Wilmington, NC 05 - Murder On The ICW

Theodosia Burr,'" I continued, ignoring her. Someone had to rescue this sorry excuse for a party.
    "Well, let's hear it," Cam said.
    "Growing up around here, I know it, of course, but you go ahead and tell the others," David said, casting a sharp eye at Ali. "Ali wouldn't have heard it. He grew up in some donkey pasture in the Middle East." His voice was bitter with contempt.
    "Who was Theodosia Burr?" Cam asked. "A relative of Aaron Burr?"
    "His daughter," I replied. "And the wife of the governor of South Carolina. In 1812 she sailed out of Georgetown on her way to New York to meet her father. Pirates attacked her ship off the North Carolina coast. There are two versions of the story. One is that she and her crew were forced to walk the plank. The other version is that she was held captive by the pirates on Smith Island -- that's what Bald Head Island used to be called. In her desperation to escape from them, she ran into the ocean and drowned herself.
    "To this day, she haunts the beaches of Bald Head Island, wearing a long flowing gown. Those who've witnessed her say you can see right through her, and that she vanishes as mysteriously as she appears."
    "Oh pish -posh," Melanie said. "Probably a woman in her nighty out looking for her dog."
    Everyone laughed and some of the tension was relieved.
    In the middle of my story, appearing bored and behaving with ill-mannered rudeness, Brie had taken her loaded buffet plate out onto the bridge deck. Now Ali followed her and cornered her, remonstrated with her about something -- his voice volatile, his hands waving wildly as he talked. But Brie was having none of it. She shook her head vehemently, her long hair flying. Then she gave him a shove with her free hand and slipped by him to rejoin her parents. She and Clay huddled in a mumbled conversation.
    Everyone had seen the confrontation. But we were all trying to make the best of a bad afternoon.
    "The view from up here is marvelous," I said, aiming for cheerfulness. "Our daddy used to take us sailing when he was alive. You can't live out on the waterway and not sail."
    "You grew up near the water?" David asked.
    "Yes. We lived on Summer Rest Road while my dad was alive. My mama lived in the same house until she moved to her family's home in Savannah with her sister."
    If I could keep chattering, maybe the fighting would stop. So I babbled. "When I was a little girl I used to think that the ICW was a natural body of water, like the ocean or the Cape Fear. But it's man made. The Army Corps of Engineers dredged it back in the twenties and thirties. They connected the natural sounds and inlets by carving through the land and opening a twelve foot deep channel that runs to Key West."
    "Actually, it was begun long before that, Ashley," Walt, who was something of a history buff, gently corrected me. "The ICW has its roots in the Dismal Swamp as long ago as 1784. Slave labor built a twenty-two mile canal to Norfolk. They dug it by hand. The cotton growers needed a waterway to ship their cotton to Norfolk so they could export it. Then Congress got involved in the early nineteen hundreds and decreed we needed a commercial waterway for our economy."
    "Clouds movin ' in," David said from the helm. "Cold front from Canada coming in tonight. Jon, you want to take the wheel for a while. I'm gonna help myself to another plate of Crystal's victuals."
    Ahead of us, the state ferry crossed the Cape Fear on its journey from Ft. Fisher to Southport.
    David moved from the helm to stand near Bunny and Clay at the buffet. "You know the Army Corps practically built that island you live on. It used to be a little bitty spit of land, known as the Hammocks, not much there. The Army Corps piled up the sand and mud they'd dredged from the sound onto the island and expanded it."
    His face darkened. "They also chopped off a big piece of my granddaddy's peninsula. You think the big bad government ever paid us for that land? No- sirree -bob!"
    Finally Ali, who had not spoken except to Crystal and Brie, joined the conversation, maybe wanting to show up David. "The state is going to build a huge commercial port right about there," he said, waving an arm to indicate the shore north of Southport. They have already acquired the land. Say it will provide many jobs. But no one's saying how it will impact recreational sailing."
    David exploded. Ali had evidently prodded his last nerve. "Well, sure we need another port. That's because this crippled nation of ours