Spirits of the Pirate House Read online

  Spirits of the Pirate House

  A T. J. Jackson Mystery

  by Paul Ferrante

  Published by

  Fire and Ice

  A Young Adult Imprint of Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.fireandiceya.com

  Spirits of the Pirate House, Copyright 2013 by Paul Ferrante

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to fireandiceya.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-61235-714-0

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Design by Stephanie Flint

  SPIRITS OF THE PIRATE HOUSE

  PAUL FERRANTE

  Even Paradise has a Dark Side...

  During their first adventure in Gettysburg, T.J., LouAnne and Bortnicker established themselves as talented ghost hunters. So when The Adventure Channel gives them an opportunity to visit the island of Bermuda to film the pilot episode of Junior Gonzo Ghost Chasers, they can't resist. What could be better than scuba diving, sightseeing, and ghost hunting for pirates in a romantic tropical oasis? But the teens soon realize that their target, legendary Bermudian buccaneer Sir William Tarver, has a back-story that never made it into the history books. The problem is, even if T.J.'s team is able to make contact, will their investigation raise more questions than it answers? And will the proud people of Bermuda be able to deal with the truth?

  To my teammates and coaches of the Iona College Gaels Football Team.

  “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Caroline Ferrante for her excellent typing skills and proofreading, Sarah Martin for her information on Bermudian burial customs, Deb Perry for the Bermuda map, and my editor Denise Meinstad for her continued patience and guidance.

  Table of Contents

  "Spirits of the Pirate House"

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Previews

  Prologue

  “Thanks so much for your patience and attention. This concludes our tour of Hibiscus House. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Bermuda.” Winnie Pemburton flashed her most dazzling smile as she shook hands with the small group of tourists who had come to visit the estate of Sir William Tarver. All were retirees from the States, taking advantage of the lower air fares and hotel rates in the off season. Indeed, there was a chill in the late afternoon November air, and a light jacket or sweater was most welcome.

  Winnie accompanied the group through the front door and down the steps to where a minivan taxi awaited. After helping them into the vehicle and gratefully accepting a few tips, she waved them off as the taxi coasted down the crushed shell and coral path to the imposing wrought iron fence 100 yards away. She stood there a moment in the oncoming twilight, drinking in the magnificence of her surroundings.

  Though the vast majority of Bermuda’s historic houses were privately owned, Hibiscus House was a National Trust site. The grounds, which featured hundreds of varieties of flowers, most prominently its namesake, the hibiscus, were meticulously maintained. A host of guava, palmetto and royal Poinciana trees provided areas of shade for strategically situated benches and a nesting place for tropical birds.

  Since its acquisition by the government in the early 1900s, some of the acreage had been sold off and subdivided; other sections of the former plantation were now overgrown jungle. But the immediate lawns of freshly mown Bermuda grass, framed by flower beds and punctuated with fountains, gave the effect of a tropical palace.

  The house itself, built in the early 1700s by Sir William, was modeled after the West Indian plantation homes of the era, with wraparound two-story verandahs that provided sweeping views of the countryside, and the numerous windows at each level allowed ocean breezes to pleasantly pass through, precluding the need for air conditioning even in the hotter summer months.

  Once inside, Winnie shut the heavy front door, with its anchor-styled knocker, and turned toward the imposing cedar staircase that led to the second floor. All the rooms of Hibiscus House were trimmed in cedar, and the walls were adorned with paintings of clipper ships and the English countryside. The furniture, dusted twice weekly by a cleaning crew, was almost exclusively of the finest period mahogany, and the dining room table was perpetually set with elegant Chinese porcelain and English silver. Most of the fixtures had been reacquired by the government after having been sold off in the mid-1700s by Sir William’s wife after his death. The house had then stood vacant for nearly a century and had fallen into a state of disrepair, compounded by the ravages of the occasional hurricane that hit the island between July and November. But now it was the jewel of Southhampton Parish, and it was all hers.

  Well, kind of. Winnie was a working class girl from the “back of town” in Hamilton. Her parents, descendants of free West India blacks who had migrated to Bermuda in the 1700s, had done fairly well for themselves. Harry Pemburton was a barman at the Southampton Princess Hotel and Resort nearby, and Allison Pemburton taught grade school in Hamilton, Bermuda’s capital. It was from her mother that Winnie had developed a love of history; it was understandable, then, that after knocking about in a few dreary office jobs in town, she was overjoyed to hear that a position as tour guide was opening at Hibiscus House, which she would gaze at wistfully from her pink public transportation bus on the way into Hamilton each morning.

  She had sweated through the interview with the National Trust representatives who were quick to point out that a person in her position would have to epitomize Bermudian manners and charm. Although Winnie doubted that her color would affect their decision—blacks formed the majority of Bermuda’s population and maintained a fairly harmonious relationship with whites primarily of British descent—she wondered whether they felt she measured up to their standards. She was

  also surprised to learn that the position had a high turnover rate,

  especially within the past year. Had the previous tour guides fallen short of expectations, or had they simply become bore
d with the same humdrum routine, day after day?

  It was no matter. Winnie assured her interviewers that this would be a dream job for her, and after a surprisingly quick consultation amongst themselves, she was hired.

  And now, a month or so into her tenure, she’d fallen into a pleasant routine, opening the house for the first tour at 10:15 a.m. and locking up at 5:00 p.m. Winnie loved to imagine herself as mistress of the mansion, gliding through the many rooms with her tour groups in tow, relating local Bermudian folklore and discussing the somewhat mysterious background of her benefactor, Sir William Tarver, who was rumored to have made his fortune through piracy. She heard some disconcerting odd noises now and then, but attributed them to the ocean breezes wafting through the upstairs rooms or the odd animal making its way into a crawlspace or the attic. Nothing could disrupt her fantasy world.

  As always, she closed off the top floor first, then ventured to her favorite place, the elegant drawing room, which was dominated by a Waterford crystal chandelier and ornately carved mantel that represented the height of Bermudian artisanship. Above it hung a large William and Mary molded mirror, into which Winnie would cast a last look before exiting the building and strolling around back to the gardener’s shed where her Vespa scooter was discreetly parked.

  While she was arranging a vase of cut flowers on the mantel, something in the mirror’s reflection caught Winnie’s eye. She blinked—hard—then looked again. Over her right shoulder, sitting in a corner wing chair, was a man. His shoulder-length, dark brown hair was pulled back and fastened into the short ponytail style of the 1700s, though nothing like the foppish, effeminate powdered wig look Winnie associated with those times. A full dark beard and mustache framed his tanned face and accentuated cold blue eyes that seemed to bore into her back. The man appeared to be wearing some kind of blue velour waistcoat with a ruffled white shirt underneath. Cream-colored breeches were tucked into high, black riding boots. Overall, he looked like the cover of one of the Harlequin romance novels Winnie so enjoyed on her trips to the beach at Astwood Park.

  She closed her eyes again and fought to slow her breathing. “All

  right, then,” she said to herself quietly. “I’ll open my eyes and turn ‘round, and he’ll be gone.” She counted to three, then cautiously wheeled and cracked open one eye.

  He was still there, one leg casually crossed over the other, a flintlock pistol stuck into his wide leather belt. Winnie froze in fear. How did this man get in here? And why was he dressed in period clothes? As she stood trembling, an odor came to her, a strange mix of burning tobacco and something else. The man’s eyes grew more intense, even hypnotic. When he finally said, “Come forward, girl dear,” something in her broke loose. She bolted out of the room, through the front door, and into the gathering twilight, her screams mixing with the pleasant sounds of the evening tree frogs.

  Chapter One

  “It was the winter of their discontent,” said the shaggy-haired boy with a sigh to his friend as they peered out the frosted bay window to the tumbling snowflakes.

  “You’ve got it wrong. The quote is ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ Richard the Third.”

  “Well excuse me, Professor Shakespeare.”

  T.J. frowned, mad at himself for taking out his frustration on his best friend. Bortnicker could be annoying, but it wasn’t his fault that it was snowing again. Because it was always snowing. The first storm had arrived the day after Christmas, with blizzard conditions creating ten-foot drifts against the houses of their hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut. After that, it seemed they came every four days or so. You’d just be digging out from the last one and BAM, another foot, causing traffic snarls and falling trees and something he’d never heard of before—ice damming, a situation where snow and ice built up on rooftops, broke off sagging gutters, and leaked water down the inner walls of living rooms such as his own.

  T.J. regarded his distorted reflection in the window. “A young Paul McCartney” is what he usually got from adults. “Cute” was the consensus of his female schoolmates, who considered him non-threatening in a Justin Bieber kind of way.

  As far as his buddy, Bortnicker was, well, different. He took showers and washed his hair and everything but always seemed unkempt, from the brownish locks that fell across his Coke-bottle glasses to the always mismatched attire that drew snickers from the student population of Bridgefield High School, where the boys were halfway through their freshman year. T.J., who was fairly social and athletic—he’d just finished his first season of junior varsity cross country and was considering JV baseball—more or less looked out for Bortnicker who, try as he might, was only slightly less inept socially now than he’d been in middle school.

  But though Bortnicker tested his patience almost daily, T.J. couldn’t turn his back on his longtime friend. The previous summer the two of them, accompanied by T.J.’s feisty cousin, LouAnne had shared a life-changing experience which created an unbreakable bond. T.J. still had trouble fathoming their encounter with the ghost of a Confederate cavalier on the battlefield in Gettysburg, PA, where LouAnne lived year round. In fact, the trio had faced down the homicidal specter in the middle of the 2010 reenactment as the “battle” swirled around them. Though it had fallen to LouAnne’s dad, Mike Darcy, to fire the shot that had blown Major Crosby Hilliard, CSA back into the past, all three teens, especially Bortnicker, had exhibited extreme bravery under pressure, and the experience had forever altered T.J.’s perspective on life and the existence of a hereafter.

  Not that there weren’t some rocky patches down in Pennsylvania. It didn’t help that both boys had more or less fallen in love with LouAnne, who was T.J.’s cousin by adoption. It led to a rather uncomfortable competition for her attention, which had seemed to tip in T.J.’s favor by the end of the boys’ visit. He could still remember the woozy sensation he got as she innocently kissed him one night on the roof of her Victorian house. But Bortnicker, to his credit, hadn’t thrown in the towel, not by any stretch. In fact, he’d ditched his eccentric allegiance to the 70s progressive rock band, Steely Dan, to immerse himself in the music and lore of The Beatles, LouAnne’s listening choice. To that end, he’d purchased every Beatles CD he could find, as well as DVDs of the movies A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let it Be, and The Beatles Anthology boxed set. He’d even taken to, when the inspiration hit him, affecting a Beatlesque Liverpudlian accent in his responses to questions, both socially and—to the mortification of T.J.—in school. Just a couple days ago in Biology class, the teacher was talking about the likelihood of global warming flooding the continents and Bortnicker had intoned, “Well isn’t that wonderful” in his nasally best John Lennon voice. Of course, most of Bortnicker’s peers, who thought he was just being stupid, didn’t get it.

  The Beatle thing was only a byproduct of T.J.’s angst at the moment. Here it was, February Break, also known as President’s Week, and Fairfield was under siege again. But what made it worse was that for the second straight vacation, LouAnne had been forced to cancel a trip north to visit her cousin and his friend. T.J., who had deflected the advances of a few girls during the school year, as he carried a torch for his adopted cousin, felt especially cheated.

  Winter sucked.

  “Okay,” said Bortnicker, “here’s a good one. On The White Album, who is the song ‘Martha, My Dear’ written about?”

  “Martha Washington,” said T.J. tonelessly.

  “Nope.”

  “Martha Stewart.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “I give up.”

  “It was Paul McCartney’s sheepdog! Can you imagine?”

  “No, I can’t,” said T.J. tiredly.

  Blessedly, the phone started ringing.

  “Aren’t you going to pick up?” said Bortnicker, while drawing designs on the foggy window.

  “It’s ten in the morning on a Wednesday. Probably a sales call or a business message for my dad.”

  “What if it’s
LouAnne? I bet she’s at home, cooped up just like us.”

  That was another thing. Bortnicker had been texting or emailing his cousin all winter with Beatles trivia questions, which she deftly answered. At last count, he’d stumped her but twice out of 47 attempts. T.J. had kept in touch with her also, usually by phone, because her voice always lifted his spirits. It could get lonely in the huge house he and his dad inhabited, one that had lacked female warmth after the death of his mom a few years back. It was even worse when his architect father was away on one of his periodic business trips, overseeing building projects all over the world. Thomas Jackson, Sr. provided a cushy life for both of them, but there was a tradeoff; rarely was T.J.’s dad around for a cross country meet, and he’d only barely made Open House Night last fall at Bridgefield High. As a result, T.J. had become largely self-sufficient, though he cherished time spent with his dad. Of course, Bortnicker, whose own father had walked out on him and his mom years ago, was usually on hand to round out the bachelor trio.

  “It might be your dad calling to tell you his flight’s delayed,” offered Bortnicker. Of course. Dad was on his way home from Phoenix that night. T.J. sighed and reached for the phone on its sixth ring.

  “Dude, what’s up?” said a gregarious voice on the other end.

  “Wh-who’s this?” questioned T.J. suspiciously.

  “Dude, it’s me! Mike Weinstein! You know, from Gonzo Ghost Chasers?”

  T.J. couldn’t help but smile. Mike Weinstein was the star of The Adventure Channel’s hottest paranormal-themed show, which was entering its third season. The concept was simple: Weinstein’s team, which included three 20-something guys and a girl, would visit paranormal hot spots around the country and try to make contact with the spirits who reportedly resided there. Their methods were confrontational and prevocational, which made for great TV. It didn’t hurt that all of them were buff and wore skintight GGC shirts, either. They were also armed with every possible gizmo invented to capture spirits on audio or video; but what set them apart from other shows was the fact that they served as their own production crew, creating a Blair Witch atmosphere that kept audiences tuning in every Wednesday night.