Just an Old Legend Ch. 07

He asked about the letters and she smiled, pointing at them and the book, "These are your after-dinner assignment. I'm going to transcribe all of them. But I'd have a lot of trouble finding a translator for the ones that Beamish didn't know about. Fortunately, I just happen to have a Romanian translator handy, since I sleep with him. I'd like for you to read them to me in English while I type them into my laptop. I know that you'll probably be a little embarrassed over some of the more personal parts, but with them and this book, I have a little bit of a plan."

Ion looked at the book. It was a collection of ghost and spooky mystery stories from the local area. He looked a bit puzzled. "I know that you must see some string here that ties our old letters to the book, but it is still invisible to me, Elena."

"Well, that night in the storm, you might not have taken me seriously, but I promised to help you with your life," She looked over at him, "And I meant it very much. I have the beginnings of a plan to do that. Stan Beamish wrote that book. He knows mostly all of everything that's ever gone on around this area. He's an amateur historian and a bit of a writer. He knows a lot about the story of what happened on this island, but he doesn't know all of it. He had the letters translated to use in this book, I think, but he didn't have enough to go ahead with it. He's given up, I'd say. That's why he gave me the letters in the first place."

She reached across the table to touch his hand, "You might not want a lot of it to become public knowledge, but we can work on that. From talking with him, I think I know a couple of things about him. He is not a superstitious man, but I'm pretty sure that he knows there's something on this island. He keeps asking me if I've seen anything odd here. Now there's no statute of limitations on the crime of murder, but the prime suspect has never been found, has he? And even though we both know that he's still alive, the possibility that it could have been you is ridiculous in the eyes of the law. There is no provision to prosecute a werewolf since there is no accepted proof that werewolves exist outside of legends and horror films, and as a man you're plainly too young to have even been alive then, never mind commit the crime."

"Another thing about Stan is that I almost believe that we can trust him. Remember that he gave me that old gun of yours. Since it's been sawn off, it's an illegal weapon here. What he should have done the moment that he found where it was hidden was to call the police, but he didn't, for fear that it would cause all kinds of unwanted attention. He told me that he had enough trouble renting the island. He didn't want the only renters that come here to be kooks and nuts. At the very least, the local newspaper would have had a field day with the story. By not calling the police and giving it to me, we're guilty of firearms offenses and he knows it, but he wanted me to have the gun for my personal protection against whatever he is afraid of on the island. If he thought that all that I was in danger of might be a bear or two, I'm pretty sure that after asking me if I was familiar with firearms, he'd have just suggested strongly to me that I buy myself a gun. But he didn't do that. He knows what's in the red-tipped shells. He knows what somebody might need to use silver slugs against."

She scooted down in the chair for a second to dig into the pocket of her jeans. Coming back up with a fistful of change, she sorted through it and smiled. She placed two dimes on the table. "These two coins are different ages, though the pictures on them have stayed pretty much the same except for a detail or two. See the boat? That's the Bluenose. It was a pretty important schooner way back when in Maritime Canada. The dime on the left was minted in 1996. The other one was minted in 1963. See the difference in the metal?"

He looked, and saw that the newer one had more of a shine to it, a very slightly blue shine, whereas the other one was duller, and it was more neutral.

"The newer one is made of nickel. I'd almost bet money that you don't want to even touch the coin on the right," she smiled at him.

He nodded, "Yes, it has silver in it. Not much, but some."

"Uh-huh," Helen said, "Silver was used in some coins here until they stopped that because of the cost." She picked up the coins and placed them into her watch pocket of her jeans, and then began sorting the letters in order of their dates.

Almost a later, Stan Beamish walked into his office as the phone on his desk rang. "Beamish Realty, Stan Beamish speaking," he said as he set down his paper cup of store-bought coffee and spread out the thin morning paper on the desk in front of him with one hand.

"Good morning, Stan, this is Helen Patterson calling. I wanted to know if you'd heard whether the deal on the island closed yesterday."

The old realtor smiled, "Yes it did, Helen. I got word late yesterday afternoon that it went through without a hitch. I'd planned to do the happy real estate broker thing and stop by with a bottle of the cheap wine that I usually drop off, but for you, I wanted something better, and I'd also planned to give you a call beforehand. I'd hate to go all the way out there to find that you were out for the day or something. Congratulations, by the way."

Her soft laughter came down the line, "Thank you. You know, I have to confess that I did plan to whine in a joking way that for what I paid, I ought to at least get that cheap wine, but that's only one reason that I'm calling. I'd be happy if you could see your way to coming out today if you could. Listen Stan, are you alone?"

"Half a second," he replied as he got up to close the door to his office. Coming back to sit down, he picked up the receiver again, "I am now, what's up, Helen?"

"Remember when you told me that you had originally wanted to know more of the island's story? I mean more than you'd been able to dig up?"

"Yes," he said, his interest beginning to rise, "Have you found anything more out about it?"

"You might say that I now have enough to call my favorite realtor and historian over and not be afraid of wasting his time. When can you come out?"

"I can be there in maybe an hour," he said, "I don't have a whole lot going on today. I'll just wait for the liquor store to open up, and I'll head out."

"Can you bring what you have in terms of research material on the story? I'd love to borrow it if I could for a little while."

"I'll do better than that, Helen. I'll make photocopies for you. I'll see you soon."