Echoes of Evil

by Heather Graham

  She still couldn’t believe that she had all but jumped Brodie. Then again, she was still incredibly sad—she had truly loved Cliff. And she was seriously disturbed by the events that had occurred during the week. She’d needed some comfort.

  But...she was a changed woman now.

  And she’d had the audacity to think that Colleen was the one who needed to perk up and have faith in herself and head out and have a life.

  She’d had a sort of life. She’d been incredibly busy with the museum and the festival.

  She refused to think into the future; there was far too much to get through now.

  She hurried into the shower. Even there, she thought about Brodie. It had just clicked. Being with him. She’d found him attractive; she had even felt drawn to him. But she hadn’t admitted, even to herself, just how attracted she had been until she had basically jumped the man.

  She pushed away thoughts of the night before—certain that such a night would come again—and rushed to dress.

  It was only when she had donned an appropriate deep blue skirt-suit that she realized what was actually different.

  Her laptop had moved.

  She wasn’t exactly compulsive or obsessive, but she kept the little desk in her room in a very certain order. The computer always sat squarely in the center.

  It was at an angle.

  She stared at it a long moment, ready to call the captain and find out if he’d been in her room.

  He was never in her room.

  Nor had he been there the night before—he had gone out. And he had no reason to move her laptop around.

  Had someone been in her house?

  It was just her computer. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the way that she’d left it. And maybe she was just ridiculously paranoid all the way around.

  She righted the computer, studying it.

  There was nothing to see—it was just her computer. There was nothing stuck to it, no smudges or marks...nothing.

  She turned and sped down the stairs. The captain was watching the news again.

  The current story was about the fact that divers were working down deep, exploring and studying the Victoria Elizabeth.

  “Bye, Captain,” she said.

  He turned and waved to her gravely. “I’ll join you at the wake,” he reminded her.

  “See you there.”

  She managed to leave her house and head for the museum.

  * * *

  Arnold Ferrer’s documents were incredibly well preserved.

  Brodie didn’t know anything about caring for historical documents—he was all for it, he’d just never owned any.

  The officer who led him to Liam’s office explained that they had been preserved in a very special kind of protection, not covered with glass, but rather a layer of sheeting that shielded them from mold and any other harm that might come to them.

  Brodie nodded his interest—except that he was far more concerned with what was in the documents—anything that might have brought about Ferrer’s murder.

  “Take a look,” Liam told him, rising from behind his desk as Brodie was shown in. “So far, all I’ve been able to fathom was that the man was a jerk. They’re all right there. Knock yourself out.”

  The documents were spread out across the desktop. One was a financial sheet, Ferrer’s investment in the ship itself and in the ship’s cargo.

  Human life had been—compared to the man’s investment in the ship—quite cheap.

  The first correspondence was to the man’s wife. Brodie looked at the documents and then glanced up at Liam.

  The pages were in Portuguese.

  “The translations are next to them. I asked Officer Michel Gomez—who is Brazilian—to confirm if the translations were good. He said they were,” Liam told him.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He picked up the new, typewritten translation of the first letter and read.

  Dearest Isabella,

  The Victoria Elizabeth might have been built in the shipyards at Liverpool, but she has been outfitted quite gloriously for the cargo we’ve intended. We can carry hundreds of the healthy men and women, purchased from the tribe who enslaved them at a song. We were informed that only the finest workers were taken for this venture; no elderly will be part of the cargo. The sick have been weeded out. I am anxious to see their value once we reach the islands and the colonies. I believe it will exceed our wildest speculations. We can fit so many! Just the men and women and their chains.

  With all love, your husband, Mauricio

  He looked at Liam again.

  “Doesn’t seem human, does it? First, in Africa—one tribe makes slaves of another. And then they are sold to the Europeans, who transport them with less care than they might horses!”

  “The law forbidding the importation of slaves to the American Colonies was enacted in 1808,” Brodie said. “How was the Victoria Elizabeth allowed to sail here?”

  “That’s very specific knowledge you have.”

  “I grew up in Virginia with a passionate teacher. There’s not much about the Civil War I don’t know.”

  “I thought maybe Kody had been bending your ear.”

  “I was a good student. I imagine Kody was, too.”

  “Better than me, I bet. But Florida didn’t become a territory until 1822. The ship sailed before that, and, possibly, she really wanted to reach Cuba or one of the other islands. Though I haven’t found information as to that being the case,” Liam said. “Go ahead and read. I’m still going through credit card receipts and food and drink orders.”

  “At the Drunken Parrot?”

  Liam nodded. “It was a busy night.”

  He turned to his work. Brodie found the second letter.

  It appeared to be a potential buyer.

  Senhor Gonzales,

  I am delighted to assure you that all my expectations have been fulfilled; the cargo of men—between the years of sixteen and forty—is exceptional. All extremely healthy, and promising hours of work in the hottest sun. The women we have taken are all of childbearing age, and will do nicely as house slaves, or in the field. It will be extremely exciting to see them in your hands, if you so wish. On the auction block, the bidding would be fierce.

  Brodie felt sickened by the words; it was difficult to imagine that people had ever felt this way. That any man could think so little of human lives.

  There was an answer. It was from Mr. Gonzales.

  My dear Senhor Ferrer,

  I look forward to our transactions; I will arrange purchase in a manner of good faith. I will accept the healthiest men and women, to the number of fifty. I will expect nothing less than what you have promised for the price agreed. I trust that you have spoken in honesty; the sun here is brutal and they will be expected to work from dawn to dusk, without falter. Their native land, you say, bears that same humid heat; that will stand them well, as a dead slave is a worthless slave, as I am sure that you are aware. I will expect a guarantee for a nominal lifetime—a minimum of a decade’s work.

  And then what? It didn’t matter if they dropped in the fields?

  In the next letter, however, it seemed that Ferrer became something that resembled human.

  Dearest Isabella,

  I began this adventure with such excitement and belief. I am sorry to say that, while it continues, I am disheartened. At first, it seemed fine that so many could be transported; now, I hear their cries, and their lamentations. They are left in their own feces and urine; I argued with the captain and he said they might be washed down upon reaching shore. I spoke of the moaning, and the sickness aboard; he told me that there is an acceptable loss.

  I saw their faces.

  They are men and women; they are human. They hurt, they cry, they love, as we do. They are sunk in misery. May God forgive me.

 
Your loving husband, Mauricio

  Brodie sat back. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

  Little seemed as horrible as reading Ferrer’s letters—even when Ferrer himself became sickened by what he was doing.

  But the Ferrer descendant was turning these letters over to Sea Life—he wanted them exposed. He had wanted people to know about the misery and suffering, so that history could be remembered, and never repeated. People needed to see the ugly parts of the past.

  “What do you think?” Liam asked him.

  Brodie shook his head. “Horrible.”

  “To the best of our knowledge, a few of the crew survived, but the ‘cargo’ died in the hold—chained together. At least, that’s what Ewan believes. I spoke with him this morning. They’ve been exploring again.”

  Brodie nodded again, staring at the rest of the documents. They had to do with descriptions of the men and women—with their assets as far as work was concerned. Height, weight, age.

  Maria, fine appearance, excellent for a house slave, 20.

  Jose, strong, 17...field hand.

  Gianna, fine teeth, wide hips, may produce excellent offspring, 15.

  Brodie set the document down.

  They had all perished. It was rather amazing that the island wasn’t running rampant with ghosts. Then again, the Spanish moniker for Key West had been Bone Island; the bleached-out bones of a slaughtered indigenous tribe had been found on the beaches.

  Natives had murdered natives.

  African tribes had conquered, massacred, enslaved and sold other African tribes.

  The world did not seem a very nice place when looked at through this lens.

  “Anything?” Liam asked him.

  Brodie shook his head. “Those who were so cruelly treated by his ancestor didn’t kill Arnold Ferrer—they are long, long dead. And he was the one bringing the documents to be seen by the world. If they had belonged to someone other than the direct descendant, I could see there being some motive... Putting a man down in the wreck of a slave ship is hardly a random act of violence.”

  “Hardly,” Liam agreed. “Any inkling, any sign—any anything—on how these two deaths could possibly be related? That is...if Cliff was murdered.”

  “Come on—he didn’t just grab a handful of nuts.”

  “We’ll have the chemical analysis soon enough—when we get the results on the stomach contents. Anyway, there are more documents—some relating to the ship, and the ship’s captain, Angelo Montblanc, and more. Those are translation copies for you, if you want to take them.”

  Brodie didn’t even want to pick up the papers; he’d had his fill of the horrors of the past. But he’d read them. They could lead the way to the truth. How, as yet, he didn’t know.

  But there were answers somewhere.

  And he’d see to it that Angela got everything that he had by the end of the day.

  Rising, he thanked Liam.

  “Thank you,” Liam said, a half grin on his lips. “Hey, you found the body. I guess I’m kind of counting on you to find the killer.”

  9

  “Yes, there is a ghost at the Red Rooster Inn,” Colleen said to a teenager standing in front of the ticket/reception desk. “Poor man, just home relaxing. He was slain by his wife...so unsuspecting. Just sitting there smoking his cigar. And, if you see him, he’ll just look at you and smile, and slowly fade away, but as he does so, you may smell the lingering odor of his cigar.”

  “See, Mom! There are ghosts all over Key West. Are all the rooms haunted?”

  Kody had just walked in. The young teen was with his parents, a sunburned pair, smiling at his enthusiasm.

  “There’s a lot of history in the museum. You can see Key West from the time we first began to keep records,” Kody said. “That’s where we get our guests—all the strange, eerie, violent, and maybe just sad things that have happened through history.”

  “And there were bones all over the island of Key West, right?” the teen asked.

  Kody didn’t think that the teen was particularly ghoulish—most of their guests his age tended to focus on what they saw as “creepy.”

  “There were bones all over the island,” she agreed. “We have what we call pre-Columbian history here in the States, which, obviously refers to the time before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and we became the ‘new’ world. They believe that indigenous tribes such as the Tequesta held sway down here, but that the Calusa were really dominant. And then, there were also peoples known as the Caribes and the Matecumbes. At any rate, there was some kind of massive battle on the island, and the dead were left on the sands. The first Spanish explorers found them and called the key ‘Bone Island.’ Some say those natives still haunt the island, as well. Many believe that the survivors managed to get in their boats and head south, perhaps to Cuba, perhaps to other islands,” Kody said, smiling. “There’s one room dedicated to our popular or ‘known’ ghosts, but in every room, you’ll get a listing of what happened in the history of the era—and just what ghosts might remain from that time.”

  “Oh, cool,” the teen said.

  “I hope you enjoy it.”

  She gained a friend. The young teen and his parents were happily starting off through Haunts and History.

  “You’re so good with people,” Colleen told her.

  “Me? You were doing a great job when I came in.”

  “I do love this place so much. And we’re getting more and more people every day,” Colleen said. “It’s barely open, and we have twenty-three people in here!”

  “And you’re doing all right?”

  Colleen nodded and whispered suddenly, even though they were the only ones in the reception area.

  “We need to get those cameras connected.”

  So far, Kody hadn’t been able to afford a good alarm system. They had rigged cameras in every room to make people think that there was surveillance.

  “We do. You’re worried?”

  “Sometimes, when I’m alone, I wonder if people know that we can’t see what they’re doing—and that they might walk out with something. We’ve had good people so far—we have to hope that we continue to get good people.”

  “We’ll scrimp on something else,” Kody told her. “I’ll see about getting an alarm system up. I’m sure that we can get started by Monday. And, if we can keep up, I can hire us both an assistant.”

  “An assistant for the assistant. I like it,” Colleen said. “I’m really not complaining. I just worry about the things you accumulated—bought, received as donations, inherited—being stolen. You have some remarkable pieces. Still, I think that the things you have would not be enough, if it weren’t for all of your plaques with information on them. Told well—and not boringly.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  She turned to the door as it opened. A young woman of about thirty-five had come in.

  “Hello, welcome,” Kody said.

  “So what is this place? Haunts and History?” the lady said.

  “Well, we’re a museum,” Kody told her. “We’re heavy on the history—with ‘haunting’ stories about it, and of course, we have one room dedicated to Robert the Doll, Elena de Hoyos and some of the other famous ‘haunts.’ History for those who don’t believe in ghosts, and the island stories and legends for those who do,” Kody told her.

  “Oh, sounds great. I’ve read up. You have great ratings on the travel sites!” the girl said.

  “Wonderful,” Kody told her.

  “As for me... I know the island is haunted!” she said happily. “I met a ghost last night!”

  “You did?” Colleen asked her.

  She nodded gravely. “I’m staying at one of the historic B and Bs—the Sea Horse,” she said happily. “And there’s definitely a ghost there. A very nice one, so...sweet.” She frowned suddenly and gasped. �
�I’d forgotten. A man staying there was murdered recently. Oh, but this was a slightly older ghost. Anyway... I’ve never seen one before. Oh, maybe I didn’t actually see him, but I rather felt him. I dreamed him. But...you must believe in ghosts, right?”

  “I believe,” Colleen said.

  “I don’t discount any possibilities in life—or death,” Kody murmured.

  Cliff! Now he was haunting this girl—and at the Sea Horse! Bev and Dan probably already felt badly enough that Arnold Ferrer had been killed there.

  Now all they needed were rumors about a flirty ghost.

  “I always thought I’d be terrified of a ghost if it came near me, but this thing about being asleep and then feeling as if someone was with you, just making you feel...”

  “Pretty,” Colleen said softly.

  “I—Yes, I guess, exactly.” She hesitated, looking from Colleen to Kody. “I’m so sorry—way too much information from someone you’ve just met. And I’m usually...”

  “Shy,” Colleen offered.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “I’m Nan Merano, by the way. From Ohio. I’m a teacher. Grade school. And I never do anything exciting, but I wound up with a trip down here and I took it and...and... I’m oversharing again!”

  “We’re glad you’re here,” Kody said. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Kody, and this is Colleen. I promise you, we’re a very friendly—if sometimes a bit wild—city, and I truly hope that you have a wonderful time and are happy for your adventure.”

  “I can give you a bit of a tour of some nice nightspots, later,” Colleen said. Then she added quickly, “After nine. I have... I have to attend an...event tonight.”

  “Really? That would be wonderful!” Nan said. She held her brochure and said, “I guess I’ll get started.” She went in.

  Colleen looked at Kody, beaming. “There are ghosts for real. He was in my dreams—and hers. And now I have a friend who wants to go out, someone I can show around the island. After the wake. It is today, right?” Colleen asked. She flushed slightly. “I do intend to come. He was such a kind man.” She hesitated and grinned. “You know, it’s odd. My dream guy reminds me a bit of Cliff. Maybe it’s the music angle. Cliff was—like my dream guy—good to everyone.”