Chapter Fourteen Tula
Chapter Fourteen
Tula
Kaitlin handed me a coffee. Neither of us had had much to say since I’d arrived at the surf shop and watched the coffeepot gurgle out the magic stuff. I looked as rough as I felt, and she didn’t appear much better.
“I know I slept badly,” I said. “What’s your story?”
“The usual.”
“Which is?”
“Life. The business.”
“Did the camp go well?”
“It was good.”
“So, what’s up with the business?”
“Nothing. It’s great.”
“But?”
She threaded fingers through her hair, and as she secured the golden strands into a bun, she said, “You know I’ve been cleaning houses since I was thirteen.”
“I know.”
“I’m really good at it, and MERmaids has more business than I can handle.”
She handed me a cup, and I pressed the warm stoneware against my temple, willing the headache to ease. “I’m not hearing the ‘why you can’t sleep’ part.”
Kaitlin frowned at me. “Do you think that I’ll be cleaning houses for the rest of my life?”
“I don’t know. Do you want to?”
“The money is good, it’s necessary to keep the surf shop afloat, but . . .”
“You’re wondering if there’s more to life than money, Kaitlin. It’s always the question of the day in the law office where I work. The work there pays well, but it’s not always satisfying. A lot of people quit the legal field to find their bliss.”
“And?”
I shrugged. “One guy left to hike part of the Appalachian Trail and then discovered he really liked sleeping in a real bed. He came back to the law firm, but he now works fewer hours. Another gal wanted to drive across the country. Car troubles forced her to get work as a waitress. She’s still in Kansas City doing that but texted a few coworkers that she wants to return. ”
“You’re saying there’s no gold at the end of the rainbow?”
“I grew up with a treasure hunter. I know it all looks great when you see the five-minute montage on YouTube. But hunting treasure across the world is like all things in life. A few days are terrific. But just as many days, we were fighting wind and hard rain. There’s always good and bad.”
Kaitlin poured herself a cup of coffee and took several sips. “You’re crushing my fantasy.”
“I don’t mean to do that. I’m just saying if you choose to go on a great adventure, it’s never going to be perfect. Try to have a plan B. I should’ve followed my own advice when I moved into Dave’s house. I thought I had a great plan, but I didn’t insist on being added to the mortgage.”
“What happened to jumping without a parachute?”
I paused before I took my next sip. “It’s fun, at first. And then the ground”—I winced—“hits hard. I wouldn’t advise leaving a parachute behind.”
“I know it was rough for you after your mom died. Mom always worried that you’d never recover.”
“I found a picture of our mothers and your dad together. They were teenagers, and they looked so happy.” I pulled up the images on my phone.
She studied the one picture closely, enlarging her mother’s face. “Where did you find the pictures?”
“They were in an article I found in the Southern Shores house.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would Dr. Brooks save articles like that?”
“I don’t know. I guess he knew both Mom and Carol.”
“I never met him.”
“Hopefully I’ll find more information when I dig deeper.”
“Yeah, keep me posted.” She handed me back my phone.
I cleared the hitch in my throat. “I will. Your mom was always kind to me. I should’ve noticed how sick she was. I wish I’d paid more attention. I should’ve stayed longer so I could have helped.”
“She was glad you didn’t. She realized this place wasn’t good for you after your mom vanished.”
After the Atlantic swallowed Mom, I was so consumed that I didn’t see that Kaitlin and her mother were also sinking.
I’d always thought she was lucky because her mother had died of cancer.
She was able to speak to her at the end.
She had a funeral for her and knew where she was buried.
But she’d also lost her mother. Pain was pain.
And here she was helping me again. I could at least help her for as long as I could.
“Let’s get going,” I said. “The work awaits.”
“You’re right. Those toilets won’t clean themselves.”
Kaitlin had always been able to put one foot in front of the other. She was double-timing the work and chasing a dream, while I’d stayed frozen in place.
We grabbed our coffees and a few energy bars and left the apartment. The van rolled down the beach road toward a collection of condos on the ocean. She pulled into the parking lot and put the van in park.
“What else did you find in the flattop?” Kaitlin asked.
“Pictures of Dr. Brooks and a lovely brunette in front of the house shortly after it was built. And several articles about Mom.”
“Your mom was a big deal seven years ago. A lot of people lived vicariously through her adventures. Her death tossed cold water on their fantasies. Some Gen Xers still talk about her on the anniversary.”
“They do?”
“If Mariah Cassidy could die, then anyone could.”
“Is that why people tended to avoid me?”
Kaitlin sighed. “You were the living proof of their fears. And let’s face it, dying at sea is sexier than cancer.”
“Did people avoid you after your mother died?”
“No. I had more casseroles than I could eat. But life goes on, and the casseroles stopped.”
Kaitlin hadn’t had a trust fund. No articles about her mother, beyond an old surf competition and an obituary that I’d read in the Norfolk paper.
“Who was the reporter who wrote about your mom?” she asked.
“Lex Green.”
“Lives in Manteo.”
“That’s right.”
“You should track him down.”
The house had brought me here, but I was back on the Outer Banks for a bigger reason. “I will.”
Cleaning the condos this morning wasn’t traumatic. The fifteen used condoms in unit number three weren’t great, but they were in a lined trash can. And I was using plastic gloves and holding my breath. “A sex fiend rented this place.”
“Jealous?” A grinning Kaitlin loaded up the last of the cleaning supplies into the van.
“Maybe. It’s been a while.”
“Have you had a date since the divorce?”
“No. I thought about it. Even got dressed up and stopped by a local bar. But my bra and heels were cutting off my circulation, and several attempts at conversation were painful. I’ll give it another go soon, but not right now.”
“Never say never.”
“Are you dating?”
“Kinda. As soon as he grows up, he’ll be a great guy.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-one. Men tend to grow up a little slower in these parts.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m not knocking the guys. They’re living their best life. You’re not the only one who’s jealous. I’ve always had to be grown up.”
My mind tripped to Nathan. He was living a nomad’s life, but he’d never been frivolous or immature. “An old soul,” as Mom used to say. But he’d also not settled for less than what he wanted.
We pulled into the parking lot of the rec center. Kaitlin had to circle a few times to find a parking space. I had no idea it would be hopping like this.
“Let’s see if Doug is here,” Kaitlin said. “Maybe he’ll have something to say about your Dr. Brooks.”
I was still curious not only about why Dr. Brooks lived directly across from the Oceanus wreck but also about why his house held links to Mom. “Sure, why not?”
Inside the center, we found Doug standing by the reception desk. He was a tall, lean man with slightly hunched shoulders, white hair, and deeply tanned skin. Smiling, he was talking to a woman in her sixties. If I hadn’t lost my touch, I’d have said he was flirting a little.
“Doug,” Kaitlin said.
He turned, and that smile brightened when he saw her. He moved toward us at a slow and halting pace. He took Kaitlin’s hands in his gnarled fingers. “How are you doing? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Working. Lost a few employees, and the new ones don’t arrive for two weeks.”
He turned over her hands and stared at her calloused palms. “Making bank, I hope.”
“Can’t complain. Doug, this is Tula.”
His attention shifted to me, and recognition flickered. “Tula Cassidy, right?”
I braced for the uncomfortable moment people would always have back in the day when they met me. “Yes.”
“I didn’t realize you were back.” Curiosity swam in his green gaze.
“I arrived two days ago. Here for the summer.” The commitment had felt like forever when I’d made it, but now that same clock was ticking faster.
Doug grinned. “Good to have you back.”
“Thanks.”
He arched a brow. “I know you two didn’t show up to talk to an old man like me.”
Kaitlin laughed softly. “Tula’s agreed to do a move-out clean in Southern Shores. You knew Atticus Brooks.”
“I was wondering when someone would clean the house out. It’s worth a small fortune now. Atticus was a fixture around here. Died in 2019 at the age of one hundred and eighteen. That must have set a world record. Hell of a guy.”
“What was Dr. Brooks like?” I asked.
“I didn’t spend much time with him, but I got to know him a little. Quiet. He organized a lot of activities and schedules. Liked to work behind the scenes. We tried to present him with a Volunteer of the Year award in 2018, but he refused it. He didn’t like attention.”
That fit with the man I’d read about so far. “Someone wrote a partial manuscript about the Oceanus. Do you think it was him?”
Doug shook his head. “He was smart enough to write anything. So was his great-nephew, who is a lawyer in Norfolk. But Dr. Brooks never talked about the wreck.”
“Why would the family hold on to the house so long?” I asked.
“The great-nephew came down here a lot, from what I heard.”
“I found a box of articles about the ship.” He’d never been mentioned in any piece. “He also collected news clippings about my mother.”
“Dr. Brooks never mentioned her. But from what I heard about him, he always played his cards close to his vest. Maybe your mother’s adventures reminded him of his younger days during World War II.”
“What did he do during the war?” I asked.
“He said he traveled around the world, buying and selling rare books. But I never believed that.”
“What do you think Dr. Brooks did?” I asked.
Doug shrugged. “This is just a guess, but I think he was a spy.”
“Seriously?”
“He never said that. But again, I’ve pieced together stories I’ve heard about him. I mean, what kind of guy travels around the world during a major war?”
“But he never said ‘spy.’”
“He was very tight lipped about the war. As a lot of those guys who served were. We had an autistic child go missing in the 1980s. He offered his service to the local police. They knew of him, and everyone here respected him, so they let him listen in on the briefing. Took him a few hours, but he pieced together the evidence and found the child huddled in a shed. No one knew how he figured it out. Sometimes the sheriff’s office privately consulted with him on a few cases. ”
“He looked so ordinary,” I said.
Doug winked. “The best spies do. But that man had a mind that never lost a fact. The police had nothing but respect for him.”
“He lived in Norfolk as well.”
“He did. He liked being close to an airport and still was on the move well into his early eighties. He spent his last years in Norfolk.”
“And he was on the Oceanus when it sank?” I asked.
“He was. But he never talked about it.”
I thought about the stack of yellowed manuscript pages I’d read. The people I’d read about so far had been well drawn, but they still felt so distant and removed. Maybe the book was an academic exercise, a way of remembering.
“How did he die?”
“He had a stroke while he was in Norfolk. He was here one day and gone the next. Just like he lived.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
Doug seemed to think before he shook his head. “Not really.”
I thought about all the books, stacks of papers, and boxes. But Dr. Brooks remained a mystery. “Thanks, Doug.”
“Sure thing. Give me a shout-out if you find whatever he was working on. Good to have you back, Tula.”
“Thanks. Hey, if I had a house of furniture to sell, who would I reach out to?” I asked.
“Morrison’s Auction House. Ask for Sharon.”
“Thank you again.”
We left the rec center. In the front seat of Kaitlin’s van, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. She slid behind the wheel.
Seven years had put a little distance between me and the wreck. “I wish I could have talked to Dr. Brooks. He might have been able to explain why Mom was so obsessed. She’d have ended any other dive when her oxygen was so low. But that day, she didn’t. It wasn’t like her.”
Humor flickered on the edges of Kaitlin’s lips. “You sound like your mom. She was always curious. Couldn’t leave a question unanswered.”
“I do not sound like Mom,” I groaned.
A shrug lifted her shoulders. “There’s a lot of your mom in you.”
“Hopefully all I’ll do is investigate, and I don’t end up so obsessed that I dive with little oxygen.”
“What about Nathan? Are you going to tell him about the book?”
I wasn’t ready to talk to him about the ship yet. “All I have is fifty pages. For all I know, this all goes nowhere.”