Chapter 1
“If you’ve been following this crazy-ass Sea Smoke Island story, and by our numbers, I know a lot of people have been, you’re going to be super-excited about our show today. We’ve got something big planned for you. You won’t want to miss this, so hang in there while we do some intros here.”
Gabby Ramon smiled reassuringly at the podcast’s special guest, Sasha Mackey, who was perched on the very edge of her chair. She herself was so used to speaking into a mic that she forgot it could be nerve-racking for normal people.
“Normal”—as in not obsessed with digging up stories and bringing them to the public, as she and her co-host Heather both were.
Heather took over the mic. She was sitting cross-legged on the other armchair in their makeshift podcast studio—a cozy corner in the Lightkeeper Inn’s glass-walled conservatory.
The acoustics were amazing, and on top of that, they got to feast their eyes on the picturesque summery scene outside.
Lush, creamy hydrangeas and jaunty black-eyed Susans overflowed the flower borders, while hotel guests lounged in Adirondack chairs on the endless green lawn.
“You’re listening to Dirty Rotten Bastards, the podcast devoted to meticulous journalistic research into misdeeds, misbehavior, forgotten crimes, and anything else we happen to come across in our investigations.”
“By the way,” Gabby added, “if there’s a dirty rotten bastard in your life who you feel has gotten away with something, our tipline is always open. The email address is in the show description. Okay, where were we?”
Heather made a pointed gesture toward her own chest, then Gabby’s. It was a good thing they were sticking to audio for now. Soon they wanted to put up a video camera and put the pod on YouTube as well. But they’d been so busy they hadn’t gotten to that yet.
“Right. I’m Gabby Ramon, and I’m here with my co-host, Heather McPhee, on beautiful Sea Smoke Island, Maine. A little bit about us—we met in journalism school and have been friends ever since, and even when we argue, which does happen from time to time—”
“We like arguing,” Heather made a gesture that nearly knocked over her iced tea. “It’s kind of our thing.”
“Mmmm…I wouldn’t say that, but we don’t have time to argue about it now.”
Heather snickered. “I see what you did there.”
“Let me just finish this intro, you mind?”
Heather mimicked zipping her lips. Gabby smiled to herself.
She loved recording this podcast, loved it more than she’d ever imagined possible.
It was her voice, her platform, her megaphone to the world.
When she was working on it, she felt free.
As if this was where she could truly be herself with no holds barred.
Her mother, a state senator, didn’t understand why she couldn’t find some other passion that didn’t involve potentially controversial topics. If only she could.
“My point is, the one thing we always agree about is that everything we present on this podcast is fact-checked down to the bone. We use primary sources whenever we can. If we don’t know something with a hundred percent confidence, we might present it, but we will always tell you.
We try to check our own biases, too, ’cause Lord knows, we all have them. ”
“Can’t argue with that,” said Heather.
“But I know you want to.”
“Always.”
“Okay, enough about us,” Gabby continued, laughing. “For the last few episodes, we’ve been working on a huge story here on Sea Smoke Island. This is where Heather grew up, but even she didn’t know about what happened here back in nineteen-twelve.”
“I knew they’d built a resort for the wealthiest of the wealthy here that year. But I didn’t know what they did to make it happen.”
“All of that was buried history, and if you want to catch-up on it, please listen to the last six episodes. I’ll give you the thumbnail.
The Carmichael family, along with a McPhee and other interested parties, conspired to evict an entire peaceful but poor, mixed-race community from this prime real estate so they could build the Lightkeeper Inn.
Then they buried the story deep. But the truth has a way of bubbling up, and a descendant of the survivors started digging.
He reached out to me, and that’s how this podcast got involved. ”
Heather took over on her mic. “Investigations like this can be so unpredictable, because you never know where they’re going to lead.
The Carmichaels have established a fund to benefit descendants of the survivors.
They have people working hard on finding them.
But we are choosing to focus on one particular descendant and her fascinating journey of discovery.
Last episode, we introduced you to Sasha Mackey, who had no idea that her ancestors used to live on Sea Smoke Island.
Today, we’re so excited to have Sasha here with us to talk about what she’s experienced since coming to Sea Smoke Island. ”
Gabby touched Sasha on the arm and gave her an encouraging nudge, but the girl sat frozen to her chair.
As an ER nurse, she had no experience being interviewed.
It had taken some serious persuasion to convince her to come on the pod.
Sasha was a few years younger than her and Heather, with stunning bronze skin and dark hair tucked into two knots at the base of her neck.
Heather gave her a thumbs up and an enormous radiant smile, and finally Sasha perked up, as most people did when Heather beamed at them.
Heather had a vivid kind of energy, bright and scrappy.
Some people found her too direct, but not Gabby.
She preferred it when people were honest about who they were and what they believed.
“Hi Gabby, hi Heather, hello everyone who’s listening,” she said tentatively into the mic.
“Sasha Mackey is an ER nurse who grew up in Harbortown, without any idea that her family used to live on Sea Smoke Island. And now you’re the proud owner of…well, of what, exactly?”
“Of not much, to be honest.” Sasha cleared her throat, as Gabby adjusted the position of her mic.
“There was a house, and my name is on the deed, but most of the house is gone because someone burned it down. However, the root cellar survived—that’s where people used to store their potatoes and other root crops for the winter.
I was poking around down there and I found a safe. ”
“Can you describe it for our audience?”
“Well, it’s just…a safe.” Sasha made a face, and Gabby kicked herself for putting her on the spot like that. Unless it was a bloody gunshot wound, she wasn’t used to describing things. “A metal box, you know. Super heavy.”
Gabby elaborated for her. “I got a peek at this safe, and it’s made from welded steel plates, which can survive just about anything.
It dates from the nineteen-thirties, with a manufacturer stamp on it.
The Mosler Safe Company. We’ll post a photo of this safe on our website.
So what next, Sasha? Were you able to get into the safe? ”
“Actually, I was. It had a combination lock, and I figured out the numbers. It was clear that the safe had been programmed for me.” Sasha shook her head in amazement. “And when I saw what was inside, I understood why.”
“Can you tell us what you found?”
“Yes, it was incredible. There was a complete family tree on that old kind of paper, with ink pen, you know, the kind with quills and all? It ended at eighteen-ninety. I also found a journal kept by my great-great-great…I don’t know how many greats, but it was from the early seventeen hundreds.
Can you imagine? A lot of it is smudged and kind of moldy, but you can still make out most of it.
The safe was the perfect place to preserve it. ”
“So you’re saying that your family’s history on this island goes back much further than we even knew.”
“Oh yes. Marianne, who wrote the journal, was the mistress of a pirate named Joshua Thatcher, and they were my ancestors! He brought her to Sea Smoke Island along with their baby and left her here with a small crew of his pirates. In the journal she says it was to keep them safe, but they abandoned her after her baby was born. After that she was on her own. Joshua Thatcher eventually got killed by another pirate, Sam Bellamy.”
Heather interjected, “We did some research and found out that Sam Bellamy was one of the most notorious pirates operating in Maine. He went up and down the East Coast and the Caribbean.”
“My ancestor really hated him. She was from Martinique, that’s where she met Joshua Thatcher.
She got really homesick because it was so cold here.
In the last pages of the journal, she was very ill.
She treated herself with her own collection of herbs.
That’s the other amazing thing!” Sasha’s eyes lit up, making Gabby regret that the audience wouldn’t be able to visually witness her enthusiasm.
“She was a healer. So am I! I guess it runs in the family, whether I knew it or not.”
“I have a question, Sasha.” Heather waved her hand to get their attention.
“As long as I can remember, people on this island have been talking about secret buried pirate treasure. Treasure hunters have come out here with ground radar looking for underground vaults and that kind of thing. Is there anything in Marianne’s journal about buried treasure? ”
“I can answer that,” said Gabby, since she’d read the journal more carefully than anyone, three times through. “No, there isn’t. At least, not in so many words.”
Heather gave a disappointed sigh. “And the search continues.”
“That’s right, it probably will,” Gabby said. “You can find out more about Joshua Thatcher on our website. Since he was a real-life pirate who robbed cargo vessels and probably killed a few sailors in the process, he could be considered a ‘dirty rotten bastard.’ We’re still debating that point.”
“He did his best to protect his mistress,” Sasha pointed out, clearly defensive on the part of her ancestor.
“By abandoning her on a remote island in Maine?” Heather snorted. “Seems like he could have found a better way. Did he have a wife?”
“He did, and she lived on the mainland, in a big captain’s house with a widow’s walk. It’s unclear whether she knew about Marianne. We simply have no records to indicate one way or the other.”
Gabby brought the convo back to the main point.
“Okay, so we have a two-timing pirate who may or may not have buried some treasure on Sea Smoke Island. But that’s not the thread we’re currently pulling.
In the journal, Marianne says she left her most important possession with her daughter, who was Joshua’s child too.
Her name was Belle, and she would have been around fifteen when Marianne died.
Does she ever say what this possession is? ”
Sasha shook her head, then added a verbal no.
“But apparently it was very valuable. Joshua left it with her in case she needed extra funds. All she says in the journal is that whoever has it in their possession, has power they must wield wisely. Those are her words exactly. I have no idea what it means.”
“Or where it is?” Heather asked.
“Right. We don’t know what happened to it after she gave it to Belle.”
“Maybe it was passed down the line to…” Gabby drummed her hands on the table. “That’s a drumroll, in case you can’t tell.”
“I could tell,” Heather said encouragingly. “Nice drumroll. Why are we drum rolling?”
“Because…we have discovered that another of Marianne’s descendants is still alive here on Sea Smoke Island!
Sasha’s great-great-grandfather, Aaron Mackey, left the island in nineteen-twelve with the others, but I located some property records that show his sister never did.
They lived on a remote point of the island that the Carmichaels weren’t interested in.
Aaron transferred the property to his sister and she stayed on the island, along with her children.
I’m fascinated to know how she managed that, given what was going on at the time with the construction of the Lightkeeper Inn.
Anyway, one of her descendants still occupies that land. ”
Heather scooted to the edge of her seat. “This is amazing. Who is this mystery descendant? Do I know this person?”
Gabby had purposefully kept the name to herself to maximize the “discovery” thrill of this moment.
“You might. Her name is Tamara Brown. The family changed their name after nineteen-twelve.”
“Tamara Brown…I do know her.” Heather tapped a finger on her chin, summoning memories.
“Tell us what you know.”
“Well, she’s kind of a recluse. She has a cabin in the old southwest woods, where almost no one lives. She’s a midwife, I think. Or something like that. She grows herbs and makes weird concoctions…oh wow! Just like her ancestor!”
“The healing gene is strong in that family.” Gabby glanced over at Sasha, who beamed with pride. “So that’s where we are now. Our next step is to pay a visit to Tamara Brown and see what she knows about her ancestor’s most important possession.”
“Why would she tell us? I doubt that ‘wielding it wisely’ involves talking about it on a podcast.” As she spoke, Heather craned her neck to see what was going on outside the conservatory’s glass walls. She gestured wildly to Gabby, who turned to see what she was watching.
A young woman in a chambermaid uniform and a head scarf was staggering across the manicured lawn, clutching at her throat. She was trying to say something, but nobody seemed to hear her. From inside, they certainly couldn’t.
She dropped to her knees on the grass. Was that blood coming from her mouth?
Gabby and Heather both jumped to their feet. Sasha was already ahead of them, running toward the inn’s stately foyer.
But someone else was already crouching next to the young woman, trying to render aid.
Barnaby Carmichael. Son of the owner of the Lightkeeper Inn. Arrogant and annoying, but apparently good in a crisis.