Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers (6 page)

“Those kind of people don’t usually do
payments,” Mason said.

“They paid seven hundred and fifty dollars,
based on the preliminary artist sketches,” Lou informed them. “The
ones in that portfolio. I needed some things for the trip if we’re
going to be gone so long. You know I spent a hundred and fifty just
in diapers? Then baby food and—a bunny suit, of course. Three of
them, in fact. The Senator’s crawling around so much, now, he’s got
one wore out, already.”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Mason. “We
all know how money disappears.”

Millie sat down on the other side of the
table, next to Mason, with a heavy sigh. “You should have asked us,
Lou. Those paintings weren’t ours to sell. After everything J.D.
did for us, too.”

“But you said yourself they were garbage,
Mil. And the whole place was going to be knocked down, anyway. I
didn’t think anybody would even notice.”

“They weren’t our things.”

“Wrong’s wrong, even if it helps you” quoted
Gerald, before he got up to refill his mug, again. “You got taken
on the sketches, too. They’d have brought a strong five thousand at
auction.”

“Yeah, well I don’t happen to know any fancy
art collectors,” Cole pointed out. “And, by that time, we were in a
hurry.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t let go of the
paintings, or we’d all be in a fix.” Mason rubbed a hand over his
unshaved chin. “Long as they’re back at the house, we’re safe. I’ll
deal with J.D. about the sketches. He’s reasonable enough.”

There was such a long
silence that he glanced around the entire table. Now, everyone
looked guilty. “They are at the
Villa
… right?”

“Pop…” Lou Edna shook her head in disbelief.
“They just… disappeared! We looked everywhere for them!”

“What? Holy--” BOOM! His fist banged down
with a resounding thump. “This whole situation’s getting worse by
the minute!”

“Hold on, Mase…” The Colonel raised his hand
to interrupt the outburst. “It just so happens Stella found
them.”

Such a unanimous exclamation of relief burst
forth from everyone at the same time, it sounded staged. Except for
Stella. She tried nudging the Colonel under the table but he spoke
out too soon.

“I found them, all right,” she finally
confessed. “They were in the dumbwaiter.”

“That’s right where I hid them, but they
weren’t there when we went back. Those guys were waiting for us,
and when we didn’t show up, they kept calling. They said they were
coming over to deal with us. We had to lock Millie in the cellar,
too, because I just didn’t have enough time to explain.”

“You know I almost had a heart attack down
there?” Millie accused. “I was in there for hours!”

“But you were out by the time we got back,”
the girl reasoned.

“A lot of this is my fault, “said Stella.
“You see, I had a bit of extra time before we moved onto the boat
and mailed them off to the pawn shop they were addressed to. As a
favor to Millie because her return address was on there.”

Now, a unanimous gasp of horror escaped
everybody.

“My pills!” Millie reached into the pocket
of her pink housecoat, in search of them. “My heart pills! Oh,
Mase—I’m going to faint!”

“Wait!” This time, it was Lou Edna who
raised her hand. “It’s OK—it’s OK! Oh, this is all too funny!” She
leaned her head back to indulge in a moment of nervous laughter.
“If you mailed them just the way they were, we’re OK!”

“You have the weirdest sense of humor, Lou.”
Cole got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, realized it wasn’t
coffee, and poured it down the sink, instead. “I’ve never felt this
stupid in my life, and we still have major problems, here.”

“J.D.’s going to be wondering where those
pictures are!” Millie complained. “I gave him our forwarding
address, too.” She moaned at her own stupidity. “Now, when they
turn up on the black market, somewhere, any investigator with half
a brain will be able to trace things back to me. The real crooks
will get away, scot-free, and I could end up in women’s prison,
after all! Lou—how could you do this to me!”

“I didn’t do anything that bad, Millie. I
addressed them to
Peabody’s Peculiar Treasures
—J.D.’s
antique place—not the pawn shop we were dealing with. In case you
found them in the dumbwaiter before we could actually make the
deal. Didn’t want to give you another heart attack.”

“You mean, I didn’t send them to the mafia,
after all?” Stella was so relieved she leaned her forehead against
the Colonel’s shoulder and sighed. “Oh, thank heaven!”

“Mr. Peabody’s probably had them for days,
now,” the girl assured. “So—other than harboring an illegal
allien--”

“Oh, Lou Edna!” Millie dropped her face into
her hands. “If you aren’t the death of me, one of these days, I
will be a lucky woman!”

“Shortcake, we can handle.” Mason jerked a
thumb toward Cole. “It’s him we got to figure out what to do with,
now.”

“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do with
him!” The booming voice of Captain Stuart echoed from the
companionway leading down to the engine room. He ducked smartly
into the galley, with his hair all slicked back, and a clean shirt
on. It had a small rip at the left shoulder, and only smelled
faintly of diesel.

“Yeah, I knew this was coming sooner, or
later, so…” Cole stood up straighter and looked him in the eye.
“Let’s have it, Old Man.”

“You’re promoted to First Mate.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You will remain aboard this vessel—without
shore leave—all the way to Alaska. Where you will immediately apply
for a passport. And the rest of you…” Stuart looked them all over
with a warm appreciation shinning in his eyes, and pronounced, “Are
hereby released from idiot-status. By the Almighty—you performed
like regular sailors, out there. Every last one of you!”

7

That night, as Stella sat tucked beneath her
rose-colored throw, reading before a pleasantly crackling fire, it
suddenly occurred to her how far they had all come, working
together as a team. Why it had literally saved them! And—without
the many miracles she was so sure she had experienced that day—they
could all be dead. In fact, she was beginning to feel like
something of a cat with nine lives, lately, the way she had been
escaping so many disasters.

Now, here she was in her safe little home,
in this quiet harbor, halfway to Alaska. Could it be that God truly
cared for her—in a personal way—and took a “divine hand” in all
things concerning her? Why, if that were true… a person could do
just about anything. An ordinary person would be capable of doing
extraordinary things.

Maybe even great things.

All at once, an incredible sense of peace
and contentment settled over her. She wondered if it wasn’t truly
the most wonderful feeling she had ever experienced. What’s more,
for the first time in her entire life, she had someone to share it
with. A person who understood such things. She looked over to where
the Colonel was working away contentedly on his next book of
heroes.

“Oliver?”

“Yes, my dear?” he replied without looking
up right away. Stella loved it when he got involved in his work.
His face went through so many different expressions it was almost
like watching a movie.

“I just thought you might like to know
something.”

He looked over at her then. “Yes?”

“I’m sixty-three.”

“I thought so, Stel. You know that’s just
what I thought? It’s a wonder they don’t ask you to prove it
whenever you renew your driver’s license. It really is.”

“When you have white hair, that’s all anyone
really notices about you.”

“Hmm…” He drummed his fingers lightly on the
arm of his chair, as if thinking. “Anything else you want to tell
me about all that?”

“Not at the moment.” There would be plenty
of time to tell him about those other things. She would tell him
little by little. And—who knows—in the telling, maybe she would
have more of this peace and contentment to fill her life. And less
of those visions like that lady standing at the stove. Where did
such things come from?

“You know, my dear…” He suddenly closed down
his laptop and gave her his full attention. “Everyone has something
to hide. Every last one of us. Look at Cole and Lou Edna. The
lengths they went to pull this whole thing off. And all for
seven-hundred and fifty dollars, that made them feel worthless
inside.”

“You have to admit it was clever the way
they managed it, though,” she said. Stella knew what it was like to
be forced into desperate decisions, and then end up in a worse
place because of them. “Her dropping him off in the rowboat on the
American side, late at night when we were all asleep, and then
bringing him over the next night, again, after the inspection. He’s
been aboard all this time, and not a one of us had a clue.”

“Yes, and if they would put that much effort
toward honest work, they’d have more than enough respect to live on
by now. Along with everything else that comes from doing what’s
right.”

“Maybe they will, after all this.” Stella
closed her book and smiled. “He was certainly surprised when he got
promoted to First Mate! Did you see the look on his face? It was
like that was the first decent thing anybody ever did for him in
his entire life.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if it was. For sure
he’ll turn out to be the best hand Stuart’s ever had. Wait and
see.”

“I hope so.”

“They’ll have a strong bond between them,
too. I could see it’s begun already. It’s what comes of sharing
something of yourself that gets met with acceptance and fair
judgment from others. On the other hand, hidden things eat away at
you a bit at a time, over a long period of time. It’s one of the
best forms of destruction there is.”

Stella thought that was probably a good
lead-in to tell him her own story. But it had been such a long and
trying day. An extreme of highs and lows. The Colonel was right, of
course. She knew it in her heart as soon as he said those words.
But just as she was contemplating whether or not she was even up to
such an ordeal, he smiled that wonderful smile of his.

“No need to speak of it any more, tonight,
Stel. We have all the time in the world.” He answered the question
as if she had spoken it out loud. “Besides that, we start with
ourselves. Just put ourselves in God’s hands, and let him reveal
what we need to change, a bit at a time. Somewhere along the line
we become more transparent with everyone else, too. And one day we
may just wake up and realize we are actually starting to resemble
God, Himself. ‘From glory to glory,’ as the scriptures tell us.
Just by watching what He does for us every day. Looking for it,
even.”

“Sounds wonderful when you put it that way,
Oliver. Changing for the better, I mean.”

“It’s a miracle, my dear… an out and out
miracle!”

Author’s Note

Benjamin Franklin, who was quoted at the
beginning of this story, was a man who threw in his lot with
others, against impossible odds, many different times during his
life.

Difficulties that were overcome not so much
because he was a good businessman, an avid scientist and inventor,
or even an amazing diplomat. But because, as he said, “Our prayers,
Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who
were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances
of a Superintending providence in our favor.”

I find it interesting during research, to
discover how much those who do great things seemed to have been
"divinely prepared" beforehand. Benjamin Franklin is a good example
of this. Even though he was born into a large working-class family
(one of the youngest of 17 children), and had to be apprenticed
into a trade at the age of twelve, he was raised by Puritan
parents, and eventually settled in Philadelphia: that productive
"experimental city" established under the Quaker influence of
William Penn. The “city of brotherly love.”

I also found it interesting that Franklin
did his most important—and most difficult—work after the age of
seventy. In his famous autobiography, he put together a list of
personal “virtues” he lived by that he felt were vital to his
success, especially in working with others. You can find this
short, easy-to-read ebook, for free, via the following link.

I feel richer for having read it,
myself.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36151/36151-h/36151-h.htm

THE PUSHOVER
PLOT

Stella Madison Caper

#4

To those who have had to contend with
the darker side of supernatural—may you never be left
there.

“
A lie that is half-truth
is the darkest of all lies.”