Page 52 of The High Tide Club
“So did you grow up on Talisa?”
“Here and there,” he said, suddenly cagey. “Mostly Savannah.”
“I thought I detected a Savannah accent. I’m from Savannah too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Born and raised. How about you? What high school did you go to?”
“I bet I know what high school you went to,” he said. “Probably St. Vincent’s. Or maybe Country Day School. That’s where all the rich kids went when I was coming up.”
She ignored the taunt about being rich. “Did you go to high school in Savannah?”
“Never finished. Dropped out, bummed around, got drafted, went over to Vietnam, and managed to come back alive. School of hard knocks, as they say.”
Brooke didn’t try to hide her surprise. “You’re a Vietnam vet? Mind if I ask how old you are?”
He shrugged again. “Born in ’42.”
“I can’t believe you’re that old. Wow.”
“I take care of myself,” he said, preening a little, flexing a sinewy, tattooed bicep featuring an eagle atop a globe pierced with an anchor.
“You were a marine?”
“Semper fi, baby,” he said. “How’d you know?”
“I used to know a marine,” she said.
It was her turn to be cagey. Pete Haynes had gone to college on an ROTC scholarship, fulfilled his obligation with one tour in Iraq, gotten out of the service, and immediately enrolled in grad school on the GI bill. He’d been sheepish about his own tattoo, claiming he’d gotten it on an impulse, which he’d immediately regretted. Brooke had found it sexy, although she’d never told him so.
The tattoo was only one of a long list of things she’d never talked about with Pete, she realized. And now it was probably too late.
22
Farrah waltzed into the office an hour late on Tuesday. She wore an oversized off-the-shoulder black T-shirt and skin-tight white jeans so shredded Brooke could see more skin than jeans.
“You’re late,” Brooke said, looking up in annoyance.
“And you’re not very nice,” Farrah said, sticking out her tongue at her boss. “Especially since I got out of school an hour early just to get to the courthouse to work on this.” With a flourish she produced a piece of lined loose-leaf notebook paper covered with her girlish handwriting.
“What is it?”
“Just that list of former landowners at Oyster Bluff on Talisa you assigned me.”
“Good job.” Brooke did a seated half bow. She scanned the list, which covered both sides of the paper. “Geez. This looks like a lot more names than Josephine told me there would be.”
“For reals,” Farrah said. “I counted twenty-three names. It wasn’t easy. People owned a house, then left it to four or five kids, and then the kids sold off pieces of the land to somebody else… it’s a mess. And so many people had thesame last name. Like, there are Shaddixes and Hobarts and Langs and Franklins and Johnsons… it’s hard to know who owns what if you look at the county’s old deed books.”
“Well, it’s an island, and Louette says a lot of people intermarried,” Brooke said.
“I researched as many names as I could online, and at least six of these people have died,” Farrah said. She removed her backpack and dropped it on the receptionist’s desk. She unzipped a pocket on the bag and produced another sheet of notebook paper.
“I managed to find six addresses that I think are current,” Farrah said, handing her the list.
“Okay. Maybe Louette or Varina or her niece can help with some of the missing addresses,” Brooke said. “At least it’s a start.”
The office phone rang, and Farrah grabbed for it. “Law offices of Brooke Trappnell and Associates,” she said. “This is Farrah. How may I help you?”
