Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
E stelle called Roland from her car to check on things at home. He answered, breathing raggedly, and said, “Just got back from a five-mile run!”
Estelle smiled into the phone, imagining him glistening with sweat in the kitchen, drinking a big glass of water. “Isn’t it freezing outside?”
“Not once you really get going,” Roland said. “Are you on your way back?”
“Not quite,” Estelle admitted. “I ran into a few potential story ideas and got sidetracked.”
“It sounds like it’s going well, then?” Estelle could hear Roland’s smile through the receiver. “I know how you get when you’re obsessed with a story. Will I see you before Christmas?”
Estelle laughed. “I’ll be home tonight, I think,” she said.
“Where’s the next stop?” Roland asked.
“The Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society,” she explained.
“Uh-oh. You’re getting your hands dirty,” he said.
“I’m already up to my ears in crazy stories!” Estelle offered.
“Can’t wait to hear them,” Roland said. “I love you. Drive safe, okay?”
Estelle promised she would.
Estelle drove to downtown Oaks Bluff and parked outside the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society. She’d been to the Nantucket Historical Society what felt like hundreds of times, and the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society was almost an exact replica, save for the fact that its documents, old newspapers, and photographs were of different sets of people from a different timeline of events. A woman behind the counter introduced herself as Amy and showed Estelle around, telling her she could use the computer to look up anything in their database. Nobody else was in there, which clearly upset Amy. She said, “Those ancestral websites made it easy for people to research their families online. It’s tragic, really. It’s made everyone obsessed with their own stories rather than the island's history and how all those stories come together.” She sat back down behind the desk and looked at her hands as though she was frightened she’d said too much.
Estelle thanked her. “I’ll probably be here all morning long!”
This seemed to brighten Amy’s mood. “Let me know what you need! I’m happy to help.”
Estelle decided her first big clue was the shipwreck. Feeling like a woman in a spy novel, she searched newspaper archives for a while until she discovered the first article published about the shipwreck. The headline read: BILLIONAIRE CRUISE SHIP SINKS OFF COAST OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD.
Billionaire? Estelle’s ears rang. She kept reading.
Billionaire Roger Albright is reported as “missing” after a shipwreck off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard took the lives of twelve passengers. Lighthouse keeper Clarence Knight made the call at eleven forty-five, reporting that a large cruise ship was bow-under. The Coast Guard sprang into action immediately and was able to save thirty-nine other passengers as well as one dog. It is still unclear why and how the ship sank, although some blame the storms that raged through the Atlantic that night. The investigation is ongoing.
It seems likely that billionaire Roger Albright’s four children will receive their inheritance of three hundred million each.
The youngest passenger aboard the vessel, French teenager Vivian Morceau, remains in a coma in the wake of the accident. Doctors at Martha’s Vineyard hospital maintain their belief she will wake up “any day now.”
Estelle leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. Through the window, she could see the Oak Bluffs historical carousel, spinning round and round. A winter sun blared in a cerulean sky.
But she couldn’t pull herself away from the tremendous mysteries before her.
She’d heard the name Roger Albright before although she couldn’t remember why. Perhaps the fact that he’d died so famously and tragically off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard had implanted his name in islanders’ minds forever.
Estelle continued to read. She wanted to answer the article's question: Why did the ship sink? The investigation, as they said, was ongoing.
Estelle found numerous articles that discussed the shipwreck. Their headlines read:
BILLIONAIRE DEEMED DEAD AFTER SHIPWRECK
DOOMED CRUISE TAKES ANOTHER LIFE
WHERE WAS THE CRUISE GOING? EXPERTS DISAGREE
WHAT CAUSED THE WRECK? PASSENGERS ARE CAGEY
Estelle’s curiosity was piqued. Based on her reading, it seemed that the passengers of the cruise ship—which was called La Boheme —were unable or unwilling to say what the destination of the cruise ship was, nor how they thought the ship had gone under. Several journalists suggested that the passengers were simply “too upset” or “traumatized” after the wreck, but Estelle didn’t think that seemed likely. How easy was it to just say where the boat had been going? It didn’t make sense.
Estelle soon felt she was hitting a brick wall. Bit by bit, journalists from 1982, 1983, and even 1984 gave up on figuring out what had happened with the shipwreck. Very soon after, all four of Roger Albright’s children received their inheritance and probably went off to live their wealthy lives and do whatever they pleased. It was as though the story, the shipwreck, and Roger Albright’s death were abandoned. Once the eighties ended, all interest in the shipwreck ceased to exist.
Estelle was mystified.
It was now midafternoon. Amy came with a cup of coffee and a bag of pretzels, which Estelle thanked her for.
“You haven’t left to eat anything!” Amy said. “I was worried about your blood sugar.”
Estelle laughed and raked her fingers through her hair. The edge of her vision was blurry. But she wanted to hold on just a little bit longer. All she’d found thus far were more questions. She needed at least one answer before she sped back to Nantucket.
Finally, she searched for marriage records during the eighties. The database didn’t bring up very many Vivians—just five over the course of fifty years. One of them was Vivian Morceau, who’d married Travis Knight in 1984—two years after the accident. There was even a photograph attached to the file. The kids in the photo couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty. They glowed with optimism and health that seemed completely foreign to the woman who sat in a wheelchair by herself at the retirement facility. Estelle’s heart swelled. She took a picture of the photograph for safekeeping and put everything away.
Before she left, Estelle checked on Clarence and Travis Knight. She was curious who Travis’s mother was; she wondered what had happened to them. It looked like Clarence had passed away in Providence twelve years ago. But there was no record of Travis’s death. Beyond that, Travis had been born in the mid-sixties to Clarence and a young woman named Sarah. There wasn’t much information on Sarah, save for the fact that she’d died two years after Travis’s birth. Estelle took a breath and put the files away.
She had the sensation that she’d seen and learned too much in one day. She’d pored through too many documents—all of which indicated very real events in very real humans’ lives.
She was grateful she’d never become a real researcher or journalist. Wading through so many people’s stories at once felt tremendously heavy. She wasn’t sure how to carry them all in her head.