Page 20 of Last Resort

“Is Etta Campbell in?” Erik asked at the library’s front desk.

The receptionist looked up. “May I tell her your name?”

“Erik Mitchell. Susan Hendricks and Ben Nolan—Meg Meirlach’s nephew—sent me.”

That brought a smile. “Any friend of theirs is a friend of mine. Give me a moment and I’ll go get Etta.”

Erik didn’t have long to wait before an older woman with short blond hair and bright blue eyes strode toward him. She wore a colorful sweater over a blouse and slacks. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a chain made from multi-hued crystals.

“Etta Campbell.” She offered her hand and gave a firm shake. “How do you know Ben and Susan?”

“Ben Nolan is my partner,” Erik replied, pleased when his answer didn’t even get a blink in response. “And Susan is my next-door neighbor.”

“Wonderful. What brings you here, and how can I help?”

“I’m the new owner at Trinkets, and someone mailed us an envelope full of old poker chips from a place called the Fun Factory. I’m not finding much information except that it might have been early in the 1900s and was possibly located in Sewell Point.”

Etta frowned, thinking. “That name rings a bell, but I can’t come up with details off-hand. Let’s check it out.”

He followed her into the back area of the reference section. “This is where we put the stuff that isn’t very sexy,” Etta said with a laugh. “Government records and reports, old newspapers, that sort of thing. It’s not casual browsing material.”

She waved toward a wooden table. “Go on, have a seat. Let me see what I can scrounge up.”

Erik read the news on his phone to keep from drumming his fingers or fidgeting in his chair. Ben’s news worried him more than he let on, and he dreaded having to watch over their shoulders once more.

Etta was back before he’d finished with the latest headlines. She had a stack of books and binders, which she set on the table with a solid thump.

“That far back, most of it isn’t digitized because, well, there’s just not much demand.” She sat across the table from Erik. “I actually had to dust these off. But if your Fun Factory existed, we should find a record somewhere in here.”

“We know it was before 1930 because of the type of poker chip,” Erik volunteered. “And it’s just a hunch, but I’m going to bet we should start by looking between 1908 to 1918.”

“That’s very specific.” Etta peered at him over her reading glasses. “Can I ask why those years?”

Erik sighed. “Those would have been the first years of the Commodore Wilson. It’s a long story, but I swear everything in my life seems to come back to that hotel.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re rather young to be haunted by a hotel that shut down when you were a kid.”

“It’s complicated.” Erik decided to shift the topic. “What are we looking for in the books?”

“Assuming the Fun Factory was a legitimate public business, there should be tax records,” Etta told him. “That’s the first thing. After that, when we’ve got the dates nailed down, we might find newspaper articles or legal filings.”

She handed an old binder of reports to Erik and took one for herself. “You’ve got 1908, and I’ve got 1909. I brought out 1900 to 1910. If we don’t find anything in these, I can get the next few.”

They scanned the yellowed pages, working silently. Erik didn’t find anything in his volume and reached for the 1910 report.

“Bingo,” Etta murmured a few minutes later. “Take a look at this.” She turned her book for Erik to see, and he followed the line her finger traced.

“Fun Factory, entertainment venue, Sewell’s Point,” he read aloud, excited to find confirmation. “Jepson Enterprises.”

“Jepson,” Etta repeated. “Now that name I’ve heard—and I think there’s a link with the Commodore Wilson.” She took the other books back with her into the stacks and returned shortly with several new volumes.

“I did a quick online search to confirm my hunch.” She placed her phone on the table. “Nathan Jepson was the second owner of the Commodore Wilson. He bought it from Howard Caine, the man who built the hotel and envisioned making Cape May the new Nantucket.” She gave a wry chuckle. “It didn’t quite work out that way.”

“Jepson must have had money, even if he bought the hotel when it was distressed,” Erik commented.

“He made it—and lost it,” Etta confirmed. She opened another thick book and searched for the right page. “This is a history of Cape May in the same period. Jepson warranted inclusion as a real estate mogul. He made a lot of money building hotels and restaurants along the railroad lines to encourage people to travel. Then he sank most of what he had in the Commodore Wilson and, like all the other owners, couldn’t make a go of it.”

Erik did not mention the site’s malicious genius loci as the probable reason for the hotel’s ruination. “So Jepson owned both the hotel and Fun Factory?”

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