Paltry savings accounts and rare 401Ks on Smith and Tangier Island were raided by the careful residents to stake the next phase of the plan. Ben soon received news from New York City of the arrival of several parcels, care of a tight-lipped army buddy who lived there. One large package sent there contained an electric furnace used to fire ceramics. With a few modifications, it could melt metal. This same friend also took delivery of a few antique plumbago crucibles in various sizes. And there was a large shipment of modeling wax, as well as plaster of Paris. No one hacking and scanning the delivery services would know a foundry was being established in Soho on behalf of a Smith Islander.
With the prospect of wedding photographs looming, LuAnna went to a wiz of a dentist up in Kingstown. He had an office with picture windows overlooking the Chester River. For three days straight, LuAnna watched the languid water flow by while the dentist worked cosmetic miracles on her chipped teeth. She overnighted with Ben at the Imperial Hotel in Chestertown. When the dentist was done, LuAnna’s smile was as bright and gorgeous as ever. Just in time for the big day.
Reverend Mosby met Ben and LuAnna at the saltbox one chilly January morning. After a sip of coffee, Mosby said, “My mother once explained our most sacred rites like this. ‘Hatch, match, and dispatch.’ It’s rare we get two in the same week, for the same folks.”
LuAnna was at once downcast and confused. “We’re getting married, but I’m not expecting now.”
Ben took her hand, and said, “Remember when you suggested I should melt that bar of gold into a widgeon mold?”
Her confusion deepened, but her cheeks colored. “Yes. I was so mad at you.”
Ben said, “It was a good idea. I don’t know if you heard us talking more about it downstairs the night we got you back from the lighthouse.”
LuAnna’s was not following, but she covered. “If I did hear you big mucky-mucks making top secret plans, I don’t recall. Would you have to kill me if I did?”
Ben exchanged a glance with Reverend Mosby. Ben surprised her, saying, “Something of that nature.” Ben went on, “LuAnna, that idea you tossed out is exactly what we’re going to do. Turn the whole lot of that gold into small pieces of artwork, and sell them off. I need your help.”
“I’m retired. A woman of leisure. Of course I’ll help.”
Ben eased ahead. “We won’t be able to do the work here. We won’t be able to market the gold under our name. Could you stand a long honeymoon?”
“I’m listening.”
Ben took her other hand. “In New York City?”
LuAnna’s eyes gleamed. “It’s an island. Hell, it’s an island with a Fifth Avenue! Who’d mind such a thing?”
“You might, when you hear what’s involved.”
LuAnna looked to Reverend Mosby for clarity, but he was absorbed, studying his fingernails. She said, “Sounds weird. What’s up your sleeve, Ben Blackshaw?”
Ben said, “The gold seems inaccessible to Chalk and his people because of the radiation. But I take him to be the vengeful sort. The only way you and I can be safe from the likes of him is if we aren’t here. If we are no longer viable targets, to the best of everybody’s understanding. We need to disappear. More than disappear.”
LuAnna was getting the picture. “Like a Waterman’s Witness Protection Program? It’s called The Marsh.”
“It’s a bit more serious, and for longer. That’s why I asked Reverend Mosby to join us.”
The Reverend pulled a pad of paper and a pen from his worn old briefcase, and rested a pair of reading glasses on his nose. He smiled. “Let’s start by talking about your wedding vows. Then we’ll work our way around to your eulogies.”
EPILOGUE
Reverend Mosby spoke the words for Ben and LuAnna on their day. It was a beautiful wedding attended by everyone from both Smith and Tangier Islands. Knocker Ellis, with his half of all the gold, was now the single richest man around. He accepted the honor of giving LuAnna away.
Only once did Ben cast an eye around the assembled well-wishers for sign of Dick Blackshaw. Nowhere in sight. For a moment Ben wondered if Dick had become Magwitch, the criminal benefactor lurking unseen in the marsh, to his Pip. Regardless, his father had certainly delivered on the promise of great expectations. And yet it appeared he was gone again. Perhaps for now. Maybe forever. No way to tell with that one.
The joyful wedding was soon followed by tragedy. A terrible accident. The local papers said a deadrise called Miss Dotsy was discovered swamped near the Martin Wildlife Refuge. The occupants were missing, presumed drowned in a storm. They disappeared at the start of their wintry honeymoon cruise on the Chesapeake they both loved. Their bodies were never found. No one on Smith Island asked what possessed them to tour the Chesapeake in a small open boat in January. Yet that is how the lovely bride, Natural Resources Police Corporal LuAnna Bryce, Retired, and Ben Blackshaw, her waterman groom, were lost; vanishing together on the very same day, and in the very same flaw.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Blake Whitehill is a Maryland Eastern Shore native, and an award-winning screenwriter at the Hamptons International Film Festival, and the Hudson Valley Film Festival. In addition, he is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award winner for his feature script U.X.O. (UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE). He is also a contributing writer to Chesapeake Bay Magazine and The Audiophile Voice. DEADRISE and NITRO EXPRESS are the first two novels of the Ben Blackshaw Series.
Find out more about the author, his blog, upcoming releases, and the Chesapeake Bay at:
www.robertblakewhitehill.com