Echoes of Evil

by Heather Graham

  “If they admit to it,” Brodie said.

  “So we don’t start out asking if anyone has lost a chain. We ask if they know of anyone working with them who might have one.”

  “A subtle difference, but, yeah, it matters,” Brodie agreed.

  Ewan, who had been watching them since they’d divested themselves of their dive gear, walked toward them.

  “Okay, what now?”

  “We need to talk to the guys,” Brodie said.

  “Liam sent his officers out to the Memory and all around town yesterday afternoon. Every man has already been questioned,” Ewan said.

  Brodie noted that his old friend was wearing around his neck the same medallion he’d worn for years and years. The chain was gold, and good, but old—and didn’t shine like something newer. The medallion on the chain was a St. Christopher—the same one he’d worn as long as Brodie could remember.

  “Come on in to the galley. Most of the guys are there,” Ewan said. “Biding their time,” he added dryly. “Nothing else to do until we can get back down.”

  In the galley, two men were engaged in a game of chess; three were sprawled about reading. One was working on something at the stove, and the other three were grouped around the galley table, engaged in a game of poker.

  “Hey, guys, you all know Liam, our local cop—Detective Liam Beckett—and my friend, Brodie McFadden. Seems like we all have to talk again. You all down with it?”

  Cards fell on the table.

  The crew wasn’t down with it.

  They knew there was no choice.

  “Sure,” one man said. He was thirty, wiry strong, a good diver, and a local who’d been in the water since he’d been able to stand. Brodie already knew Josh Gable; they’d met on his initial dive—same as he’d met all the men.

  “Want me to go first?” Josh asked.

  “Sure. Go with Brodie,” Liam said. “Mr. Greenwood,” he added, pointing to the head tech, one of the two chess players, “mind coming with me? I swear, I’ll be brief.”

  Josh Gable accompanied Brodie topside. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Shouldn’t smoke, huh? Did you want to start with that?”

  Brodie shrugged. “You’re an adult.”

  “So, what’s up now? The cops checked me out. I wasn’t on the ship. I do have roommates at my place. Two of them. And we sat around catching up on that dragon TV show, and then we all went to bed. My roommate woke up at about two in the morning and closed my door—that’s not what I remember, that’s what she said. She was going to play some music and didn’t want to wake me. Liam knows all this.”

  “I don’t think you’re guilty of anything.”

  “Then why the hell are you questioning me?”

  Brodie shrugged again. “I’ve been known to be wrong. But seriously—I don’t think that this was any of you guys. I’m not even sure it has to do with the ship. Stuff a body in the ship—and who do we have to look at? You—divers, techs, people involved with the salvage.”

  “Right.” Josh nodded vehemently. “I want whoever did this to be found and found fast. This is my island. This discovery is important. Anyway, it pisses me off big-time. Some jerk doing this...making what should have been an important discovery into an ugly thing like murder.”

  “Hey, any of you guys break or lose a chain down there?” Brodie asked casually.

  “Not that I know about. And none of these guys wears chains—except for Ewan, of course. He says he’s being buried in that St. Christopher medal of his. But...of the divers, well, you know. You’ve met all of us now. Ewan, me—and then Gary Wall, Sly Cormack, Jimmy Martinez and Trevor McDonald. We’re the kind who don’t mess with jewelry down there. Hell, Sly wears a big gold earring when we’re not working, but when we’re down deep, he doesn’t want it on. I mean, of course, it’s a matter of choice. Some people take their jewelry off to dive, especially big, flashy jewelry. Some people don’t.”

  “Thanks. You really have no reason to suspect any of these guys, right?”

  “Hell, no. Go back—not one of us has a record of any kind and we’re all about as unpolitical as men can be.”

  “How come there are no women on this team?” Brodie asked.

  “Chelsea Yarborough was supposed to be diving with us—she got a major offer to go off with one of the science channels out in the Pacific. She took the offer. Genna Maberry was to lead on tech—she wound up in the hospital. There was nothing sexist intended, I assure you. It’s just the way it fell out when we lost a few of our original people. In fact, Lucy Lee, one of the women working with the artifacts, is going to take Gary Wall’s place next week. Gary’s wife is having a baby back up in Georgia. He’s going home to be there for it.”

  “Thanks,” Brodie told him.

  “You’re not a cop,” Josh noted.

  “Nope. Private investigator.”

  “Who are you working for down here?” Josh asked him.

  “Myself,” Brodie said.

  Josh studied him and nodded. “You’re all right. And I get that. I get it. I mean, you found a dead man. Guess that means something.”

  “To me, yes.”

  “Are we through?” Josh asked.

  “Yeah. Thank you. Of course...”

  “Yeah, yeah, there’s an investigation going on, all that stuff. Don’t leave town. Hey, this is my town. I’m not leaving it.”

  Brodie smiled. “No, I was just going to say that I hope you won’t mind if we need to speak again. You are a Conch, and a diver, and, when we have a suspect, we may need more help.”

  “You know where to find me,” Josh said. “I’ll send the next guy.”

  The next guy came. Trevor McDonald, a big man, muscled, bald, African American—and the kind of man so striking that, Brodie imagined, both sexes noted when he walked into a room. He had a sense of command about him.

  “All right, hell, I’m pretty damned sure I’m descended from somebody owned up in the Carolinas. But come on, give me a break here. I didn’t kill a man trying to get the truth out there—no way in hell.”

  Brodie found himself smiling; he liked Trevor. He was ready to say anything the way he felt it.

  “You were at the B and B the night Ferrer was killed?”

  “Hell, yeah. We weren’t partying too hard. I’ve got my wife and little boy down here. We all sat at the pool with some of the other guys for a while, then we went to our little bungalow thing and I put my kid to bed. I could hear other fellows out there—well, you know that the tech guys stay on the ship, and Josh and Ewan live down here. Jimmy, Gary and Sly—none of them are married. And there were some pretty girls hanging at that pool. I’m sure I heard them all out there until at least midnight. You’re barking up the wrong tree. And too damned bad—I liked you.”

  “Hey. It is what it is. You know of anyone who lost a piece of jewelry on a dive?”

  “If you found something, it isn’t ours. We don’t wear stuff down there. Oh, except for Ewan.”

  “Yeah. His St. Christopher.”

  “That’s right. You through with me?”

  Brodie nodded.

  Trevor turned to head back down to the galley, but he paused and turned back. “Okay, so, you’re still all right. Come by the B and B sometime. We’ll barbecue. You’d like my kid.”

  “I bet I would.”

  Trevor nodded, and headed out.

  One by one, he spoke with the rest of the divers—Jimmy, Sly and Gary. None of them had lost jewelry or broken a chain—none of them noted anything missing from anyone else. They all appeared to be honest in their answers.

  Liam had spoken to the technicians; they hadn’t seen anyone who had lost jewelry. Everyone knew that they’d been in their bunks on the Memory the night the body had been taken down to the wreck. They swore they hadn’t conspired to kill anyone.

&nb
sp; Half an hour later, a police cutter swung by to bring Brodie and Liam back to the dock.

  “Thanks for being on this with me,” Liam told Brodie.

  “You do have your other detectives and a host of officers working on this,” Brodie said. “I want to thank you—for letting me in.”

  “You found the body. You had been on the Memory already. I think those guys may have a certain sense of camaraderie with you.”

  “I was with that crew one day.”

  “And you know Ewan,” Liam said.

  Brodie lifted his hands in the air. “Ewan—he was one hell of a career soldier. Passionate about causes. I sure as hell don’t see him as the perpetrator.”

  “No, I don’t either.”

  Liam shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. Gut feeling, I guess. You’re going to help crack this thing.”

  “Okay, thanks, so...what was found in Arnold Ferrer’s room?”

  “That’s kind of curious,” Liam said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think that the killers were ever in his room. They must have taken him by surprise out in a public place. It doesn’t seem they tried to rifle through his belongings. Everything was tidy in his room. Want to study the documents? Come on by the station tomorrow.”

  “Will do,” Brodie assured him.

  He started to walk away. Then he paused and turned back. “Liam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you talk to Kody McCoy yet?”

  “I never needed to call her. She’d spoken to you. She forwarded all the emails she’d gotten from Ferrer. We’re going through all those, too, now, along with what we found.”

  Liam’s phone rang. He excused himself and answered it, and listened, and then thanked the caller.

  He looked over at Brodie.

  “Official from the ME. Cliff Bullard died of anaphylaxis. Somehow, the man imbibed something that he shouldn’t have. He’d definitely gotten hold of something with nuts—stomach contents are still being analyzed.”

  “Nuts,” Brodie said. “You know, I don’t know why, don’t know how, but...”

  “You’re saying Cliff’s death was suspicious, too.”

  Brodie nodded.

  Liam just shook his head, and then he sighed. “Yeah, well...he knew it. Knew he was allergic to nuts.”

  “Somebody could have gotten them to him on purpose.”

  “Somehow, yeah, maybe. Oh, hell,” Liam said. He waved a hand in the air and started walking; then he turned back.

  “You know, I’m trying damned hard. Sure—if you wanted to kill Cliff, it would be easy enough. Everyone knew he was deathly allergic. But he carried an EpiPen. He was careful of what he ate—and drank.”

  “And the only way he could have gotten ahold of anything,” Brodie said flatly, “was through someone he knew and trusted.”

  * * *

  “This is called Majesty,” Shorty said, indicating one of the coffins on display. “Really top of the line—mahogany with an ivory velvet lining, and you’ll notice the fine carving of the crosses.”

  Majesty cost many thousands of dollars.

  Shorty was professional even in his speaking; Shorty wasn’t short at all—he had earned the nickname for being six-feet-five inches. He was a big man, and looked the part of a horror movie mortician; in his handsome suit he might have been the evil servant of a vampire king or some other such creature.

  He was actually a nice man, a “snowbird” who had eventually stayed for good. His real name was Conway Finch, he said, but everyone called him Shorty.

  Kody found herself smiling; Rosy was looking at her.

  Rosy was smiling, too.

  They both knew that Cliff would have an absolute fit—no one should spend that kind of money on a coffin.

  “I think he would love that simple little pine coffin we saw first,” Kody said.

  “It is eternal rest,” Shorty said sadly.

  “He would be eternally restless if Rosy spent that on a coffin—trust me. I knew Cliff well,” Kody said.

  “Very well, now, as far as interment—” Shorty began. “Mrs. Bullard, let me explain the options to you.”

  “My family has a vault in the cemetery. Cliff will go there.”

  If he was disappointed that he wasn’t going to make a good sale, Shorty managed not to show it.

  “All right, for the viewing...”

  He went into their options. They even had to choose which hearse would be used. But while Rosy had decided on the inexpensive pine coffin, she also determined that she would help Shorty somewhat, and ordered a number of flower arrangements through the funeral home.

  When it was time to leave, Rosy turned to Kody and thanked her—smiling. “I can’t believe it, Kody, but that did make me laugh. Cliff would have had a coronary and probably passed on—if—if—he wasn’t already gone...hearing the price of that coffin.”

  Finances were always an uneasy thing. “He left you okay, right? I mean, Rosy...if you need help with anything, you’ll let me know?”

  “Of course, and thank you, Kody. We both had a little insurance. He was so good about that, always so concerned about me. But for now, I’m fine. And it’s really, really kind of you to offer space in your family mausoleum. Which...thankfully...I mean...heaven forbid, if something happened to you or your mom... I wouldn’t want to take your space.”

  “Frankly, my family was lucky in that, if one can say lucky about anything to do with the loss of a loved one,” Kody said. “There used to be graveyards in different places—there are still a few at the church and around—but the Havana hurricane that struck Cuba and the lower Keys in 1846 sent coffins flowing down Duval from the beach, and the cemetery was set aside. My family was here then, and there wasn’t anywhere near the population, so they bought a big plot—and built a large mausoleum. Through the years, some family members have asked to be cremated and have their ashes distributed places that they loved. There’s lots of space in our mausoleum.”

  “Still, it’s deeply appreciated.”

  “Cliff was a great friend to my dad.”

  “Your mom said okay?” Rosy asked anxiously.

  “Of course!”

  Kody realized she had barely had a chance to discuss anything with her mother yet.

  But she knew her mother well.

  The family tomb had come to them through Kody’s father’s family, but the slot right next to her dad was naturally held for her mom. She and Kody’s new stepfather had made arrangements for just about everything, including final resting places.

  She wasn’t at all worried; she was feeling guilty. She should have called her mom again today.

  “As soon as we know when the funeral will actually be, Rosy, I’ll get it all set with the cemetery.”

  “That’s lovely, Kody,” Rosy began.

  “I’ll walk you back to your place right now,” Kody said.

  “My place? No, no, Sonny Atherton has come back down, and Emory and Bill are going to meet us for a late lunch. We’re supposed to meet them down the street at the Hard Rock Cafe. It seems fitting—Cliff loved music so much. And he said he loved our Hard Rock best—incredibly haunted building, and great music playing all the time. You can come, right?” Rosy asked anxiously.

  “Um, sure,” Kody said. She wasn’t sure she was feeling that social, but she didn’t want to tell Rosy no.

  It was the middle of the week; there were tourists on the street, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as a weekend. The walk wasn’t long at all from the funeral home on Simonton Street to the restaurant on Duval, and Rosy explained to the hostess that she’d made a reservation for a private room.

  They were quickly led to the second floor. There was a very large round table in the room; if they wished, they could probably seat ten people.

  Kody wondered
how many others were coming to lunch. Then, she thought, whatever it was that made Rosy happy, that got her through all this, was the right thing to do.

  “We are the first to arrive, so choose your seat,” Rosy said.

  “Okay. Who did you invite?” Kody asked.

  “Let’s see. Emory and Bill, Liam and Kelsey—and that friend of Liam’s, Brodie—you’ve met him, right?”

  “Yes, I’ve met him. I think he was actually friends with Ewan Keegan, and met Liam that way.”

  Rosy waved a hand in the air. “I invited him, because of course, I was inviting Liam, and I thought it would be rude if I didn’t invite his friend. Sonny—that sweet woman came back down here just to see if she could help me.”

  “That was nice. Sonny is amazing.”

  “An incredible dynamo of a woman. But then, this whole group is so...well, interesting. I was so delighted to get to know Cliff’s friends. Kelsey Beckett is so incredibly talented with her children’s books...” Her voice trailed and she asked softly, “Kelsey wasn’t with you the other night, though, right?”

  “She’s on deadline. She went home to work. I hope she will be able to come today.”

  Rosy nodded, looking around the room. “Well, hopefully, yes, she can come,” she murmured. “So strange, Key West. Strange and wonderful. This building is supposed to be haunted.”

  “Most of our old buildings are supposedly haunted,” Kody said.

  “You have information on the Curry family in the museum, Kody,” Rosy said, nodding her approval.

  “Of course. William Curry came here from the Bahamas and, if legend is true, the man was Florida’s first millionaire back in the 1800s. And the mansion where we are now was the house he built for his son, Robert, as a wedding present.”

  “And Robert committed suicide here—in what is now the ladies’ restroom, so they say. Have you ever felt creepy in there?” Rosy asked Kody.

  “No, I haven’t. Poor Robert, he’s probably long gone on. He was ill. He inherited the fortune, and he was too ill to manage it all. I feel so sorry for him. I hope that he went on and found peace.”

  “Oh, Kody. Come on. All the ghost tour people love this place.”