Chapter one
"It was a dark and stormy evening, and we all sat around the campfire." How easily those words paraded across the blank page, as if they propelled themselves with no help from the keyboard. I stared at them, as I had so many times when real words wouldn't come. "Damn it!" I shouted at the monitor. "It wasn't my fault! Not one damned thing I could have done. She said she was going and she went!" Tears were starting to well up and I turned my head as if to keep the monitor from seeing me break down. "Don't," I pleaded softly with myself, "Don't lose it. This will pass." I groped for the tissue box at my right, on top of the printer. Gradually I pulled myself together and finally sat, actually slumped, hands in my lap, chin on my chest. With a deep breath I pulled myself upright and forced my hands to go up to the keys.
I watched my fingers move across the keys, as if they were attached to somebody else's hands. Slowly a paragraph emerged across the fierce whiteness. This was a scene I had planned two days ago, and the action unfolded the way it was supposed to, but there was something missing. It had no spirit, no fire, no excitement. It was dull, not like my stuff. I looked at the half page and with a flourish I deleted it all, stood up, and turned toward the kitchen just as the doorbell sounded. Startled, I stood motionless, wondering if I had really heard it or if my head was playing tricks on me.
There it was again. No doubt about it now. With a sigh of relief, I pivoted on my right heel and went to the door. "Who's there?"
"Mr. Andrews, I need to talk with you," replied a youngish woman's voice, not one that I recognized.
I slipped the chain lock into place and opened the door as far as the chain would stretch. A young face was looking up at me, probably twenty-something, with an anxious expression. But what caught my eye was that she was soaking wet, and was leaving a puddle on the doorstep. "Please let me in," she pleaded, "I'm freezing." The notion of helping another human in trouble appealed to something in my conscience and I flipped the chain off and opened the door wide, wondering if I was letting down my defenses too easily. "Oh, thank you," said the girl, as she squished into my living room and looked around.
"Over there," I said, indicating the way to the guest bathroom. "Go in there and I'll get you some clean towels. Noticing that the girl had no purse, I added, "There's a big pink comb in the medicine cabinet, and a hair dryer under the sink. While you get yourself warmed up and dried off I'll find something for you to put on."
Twenty minutes later we were sitting across the kitchen table with cups of hot tea, as I waited for an explanation. The girl looked a lot different with her hair dried and arranged neatly, and a smile of appreciation playing across her features. Her hair was dark and glossy, flowing over her shoulders and down to about the bottom of her shoulder blades; her eyes were brown; her skin had a uniform light tan; her teeth were even and white; and in general she looked pretty cute. She stood and took off the bathrobe, leaving her clad in a tee shirt that came down to her knees. As she sat down again I noticed that her body had all the right things in the right amounts in the right places, and I gave her a smile to encourage her to say something. She opened her mouth to speak and I noticed that she didn't need makeup to look very pretty.
"Thank you for everything, Mr. Andrews. This certainly wasn't the way I intended to visit you, and you've been very gallant about it all. You've acted as if dripping females drop in on you all the time."
"Look, Miss, I can't decide whether I'm most anxious to know who you are, or what you want with me, or what happened to you. Don't keep me guessing any longer; go ahead and tell me your story."
"All right, let me start at the beginning. My name is Christine Smith. I go by Chrissy. I read a book you wrote, I think it was one of your first, and you told about the Union vessel Monitor, the first warship with an iron hull. In it you mentioned one of the supervising shipwrights, Clarence Hempstead. If the genealogical information I've seen is correct, he was my great, great, great, great, grandfather. For various reasons, I'm anxious to learn all that you can tell me two about him. That's two questions down, one to go. How I got soaking wet, lost my purse and laptop and all, and got to your doorstep is a lot more complicated. I've been in the water alongside the wharf out there, and the only single scrap of paper I still had after the police fished me out was one I had written your name and address on and put in my coat pocket, to look at as I tried to find you."
"How did you get into the water? Did you slip and fall, or just get too close to the edge, or what?"
"Believe it or not, I was deliberately pushed. I was walking to a bench that sits near the edge, but not precariously close, and as I turned to sit down on it, somebody put both hands on my waist and pushed me about six steps to the edge, and splash!"
"Did you see who did it?"
"No. He was behind me, and after I went down in the water and then bobbed back up to the surface, I couldn't see anybody up there. In fact, I had a lot of trouble getting out of the water. I yelled for help but there was nobody around. The face of the wharf is all stone, and I could get a grip here and there and I kind of pulled myself hand over hand toward the shore. The water was shallow there and I was able to stand on the bottom while a police officer grabbed my hand and helped me out. Somebody must have called the police because a car showed up while I was splashing around. They gave me a ride over here to your apartment house. The officer tried to get you on the phone but he said he couldn't. Are you unlisted? I thought the police could get through to you even if you are."
"I don't have a house phone, just my smart phone."
"Now that I'm finally warmed up and the initial shock of almost being killed is past, I guess I ought to worry about my purse and laptop. But there's nothing I can do about them now, and I hope maybe I can figure out something in the morning. Can you put me up for the night? I can't very well get a hotel room without money or plastic. But if you don't want to I might . . ."
"Don't worry about it. I have a guest room and you're welcome to it. It's pretty basic but I think you'll be comfortable there. Let's get to some of the details. In the closet there are more tee shirts the same size as that one you've got on. The washer and dryer are right outside the guest room door. I've put your clothes into the washer and left them to soak before washing them. I think I got all the pockets checked, but maybe you'd better make sure. There's detergent in there with them, so they ought to be all set to turn on, once you've chosen the settings you want for them. Your coat is in a ten gallon bucket
by the washer. All those things ought to be washed before you go to bed, to get the smell of the sea water out of them. I rinsed your shoes and they're sitting on some newspaper to dry out. They'll probably be all right in a day or so. We'll have to get you some clothes and shoes and all tomorrow, but that'll wait till morning. When did you eat last?"
"Really eat? I guess at breakfast. There were peanuts on the plane. Then we hit some rough air and got bounced around, and when we landed I didn't feel like eating."
"Well, maybe we can get something basic into you now. How about a grilled cheese sandwich?"
