Ghost Point

By Diane Scott Lewis

Luke, an oysterman, is tangled up in the fight over the Potomac River rights in 1956 Virginia. He loves his wife, but they clash over his illegal dredging of oyster beds. His life is under threat from Maryland’s notorious Oyster Police.

Yelena, the once pretty, popular girl, struggles to rise above her dull existence as Luke’s wife. She defies her husband and takes a job in a used bookstore. A mysterious older man is interested in her, or is he simply after her husband for his unlawful activities as he inspects the murders out on the river? She's tempted to plunge into intrigue and perhaps more. Can Luke and Yelena rekindle their love or drown in the hurricane of their actions? Will the crew-killers be found before Luke becomes their next victim?

Editorial Review
“A rich plot with building suspense, the writing is perfect and flows well. I loved this story.” History and Women
“What can I say, this is your best book yet!” author Sherry Morris

• Language: English
• Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228618768

Diane Scott Lewis

Diane grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. At nineteen, she joined the Navy. She has written and edited free-lance since high school. She married in Greece and raised two sons in Puerto Rico, California, Guam, and Virginia. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novels Review and works as an on-line historical editor. Diane served as president of the Riverside Writers, a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, Inc, in 2007-2008. She has four published historical novels.She lives with her husband and dachshund in Clarion, PA. Check out her website at:

Book preview

Ghost Point

Murder and Thwarted Love – Potomac River Oyster Wars

Diane Scott Lewis

Digital ISBNs

EPUB 9780228618768

Kindle 9780228618775

PDF 9780228618782

Print ISBNs

LSI Print 9780228618812

B&N Print 9780228618805

Amazon Print 9780228618799

Copyright 2021 by Diane Parkinson

Cover art by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book

Author’s note

While this story is based on true events, some aspects of the history have been combined from different years for brevity, or fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

Dedication

Dedicated to Barbara Megee, my friend who told me about the Virginia Oyster Wars, the Paying off at the Boom, both which inspired this story.

Chapter One

Colonial Beach, Virginia 1956

Luke questioned his sanity as he and his crewmates rushed to slip the dredges over the sides of the high-powered motorboat. The scoops splashed into the river; their cables squeaked along the rollers amidships. The vessel rocked beneath his feet and he widened his stance. With a grating sound, the dredges started to drag over the oyster bed. The chains and iron teeth of the basket-like scoop raked the bed as it scraped up oysters like a greedy shark. The peril of illegal actions.

The Potomac’s spray dampened Luke’s face and hair. Frigid October wind seeped under his coat collar, and he fought a shiver. River current sucked against Monroe Sally’s hull as the boat hovered like a predator in the black night.

He grimaced. This was the first season that he’d performed this nocturnal activity—but many watermen had been forced into it to survive, and to defy.

He should have stayed with the legal tonging. But dredging did in one hour what tonging did in eight—though the scraping ruined the beds. Luke needed the money; he had a wife and his little boy to support. A week in, he’d admitted the criminal work to Lena, yet never told her that his father had urged him to ‘break the rules,’ saying it was his duty as a Virginian. Do you want your family to starve? his pa had accused.

Old man’s full of crap, Luke muttered. He should have told him where to go. Not that he didn’t love him, but he had to stop letting his father intimidate him.

The boat creaked as it slowly bobbed. The teeth scraped and tore at the beds.

His wife often said the same about his pa, and Luke had to be the man of his own house.

A crack in the distance echoed over the water. A rifle shot. Luke’s neck muscles tensed. The Maryland oyster police, who held jurisdiction over the Potomac, must be after a dredger.

Hope we’re not next, Ernie said with his goofy laugh, but his shoulders hunched.

Don’t ask for trouble. Luke swiped his arm across his face to stifle a more agitated reply. With the way sounds carried over the river, the police could be a couple of miles away.

Luke and Ernie scrutinized the marker in the water: an inner tube in an upside-down bushel basket with a kerosine lantern inside that showed a weak flicker. Captain Jim Spenser had pinpointed the bed with this light, and they circled it as they dredged.

At the familiar tug of the cable and the boat’s shudder, Captain Jim sped up the winder engine. Luke and his mates engaged the winder clutches to reel aboard the catch.

Ernie and Luke manned one dredge. Ernie’s younger brother Bobby and a colored man named Silas Hawes toiled close by at the other. Their grumbles and curses thickened the air. The stink of sour sweat poured off them. Luke’s muscles strained from shoulder to fingers.

As the pocket-like net bag swung over the side, its frame banging the rail, nearly forty pounds of muddy shells clattered onto the work deck. Captain Jim brought the boat around again and, with a heave ho, they slid the equipment back into the water.

Their rubber-gloved hands culled through the oysters. Each rattle of shells cut into Luke’s brain as he hurried. The stink of the sea and slime filled his nose.

Suddenly a spotlight illuminated Sally and the crew stared into the light, shading their eyes. Captain Jim gunned the stern’s Johnson motor and the boat rumbled and jerked. The winder engine kicked in again. The men hoisted up the dredgers as the police boat nosed its way through the mist to block their escape.

"Damn it all." Luke jerked his dredger across the deck. His body tightened at the dangerous possibility of arrest. How would he protect his family from jail?

Stop! the Maryland officials shouted. A whip sounded as they tried to lash a line across their vessel’s bow. Monroe Sally bumped alongside the police boat. A shot exploded from beside him. The police captain staggered and grabbed his shoulder. The officers aimed their rifles and shots whistled across Luke’s head and right shoulder. He cringed and ducked down among broken oyster shells and mud. Would this be his last night on the earth?

Their boat retreated into the fog at full speed, hugged the shore, then slipped into a cove. Captain Jim cut her engine. Lights off. The crew stayed crouched and held their breath, listening for the growl of a pursuing motor. Silence enveloped them. Frogs grunted in the rushes. Luke cursed to himself at whatever idiot on Sally had fired first.

* * *

Dawn light crept through the flimsy bedroom curtains. Yelena wriggled her toes under the covers and stared at the creeping shadows on the ceiling. Luke should be at Monroe Harbor by now, delivering their catch to Land Curley. Her heart constricted. How she hated these long nights, the dangers out on the Potomac since Luke had joined the illicit dredgers.

Extra cash during hard times—the long fading of Colonial Beach as a pleasure place after the war—except for the flashy casinos—and defying Maryland’s ownership of the river, drove the Virginians to anger and desperation.

The old-timers grumbled constantly about these issues, especially the beleaguered watermen. Yelena struggled between pity for her town, and the graver apprehension for Luke’s safety.

Her life always seemed teetering on the edge, never advancing to something better. She chased around like clanging pinballs what solutions she had the power to initiate. The strength to raise her family into a securer, more comfortable environment. Perhaps she could find a job, bring in income? Or was that a foolish idea?

Seger banged a toy truck on his bedroom floor, in the tiny room across from hers. It came like shots through the thin walls of their ramshackle cottage. She winced at the sound, though the toy didn’t matter. She had bought the thing second-hand, rusty and scratched. After a moment, the child appeared in her doorway, rumpled in his Mighty Mouse pajamas.

You’re up awful early, she said softly.

Where’s Daddy? Not home yet? he asked, but sounded more a demand. He padded barefoot across creaking floorboards to the window and peeked out. Standing on tiptoe, he trailed his fingers over the glass. She tried not to mind the smudged fingerprints that would remain there until she cleaned.

He’ll be here soon, Champ. The boat should be in dock. She smiled as the boy crawled in beside her and snuggled into the bed. His fresh child smell. Her Seger, four and a half years old, and full of mischief. Still, she resented that name. A sweet, cherub-faced child called Seger—it didn’t fit to her reasoning. She had wanted something more poetic, but Luke said they should honor his father. Whiskey would have been a more appropriate testimonial. Luke’s cantankerous old man delighted in swilling alcohol and ordering people about, rather than caring about his kin.

She kissed her son’s warm forehead under blond curls and thought how she used to dislike her own name. Yelena. Named for a great-grandmother she’d never seen who had lived and toiled in some Siberian hovel. She’d been curious to look up Siberia at the library when old enough to read: a Russian wasteland where temperatures plummeted to frigid depths. Many of her childhood friends had teased her over this odd appellation. They’d chided her for a prissy name unworthy of a true Virginian. But now, at twenty-four, she believed it gave her a mysterious distinction.

A key scraped in the front door lock. Seger wriggled from under the covers and scampered into the hallway. Yelena pulled the blanket snug to her chin and waited as the door opened and boots tramped in.

Daddy, ’bout time you came home, Seger announced.

Hey, Spat, why’re you up now? Luke asked when he reached their bedroom door. He pulled off his wool cap and swung Seger into his arms. Her husband’s medium frame was slender but muscled, his light brown hair tousled as he stood in the shadows. That fishy odor that clung to his clothes clouded in, and after all these years she still noticed even if she’d stopped wrinkling her nose.

I’m awake. Yelena forced a smile over her qualms. When Luke trudged farther in, she refrained from complaining about his filthy boots. Did it go well tonight?

Luke smirked, but it didn’t change the troubled expression in his eyes. He shifted the child on his hip. Spat, you go play in your room.

Ain’t no baby oyster. Seger poked his father’s chest, his bottom lip stuck out. "I ain’t no spat."

She sighed and despaired of breaking her son from saying ‘ain’t.’

Luke carried the protesting boy across the hall. Then he shut their bedroom door and looked down at his boots. Sorry, I mussed up the rug. I’ll go back outside and—

Is everything all right? She sat up, her breathing shallow. She sensed the anxiety that bristled off of him.

The sun brightened through the curtains. A bird chirped, then another.

Luke’s body seemed to sag, as if his bones had gone to rubber. His hazel eyes held too much distraction. Nothing, it’s nothing. I’m just tired.

I wish you wouldn’t do this anymore. I don’t know why you had to join in. She’d made that statement too many times to count since oyster season began. But this morning the increased tension in her husband quickened her pulse.

He sank into a nearby chair and unlaced his boots. Lena, do you think I’d be doing it if I had something better? Money’s tight enough. He spoke so harshly, she clung to the hope he regretted his choice, that soon he’d quit.

If not this season, absolutely next season…you can stop. She wouldn’t know until then what he’d choose, how much she could still influence him.

There was a loud knock on their bedroom door. Seger squeaked it open and peered in, his plump mouth pouting. Don’t wanna play in my room no more.

The hell you say. Luke laughed at his son’s bold statement. We’ll just have to see ’bout that.

Luke, please, no profanity in front of him. We’ve talked about that. She rose from the bed and shivered in the chilly room. Slipping on her robe, she then pushed her feet into scuffed slippers.

I’m hungry. Seger opened the door a few inches wider and stretched to his full height—as if that would impress his parents

Sorry, forgot the danged Queen was here. Luke glanced at her, shaking his head. Where good ole swearin’ becomes ‘profanity.’

His irritation unsettled her. A queen, was she? A royal Russian empress living in a shack. I’m just trying to do what’s best. You should get out of those damp clothes.

Seger squeezed through the door opening and tiptoed in, as if no one would notice.

Luke hopped to his feet and kissed her on the cheek. I’ll wash and try an’ get some sleep.

Yelena put her arms around her husband. The smell of the river oozed from his clothes; his cheek felt like ice. Now she’d smell fishy. Was she trying to find solace? Would you like some hot chocolate to warm up first?

Nope. I just gotta grab a little thief. He kissed her quickly on the lips, then turned and scooped up the child, who squealed, and swung him in the air. Come on, boy, help me fill my bath. He tramped back out into the hall with Seger under his arm like a bushel of oysters.

As she watched him go, she felt only a remnant of that soft twisting in her abdomen. The feeling she’d had that first day she’d laid eyes on Lukas Trowbridge at Colonial Beach High School. It had faded, their expectations moving apart. Her once secure anchor pulled free from its mooring. She clutched her robe close. The idea frightened her.

Chapter Two

Luke gripped the sheets, the bed wavering beneath him like the bob of a boat. He came fully awake in the dark-paneled bedroom. He’d done oyster work since fourteen, yet it never seemed to matter—the movement of the river swayed in his dreams. Generations of oystermen fished in his blood, the rugged watermen were his family.

The house was quiet. Lena must have gone out with their boy. She was annoyed with him. Disappointed more like it; he saw it deeper in her eyes each day. The pretty blonde-haired girl he’d always struggled to impress. A girl who’d won a math award in their senior year. Math!

He left the warm blankets and pulled on his jeans and a sweatshirt. In the kitchen he heated water in a pot on the stove and scooped the instant coffee into a mug. When the water boiled, he poured it over the grounds, making a muddy liquid. A quick stir and sip. He frowned at the grainy taste, an off-brand. The higher-paid people drank Nescafe. His wife should be here, percolating a good brew.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. Almost noon. He’d have to make his own lunch, too.

Luke stared out the kitchen window to the marsh, the drying rushes. The last of the season’s mosquitos waited in hunger for the dip of the sun. An inlet off the bay on Virginia’s Northern Neck, the land was a peninsula between the Potomac River and Monroe Bay. His entire world, nearly seventy miles south of Washington, D.C.. A place he’d never visited.

Lena wanted to take Seger to the capitol, teach him about history, government. The boy wasn’t even in school yet. There was plenty of history right here at the Beach. Hell, George Washington was born not far from there.

Luke’s battleground was here, stretching from the bridge where busy route 301 crossed the Potomac into Maryland, then twenty-five miles downriver to the Chesapeake.

Fingers gripped on the mug handle, he should tell Lena about the shooting incident. That news would get back to her sooner or later, but he hated to worry her more. She had to understand this was business and for now he must make a bigger profit. Packing house owner Land Curley paid well for the larger catch.

It did bother him to ruin the beds. The oysters not being able to reproduce would eventually destroy their livelihood. His mama had once explained it to him. His mama… Dammit, he was caught in a terrible position.

He glanced down and touched rough splinters. The window needed repairs, the wood rotting on the frame. Saltwater air did that to a house. He’d have to fix it. The landlord would take forever. Another sip of coffee tasted bitter down his throat.

He jerked open the fridge that hummed louder than a wasps’ nest. Peanut butter and jelly seemed his best choice for a sandwich. Where was his wife?

His heart bunched like a fist. How could he fix things with Lena? Put a smile back on her face, the brightness in her eyes that first attracted him. He needed her gentle presence.

Luke smacked the fridge door. Other sinister activities were happening out on the Potomac; stuff he could never tell her about. Crimes he was repulsed to believe.

* * *

Pam moved ponderously around her tiny kitchen, cleaning up the lunch dishes of tuna sandwiches. Huge and pregnant with number four, her swollen ankles bulged over worn slippers. Look exhausted, Lena. You getting no sleep?

I’m up too early. You’ll be the one needing the sleep, sis. Are you trying to start a fishing crew of your own? Yelena smiled to distract the question and sipped coffee at the table with its torn plastic yellow cover.

Think if I had my druthers I’d be doing it again? Probably. Matt likes his women full-bodied. Pam peered into the front room. You kids get off the sofa with your shoes! And no jumping. She sat at the table with a thud.

My Seger keeps me running enough. I guess I haven’t gotten loads of sleep lately. Yelena absently stirred the sugar around in Pam’s chipped green sugar bowl. Agitation kept her off balance, as if she should be doing something important, but exactly what she needed to figure out. The job idea kept repeating in her head.

Anything the matter? Things all right with you and Luke? Pam bent over as far as her belly would allow and tossed a piece of Moon Pie at the dog. Chocolate and graham cracker crumbs scattered around her feet. The matted-haired terrier gobbled the pastry in loud snuffles. Fool dog eats whatever you throw in his face.

Dogs usually do. The chocolate might make it sick. Yelena averted her eyes as the mutt nosed the crumbs, combining them with other debris on her sister’s floor. Me and Luke? I still love him, care about him. His eyes always make him look sad, vulnerable. But I…I just can’t understand what I’m about lately.

Luke’s gazes once tied her up tight inside, with a crooked smile that quickened her breath. Now, she couldn’t describe the hollow feeling that crept up on her of late. Did she love him as much as in the beginning? She wanted more, but how to explain that to Pam.

Vulnerable? Where do you get your fancy words? Baby sis, you love to talk above us rank and file. Too much book reading if you ask me. Pam put both elbows on the table, her mug of coffee between her hands. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. And your year at college.

For what good it did me. Yelena wished she could take that statement back. She’d attended the business college in Fredericksburg, an hour away, until she discovered she was pregnant with Seger. She and Luke had married, as they’d always intended, but not so quickly. Not that I regret my beautiful son.

You’re a good mom. But you’ve got your head in the clouds. You get that from Daddy. I know you love your man, but your life isn’t what you expected. Pam sat back and studied Yelena with her round green eyes above puffy cheeks. Don’t frown at me, it’s the truth.

I don’t think I’m so above anyone. At least I try not to behave that way. Yelena had been voted most popular girl in her senior year and graduated with straight A’s. But what had she accomplished in her life? She’d hoped to be a bookkeeper; she was good at math. She might still find something like that to help out her family.

The sound of wrestling came from the front room; children’s laughter and shouts, bumps against the wall.

Settle down in there, Pam warned. I got cookies for good little kids.

Seger ran in, cheeks flushed. Mama, I want a cookie. He grabbed her hand and she twirled him then squeezed him close, feeling his warmth and energy. He laughed.

Sweetie, not yet, and please behave. She caressed his plump cheek. He blew her a kiss and ran back to where his cousins played.

Your boy always behaves the best. Pam rubbed her mound of a belly. You could use more cookies; you’re too skinny.

I’m trim, that’s all. Yelena gazed at the dusty kitchen window with its jars of wildflowers on the sill. A sprig of lavender would sweeten the air. She turned back to her sister. You enjoy being the world’s mama, don’t you?

"Our mama couldn’t be bothered so much. She was too distracted. So someone had to do it. Pam cocked her head; the earth mother—warm and comfortable like a well-worn sweater. Say, you been out to visit them lately?"

Don’t be so hard on Mama. She had…problems later on. It wasn’t her fault. Yelena twinged with guilt at her neglect. She glanced again at the floor, but resisted the urge to ask her sister where she kept her dust broom and pan. I haven’t been out for a while.

A Slinky flew into the room and boinged into the cupboards. The dog ran out with a yelp.

Pam rose, moaned, and waddled to the cupboard where she kicked the toy out of the way. Knock it off in there! She sighed. We have a crazy mama, all right. Except she doesn’t run screaming down the street trying to stab people like a proper lunatic. She hides in her house and won’t come out for hell or high water. A cowering mouse. That’s why Daddy’s gotten so quiet. He’s turning into her.

Don’t be harsh. I pity them. Everyone has issues. Is your life so perfect? Don’t tell me, it is, isn’t it? Yelena finished her coffee in one probably too-dainty a sip. Luke called me the Queen this morning. Is that what you all think, I put on airs?

You expect too much, that’s all. You married Luke for fevered passion, but nothing stays fevered. Pam winked as she brought out a cookie jar shaped with the pink face of Porky Pig. Then you dig in for the long haul.

You do know me better than anyone. Yelena wanted to steer the long haul in a better direction. She stood and smiled at her sister. A person she’d always counted on, five years her senior. She shouldered her basket, an item she’d bought at a flea market. She enjoyed the idea of shopping like a colonial. Another ‘air’ of hers, she supposed. Thanks for lunch. I better get to the grocers.

Pam fetched several Oreos from the jar, leaving dark crumbs on her Formica counter. Reminds me, have you heard from Nancy?

Not for a few weeks. Why? Yelena thought of their wild, red-haired cousin. Loud and crazy and fun.

She came by the other day. Pam laid the sweet-scented cookies on a plate. She says her Jerry is dredging out on the river, dodging the Oyster Police. They’re getting shot at.

Yelena froze, her mind tumbling. Shot at, are you sure?

Pam shrugged. You know how she exaggerates. Luke isn’t involved, is he?

Of course not. She regretted lying to