If Julie had been surprised that Barb and I were a package deal, she didn’t say it. She asked if we would stop by Carl’s house to see if we could find out more about Carl’s travels and what he had been working on. So, although it had already been quite a day, we agreed to head over to the lighthouse as soon as Barb had her visitors settled.
It had been years since I visited the lighthouse and the museum housed in the front room. It was one of those places you went to once, maybe twice, and then you checked it off the list. It looked nothing like a traditional lighthouse. If you didn’t know better, you would assume it was someone’s house—maybe the lighthouse keeper’s home. Its white wooden frame was nestled in the greenery and palm trees that lined the dirt road. If you looked closely, you could see the large dormer where the light was kept. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see. The kids were somewhat disappointed it wasn’t a lighthouse with a spiral staircase you could climb for an amazing ocean view. We had been to Huntington Island, South Carolina, several times and climbed dozens and dozens of steps that led to the narrow walkway at the top of the lighthouse there. In size and scale, this one didn’t really compare.
Historically, the Mongin Island lighthouse was interesting because it had both a front range and a rear range light. The kids found it unbelievable the government paid less than $500 for the lighthouse land and were amused by the stories of mules pulling carts to move the lighthouse from one place to another as the shoreline shifted through the years. Other than that, the museum did not hold their interest. Without panoramic ocean views and a commanding presence of a tower to climb, it was just another house. No matter how many times we drove by on the way to the beach, there was never really a crowd. Today was no different, even for a Saturday. On the weekends, or “turnover days" as we called them, some of the local attractions usually had an influx of visitors who either arrived before check-in or were waiting for their boat departure. The lighthouse never seemed to benefit from this routine.
It was surrounded by houses with year-round residents. Maybe Carl’s neighbors would be able to fill in some details about Carl and what he had been up to the last few days. It was quiet and the air was still as we walked up the wooden steps to the museum. I tugged on the door, which did not open, and waited a few minutes to see if someone had heard me. Our knocks went unanswered, so we took the gravel path to the back door. The crunching stones beneath our feet seemed unnaturally loud—surely someone would hear, I thought. I saw a well-worn pair of boat shoes, brown duck boots, and a ceramic dog bowl at the base of the small steps. After a few minutes of knocking and a few unanswered “Hellos?”, I turned the knob and we found ourselves in Carl’s small kitchen. The house was stuffy. There were some glasses in the sink and coffee in the pot on the coffee maker. There were a few pieces of mail and a folder, opened on the table. It looked like Carl had just stepped away and would be back any minute—even though I knew that was not likely to be true.
“Can I ask what you think you are doing here?” a female voice broke the silence.
Barb and I both jumped.
“Clearly you can see that this is not the lighthouse, right?” A young woman in jeans, flip flops, and a Mongin T-shirt stood there looking at us.
“I am so sorry, I thought Carl lived alone. I just didn’t realize—” I started to answer her.
The woman interrupted, “Sorry, but the museum’s closed for a few days. And the lighthouse isn’t open to the public.”
Of course, I thought. We looked like tourists. I finally extended my hand. “No, we’re not tourists. We’re Carl’s friends. I am Carr and this is Barb.” The woman shook my hand but said nothing more.
“I didn’t get your name,” Barb said, extending her hand.
“I didn’t give it. As if Theresa isn’t bad enough, now you two?” Her voice was tight and her face was bright red. With one hand on her hip, she waved her dismissal into the air with the other. She was absolutely done with us before we could even start explaining. Without another word, she turned her back and started to leave the house.
“Wait, please, wait!” I called after her. Catching up to her in the side yard, I said, “I think there has been some kind of misunderstanding. I own Books & Brew—down the road? The new bookstore?”
She blinked but showed no recognition. “Do you think I am some kind of a fool? Pretty bad for you to just waltz in here. What are you doing, getting more clothes for Carl?”
We stood facing each other in the side yard as a rising wind blew our hair in our faces and the bright sun made us squint at each other. The last few minutes were a jumble of emotions and I felt dangerously close to either laughing or crying. I wasn’t sure if she was going to scream at me, hit me, or just keep walking away. She looked down and said, “I knew I couldn’t trust him. I mean, if I knew it would end this way, I would never have said anything.” Her voice was a whisper now.
“I think there has been a misunderstanding,” I said. “Can we start again?” I smiled gently at her and hoped she would meet my eyes. Receiving nothing but a slight shrug, I took a deep breath. I was not prepared for the possibility of bumping into someone who actually knew Carl this well. “I’m sorry we got off to a bad start. I am Carr Jepson and I am sorry we have not met before now. What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say it was anything—” but then she offered: “I am Missy. I am Carl’s neighbor and—I’m his friend. I am Carl’s friend. I live there.” She pointed to the small, blue cottage peeking out from an overgrown shrub to my right.
“Well Missy, I don’t know how we haven’t bumped into each other before now, but I live on Captain Morgan Lane and Barb also lives on the resort property. It’s only a couple of minutes from here.” She was largely unmoved by any of this as she looked me up and down.
Barb tried her luck, “Have you lived next to Carl long?”
“Long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” Barb asked, clearly running out of patience.
“Long enough to know you two are sticking your nose into something. I’ve been here for a few months. I keep my boat at the other side of the island, at the county dock. It’s why I rented here. I can get in and out without any crowds. I don’t take that public ferry, don’t eat at the fancy restaurants. Just want some quiet. Carl knows that.”
This was only going to get more difficult. “Missy, we were at Governor’s Point today and experienced something we were not expecting—involving Carl, I mean. Is there someplace we could sit for a few minutes and talk?”
Her face went from pink to red to flaming. “We can talk right here if it is all the same to you. I don’t need you trying to work me over. You have some nerve, coming here and—”
“Okay, Missy, this is making it harder than it already is but here is the truth: Today, when we were at Governor’s Point—”
“Why would anyone go there? What were you doing there? Sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you?”
“Missy, just walk with me,” I directed and surprisingly, she did. We all sat at the picnic table in Carl’s yard. From this view, I could see into her backyard and I noticed a large magnolia tree at the edge of Missy’s yard. It was a beautiful and peaceful spot.
To answer Missy’s question of why we were at Governor's Point, I began with my desire to take pictures and ended with Julie’s tentative identification of Carl. We sat in silence and then her tears started and she shook her head as if she was rejecting this information as a fabricated story.
“I knew something was wrong. I knew it wasn’t just Theresa,” she eventually said. Even knowing her for only these few minutes, I understood Missy would talk only at her own pace and answer only what she wanted to, so I settled myself and gave her the space she needed to continue. Eventually, she narrated her own story that meandered through moving to Mongin Island only a couple of months ago, meeting Carl, and their evolving relationship. They began as neighbors, became friends, dated—and had wound up not speaking. The twice-maligned Theresa was a recent island visitor who lived on the mainland. According to Missy, Carl met her at some real estate conference on the mainland, they exchanged numbers and had started seeing each other in recent weeks.
“I don’t know what went wrong with us,” Missy said. “I told Carl I was allergic to Buddy. I mean, he is a great dog, but I could not spend any amount of time in his house and Buddy could not come inside mine. I think that’s what ended us. Carl was like, ‘love me, love my dog’ and when I said I wouldn’t or actually, I couldn’t, well that was it. Carl stopped coming over, stopped texting, he never actually said it was over but I saw Theresa here and some islanders saw Carl with her over on the mainland at the restaurants on the docks. God, so embarrassing! What a fool I have been. And now it just gets lonely here—you know how it is,” she looked up at me suddenly. “I mean the guy chose his dog over me. That tells you everything you need to know.”
“I do know how it is. It can get lonely here,” I said, “but I am sure Carl thought—” I stopped, mad at myself for doing the thing I hated that people did to me after Rob died. I hated the “air bubbles”, as I called them, the things people said to fill the air when they didn’t know what else to say. Truth be told, I wasn’t actually sure of anything—least of all anything that had to do with Carl. Who was I to say what I am sure about? I stopped talking. She was gazing off into the distance, not focused on any one thing that I could see. I kept my eyes on her face, my eyes were ready to meet hers.
“I knew something was wrong when he didn’t come home,” she said, finally facing me. “So, what else do you know?”
There weren’t many details, but we shared everything we had learned from Deputy Julie, Chief Lancaster, and the others who were on the scene at Governor’s Point. I refrained from showing Missy the pictures I took. There wasn’t much for her to see but I felt the pictures from the pool would be an unnecessary jolt.
“Tell us more about the last few days with Carl,” I said. “I know Deputy Julie will be checking in tomorrow or maybe even later today. We want to give her some of this background.”
“Do you think someone did this to Carl?” she asked. “I mean, that must have been what happened, right? He didn’t just fall into that pool, right?”
Barb answered, “It’s too soon to know, Missy. It is just too soon. I know it’s hard, but we have to be patient.”
She did tell us a little more about the last few days. Carl had been on and off the island a lot recently, sometimes even having the water taxi from the mainland pick him up for last minute meetings. Missy had seen Carl waiting at the county dock a few times while she tended to her own boat. He never asked to borrow hers.
Sometimes—and she couldn’t remember exactly when—she found visitors walking around Carl’s front lawn. They were surprised that the museum was closed after an unanticipated change in its schedule. On Wednesday, she saw Carl as he was headed out for a walk. He went his usual route, to the beach. Missy remembered Carl casually waving, but he had not stopped even though she was busy in her front yard picking up some small branches and twigs, remnants of the last storm. They did not speak, so Missy thought he might still be mad at her. She also thought she heard him talking to someone early Thursday morning, but she did not put her eyes on him. “I think I heard him talking to someone—it wasn’t a very long conversation, just a few sentences,” she explained. “I wasn’t really paying attention but right after that I heard the beep of a golf cart backing up, and then it pulled forward right out of the driveway. I heard the tires on the gravel. I assumed it was him but I didn’t see him—could have been someone who sounded like him, like a visitor to the lighthouse who left when it wasn’t open. I’m just not—well, I’m not sure what else there is to say.”
“Did you hear any part of the conversation on Thursday? Anything at all? Any words or phrases?” Barb asked.
“I was only half listening,” she said, looking up, her eyes filling again with tears. “I was so mad at him for the way he had dropped me, I didn’t want to hear if he was talking to Theresa or some other woman. He may have said something about a plan or the plan—something like that, maybe? I assumed whoever was talking was making plans and those plans did not include me.”
She looked directly at us and I could tell she was angry again. Relationships are never easy, I thought to myself—no matter what the relationship is.