The Haunted Island (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 9) Page 9

  “This hole needs to be deeper,” Leonard pointed and Lin began to dig again. “So what was the guy digging? Graves?”

  Lin stared at her partner. “Why would Dr. Mitchell want graves dug? Wouldn’t they have had gravediggers employed on the island?”

  “Maybe more people were dying than was expected. Was Mitchell an administrator as well as a caregiver?” Leonard asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lin hit a rock and had to work the shovel around the edges to loosen it. “We’re meeting Anton tonight. Maybe he can find that out.”

  “If the doctor managed administrative tasks, then under the circumstances, he might have been in charge of expanding the cemetery,” Leonard guessed. “There was a big influx in patients around 1890. That could explain the need for more workers to prepare graves. And I would bet that Mitchell could get some of the guys stuck in quarantine to do the work for very little money. They were bored, probably appreciated having something to do, and could get outside away from the sick people.”

  “That makes a lot of sense. It probably wasn’t easy to get workers to go out to Canter. They’d have to leave home and live on an island with quarantined sick people. It doesn’t sound very appealing.” Lin finally got the rock out of the hole.

  “It certainly does not,” Leonard agreed. “I wouldn’t do it. Why take the chance of contracting the disease?”

  “Exactly. I wouldn’t take a job on Canter either. It must have been very difficult to attract workers to the island.”

  “What about this ghost? You think he might be William Irons?”

  “It’s a real possibility.”

  “From what you say, he stayed on Canter much longer than would be expected,” Leonard said.

  “If he didn’t come down with smallpox by June 26 or so, he should have been sent home,” Lin said. “If he did come down with it, he would have either survived the disease and gone home or succumbed to it way before the day he actually died. He was on that island beyond the normal timeline.”

  “So let’s suppose he accepted Dr. Mitchell’s offer of doing some work for him. Irons passes the observation, but stays longer to make more money working for Mitchell,” Leonard said. “That would explain his longer presence on Canter.”

  “And then what happened?” Lin asked. “He had an accident and died?”

  Nicky released a low growl.

  “Or someone bopped him on the head,” Leonard said.

  “If one of those things happened, then why was Irons buried on Canter. He didn’t have smallpox. They could have sent the body to Nantucket for burial.”

  “So maybe something was fishy on that island,” Leonard said. “Whoever made the decision to bury him on Canter didn’t want to send a dead man with a head injury back to his family.”

  “That would require some explaining,” Lin said.

  “And maybe explaining what happened to Irons was the last thing someone wanted to do.” Leonard narrowed his eyes. “See if Anton can get a look at Iron’s death certificate. If the cause of death is listed as smallpox, then someone was trying to cover-up Mr. Irons’s passing.”

  “The ghost told me he wanted to go home,” Lin said. “He didn’t say the words to me, but somehow he gave me that message. The investigators working on the graves at Canter are trying to find the descendants of the people buried there. If they find William Irons’s relatives, maybe he will be able to go home.”

  “Did he have children?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “After Irons died, did his wife stay on Nantucket with her sister?” Leonard asked.

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “What does the ghost mean by home? Does he want to go back to England or does he want to buried where his wife is buried? Wherever that may be.”

  Lin turned her hands up in a helpless gesture. “I guess I need to find those things out.”

  “The most important thing to find out is whether or not the ghost’s name is really William Irons,” Leonard said. “If it’s him, then you can look into the circumstances of his life and death and try to figure out what he means by home. If the ghost isn’t Irons, then it’s back to square one.”

  “Right,” Lin’s voice had a defeated tone to it. “By the way, the hole is ready for the plant.”

  Leonard lifted the bush, set it gently into the space, and began to fill it in with soil. “How’s Viv?”

  “She isn’t thrilled with the new developments.” Lin started a new hole for the next bush.

  “I imagine she isn’t.” Leonard couldn’t help but smile. “If you think about it though, it makes sense that she’d have inherited some skills, with the ancestors she has. Funny, it took so long to show up. You could see ghosts as a kid.”

  “Maybe paranormal skills only show up when someone is ready to handle them.”

  “Is Viv handling them okay?” Leonard was skeptical.

  “Not so much,” Lin sighed.

  “Could there be a reason she’s showing abilities right now?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Is there something about this ghost that made her more sensitive to him?” Leonard asked.

  When Lin looked off across the garden thinking about her partner’s question, Nicky let out a bark.

  “Nick thinks you’re on to something.” The young woman bent to pat the dog. “You make a good point. I don’t know what it could be that makes Viv better able to sense this ghost.”

  “Maybe Libby could help understand it.”

  “Viv doesn’t want to talk to Libby about it. She wants to ignore the whole thing, but I really don’t think she can. Maybe in time, she’ll come around and be willing to let Libby help her.”

  “Viv needs time to get accustomed to it,” Leonard said. “She’ll be okay.”

  “She also needs to tell John about me … and ghosts,” Lin said.

  Leonard looked up at Lin from his kneeling position tamping down the soil. “How do you think that will go?”

  Lin gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I hope he’ll handle it okay.”

  “John might need some time to process that news.” Leonard sat back on his heels. “That’s not something you hear every day.”

  Lin kicked at a pebble as she recalled being a young child being teased and shunned when some peers found out she could see ghosts. “I really hope John doesn’t reject me and think of me as some sort of a freak.”

  “If he does that, then he isn’t the man I think he is,” Leonard said gently, “and he doesn’t deserve to be around someone like you.”

  Lin’s heart warmed at her partner’s words and the corners of her lips turned up. “How did I get so lucky to be around someone like you?”

  Leonard gave a half-smile. “If the first few times we met, I told you that you’d say those words to me one day, you would have had me locked up.”

  “I almost had you locked up anyway,” Lin said with a sheepish smile recalling how she thought Leonard was a murderer.

  Leonard said with a knowing nod, “If John takes the ghost news hard, give him some time. We both know very well that sometimes feelings can change.”

  Nicky licked the man’s hand and let out a happy woof.

  16

  “You’re finally here.” Anton opened the door and ushered the cousins and the dog into the kitchen where he bustled around the long wooden table reaching for folders and books. It had turned chilly in the late afternoon and a fire burned in the kitchen fireplace making the room warm and cozy. Nicky trotted to the rug in front of the fire, and claiming the spot, curled up on it to listen to the humans’ chat.

  Anton looked over his black-rimmed eyeglasses at Viv who had taken a seat across from him. “I hear you’ve developed some skills.”

  The words made Viv shrink in her chair. “It’s a rumor,” she muttered.

  “I think not, and I will tell you why I think that, but first, I want to show Lin a photograph.”

  Anton tapped away at his laptop until he found what he
was looking for. “A professor friend of mine sent this to me. I saw him at the conference I just returned from where I shared some information you gave me about Canter. Take a look,” he told Lin.

  Lin slid her chair closer and gazed at the screen

  In the black and white photo, a group of six men stood at a dock. A boat could be seen behind them. When Lin saw the third man from the left, her eyes went wide. “Oh.” Lifting her finger, she touched the laptop screen. “This man. He looks like my ghost. Yes, this is him.”

  Lin turned quickly to Anton. “Is his name William Irons?”

  “It is indeed.” With a pleased look on his face, Anton scrolled up and revealed a list of the men’s names. “Third from the left. William Irons.”

  Viv hurried around the table to get a look. “That’s him? That’s the ghost?”

  Lin nodded. “Where was the photo taken?”

  “Brighton, England.”

  “Was that his home?” Viv asked.

  “It appears so,” Anton told them. “My friend is an English chap, a historian. He studies nineteenth-century England.”

  “Did your friend know anything else about Mr. Irons?”

  “No, he didn’t, but I do.” Anton wore a wide grin.

  With a racing heart, Lin leaned forward. “Tell us.”

  Anton flipped open one of his folders. “Mr. Irons left England at the age of twenty-five. He had a wife, Merry, and a little daughter, Marilyn, who was two years old. Mr. and Mrs. Irons decided to leave their home and venture to America, specifically to Massachusetts, where Merry’s sister, Eve, had settled on Nantucket. Merry and her daughter left first, six months before Mr. Irons would make the journey to join them.”

  “Was Merry’s sister married?” Viv asked.

  “Yes, she was married to a man named Adam Holden, a native of Nantucket. The man was a fisherman,” Anton said.

  “What did Mr. Irons do for work?” Lin asked.

  “Bricklayer,” Anton said.

  “How do you know all of this?” Viv questioned, still staring at the photo of William Irons.

  “I have another associate who is a professional historian and genealogist. I asked for her help, and between the two of us we were able to find out a few things about your ghost.”

  Lin asked Anton a question she knew he couldn’t answer. “Any chance you were able to find out why Irons was on Canter for so long?”

  “That is beyond the efforts of a genealogist. Unless we are able to go back in time, I’m unable to help you with that kind of information.”

  “I’ll have to fire you then,” Lin kidded the man.

  “That’s fine with me,” Anton returned the teasing. “I’ve given you hours of my labor for free.”

  “What else can you tell us about Irons?” Viv asked.

  “Well, going through the man’s family tree took a good deal of time, but I found something quite interesting.” Anton leaned back in his chair with a wide grin on his face.

  Nicky stood up and wagged his little tail.

  Lin narrowed her eyes at the historian trying to decipher his expression, and then she tilted her head to the side. “Wait a minute. Is Irons…?”

  “Is Irons what?” Anton eyes flashed with mischief.

  Viv looked from Lin to Anton with a questioning expression.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you found in his family tree,” Lin suggested.

  Anton reached for one of his folders, removed a folded up piece of paper, and spread it over the top of the table to reveal a printout of a family tree.

  “Here is Mr. Irons,” Anton touched the corner of one of the papers, and then he made eye contact with Viv. “And way down here,” the historian moved his finger along the lines of descendants to a familiar name, “is someone we all know.”

  Viv leaned forward to see who it was, and her head jerked up when she read what it said. “Me?” The young woman sank into a chair next to her cousin. “Me? How can that be?”

  Lin’s eyes were big and round. “Viv? Viv is related to William Irons?”

  Anton chuckled and looked at Viv. “You both have a common ancestor. His name was Paul Bigelow of London. The man was on your father’s side.”

  “How am I related to William Irons?” Tiny beads of perspiration showed on Viv’s forehead.

  “He is some sort of a cousin … a sixth cousin twice removed or some such thing,” Anton said. “If the exact relationship is something you want to know, I can figure it out for you.”

  Viv weakly waved her hand in the air. “No need. He doesn’t need a label.” The young woman sighed. “I have a ghost-cousin.”

  Nicky got up and padded over to Viv where he rubbed his head against her leg.

  Viv looked to Lin. “Is that why I can sense him? Because we’re related?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. You and Irons have a connection through a distant relative. That connection is creating a communication path between you.” Lin gave a shrug. “It’s all just conjecture. I really don’t know anything about ghosts.”

  “It makes sense though,” Anton said. “I spoke with Libby this afternoon and she suggested the same thing.”

  “I don’t understand it,” Viv’s voice was soft.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary to understand it,” Anton told her. “Keep yourself open to the ghost. Pay attention to perception. Be aware of your sensations.”

  “What do you think he wants from me?” Viv’s voice shook.

  The corner of Lin’s mouth turned up slightly. “Help.”

  Viv blinked fast several times. “But what can I do?”

  Lin placed her hand on Viv’s shoulder. “The same things we always do. Look for clues, stay open to the ghost’s appearances and what he might be trying to tell us.”

  “What if we can’t figure it out?”

  “So far, we’ve been able to figure out every ghost’s cry for help,” Lin tried to encourage her cousin even though she herself often feared failure. Forcing a smile, she said, “Now there are two of us who can pick up on things that can help solve the mystery.”

  “My new thing hasn’t helped so far,” Viv’s lower lip quivered. “I’m feeling pressured and inadequate and overwhelmed.”

  “That’s how I feel all the time,” Lin chuckled.

  A smile crept over Viv’s face. “I’m glad to hear that actually.”

  The two cousins leaned towards one another and hugged.

  “Okay, enough,” Anton said. “Let’s get down to business and discuss where things are at. First, you met the ghost on Canter when you were there with Jeff and John. You found out the ghost’s name is William Irons.”

  Viv said, “William Irons was traveling from England and was detained on Canter for observation for smallpox.”

  Lin added, “Irons was asked by Dr. Benjamin Mitchell if he would do some work for him on Canter. Irons was on the island far longer than anyone who was in quarantine and far longer than someone who had the disease.”

  “Either the man had smallpox and it took longer for the disease to kill him,” Anton said. “Or he died from some other cause, such as the head injury. That is something I’m looking into. I’m searching for the man’s official death certificate.”

  “Irons’s wife and child came to Nantucket six months before Mr. Irons left England for America,” Viv said.

  “There’s also the doubloon the ghost tossed onto the deck for us to see,” Lin said. “What does it tell us?”

  “I believe the ghost is attempting to tell us he worked for Dr. Mitchell,” Anton said. “And was paid by the man for whatever work was done.”

  “The work Irons did must have had some importance,” Viv suggested.

  “Did that work lead to Mr. Iron’s death?” Lin questioned. “Does it point to something that was happening on Canter? Maybe something illegal?”

  “Something illegal?” Viv asked with surprise. “What could that be?” She and Lin looked to Anton.

  “Smuggling, drug traffick
ing, money laundering,” Anton said.

  “In 1890?” Viv was surprised to hear that similar crimes to today were going on back then.

  “There’s nothing new under the sun,” Anton said with a sigh.

  “Dr. Mitchell could have been running some kind of crime ring from Canter?” Lin asked. “It makes sense though, doesn’t it? The place was isolated, people would keep away from it because of the smallpox, the quarantine and the influx in immigration would have been difficult to manage and handle. There might have been a shortage of workers on the island. When people are overworked and distracted, it can be the perfect time for someone to commit crimes. Everyone is too busy to notice.”

  “We need to find out if the state investigators working on Canter have been able to determine which grave belongs to William Irons,” Viv said. “Then we can accept the body for burial and arrange to have him transported back to England.”

  “Before that,” Lin said, “we need to find out where his home really is.” Looking from Viv to Anton, she added, “And … we need to find out how Mr. Irons died. We need to find out the truth. If we do those two things, then maybe the man can rest in peace.”

  17

  Lin pulled her truck into Dr. Mitchell’s crushed shell driveway and cut the engine. Opening the passenger side door, Nicky jumped out and the two walked around to the rear yard, where Jeff was waiting on the back patio for lunch.

  Lin and Leonard were tending to their other clients and weren’t scheduled to work on Mitchell’s gardens that day, but Lin and Jeff made arrangements to meet at Mitchell’s house during the lunch hour.

  Nicky spotted Jeff on the patio and darted over to greet him with his body wiggling and his tail wagging with delight as the young man lifted the small dog onto his lap and scratched behind the canine’s ears. “What a happy hello.”

  After placing the cooler on the teak table, Lin gave her boyfriend a kiss. “I have to fight for attention from you when this little guy is around hogging it all.”

  “I’m very popular,” Jeff laughed.