Kathy Reichs - Virals

I thought a moment. The Morris Lighthouse stood on a sandbar, which, even at low tide, was a short distance offshore.

“How did Katherine plan to get out to the lighthouse?”

“She kept a little kayak in the back of her van.” Pause. “That’s what made her disappearance so suspicious. If she’d capsized and drowned, her van should still have been parked wherever she left it.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. And it was never found.”

I waited, hoping she’d elaborate. She did.

“Wait.” The excitement drained from Quimby’s voice. “It’s all coming back. The police checked the lighthouse during the search. They found nothing.”

“Do you know if Katherine actually went there?”

“No.”

Silence hummed across the line.

“You know, Katherine did find a species that interested her. Not that it matters now, bless her heart.”

“What species?” I asked.

“I have no earthly clue. Katherine left a message with my mother, but no details. Then she vanished.”

“Might anyone else know?”

“I doubt it.” Quimby gave a self-deprecating laugh. “We were going to be famous biologists. We kept our big ideas secret.” Pause. “After Katherine vanished, I was excused from school for a few weeks. The project never crossed my mind again.”

More silence. Then, “I wish someone had found Katherine’s notebook.”

“Notebook?” My ears perked up.

“Katherine always recorded her thoughts. She took her journal everywhere. If she’d found something, she’d have written about it in her notebook.”

I’d run out of questions.

“Thank you, Ms. Quimby. We’ll add this information to Katherine’s file.”

“Sorry I couldn’t tell y’all more.” Quimby sighed. “The police searched everywhere . Never found a thing.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said. “Thanks again.” I gave her my number. “Please call if you remember anything else.”

“I will. And let me know if there are any new developments.”

“Of course.”

“Well?” Hi asked when I’d disconnected.

I recapped the entire conversation.

“The science project stuff is new,” I said. “The police didn’t know about it back in ’69.”

“It’s pretty thin.” Hi scratched his chin. “We know Heaton was searching the beaches for endangered species. The police may not have known that, but according to news reports, the search focused on marshes and shorelines anyway.”

“I know. But it’s the only information the cops didn’t have. They didn’t know Katherine was looking for something specific.”

“So what’s our next move?”

Quimby had given us a single lead.

“The lighthouse,” I said. “Maybe we’ll stir up a ghost.”

CHAPTER 58

“Why go out there now?” Shelton, as usual, was nervous.

“The thing is falling apart.”

We’d gathered aboard Sewee , at the Morris Island dock. Our bunker was out. Too risky. Ben and Shelton had settled Coop into the ladder bunker, the best we could do for now. I hoped he wouldn’t wander too far.

“Katherine might’ve gone to the lighthouse,” I said. “That could be where she was attacked.”

“But her body was buried on Loggerhead,” Ben said. “ We know that, even if no one believes us. Who cares if she stopped by the old lighthouse?”

“According to Abby Quimby, Katherine recorded everything she did. If we recover her notebook we might get the answers we need.”

“We’re going to find a forty-year-old journal?” Ben was way beyond dubious. “You can’t be serious. Anyway, the police checked the lighthouse.”

“They didn’t know about Katherine’s plans,” I argued. “Maybe they didn’t look very hard. Maybe they missed something important.”

“Weak,” Shelton said. “This lead is way slimmer than a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s the only idea I’ve got, ” I said. “Unless you want to chase down a trigger-happy ex-con.”

“We should go to the police,” Shelton said. Again. “Tell our parents about Karsten’s murder. They’ll have to believe us when he turns up missing.”

“The cops don’t trust us,” Ben said. “We cried wolf once, remember? And while we screw around debating this, the killers could find us again.”

“We can be to the lighthouse and back in a hour,” Hi said. “Why not just cross it off the list?”

“Sold.” Ben fired up the engine.

The Morris Lighthouse rises like a decrepit old sentinel off the island’s southern tip. The sandbar on which it stands is often submerged, so the sea occasionally floods its ground floor. Wind and rain have stripped away most of its paint.

It was high tide, so Ben motored directly to the base of the tower.

I ran my eyes up 160 feet of crumbling stone, a bleak, solitary spike surrounded by ocean on all sides. Dark and empty, the structure seemed to brood. Resentful at being abandoned? At losing its battle with the elements?

It’s the most depressing thing ever, I thought.

“It’s big,” I said. My understatement of the year.

Hi nodded. “When did they build this monster?”

“1876.” Shelton had a book on Carolina lighthouses. Of course. “This lighthouse replaced an older one destroyed during the Civil War. And that one replaced an even older one constructed in 1673.”

“Does the light still work?”

“Nope,” Shelton said. “They shut it down in ’62. When they originally built this baby, it was on dry land, but the water level has been creeping up ever since.”

“So now she stands alone in the sea.” Hi whistled. “Freaky.”

“There used to be a keeper’s residence. They tore that down in the thirties when the light became automated.”

“Who owns it?” I asked.

“The state,” Shelton said. “Some non-profit is hoping to restore the whole thing, but for now it’s closed to the public.”

“Which means we make this quick,” Ben said. “I’m not getting busted for trespassing.”

Conservationists had recently installed a steel cofferdam around the lighthouse to protect it from rising tides. The circular barrier looked like a giant metal coffee filter sticking eight feet up from the sea. Inside, the water had been drained to its previous level.

Ben anchored Sewee alongside the cofferdam. We pulled ourselves up onto the rim and followed the single catwalk to the base of the lighthouse. Up a short brick stairway, and we reached the entrance.

A large sign read: Danger: No Trespassing.

Big bold letters. Not an inch of wiggle room.

The wind whipped my hair and clothing as I stood watching Shelton pick the padlock. I wished I’d brought a jacket.

Finally, the prongs popped free and we trooped inside.

The ground floor looked like the bottom of a birdcage. One that hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Sticks. Feathers. Gallons of bird poop. The harsh stench of ammonia was almost overwhelming.

“What’s that?” Shelton was eyeballing a pair of gray cable boxes attached to the tower wall. Wires ran from their ends and branched to cover fissures in the stonework.

“Strain gauges. Probably monitoring cracks to make sure they don’t grow.” Hi pointed out two more of the devices. “They’re also monitoring how much the tower leans. An early warning system in case the whole shebang decides to topple.”

“Comforting,” said Ben.

A rusty metal staircase spiraled up the tower’s interior. Tipping my head back, I looked straight up. The stairs cut through the ceiling, a hundred feet above me.