The Phantom of Nantucket Read online

  “Jerk!” George shouted after him.

  “That’s the guy I saw acting suspiciously at the sign unveiling,” I cried out.

  “That’s Connor,” Marni said with a shrug.

  “You know him?” Bess asked Marni.

  “Yeah,” Marni answered. “He and Jenna dated at the beginning of the summer. They broke up when she said she had to devote all her time to her internship. Connor was really mad about it. He didn’t understand why she would care more about the museum than about him.”

  “Mad enough to try to get revenge on Jenna?” I asked.

  Marni thought for a second. “I think so. He’s someone who is used to always getting his way, and he gets mad when he doesn’t. He came in second at the regatta, and he was so worked up that he knocked over the trophy table, yelling that the whole race had been rigged.”

  That was enough for me. I turned to follow Connor, but between the crowd and the fog, I couldn’t tell where he’d gone. “That guy has a nasty habit of eluding me,” I said, scowling.

  “Don’t worry,” Marni reassured me. “He’s at the Sailing Club every day, working on his boat.”

  “Hey,” George piped up, “maybe we can check out your winning boat while we’re there to talk to Connor.”

  “I actually don’t keep my boat at the Sailing Club,” Marni said. “Mine’s docked in the town marina.”

  We walked a little farther before stopping in front of a brick building with a wooden sign hanging out front. “We’re here,” Marni announced, leading us down a small flight of stairs to a cozy, dimly lit restaurant. A fire flickered in a huge fireplace a few feet away. Just like so many places on Nantucket, I immediately felt like I had been transported to a different century. A hostess led us to a wooden booth.

  “They say the sign out front is from when this place originally opened,” Marni said.

  “Is there anything on this island that isn’t old?” George grumbled.

  “Plenty, actually,” Marni said. “If you go farther out of town, there are a lot of new houses and developments. Even some of the houses that look old on the outside have been completely gutted on the inside and redone. There are a lot of fights between developers and preservationists.”

  “I had no idea that history could be so controversial,” I noted. Before Marni could answer, our waitress came and took our order. Bess and I both ordered a cup of clam chowder and a lobster roll, wanting to try the local food. George announced that since lobsters looked like spiders of the ocean, there was no way she was going to eat one. Instead she ended up going with a hamburger.

  We ate quickly. I was anxious to get back to the case, and Marni said she needed to make sure her grandfather took all his pills before bed.

  Marni dropped us off at Jenna’s family’s house and gave us a quick tour before heading back to take care of her grandfather. It was a beautiful old house, but we didn’t have time to fully explore. Bess, George, and I holed up in Jenna’s dad’s office and started going through the letters again. At around ten thirty, they announced that they were exhausted and were heading to bed. I only had a few more letters to look over, so I stayed up to finish.

  The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me by the shoulder. “Nancy, wake up!” My eyes flew open, and I saw Jenna standing over me.

  “Where am I?” I asked, disoriented.

  “You fell asleep at my dad’s desk,” she explained.

  I rubbed my eyes, taking a second to get my bearings. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was after midnight. “Are you just getting home now?” I asked.

  “I had to go through the whole museum twice after you girls left,” Jenna said, sitting down in the armchair in the corner.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I discovered that some scrimshaw is missing.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Engraved ivory,” Jenna explained. “Whalers used to carve it as a hobby on the boats. There are some really beautiful pieces.”

  “Do you know when they were taken from the museum?” I asked.

  “Based on the dates when the catalog was last updated, it had to be sometime in the past couple of weeks.”

  At every turn, this case got more and more complicated.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Letter Writer

  JENNA AND I WERE BOTH TOO TIRED TO think about what the missing scrimshaw meant for finding the figurehead. We decided to go to bed and regroup in the morning. Tomorrow was going to be a big day no matter what the outcome of my investigation was, and we needed to get some sleep.

  I padded upstairs to the room I was sharing with Bess. George liked to stay up till all hours playing on her various gadgets, so we decided she should have her own room. Bess was fast asleep, but she had made up my bed for me. She was always so considerate. I brushed my teeth and collapsed into bed.

  The next morning I woke up bright and early, but Bess had gotten up before me. I headed into the kitchen to find her and Jenna sitting at the table, their lips lined with sugar and chocolate.

  “Jenna got the most amazing doughnuts,” Bess said, licking her lips.

  “Help yourself,” Jenna said, indicating a brown paper bag on the counter. I reached in and grabbed a chocolate-iced doughnut.

  “Ooh, they’re still warm,” I squealed.

  “Yep,” Jenna said. “I got to the bakery right as they opened, and these had just come out of the oven. It’s something my dad and I used to do. We’d buy doughnuts, then eat them on the docks, looking at all the boats.”

  “They’re really good,” I said with my mouth full.

  Jenna grinned. “I’m glad you like them. I wanted to show you something good while you were here!” A look of sadness came over her face. I assumed she was thinking about the ruined exhibit. Bess noticed too.

  “Jenna was catching me up while you were asleep,” Bess said. “She told me about the missing scrimshaw.” She turned to look at Jenna to make sure she was getting the word right. Jenna nodded.

  I popped the last piece of doughnut in my mouth and sat up straight in my chair, readying myself to get to work.

  “Did you work with it at the museum?” I asked.

  “No,” Jenna said. “I’ve barely even looked at it. But Kelsey loves it and is quite the expert.”

  I made a mental note of this. “Is there any specific reason someone would want to steal scrimshaw?” I asked.

  “It’s pretty valuable and easy to sell,” Jenna explained. “It’s been illegal to sell new whale ivory since 1973, so the only scrimshaw you can buy or sell has to be vintage. One dealer on the island was actually arrested last summer for selling ivory that was too new. The museum has one of the largest collections of scrimshaw in the world.”

  I thought for a moment. We’d been assuming all along that this was about Jenna personally, but maybe the motive was as simple as money. It didn’t explain vandalizing the sign, but it was a possibility worth exploring.

  “What about the figurehead?” I asked. “Is that worth a lot of money?”

  “It’s definitely one of the more valuable objects in the museum.”

  George came in carrying her tablet, and we burst out laughing. Her hair was sticking up in a million directions. She looked like she had a porcupine sitting on top of her head.

  “George,” Bess admonished, “haven’t you ever heard of a comb?”

  George halfheartedly ran her hand through her hair, attempting to push it down. “Whatever!” she muttered. “I was too busy reading the paper to comb it. I wanted to see if word of the theft had gotten out, but it hasn’t,” George assured Jenna, who was looking alarmed at the possibility. “But there is certainly a lot of drama on this island! Check out this letter to the editor.” She took a deep breath and started to read out loud: “‘Dear ­Nincompoop Editor: I am writing to respond to yesterday’s front
-page article about the renovations being done to the ’Sconset Casino. Your reporter says that the project has been held up by unnecessary rules. Those “unnecessary rules” are called due diligence. I suggest you and your idiot reporters look up what that means. . . .’”

  George kept reading, but my mind was racing. I quickly got up from the table and rushed out of the kitchen, hustling up the stairs to Jenna’s dad’s office. I sorted through the letters still spread out on the desk. Finally I found the one I was looking for and ran back to the kitchen.

  “Did you find a clue, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  I nodded, catching my breath after my sprint through the house. “Listen to this,” I said, as I began to read the letter out loud. “‘Dear Nincompoop Museum Director: This weekend I had the misfortune of attending the exhibit about whaling ship crews put on by you and your childish staff. Clearly no one could be bothered to do the proper research and due diligence. I suggest your idiot staff look up what that means and stop lying to the public with your poorly researched displays, or you might face some nasty consequences with your next exhibit.’” I stopped reading and looked up at my friends. “This was sent just last week. The Eleanore Sharpe exhibit is the next exhibit. Maybe these are the nasty consequences.”

  “Who wrote that?” Jenna asked excitedly.

  “It was sent anonymously,” I said, “but it has to be the same person who wrote the letter to the newspaper. There are too many similarities between them. Is that letter signed?” I asked George.

  “It was written by someone named Jeremiah Butler,” George read off her tablet.

  “He’s the president of the historical society!” Jenna blurted. “My dad told me he was actually up for Pete’s job, but the board thought his exhibit ideas were too dry and boring. Pete’s ideas were tourist-friendly and would bring in more visitors. Apparently, Jeremiah didn’t take it so well. He even told the board they would regret their decision.”

  “What if the culprit was targeting Pete, not Jenna?” I asked.

  “That could be,” Bess said. “Whoever painted the sign and took the figurehead didn’t necessarily know that the Eleanore Sharpe exhibit was Jenna’s project.”

  “It would be logical to assume that the head of the museum was responsible for it,” George added.

  “I want to talk to Jeremiah right away,” I announced. My friends nodded in agreement. Simultaneously we all pushed back our chairs and headed upstairs to get ready.

  * * *

  “I need a snack first,” George said from behind me.

  “You ate two doughnuts back at the house!” Bess yelped. George shrugged, but I didn’t know why Bess was surprised. We all knew George was a bottomless pit.

  We were walking through town on our way to the historical society. Jenna had gone back to the museum to get ready for tonight. There was nothing for her to do except prepare as if everything would go ahead as planned.

  It was a beautiful day. The fog had rolled out overnight, and a gentle sea breeze was blowing as gulls circled overhead. All around us everyone seemed to be headed toward the beach or tennis courts.

  I spotted a soda fountain across the street. “Do you want to get something there?” I asked George, pointing toward it. She nodded.

  Inside, the place was bustling with people both sitting at the counter and placing to-go orders. And like almost everything else on the island, it looked like it belonged in a different century. The front half served food—mostly grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream, by the look of it. The back was a convenience store, selling everything from beach umbrellas to shampoo.

  George read the menu written on a chalkboard behind the counter. “I guess I could get a milkshake,” she mused.

  “It’s nine o’clock in the morning!” Bess barked.

  George shrugged. “It has milk in it. That’s healthy!”

  Bess and I both gave her Are you serious? looks.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll get an egg sandwich.” While George got in line, Bess and I hung back, trying to stay out of the way. I was about to suggest to Bess that we wait outside when George gestured urgently for us to join her in line. We fought our way through the crowd over to her.

  “Look!” George hissed. “It’s Kelsey.” I didn’t immediately see the significance of running into her. It was such a small island, I’d almost be more surprised if we didn’t see her. “I heard the cashier say her card was declined,” George added. I looked back at Kelsey. Her face was bright red as she pulled another card from her wallet and handed it over.

  “Here, try this one,” she said to the cashier, who took it and ran it through the machine. Kelsey nervously tapped her fingers on the counter as she waited to see if it went through. After a moment, the cashier returned with an apologetic look on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, handing the card back to Kelsey. “This one was also declined.” Kelsey blushed an even darker shade of red.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “I’m supposed to get paid later today.” As she turned to leave, she saw us. Her eyes went wide with fear before she slunk out of the soda fountain without saying a word.

  “What payment do you think she’s talking about?” I asked my friends.

  “You said she works at the Sailing Club, right?” Bess asked. “Maybe it’s payday.”

  “I doubt it,” I responded. “It’s Saturday. Most jobs don’t pay on the weekends.” All three of us stood in silence for a moment, trying to puzzle it out. “You know,” I said, “Kelsey had access to the scrimshaw all summer, and she would know exactly how much the figurehead is worth.”

  “And whom to sell it to,” George added.

  “I’m going to follow her,” Bess declared. Before George or I could say anything, Bess had exited the soda fountain and taken off after Kelsey.

  “She really has a bee in her bonnet about Kelsey,” I observed.

  “You know Bess,” George said. “She’s the ­sweetest person you’ve ever met until you cross someone she cares about.”

  “That’s for sure,” I agreed. George was finally at the front of the line. Once she got her food, we continued on our way to the historical society to talk to Jeremiah Butler.

  The historical society was housed in a cottage that had been converted into a museum a few blocks off Main Street. Everything about the outside of the house—the condition of the shingles, the paint of the trim, the pruning of the flowers—was impeccable. Whoever took care of the building was a very neat and orderly person.

  We walked inside. In contrast to the clutter and excitement of the nautical museum, this place was so clean it almost seemed sterile.

  “This is the exhibit?” George whispered to me, pointing to a sign on the wall. It advertised an exhibit on floorboards of houses on the island. The text talked about width and grain and other aspects of the wood, but my eyes glazed over as I tried to read it. If this was the type of exhibit Jeremiah had pitched to the nautical museum, I could understand why they chose Pete over him.

  “We don’t sell T-shirts,” a voice growled behind us. George and I spun around to find an older gentleman, sporting a long gray beard and a captain’s hat, glaring at us from behind the counter.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “I figure you girls got lost and thought this was a place you could shop, but this is not a store and we don’t sell T-shirts.” He made a shooing motion with his hand as if we were annoying gnats. I could feel George tense up next to me and knew she wanted to tell him that just because we were girls didn’t mean all we did was shop, but that would get us nowhere. If we wanted information, we would have to play nice—even if he wasn’t a very pleasant man.

  “Are you by any chance Jeremiah Butler?” I asked as cheerfully as I could muster.

  He looked taken aback. “I am. Why?”

  “I’m Nancy. I’m a writer with On-the-Go Travel G
uides. This here is George. She’s my photographer. We’re updating the Nantucket guidebook, and we’re going to all the museums on the island.”

  Jeremiah snorted. “Well, you’re standing in the only museum on the island.” George and I exchanged confused looks.

  “Really? I thought there was a nautical museum.” Sometimes pretending to know less than you do is the best way to get someone to talk to you.

  Jeremiah snorted again, this time with even more gusto. “That place gives the word ‘museum’ a bad name. It’s a toy store where some of the objects happen not to be for sale.”

  “This new Eleanore Sharpe exhibit seems interesting,” I said.

  “That’s the worst of them! They take a myth, a bedtime story, and shape an entire exhibit around it. What a waste of space! That’s not real scholarship. But what can you expect? The director of the museum, Peter Boyd, is a complete nincompoop. And his staff is made up of complete children!”

  I was glad Bess wasn’t with us. She wouldn’t have been able to keep her mouth shut, and our cover would have been blown.

  “It’s an outrage that the nautical museum won the auction for the figurehead,” Jeremiah continued. “It should belong to me. I would have crafted a proper exhibit around it.”

  I gave George an excited look. Was this a break in the case?

  “It must annoy you, then, that the nautical museum is so much more popular,” I said, trying to egg him on.

  Jeremiah shrugged and for the first time did not look irritated. “The masses always pick the easy option. Genius is often underappreciated.”

  This man certainly thought highly of himself.

  “Anyway,” Jeremiah continued, “let me give you the tour, so you can write it up in your guidebook.” He pushed back from the desk, and for the first time we saw that he was in a wheelchair, his right leg in a large cast. George and I exchanged a startled glance.

  “How long have you been in that?” George squawked.