by Ann Cook
Hackett cocked his head. “That’s a serious charge.”
“It’s what I think. I intend to find out.”
He lifted the bow of her boat and they began shoving it off the riverbank. Just before the pontoon boat floated free, she climbed in. Grifs brows lifted as he gave the hull a final push. “Your looking into Hart’s death could be dangerous,”
Brandy shrugged. For the first time he sounded like John. “It won’t be the first time I’ve poked around in a murder case.”
As Hackett heaved his own craft into the water and backed around to start for Homosassa, Bibi knelt beside a box on the deck and lifted out paint brushes, a screen, and picks, checking that they had what they needed. At some point he would expose to sunlight the long dead. A dark thought.
Still, as Brandy chugged back down the winding river after him, her mind shifted from Hart to the native Indians and then back again to the archaeologist. A rugged, knowledgeable fellow. She wondered how Hack-ett’s former wife had let him get away.
As they cleared the Salt River, and Grif veered off toward Alma May’s house on Tiger Tail Bay, she glanced at her watch. Already 12:45 P.M. As she eased into the no-wake manatee zone, she picked up her cell. Two pontoon boats and an inboard cruised passed in the weekend river traffic. She dialed John. No answer. Maybe he had decided to fish, but he should be ready for lunch. When she swerved into the mouth of Carole’s canal, she saw him sitting on a plastic chair beside the concrete bank, a line in the water, a bucket beside him.
“Mullet fishing,” he called as she reversed and pulled into the boat slip. “Got a nice one. Must be two pounds.” He stood up, drew in his line, and removed the plug of fatback from the hook.
Brandy tied up and hurried down the dock to peer into the bucket. “You want it for tonight? I’ve got cornmeal and onions. I could make hush puppies.”
He rubbed his forehead and started back to the front door beside her, carrying the bucket. “Don’t I wish. No such luck. Had a call from my assistant on the job. He’s got a problem with what a contractor is doing to a bearing wall. I need to check it early tomorrow morning.” Inside the screened porch he set down the bucket of water with its great fish.
Brandy looked up at him. “And that means?”
“I’ve got to leave. I need to pick up some papers at the apartment before I go to the site.” She knew he meant his Tampa apartment, not theirs in Gainesville.
In the small kitchen Brandy lifted ham and cheese slices out of the refrigerator. “You’ve got time for a sandwich and a glass of iced tea.” She decided to tell him about Fishhawk, although he hadn’t seemed interested. “I interviewed a Seminole from the Tampa Cultural Center this morning. A fascinating guy. He’s called a spiritual advisor.” She hesitated before mentioning Hackett—and then wondered why. She had done nothing wrong. She hurried out to the porch and set their sandwiches and iced tea on the wicker table. “A University of Florida archaeologist took me to see him.” John probably pictured an archaeologist as an elderly academic with a grizzled beard. Just as well. “The Indian’s camping on Tiger Tail Island.”
For a minute John stopped eating. “You’re talking about the island where you found the body? Bran, you sometimes get in trouble on these stories. Promise you’ll be careful.”
She nodded. “Not to worry. I plan to talk to Alma May Flint again, like I said. Then I’ll see if I can wring some information out of homicide. Guess who’s on the case? Jeremiah Strong. We met him in Cedar Key a couple of years ago.” She pulled her note pad from her canvas bag and patted it. “There’s something odd about the whole situation. Timothy Hart’s dead from unknown causes. I don’t think he wanted to buy Mrs. Flint’s property for fishing. He thought he was going to find something valuable in Homosassa. Now the old lady and her friend are searching the island. The Indian just decided to camp out there, although he’s as welcome as the small pox. I’m curious about them all.”
John brushed fingers across his mustache. “I hope you’ll leave the investigation to professionals. I remember Strong. A good guy, and savvy. He doesn’t need your help. He’ll give you the story when he’s ready.”
Her gaze settled on the note pad. “I won’t be foolish. I just want a few questions answered. Don’t worry.”
John laid a hand over hers. “But I do.” He sighed and carried his plate into the kitchen. “And I especially worry about us.” She shrunk before the earnest expression in his eyes. “Please think about what I asked yesterday. Talk to mothers you respect.”
“Okay,” Brandy said, not convincingly.
At the door John stooped to pet Meg. As he put his arms around Brandy to say good-bye, she wondered what was happening to them. She had been deeply in love with John. In most ways she still was. She remembered their joy in exploring Florida rivers together, holding hands at orchestra concerts, their pleasure in reading the same books. She remembered their honeymoon in the funky historic inn near Mount Dora, tender nights in tiny apartments from Tavares to Gainesville. But she wanted to control the timing of a family herself. “You know, I’m the one who’d make the sacrifices,” she added, submerging a twinge of guilt. “This is not the right time.”
His dark eyes turned graver. “You need to find the time, Bran.” He walked to the minivan and looked back from the driveway. “Go on while you’re here and get your story. Do your own thing.”
“Call,” Brandy said, “about next weekend.”
She stood, hands plunged into her pockets, watching John’s minivan pull out of the carport.
CHAPTER 5
When Brandy picked up the kitchen phone and dialed Mrs. Flint, the old lady answered. After identifying herself, Brandy began with a statement she thought might even be true. “I’m working on a story that may help you. But I need to talk to you again. Could I come out in about thirty minutes?”
Alma May paused. “I reckon,” she said at last. “Might as well. Everyone else has.”
“Sheriff’s Office?”
“A whole battalion,” Alma May said and hung up.
By 2:45 P.M. Brandy drew into the dock at Mrs. Flint’s. She had expected to see Alma May’s boat tied to a post, but a Sheriff’s Office patrol craft had also pulled in on the other side. Getting crowded here, she thought, as she looped a line over a cleat near the end of the pier.
As soon as she stepped onto the porch, she could hear Alma May’s shrill voice through the open door. “All this trouble on top of the problem with your old man!”
The answering voice soothed. “This will be over quite soon. And I’ll handle Tugboat.”
“It gets my goat.”
Brandy rapped on the door. “Mrs. Flint?”
Alma May answered, “Come on in. Rest of the world has.”
In the living room Melba Grapple raised her well-coifed head from the newspaper and faced Brandy with a well-bred smile. She was seated on the couch, leafing through the day’s Chronicle, a cigarette burning between slim fingers. Although her features were jagged, almost eagle-like, they were somehow genteel. Under her veneer of understated elegance, Melba had a jaunty, raw-boned look, like steel under silk. An odd friend for Alma May. What had Alma May meant about Melba’s husband? Tugboat? Melba didn’t seem like the wife of a man called “Tugboat.”
Alma May faced Brandy from the kitchen doorway with a resigned expression. “I suppose you’ve got a passel of questions, too.” Brandy slipped a note pad out of her canvas bag. “Not many. Any calls about the house?”
“We aren’t listing it again until the Sheriff’s Office is finished here,” Melba said. “We’re only asking seventy-five thousand. Of course, that’s because transportation is by boat only. But it’s quite a nice vacation place. Plenty of room. Three bedrooms, two baths, desalination, historic. Not to mention the river access and view.”
Brandy made quick notes, then watched the two faces closely. “I thought I’d focus on the history of Tiger Tail Island. Since your house is the only one on it, the story should arouse int
erest in the house. I can add a lot of good detail if we can find the nineteenth century journal Mr. Hart said he had. It’s probably connected to the island, since he came here for some kind of search. Did he mention a journal?”
Mrs. Flint paused before she shook her head. “Don’t recollect such a thing.” Her eyes sought her friend’s.
Melba nodded in agreement. “Of course, we weren’t in his confidence, and that’s a fact. I scarcely knew the man.” She still gripped the newspaper but her eyes were on Brandy. She didn’t notice the burned down cigarette until the ash reached her fingers, and then she quickly stubbed it out in an oyster shell ashtray already dotted with scorch marks.
Brandy was certain the two knew something, but she did not want to badger them. “If the Sheriff s Office has finished with Hart’s room,” Brandy asked, “I’d like to see it, too. Considering the circumstances, any-
one interested in the house will want to know something about the man who just died here.”
Alma May nodded toward a door off the hall. “Cops is out tramping through the brush right now. That detective, too. Don’t know what he thinks they’ll find. They was in the bedroom long enough. Nothing to see. I got to get the room ready to rent again. Got to clean and set out fresh towels and the like.” She lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. “I reckon it won’t hurt to let you in, just this once.”
Brandy smiled and strode down the short passage leading past the kitchen to the bedrooms. Hart’s room looked especially bleak—a twin bed, stripped, a dresser, the drawers pulled out about an inch, a straight chair and a small table, bare. Men’s clothes still hung in the closet, a jacket, jeans, shirts, dress pants. Quickly Brandy felt the pockets, although deputies would have confiscated anything important. The bathroom was equally non-productive—shaving gear, soap, comb, aspirin.
Brandy sighed. What did she expect? A trap door to the basement or attic? Alma May followed her and peered into the room. “Got to bundle up Hart’s things for charity, I reckon. The cops say his sister’s not coming to get them. Pretty heartless woman, if you ask me. She arranged for some dealer here to sell his car. Nothing else’s worth anything, anyway.” Alma May retreated down the hall.
Brandy felt renewed pity for Timothy Hart. Through the back window she stared out at the water oaks, the bristly trunk of a small cabbage palm, and beyond it, circling the end of the island, the black waters of a canal, dug forty years ago by land speculators. Several times Brandy had explored it in her boat. The more canals, the more waterfront. But if any houses had ever been built along it, they were long gone now. Past the bank lay a broad vista of tall grasses, a tall water hickory tree, and a hard wood hammock in the distance. Somewhere to the south lay Fishhawk’s camp.
Brandy focused again on the ground directly behind the house. At the spiky base of the cabbage palm she could see a slight mound. The sandy soil looked uneven. On a hunch, she called out to Alma May in the living room, “I’m leaving now. Thanks. I’ll go out the kitchen door.”
Then she hurried out into the side yard, glad that Alma May and Melba were in the front of the house. Where would a sick man hide something if he didn’t want to leave it in the house, and didn’t feel well enough to venture far? Or where would someone else who found it be likely to hide it in a hurry?
In the back yard Brandy examined a tottering storage shed, the door sagging open, and several garden tools. With a hoe she carefully pulled loose dirt away from the palmetto trunk. After probing for several minutes, she felt the blade touch something solid; her heart thudded. Deputies were still threshing through undergrowth on the other side of the canal. Gently she brushed away the gritty soil. Under it lay a leather briefcase.
For a moment Brandy hesitated. Then taking a tissue from her canvas bag, she pulled back the zipper. Inside she saw a thin, battered notebook. She considered taking it out, but her conscience intervened. Strong was out there among the cedars. Her find might be important evidence. She glanced back at the house. If she left it and went for help, it might be gone when they returned. All was quiet. Again Brandy was tempted and again resisted. Maybe she could strike a bargain with the detective. Using the tissue, she re-zippered the briefcase and picked it up by the handle. Then pushing her way past the saw palmettos and cedars, she followed the voices and footfalls of the officers. When at last she glimpsed the back of a green uniform, she called out. Startled, the man swung around.
“Get Sergeant Strong, quickly,” Brandy said. “Tell him there’s something here he needs to see.” Better not identify herself yet, or he might leave on the next boat. When the puzzled officer raised a cell phone to his lips, Brandy started back the way she had come. Beside the clump of palmettos, she placed the briefcase behind her and sat down on the sandy ground to wait. Her mind swirled with questions. Who planted the briefcase? Three were often in the house besides Hart—Alma May, Melba, Hackett, and maybe even this man Tugboat. Did Mrs. Flint hear her call to the deputies just now? Where was Fishhawk? Was Melba Grapple still in the house?
Within fifteen minutes Sergeant Strong’s head appeared above the wax myrtle and scrub oaks. He took one look at her, paused, shook his head, and muttered, apparently to himself. “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
Brandy pushed herself up and brushed the back of her jeans. “Sounds like a useful proverb.”
“Advice to myself,” he said. “I thought you’d gone out of my life. But show me what you found. We got to go over this whole blessed island.”
Brandy raised an eyebrow. “And you’re looking for what?”
“As curious as ever, aren’t you? Now show me what you’ve got or I’m leaving.”
Brandy hooked her thumbs in her jeans pockets. “Maybe we can make a deal, Sergeant. I want to do the right thing, but if this briefcase holds what I think it does, I want to see the contents myself. I promise I won’t write about anything until you give the okay. I proved last time my word’s good.”
Strong passed one large hand over his close-cropped hair. Sweat dripped from his glistening forehead. He’s exasperated, all right. Brandy hid a smile. Maybe he’s also intrigued. “You know the law can confiscate anything related to this investigation,” he said. “But let’s see what it is.”
Brandy stood, lifted the case a few inches, careful not to touch any part except the protected handle, and set it down again. “Your guys didn’t spot this. I did.”
“You know better than to tamper with evidence.”
Brandy shrugged. “I didn’t leave fingerprints. I was afraid the briefcase would grow legs.”
The detective stalked back toward the patrol craft and signaled to the officer on board. In a few minutes a stubby crime technician came hurrying around the house, nodded to Strong, and knelt by the briefcase. After he made a note of its original position, he took a snapshot, then pulled on a pair of gloves from his kit, and carefully picked up the case. “If it belonged to Hart, we need to get it to the lab,” Strong said. “Somebody buried it for a reason. Might be fingerprints inside.”
Brandy gave him a beguiling smile. “I didn’t touch anything but the zipper, but I did take a peek. The case holds some kind of a book. It might be an old journal of Hart’s. His sister said he had one. I could’ve looked through it first, but I didn’t. See how good I can be?” She squinted up at him. “How long will it take the lab?”
“Depends. May take a couple of weeks at least.”
Brandy dared to put a tentative hand on his arm. “You’re not going to look at it until then? Why not take a peek now? You don’t have to smudge any prints.”
For a few seconds Strong stood silent, his dark face a study in concentration. “You have a point,” he said. “I’m going to take it to the boat. There’s a table there.”
As they walked down the dock, Brandy glanced over her shoulder. A living room curtain rose and fell back into place. Alma May Flint’s boat still lay moored to the pier. Apparently she had not yet taken Melba home. The technicia
n laid the briefcase on the table, unzipped it, and with expert care, slipped out the long, narrow book. The detective glanced at the technician. “I need gloves.” The tech handed Strong another pair, then moved to the bow, sat down, and began filling out a series of cards.
Brandy’s gaze fixed on the tattered volume. The binding was loose, the gray, hard cover pock marked. “Everyone claims they don’t know about this journal,” she said, her heart racing. “I wonder if Hart buried it, or someone else?”
Strong’s lips contracted in a grim line. “We know someone else is involved. Someone searched the body.”
Brandy nodded. “I heard the M. E. say Hart’s pockets were pulled inside out.”
Strong positioned himself squarely at the table. “Hart’s body was turned over, that’s clear. When someone found the victim, why didn’t they call for help?” The detective’s gloved fingers touched the edge of the first page and flipped it. “There is nothing hid that shall not be manifested,” he said.
A hopeful Biblical quote. Brandy hovered at his shoulder, then pulled her notebook and pencil from her bag and began to take notes. The journal had no preamble. At the top of the page in faded ink she read aloud Lieutenant Henry Hart, United States Army, Third Infantry—In the Year of Our Lord 1840.
The first entry was dated that December.
I’ve been stationed at Fort Brooke on the Gulf Coast since September. Constant drilling. Continuous forays into the field hunting stray Indians and bringing them in. Burning their crops. Last month we had several war chiefs in camp for a parley. They were supposed to agree to be deported to the west. But they drew rations and liquor for weeks, and never made up their minds. At last the rascals left and General Armistead declared hostilities resumed. More monotonous scouting. Word came yesterday that a Mikasukee Seminole war chief named Halleck Tustenuggee—that last word means he is a great war chief——and his band attacked an escort party near Micanopy, killed an officer’s wife, a lieutenant, and three enlisted men. Must catch Halleck