LAST ASSAULT ON OAK ISLAND 6
Chapter 6
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Carlos had mixed thoughts about Lauren canceling lunch with Miles, but he agreed with her reasoning when she told him about it the next morning.
He agreed, but was not convinced it the wisest move. He frowned, adjusting his glasses and looking over the open diary at the kitchen table. “If Saul Clemens wants Miles to see you again, Miles will have to try. And if you won’t see him, I believe Saul will use another way to find out if we’re here for a visit.”
“We’ll just have to convince him we’re here for just that,” she decided, clicking her pen a few too many times.
He looked at her.
She set the pen down. “If I keep seeing Miles and Lewis no one will take it seriously.” She pulled her chair closer to the kitchen table.
“You’re right.”
She leaned closer to the page the diary was open to; on it, the old script was only half-readable to her. None of her Greek and Latin was lending a hand on this trip. She frowned, pointing at a strange, widened X inked on the page. “What’s that?”
He smiled, nodding.
She frowned at him. “Don’t tell me there really is an X marking the spot.”
“No,” he said. “Not quite.”
Maruso made an appearance that night for dinner, commenting on the unusually bland meal for the Maddock kitchen, and stayed long enough to help Rudy finish work on the light. He and Lauren made arrangements to do Carlos’ research under the guise of going to the Cabot Pageant the following week. She had a list of books to find and old maps and charts to locate. And there would be souvenirs to get—proof that they had indeed been to the pageant in Cape North.
“What’s that?” Maruso asked Lauren once the Rudy and Carlos had settled at a chess board for a game of one-upmanship. He sat down across from her at the kitchen table and nodded at the envelope she was sealing.
“Samples from the diary.” She carefully taped shut the large padded-envelope’s gummed and sealed edge. Inside was the diary’s most-scientific approach to discovery yet. She had to admit, it was not much.
He chuckled, sitting back in the chair. “All the labs the mainland has to offer and you’ve still got to send it back to the museum?”
She nodded, sighing, her fingers pressing along the folded envelope tab. “It could be a forgery, albeit a clever one.” She glanced to the parlor where Rudy was crowing about a chess move he had made. “Kidd maps and Blackbeard stories are being bolstered up by ‘evidence’ every day, Lewis. According to what I’ve read, it’s been that way for decades. Now, in 1995, you’d think that push for notoriety or bragging rights would only be worse.”
“Guess you’re right.”
She debated telling him more about the new mark in the diary, but did not. That was Carlos’ call, not hers.
“All right,” he said, glancing to the clock that read 9:35. “I’m heading back. Need anything from West Winds?”
She did not, and Maruso left with a goodnight to Rudy and Carlos.
Lauren watched Carlos beat Rudy at chess, and then climbed the stairs to her tiny room that promised a sweltering night for sleeping. Her mind was on that X in the diary, a mark that Carlos hadn’t explained.
A reread through her notes did not help any, either.
She had made a copy of it, but there was little sense she could make of it. Upon closer study, it seemed that the smudged grayish area above the X had been something also, at one time, centuries ago.
But that was all she knew.
Carlos was anxious to get Gallop’s results from the ink and paper samples Lauren mailed out the next day, but those would not be ready for another week at earliest.
The wait seemed excruciatingly long, even just a few days into it. Nevertheless, Lauren checked Rudy’s mail box in West Wind before heading inland to Windsor thirty-five miles from Mahone Bay three days later.
Both Carlos and Rudy agreed it was too risky to use the local libraries for Lauren’s research, and the closest one of any size that would work with the museum for the research she needed was in Montreal. The city was also far enough away from the east coast to discourage Miles or anyone else who cared to follow. Cape North and the pageant were hundreds of miles away, and even by train it was quite a trip, including a ferry from Mulgrave to Port Hawksbury.
It also required an overnight stay in Montreal.
It was well before daylight when Maruso carried Lauren’s small overnight bag onto the Second Wind. They were soon heading for the mainland. Carlos’ idea was to give the impression of a lengthy excursion to the pageant, which would take place Friday, allowing Lauren a full two days of research.
The sun was warming the morning drizzle as she and Maruso docked in town and drove northwest. As they moved farther inland, the sun burnt off the fog and timid rain, and by the time they reached Vaughan the weather broke altogether.
Conversation had been easy, but not too personal between them, and it gave Lauren a chance to invent their faux relationship better. It also notched a mark in her mind to get more details from Carlos before she raised her hand for volunteering for future trips with him.
But she knew she would, and she’d raise her hand quicker and higher than Allison or Beth.
Once at their destination, Lauren was soon scouring the shelves of the Montreal library for atlases and histories. Maruso insisted on staying despite her assurance that she would be there until the doors were locked. He was soon snoring in the arm chair beside her cubicle as she hunkered over a large book.
The first book she found of any relevance was a maritime history of the coast. She exhausted this within the hour, a stack of photocopies collected beside her, and moved on to other sources. She learned much about the Algonquin tribes who lived in the bay area for the last 500 years, and the political background surrounding the province involving the British and French during the eighteenth century.
By noon she was discouraged. Maruso had stepped out for a while and she committed a much needed stretch, wishing for more stimulating reading.
The books she found on nineteenth century drainage and engineering were not helpful in the least, but she committed as much as she could to memory and made a small pile of photocopies. Even those sporting knowledge of Nova Scotia’s role in the American Revolution and French and Indian Wars hadn’t told her anything new.
There was enough general evidence to support what Carlos already assumed: British ships were around Halifax and the bay area all through both wars and would not have appeared unusual.
Maybe it was time for a different search. She glanced at the computer terminals. She doubted they would be much more help than her laptop—on which she had already exhausted every search—but maybe there was something a more local search could yield.
Maybe, she hoped, something she could access through a province-exclusive microfiche archive.
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