{"id":7675,"date":"2019-01-13T07:18:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T12:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7675"},"modified":"2019-01-13T12:23:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-13T17:23:37","slug":"windjammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7675","title":{"rendered":"Windjammer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Vicki Weisfeld<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bruce Pritchard unlocked the door to his weekend Cape May, New Jersey, cottage one Friday early in June, the wind crowded in behind him like a presence, gusts of rain snapping at his heels. He flipped the light switch and shed the old-fashioned boots, oilskins, and sou\u2019wester he affected, a fully wired city boy summoning the crusty New England sea captains of his imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lit the fireplace to exorcise\nthe weekday shadows and dispel the ocean\u2019s powerful breath, swirling about him\nlike a salt-tinged mist. In the kitchen, he unpacked provisions \u2014 steaks for\nfriends, a purple cluster of mussels for himself, a bottle of prosecco, ditto.\nThis he opened at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He toured the four downstairs\nrooms, glass of wine in hand, shedding the week\u2019s frustrations like a sodden\novercoat. The cottage\u2019s renovations were finally, finally finished, and the\nnext evening his six best friends \u2014 and investment clients \u2014 were driving down\nfrom New York to help him celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A line of sand-clouded puddles\ntracked from door to fireplace disturbed the perfection of the moment, and\nBruce chided himself as he fetched a towel to dry them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After dinner, he sat in front of\nthe fire and paged through a musty volume of nautical prints \u2014 oversized\nengravings of merchant ships, three-masted clippers, an artist\u2019s impression of\nThe Flying Dutchman. Tonight he\u2019d skip the blood-soaked ghosts of the Stephen\nKing he\u2019d been reading, the book slumbering like a serpent on his beside table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d rescued the book of engravings\nfrom the attic, a farrago of yellowing volumes, framed pictures, half-empty\nchests, and broken whatnots he\u2019d barely glanced at as yet. The elderly sisters\nwho sold him the cottage said they\u2019d never been up there and exchanged a\nsecretive look. \u201cNoises,\u201d one said, and the other said, \u201cBest not to be too\ncurious.\u201d \u201cOr disturb things,\u201d the first one nodded, but her sister cut off\nfurther comment with one glance. Of course they didn\u2019t want to call attention\nto how they\u2019d left everything \u201cundisturbed,\u201d and unrepaired, and unpainted, un,\nun, un, which was why the place was crumbling around their ears and why he\u2019d\nbeen able to buy it at such a good price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well into the night, the storm\nprovided a soundtrack for dreams of howling seas and wind-battered sailors,\ndecks slippery as glass, whiplashing ropes and renting sails, so that he awoke\nfeeling he\u2019d tussled with the elements for hours. From the bedroom window, he\nwatched the morning sun chase the ocean waves, a quarter-mile away. His prize\nview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary Benaker\u2019s station wagon pulled\ninto the smoothed patch of sand next to his BMW. He threw on a robe and met her\nat the front door. Mary was the real estate agent who kept an eye on the place\nfor him, arranged his cleaning service, and oversaw any weekday workmen. She\u2019d\nbeen a godsend during the renovation. All 18 harrowing months of it. Now she\ngreeted him, holding a flat of annuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThought you might want these,\u201d she\nsaid, too cheerful for the hour. \u201cI just drove past the farmer\u2019s market.\nThey\u2019ve got strawberries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce regarded the banal mix of\norange marigolds, red salvia, and purple and white petunias. Nothing he would\nplant. Certainly not in that color combination. \u201cNo thanks. I\u2019m headed to the\ngarden center today myself. Very generous of you, but, no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked a bit sadly at the\nunwanted annuals, but said nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an afterthought, he said, \u201cOne\nthing, though. Was the maid service here last week?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNext week. First and third\nWednesdays. Everything OK?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked past her, head cocked.\n\u201cYes, but …\u201d He paused to focus a thought. \u201cEverything looks moved, slightly,\nlike someone dusted. And, it just feels like … someone\u2019s been here.\u201d He\u2019d had\na parade of unsettling feelings when at the house in the last few weeks, but he\nwasn\u2019t going to tell Mary about the worst of them \u2014 that someone was watching\nhim. That he chalked up to urban paranoia and, possibly, too much Cabernet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she hesitated. \u201cAnything\nmissing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing like that. Probably my\nimagination.\u201d The uncertain way he said this made it clear he didn\u2019t believe it\nwas his imagination at all, and he turned to go back inside the house. \u201cThanks,\nanyway.\u201d He indicated the plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSuit yourself,\u201d she said to the\nclosing door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce leaned his back against the\ndoor, annoyed. Throughout the endless renovation, she always managed to slip in\na dig. \u201cIf that\u2019s what you like,\u201d \u201cOf course, that\u2019s up to you,\u201d \u201cSuit\nyourself.\u201d Her distaste for his choices, his polished style couldn\u2019t be\nclearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what!\u201d he scolded himself, then\ngasped. He took a step forward, then another, transfixed by what he saw over\nthe fireplace. In place of his prized large-format Robert Mapplethorpe\nphotograph \u2014 ambiguous portions of two male torsos, one black, one white, so\nrich in tone it seemed a color print, but wasn\u2019t \u2014 sailed a four-masted\nwindjammer, sheets unfurled and running with the wind, straight at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wheeled and opened the door.\n\u201cMary!\u201d he shouted, but the station wagon turned onto the road and disappeared\nbehind a stand of beach plums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The frame of the Mapplethorpe\npeeked above the back of a low sofa. He pulled it from its hiding place and\nmarched to the fireplace to switch the two. And stepped in a puddle of seawater\ncontaining a miniature beach of sand and trailing a seaweed thread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe a shower would clear his\nhead. But in the bathroom, he found scrimshaw ornaments cluttering the glass\nshelf. Where the hell did those come from? Figuring they were cheap plastic\nsouvenirs, someone\u2019s idea of a joke, he picked up a piece to toss it into the\ntrash, and noticed the weight, the fine detail, a map he recognized as\nNantucket Island, and the date: 1846. He set it back on the glass and\ncontemplated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A piece of toast in one hand and\nhis smartphone in the other, he called Mary. \u201cWho lived here before me, do you\nknow? Before the sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet me ask Chuck. If he doesn\u2019t\nknow, he can find out.\u201d Chuck Benaker was her husband, another realtor and a\npast president of the county historic society. These combined interests could\ngenerate a dizzying amount of genealogical detail about any parcel of local\nproperty. Bruce found Chuck tiresome, but Mary was right. He\u2019d know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce was planting herbs next to\nthe kitchen door when Mary called back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChuck says your house was built by\na retired sea captain. This would have been about 1850. The house was in his\nfamily for 75 years or so until the Darby family bought it. The parents died\nsoon after World War II, and they left it to their daughters \u2014 the sisters who\nsold it to you. Not many owners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does he know about this sea\ncaptain?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said the historic society has\nsome papers and such. They open for the season in a couple of weeks, but wait.\u201d\nMary put her hand over the receiver and spoke to someone. \u201cChuck says he can\nmeet you there about three.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historic society headquarters\nand museum occupied a simple clapboard house on Washington Street. Chuck\nBenaker looked up from a pile of mail. \u201cSo, your house? Quite a history.\u201d He\nhanded Bruce a folder. \u201cCaptain Newsome was a true legend. You have there the\noriginal deed to the property and records of some purchases. Stuff found after\nhe was murdered, I suppose. Plus the registries kept by his nephew, who lived\nwith him and let out the upstairs rooms to lodgers. The Darbys \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMurdered?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNewsome? Oh, yeah. Made enemies\nlike Dunkin\u2019 makes Donuts. If he hadn\u2019t died, he would have been charged with a\nmurder or two himself. Beat the rap by bleeding to death. The clippings are\nhere somewhere,\u201d Chuck walked to a file cabinet and rattled a drawer open.\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been closed since fall, and the girls left everything a mess.\u201d He\nslammed the drawer. \u201cBut I remember the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce leafed through the folder,\nmesmerized. So much for his house as a peaceful place, a refuge. He held up a\ngreen feather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh. Newsome\u2019s parrot, \u2018Cap\u2019n,\u2019\u201d\nChuck said. \u201cAccording to their diaries, the Cape May ladies were more\nterrified of Cap\u2019n than of Newsome himself. Stunning vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNewsome was captain of a merchant\nship in the mid-1800s, sailed out of Massachusetts,\u201d Chuck drawled, and Bruce\ncould see the rest of the afternoon unwinding drearily in front of him, despite\nChuck\u2019s rendition of the despicable Newsome. Chuck pulled open the shallow\ndrawer of a map cabinet and located a floor plan of the house. \u201cCarpenter\u2019s\nrecords.\u201d He pointed to a second floor room. \u201cHappened right there. When I\nunearth the newspaper stories, you can read the police description. Strong\nstomach?\u201d He looked at Bruce over the top of his half-glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my bedroom,\u201d Bruce said,\nstaring at Chuck\u2019s tapping finger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally.\u201d Chuck paused, as if he\nfound that fact somehow significant, and the word hung ambiguously in the air.\n\u201cNewsome and his killer, Henry Carver \u2014 now that was a prophetic name \u2014 had a\nroyal feud about your property. Came to a head one night, both of them drunk.\nCarver tried to escape across the Pine Barrens, but a timber rattler got him,\nso the police said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce caught the skepticism. \u201cYou\ndon\u2019t believe it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benaker shrugged. \u201cThe other\nlodgers didn\u2019t believe it. The night in question they were all jammed in the\ndoorway of the murder room, but none of them lifted a hand while Carver did the\nbloody deed. Newsome\u2019s last words were, \u2018I\u2019ll come back and get you,\u2019 and he\nshook his fist at the lot of them. When Carver turned up dead, they hightailed\nit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d Bruce startled,\nas if wakened from a bad dream, and checked his watch. 5:30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh. Sorry to keep you.\u201d Chuck\nlooked disappointed. \u201cI get all wound up in these stories. Cape May County has\na colorful history, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce stood up, a little wobbly\nfrom information overload. \u201cNo, it was . . . helpful. But I have friends coming\nat seven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou go on. When I dig up those\nclippings, we\u2019ll talk again.\u201d He rubbed his hands together, a gesture that made\nBruce wince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back at the cottage, The Windjammer\nwas back above the fireplace. He found the torn Mapplethorpe outside in the\ntrash barrel, frame and glass shattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce\u2019s guests said the cottage was\nfantastic and thought the painting an inspired bit of camp. But their\nadmiration gave him no pleasure, and he was uncharacteristically quiet all\nevening. He couldn\u2019t talk to his New York friends about ghosts, then expect\nthem to invest their life savings with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gave two of the men the \u201cmurder\nroom,\u201d as Benaker termed it. As he stood in the doorway to point out the\nswitches and extra bedding, he began to shake, and he hurried back downstairs.\nHe slept on the sofa and hoped a sunny Sunday morning at the beach would\nexpunge Newsome\u2019s gory phantom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too soon he was awakened by a\ncommotion in the kitchen. Up already before seven, his visitors prowled for\ncoffee. He found them clustered around the kitchen table, staring at a tall\nbell-shaped object covered with a fitted cloth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooks like my mother\u2019s mixer,\u201d said\none, \u201conly bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour mother dressed her\nappliances, too? I thought that was my Mom\u2019s Midwestern chic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce knew what the thing was. But\nhe lifted the cover, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCap\u2019n\u2019s back,\u201d squawked the\nparrot, followed by an outpouring of dark obscenities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late that afternoon the phone rang\nin the Benaker real estate office, and Chuck picked up. \u201cHey, Bruce,\u201d Chuck\nsaid. He continued to listen for several minutes. \u201cSorry to hear that. . . .\nNo, I do not believe in . . .\u201d He listened some more. \u201cWell, OK, if you\u2019re\nsure.\u201d Finally, he hung up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked across the office and\nsmiled at his wife. \u201cYour dream house? As good as yours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Vicki Weisfeld When Bruce Pritchard unlocked the door to his weekend Cape May, New Jersey, cottage one Friday early in June, the wind crowded in behind him like a presence, gusts of rain snapping at his heels. He flipped … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,40,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-fiction","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1ZN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7677,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions\/7677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}