Chapter 17
Gabby asked Heather to help her settle into Tamara’s little cottage. The two of them held their breaths as they padded the stonework pathway lined with thick moss.
“This is amazing,” Heather whispered. “It’s not like any other place on the island. These trees must be ancient. I guess that’s why they always call it the ‘old southwest woods.’”
“This is the part of the island that’s been settled the longest. Marianne and her pirate protection detail landed here and didn’t stray far.”
“It’s almost like it’s a different island.
At high tide, you have to wade across that path through the salt marsh.
I wonder if three hundred years ago it actually was a different island.
Sea levels change, land shifts. Rocks tumble.
Oh my God, this door!” Heather exclaimed as they emerged into the clearing where the little cottage sat.
“It’s like something out of The Hobbit.”
“Right? That’s what I thought too. These hinges are to die for. This thing is solid oak.” She rapped on the door, then pushed it open. “Ugh, those bastards didn’t bother to clean up.”
The interior was littered with clothes pulled from drawers, books tumbled onto the floor, and dried herbs dumped into piles on the table.
Complete chaos. In the pile of clothes near the dresser, something caught Gabby’s eye—a flash of familiar color—but she knew Tamara would be more worried about her herbs than her clothing.
“Poor Tamara.” Gabby was glad that Tamara wasn’t here to see this mess. How heartbreaking. “She’s so careful with her herbs, and now everything’s all jumbled together.”
Heather touched her on the arm, offering comfort. “You’re really worried about her, aren’t you?”
“We bonded during our time in the lockup. She’s the sweetest. She’s very wise, too. You know what she told me about my mother?”
“What?” Heather bent down to sniff a mound of herbs, then carefully separated it from the silvery-green pile next to it.
“That I have to find a way to respect her without disrespecting my own self and what makes me tick. I need to embrace my own power.”
“Does she have an herb for that?” Heather quipped.
“You laugh, but I’d take it.” Gabby picked up a sprig of a dried flower and sniffed. “Mmm, I like this one. I wonder what it is.” She tucked it into the buttonhole of her blouse so she could keep smelling its haunting fragrance.
Heather tapped a finger to her lips, a gesture that meant her mental gears were turning. “Am I right in thinking this mess of herbs is the thing that would upset Tamara the most?”
“Definitely.”
“Then let’s try to separate them and put them into baggies for her. She can decide what to do when she gets back.”
“Love it. Let’s do it. I’ll get some bags.” She went to the kitchen and began opening and closing drawers. “I hope it’s not too long. She told me she has a spiritual connection with this land and if she’s away from it for too long, she gets physically ill. I learned so much from her last night.”
“What else?”
Where should Gabby even start? Tamara had shared so many bits of wisdom. “She says people call her witchy, but she prefers ‘crone.’”
“Excuse me, crone?”
Gabby laughed. “You heard right. ‘Never underestimate a crone,’ she said. Apparently it used to be a respectful title for an older woman. Now we have a different image of crones, because our society doesn’t respect elders, especially elderly women.
She explained that a crone is an archetype of an old woman with deep intuition and life experiences that give her wisdom and inner power.
As a crone, you have no external expectations on you, and you can transform past suffering into meaning.
Oh, and she says female energy is more free-flowing and intuitive than male energy.
She says our society doesn’t appreciate that enough, and that we ought to respect the power and autonomy of women more.
She’s so fascinating. I felt terrible leaving her in there. ”
“I’m sure Barnaby’s going to do everything in his power to get her home,” Heather reassured her. “And that’s a lot. He’s got the might of the Carmichaels on his side, and also he’s just a very intense person.”
“He is, isn’t he?” Gabby finally found a box of plastic baggies and brought them back to the table.
All these hours later, she still hadn’t processed that strange encounter outside the constable’s office.
It had almost seemed as if Barnaby had wanted to say something passionate to her.
When she’d taken his hand, pure fire had rippled along her skin.
“Got something to share?” Heather teased.
But Gabby didn’t want to talk about it. It was too…intimate, too new, too different from anything she’d experienced before. She had to think about it some more before she talked about it.
She pulled up a chair so she could sit comfortably while they sorted the herbs.
“I’d rather talk about our investigation. I have a moral dilemma now. Tamara wanted me to stay at her house so I could take care of things for her. She gave me a whole list, which I hope I can remember. What are the ethics of also looking for this mysterious ‘dearest possession’?”
“Hmm.” Heather carefully pushed tiny dried chamomile flowers—Gabby could at least recognize those—into a bag. “I wish you’d asked her about it.”
“I know. I should have, but she took me by surprise with her invitation. I actually think she wouldn’t mind. She’s very proud of her pirate connection.”
“Then…I guess you’ll just have to see what feels right. I’d offer to stay with you, but…”
“I know, you have a hot new man to get to. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine here on my own. She told me that all I have to do is let the owl know that she sent me, and the owl will stand guard.”
Heather laughed. “Gotta love it. What about the Garner connection? Anything there?”
“A little.” Gabby filled her in on everything Tamara had said about the Garner family. “Did you find anything in your research?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. And it’s not good. The Garner family is…well, dead.”
“All of them?” Gabby froze, her hands full of herbs.
“So it seems. They were all killed in a small plane crash in the Alaska mountains.”
“Alaska?” That was unexpected. Alaska was about as far away from Maine as you could get while still being in the United States. Maybe that was the point.
“The article I found said the family was on their way to a wilderness hunting lodge when the plane went down in the mountains. It said that David Garner worked on the North Slope, and Jill was a nurse and cancer research advocate. Two adult children, Keith and William. It’s definitely the same family. ”
“No survivors?”
“Apparently not. They called off the search after two days. I couldn’t find any other mention of the crash. This article was in a tiny regional newspaper in rural Alaska. Pretty sad, huh?”
“Sure is.” Gabby pressed the baggie closed. “It’s also not great for our suspect list. Looks like we have to take Keith Garner off it. Damn it. That was our only lead that didn’t point to Tamara.” She bit her lip as she surveyed the scattered herbs. “I was really hoping we could help clear her.”
“That night in jail really won you over.”
“My first and last night in jail, let’s hope. By the way, don’t you dare ever mention it to my mother. I’m almost surprised she didn’t find out just through the ether.”
“My lips are sealed.” With a flourish, Heather sealed up the baggie she was working on.
“Or my father,” Gabby added. “Or my brother, either of them.” Her youngest brother was still in the process of coming out, and hadn’t dared to tell their parents yet.
He could always be counted on to keep a secret since he had such a big one of his own.
But it was still better to be safe than sorry.
“Would you stop? I never tell anyone your shit. I’m your ride or die, haven’t we established that by now?”
Gabby smiled at her freckle-faced friend.
Her mother had said, on occasion, not to trust too easily when it came to white women.
Best to see how they conducted themselves over time to determine if they were truly trustworthy.
Gabby tended to be like that with everyone, no matter who, but she’d taken her mother’s warning to heart.
Luckily, she and Heather had navigated a number of conflicts successfully, and each time their friendship had grown from it. Once in journalism school, during a furious fight about the first suffragettes, Gabby had demanded, “Why do you even want to be my friend?”
And Heather had said, without a second’s thought, “Because you show me my blind spots. I want to know if there’s something I’m not seeing. Besides, you like the same dorky shit that I do. Who else would be just as excited as me to see an Oriana Fallaci tribute?”
The iconic Italian reporter was an idol of both of them.
“It wasn’t nearly as good as the Ida B. Wells exhibit,” Gabby had pointed out.
“See? We agree. But even when we don’t, I still respect what you say and I want you to say it, and you do, so that’s cool…” Heather had frowned…”unless there’s stuff you don’t say?”
“Of course there’s stuff I don’t say.” She could have reeled off a whole list of things that she wasn’t sure Heather would want to hear about.
Like how it felt to know that no matter how hard she worked, some people would always assume she got preferential treatment, even when the opposite was true.
Could Heather ever empathize with the depth of that kind of frustration?
“I guess that’s fair too,” Heather had said. “You should only say what you feel comfortable saying.”
“I mean…I just want to be.” And that was the thing about any relationship she’d ever had with a non-Black person…it was harder to just “be.” Be herself. Be relaxed. Be in the moment. Be unwary and completely spontaneous. Code switch if she wanted. Or not code switch if she didn’t want.
But she’d done it, she thought now as she smiled at Heather. They had done it. They’d kept their friendship going through all kinds of bumps in the road. And she was glad they had, because she loved the Dirty Rotten Bastards podcast and it wouldn’t be what it was without Heather.
“So, back to your original question,” Heather said as she stretched her arms overhead, after about an hour of herb sorting. “If you happen to come across something helpful, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with checking it out.”
“What about opening every drawer in the house and checking underneath loose floorboards? That was kind of my plan.”
Heather laughed and gathered up her things—bag and hoodie and truck keys. “I didn’t hear that, la la la la. Whatever you do after I leave this house has nothing to do with me, the constable’s girlfriend.”
Great. No help at all. She was on her own. “Watch out for the skunk on your way out!” she called after Heather. “He gets very grumpy around dinnertime.”
At least she was pretty sure that was one of Tamara’s warnings and instructions. The whole experience felt like a dream now. Had she and an elderly witchy lady really taken turns offering their laps as pillows on a wooden bench in an island jail cell?