Deeper (4 page)

"So tell
me about these shipwrecks of yours, Mr. Parsons."

"It's
Jacob, please."
 
He leaned back
against the railing and looked down at the water as it splashed away from the
sides.
 
I don't think he quite knew what
to make of the ocean, like a man who's almost never been on it or in it, but I
think he was starting to decide he liked it well enough.

"A lot of
the ships that were wrecked could be put down as caused by different
reasons."
 
He shrugged as he spoke,
as if apologizing.
 
"A lot of them
have never been explained.
 
Back all the
way to the Revolutionary War there have been ships going down in the area.
 
In a two-year span, you had the HMS
Thornton
, the HMS
Independent
and the HMS
Ashbury
all sunk in the area.
 
There was a small
settlement back then, maybe a few hundred people, but there are no records that
anyone in the area actually had any encounters with the ships.
 
They just sank.
 
No explanation given and no survivors or
witnesses."

"Those
were warships?"

He
nodded.
 
"All three had just come
over from
England
and were fully loaded with supplies and soldiers."

"Well,
I've seen a few nor’easters that could take down an armada, and wouldn't have a
problem with the ships available back then.
 
Solid wood construction is great on a calm day, but the people building
those old rigs weren't always exactly craftsmen.
 
All it would have taken is one rotted
board.
 
They didn't build in redundant
safety features like bulwarks."

Parsons shook
his head.
 
"Nope.
 
I checked.
 
The weather was as clear as it is right now, and the ships came in the
summer months.
 
They sank for reasons
unknown.
 
The next group of ships that came
along looking for them did some investigating, and decided to blame the people
in the town.
 
There really wasn't
anything else around for miles, but I am very thorough in my research, Captain,
and I can tell you for a fact that there were no rebel forces waiting in the
town to sneak out and sink those ships.
 
Most of the people in the town were still loyal to
England
— the
captain of the HMS
Raven
said as
much.
 
He tortured fifteen of the
healthiest men in town to make sure he knew what he was talking about.
 
Then he burned down the docks in Innsmouth as
punishment and went on his way.
 
How's
that for military logic?"

"Sounds
like the military to me."
 
What else
could I say?
 
The rules are different in
wartime and back then the easiest way to handle an investigation was to just
kill everyone who might be guilty.
 
I
think the captain of the
Raven
was
being fairly nice for the times.
 
That
doesn't make it right, but it was how things were done.

Parsons looked
around and finally decided to relax a bit.
 
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small sheaf of
photographs.
 
"Look at these for a
moment and tell me what you see."

I took the
offered pictures and looked at them.
 
The
sun looked to be rising or going down and the buildings facing the water cast a
lot of glare, but I could make out most of what was going on well enough.
 
The scene was a beachfront and there was a
celebration of some type going on.
 
Or at
least there had been.
 
There were
balloons and what looked like a dozen yachts off to the side, where a newly
built dock could be seen.
 
Mostly, it was
the beach that was the focus of attention.
 
There were people running, and a few of them were dying or dead on the
shore.
 
I could see one woman looking out
at the water, her hands over her face, while right next to her a man was on his
belly in the sand, and he looked to be covered in blood.
 
I'm guessing it was real, because most of his
back was exposed and I could see the remains of his shirt where it lay
scattered around him.
 
The details were a
little fuzzy, as the picture wasn't in perfect focus.
 
It looked like whoever had taken the pictures
had been perfectly happy just pointing and clicking and never bothered to try
for clarity.

There were
several dark shapes on the sand, and a few coming out of the water, and these
were what seemed to be the cause of the bloodshed.
 
They didn't look quite right.
 
They didn't look human, but again, the
pictures were not as clear as I would have liked.

"What are
those things?"
 
I pointed to one of
the dark shapes.
 
This one looked almost
like it had a tail.

"I have
no earthly idea.
 
All I know is that they
aren't very friendly."

"So,
what, these are pictures of a massacre taking place?"

Parsons
shrugged his shoulders again.
 
"I
wish I could tell you.
 
All I know is
what I was told when I bought the
Silver
Swordfish
."

I looked at
Parsons and decided he just might be crazy.
 
Everyone had heard about the
Silver
Swordfish
and even thinking about it was enough to send a few shivers
through me.
 
I'd heard about it, and so
had damned near everyone working the fishing lines on the eastern seaboard
around the same time that the
Swordfish
showed up, but I did my best to hide my discomfort because I wanted to hear
what Parsons would say.

"The
Silver Swordfish
was a pretty impressive
yacht, Captain."
 
He smiled almost
apologetically as he said it, as if I might take offense that it was a better
yacht than the one we were standing on.
 
"She
had just about everything you could need on a yacht, and a wet bar
besides.
 
I know the man who owned her
had her insured for over two million dollars, if that tells you anything."

I nodded,
because that said a great deal.
 
If I'd
had that sort of cash to spend on
Isabella's
Dream
, I wouldn't have been leasing out her services.

"The day
Golden Cove was supposed to open to the public was not a pretty one.
 
The clouds were coming in and, as you saw
from the pictures, the sky was almost red.
 
What's that old saying about red skies at night?
 
Well, the sailors might have been delighted,
but I don't think anyone else was.
 
Turns out there was
one hell of a blow that night and it
made the news.

"The
Silver Swordfish
was anchored off the
shore
of
Golden Cove
, near as anyone can
tell.
 
Her owner had brought her in that
morning for the celebration, and, as one of the movers and shakers with the
Golden Cove project, he got the best spot.
 
You saw the pictures.
 
There were
some notes written by whoever actually took them, but they got pretty sloppy at
the end.
 
His hands were shaking and the
pages were spattered with blood and what looked like dead skin."

He shook his
head and held up one hand.
 
"I'm
getting ahead of myself.
 
The
Silver Swordfish
was there the night
that whatever happened at Golden Cove happened.
 
That is my point.
 
The photos are
evidence of that.
 
But the
Swordfish
herself was found almost three
hundred miles away, near
Cape May
,
New Jersey
.
 
It cost me a fortune to purchase and validate
the source of the pictures.
 
I also have
the original notes, but they're locked away in a safe place.

"No one
knows how the yacht got there, but it did.
 
It ended up wrapped around what's left of the old concrete ship at
Cape May
.
 
The
Swordfish
didn't quite get scuttled but
it came close.

"The
camera containing the originals of the pictures and the notes that were found inside
are all that gave any proof that anyone was on board when she went out.
 
According to those notes, there was a
concentrated attack on the land and the people there.
 
What little I could get out of the coroners
who examined the remains that were found — and there were only a few, not
nearly enough to account for the people who disappeared that night — it looked
like the people had been mauled by bears or attacked by sharks."

Quick
geography lesson with a side of oceanography:
 
there's a lot of rough terrain between Golden Cove and
Cape
May
.
 
The idea that it got
there on its own is almost laughable.
 
There's a lot of territory to cover, you see, and a million or so
obstacles along the way.

"So,
Captain, I don't really know a lot about the sea, but I know when something
doesn't sound right to me.
 
And the
Silver Swordfish
doesn't sit well with
me when you add in what happened that night at Golden Cove.
 
I want answers.
 
I want to know what really happened."

The man's wife
called out around the same time as he finished talking.
 
He looked at her and moved in her direction
with a quick wave of his hand.
 
The first
thought that came to my mind was that Parsons was whipped.
 
Seems a man should finish his conversation
before running off to see what his wife wants from him.
 
Of course, I've been guilty of the same a few
times.

I watched him
go and thought about everything he'd just told me.
 
There was definitely something about the
story and about his determination that piqued my interest.
 
Not that it much mattered.
 
As I've said before, the sea holds a lot of
secrets.
 
I figured time would tell me
whether or not it would reveal any of them to Jacob Parsons.

I had no
idea...

3

I'd seen
Golden Cove at a distance a few times, but never had any reason to set foot on
the land there, or even to pay attention to the place.
 
I could still remember the burned-out ruins
of the previous town, a few lonesome collections of wood and rubble that had
been a landmark for most of my life before the Golden Cove Company had come
along and rebuilt the entire place.

Looking at it
as we pulled up to the docks, I reassessed my opinion of the location.
 
The old gray land I'd grown up with had been
transformed into something that bordered on spectacular.
 
The place that was known for being haunted
when I was a kid — yes, I'd heard the stories, but had chosen to ignore them —
had become everything it must have been in its heyday and more.
 
The buildings had a sort of Hollywood
Colonial charm, but accented to make it more pleasant than the realities of
life back then.
 
The houses that had been
little more than pitted brick foundations when I was a child had grown into
buildings that were elegant and rustic at the same time, with almost no signs
of modern technology that were easily seen.
 
I remembered reading an article about the reconstruction that explained
the phone lines, the power lines and everything else were all hidden
underground, the better to keep up the illusion.

I pulled my
yacht into the spot dictated by the harbormaster and Charlie took care of
docking us.
 
Even from a distance I could
see Dr. Ward and a dozen or so college-age kids on the wharf, watching on as we
lowered the gangway.
 
They observed the
process like it was the most fascinating thing they had ever seen.

Charlie moved
around with harsh, sharp motions, a sure sign that he was still furious about
the place where we had stopped.
 
I could
see the relaxed expressions on most of the faces waiting to board the
Isabella
.
 
Not a one of them looked the least bit
worried.

Jacob and Mary
Parsons walked down to the dock and spoke with the doctor for a moment.
 
Parsons lit another cigarette and puffed away
as the conversation continued.
 
Charlie
settled down near me and crossed his arms over his chest, looking at the crowd
below.

"You
still pissed off?"

"Goddamn
right I am, Joe.
 
This was never part of
the deal."

"You were
there when I took the job, Charlie.
 
They
never said anything about Golden Cove and I never said a damned thing about
avoiding it."

"I know
that.
 
Doesn't make me happy about the
final result is all."
 
He scowled
down at the group below, as if they had somehow set out solely to ruin him.