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“When they moved the horses, do you remember meetin’ Justin’s partner, a retired vet, by the name of Grace? She’s short,” he said, holding his hand out three feet off the ground, “`bout this high, and has blue hair, real blue hair. She dyed it when someone called her ablue hair. It ticked her off and now she really is.”
“I probably shouldn’t laugh, but it’s funny. Yes, I remember her. So! You two are perfect together.”
“You wouldn’t think we’d have a durn thing in common, but we like the same murder mysteries.”
He asked questions about her client and told her the daily gossip in town when they reached the dock. Handing her his cup, he jumped into the boat. “I wanna git this situation out of the way before we eat that pastry.”
Picking up the large square again, he struggled a little under its weight and rested it on the side of the boat.
“You ready?”
“I’m ready,” she said.
He pulled the sheet off and shouted, “Ta-da!” and it took her a few seconds to register that she was looking at Lonnie Langtry’s primitive painting of a mati. A Greek evil eye.
Maggie screeched, “Gus! Where on earth did you find it?”
She put the bag of bear claws and mugs of coffee on the dock and reached forward to run her hand over its surface, the old paint in good shape, maybe the same blue color that her grandfather had painted the house at one time, bright sky blue with a black pupil surrounded by a baby blue background.
“You won’t believe it,” he said. “But Val found it in the barn over at my granddad’s place. They was using it fer storage, the construction firm that built this new dock. Val and Betty rolled their sleeves up and started rummaging and throwing out, and they found it. Betty said it belonged to you.”
She examined it, allowing memories of approaching the dock in a boat driven by her grandfather or her aunt and seeing that eye nailed to the end of the pier.
“What’s that mean?” young Maggie had asked.
“It’s an evil eye,” Lonnie had answered. “It don’t really mean a thing, but it shows us where home is.”
Her aunt had a much different explanation. “It’s here to protect us. No one will stop at the Langtrys’ dock as long as this eye is watching over us. It will give ’em bad luck if they ain’t welcome.”
Gus watched her carefully. “Greta took it down after Lonnie died. She said she always hated it. Your family history is pretty enticin’,” he said, grinning. “They all from New Orleans. Lonnie’s people was, his mother was a witch, so the story goes, his sister’s grandkids still practicing witchery there.”
“I still have relatives in New Orleans?” she asked, flaring her nostrils.
“Oh, yes’m. You got a bunch.”
“I’d better leave that alone,” Maggie said, laughing. “The cottage will be overrun.”
“There was a battle when Lonnie left it to his wife and daughters,” Gus said. “It was only correct that he did.”
“Well, let’s hope they stay away,” she said, grimacing.
“Do you want to put the eye up at the end of your dock?”
“You know what, Gus, I think I’m gonna hang it in the cottage. But I’ll paint another one, a new one for out here. What do you think?”
“It’s great, is what it is. I’ll bring by a sheet o’ plywood tomorrow if it’s convenient for you.”
“Yes! That’s great. Let me help you get that thing out of the boat, and then we have to drink our coffee before it gets cold.”
After they had coffee and delicious bear claws, Gus helped Maggie lug the evil eye into the cottage. He nailed a spike into a stud in the living room above the fireplace, and after they fashioned a wire hanger across the back, the two of them hiked it up into place.
“That’s about as perfect as it’s gonna get,” he said. “It’s like it was painted for that spot.”
“It is. I just love it. Thank you so much for bringing it. I’ll call Aunt Elizabeth and thank her, too.”
Gus headed to the door. “You belong here, Miss Angel. This cottage been waitin’ for you, and now it’s content. I feel it.”
She would walk back down to the dock with him, not really wanting him to go.
