Page 27 of Camino Ghosts

She grabbed him and held him close, and for a long time they stood in the surf as the warm water rose and fell while the sun dipped behind the clouds.

5.

The lawsuit was filed in the Camino County courthouse, five blocks east of Bay Books on Main Street. It was a beautiful old courthouse dating back to the 1870s and had been carefully renovated through the years. The formal courtroom was on the second floor and the judges kept their offices nearby. The clerks tended to their business on the ground floor, and it was there that Steven Mahon walked in with his lawsuit and filed it in chancery court. He could have done so online, but he still enjoyed the ritual of “filing” by presenting it to a clerk, who stamped several copies and gave one back to him.

Thus the battle began, but without the drama that often surrounded big cases. The lawsuit itself was rather bland reading and did not seek a fortune in damages. It did not contain the usual allegations of bad or reckless behavior. It did not demand punitive damages. It did not insist that the judge step in immediately with an injunction to stop something. Though it was destined to mushroom into a larger brawl, it began as a simple petition to “quiet a title.”

As far as lawsuits go, it was rather brief, only four pages. In broad strokes, Steven laid out the history of Dark Isle, beginning with the Franco-Spanish struggle dating back to 1565 and leading up to 1740 when the Spanish claimed sovereignty over the region after ruling it for two hundred years. Dark Isle was considered part of Camino Island, and it first appeared on a map in 1764 when the British seized the territory. Then they lost it to the French, who in turn lost it again to the Spanish. The three countries sparred for a few decades, each winning land and then losing it, often making individual land ownership impossible to determine. Native tribes still occupied most of the land, but that would soon change. In 1821, America cut a deal with the Spanish and got all of Florida. By then, Dark Isle had been a refuge for runaway slaves for almost a hundred years and no one else really wanted it. Florida was admitted to the Union as a slave state in 1845.

The plaintiff, Lovely Jackson, claimed to be a direct descendant of slaves who’d lived on Dark Isle since the early 1700s. She was born there in 1940, to Jeremiah and Ruth Jackson. Her father died in 1948 of typhoid, leaving Ruth and Lovely as the only two survivors on the island. They barely managed to survive for a few years, then left for Santa Rosa in 1955, the last residents of Dark Isle.

Like those before her, there was no official record of her birth. She had been delivered by a midwife, same as everyone else. There were no records of the births and deaths of her parents, or grandparents.

Her claim of ownership was based on the legal principle of adverse possession. She and her ancestors had lived on the island “openly” and “notoriously” and without interference or interruption for over two hundred years. Florida law required only seven. Though she was forced to leave in 1955, she did not abandon her ancestral home. For decades, she and a friend or two traveled by boat to the island several times each year to tend to the graves of her people. They walked the island from north to south looking for trespassers and squatters. They found none. Then Hurricane Leo did enormous damage to Dark Isle. It destroyed what was left of the settlement where she and her ancestors lived. It washed away centuries’ worth of artifacts and ruins.

Attorney Mahon requested a hearing within thirty days, as required by the statute, though he knew it would take months. As a courtesy, he sent a copy of the petition to the in-house counsel for Tidal Breeze in Miami. He also sent a copy to a contact in the Attorney General’s office in Tallahassee. The state of Florida would be party to the lawsuit.

One of many rumors swirling around the Panther Cay project was that the state would claim ownership, as it had for hundreds of other uninhabited islands, and then, once cleared, quickly sell it to Tidal Breeze for a fair price and get out of the way. The skids had been greased in Tallahassee. The politicians and bureaucrats were in line.

Steven walked up the stairs to say hello to Judge Lydia Salazar, the presiding chancellor. He’d met her once at a bar lunch but rarely appeared before her. Steven’s cases kept him in federal court and he seldom ventured into local courthouses. However, under Florida law, land and title disputes were the sole jurisdiction of chancery court, to be decided without juries. Thus, Judge Salazar would have enormous power over the future of Dark Isle. She enjoyed a solid reputation as a firm and fair jurist, though one lawyer had told Steven over coffee that she was known to talk too much about her cases. Out of school. Over drinks at cocktail parties. Loose lips sink ships and all that.

Steven just wanted to say hello, but her secretary said she had the day off.

His downtown stroll continued to the offices of The Register, the island’s newspaper. He paid for a legal notice that would advertise the filing of the petition and the hearing in thirty days. The owner/editor, Sid Larramore, was an acquaintance and they enjoyed an occasional coffee. Steven handed him a copy of the petition and waited as he read through it. They had already discussed its contents.

Sid was also a transplant from the D.C. area. He had retired to Santa Rosa for health reasons but, like Steven, had found retirement to be unhealthy. So he started writing for The Register and bought it when the owner died and no one else wanted it. In his opinion, one that he rarely shared with his readers, the island’s rebound after Leo was creating enough work for everyone. The comeback was strong. Traffic was heavy enough. The last thing they needed was a huge resort and casino. Sid was also fascinated with the legend of Dark Isle. He’d read Lovely’s book years earlier, had even tried to do a feature but got nowhere. He’d heard the rumor, probably from Bruce Cable, who often started them just to see how fast they would travel, that Mercer Mann was interested in writing about Dark Isle and the upcoming battle over its future. He had interviewed Mercer twice and was a fan.

“She’ll slay this story,” Sid said.

“I think so too. Bruce told me her publisher likes it.”

“She and Thomas have been digging through our archives for a month. They know more of the history of this place than anyone. They told me last week that they cannot find any reference to a white person who has ventured onto the island and lived to talk about it. Several have tried. Mercer thinks there’s an old voodoo curse still hovering over the island.”

“I’m not going over there.”

“I suppose you’d like this on the front page as soon as possible.”

“I’m a lawyer. Of course I want the front page.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re the owner, editor, publisher, and only full-time reporter. You can do anything you want.”

They shared a laugh and Sid promised to find room on the front page.

6.

Another late afternoon thunderstorm had blown through, drenching the island and breaking the humidity. It was now pleasant enough to eat outdoors on the veranda, Bruce’s preferred spot in the rear of his cherished Victorian home. When the table was cleared they moved to the side and settled into cushioned wicker rockers. Frogs and crickets began a loud chorus. The old rattan ceiling fans rattled above and kept the air moving. Bruce fired up a cigar and offered one to Thomas, who waved him off. They were finishing a bottle of Chablis.

The topic of the evening was the quandary over Mercer’s book proposal. Etta, always the agent, had suggested the amount of $500,000 for an advance against royalties. It was an aggressive opening and she justified it by the performance of Mercer’s last book, Tessa. The success of that novel, plus the compelling story at hand, was more than enough to support such an advance. Mercer was thirty-six, an accomplished writer with three books to her credit and many more to come. As usual, Etta had implied that if Viking couldn’t handle such up-front money, then Mercer might be forced to shop around.

The vague threat went nowhere. Lana Gallagher was a tough editor who gently deflected such warnings as just another part of the agent’s routine. She countered with $200,000, and showed barely enough enthusiasm to placate the author. Viking had two major concerns: nonfiction was something new for Mercer and, in the broadest of terms, paid less than popular fiction; and the near certainty of protracted litigation could delay the project for years.

To make the offer even less attractive, Viking proposed to string out the payments over the next several years: one-fourth at signing, one-fourth upon delivery of the manuscript, one-fourth upon hardback publication, and the last check when the paperback came out. If the book sold as well as hoped, and the advance “earned out,” the prospect of royalties might kick in even further down the road.

Mercer was disappointed with the offer but did manage to find humor in the fact that she was disappointed with a contract worth $200,000. She still had the fresh memories of being the impoverished grad student, then the adjunct professor with a one-year contract. Her future was far from certain. She did not have tenure at Ole Miss. Her salary was a wonderful cushion but budget cuts were always hovering. She dreamed of writing books for the rest of her life but lived with the fear of not having the next story. Only a few years ago she would have fainted if Etta had called with a $200,000 offer.

Bruce commiserated with her and, as always, sided with his writer. But he knew the offer was reasonable. He also remembered that four years earlier, Mercer had been delighted with the $50,000 advance she had received for Tessa. He also knew from years of observation that new writers needed two or three bestsellers in a row to establish themselves and expect bigger contracts. Mercer wasn’t quite there yet.

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