Dark Light

11

At 8:40 P.M., I turned down the drive to Mildred Engle’s home, the lights of my old pickup sweeping across a mailbox, a nameplate—SOUTHWIND—then trees, patches of cactus, a gazebo, and, to my left, what looked to be a rock garden.

Rock gardens are not common on Sanibel, an island composed of sand. Particularly gardens of symmetrical, knee-high stones.

I was early. I left the truck running, and got out to have a look.

Through stripped trees, I could see the shape of the house silhouetted against a spacious darkness that I knew marked the Gulf of Mexico. There would be a rind of white beach between, the Yucatán beyond.

Stars, too. They were immobile above clouds that sailed a twenty-knot wind toward Cuba.

Weather was deteriorating.

I placed my hand on the first stone I came to. Gray marble, but not a solitary stone. It was a slab of marble that had been fitted atop a marble box. I explored with my fingers. There was an inscription.

This wasn’t a rock garden. It was a small cemetery—not unusual on the islands. The bridge to the mainland hadn’t been built until the early ’60s and bodies don’t store well in the subtropics.

I knelt and removed my glasses, attempting to read the inscription in the peripheral light from my truck.

“The name on the grave is ‘Nellie Kay Dorn,’ Dr. Ford,” said a woman’s voice from behind me. “She was born in eighteen…eighteen fifty-eight? She died in the early nineteen thirties. Am I right? My memory has gotten so spotty. I hope the dead will forgive me.”

My headlights shot a golden tunnel through the trees. Moths orbited through incandescent patterns of dust. A black figure stood at the tunnel’s edge.

“It’s a family cemetery. Dorn and Engle, some Brusthoffs, too. Fourteen of us in all. I doubt if the local government will ever let it become fifteen. Modern times. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”

Her tone was ironic; her voice a note lower than most women, with a hint of accent—Scandinavian?

I stood. “Ms. Engle?”

“Chestra.” The figure dipped—a slight curtsy that somehow mocked its own formality. “I hope I didn’t scare you, Dr. Ford. I’m a sucker when it comes to long walks at night. Please…come inside. Ladies shouldn’t introduce themselves to men in bars…or in graveyards, I suppose. And I at least try to be a lady. Now I’ve gone and made a mess of things.”

The figure turned. For an instant, I saw a face in profile—a nose…section of cheek…an eye—the face whiter than the new moon visible through the trees.

“Not at all,” I said. “I prefer women to ladies.”

Laughter.

“Come to the house, then, while I change. The door’s open.”

The figure moved away.

C hestra Engle wasn’t wearing sequins, as when I’d watched her from the beach. She was wearing a black chemise, ankle-length, with a pearl appliqué on the bodice that, at first, I thought was a brooch, the lighting was so poor. I had followed her through a hall, up a stairway, into this room of antique furniture where Tiffany lamps were soft, and candles flamed on the fireplace mantel.

Seen from behind, she was a lean-hipped woman with silver hair, in a dress that clung. Nice.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I keep the lights dim this time of year. It’s because of turtles nesting. From May to October, they bury their eggs on the beach, and if the baby turtles see lights they crawl away from the ocean and die—” She stopped, catching herself. I heard her alto laughter once again. “Listen to me—telling a marine biologist his business. It would be like telling Charles LaBuff, someone who’s studied turtles forever.”

“Not quite the same. I’m a fish guy, mostly.” I was looking around the room, seeing the kitchen to my left, photos on walls and mantelpiece, a grand piano in the next room, its lid a glossy black ramp beneath the crystal chandelier. On a nearby desk, a single framed photo was visible, black-and-white. A woman.

I said, “You didn’t get much storm damage. You’re lucky.”

“Lucky, and good. This house, anyway. It was built by one of my relatives, Victor Dorn, in the late eighteen hundreds. How many hurricanes do you think it’s weathered in a century? I hope I’m as solid as this old dame when I’m a hundred.” She bent to dim a lamp, then stood, and turned.

For the first time, I got a clear look at her face. Tomlinson had described her as extraordinarily beautiful. She undoubtedly had been—two or more decades ago. Skin looses elasticity as we age, desiccated wrinkles multiply, and it hangs from our bones as we shrink.

The disappointment I felt was immediately replaced by guilt. Dismissing a person because of age? I’m not so shallow that I don’t recognize my own shallowness.

If Chestra Engle noticed, she was amused, not hurt. “Don’t you look dapper tonight. Here—let me turn the light brighter, so I can get a better look.”

She did. I stood there in my khaki slacks and black sport coat, face bandaged, and watched the woman age another five years.

“May I get you something to drink, Dr. Ford?”

“Please, Ms. Engle, just Ford. Or Marion.”

“Our friend Tomlinson always refers to you as Doc.”

I nodded. Fine.

“In that case, I’m Chess, or Chessie, short for Chestra. It’s an old family name that has something to do with music in one of those silly Norse languages no one understands anymore. As in orchestra?”

I smiled at her self-deprecating manner. “All right, Chess, I’d like a beer, if you have it.”

“A beer? Just a beer?” Her disappointment was sincere. “I so rarely get a chance to make a drink for a man. A real drink. May I? Scotch on the rocks? A highball?”

I hadn’t heard the term in years; didn’t know what it was, so I said, “A highball. That sounds good.” It seemed like the right thing to do: Please this nice lady who was eager to do what she’d done for men when she was younger.

S he had a dated, jazzy way of talking: “this old dame”…“guys and gals”…“we had a ball”…“this takes the cake!” Mostly, it was in her intonation—“That’s enchanting”—and sentence patterns that shifted abruptly from formal to Hollywood wiseguy—“A delightful man, but I told him, ‘Hey, kiddo, shake a leg.’”

Irony and amusement were there, too, a consistent subtext from a person who paid attention, had seen some places…her sharp eyes still saying, Show me. Prove it. A young woman, drop-dead gorgeous, was still alive inside Chestra Engle, looking out.

For the first ten minutes, it was a struggle not to check my watch. There were more interesting things to do than spend an evening with a woman her age. The highball helped. Turned out to be whiskey and ginger ale. I don’t drink either one, but I drank this. Gradually, her speech patterns began to sound stylish. The accent was Austrian, she told me, and she had a fun, straightforward view of the world that was charming.

I liked her. Understood why Tomlinson—Tommy, she called him—had been spending time here, but I didn’t understand why he’d been reluctant to discuss her. The age difference, maybe? No one has ever called the man shallow.

“Would you like another highball, Doc?”

“No, thanks. Water’s fine.” I’d mentioned the wreck a couple of times, thinking she’d want to discuss it. So far, no luck, and I tried again. “Chessie, I’m still not clear about your interest in the artifacts our pal found.”

My impatience received a wave of dismissal, and a smoky chuckle. “There’s time for that. Do you mind? I’d like to get to know each other better.”

It struck me that she was eager for company and didn’t want to let me go. I found it mildly irritating: She’d invited me to discuss a specific subject, but was behaving as if I’d accepted a social invitation. We seemed to perceive time differently.

The age difference maybe?

W e were on the balcony, now, where I’d watched her dance with Tomlinson. She stood at the rail. I sat in a deck chair, listening to the Gulf of Mexico pound the beach below. Clouds scudded overhead, reflecting pale starbursts from Sanibel Lighthouse.

Heavy seas out there in the darkness. We would not be diving tomorrow.

“I was dying to ask before but didn’t. What happened to your face?”

“I’m surprised you waited this long.”

“It would have been impolite. We didn’t know each other. Indelicate—it’s a word one seldom hears these days.”

I said, “During the hurricane, I got hit by something. Debris—something in the wind.”

The woman replied, “Really.” Not a question. She didn’t believe me, and it took me aback.

We’d exchanged the sort of information people trade when they’ve met. Her family had owned this house forever—called Southwind because that’s the direction it faced. Some of her happiest childhood memories had been here. She’d been in her Manhattan apartment when the hurricane hit. October was when she normally returned to Florida, but she came early because of the storm. Yes, the damage was terrible, and the aftereffects: homeless people; islanders out of work. Tomlinson? She met him on the beach a few days after the storm.

“Another lost soul wandering,” she told me. “It’s unusual for me to talk to anyone because I go out only at night. Even on an island like Sanibel, I suppose it’s dangerous for a woman alone. But…the storm was a reason to be friendlier, somehow. Or am I being a sap?”

She couldn’t go out during the day, she told me, because of a skin condition. Doctor’s orders. First she freckled, and then the freckles quickly turned to skin cancers. She didn’t say it, but I suspected the malady was xeroderma, a condition first documented in Guatemala, where I’ve spent a fair amount of time.

“You’re not a sap,” I told her. Then I glanced at my watch for the first time. She noticed.

“The wreck your friend found,” she said immediately, “how far off-shore is it?”

It took me a moment to react. “Shouldn’t you first tell me why you’re interested? I don’t have a lot of experience, but I’ve heard that treasure hunters try to keep their secrets secret.”

The woman turned, saying, “Fair enough,” her voice a forbearing smile. Above her shoulder, I could see the new moon magnified by the horizon’s curvature. It was huge, an orange scimitar, as pointed as a cat’s pupil.

“Tommy described some of the things you found. German war medals, one with diamonds, I think he said.”

“Nazi war medals, yes. That’s right.”

“Do you think there’s more to be found?”

“I have no idea. There’s wreckage. We plan to dive it and have a look.”

“When?”

“We wanted to go tomorrow, but”—I nodded as the wind stirred the bare tree canopy, and motioned toward the beach where collapsing waves made a waterfall rumble—“the weather’s terrible, so maybe the day after. It’s supposed to be calmer on Saturday, then it’s going to get bad again.”

She used both hands to hold her glass, a heavy crystal tumbler. She lifted it to her lips. “Do you really believe the wreck was buried by a hurricane?”

“I think you misunderstood Tomlinson. I believe it’s possible that it was uncovered by the recent hurricane. In this area, the Gulf of Mexico is sand bottom. Picture a desert hidden by water.”

She smiled, head tilted, thinking about it. “What a lovely image. Sand dunes. Sheiks riding sea horses. Turtles paddling around the Sphinx.”

“You’re right about the sand dunes,” I said, trying not to show my impatience. “Wind creates underwater currents that are proportional in strength. Dunes shift; the bottom changes.”

“Then your wreck could have also been buried by a hurricane.”

“Yes,” I said. I stood and looked at my watch again. “I suppose so.”

“Dr. Ford”—her tone was instantly businesslike—“I have a proposition to make you. You and your friends. I would like to finance your…? What would you call it—your ‘recovery expedition’? You yourself told me that the man who found the wreck is out of work. And what you’re proposing to do—excavate and salvage—sounds as if it could take weeks, even months, to finish properly.”

She was facing me. There was a percussion flare of lighthouse and clouds behind her, as she continued, “I would pay him a salary—whatever you say is fair—plus all related expenses. There was another man you mentioned, a fishing guide.”

“Javier Castillo.”

“That’s right. We could hire him, too. You put in your time and expertise, organize a team, and I’ll fund it…within reasonable limits, of course. Would you also expect a salary?”

“No. I have my own work, but I find this interesting.”

“Wonderful! An even better deal for me.”

I was looking into her face, lips still full, those dark eyes, thinking: Yes, at one time an extraordinary beauty. I asked, “What would you expect in return, Chestra? Odds are slim we’ll find anything else valuable.”

Her laughter was unexpectedly theatrical. “Are you asking what share of the profit I expect? I don’t know…whatever’s fair, I suppose. But that’s not why I want to be involved. It’s so exciting—shipwrecks and treasure. I want to be part of it. Show me what you’ve found; what you find. Stories to take back to New York—that’s what I’ll get in return. I want to finance stories that will keep me warm all winter.”

Theatrical. Yes, that described her.

I said slowly, as a statement: “You don’t want anything in return? No matter what we find, it’s ours?”

“Well,” she said, turning away, “I would expect to at least see what you brought up. There might be one or two small items that I’d want to keep…as mementos.”

“The diamond war medal, for instance?”

“No,” she replied immediately. “Not that. You and your team can sell it, split the money, I don’t care. One or two small things…” Her voice drifted for a moment before she caught herself, and smiled. “I wouldn’t take anything of value. Just mementos. And the fun of it!”

Theatrical—my impression hadn’t changed. I placed my glass on a table, looked at her, and said, “Really.” Using the same word, the same tone that she had before, to let her know I thought she was lying.

I checked my watch: 11:25 P.M. I told her I had to leave.