Echoes of Evil

by Heather Graham

  “I did. It was tricky. I’m good at what I do. Naw, really, not to totally leave all realms of humility, I’m very good. Someone else, of course, could have come upon the information, but it wouldn’t have been easy.”

  “Still, it’s a motive,” Brodie said.

  “Like I said, family trees are like spiderwebs. Especially in America—that’s one of our greatest strengths—everybody may be just about everything by the time three or four generations have come and gone. Mr. Worth may not even know that he has any affiliation with the ship.”

  “He may not, but it’s definitely worth looking at,” Brodie said.

  “There’s something else,” Angela said. “And,” she told him, hesitating slightly, “you may not like this piece of information.”

  “Whatever it is, shoot.”

  “I culled information of the ten men on the Sea Life crew. I looked up anything that resembled a boat owned by any of them. Only two men in the group actually reside in Key West.”

  “Right,” Brodie said evenly. “Ewan Keegan, and Josh Gable.”

  “Yes. None of the other men live in the Keys. Both Ewan and Josh keep boats. And both of them have GPS systems—a great safety measure. Anyway, on the night when Arnold Ferrer’s body was taken down into the hold of the wreck, Ewan Keegan’s boat was out on the water. That doesn’t even mean that Ewan was aboard—but his boat was out near the dive site. I can send you the information I was able to pull up. I’ll get it all into your email.”

  “Thank you,” Brodie told her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He may not be guilty of anything—except for omission. But then again, it’s possible to see omission as a lie,” Brodie said.

  He hung up; Liam was watching him.

  Brodie sighed inwardly and shared the information he’d been given.

  “Time to check into both men more closely,” Liam said. “But we can’t stay here long. Arnold Ferrer’s ex-girlfriend, Adelaide Firestone, has arrived—she called the station. I told my officers to let her know that we’ll come to her. I take it you want to meet her.” He paused. “We—as in the police—were going to put her up at one of the big chain hotels on the south side of the island—but she received a better offer.”

  “A better offer?”

  “She’s going to stay at Bev and Dan’s bed-and-breakfast—the Sea Horse. Apparently, Bev was taken with Arnold, and she and Dan want to do anything they can to help us. They thought that offering his ex-girlfriend a place to stay that was comfortable, in Old Town, and near Arnold’s last place, would be the right thing to do.”

  “I believe Bev and Dan are at the funeral reception,” Brodie said.

  Liam nodded. “They might still be here. They have a live-in manager who handles things when they’re out.”

  “Let’s pay our respects—and then go meet Miss Firestone.”

  12

  “They’re here,” Cliff’s ghost whispered to Kody.

  She looked up, finding the way she felt a little alarming—so incredibly glad that a man had arrived. But then, nothing to do with Brodie had been anything that might be considered “usual” for her. She was still amazed that she had all but attacked him. But there was something between them.

  He walked in with Liam. There was something about both of them, really. They never entered a room without being noticed. She’d known and loved Liam all her life—he was close to being the big brother she’d never had. They’d even squabbled upon occasion—though he had been older, more mature—in his mind, at least.

  With Brodie...

  Was it special just because he also saw the dead?

  No. She’d been attracted to him before she’d even known.

  They stopped by to see Rosy, as had everyone, offering her their sympathy again. Watching Brodie, she frowned. He seemed to be looking at those around Rosy’s table intently.

  Focusing on Bill.

  But he didn’t seem to be engaging in a heavy conversation with him.

  Kelsey got up to greet her husband as Liam and Brodie came to the table. Frank quickly rose to greet the newcomers and Kody stood as well—suddenly a bit awkward, not knowing if she should be quite so obvious. But they bustled about, drawing in chairs.

  Cliff Bullard, who had anxiously joined the group, asked, “What’s happened? What’s going on?”

  Neither Brodie nor Liam gave him notice, but in his way, Liam answered him. “A woman from Marathon was found on the beach. A drowning. We’re investigating, of course. She wasn’t reported missing and we don’t know exactly when she washed up on the beach—or where she’d been before she washed up on the beach.”

  “Do you know her name?” Kody asked anxiously.

  “Mathilda Sumner,” he said, and Kody knew that he was hoping that the dead woman hadn’t been a friend of hers.

  “I recognize the name... I think I’ve seen ads around,” Kody told him. “She was a performer somewhere?”

  “She was a grocery store clerk who worked a few nights a week playing guitar and singing,” Brodie told her.

  “Like Cliff,” Colleen said. “That’s frightening. That’s...well, tragic.”

  “How very, very odd,” Sally said.

  She realized that everyone at the table was looking at her. “Well, three strange deaths in one week.” She shook her head and looked at Liam sadly. “You couldn’t even make it through the day when you had to say goodbye to a dear friend.”

  “It is strange, for our island,” Colleen said. “But...sad, mainly. We are surrounded by water. I guess... I guess people drown.”

  “You can’t be careless around the ocean,” Sally said.

  Liam looked at Kelsey. “We came by to see Rosy and pay our last official respects,” Liam said. “And to let you know what happened.”

  “Of course,” Kelsey said. She smiled at her husband. “I’ll hang with these guys...for a while, and then, if you’re looking for me, I’ll probably head home.”

  “You can hang with me as long as you like,” Kody said.

  “See, there you go. I’ll be with Kody.”

  No one said anything, and Kody realized that it was already assumed that Brodie—although he had no real authority at all—would be going with Liam.

  She looked at Brodie.

  “We’re headed to see Adelaide Firestone,” he said.

  “Who?” Sally asked.

  “The mother of Arnold Ferrer’s child, and his very good friend,” Liam told her. He pushed his chair back. Brodie did the same.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Liam said.

  And then they were gone.

  So now, Kody thought, they knew. A woman had drowned; her body had washed up on the beach. She hadn’t been from Key West, but from Marathon—a whole fifty or so miles north. She couldn’t have washed all the way from Marathon down to Key West, could she? Kody really had no idea. But it was more likely that she had come down, or that she had been on a boat just off of Key West, or...

  “Well, I think it’s time,” Frank said, looking at Sally. Kody realized that many people had already left.

  Sally turned to Kody. “Sweetheart, I can stay. I mean, we aren’t leaving until tomorrow morning, but we need to pack. And I really don’t have to go—”

  “Mom. Yes, you do.”

  “Kody and I will stay,” Kelsey said.

  “And...I’m here,” Colleen told them.

  “Yes, of course,” Sally said. She seemed so concerned when she looked at Kody. Kody rose and went to her mother, hugging her where she sat.

  “I love you so much. But I’m okay—I swear to you, I’m okay. And, hey... I have friends all around.”

  “And Mr. McFadden,” Sally said.

  “And Brodie, yes. Mom, he’s a good guy.”

  “I believe that. And I’m glad that he’s with you. It
was just so...sudden.”

  “When something is right, it’s just right,” Kelsey said.

  “And really, Kody has done nothing but work on that museum for the longest time,” Colleen said. “She accuses me of not getting out!”

  “Trying to find a murderer is not my idea of getting out,” Sally said. She looked up at Kody. “You are worried about what happened to Cliff, aren’t you? I know you. You’re worried that...”

  “Mom!”

  Her mother lowered her voice. “Dakota McCoy, you be careful. Stay with that new man of yours...please!”

  “What a blessing,” Cliff piped up. “A blessing—from your own mom. Okay, I like the guy, too. And he will find out who gave me the damned nuts.”

  “Mother, you’re not heading out to Alaska. You’re going to be an hour away, still in the lower Keys. I can reach you in no time, and you can reach me. All is well.”

  “Not really,” Cliff said. “I am dead. And someone made me this way.”

  Kody ignored him. Kelsey looked as if she’d kick him—if she could.

  Kody hugged Sally fiercely. She drew back and looked at Frank.

  “Take care of her for me, please?”

  “That I will do,” Frank vowed, setting his hands on his wife’s shoulders.

  “It’s just that...” Sally paused, glancing back at Frank apologetically. “Cliff and your dad, they were such good friends. I know that Cliff meant so much to you back when we lost Michael. Kody, I’m just worried about...”

  “Please, Mom, go pack. Go. You can’t help Cliff or me by staring at me, okay?”

  “Okay, one last hug!”

  Sally hugged her tightly again. Then she turned with a little sob and started out, Frank casting Kody a quick smile and then hurrying after her. They paused to say goodbye to Rosy. The women were emotional.

  Cliff watched them. “Such magnificent women in my life,” he said. He sank his ghostly body into the chair Sally had just vacated. “In my life,” he repeated. He looked from Kelsey to Kody. “I have to know the truth.”

  13

  At the Sea Horse, the manager greeted Liam and Brodie. Bev and Dan were out; they were at the reception for Cliff, of course. Miss Firestone was expecting them, and they were to go right to her room.

  “First room on the pool level,” they were told.

  “Yes, thank you,” Liam said. “It’s the same room Mr. Ferrer had. I’ve been in it.”

  The bed-and-breakfast consisted of the main house—another of the old Victorian two-story homes on the island—and a string of rooms that were all pool-front stretching out on either side of the main house. In the fifties, apparently, a young entrepreneur had bought up the warehouse structures next to the house, ripped them down, and put in the “motel” type rooms.

  “This was nice of Bev and Dan,” Liam said as they headed around to the left extension. “They’re usually full—before anyone else—because they have great free parking just on the other side of the rooms. They held the room. We never even collected Ferrer’s things—after our crime scene people went through it—because we reached Adelaide before we did so. They were kind to keep the room for her—with all of his belongings.”

  “Bev did seem to like him very much,” Brodie agreed. “And sometimes, people are just nice.”

  “They can be,” Liam agreed. “Too bad some are also murdering assholes.”

  “Well, now, there’s a piece of truth,” Brodie agreed.

  A woman opened the door to the room before they could knock. She was a slim brunette with warm brown eyes and freckles, wearing cutoff shorts and a T-shirt.

  “Detective Beckett?” she asked.

  “I am,” Liam said, and he introduced Brodie.

  She shook their hands. “I’m Adelaide. And I...”

  Brodie was nearest, and so he wound up holding her for the spasm of tears that came until she gained control again.

  “Sorry! I’m so sorry.”

  “Please, don’t be. You loved him.”

  She nodded. “I did. He was such a good man, and such an amazing father. That’s been the hardest, making Haley realize that her daddy can’t come and play with her anymore. She’s just five. And Arnie didn’t have any relatives...no one. The good thing is that she does love the man I’m dating now—Arnie even introduced us, do you believe that?”

  “Is your daughter with you?” Liam asked her.

  She shook her head. “No, no. I was waiting for my mother to come and watch her...that’s what took me so long to get here. Please, come on in.”

  The room was a good size, offering a king bed in the middle, and a mini kitchen off a small hallway to the bath. There was also a sofa bed by the window, and a desk with a chair.

  “Sit, please,” Adelaide offered, indicating the sofa. She perched at the foot of the bed. “I don’t know how I can help you, but I will do anything that I can.”

  “Mr. Ferrer talked to you before coming down here, right?” Liam asked her.

  “Of course! We had the best shared parenting you can imagine. Go figure, right? I have the nicest guy who trips over himself to accommodate me while still being an active parent and...this. This happens. I have friends who have had wretched divorces, and their exes are alive and kicking and mean. I guess that’s life. And death.”

  She kept trying not to cry. A closet door was open; Brodie could see that a man’s clothing was still hanging there. She hadn’t begun to pack up yet.

  “Did he talk to you about what he was doing?” Brodie asked.

  She nodded. “He planned on seeing a Mr. Keegan, head diver and in charge of the expedition for the Victoria Elizabeth. And he’d corresponded with Miss McCoy, who was going to do an exhibit on the exploration, the discovery—and the history of the ship. He thought his documents were really the most important for her. She would be displaying them. But then again, he didn’t know if anything he had would be useful to the Sea Life crew. He had plans of the ship, building designs—and the proposed ‘storage’ of the ‘cargo.’ It really bothered him; he was such a humanitarian. He fought for human rights. And it was so important to him that people see what was done.”

  “Yes, we do know that,” Liam said softly. “Did you talk to him once he got here?”

  “Of course—we talked to each other any time we were traveling. When he left on a trip, he let me know when he was on a plane—and when he landed. I did the same for him. It’s nice, knowing that someone cares that you get somewhere safely.” She swallowed. “He came in at night and called me because he just loved this place—said he loved the couple who run the place, Bev and Dan. I think they own it. He had never stayed anywhere like this before, where it was like visiting family, where everyone was really nice, where they talked to you...”

  “Bev was very quickly fond of Arnold Ferrer,” Brodie acknowledged.

  She nodded. “That’s it—to know him was to love him. This makes no sense to me. No sense whatsoever. I mean...it couldn’t have been random violence, right? You don’t kill a man and stuff him down into a ship in a hundred feet of water, right, just randomly?”

  “No, we certainly don’t believe that it was any kind of a random act,” Liam said. “As far as you know, was Arnold talking to anyone else?”

  “I’ve gone over this in my head a million times,” Adelaide said. “He called when he landed, and he called the next morning, telling me how great the B and B was—which I understand. It was so sweet of them to just keep this room until I could get here. When I walked in, though, it took a minute. It was almost as if Arnie would appear...but...”

  “Adelaide,” Brodie prodded, “did he talk to you about anyone else?”

  “That night,” she whispered. “He was here the one night, woke up and called. And then, later in the day, he called again. He was so happy! He said that he was hurrying out—he had a meeting. He was v
ery excited. He said that people wanted to be helpful—in fact, he said that ‘people were coming out of the woodwork’ to be helpful.”

  “What people?” Liam asked.

  She shook head sadly. “I don’t know... But I had a feeling that the meeting had just popped up—he wasn’t seeing Ewan until the next day, and then he wasn’t going see Miss McCoy until the day after. If only he’d spoken to me more plainly...if only I had been more curious.”

  “Do you think that he had an early meeting with someone he was planning to see?” Liam asked.

  “Or someone new? Someone who ‘came out of the woodwork’?” Brodie asked.

  She shook her head miserably. “I have no idea. Haley was running around when I was talking to him, and I went to see what she was up to in the kitchen. I just said great—have a wonderful time and tell me about it all later!”

  “Don’t feel bad, please,” Liam told her.

  “Even if he’d given you a name, it most probably would have been something made up,” Brodie told her.

  As he spoke, he noticed a guitar against the wall near the closet; it was halfway covered with a jacket.

  “He brought his guitar,” he murmured.

  Adelaide’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes. He loved playing—and he was very good. I’d always promised him that he could take Haley to lessons when she was a bit older. Now I’ll be the one doing it. But she will play, and if she plays like he does...”

  Brodie got up and wandered over to the guitar.

  Since Ferrer’s death, another musician had drowned. He hadn’t seen bruises on her body—as if she’d been held down. But then, maybe the bruises would appear by the time of the autopsy.

  And again, maybe she hadn’t been forced into the water—maybe she’d been pushed in. And at such a distance from the shore that she wouldn’t have had a prayer of making it in, unless she was an incredible swimmer.

  “Please, you can pick it up—the police finished with this room. They have all of Arnie’s documents at the station and they’ve looked through everything else.”