julie looked up from her iPhone and rolled her eyes. ‘Gross.’
‘The amount of time you spend on your iPhone, Julie, anyone would think you’re bored,’ Ruth teased.
Julie glanced up again from the tiny screen. ‘Bored? Nuh uh. When I’m bored I send a text message to a random number saying, like, ‘ “Don’t worry, I’ve hidden the body” ’ or ‘ “I’m pregnant.” ’ But she tucked the phone into her pocket. ‘Signal’s not very strong here, anyway, Aunt Hannah. I was just playing Bejeweled.’
‘She spends hours playing that game,’ her mother complained.
As for me, I could have spent hours exploring perfect little St Peters Church on Duke of York Street, built in 1612 and the oldest Anglican Church in the western hemisphere. When we’d exhausted the possibilities at St Peters, the church warden on duty, a white-haired, grandmotherly type, directed us up the hill to the Unfinished Church, a massive Gothic revival ruin perched, cathedral-like, on a hill overlooking the sea. With its towering stone walls, brick columns, grassy floor, and only the sky for a roof, it was the sort of atmospheric ruin, like Tintern Abbey, that sends poets and painters into creative spasms. I had to confess that it warmed my unapologetically Anglophilian heart.
‘Was it wrecked by a hurricane?’ Julie wanted to know.
‘Worse than that. The parishioners squabbled for years over the money it was costing. In the end, it was never finished. Just sat here, abandoned. Hurricanes since then have done the rest.’
Ignoring well-placed signs that warned visitors against venturing inside the crumbling ruin, Julie dashed down the grassy strip that had once been the nave, spinning like a ballerina.
‘Julie Lynn, get back here!’ Georgina called half-heartedly, but she was smiling when she said it.
Julie skipped back in our direction. ‘This would be a cool place to have a wedding,’ she said breathlessly, then stopped in her tracks. Something over my shoulder had apparently caught her attention. ‘Say, aren’t they those people from the ship?’
I turned to see where she was pointing. A group of around twenty was straggling up the steep grade of Government Hill Road. ‘I think every tourist in town today is from the ship, Julie. Which people in particular?’
‘The ones from Maine.’
I pushed my sunglasses up on my forehead and squinted into the crowd. Indeed, Cliff and Liz Rowe were chugging our way, leading the ragged pack. The photographer, Buck Carney, trailed along after them, like a caboose.
We hadn’t seen Cliff or Liz for a couple of days, so when they reached the church a few minutes later, we invited them to join us for coffee after they finished touring the ruin. ‘Or are you obliged to stick with the group?’ I inquired.
‘Not at all,’ Liz laughed. ‘And I’d welcome a little vacation from some of them, to tell the truth. See that woman in the yellow slicker over there? Honestly, I don’t see why she even bothers to leave the ship. “Can’t drink the water, can’t eat the food, don’t know what I’d do without my canned tuna and Tang,” ’ Liz quoted. ‘She’s impossible.’
I had to laugh. ‘You’ve been to St George before?’
‘Several times. Why?’
‘We’ve invited you for coffee, but we don’t have the vaguest idea where to go to get some!’
‘Well, you’re in luck,’ Cliff said, waving his arm in a forward-ho kind of way. ‘Follow me.’
Cliff led us back down Government Hill Road to an unpretentious luncheonette on York Street called Temptations Two. We placed our orders at the counter, then squeezed ourselves around a table normally reserved for four by the window, not far from the bottled drink coolers.
‘I haven’t seen much of David Warren, lately,’ I said. ‘Has he been to dinner?’
Liz nodded. ‘Every night, but he still doesn’t talk much.’
‘Do you think he’s been going on any of the excursions?’
‘I very much doubt it,’ Cliff huffed. ‘The man’s on a mission. Thinks he’s Sherlock blinking Holmes, but frankly, he’s not cut out for it.’
‘I told him he should hire a private detective,’ Liz chimed in. ‘He said he already had. The P.I. took every penny he had, and came up with virtually nothing. So David hired another one, some hotshot P.I. from Miami. Even took out a second mortgage, and cashed in one of his IRAs to pay the guy.’
‘And…?’ I prodded.
Cliff shrugged. ‘Don’t know. He’s still on David’s payroll, as far as I know. Throwing good money after bad, if you ask me.’
‘Sad,’ Ruth said. ‘The man’s obsessed.’
‘He is,’ Liz agreed, ‘but if it were my daughter who’d disappeared under similar circumstances, I’d be obsessed, too.’
Thinking about Emily, I had to agree. ‘What does he hope to do on the ship while everyone else is ashore?’ I wondered aloud.
Liz shrugged. ‘He told me he was staying on board in order to pursue some line of inquiry. Whatever that means.’
‘Means he watches too much Law and Order,’ Cliff snorted.
I rested my elbows on the table and leaned forward so I could speak without the other customers overhearing. ‘What I don’t get is this: let’s say it wasn’t an accident – that, for whatever reason, his daughter was murdered and tossed overboard. Let’s also assume, as David seems to do, that the person or persons responsible for Charlotte’s murder got away with it and are now travelling aboard the Islander.’
Everyone nodded. They were with me so far.
‘So, assuming I am the murderer, and I find out that my victim’s father is on board the same ship and, furthermore, that he is on to me… what do I do?’
I didn’t realize that Julie was paying any attention until she glanced up from the game on her iPhone and said, ‘Bash him on the head and dump him overboard, too.’
I leaned back in my chair, gently patting Julie’s ponytail as if she were a good little puppy. ‘Exactly. That’s precisely what I’d do.’
‘Maybe that’s why he’s keeping such a low profile,’ Ruth said.
‘A low profile isn’t going to cut it,’ I said. ‘What he needs to do is shake things up a little. And watch his back.’ Using a spoon, I scooped the foam out of the bottom of my cup.
Ruth fixed me with a narrow-eyed stare. ‘Hannah, you’re not going to get involved, are you?’
I paused, took a breath, poised to protest in a no-of-course-not sort of way, but I was already lying awake at night worrying about David, wondering about Charlotte, reviewing scenarios, pondering who Pia’s ‘usual suspects’ were and scribbling lists of possible suspects I’d seen at the Neptune Club reception on the pages of my mind. At lunch the other day, David had responded to my offer of help with a perfunctory don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you, but he’d been smiling when he said it, and I took that as a sign of encouragement.