THE OCEAN WAS already stirring with sea breeze when James first sat down on Mayor Frank’s east-facing porch. Boats—big, small, power, sail—rushed in and out of Newport, salt air wafted through the screens, and the ancient metal armchair bounced a little under his weight. But none of it fooled him into thinking he was out on the water rather than watching others enjoy a perfect summer day. Out there, life was so much simpler.
Dean’s vision—“we’ll sail every day!”—had been pared down by family realities; Peter’s summer camps, Ainsley’s ever-important golf lessons. They’d only taken MoreSea out once last week, a refreshing slog into smoky southwester that ended with Peter getting seasick, again. With so much extra time, James had already completed all the easy projects on Dean’s list; the rest required ordering parts and gathering tools before getting himself out to the boat on its mooring—all of which was easy to put off until after he checked in for a coffee and bagel. By the time he’d listened in on the latest news and made sure the morning ferry got back from Newport, it seemed too late to start anything new.
Identifying Courtney as the mysterious message-writer had only made it harder to concentrate. First, she stole his job. Next, she risked the shortcut. Now she was trying to tell him what to do? Friend of Brenton, my ass.
All the same, he was curious. The island’s future was in doubt, all thanks to a mystery from his own past. And the only person with both the answers and the energy to explain was the long-winded Mayor Frank.
So when the mayor hadn’t shown up at the Bean this morning, James biked up the hill to this ramshackle cottage with its million dollar view and knocked on the door. “Joe said you could explain why Lloyd hates my family,” he said, as soon as the door opened.
Nodding, the mayor had stepped back to let James inside, obviously favoring his right leg.
“You all right?” James asked.
“Right as rain,” the mayor replied in a decidedly feeble voice, limping back across the kitchen. “Have a seat out on the porch. I’ll go find a copy of my book. . .”
That was seven minutes ago. James’s knee began to pulse up and down; this history lesson could take all day. Had the mayor gotten lost in his own house? Or dozed off?
A familiar clang pulled James’s gaze to the right. Just off Lighthouse Point, the Brenton Rock buoy bobbed and dipped over ocean swell. Growing up, the four tones of that gong had been a personal lullaby— they took turns carrying all the way up to his bedroom window, on the east side of the keeper’s house.
To his left, the harbor breakwater pointed silently northwest toward the shortcut. Low tide, two days before the full moon; West Rock would be just breaking the surface. James shuddered, remembering. . . but the ferry and its scrapes were all that damned girl’s problem now.
He stood up to stretch, wondering if he should just leave—but then his host returned at last.
“Sorry about the mess. Mavis comes tomorrow. Oof!” Frank collapsed into the other chair, rubbing his left knee, and handed James a tan pamphlet with green text. “I guess you haven’t read my book, or you wouldn’t be here. I’m sure there’s one in your mother’s desk.”
That roll-top needed cleaning out, but after Mom died two years ago James hadn’t even wanted to walk back into that house. So instead, he’d moved in with Barb.
The mayor turned to face James. “Aren’t you proud of our new lady captain? She’s settling in, just as I—”
“She stole my job!” James let the pamphlet fall onto the table between them.
“She didn’t steal it,” Frank replied, his voice stronger again. “You lost it. She was just in the right place at the right time.”
“How do you figure that?”
Frank tapped the pamphlet. “I was quite surprised when Lloyd Wainwright hired you. He’s got a belly full of revenge for anyone with the last name of Malloy.”
“Because my dad helped protect West Brenton? That was more Uncle Tony than—”
“He thinks your father killed his grandfather.”
“Wait—what??”
“Your parents never told you about Willie Wainwright, did they.” James shook his head. “Lloyd’s granddad. Had a string of sailboats named Sarah, each one bigger and fancier than the last. Growing up, I’d watch ’em sail by; he was one of the first to get out on his boat again, after the war ended.” The mayor’s eyes moved from right to left, as if following a sailboat running back to Newport.
“World War II,” James guessed.
“That’s right. Willie never enlisted, so he didn’t have to get back to normal the way everyone else did. Some cockamamie story about a bum knee, but it never seemed to keep him from walking up the hill to Clark’s Inn for a wee drinkie. One night—” Then he paused, chuckling. “But I won’t spoil the next book for you.” For years, Frank’d been promising a sequel to The History of Brenton Island—with all the dirty gossip he’d left out of the tourist-friendly version.
“Summer of ’46,” Frank continued, “Sarah would be the only yacht out sailing. I was twenty years old, so hungry to get off this island and out on a boat—any boat. I remember my father pointing out to sea and saying, ‘There’s goes the Sarah again, putting sails up just to take them down again. Like Will’s practicing for the America’s Cup or something.’ Back then nobody put much time into sailing. Other than to defend the Cup, of course.”
Would he ever get to the point?
“That winter, Willie commissioned a brand new Sarah from the Herreshoff yard up in Bristol,” Frank went on. “All varnish, every scrap of her—even the hull. Must’ve cost a fortune to build. And she would’ve been a fortune to maintain, too, if he hadn’t lost her the following August. Right there.” He pointed left, into the shortcut. “Piled her up on Piglet Rock—the one you kids call Miss Piggy. He’d bet another Newport yachtsman he could beat him around Brenton and back, but nothing was said about Bird Island. So when Willie rounded behind the other boat, he tried cutting through there to catch up. Fortunately, the crew was all saved. Boat was a total loss.” Frank cocked his head. “Worked out all right for the locals, though— if you look closely, the entire back porch of the captain’s cottage is planking from that wreck.
“Anyhoo, Willie had another Sarah built, and every year after that he made the same challenge ashore. But nobody in Newport wanted to race him—he’d developed a reputation for being a little crazy.”
Just like his grandson.
“Willie got older, but he never got any. . .” Frank coughed into his right fist. “I’m just gonna get a glass of water—”
“I’ll get it,” James offered. In the small kitchen he found two glasses and filled both from the dripping faucet, dodging the curtain that was blowing in the window. Back out on the porch, he handed one glass to Frank.
“Thank you. Now, where was I. . .”
“Sarah. Willie Wain—”
“Ah yes! . . . 1967, or maybe ’68. . . no, it was ’67, because my dad died that fall. . . Someone with a new go-fast boat finally took Willie up on his bet. I’ll never forget seeing ’em come around the corner.” Frank pointed to his right this time, toward Lighthouse Point.
“The other boat was out in front, and it was so windy they didn’t set a spinnaker. Willie was desperate to win, so he put up a really big sail—and then ran straight up onto Brenton Rock. The boat broke up in just a few minutes—they’d built her extra light for racing, of course.”
The sudden silence felt like a memorial. A beautiful boat, similar to MoreSea, destroyed by a single rock—only half a mile away from where they now sat.
“He must’ve cut the gong,” James said.
“Wasn’t there yet. Coast Guard added it a few years later.”
“Dad always told me never to go inside it, even in a small boat. What happened to the crew?”
“They swam to the little beach just east of the lighthouse,” Frank said. “Your father took ’em up to the house, fed ’em some brandy. It was October, I think. Maybe even November. Cold and snorty.”
Frank heaved a sigh. “But Willie couldn’t swim. They found his body a few days later, washed up on Bird Island.”
Chewed up, no doubt, by that jagged shoreline. James shuddered.
“So why does Lloyd think my dad killed him?”
“Your father was the lighthouse keeper. Took over when your grandfather dropped dead, only two days before the accident.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But it wasn’t his fault Willie didn’t know how to swim?” Frank sighed again. “Once Lloyd’s mom had her nervous breakdown, there wasn’t much room for logic in that house. Rumor has it she also lost the love of her life that day.”
Not Lloyd’s father, apparently.
“Sarah’s boat captain. Sasha? Samson, that was it—youngest of the four Clark boys. He was several years younger than Kitty Wainwright, but—”
“You said the rest of the crew made it ashore.”
“They did, but Sam hit his head on the rocks. Spent the rest of his life in an institution.”
“Jesus.”
“Lloyd was seven at the time, so he was old enough to remember his mother before she fell apart but young enough to believe her when she said it was all your father’s fault. Right after that, the family sold their house out here and moved ashore to Newport. Lloyd’s been holding a grudge against the Malloys—and really, against all Brenton islanders—ever since.”
“So why’d he buy the ferry?”
“At the time, I figured he’d made his peace. Since then, watching how he treated the Homer—and you—I figured he was trying to run it into the ground. Maybe so he could buy the whole island for ten cents on the dollar, just like he did the ferry—”
“When Quentin Ballantine went bankrupt,” James finished. “Wish I’d known all this sixteen years ago.” His leg bounced up and down like a piston, ready to run.
“I thought about telling you,” Frank said. “But you were always in too much of a hurry.”
James leaned his elbows on his knee to keep it still.
Frank turned; his blue eyes magnified to twice their normal size. “I was always surprised he hired you,” he said. “Unless he figured he could get rid of you and the ferry, together—maybe for good.”
“For good!” Even for Frank, that was a little too dramatic. Lloyd definitely had a screw loose, but he wasn’t a murderer.
Though Joe was right; history did explain why James had been fired. Lloyd’s overreaction was just the latest and biggest in a long line of attempts to trip him up.
“And now he’s hired a lady captain, with no open water experience.” Frank said, sighing again. “I’ve been trying to encourage her— that smile reminds me so much of Jeannie! But just between us, I can only hope this isn’t the end of our little ferry.”