Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

the mouth of the Manatee River, more than two hundred miles away as the crow flies over the Gulf and double that by car.
    Was there a house located a reasonable distance from Faye’s stated mailing address, Wally’s Marina, that was constructed all or partly of tabby? Not according to official records, but tabby was nothing more than concrete made with local materials—sand, lime, shell. It was often plastered and painted to mock a pricier material like stone or stucco or plastered brick. Maybe its humble origins had escaped the architectural historians.
    Magda reached behind her without looking and grabbed her copy of the Historic American Buildings Survey catalog, Florida section. If the mystery house still stood, then it was standing in the 1930s and the dedicated public servants performing the survey had found a way to get there and document it.
    Magda had long ago gone through this catalog and sought out as many of the buildings as she could find, marking “deceased” in the margins of the entries documenting structures which no longer existed. The few buildings she couldn’t locate sported question marks in their margins. Surely a scientist of her caliber could quickly come up with a short list of candidates for Faye’s tabby house. A scientist of her caliber could probably even find a photograph of it.

    Faye hooked the repaired necklace around her neck, then went to check Abby’s necklace. She swooshed it up and down in the solvent and was glad to see some of the crud rinse away. Dabbing at it with a soft brush revealed more of the original surface. Ignoring the ticking clock that said it was time to put on her makeup, she sat down and worked with the brush until she could rinse even more corrosion away.
    The surface of the necklace’s pendant was heavily decorated. She perched her magnifying glasses atop her nose and could immediately see a cross with four equal sides engraved on its circular face. On the right arm of the cross was the figure of a man bearing a child on his back that was oddly familiar. The words “Protect Us” beneath his feet helped her decode the words arching over his head: “Saint Christopher.” Her knowledge of Catholicism was embarrassingly sketchy, but she had certainly encountered the ubiquitous Saint Christopher’s medal that many faithful travelers trusted to protect them against storms, pestilence, and nose-picking kids.
    There was a figure on the opposite arm of the cross, but it was unfamiliar and its caption was indiscernible. The image on the top arm of the cross was obscured by tarnish, but she could make out a heart in the center and the Virgin Mary on the bottom arm.
    Faye had known more than one Protestant with an attachment to a Saint Christopher’s medal that was more superstitious than religious, but this thing had the look of something that only the faithful would wear. It was unusual. Why hadn’t the newspapers described it?
    Another question surfaced. Had Abby been Catholic? She’d never thought about Abby’s religion. Probably, she’d just assumed the girl was Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian like just about everybody in that part of the world where the Bible Belt devoted itself to holding up the pants of a nation.
    She flipped the medal over and found that its smooth back had yielded to cleaning much more readily than the front. As if in miraculous answer to the question she’d just asked herself, eight words appeared. I am a Catholic. Please call a priest.
    Faye recoiled. Abby could have had a mass said over her bones if she’d called a priest that first day. Her fuzzy knowledge of Catholicism suggested that Abby would have wanted that. Now her bones were gone, and Faye had a feeling that the Pope himself would be ashamed of her.
    She peeled off her gloves and found Abby’s obituaries. The child in her felt like her sin of omission would be less severe if she proved to herself that the dead girl was just a Protestant whose faith didn’t particularly care what was done with her body.
    So there! that childish part of her exclaimed when she found the funeral notice crediting Rev. Devan Watts of the Panacea Springs United Methodist Church with Abby’s memorial service. How hard it must have been for him, eulogizing someone when no one knew for sure that she was even dead.
    So why was there a medal in Abby’s grave that honored a religion that wasn’t even hers? Unless…
    She remembered the spot where she’d found the medal, assuming it