Winnie's Web Page 7

  “Most of my life. Born and raised on the island. Left for about eight years. Went away to college and did some traveling.”

  “But you came back.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t offer an explanation, but I sensed that there was a long one, much like mine for having left Seattle.

  “What kind of work do you do, Jenny?” He too knew about changing the subject and the focus of attention.

  “A few things. I’m actually a minister and hope to do some spiritual counseling here. Maybe lead some support groups.”

  He pushed away his empty plate and leaned back in his chair. He was watching me eat. I hate it when people watch me eat. Why couldn’t I eat as quickly as everyone else? I abandoned my salad and stuck with the shepherd’s pie. Soft, comforting mashed potatoes and ground beef, requiring little chewing, and no sneaky lettuce.

  “What?” I asked when I realized he was still staring at me.

  He smiled. He had a nice smile. But I still hated blue eyes on men.

  “I’m intrigued.”

  “That I’m a minister?”

  “That and—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at the bar and held up his mug for Pen to bring him another. “I just think there are some fascinating things about you that you’re not telling me.”

  “Such as—?”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Yes.”

  “Recently?”

  “Actually, in the process as we speak. What is this, the Anamcara inquisition?” I felt my forehead furrow as I glared at him. I didn’t like answering questions, especially those asked by newspapermen. Besides, how did he know?

  “Sorry. Just curious.”

  “You’re not planning to write a story about the island newcomer, are you?”

  “Never.”

  I put down my fork and studied him carefully. “Promise and swear?” An expression left over from my daughter’s childhood.

  He saluted with two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Okay, yes. Recently. How about you? Have you ever been married?”

  “Nope.”

  Whoa. That was a surprise.

  “Just engaged once. Didn’t work out.”

  I wondered why, but didn’t ask.

  “What other work do you do? You said a few things.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Well, I do pottery. Don’t usually sell it, but I do it.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Have you always been a newspaperman?” I asked before he could ponder my varied career any longer, and pry into the one subject I was avoiding.

  “Yep. Boring, eh?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “On the island it can be.”

  “But you’ve never wanted to leave?”

  “Now and then. But in the end— I stay.”

  “How long have you been with the Anamcara Herald?”

  “I’ve been tormenting innocent islanders for some twenty years.”

  “With your gossip column?”

  “Hey, I can’t take credit for creating that one. It was around long before I was. I think it was an original column actually.”

  “Was it?” I pushed my plate away and looked up at him. “By any chance, do you keep copies of all the old newspapers?”

  “On microfiche, why?”

  “Do you think maybe we could go over to your office for a little while?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I just thought maybe we could do a little searching to see what was going on twenty years ago.”

  “Why twenty years?”

  “I figure that the skeleton we dug up was at least that old.”

  “At least? That could be a lot of newspapers. What if it’s older? Say your age.” Was this a subtle way of finding out how old I was? “What are you, thirty two?” The man was beginning to grow on me.

  “Forty.”

  “Really?”

  “Enough with the flattery already.”

  “No, seriously, you’re forty?”

  “If you’d like, I can check my driver’s license but I’m relatively sure I celebrated my fortieth birthday in May.”

  “Okay, I believe you. But you don’t look a day over thirty nine,” he teased. “My point is, that would be a helluva lot of newspapers to check, from twenty years back to who knows how far.”

  Suddenly I was smiling. “Maybe not. I just realized something.”

  “You care to share it with me?”

  “Will you take me over to your office?”

  “Sounds like bribery to me. Not exactly what I had in mind for the evening, but okay.” The newspaperman’s curiosity won out. And what exactly did he have in mind?

  I slipped my arms into my jacket sleeves while Seth drank down the rest of the beer Pen had brought him. “I’ve been coming to the island since I was a little girl. There was no koi pond in my Aunt Winnie’s garden back then.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s quite possible that if the body was buried in the rose garden beside the koi pond, that means it was buried at least thirty-six years ago. I was four then. That narrows the search considerably! Assuming, of course, that the koi pond was there when the body was buried, which I suspect it was. Otherwise, chances are they would have found the bones when they were digging to build the koi pond.” At least, my Aunt Winnie would have sensed them if they were digging right beside them.

  “What are you, a detective?”

  The one subject I was avoiding. I laughed, grabbed my purse, stood up, and said, “Ready?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  I still hated his blue eyes, but I loved his office. How had I not noticed when I came here before? My mind must have been on other things.

  It had been a bank back in the late eighteen hundreds, the counter with the teller bars still intact. The floor was wood. The walls were paneled with wood, the desks, chairs, and counters were all wood. The lamps were antique bankers’ lamps with green glass shades and brass bases, in keeping with a different era.

  Even the old safe had been left as it was at the turn of the century. He swung open the door as though it didn’t weigh a few hundred pounds. I peered inside the vault.

  “Come on.”

  “No thanks.” It wasn’t that I was claustrophobic. Well, maybe just a little.

  “Don’t worry. We can’t get locked in.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “Storage.”

  “Can’t you find what we’re looking for and bring it out?”

  He laughed. “Okay. Make yourself at home.”

  I did. I pulled up a chair at the desk with the viewer. It was only minutes before he plunked down a box with the microfiche from 1964.

  “Do you realize how long this could take?”

  Fortunately I didn’t. It was close to midnight and we’d made it only three quarters through one year.

  “I’m still not even sure what we’re looking for,” Seth said.

  “I’m not either, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes in an effort to gain clarity. When I opened them again, I realized how close to me he was sitting. He had to be, really, in order for us both to see the viewer. Still, it was awfully close.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Okay, let’s be logical here. Sam checked the police records starting from 1980 back as far as they were kept. There was no unsolved report of a missing person. That means someone disappeared and no one realized it.”

  “Or it happened before police records were kept.”

  “Unlikely. The records go back a long time, longer than those bones were there, judging from their condition.”

  “Okay, so what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that people assumed whoever it was left the island.”<
br />
  “And?”

  “And the only way we’re likely to figure out who, is by the island gossip. You know the way people like to talk about comings and goings of people on the island.”

  “True. So that’s why you’re focusing on the gossip column?”

  “Right. I figure the news wouldn’t report that so and so left the island after a month’s visit or whatever.”

  “Gotcha. But what about the bones? Won’t they tell us something?”

  “Sure. A forensic anthropologist should be able to tell us some things, such as approximate age, sex, weight, height, how long the body was buried, even some habits.”

  “But not who it was.”

  “Not unless we suspect who it might be and then match up dental records or use photographic superimposition.”

  “Which is?”

  “They superimpose a picture of the person’s skull over a photograph of that person.”

  “I see. So we need some hints of who might have disappeared.”

  “Right.”

  He was nodding his head as though he were trying to assimilate all this. He was still nodding after I’d scanned two more newspapers. I only knew because he was so close to me that I could actually feel him nodding. And I was beginning to think I was the one wearing his eucalyptus-scented aftershave.

  Did I dare turn and look at him? That would put our faces less than six inches from each other. But when he turned to look at me directly, my automatic reaction was to do the same.

  Startled by the proximity of our mouths, I leaned back in my chair. I had not been this close to a man since Joe. For twenty years, I had been married to him, faithful to him. I hadn’t so much as noticed another man’s aftershave, unless in the line of detecting. I wasn’t fond of Seth’s. It was a little too pretentiously masculine for my taste. That was a relief. It was also an excuse to keep my distance. Only he wasn’t keeping his. In actuality, he hadn’t moved closer, except with his gaze which was still focused on me.

  “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Just wondering how you know so much about police reports and forensic anthropology, Jenny.”

  I shrugged and feigned innocence. “Just lucky I guess.”

  “And?”

  “Okay, but don’t spread it around. I’m getting enough flack on this island without everyone knowing I’m a private investigator.”

  It was hard to read his expression. Shock? Annoyance? Alarm? Or was I just projecting Joe’s reactions to my detective work onto Seth?

  His initial reaction evaporated and he said, “Aha! I knew you meant something by that ‘a few things’ comment. Other than pottery.”

  “Sorry. I just—well, it’s better if the private stays private, you know?”

  “Sure, but what on earth made you choose—?”

  “My father is a PI. I work for him sometimes, on occasion. Not often. Try to avoid it actually.”

  “Until a bunch of bones shows up on your doorstep.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, I won’t spread it around. In fact, I won’t even put it on the front page. I’ll hide it on the last page somewhere—section B even!”

  I reached over and punched him in the arm.

  He was laughing. When he stopped, he was staring straight into my eyes, the way I liked people to do, most of the time. “You’re easy to tease,” he said and I had the feeling he was thinking something else that he wasn’t about to say.

  It was one o’clock in the morning when Seth walked me to my car. He opened the door like a perfect gentleman. He closed it too. Right after he kissed me on the cheek.

  “Good-night, Jenny.”

  “Good-night, Seth. Thank you for dinner.”

  “We’ll have to do this again sometime. Soon.”

  “You like looking at microfiche, do you?”

  “I meant the dinner part.”

  “I know. But would it be okay if I do some more searching—”

  “Ah, using me, are you? You women are all alike.” It was said as a joke, but I had a feeling there was something else behind it. I also had a feeling that there was a lot more to Seth Williams than he let people see.

  Chapter 8

  The rest of the week and well into the next week, I spent with Seth. Business only. Each day, after my morning meditation and either a session of yoga or a leisurely walk along the water, and a cup of strong coffee and a freshly baked scone, I found my way to the Anamcara Herald.

  There was no possibility of his thinking I was using the newspaper search as a cover to spend time with him. After all, he was all the way across the room at his rusty old typewriter and occasionally at the computer or out of the office searching for news while I was sitting on a hard wooden swivel chair straining my neck and eyes. The only time we actually spoke was when he happened by me on his way to the storage safe. And lunch, of course, which he insisted we eat together.

  “As much as I’m enjoying having you in my office,” he said on my fifth day there, “I’m beginning to think this search of yours is futile.”

  “I know it seems absurd, but I can’t stop searching until I find out what happened.”

  “Does it really matter, all these years later?”

  “To someone, it does.”

  “Good point.”

  “I could wait for the results from the forensic anthropologist but that could take weeks.”

  “I thought you said it might not help that much.”

  “It will tell me an approximate age which will narrow this search down even more.”

  “So, why not wait?”

  He didn’t know me yet. I wasn’t sure if it was a curse or a gift, but I had trouble letting go. Charlie had once told me I was like a dog on a tether. I pulled, tugged, chewed until I was free—from curiosity. It was what had kept me going on the last case I had worked on with Charlie. Even after he had declared that we were off the case, and the police had declared it an accident, I had kept at it until I solved every nook and cranny of those people’s lives. And they were not people I knew well, at least for the most part. If Seth thought I was going to give up or take a vacation in the midst of this mystery which had taken place on my aunt’s doorstep, he was wrong. Even if it was a several-decades-old mystery.

  “I guess not.”

  “What?”

  “Judging from the look on your face, I guess you’re not about to wait for the report from the forensic anthropologist.”

  “Are you insinuating that I’m bullheaded?”

  “Borderline Taurus, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but a Gemini through and through, thank you very much.” It was, after all, my only explanation for being a spiritual counselor one moment and a private detective the next. Most people didn’t get that. Not even my husband, rather my soon-to-be ex-husband. He never did get my joke about his being a bigamist, married to two women at once, but then he had never put any more credence in astrology than he had in my intuition.

  “Okay, keep after it if you must, but I insist you take a day off—just one day.”

  “Insist?” I teased.

  “Hey, I’m falling behind in my work, okay? I need a day without distraction.”

  Flattery might just get the man somewhere. “Is that why you’ve been going back to work after dinner?”

  “You noticed.”

  “Hard not to. Every evening, after we leave the pub, you head back to the office.”

  “All right, I admit it. My attention has not been on my work lately. At least not while you’re in my office.” He put a finger under my chin and tilted it upwards. For a minute I thought this was going to be our first official kiss, but instead he pressed his lips against my forehead and kicked me out of his office. “This doesn’t mean we can’t have lunch together.”

  I was smiling all the way to my car. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did need a day away from the bright lights and microfiche. I had after all, made it up to the year 1953.

  I sat in my car for
a few minutes, eyes closed. Somehow the thought of going back to Winnie’s house did not appeal to me. I took a deep breath and cleared all thoughts from my mind. I was left with a vision of a ferry. That was exactly what I felt like doing. In the old days—but a few weeks ago—that would have meant heading for Bainbridge Island. Now it meant, Gael Island.

  I turned on the engine, put Winston in gear, and headed down to Ned’s ferry. He was just about to pull out when he spotted me. He put the loading plank back in place and waved me aboard. It wasn’t until I was driving off the ferry at Gael Island, that I noticed the three women in the car in front of me. One was Daisy Higgins, one was Eleanor Thatcher, and the other was a lady I had never seen before.

  Curiosity got the better of me and I followed them off the boat and into town. It didn’t look as though I was going to be spending the day on Gael Island after all. It looked more like a trip to Seattle. So what if I didn’t have a change of clothes. I knew how to shop in Seattle, although my daughter and my soon-to-be-ex-husband might disagree. Sadly, Matthew and Charlie would not be returning from Edinburgh for another week, but still, it would be nice to be in the city again. A change of scenery was always a good thing, and it might make me appreciate the island more.

  Besides, I might not even stay. I might just take the ferry over to the mainland and back again. It was almost an hour and a half trip after all. Plenty of time to do all the snooping my little heart desired right there on the ferry. But if I did spend the night in Seattle, I knew who to call. If MacGregor was free, I could finally cash in on that dinner he owed me without waiting for him to come to the island.

  I played the snoop-behind-the-newspaper game. It was tricky finding the threesome with a newspaper in my face, but I was persistent. I stationed myself in a chair behind theirs, relatively certain that they would not notice me.

  I couldn’t get a good look at her, but the other woman was definitely older than they were. Her shoes told me that. They were even sturdier than Eleanor’s.

  “It will be fine. You’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.”

  Ah, this was the woman they wanted to protect from newspapers and skeletons.

  “Yes, I know, but I’m not sure I’m up to this.” I wondered if she was as frail as her voice sounded.