She didn’t insult me by playing the role of the hopelessly ditzy female to reassure my male insecurities. She wasn’t cutesy, she didn’t chatter, she didn’t flirt, she didn’t ramble, and didn’t use double entendres to test what she, at least, considered tasteful boundaries. When I asked her a personal question, she was sometimes so shockingly frank that I felt it was safe to be honest in return. An example: “Men are pack animals, like wolves. That’s why I’ve learned never to show fear, and how to use a gun!”
She had a wiseguy cynical side that I liked, especially when discussing relationships and marriage:
“I think the reason most women marry, Doc, is they fear being alone more than they fear having a keeper.
“I married once, never again. I don’t have the patience it takes to fall in love with a man I’m marrying for money…”
When I told her no, I’d never been married, she said, “Good for you. You’re smart. Too many women treat husbands like horses. They use love like a bridle to steer and control—or to punish them when they misbehave.”
She was funny, too. Didn’t mind being the butt of her own jokes. One of her gambits was to ask some cliché rhetorical question—“What is life?”—but flip the emphasis so that she hinted at her own goofball mistakes. “What is life?” Use the profound cliché to illustrate life’s silliness. Endearing.
Good conversation was as important to her as being a hostess who made good drinks, real drinks, and who served excellent hors d’oeuvres, such as the shrimp, black bread, and Feta cheese now on the table before us. Conversation was ceremonial, something that shouldn’t be rushed by business.
So I didn’t press. She led, I followed. The woman was insightful, and entertaining.
Even so, I still had to get home and plan what could be a difficult dive, and it was already ten-thirty…
“Doc? Can you at least have a glass of wine? I have a very nice Riesling…or a Syrah from South Africa. I want to walk you around the houses, and show you why I want to be involved with salvaging that wreck.”
“Show me?”
“Photographs. They’ll make it easier for me to explain.”
The woman’s instincts were excellent.
C hestra believed that her great-aunt was aboard the vessel that Jeth had discovered, the night it went down in a storm.
“She was from the Dorn branch of the family. Marlissa Dorn.” The woman searched my face briefly—had I heard the name?—before she continued. “The story’s become part of our family legend. I grew up hearing it, and now I want to know the truth. What happened that night? Was Marlissa the only one aboard who drowned? Those questions have never been answered. I’ve wondered about it for years. Fantasized, in fact, the story’s so romantic—I’m a sap for stuff like that.”
The woman gave me a look that was, at once, tolerant and scolding. “I didn’t lie to you last night. I will get fabulous stories from this. But I don’t expect you to find anything valuable. If you do, we’ll split the profit, whatever way you think is fair. But I’d want to keep a memento or two, that’s all. Some small thing to remind me of Marlissa.”
We were upstairs, standing at a wall that was a museum of photos. Nearly all black-and-whites. They documented the vacation activities of the three family branches—Dorn, Engle, and Brusthoff—who shared this beach house, Southwind.
“Marlissa was my godmother,” Chestra said. “I was an infant when she died, but she’s remained an important figure in my life. Why shouldn’t I get involved now? I can afford it. I’m not the kind of gal who sits back and expects the world to come to me. At this stage of life?” She left that out there, but didn’t seem to be fishing for compliments.
I said, “There’re a lot of wrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. What makes you think this is the one? Why would you associate your godmother with Nazi artifacts—”
“I’m not certain, of course. I don’t know…it’s a feeling I have. Legends invite all sorts of theories, from the silly to the possible. I’ll show you one possible explanation.” She had a scarf in her hand, and motioned for me to follow. We crossed before the open balcony to another section of wall, where she pointed to a photo of two men. One was dark-haired, with a pointed, ferret face. Beside him was a younger man, tall and blond, with a prominent jaw and nose.
Chestra touched her finger to a second photo: the same dark-haired man was there; the blond man behind him, a drink tray in one hand, a towel draped over his arm. The dark-haired man was sitting next to a good-looking guy wearing jodhpurs and a leather flight jacket.
Surprised, I said, “That’s Charles Lindbergh,” having already realized who the dark-haired man was.
Chestra said, “That’s right, and Henry Ford’s beside him. I live in Manhattan, so it isn’t snobbery when I say I don’t consider this area to be, well…metropolitan. In those years, though—these photos are from the 1930s and ’40s, I think—Sanibel, Naples, Sarasota were all small towns. Everyone knew each other. The famous and the not-so-famous. Saw each other in stores; went to the same dances.”
I almost asked, but stopped myself. She interpreted my uneasiness correctly, though, and answered. “No, I’m not telling you this stuff from memory. Kiddo, I’m well aware I’m not a girl anymore, but I’m not so blasted old that I was attending dances in nineteen forty.”
She touched her hand to my chest, silencing my apology. “I inherited Marlissa’s diaries. She was a marvelous writer, and I’ve read them all many times.
“That’s how I know that the handsome young blond gentleman in the photo worked as a jack-of-all-trades in the area, including some part-time jobs for the Ford estate. You’ve seen Henry Ford’s house, of course, next to Edison’s estate, on the river in Fort Myers.”
This was like listening to Arlis, but without the irritating jabber.
“The blond gentleman was German. From Munich, I think. His name was Frederick Roth.”
“I see.”
“He was also my aunt Marlissa’s lover—not something she revealed anywhere but in her diary. This was during an era, of course, when it wasn’t proper for young ladies to have lovers.
“Marlissa and Frederick met coincidentally aboard the ocean liner Normandie. They were both making the transatlantic crossing to America to start new lives. He worked in the ship’s kitchen; Marlissa was in a first-class cabin.
“The crossing took several nights in those days, if the weather was bad. And the weather was bad.” Chestra’s expression was dreamy and distant. “Have you seen photographs of the Normandie? She was the most luxurious ship of her time. Marble floors and rare wood; formal dances in halls with orchestras and ice sculptures. My godmother had a sly way of writing. Certain letters meant certain words. It took me years to figure out her…code, would you call it?” The woman smiled. “I gather that Frederick was a very good dancer…and a wonderful lover.”
She added, “The night my aunt was killed, when her boat sank off Sanibel, Frederick was aboard with her. That’s how the story goes, anyway. Marlissa’s body washed up on the beach. His body was never found.”
The woman looked toward the open balcony, hearing storm waves rumble ashore. Her smile became bittersweet: See? Isn’t it romantic?
I still didn’t know why she felt there was some connection with the artifacts. I also wanted to hear why her godmother and lover were twelve miles offshore at night, during a storm. It was a nice story, but it didn’t make sense.
“You’re saying that the Nazi medals we found belonged to Frederick Roth?” I found it improbable. Diamonds weren’t the sort of thing awarded even for combat heroics, and the man in the photograph was too young to earn medals for anything else.