Pieces of Hate (A Wendover House Mystery Book 4) Read online

  It was a dark day we took aboard that crate from the Concepcion. I’d only a few coyns left of my share, but what remained went into the box along with that cursed bundle of bones and I threw it back into the sea. Let the shadders have it. Or the bane my wife speaks of, I prayed. Just take it from me. There had already been two deaths in the islands and the moon was not yet full.

  There it was, the Concepcion. Confirmation that Nicholas Wendover really was Halfbeard. Ben would be pleased.

  I gave up trying to put the pages in order, just began pulling the pieces of yellowed parchment out of the accumulation of other papers. It was unpleasantly suggestive to find rusty stains and spatters, and that his papers had a lot of water damage. In fact, many of them looked like they had been submerged in water and were no longer readable. Had this happened in his time? Or Kelvin’s? Maybe Ben’s museum friend would know how to rescue the writing.

  But the cask did not stay long in the sea. On the nyneth night of September, one year to the day that we took the cargo from the Concepcion, I was roused from sleep by lyghtning. The nyght was full of blow that sounded like damned souls wayling from Hell. Leaving my wife abed, sunk in unnatral deep slumber, I went to the west window where there was a strange lyght rysing from the beach. I knew what it was though I’d never seen a wyllowysp.

  The fire was all but out, but I kindled a light. Taking a lantern, I went out in the storm. I was affrighted but would not play the coward. Slow I went, and as I walked the lyght died. All that was left on the beach was the damned casket I had cast away, sitting there open, still filled with pieces of hayte.

  That seemed to be it. Frustrated and wanting to be sure that I hadn’t overlooked something because the papers were simply out of order, I went back to the beginning and started reading again. It was not an easy task because the entries weren’t all dated and the ones that were not damaged by water were yellowed and curling pages that had no numbers.

  A lot of the sheets were unreadable and not all of the entries were relevant to my problem, but I set anything from Nicholas aside for Ben and made a stab at putting them in order. Though his words frightened me, there was a fascination in looking at the confession written in his own hand.

  I drank myself mad and grew reckless with my lyfe. How else can I explain my deeds, the memory of which I tried so hard to flee? Fear and tyme subdued my more savage nature. The forgetting of my inhuman wyckedness and lust which overran my fear of God or the laws of man was gradual, but after a piece with my gentle wyfe at my side. The dreams ceased and I no longer heard the nytly (nightly?) lamentations of the plaguey Spaniards sewn up dead and lyve together in the winding sheet and cast overboard to drown.

  “Good God.” Barney, young but understanding his job, rushed over to comfort me.

  So this was what had happened to the crew. Reading the words made me cold and dizzy. How could anyone do that? What sort of monster had Nicholas been? How could I have come from his genes?

  We could tell day from nyght but made no discovery concerning the sun. We traveled along the coast seeking an opening in the clouds whereby we could pass through, but no eye could penetrate the gray darkness.

  The shadders, they followed us and of a sudden we had become the prey. I do not know what they are that bryng the eerie storm but fear they are the dead, unable to rest because they did not deliver the wytch’s cargo and they are here to reproach me.

  Reproach him? How about rip his guts out for being the murdering son of a bitch that he was? I found one more entry on a scrap of torn parchment, but where it came in the narrative I could only guess. Possibly before he first cast back the box, though perhaps after when the sea returned it again.

  My wyfe asserts that the necklace is gone, that it has been lost. I have told her of the danger we face but she says agin and agin that the necklace was taken. After close questioning, we have set the servants to search for it, a great collar of a thing made from black pearls and a gold coyn, but it has not been found. I fear the shadders may grow bolder and come on land. My wyfe will not suffer. She is protected by her infernal bane. But wyll they take me when the moon bloats full?

  Was this why the chest came back? Was still coming back? Because he or his wife had not returned everything he had stolen? And had the shadows taken him? Was that what the wife wanted? Had she discovered that she was married to a murderer and wished him dead?

  I couldn’t recall from my reading if Nicholas had been another Wendover “lost at sea.” Or if he had managed to dodge his deserved fate and die in bed.

  Ben would know.

  Ben.

  “Damn.”

  My neighbor had twenty-twenty vision but only on his area of focus, which in this case was his book. I didn’t think that he would be able to take the long view. For him—for anyone else—this was a kind of spectator sport. I and I alone, as Nicholas’s descendent, could theoretically pay off his debt and make this nightmare go away. But it would mean doing something that Ben and the historians would hate. I was feeling discouraged and exhausted. It was not just the weariness of the body but that of an overworked mind and revolted soul. I had had to make too many accommodations with radically new ideas of how the world worked and had to accept improbable and horrible realities.

  But then I looked over at Barney snoring as Kelvin bathed him and I began to feel better, or at least stronger. We had weathered all kinds of weirdness. I would figure out what to do this time.

  I got up and began to pace. Barney and Kelvin opened their eyes and watched me. I thought about the necklace which was probably worth far more than the coins. It would be beautiful and have a rich history. It was literally a treasure as calculated both by dollars and by history.

  Too bad it was also potentially something more.

  I reached the bottom of my coffee cup and found my decision there. Really, I had always known what I would have to do. Or at least what I would have to attempt to do.

  “Ben will hate me,” I said to the cat. “Even if he doesn’t know about the necklace.”

  Barney knew Ben’s name and thumped his stumpy tail hopefully.

  “But I don’t think I have a choice, do I? Maybe it just wants the coin in the necklace, but I can’t take that chance. Of course, I’ve got to find that damned necklace first, gather up everything, the gold and the bones, and dump it back in the sea.”

  Kelvin raised his head, prepared to listen now that I was getting down to business.

  “Then I can let Ben read these notes. They should be enough to finish his book, right? And we have the pictures of the chest if he wants them. I can even photograph the necklace, but maybe it would be best if Ben never hears about that. Losing it would break his heart.” It would mean holding back those pages of notes where the necklace was mentioned. Because if he thought the necklace was still in the house somewhere he would give me no peace until I let him look for it.

  Kelvin chuffed. He was a very sensible cat and I was glad he agreed with me.

  “And Harris will understand. If I tell him. No one wants to lose out on money but … well, he believes.” Harris also liked me. Of course, I was the last Wendover. He’d like me if I had tentacles.

  Barney began to look serious. Harris was kind but not a real dog person and when he visited it often left me in a pensive, non-tennis-ball-throwing mood.

  “The first thing I have to do is find that damned necklace.”

  I looked around the room, again feeling a little overwhelmed. Kelvin got to his feet.

  It was time to stop feeling and to start thinking.

  Since there was little hope of discovering the necklace if it had left the island, and since Abercrombie’s daughter had been disinclined to leave her gilded prison, I decided that it made sense that the necklace was somewhere within reach. Probably within the house since there had been no other buildings on the island back then.

  “They shared a bedroom at least some of the time,” I said to the cat. “When Nicholas saw the will-o’-the-wisp he said
that he was sleeping with his wife. So what room were they in that he could see the beach?” Assuming the box had washed up on the same bit of land. It almost had to be that way. The rest of the island was stony cliffs and fractured rock.

  I went back to the notes and read again about the night the cask came back. Nicholas had looked out a west-facing window which faced the beach, in a room with a fireplace. There were three bedrooms that it could have been and one of them was very small and therefore not a likely choice for the lord and lady to be using.

  Of course, the wife could have hidden the necklace anywhere in the house. But there was less chance of her being observed by servants or her husband in her own bed chamber.

  Barney sighed and dropped his head in my lap. Kelvin climbed into his favorite box, figuring my brain was working slowly enough that he could take a nap.

  “Me too, kid. I sure hope I don’t have to rip up the floors and walls. How will I explain that? Harris will have a fit if I ruin anything,” I explained, petting his soft ears.

  Reading through the papers again for clues while I delayed taking the last drastic step, I finally had to admit that I was dragging my feet because I was afraid to have to ask the gossipy carpenter to come out again and repair my excavations. Scolding myself for cowardice and indecision, I finally got up.

  It was time that I actually began looking for the room that most likely was Halfbeard’s or his wife’s chamber. After all, night would come again all too soon.

  Kelvin mewed and I looked up from the papers I was stacking on the desk.

  “Do you know which room we want?” I shook my head at his affronted stare. “Sorry, of course you do. What was I thinking, trying to solve this problem myself? Well, lead on then.”

  The cat jumped out of his box and sauntered from the room and I followed obediently. I had given up feeling strange about taking orders from a cat.

  Kelvin led me to the bedroom I had been thinking was the most likely candidate. At least we agreed on this.

  Feeling certain that what I wanted would be in the wall and not the floor, which had been explored fairly thoroughly while the electrical work was being done and outlets set into the floorboards of the upstairs rooms rather than the walls, I began with taking down paintings and mirrors. If that wasn’t enough then I would start moving furniture away from the walls, but hoped that wouldn’t be necessary since it would involve using bar soap on the floors to help the heavy pieces slide without damaging the floor.

  I found a suspiciously square bit of lighter plaster behind a painting in the corner of the north wall beneath a painting of a ship. Was it unintentional irony that the painting might well be of the Calmare? I hadn’t noticed the painting before because there are a lot of pictures in the house and most of them were painted by people with no discernible artistic talent. I squinted at the signature. Maybe I was imagining things, but the writing looked a bit like Nicholas Wendover’s spiky hand. And damned if, in the very corner, so tiny as to be a smudge, there wasn’t an Indian maiden on what might well be an unpopulated Goose Haven Island.

  Putting the painting aside, I looked at the wall. It could be the remains of an old mend to an accident, but I didn’t think so. It was about the perfect size for a jewelry box.

  “This is it, isn’t it, Kelvin?”

  He chuffed.

  A careful homeowner and respecter of historical properties would call in an expert to look at things before doing anything impulsive to the three-hundred-year-old plaster.

  But an expert would have questions about the things I might find. Certainly they would talk about the necklace. And it would take time to get one out to the island. So, I went to get a saw and hammer. I didn’t have a stud finder but I didn’t need one to get through lathe and plaster, especially not when the site was all but marked with an X.

  The first part of the demolition went well. I ended up having to enlarge my first hole when I found the small leather pouch that had been nailed to a stud. The spike affixing it had been driven in deeply and I could not remove it by hand and the leather refused to tear. That meant enlarging the hole so that I could get the hammer inside and remove the spike.

  Pulling and pushing and smacking, the dried leather gave way, and though I was able to snag the necklace before it fell—a lovely thing of black pearls with an empty medallion frame that might have held a coin, just as Halfbeard had noted—something else in the bag fell down between the studs. Something heavy and metallic.

  I used a word that Barney was too young to hear though I think it amused Kelvin.

  I set the necklace and its pouch, which turned out to be a man’s glove, on the small table that held the hurricane lamp.

  “Now what?” If I pulled the lathe and plaster off all the way to the floor, the painting wouldn’t be able to cover the damage.

  “Screw it. I’ll shove the armoire over here if I have to.”

  I tried to be careful, I did. But the saw was dull and it was getting dark, so I finally just used the hammer. I stopped every couple of inches to check that there wasn’t anything else hiding in the wall, but it remained empty. The whole time I was muttering to Kelvin that this had better be something important and not just a loose nail.

  At last, about a foot from the floor, I stopped bashing in the wall. I could reach whatever had fallen. All I had to do was stick my hand in the dark hole and get it.

  And I really didn’t want to. I told myself I was afraid of spiders. Which was silly. There hadn’t been any live spiders in the wall for centuries. What I was really afraid of was touching what might be one of the cursed coins.

  “Fine,” I said, getting to my feet. My legs and shoes were covered in bits of broken plaster. “Salad tongs will work.”

  Down to the kitchen we went, Barney and I. Kelvin wasn’t interested in a snack, but Barney is always hopeful. I gave him a cookie from the old crock and then fished through my drawers until I had the salad tongs.

  It wasn’t easy since the hole was too small for my head and I had to work by feel, but eventually I managed to pinch the rogue object in the pincers and pulled up the thing I least wanted to see—another golden piece of hate. This one rather dusty.

  It wasn’t all that remarkable, but still quite apt, that there should be a blaze of light followed almost immediately by the crack of thunder.

  “Enough with the drama,” I muttered, feeling both annoyed and also a little fearful at the omen. The necklace and coin I returned to the torn leather bag which was badly desiccated but which managed to hide both items from my sight. I left them on the floor and we all left the room, closing the door behind us though the temptation was to hurl them over the cliff and into the sea.

  I lectured myself as I went downstairs to make some tea and to check that the doors truly were locked. Ben would bring the box back tomorrow; I would pack up everything and give it back to the sea in one neat package. Friday was the full moon, if that really mattered, and then life would go back to normal and we would all be fine.

  I refused to entertain any other ideas.

  Chapter 7

  I only just recognyzed the Calmare, she was bloated with tessellations, barnacle strewn and festooned wyth seawrack, her sayls slimed and tattered to the extent of being useless unless drivyn by the devyl’s wynd. I wished that I could lay blame for the vysion on inebriety but had tasted no wyne that nyght. I knew it was the damned coyns that called it forth from the deep. They recalled their fell purpose and wished to be reunited so they might fulfill their maker’s evil intentions.

  —from the unbound journal of Halfbeard

  Feeling caught in the morass of island weirdness and tired of waiting for Ben to arrive, I decided to drop Jack an email and just casually mention the box washing up on the beach.

  I should have known that Jack would immediately assume the worst and demand details of the box, the storm, and what I thought it meant.

  Jack, at various times, had thought of us as having a past but also a someday-to-be-again romant
ic alliance. This was nice, but at present we have a long-distance friendship with some vague assumptions of obligation. How much explanation was he owed?

  With Kelvin on the desk advising me, I was deciding just what to tell Jack about the box when there came a knock at the door.

  It was rather early for Ben to have returned from the mainland, but I jumped up quickly to answer the summons. However, it wasn’t my fellow scribbler on the doorstep, it was Harris Ladd, looking serious. Of course, he always looks serious. It is his natural expression, even if he had attempted to dress down by wearing the gray wool cardigan he sometimes dons when away from the office.

  “May I come in?” he asked tentatively when I stood there gaping instead of offering tea and shelter.

  “Of course. Sorry, I was expecting Ben. He is bringing the box back today. I wanted it back before the full moon.”

  “That’s good,” Harris said gravely, stepping over the threshold and hanging his hat on the coatrack. He didn’t greet either dog or cat. Harris isn’t a dog person and Kelvin makes him nervous. I think he believes that Kelvin was my great-grandfather’s familiar. And he could be right. “Have you thought about how to….”

  “Give it back? Not really, but I think it may actually work this time. I, ah, found something in Nicholas Wendover’s bedroom. Part of the treasure that was missing.”

  “Really?” Harris began to look animated.

  “Yes, you can look if you want. I just wouldn’t touch anything. It feels….”

  “Contaminated?” He grimaced.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what it feels like.” I brushed at my skirt, almost certain I could feel something slimy on my hands, though I had never actually touched any of the cursed coins. “Look, I had to knock a hole in the wall to get it out. We’ll need to have someone in to repair it. Sorry.”