About the time she’d been living here. “Henry never talked about the wreck.”

“As I understand it, his grandmother was a little baby tucked in a steamer trunk found with the Liberty T. Mitchell’s wreckage.”

“Really?”

“He swears he wore her crucifix with his dog tags when he served off the coast of Italy during World War Two.”

Henry had always worn his dog tags, and she’d bet anything Ruth had buried him with them. “Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know. But you might very well have known a man linked to the wreck.”

“It would be news to me.”

Ivy moved to the dining table and collected the black-and-white pictures. “I found a camera that still had film in it. These are the pictures that came from that roll.”

Molly carefully laid out each photograph on the table, her eyes lighting up with each new one. For a historian, it was Christmas Day and maybe a birthday all rolled up in one. “This is a fascinating piece of history.”

Ivy lifted the picture of the Lana Turner look-alike. “Pete Manchester tells me this is Carlotta DiSalvo.”

“He is correct. She was quite famous in the area during the years her showboat traveled up and down the coast. She joined the traveling troupe in 1941 and stayed with them until the midsixties. I’ve got some eight-millimeter film of her performing somewhere at the office. I’ll see if I can find it.”

“That would be terrific.” Ivy was drawn in by Carlotta’s light-colored eyes, which sparkled. “Why did she spend time at the Seaside Resort during her peak earning time? Even if the ship had been dry-docked, she could have performed in a bigger city and made more money.”

“Edna Wheeler was her aunt. While the showboat was in for repairs, Carlotta took the opportunity to visit with family.”

“My great-grandmother was Carlotta DiSalvo’s aunt?”

“Carlotta was born Carol Jenkins in 1920 in a small town near Asheville, North Carolina.”

Ivy studied Carlotta’s arched, penciled eyebrows, her full, painted lips, and her bright smile. “She’s a long way from the mountains.”

“Edna did essentially the same thing in 1920. Picked up and came to the Outer Banks with a suitcase of clothes and five dollars in her pocket. According to Henry, Edna came to the barrier islands because she believed ghosts didn’t cross water.”

“What about the ghosts trapped here?”

“They weren’t her ghosts, so I suppose she didn’t care about them.” Molly reached for her phone, scrolled through dozens of vintage photos, and settled on one of Henry taken in the 1950s. He was a very attractive man and conjured images of William Holden circa that time. “It was rumored Henry and Carlotta were lovers that summer.”

“Wow, that’s Henry? I can see Carlotta’s attraction.”