Double Eagle Double Cross, page 8
They entered the front door and immediately encountered an elderly gentleman with wispy white hair, wearing a gray cardigan over a plaid shirt. The entry fee, they were told, would be three dollars each. Charley quickly fished the required sum out of his wallet for both of them then entered the interior, looking for maritime displays.
Most of the displays depicted the early settlement of Florence, early logging projects in the surrounding hills, and salmon being processed on the docks down by the river. Finally they found a corner in which were hung a few photographs depicting shipwrecks along the coast.
“Hello. My name is George Adamson. May I help you find something?” a soft voice asked from behind them. They turned to find the same gentleman who had accepted their entry fee standing with a helpful smile on his face.
“I’m looking for information regarding the shipwreck of the Nettie Sundberg,” Charley explained. “I believe it occurred . . .”
“In December of 1902,” Adamson finished for him.
Charley and Roxy exchanged surprised glances.
“That’s right. Do you have information on it?” Charley asked.
Adamson frowned in thought. “I’m not sure. If we do, it would be in the research library.”
“Could you direct us there?” Charley asked.
The man was obviously starved for opportunities to act as museum guide. “Follow me.” Adamson led them through a door in the back of the museum and across a large covered patio strewn with antique machinery. Charley even noticed a display with the original control panels used to open the Siuslaw Bridge. On the far side of the patio, Adamson opened the door to yet another building, stood aside, and motioned for them to enter. A long room ran the length of the building. The part they had entered was fitted as an office with desks and chairs and even a receptionist, a middle-aged woman with graying hair, at a desk with a computer and phone. The wall of the room to the left was lined with file cabinets and bookshelves.
Adamson entered after Charley and Roxy, allowing the screen door to slam behind him. “‘Hullo, Gladys.” He nodded at the receptionist then led them across the room. Eventually he skirted a small round table and stopped, leaning back to study the lettering on the rows of filing cabinets. “Let me see what we can find,” he mumbled.
Making his decision, he stepped forward and pulled out the second drawer of one of the cabinets. Quickly he rummaged through the contents, humming to himself, before finally extracting a manila file folder. He turned, opened the folder, and flipped through the pages. Charley and Roxy couldn’t see what it contained, but it wasn’t much.
“Hmmm,” Adamson mused then placed his finger on the page. “Here’s something. It seems the Nettie Sundberg was registered in San Francisco and had been commissioned to carry a load of supplies to Seattle, which was then destined to be sold for use in the Klondike.”
“Klondike?” Charley repeated, surprised.
Adamson nodded, looking up briefly. “Yes. That would not have been uncommon at the time. Remember, it was 1902 and the Alaskan gold rush would have still been in full swing.” Adamson looked back down at the contents of the folder. “The ship carried a crew of three. No crewmembers were found on board the wreck, but the bodies of the captain and one crewmember washed ashore a few days after the wreck was discovered. It was assumed they were washed overboard during the storm.”
“Storm?”
“Yes. The record states there was a severe storm the previous evening. Hmm.” Adamson perused the document through a pair of wire-rim glasses that seemed to perch on the end of his nose. “The wreck was discovered and reported by a Mr. Robert Haversham, at that time an assistant lighthouse keeper up at the Heceta Head Lighthouse.” Adamson paused then continued to read, “Mr. Haversham reported that he had taken the day off to visit the city”—he looked up with a smile—“Florence wasn’t much of a city then, but I suppose when you’re isolated on a windswept rock fifteen miles from civilization, any town begins to look big.”
“Isolated?” Roxy asked.
“Yes. In those days there was no road leading up the coast. All commerce went inland, up the river. The only travel along the coast was either by boat; by narrow, winding footpaths; or by an occasional stagecoach along the beach at low tide.”
“Stagecoach, along the beach?” Roxy queried.
“Things were pretty wild in those days,” Charley confirmed.
“Anyway, he would have had the choice of following an inland or beach route from the lighthouse. Either one would have taken pretty much all day to reach Florence. The inland road, which wound above where the present highway currently runs, was close to impassable in wet weather. Mr. Haversham reported that, partly because of the storm the previous evening and also because he preferred the beach, he chose to follow the beach route. There were disadvantages to this as well, however.”
Adamson took his eyes from the folder, obviously reciting from his own knowledge rather than anything that was written there. “Sutton Creek had to be forded, and beach travelers needed to pay close heed to the tides, but,” Adamson referred back to the manuscript, “apparently there was a minus tide that morning, which promised for a relatively easy journey if he left early. According to his report, Mr. Haversham left the lighthouse at dawn. Hmm.” He frowned as he studied the manuscript.
“What is it?” Charley asked.
“Nothing much. Not really,” Adamson replied thoughtfully. “Just one of those oddities that I had never noticed before. It seems that Mr. Haversham made mention of noticing a couple of people as he made his way up the trail. He believed them to most probably be Siuslaw women but couldn’t be sure in the poor lighting of morning. He said they appeared to be walking along the beach below the lighthouse. Apparently they were collecting clams or crabs or some such thing.”
“Is that something of interest, or is it peculiar or something?”
“Oh, no, only if you’re interested in the day-to-day lives of the local natives. It’s certainly nothing of consequence in relation to the Nettie Sundberg. Anyway, where was I?”
“Mr. Haversham was leaving the lighthouse at dawn,” Charley reminded him.
“Oh, yes. Well.” Adamson pressed his finger to the manuscript, and Charley and Roxy followed it as it made its way along the written lines as though it were a replication of Haversham’s journey down the coast. “Haversham made his way along the trail until he passed the Bear Cliffs.” Adamson glanced up at Charley. “That would be the cliffs where Sea Lion Caves are now,” he clarified. “He followed Berry Creek down to Heceta Beach, which he planned to follow south to the Siuslaw, where a ramp led to the road, and from there it was a straight shot to town. It was shortly after he had arrived on Heceta Beach that he discovered the wreck. He pressed on to town, where he reported it to the authorities.
“The next day he returned to the lighthouse, where he reported his find to those present, whom, he says, received the news with some interest, as their lives were often plagued with the boredom associated with isolation. A few days later he returned to the wreck with his wife and daughter and some other staff, where they had a picnic.” The man turned the page. “Hmm, this is interesting.” Adamson placed a finger on the page he had been reading. “Only a few months following the discovery, Mr. Haversham himself met with a catastrophe of his own.”
Charley’s interest piqued. “What kind of catastrophe?”
Roxy looked at Charley with curiosity but didn’t speak then looked back at Adamson as he reported what he had found in the article.
“The investigation determined that Mr. Haversham had gone hiking along the bluffs to the north of the lighthouse. He failed to return, and, uh, subsequent searches failed to find any sign of him. It was finally determined that he must have slipped and fallen from one of the bluffs. His body was never recovered.” Mr. Adamson looked up from the folder, peering at them over the glasses. “If you’ve been to that area, you can see how that could easily happen.”
Charley pondered the information for a moment while Mr. Adamson and Roxy both seemed to wait on him. “Do you have anything else on this Mr. Haversham?”
Adamson shook his head. “No. In fact, I’m surprised we even have this article. Usually any information such as this would be stored down at Winchester Bay in their museum about the life-saving service.”
Roxy sucked on her bottom lip and looked at Charley. “So I guess that’s it?”
Charley nodded slowly in obvious reluctant agreement. “It would seem so.”
Chapter 10
“Begay, summer home!”
The voice on the other end of the phone was low and gravelly, and Mac recognized immediately the voice of her grandfather. What she didn’t recognize was the crowd noise in the background.
“Summer home?” she asked. As far as she knew, her grandfather had only one home, a small, quiet apartment west of the temple in St. George.
“Some are home, and some aren’t,” he answered, obviously pleased with his own cleverness.
Mac shook her head at the bad joke. “Is that Navajo humor or just bad influence from your buddies?”
“It’s my razor-sharp wit,” he replied.
“You need to find the other half of the razor. What’s all that noise I’m hearing? Where are you?”
His voice assumed a mockingly solemn tone. “We are engaged in a most solemn celebration.”
“Celebrating what? Where? And who is ‘we’?”
“We are at Chuck-A-Rama celebrating the fact that we don’t have to cook tonight and that we can get the senior discount. The we is most of your old partners in crime, the notorious Peter, Jack and Eddie, and Bill and Jasmine.”
“Grandpa, you almost sound drunk. Have you been drinking too much of that carbonated prune juice again?” she teased.
“Granddaughter,” he intoned, “do not disrespect the medicinal practices of the ancient Navajo.”
“Grandfather,” she tried to match his tone, “I’m pretty sure the ancient medicinal practices of the Navajo did not include the consumption of Diet Dr Pepper.”
“Granddaughter, I am an—”
“Yeh. Yeh,” she interrupted. “Don’t give me that ‘I am an ancient Navajo’ stuff. I’ve heard it before.”
“So what can I do for you?” he asked, giving up the argument. “Are you here in St. George? D’ you want to come over and join us?”
Mac laughed. “No. It sounds like you’re way too wild for me. Besides, I’m still in Cedar City. I’m just calling to tell you that I’ll be leaving for a few days on a research project. I’m going to book a flight out of St. George tomorrow and was wondering if I could leave my car at your place and get a ride to the airport?”
“Sure,” he responded. She could hear him inform the others at the table, “She’s going on a research trip tomorrow and wants to leave the car at my place.”
She heard Peter ask, “Where’s she going?”
That was the question she had dreaded, and she cringed when she heard it. She had hoped to keep that a secret until she was almost to the airport, and then it would be too late for her grandfather to say much about it.
“Where are you going?” her grandfather repeated the question.
She paused, actually considering telling a lie for a moment but quickly rejected that and simply blurted out, “The Northwest.”
“What part of the Northwest?”
NOYB, she wanted to shout but instead mumbled, “Oregon.”
“What part of Oregon?”
“Coos Bay,” she blurted it quickly, as though if she said it fast enough it might slide by without sticking.
“She’s going to Coos Bay, Oregon,” she heard her grandfather repeat.
“Hey, is that anywhere close to where Charley is?” Jack asked.
“About fifty miles south,” Peter responded, which was news to her.
The conversation had gone about as she had feared, but suddenly her stomach knotted as she heard the conversation suddenly take a turn far worse than anything she could have anticipated.
“Maybe we could help her,” she heard Jasmine say in an oddly slow, suggestive voice. “Maybe we should go with her.”
“Uh, yeah, things are gettin’ pretty monogamous around here,” she heard Jack agree.
“Monogamous?” Bill questioned.
“I think he means monotonous,” Jasmine explained.
“Hmmm. Same thing. Ow!”
Mac assumed Jasmine had punched Bill because of his comment, but she was too busy trying to regain control of the conversation to pay much heed. “No, no, no, no!” she repeated, shaking her head even though no one could see her.
“That’s pretty pricey for all of us to fly up there,” Bill argued, obviously trying to distract his wife.
“Yes!” Mac blurted into the phone. “Far too pricey.”
She got no response but heard Jack say, “We could take one of my motor homes. I’ve got half a dozen on the lot out in Bloomington I’ve been itching to try out. That way we could all ride together. We can take turns driving.”
“No!” Mac yelled into the phone, which, unfortunately, must have been significantly diminished by the noise in the restaurant.
“Sure we can,” her grandfather responded immediately. “Don’t worry about us.”
Again she heard Jasmine say, “If she has issues, maybe we can even assist her.”
Jack said, “She don’t have a sister.”
Mac didn’t know if they meant help her with the cost of the motel or help her with the research, but either way, having them show up in Coos Bay in the middle of her research with Charley so close by might just spell disaster on several fronts.
“Mac was planning on leaving tomorrow,” she heard her grandfather say. “We would need to leave pretty soon.”
“Yes!” Mac was almost pleading. “I need to leave soon, but you probably can’t get ready by then. Old people can’t get ready that fast.” She bit her tongue as soon as the words slipped out of her mouth, but there was no taking them back.
“Who you calling old?” her grandfather replied.
Bill had obviously heard his reply. “Tell her age is a matter of the calendar, but immaturity is a personal choice.”
Oh, great, she thought. I was lucky enough to get them on a night when they are on a real roll.
“The beast is ready to roll,” she heard Jack respond as though he’d read her mind. “I can call and make the derangements right now. We can throw some stuff in and head out anytime.”
She heard Jasmine chime in. “I think it sounds fun. What’s to get ready? Bill and I can throw some stuff in a couple of duffle bags and be ready in an hour or so. All we really need is clean underwear. I’m sure we could buy all the other stuff we need when we get there.”
“How about you?” her grandfather asked. Somehow Mac knew he wasn’t talking to her.
“I’m a bachelor,” she heard Peter respond. “I don’t even need clean underwear.”
“Ewww!” Jasmine exclaimed in the background. “TMI! TMI!”
“Well, that settles it!” Her grandfather was once again talking to her. “We’ll pick you up, oh, say about six o’clock in the morning.”
“And tell her we have room for her sister,” Jack shouted in the background.
“Pick me up? Actually ride with you?” Her panic increased as she began to understand what he had meant by helping her. “No, I can’t. I need to fly!” But only the furniture in her apartment heard her protest. Her grandfather had already hung up. Mac, stunned by the sudden turn of events, buried her head in her hands and moaned, “No, no, no, no.”
***
Charley followed Roxy the six miles back out to the beach. The sky was darkening, and a breeze was beginning to pick up from the south, promising rain. He passed her as she pulled into Driftwood Shores then motored down the hill to the beach house. He was surprised to find a four-door sedan parked in the driveway. A man dressed in a suit, white shirt, dark tie, and long overcoat stood on the deck.
Charley parked the bike behind the house, deliberately taking his time as he removed his helmet and combed his fingers through his hair. He rounded the corner and approached the man with some suspicion. The fellow held his ground, his back to the railing, remaining silent as he waited for Charley to approach. The tails of his coat flapped around his legs in the strengthening breeze.
“Can I help you?” Charley asked, his tone clearly sending the message not so much of an offer of assistance as a demand to know what the man was doing on his porch.
In answer, the man reached into his left breast pocket, his right hand reappearing grasping a leather wallet. He flopped it open to show an intricate gold badge attached to the inside. “FBI,” the man announced as he flipped the wallet closed and returned it to his jacket pocket. “Special Agent Forbush. Are you Charles Sawyer?”
Charley stopped at the top of the few stairs that led up to the deck, meeting the agent’s stare with one of his own. “What do you want?”
The agent licked his lips as an expression of anger flashed across his eyes. “Are you Charles Sawyer?” he repeated, this time more insistent.
Charley hesitated but could find no reason to withhold such information. “Yes, one of them, the only one still living.” Charley realized even as he replied that his response sounded surly, even a bit of a challenge, but he decided he didn’t care. He didn’t need law enforcement showing up unexpectedly and demanding information without telling him why they were here. Too little, too late, he’d already involved the local police regarding the break-in and had received only a few vague promises and a lot of purple fingerprint dust throughout the house for his trouble. “What do you want?” he demanded again.
Charley became aware of the roar of the waves breaking on the beach as the agent took his time answering, obviously weighing his reply.
“I understand you had a break-in recently.” The fellow nodded toward the house, still not answering Charley’s question.
“Yes, and I reported it to the police. Why would the FBI be interested in a break-in here?”
The agent half turned, allowing his gaze to travel up the coast before looking back at Charley. “Was anything missing from the house?”
