The Winter Sea (42 page)

‘
I’ll be blowed.’ Tears sprang to Jenny’s eyes. ‘Cassie, I want you to meet your grandmother.’

Cassie stood looking at the gravestone for quite some time before she said anything. ‘Mum, have I got this right? Dad was Bridget’s son, and that makes her my grandmother. She married Giuseppe Aquino and she became the step-mother of Ricardo, Pietro and Carlo. Is that how it works?’

‘That’s my interpretation of what’s written there,’ Jenny replied in a soft voice, almost too emotional to speak at all.

‘So does that also mean that Dad was Giuseppe Aquino’s
step-son and that the others were his step-brothers?’

Jenny nodded.

‘So Dad didn’t work for the Aquinos. He was a member of their family. When he killed Carlo, he didn’t just kill someone he was working with – he killed his step-brother.’

Jenny looked at Cassie, her eyes still filled with tears. ‘I know. But Cassie, if he did such a dreadful thing, why the money? Solve one puzzle and we find more intrigue. Come on, let’s get back, Steve will be wondering what’s happened to us.’

When Cassie told Michael that it was probable that her father had been the step-brother of the Aquino boys, Michael exclaimed, ‘That’s incredible. I bet my mother knows nothing about this. How did Uncle Ray know to send you to the cemetery?’

‘According to Mum, who is now his new best friend, when Ray was very young, his grandfather used to take him for walks up to the cemetery and linger over Bridget’s grave. He used to mutter to himself in Italian, so Ray knew the place was important to him.’

‘The plot certainly thickens! What are you going to do now?’ asked Michael.

‘Mum wants to find out when Bridget married Giuseppe by looking up records at Births, Deaths and Marriages. I’m going to see if I can find anything in the old local newspapers about Dad.’

*

The
Whitby Point News
had been housed in a small office in the main street of the town since 1925. It was still essentially a two-person band. The editor was Alison Chambers, the granddaughter of the original proprietor, and she worked with a keen young assistant, James Holden.

‘Good morning, Mrs Chambers. I’m Cassandra Holloway. We spoke briefly over the phone about my looking through some of the old files.’

‘Oh yes. I’ve made a space for you in our back room. Unfortunately not all our papers have been saved in the new digital format. Some are on microfilm, and some are in the historical society’s museum. I’ve pulled out the papers from around the mid fifties.’

‘Do you remember anything about the incident . . .
when Carlo Aquino . . . ? Do you remember Patrick
Sullivan?’

‘No, sorry. I can’t help you there. I wasn’t born at the time,’ Alison replied. She opened the latched half door at the end of the counter and ushered Cassie through. ‘The papers are old paste-up jobs, so they are in books. I’ve found some from the fifties and put them on the table for you,’ Alison explained.

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s a bit of a job to go through them; would you like a coffee? Instant, I’m afraid.’

‘Perhaps a bit later, thanks.’ Cassie eyed the pile of fat bound books with yellowing pages of newspapers sticking out from them.

She settled herself at the work table and started with a volume labelled ‘1955’. As she slowly turned the pages of the old newspapers she began to get a sense of the community in which her father had lived.

She read articles about the fishing industry and the fish co-op founded by Joe Aquino. There was a photo of Joe with Ricardo outside the co-op building, both looking very pleased with themselves. There was another of Joe standing beside a state fishing minister who, according to the caption beneath, said that Whitby Point was one of the biggest commercial fishing ports in Australia.

There were photos of the beginning of the construction of a timber jetty and the new refrigeration plant. There were slipways, engineering workshops and ice-making facilities. All this gave Cassie a sense of how vibrant Whitby Point had been. She wondered how many of the tourists who now visited this sleepy holiday town really understood the colourful history of the local fishing industry and the dangers, risks and gambles of those early fishing families.

She worked her way through 1955 and almost to the end of 1956 without finding anything directly about her father. Then, under the front-page headline ‘First Blessing of the Fleet’, she saw a photo of her father. The date was 28 December 1956. There was a photo of a pretty girl, Josi Greco, the Princess of the Fleet, and below the photograph of Josi was one of her father. She read the caption: ‘Patrick Sullivan (pictured) retrieved the cross thrown into the water by Fr Della Torre.’

Cassie smiled to herself. What a handsome man you were, Dad, and very fit. Bet the girls all fancied you.

She was more than halfway through 1957 when she found the glaring headline, ‘Death of Leading Family’s Son’ and read the caption to the accompanying pictures, ‘Carlo Aquino was tragically killed by his step-brother Patrick Sullivan in a boating accident.’

Cassie took a deep breath as she stared at the photograph of Patrick that the newspaper had recycled from the previous December, his smiling face at odds with the gravity of the situation.

Slowly she read the newspaper account of what had happened.

Ricardo, Carlo and Patrick had been out fishing when the weather turned nasty so they headed back to port. Patrick was about to throw a last line in and was holding the bait knife when a rough wave threw Carlo onto him and the knife pierced him, killing him instantly.

But if that’s what happened it sounds like an accident, Cassie thought to herself.

Whether Mrs Chambers had been watching her or just coincidently found herself with a free moment Cassie did not know or care. The newspaper editor arrived with a small tray with a mug of coffee, milk, sugar and a biscuit, and said, ‘I thought you might be ready for this.’

‘Thank you.’ Cassie straightened up and rubbed her eyes. ‘Strange to see pictures of my father as a young man living down here. It was his other life we never knew about.’

‘Is that a fact? Goes to show you can’t take people at face value. You never really know what’s inside people, or what they’re capable of, do you?’

Cassie poured milk in her coffee, preferring not to answer.

‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ said Mrs Chambers.

Now Cassie turned the pages more swiftly, looking for more about her father. She found a photo of Carlo’s funeral. She looked at it closely. She could identify her father and Ricardo and Joe from their previous pictures in the paper. There was a little Italian woman in black so obviously distraught that she was almost being held up by someone. Cassie wondered who she was. Then, on one of the inside pages, she saw a small story that immediately caught her interest. It was headed ‘Hollywood Notable Flies Home after Family Tragedy’.

Following was a story about Pietro d’Aquino, whose visit home to his family to share stories of his glamorous life in Hollywood as an art director and set designer was now blighted by the tragic death of his brother. The story hinted that Pietro might be nominated for an Oscar that year. Cassie smiled to herself, knowing that Pietro had subsequently won two Oscars.

She pressed on. She found stories about Patrick’s committal hearing and some months later she read coverage of the first day of the trial. Then, in the very next issue, the paper led with the headline ‘Local Boy Pleads Guilty to Death of Step-brother’.

Cassie gasped and sat up so violently that she knocked the coffee cup off the table. How can he have done such a terrible thing? she thought. How am I going to tell Mum? Maybe her father was not the man she had always thought him to be. She sat staring at the headline for some time before she could turn to the next page.

There were a lot of photographs of the participants, especially Joe and Ricardo Aquino, and locals waiting outside the Wollongong courthouse. The newspaper report conveyed the surprise of Patrick’s sudden guilty plea and quoted the judge’s comments about Patrick using a knife against an unarmed man, which were as harsh as the prison sentence he handed down. There were also photos of Joe and Ricardo, clearly distressed by the turn of events.

Poor, poor Dad, thought Cassie, very near to tears. I can’t believe that you were sent to gaol for such a long time. And we never knew.

Cassie leaned back in her chair. After all this research she was still none the wiser about why Ricardo had left her a substantial bequest. She was not sure where she could go now.

She was about to leave the newspaper office and go back to the restaurant when a thought struck her and she returned to the news item about Pietro. She read it again. It wasn’t the substance of the story that caught her attention but the timing of Pietro’s visit. Had he been in Whitby Point when Carlo had died, or did he come from Los Angeles just for the funeral?

Cassie quickly flipped back through the old books, looking this time not for articles about her father, but ones about Pietro. She found two, both of which affirmed the excitement that Whitby Point felt for a local who had made good in the glamorous world of film. Cassie checked the dates on the articles. They were both written before Carlo’s death. Looks like he was here when Carlo died, thought Cassie. She closed the bulky old cuttings book and sat deep in thought. Then she gathered her things and found Alison Chambers at the front desk.

‘I’m done. Some of those old papers are just fascinating. Thank you so much for your help.’

‘I haven’t done anything. But I’m always happy to help if you need it. I’m just glad we’re able to preserve all the old back copies. Were they useful?’

‘A little, thank you. I have to say reading about the fifties in Whitby Point is very enlightening. I’ve learned a lot about life in the town in those days. It certainly was a boom time,’ said Cassie.

‘Yes. There’s more to this place than first appears. Did you find out anything helpful about your father? By the way, my husband and I enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Blue Boatshed a while back.’

Cassie smiled broadly at her. ‘That’s lovely to know. I do hope you’ll come back again. Dinner is more popular now the weather is getting warmer.’

When Cassie got back to the restaurant, Steve was beaming.

‘We’ve got a lot of bookings for lunch, and all my suppliers have come good, including Frank. He wasn’t gracious about selling me seafood but his father must have said something because he sold me some lovely stuff,’ he told Cassie.

Trixie called out from the dining room. ‘Mollie wants to come back, if you’ll have her.’

‘Of course I will. When can she start?’ said Cassie. ‘Mum, when lunch is over we need to have a talk.’

‘I’ve got some interesting news to tell you, too,’ Jenny said. ‘But it can wait till later. We’re all too busy to talk about family matters right now.’

Lunch indeed proved to be a very busy time. The restaurant hadn’t had such a big crowd since Frank’s visit. Just the same, Cassie noted that most of the diners were holidaymakers, there were very few locals. Still, she thought, as long as we can keep our reliable suppliers, the customers will keep coming, even if the locals take a while to come back.

After they had cleaned up and Steve began prepping for the evening meal, Jenny and Cassie made themselves a cup of tea and sat on the deck for a chat.

Cassie told Jenny what she had found in the newspaper records.

‘I don’t care what the records say. I don’t believe your father would hurt anyone,’ said Jenny.

‘Mum, the papers said he pleaded guilty,’ said Cassie gently.

‘I don’t know what the explanation is. I just know your father. He didn’t do it,’ said Jenny, shaking her head.

Bill was completely engrossed in the raw bone that Steve had given him on the condition that he eat it on the jetty. Even when Michael arrived Bill barely raised his head in acknowledgement.

‘Do you mind if I join you, or is this a girls only get-together?’ Michael asked.

Cassie jumped to her feet, hugged and kissed him and said, ‘No, don’t be silly. We’re just comparing notes.’ She told him what she had found in the newspaper files.

‘I’m sorry. It’s one shock after another for you two, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘I just wish he’d told me. It would have made no difference to our relationship and it might have made things easier for him to have been able to share with me what had happened to him.’

‘Another thing I found out, Michael, is that Pietro was here, staying in Whitby Point, when Carlo was killed. Isn’t that interesting?’ added Cassie.

‘I suppose so,’ said Jenny. ‘Do you think he would be able to tell us anything?’

‘I guess not,’ said Cassie, ‘if he wasn’t on the boat.’

‘Have you been doing detective work too, Jenny?’ asked Michael.

‘Actually I have. I managed to find out through Births, Deaths and Marriages that Bridget Sullivan married Giuseppe Aquino in 1933. Patrick would have been about five years old then.’

‘And he was still in Whitby Point in 1957? He must have lived nearly all his early life here. So he really would have been part of the Aquino family; it’s the only thing that makes sense. But now I’m even more muddled,’ said Cassie. ‘Why would my father never have mentioned the Aquinos and why don’t any of the Aquinos know anything about him? I wish Ricardo was still alive, I have so many things that I want him to explain to me.’

Michael, who had been sitting very quietly while Jenny and Cassie talked, suddenly said, ‘Pietro’s still alive. Why don’t we ask him?’

‘I’ve only met him once. He probably wouldn’t want to talk to me either, especially when he finds out that his brother left me all that money. I feel that the money will always come between me and the Aquinos,’ said Cassie with a sigh.

‘Well, it won’t affect you and me,’ said Michael. ‘But I understand what you mean. It will make it hard for the two of us if the rest of the family don’t understand Uncle Ricardo’s motives. I think we should give Uncle Pietro a ring and ask him some questions about your father and where he fitted in with my family. Can’t do any harm.’