And just like that, I got on my little historian pedestal. “Wrecking was a prosperous job down here in the Keys. Because of all the reefs and shallow water, visiting merchants and other vessels would become stranded, and wreckers would sail out to help either save the ship or, if the ship was doomed to sink, at least get the cargo safely to shore.”
“But for a price?” Jun asked.
I swung his arm lazily. “There’s always a price. An ambulance will come to your rescue, but you’d better believe you’re getting a bill for it. Some wreckers—like Smith—were honest men. Some were no better than pirates with a different job title. They’d sabotage incoming ships and basically hold the captains for ransom.”
Jun stopped outside the door. “To play devil’s advocate—”
“How do I know Smith was a fair man?”
He nodded, looking expectant.
“Court records. If a captain didn’t agree with the fee a wrecker charged, they could dispute it in court. Smith usually won, and compared to his fellow businessmen, he went to court far less than they.”
Jun let go of my hand and opened the door. “Learn something new every day.”
Inside Key Pirates, the lights were low and the walls were painted with fabulous depictions of ships at sea. Overhead speakers looped tracks of waves crashing into rocks, the sound of men working aboard a ship, and the stereotypical “arghs” and “ye be walkin’ the planks.” The gift shop was loaded with people, and the register was dinging away with sale after sale.
Pirates sell, what could I say?
Although, I was sort of surprised they were open, what with Cassidy being… currently dead and all. But it wasn’t like he was the owner. He worked as one of the pay-me-to-talk personal guides. And during March in a town dependent on tourism, I couldn’t blame them for keeping the doors open. I wondered if any of the employees knew. Someone had to.
“Welcome to Key Pirates!” a chipper woman said as Jun approached the counter. “Prepare yourself for swashbuckling and adventure!”
Jesus. How many times a day did she have to say that?
Jun smiled politely and pulled out his wallet to purchase tickets.
“On Thursdays, all children twelve and under are half-price.”
I slid up beside Jun. “No kids.”
She looked down and recognized me. “Oh hey, Mr. Grant! You work at the Smith Home, don’t you?” she asked, jutting her thumb backward to indicate the direction of the house.
“That’d be me.”
“We always appreciate our local customers. Glen has you on his discounts list!”
“He does?” Glen was the owner. I really didn’t know anything about him. I think we’d talked all of one time at a gallery opening two years ago at the art museum. Glen never gave me shit about Smith and the pirate rumors that clung to his name. That was solely Cassidy.
She motioned between me and Jun. “You guys visiting together? We don’t usually extend the discount to the entire party, but I can make an exception today,” she finished, offering Jun her biggest and whitest smile. “That’ll be sixteen dollars for two adults.”
Jun handed her a credit card.
I nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. “Someone likes you,” I murmured.
“We have something in common, then,” he stated, smiling back at the woman as he took his card and signed a receipt. Jun accepted the tickets she handed over.
“What’s that?” I asked, following him toward the door leading to the next room.
“We both like cock.”
Jun had to steady me when I started laughing and my knees got weak.
It’d been a while since I’d visited Key Pirates, but it was still an admittedly impressive museum. The well-researched parts, anyway. The huge room displayed countless treasures and artifacts recovered from two of the most famous shipwrecks in the area, theNuestra Señora de AtochaandSanta Margaritaof 1622. The Spanish galleons were special warships, designed to sail in convoys that protected merchant ships going to and from the New World and Spain. TheAtochaandMargaritamet tragic fates off the Florida Keys when they tried for Europe during the height of hurricane season. The galleons had been carrying somewhere around what would now be worth over 400 million in treasure—all lost at sea.
At the time, the Spanish had tried to recover their treasure, and I think had successfully located around half of what was once in the hulls of theMargarita, but theAtochasank in fifty-five feet of water, and late October hurricanes caused the treasure to be further scattered across the ocean floor. The galleons typically held the most impressive cargo, like gold, silver, and precious stones, while merchant ships hauled agricultural products. So yeah, several ships in the convoy had been lost, but treasure hunters only really cared about theAtocha. After all, it had once been carrying over 200,000 pieces of eight silver coins. The sister ships had been discovered in the 1980s, and since then, much of their treasures had been lifted from the ocean floor.
But there was still more, according to the original ship manifests, that had yet to be found. Not including possessions belonging to wealthy passengers lost at sea.
