Man Trouble (9 page)
“Would you schedule the guide for tomorrow morning at eight?” she asked. She could go and take a quick look at the ruins and then make it back in time for Sandra's ten
A.M.
windsurfing lesson, or whatever else was due to happen in that time slot. She had no intention of windsurfing, or of putting even one toe in the water while dressed as Sandra. She had made that very clear to Carter, but his grudging agreement didn't do much to ease Molly's mind. If she knew him, which she did, it was a sure bet that he would have something equally catastrophic planned.
“T
his carpet has been an utter disaster,” Cora Berenger said. “The company representative sold me on the durability of their new fiber blend, but they forgot to mention that it stains like a sponge. Look at that. And that.” She pointed to various shadowed spots on the low pile of the lobby carpet and shook her head, exasperated. “Totally unsuitable. Thank goodness we didn't use it in any of the guest rooms. I will never trust a carpet salesman again, as long as I live.”
“Sounds like a principle to live by,” Jake said. It was nine
P.M.
, and they were standing in the middle of the reception lobby, with Cora's charts, plans, and fabric swatches, discussing the renovation scheduled for July.
“I have half a mind to replace it all with sisal,” Cora said. “But I'm not sure it would work in the library lounge. Darling, come with me and let's go look. They have a lecture going on in there right now, but we'll be quiet and just peek in. I want your opinion, so do your best to come up with one.”
The library lounge opened onto the rear terrace of the main building. It had been decorated in a style that reminded Jake of a British colonial club from the turn of the century: ceiling fans, wicker furniture, and potted palms that brightened up mahogany walls and shelves lined with leatherbound books. The glass doors lining the far wall were all open, letting in the warm evening breeze and the faint sound of the surf.
There was a group of about thirty people in the room, sitting in chairs that had been arranged to face a smallish woman standing behind a lectern. She was speaking with animation, clearly warm to her subject, and she had the audience's rapt attention. Not a head turned to look back as Jake and Cora entered the room.
“…they were ambushed near the coast of Tortola by a heavily armed privateer sloop with a commission from the British king to take pirates, alive or dead,” the woman was saying. “The firefight shattered the
Lady Fortune
's boom and crippled the ship. When the privateer captain ordered them to surrender and prepared to board, Mary took a pistol in one hand and grabbed a cutlass with her other. ‘Fight like men,’ she cried to her crew, ‘else we'll die like dogs!'”
The woman shouted this last bit with theatrical zeal and slashed one hand through the air in front of her as if brandishing an invisible cutlass.
“My goodness,” Cora said. “Such enthusiasm.”
She began to scrutinize the carpet, but Jake kept listening to the lecturer. He wondered who the woman was, and why she looked familiar. If he had met her before, he couldn't imagine where. She had a heart-shaped face and delicate features that were almost obscured by shapeless mousy hair and glasses with thick cat-eye rims, the kind that proclaimed her to be a “Serious Intellectual.” The effect was enhanced by the fact that they kept slipping down to rest, school-marmishly, on the tip of her nose when she consulted her notes. Absently, she pushed them back up, only to have them descend again. She was not unattractive if you liked earnest, scholarly women in dowdy clothing. Jake didn't. He stared at her. He had seen her somewhere before, he decided. He was sure of it. Where?
“They fought fiercely,” the woman continued, “but they were outnumbered, and the privateer captain knew that the king had put a price on Mary's head. She was taken to Antigua in chains. Sources say that during the trial, people lined up ten deep outside the courthouse, just to get a look at her. The crowd moaned in horror when they heard the sentence. Death. She was to be hanged by the neck until dead.”
Her voice dropped, emphasizing the words, and a ripple of excitement moved through her audience.
She has them in the palm of her hand,
Jake thought, impressed.
“Everyone knew that she was a criminal, but they didn't seem to care. She was a celebrity. It didn't hurt that she was also young and beautiful. It's hard to know now which of the stories about her were true and which were just gossip and speculation, but we do know one thing for sure. The game wasn't over, because Mary still had an ace up her sleeve. Any guesses as to what it was?”
“Her crew broke her out of prison?” asked a thin, balding man, who—judging from the expression on his face—did like earnest, scholarly women.
The woman shook her head. “No. Anyone else? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't something that your average pirate could have done.”
“She slaughtered all of the prison guards!” cried a teenage girl excitedly. “And escaped!”
“No,” said the woman, smiling. “Mary's trump card was that she was pregnant.”
The audience murmured with interest, and she continued, “Not only pregnant, but bearing the child of John Whittaker, the governor of Antigua. He had been her lover for several years, which probably had something to do with her amazing ability to identify the ships carrying the richest cargo.”
“Way to go, Mary,” said the balding man.
“He used his connections, probably to save his own neck as much as hers. She was eventually granted amnesty by the crown on the premise that she had repented of her ‘Lewd and Wicked Behavior.’ She settled on a small island near Antigua, where she raised her son and spent her remaining years running a profitable sugar plantation.”
“Aren't we near Antigua?” asked another man. “Is her island around here somewhere?”
The woman beamed. She had obviously hoped that someone would ask that question. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “we're on her island right now. This is where Mary Morgan retired. I've been told that the ruins of her sugar plantation are over on the west side of the island.”
There were excited questions from the audience, but Jake had abruptly stopped listening. He stared at the woman. Ruins of a sugar plantation? The west side of the island? This island?
His
island?
“God
damn
it,” he said through his teeth. The “ruins” that this cursed woman was referring to, as reverentially as if they were some kind of Heritage Trust site, were the very same pathetic piles of rocks currently being removed by his workmen in preparation for construction of the new Gold Bay golf course.
“I haven't seen the site yet,” the woman continued, “but I'm taking a drive out there tomorrow morning at eight. If anyone is interested, you're welcome to join me.”
Jake saw several enthusiastic nods in the audience, and his mouth compressed into a thin line.
Over my dead body,
he thought. First, he had no intention of letting a bunch of tourists crawl all over his construction site. Someone was bound to get hurt and hold him liable. Second, the last thing that he needed was to have some little old lady from the Pirate Protection Society decide that Mary Morgan's sugar mills had critical historical value and start lobbying to protect and preserve them. If that happened, he was facing either a PR disaster or the loss of several million pre-invested development dollars. Or both.
He seized his mother by the arm, and—ignoring her surprised protest—walked her out of the lounge and into the lobby.
“This is a joke,” he said angrily. “Who the hell is that woman, and who booked her to speak here?”
Cora looked astonished by his vehemence. “I have no idea,” she said. “Why? What's wrong?”
Tersely, he explained, watching her eyes widen as she understood.
“Good heavens,” she said. “I wasn't even listening, can you believe it? I was thinking about the carpet, and I didn't hear a word. Where on earth did she get the notion that those old ruins belonged to…who was it? A famous woman pirate? I didn't even know that there were female pirates, did you?”
“No,” Jake said. “I didn't. I've never heard of Mary Morgan, and neither had anyone else, until that damn woman showed up. She has some cockeyed plan to take her lecture group on a tour of the ruins tomorrow morning, and I don't have to be psychic to tell you exactly what will happen when they get there, all dewy-eyed with the thrill of history, and find our bulldozers sitting on Mary's lawn.”
“That won't happen,” Cora said firmly. “I'll take care of it. I'll also find out who asked her to speak. The activities staff is usually very good, so I'm sure that it was just a mis-communication.”
“That was one hell of a miscommunication,” Jake said. “Your activities staff appears to be totally clueless. I can't believe that we paid to fly in a historian to find a pirate on my golf course. This could end up being the most expensive lecture in history.”
Cora patted him on the arm. “You're overreacting, darling. Don't worry about it. I'll talk to the historian myself and explain the situation. I'm sure that she'll understand.”
“I
spoke with that professor,” Cora said the next morning at breakfast.
It was just after eight o'clock, and they were sitting at a small table on the terrace of the villa, enjoying the early morning sunshine and the view of the ocean, spread out below them like a rumpled blue blanket.
“What professor?” Jake asked, buttering a slice of toast. The breeze was warm and light, and it rustled the pages of the
Miami Herald,
which had come in by ferry at dawn.
“Dr. Shaw,” Cora said. “You know, the woman who gave the lecture last night. Her name is Molly Shaw.”
“Her name is mud,” Jake said. “Did you cancel her field trip?”
“Darling, I didn't
cancel
it. You can't just order these academic people around. You have to reason with them. I spoke with her after the lecture, and she was very agreeable.”
“Good. And did you find out which genius on the activities staff brought her here?”
“They didn't bring her here—she's a guest. She was very kindly filling in for a last-minute cancellation.”
“A guest? They must be paying professors pretty well these days. Where is she staying?”
“Cottage Five,” Cora said. “With Sandra St. Claire, can you believe it? Apparently, she's helping Sandra with the research on her new book.”
“That's it,” Jake said abruptly. He put down the toast and picked up his coffee cup. That was why the woman had looked familiar. She was the one he had seen the other morning, sitting on the deck of Cottage Five in a big white robe. The one who had fled from him as if he were a marauding Mongol. “Strange woman,” he said, drinking his coffee.
“Not at all,” Cora said. “She was very nice. She's an associate professor at Belden College in Wisconsin. I liked her. You might even like her.”
“I like her just fine as long as she stays away from my golf course,” Jake said.
“Well, actually, she was planning to go over to the site this morning. She's there right now, I think.”
“What!” Jake put down his cup with a sharp clatter of china, and Cora winced. He stared at his mother. “You just said that you spoke to her. You said that she was agreeable. What do you mean, she's there right now?”
“Darling, calm down. I could hardly forbid her to take a car and go exploring! She's going alone, though, with a staff guide. She agreed that it would be a bad idea to take the lecture group, because of the safety issues. I thought it was a reasonable compromise.”
“Great,” Jake said grimly. “Just great.”
“It's for the best. This way, she'll see that there's hardly anything left of the old plantation—”
“And blame me for it. Publicly, no doubt.”
Cora sighed impatiently. “We've barely touched the site. It was a ruin when we leased the island. It'll be obvious that there's nothing worth preserving, so stop worrying and eat your eggs. You've been under a lot of pressure, and I think your nerves must be strained, because you're blowing this out of proportion. This isn't…Jake! What are you doing? You haven't finished your breakfast.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Jake said, tossing his napkin onto the table.
He had seen—even if his mother had not—the glow of excitement and passion on Dr. Molly Shaw's face last night when she spoke about Mary Morgan. That had not been the face of a nice, reasonable, or agreeable young woman. That face had belonged to the kind of woman who might very well chain herself to one of his bulldozers and then call the
Daily News
to tell them all about it.
The old plantation was on the western side of the island, on the low, gently rising slope of the mountain, reachable only by a dirt track hacked out of the tangled rain forest greenery. It was obviously not a popular destination, which surprised Molly. It had taken her less than ten minutes of exploration to become convinced that the site had enormous potential. On a previous trip to the Caribbean, years ago, she had visited the Betty's Hope project on Antigua, an old sugar estate that had been restored and turned into a historical museum. The same thing could—and should—be done with Mary's property.
What remained of the old estate was almost too good to be true. To the uneducated eye, the plantation was just a decaying pile of rubble, long since picked clean of anything with any market value, but to a historian or an archaeologist, it was a treasure trove. It was incredible to think that Mary Morgan had lived and worked on this very ground. The stories of her life had such a mythological quality that she seemed like a fictional character rather than a real woman who had gone about her daily business right where Molly was now standing.
Molly had been assigned a young male “guide,” another shiny and well-scrubbed Gold Bay staffer with a complete lack of knowledge about anything that had happened on the island before the resort was built. He looked only slightly older than the students in Molly's senior seminar, and knew much less about history.
“Over there,” said the guide, “you can see the outline of the old house. Where it used to be, I mean. There's nothing left, now.”