Bermuda Schwartz (34 page)

“We were three boats. Three good, fast boats. He had little chance.”

I think about it.

I say, “But how did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Know that Frazer was after the reliquary?”

Ferreira looks at his grandson, nods.

Nestor says: “Frazer was a man obsessed. His books, his papers—they were all about the Reliquarium de Fratres Cruris. He was writing his own book. I saw the pages in his desk. And that day when the young man and his girlfriend came into the office …”

“Ned McHugh?”

“Yes, the one who died,” says Nestor. “After they left, Frazer was very agitated. The paperwork, he made it very difficult for Ned McHugh. The young man, he kept coming back and each time Frazer would tell him: ‘You must be more precise. You must tell where this site is exactly.' And that is how I knew. There is nothing else that would have made him like that.”

There is a long silence. Then Ferreira says: “When finally we caught
him on his boat, when finally we saw the blessed reliquary, he tried to tell us it was not real. He said it was a fake.” Ferreira stubs out his cigar. “It was over soon after that. Nestor returned his boat to the marina.”

“And the reliquary?” I ask. “What will happen to it?”

Ferreira smiles.

“It will go home, to Portugal, to a place of honor. Finally, after all these years.”

 

It's a fine May morning and I'm standing on the dock behind my house in LaDonna, cast net poised and ready to sling. Mullet are schooling with the flood tide. I've every intention of filling my smoker with a goodly number of them.

About forty feet out, dorsal fins slice Vs in the water. It's well beyond my net-throwing range.

I wait.

A mosquito lands on my ankle. I shake my leg. It flies away.

The mullet move in—thirty feet and closing.

The boathouse phone rings.

I finger the monofilament, adjust the balance of weight on my shoulder. These mullet are skittish. As soon as the net touches water they'll scatter. It will take a good spread to haul them in.

The phone rings.

More mosquitoes find me. I shake both legs, do a little dance. Can't set down the net to slap them.

The phone rings.

Twenty-five feet … twenty feet … come to Poppa, come to Poppa. I can see their big googly-eyed, silver heads now, swimming right at the surface, just where you want them to be.

I rear back, get ready to let it fly …

“Yo, Zachary!”

Stutter-step … lead weights snag on my shirtsleeve, the net collapses in midarc, goes kerplunk in the water.

I turn around. Boggy stands in the door of my office. He holds up the phone.

“For you,” he says.

I haul in the net. Nothing to offer but oyster shells. I leave it in a heap and walk to the boathouse.

Boggy holds out the phone.

I say, “You couldn't just let it ring like we usually do?”

Boggy shrugs.

“The phone,” he says, “it told me to answer.”

“Get a grip.”

I grab the phone.

“Zack Chasteen.”

A man's voice: “Who is Fiona McHugh?”

“What? Who is this?”

“I said, who the hell is Fiona McHugh?”

As I try to place the voice, Boggy walks out to the end of the dock. He picks up the net, shakes loose the oyster shells.

And then it clicks.

“That you, Trimmingham?”

“Yes, it's me. And I am sitting here in my office looking at a thank-you note from someone by the name of Fiona McHugh.”

“You back in Bermuda?”

“I am.” A cough on his end. “We got back together, my wife and I.”

“Nice to hear.”

“Yeah,” he says. “So who is Fiona McHugh? I got this thank-you note from her. The letterhead says ‘Ned McHugh Memorial Foundation.' The trustees are listed in the margin. I saw you were one of them.”

So I tell him the story of Ned McHugh. And I tell him how Fiona started a foundation to honor her brother.

“It awards scholarships to students who want to study marine archaeology,” I say. “I made a donation in your name.”

“Oh, really? How much?”

“Forty thousand dollars.”

Silence from Trimmingham's end.

On the dock, Boggy ties the cast-net line to his wrist. He lifts the net, folds the top half over his shoulder, studies the water.

I say, “If it helps, I gave forty thousand dollars, too. Eighty thousand dollars total. What we owed Papi Ferreira. I paid him off in trade.”

Trimmingham doesn't ask for details, not that I'd tell him.

He says, “The condos. At Governor's Pointe. You sold them?”

“I did.”

“I don't want to know how much you got for them, do I?”

“No, Brewster, you really don't.”

Another long pause on his end.

Boggy tosses the cast net—a perfect spread. He hauls it in, shakes it open. A dozen mullet flop around on the dock.

“You know,” says Trimmingham, “I was lying there in that hospital bed and thought: OK, this is it. Now or never, you've got to pull it together. So I got out of there, got back with Sally. I'm making a clean start of things.”

“Clean starts are good.”

“Yeah, they are,” he says. “And I was going to thank you for it, but jeez, forty thousand dollars? That stings.”

“What about your car?”

“What about it?”

“I washed it, waxed it, left it with a full tank of gas.”

A pause on his end, then: “Thanks, Chasteen.”

 

By the time Barbara gets home that evening it's eight o'clock and I've got everything ready. Table set, candles lit, Andrea Bocelli on the stereo. A tad hokey, but romantic as all get-out. The steaks are warming to room temperature, au poivre in waiting.

We start with appetizers on the front porch—smoked mullet dip, Ritz crackers. A bottle of Schramsberg in the ice bucket.

Barbara scoops up dip while I pop the champagne.

“Just the tiniest bit for me,” she says.

“But it's a special occasion.”

“I know.”

I look at her.

“What do you mean you know? It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“It was.” She smiles. She raises her glass. “I'm pregnant.”

 

Five minutes later, we've calmed down. Hugs and kisses and tears …

And more champagne. For me anyway. After a tiny sip to toast, Barbara switches to bottled water. Men definitely get the better end of the whole pregnancy deal. Maybe that's why women get to live longer.

“So how far along?”

“About a month,” she says.

“That would have made it …”

“I'm thinking the night we had dinner at Mid Ocean Club.”

“A nice night.”

“Yes,” she says. “It was.”

“So that would make it …”

“January,” she says. “A January baby.”

“Super Bowl Sunday.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

“I'll settle for the AFC championship,” I say. “And if by some miracle the Fish are in it, I'll take it as a sign.”

“Speaking of signs …” Barbara shakes her head. “This is rather spooky.”

“What is?”

“Boggy,” she says. “I started thinking about it after I left the doctor's office this afternoon. Remember when we flew into Bermuda, how he went into one of his trances there on the tarmac? You remember what he said?”

“Something about the palm trees, wasn't it?”

“That's what we thought at the time. I mean, it certainly seemed like it. He said: ‘That which is planted here will grow strong.'”

I look at her. She looks at me.

We sit back on the couch, lean on each other. I finish my champagne, pour a little more.

 

A few minutes later …

“Girls' names,” says Barbara.

“Agnes, Chloe, and Gert.”

She looks at me.

“You will have no input on names,” she says.

“Boys'—Hansel, Ike, and Mort.”

“Nor will you come anywhere near the birth certificate.”

She scoops up more mullet dip.

“I'm hungry,” she says.

“That's my line.”

She laughs, gives me a kiss.

“We have so much to talk about,” she says.

“You only know the half of it.”

I reach for my pocket. The ring arrived earlier in the day. Wrapped in bubble tape. Teddy Schwartz enclosed a note, apologizing for not having a proper tiny box.

I go down on a knee. I take Barbara's hand. I put the ring on her finger.

“Marry me,” I say.

 

It's a June wedding. Not a lot of planning needed, not a lot of family with which to contend. Just a few friends—Stephie Plank, Barbara's right-hand woman at
Tropics
and maid of honor; Robbie Greig, my pal from Minorca Beach Marina; a couple of former Gator teammates—Mac Steen and Larry-Bud Meyer; and Boggy. He's my best man.

We descend upon Bermuda for a long and festive weekend. Aunt Trula graciously puts us up. And Teddy Schwartz happily agrees to give the bride away.

The wedding takes place in the morning at the little chapel at Graydon Reserve. Sister Kate and Sister Eunice have been working on a special arrangement of Corinthians 1:13, just for the occasion. I tell them they oughta cut a CD. They could give Andrea Bocelli a run for his money.

One of the monks, a big, bearded fellow named Boyd, appears in the doorway with bagpipes and offers a tune while we await Barbara's entrance.

The chapel is so small that, standing by the altar, I'm right next to the front pew where Aunt Trula sits. She tugs on my pant leg. I bend down.

“That song,” she says. “Do you by any chance know its name?”

“Yes, Barbara and I picked it out,” I say. “It's The Cradle Song.'”

“How lovely,” Aunt Trula says.

Boyd is soon piping “The Irish Wedding Song” and Barbara enters the chapel on Teddy's arm. She's never looked more beautiful.

It's an Anglican service. No mass, just the basics. We say the vows, we exchange the rings—Teddy made them, too—and then we kiss the kiss. Eleven minutes and we're out the door as Boyd pipes “She Walks Through the Fair.”

We mill around outside, enjoying the breeze off the bay J.J. and another driver arrive with vans to take us to Mid Ocean Club for the reception.

As everyone starts to pile in, I notice that Teddy Schwartz has wandered off to the cemetery behind the chapel. I step over to join him.

He stands looking down at a granite headstone. It's inlaid with pieces of gold and silver. A glass cutout encases a worn piece of wood, no bigger than a paperback book.

The name on the headstone: “Margaret Schwartz.”

Teddy looks at me. He smiles. He raises a hand—touches his forehead, his chest, left shoulder, right.

He makes the sign of the cross.

 

Under ideal circumstances, and with unlimited resources, I would have taken up residence in Bermuda while I wrote this book, enjoying a daily dosage of Gosling's while gazing upon the gorgeous waters. Sadly, I was limited to a brief research trip and then had to rely on a number of Bermudians to do some of my legwork for me.

I am most grateful to Rosemary Jones, acting curator of the Bermuda Maritime Museum, for her cheerful willingness to answer my out-of-the-blue questions on topics that ran the gamut from the Hamilton bar scene to local lingo. It was Rosemary who first suggested that a mystery set in Bermuda absolutely had to involve shipwrecks, and I thank her for steering me in that direction. Dr. Edward C. Harris, executive director of the maritime museum, also answered numerous inquiries.

Keith A. Forbes, the proprietor of
www.bermuda-online.org
, proved an invaluable resource about all things Bermudian and went out of his way in responding to my queries on everything from burials at sea to the availability of dynamite in Bermuda. His Web site is a treasure trove of information and much recommended to anyone seeking more background about Bermuda.

Thanks, too, to Bryan Mewett, general manager of the Mid Ocean Club, who shared the history and lore of that illustrious institution.

Even though I took two years of Latin in high school, none of it
stuck, and Matt Ramsby, of the Hammond School in Columbia, South Carolina, was a translator par excellence.

And, just as he did with
Jamaica Me Dead,
forensic accountant Bill Cuthill, of Maitland, Florida, was a most astute guide through the gnarly world of offshore banking and money laundering.

To all, my deepest thanks …