Sins of the Fathers (22 page)

Katharine was getting sick of Mallery, too. “I wonder why he didn’t just take another ship and come fetch them?” She picked up the last letter with a sense of weariness and incompletion. “I guess we’ll never know. This last one is so folded and stained, here’s the best I can do. It’s written to Marie.”

“The next bit is either ‘My God,…he’ll,’ or ‘May God’ something-or-other ‘hell.’ Wait! It’s ‘May God burn him in hell.’ Whew! The next paragraph is really blurred, but here’s what I think it says.” She read slowly, stumbling over some of the words:

Katharine felt tears sting her eyes. She had never held the last letter of a dying man in her hands before. No matter what a rogue he had been, his despair touched her. “This is the last paragraph. Several words are blurred, either by water or by tears. It’s written to little Claude.”

The last word wavered and straggled down the page, like the pen had fallen or been snatched from his hand while he was writing.

Katharine traced it with one finger, then slowly refolded the letter as someone had refolded it often before. As she handed it over to Dr. Flo, she mused, “He must have been brought home to be buried. I wonder who carved that pirate symbol on the stone.”

“Probably little Claude—or Hamilton. It seems like a childish thing to do, doesn’t it?” Dr. Flo didn’t sound at all sentimental. In fact, she sounded downright angry.

“Or it could have been Claude Bayard. He sounds pretty childish, too. Mallery must have asked for funds to save the captain and himself, and Claude refused. I’d guess it was Claude Bayard who decided to bury Mallery outside the family plot, wouldn’t you?”

Dr. Flo tapped the letter on one corner of the table, her mouth set in a disapproving line. “If it had been me, I’d have taken him out to sea and pushed him off a boat. Dropping off his poor children like that and never coming back. How could he do such a thing? And something else. Why does he keep harping on that captain? That’s downright odd.”

“I guess that’s another riddle we won’t solve.” Katharine rose and refilled their glasses to give Dr. Flo time to collect herself. She spoke from the refrigerator door. “But the captain could have simply been a good friend, somebody Mallery admired. The last letter sounds like the captain was very special to Marie. Perhaps he was her lover and the children had another mother, who died. Mallery does tell little Claude to ‘obey Marie,’ not ‘obey your mother.’ Marie may have longed to see the captain more than she longed to see Mallery.”

“Yet both men stayed away for those children’s entire lives.”

Dr. Flo would obviously reject any attempt to excuse her ancestor’s behavior, if that’s who or what he had been. Katharine gave up and concentrated on slicing another lemon.

Dr. Flo pushed back her chair. “Speaking of the children, though, I meant to call Hayden Curtis when he got back this afternoon to see when Burch plans to move the graves. Do you mind if I make the call from here? I’ll pay for it.”

“Use my cell phone. I never use up all my minutes and long distance is free.” Katharine retrieved it from her purse and handed it over.

She wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation until Dr. Flo’s voice rose.

“I can’t make arrangements that soon for reburial…. That is unnecessary. I have already spoken with someone who represents a cemetery in Darien, but that’s too soon…. No, that will not be acceptable. I insist—” He must have interrupted, for her face grew stormier by the second.

Katharine scrawled a note and held it in front of her:
Whenever we need to go down there, we will!”

Dr. Flo read it, scowled at something Hayden Curtis was saying, then nodded at Katharine. “Okay. Hold on a minute.”

“Can you go tomorrow?” she asked Katharine. “Burch is planning to disinter them tomorrow afternoon.”

Katharine nodded without taking time to think.

Dr. Flo returned to her prior conversation. “We’ll be there tomorrow. But you tell Burch that I insist on stipulating where the re-burials will be and he will need to pay for storage until I can make the arrangements. Otherwise—”

Hayden Curtis must have interrupted again. She listened, then said, “I don’t care, you tell him that is my final word on the subject. Furthermore, I have the deed to Agnes Morrison’s property. She mailed it to me before she died. It is very possible that her eight acres now belong to me. We can discuss that when I see you.”

She paused.

“Wait until you have seen the deed before you make any rash statements, sir. I will see you at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon. Don’t you disinter my relatives unless I am there.”

She hung up and sank into the nearest chair, her eyes snapping with indignation. “They had arranged to move the caskets tomorrow and to re-bury mine in the slave cemetery behind the Church of God Reappearing.” She pressed one hand to her heart. “Dear God, to think of relatives of mine being buried behind a church with that name! We’ve always been Episcopalians!” She took a minute to regain her equilibrium. “Mr. Curtis says if we can’t be there at two-thirty, we will miss the whole shebang.”

“You look mad enough to chew nails. Chew a few cookies instead.”

“After I wash my hands.” Dr. Flo marched to the sink with such determination that Katharine sang the opening bars of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Dr. Flo did not reply.

Katharine spoke to her back. “We can easily get there by two if we leave here by eight, and if you go get your things and spend the night here, we can get an earlier start. My niece finished one of my guest rooms last night. Why don’t you call the Darien cemetery again and see if they can take the caskets tomorrow afternoon? If not, whoever Burch has digging them up will surely arrange storage until the cemetery can take them. At Burch’s expense.”

“They’d jolly well better.” At the sink, Dr. Flo scrubbed her hands like she was scrubbing away not only silverfish but Hayden Curtis and Burch Bayard. As she reached for the towel, the doorbell rang.

“That must be Lamar Franklin. I forgot he was coming.” Katharine headed toward the door. “He’s interested in genealogy, and he’s bringing me a book on Confederate privateers. Shall I invite him in for a glass of tea?”

Dr. Flo didn’t answer. She was already looking up a number in her notebook.

Lamar stood with his back to the door, admiring the Murrays’ front yard. “Nothing like the smell of new-mown grass and the look of freshly trimmed bushes,” he said as Katharine opened the door. “I reckon you have a yardman, with your husband gone so much?”

His silver ponytail gleamed like he had washed it especially for the occasion, and he was dressed up in clean jeans, polished black Western boots, a wide belt with a silver buckle engraved with his initials, and another black T-shirt. When he turned, she read
MY LIFE MAY BE WEIRD, BUT AT LEAST IT’S NOT BORING.

She wanted to say, “My life isn’t boring, either, because I do all the mowing, weeding, and edging myself,” but since Anthony was still working in the backyard and could appear at any moment to make a liar out of her, she admitted, “Yes, we have an excellent one.”

Lamar gave a satisfied nod. “Woman needs a man around to take care of things.” He held up a thick paperback. “I brought you that book you were wanting.”

“I appreciate it. Won’t you come in? Dr. Florence Gadney is in the kitchen. She’s the one whose history we are investigating, and we’ve been looking at old letters she got today. We think they may have been written by one of her ancestors who was a pirate.”

By the time she finished, he was halfway across the foyer. “Nice place you got here. Are you moving?” He peered into each room in turn, not the least bit shy.

She spoke to his back. “No, the place was trashed last month, and I’m still working on repairs. Dr. Flo and I are here, in the kitchen.” She led the way.

Dr. Flo was finishing a conversation on the phone.

Katharine offered Lamar sweet tea or beer, and he chose tea. “I can buy a beer, but, since my wife passed, I’ve never gotten the knack of making good sweet tea.”

After Katharine introduced them, Dr. Flo said, “Please excuse me for a minute, Mr. Franklin, but I need to give Katharine a report on a couple of phone calls.”

He waved her apology away. “You go right ahead. I’ll enjoy the view.”

He wandered to the bay window and stared out. “Great crepe myrtles you got. I always liked dark pinks myself, but the light pinks are nice with the white.”

Dr. Flo said softly, “The Darien cemetery can’t bury the caskets until Monday afternoon, so I told Mr. Curtis to make arrangements for them until then.”

“Which thrilled him, right?”

“Not exactly, but he said he’d see what he could do. Oh, and I called Rodney to fill him in, in case he thought he ought to be there. He was with a client, and asked me to call him back sometime tomorrow morning.” She glanced over at Lamar, who was inspecting the window rather than the yard.

“Would you like some cookies?” Katharine asked him.

“Oh, that would be real nice, ma’am.” He jerked his head toward the window. “I don’t know who put this in for you, but they need to come back and re-seal it before you spend a fortune cooling the whole outdoors.” He ducked his head in apology. “Forgive me for mentioning it, but you see, I’m in the building trade. Hate to see shoddy work.” He ran his hand down one side of the window and Katharine saw that indeed, there were places where sunlight shone through.

When she wiped the table with disinfectant and set out the plate of cookies with napkins and tea, he took a seat and gave a satisfied smile. “That’s what I call real nice. Don’t get homemade cookies and good tea much since my wife died.”

As he took one from the plate, Katharine thought,
Tom doesn’t get them much anymore, either. This is the second batch he hasn’t gotten to eat.

Serves him right.
Was that Aunt Sara Claire, acid even after death? Or her own voice in her head?
Dear God don’t let me grow up to be like her.

Lamar laid his book before Dr. Flo. “This oughta tell you all you want to know about Confederate privateers, but you may be disappointed. They didn’t do much after 1861, and most only stayed out for a few weeks.” His Adam’s apple jiggled as he took a swig of tea.

Katharine couldn’t remember why they had wanted a book on Confederate privateers. Who had brought up that subject? Dr. Flo seemed to share her confusion. She politely reached for the book and turned to the table of contents, but admitted, “Our pirate may have been a Yankee. Were any of the privateers from the North?”

Lamar dabbed his mouth with his napkin with excessive gentility. “Some. There’s a chapter on them toward the end of the book, but they weren’t official privateers—by which I mean they didn’t hold letters of marque from the Union. Still, a number of private seamen armed their merchant ships and captured prizes. You think one of your ancestors sailed one of those?”

“We have no idea. We’re just beginning this investigation.”

“Well, I re-read the book last night, so long as I had it off the shelf, so let me summarize a tad. Then you can see if they’s anything there you might be able to use.” He shoved his chair back from the table, propped one calf on the other knee, swiped his ponytail off his shoulder, and spoke like a man accustomed to lecturing. Katharine was fascinated by the discrepancy between his appearance and how much he seemed to know.

“The very first letter of marque Jefferson Davis granted was for the
Triton
, which was owned by three men from Brunswick. It would have sailed out of Savannah, except’n a couple of Yankee ships got wind of its intent and blocked the mouth of the Savannah River. Charleston had a number of privateers. Two of them, the
Dixie
and the
Sallie
, were right successful, but neither of them stayed out long. The
Dixie
gave it up after four weeks, and even though the
Sallie
had a real lucky three-week run, her owners decided to auction their prizes and cargo and sell the ship. Both ships later became blockade runners.”

Dr. Flo was making notes. “Are there lists of who sailed on them?”

He frowned in thought. “I suspect there would be, somewhere, but I’m not sure where. The only names mentioned in the book are captains, prize captains, and such, and men who were captured and tried.” His face lit up. “The
Savannah,
now—that ship caused quite a scandal. Its officers and some of the crew were captured and taken to Philadelphia, where they were paraded through the streets and accused of piracy—which, traditionally, privateers were not. They were generally regarded and treated as prisoners of war. After the crew had been shamed by being put on parade, they were incarcerated as common criminals and kept in such deplorable conditions that Jefferson Davis protested personally to Lincoln. He claimed the Union was violating accepted conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war—not unlike our own day, in some respects, if you’ll pardon my bias.”

He reached for a cookie and took another swallow of tea, but it was obvious this was merely a pause for refreshment before he continued. Katharine and Dr. Flo waited.

“Davis never got a reply from Lincoln, so he sent word that he would take a similar number of Yankee officers who were currently being courteously treated as prisoners of war and treat
them
like common criminals, and if the prisoners up North were executed, he would execute one Yankee officer for each Confederate privateer. When he made good his threat by jailing thirteen colonels and captains, Lincoln decided maybe Southern privateers were prisoners of war after all, and ordered that they be treated as such. If I’m correct, those were the last trials on charges of piracy during the war.”

Dr. Flo steered him toward the channel of their own interests. “Do you know anything about pirates down in the Caribbean
after
the War? The one we are interested in seems to have been in business well up into the 1870s.”

“I don’t know a thing about pirates, ma’am, just privateers, and I know damn little about them, if you’ll pardon my French. My speciality is the War of Secession itself, not the merchant aspect of things.” He flexed his biceps, to show off his anchor tattoo. “As an old Navy man, I am interested in naval battles as well as land ones, but privateers weren’t engaged in what you might call real battles. Their captures seldom involved bloodshed, and they usually sent captured crews back up North with a passing ship. Besides, most privateers had converted to blockade runners by the end of 1861. Only one I read about that was still operating by 1863 was the
Retribution.
Most of the owners figured they could make a lot more money running supplies through the blockades. It was more certain, see?”

When he got blank stares, he explained. “A privateer might spend a couple of days chasing after a ship, then find she was loaded with something that wasn’t worth the risk of getting it back to port. A blockade runner, on the other hand, could pick and choose what he carried and be sure of selling what he brought in.”

He got a thoughtful look on his face. “That might be your Caribbean connection, now that I think about it. Blockade runners often sailed down there to cargo up with stuff from Europe. The Gulf Stream flows from Europe to the Caribbean,” he made a big mark in the air which Katharine took for the Gulf Stream, “so European ships could easily bring stuff into a neutral port on one of the islands. St. Thomas, for instance, which was Danish at the time, I believe.” He stopped and again searched his memory. “The
Sallie
—one of the Charleston privateers I mentioned that turned into a blockade runner? She was down around Nassau at one point, but I don’t remember her having any connection with pirates.”

“I read this morning that the Bahamas were the center of pirate society at one point,” Katharine contributed. “I don’t know if that was true as late as the end of the Civil War.”

“I prefer the term War of Secession myself, ma’am,” he corrected her gently. “The Bahamas reminds me of something. What was it?” He scratched his head, then slapped his thigh. “Got it! The
Retribution
. She was the last Confederate privateer, remember? She eventually sailed down to the Bahamas and was sold there. Do you reckon any of this he’ps you any?”

Dr. Flo shook her head. “Not yet, sir, but we appreciate your going to so much trouble.”

“No trouble a-tall.” He gestured to the golden envelope. “Is that the letters you said might be from a pirate or privateer?” He quivered with curiosity like a bird dog sighting quarry.

Dr. Flo filled him in briefly on what they had learned and deduced so far.

He stretched out one hand. “May I?”

“Help yourself.”

He read slowly, rubbing his fingers on the edges of the pages as if he could absorb as much information from the paper and ink as from the words. “Mighty softhearted to be a pirate,” he concluded when he’d finished. “All those tears over the dead baby, and looking at sunrises and such. Reminds you that even a pirate is still human, don’t it? But that stuff about his wonderful captain—you don’t reckon he was, you know, gay, do you?”

Lamar apparently had qualms about discussing that subject with women.

Dr. Flo gathered up the letters and replaced them in the old envelope with the deed, the locket, and the baby shoe. “We thought about that, but from what he said to Marie about the captain’s death, we concluded maybe they were dear friends and Marie was in love with the captain.” Katharine was amused to hear the professor taking the opposite of the argument than she’d proposed before.

Lamar nodded judiciously. “Could be, I guess.”

“But if that was the case, we can’t figure out why the children had Marie’s last name, Guilbert, instead of Mallery.”

“Probably for their protection,” he suggested, “once folks knew their father wasn’t coming back.”

“The Mallery family’s protection, more likely, since the Mallerys were white,” Dr. Flo said bluntly. “After all, Françoise died a year before that last letter, and her tombstone reads
Guilbert,
too.”

“Well, if you’ve done a bit of genealogical research, ma’am, you know how it goes. Knowledge comes in small doses well seasoned with lots of guesses. I always get a real jolt when I have a piece of astounding luck, like those letters are for you. I wish you success in learning more about the feller who wrote them.” His hand hovered over another cookie, then drew back.

“Have more,” Katharine urged. “I’ve got a cookie jar full.”

He obliged with a smile. “My wife has passed, like I said, and my girls never were much in the way of cooking.”

“Then let me send some home with you, as a thank-you for bringing us the book.”

Katharine found a plastic container and emptied the cookie jar into it.
Aunt Sara Claire would never have sent cookies home with him
, she commended herself.
She’d have figured it was only her due for Lamar to bring the book down from North Georgia.