by Ann Cook
The footsteps halted. Brandy was crying now, “Something for the Sheriff!”
A heavy object was being dragged. Maybe a contraption to lower to her. No one answered her call. That made her nervous. A long, scraping sound followed.
“Hey, up there! Get me out! Please.” No answer. The crunching again. Part of the sky was blotted out. At first she did not grasp what was happening. Then, like a knife blade had descended, the cistern went black. Brandy remembered the heavy boards under another pile of branches and twigs. The lid. The cistern had been re-covered. It made an excellent trap.
In a panic Brandy heard footfalls stirring through the brush, moving away toward the canal. She sat stupefied, engulfed in suffocating darkness, gripped by the memory of spiders and murder. Then behind her to the east she recognized the roar of a gasoline engine. It started slowly, then accelerated, throbbed to life, droned down the canal toward the river, and faded away. Someone was stealing her boat! If the deputy looked for her, he would never know she had been here. The volunteers wouldn’t stay on the island after the sun went down. Her numb fingers felt for the square, leathery shape now in her bag and touched the empty pouch.
From the hammock above came a low moaning hooooo, the cry of an owl, Seminole symbol of death—and Shakespeare’s. The Tempest wasn’t the only play she loved. After the king’s murder, Lady MacBeth said, “The owl shrieked, the fatal bellman,” the harbinger of an execution, now her own. In the stifling blackness, she remembered Fishhawk’s talk of an island witch and thought of the dread she had sensed on the island. She shared it now.
“Thing of darkness,” she sobbed.
CHAPTER 14
Night had fallen, Brandy knew, outside her prison, but inside it had been midnight since the cistern lid slammed shut. She closed her eyes tightly against the blackness, tried to relax, soaked as she was, tried to think who might come to find her. No one. No one would search in time. Without seeing her boat, how would they know where to look? The air in the tall concrete cylinder was finite. She could suffocate. Her stomach knotted. Perspiration dripped, unheeded, down her cheeks, along with her tears.
She made an effort to tamp down the panic, to wrench her thoughts away, to think of the puzzles that worried her. Who killed Hart? What happened to Daria and why? But her thoughts flooded back to the only thing that mattered now—rescue. She cringed against the cold wall, ankle throbbing, trying to block out the thought of spiders above. Twice she called out. Her voice echoed and re-echoed against the wooden barricade. It would make a muffled noise in the world above, not one that anyone in the Flint house would be apt to hear. And if Alma or Melba did, would they care?
Brandy’s fingernails dug into her clammy palms. How did people prepare for death? Edgar Allan Poe wrote about being buried alive, a fate almost like being entombed in a cistern. No comfort there. Once or twice she felt something brush across her leg. Maybe a spider. Maybe there were roaches, too. She drew her legs up against her body and flipped on the little flashlight. Whatever had crawled over her had vanished. She threw the faint beam upward, then turned it off. The battery would not last. Her head swam. She felt faint, suspended in time.
Perhaps that’s the trick, she thought grimly: to lose awareness, to look for that tunnel with the bright light at the end. She’d read about near death experiences. Maybe she’d see her father waiting. This time he’d say, in his quiet school teacher voice, that she’d fouled up big time. She hoped death would slip up on her, that she would simply lose consciousness at the last. Her thoughts skittered from one fear to another. She might blend with all those other spirits that haunted this place. Not a comforting idea, either. She closed her eyes and waited.
Brandy could not tell how many hours had passed before she heard a pattering across the boards above. The sound aroused her and again she felt panic rising in her throat. Some small animal. Maybe a rat. She shivered. The lid must fit tight. No mammal had come to stay inside the cistern or died there—yet.
She made herself remember favorite lines of poetry. From “Invictus”: In the fell clutch of circumstance, my head is bloody but unbowed.. .That described her, all right, except her head was bowed, after all. She remembered Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar,” a favorite of her father’s. She read it herself with a breaking voice at his funeral.
“Twilight and evening bell/and after that, the dark.” But the poet had been an old man who saved that poem for his own epitaph. God, Brandy cried to herself, I’m not ready to cross the bar into the boundless deep. Darkness pressed down like a heavy weight. More tears ran down cheeks, already damp with sweat. Jeremiah Strong had warned her. This case, or cases, was not her business. Why hadn’t she listened? Because, she answered, a helpless little girl must be found.
Brandy actually prayed herself into a light sleep. A scratching startled her, next a small panting noise, like an animal breathing out and in. Something padded across the boards again, then more scratching. Another chill shot through her. Could it be the panther? She doubted they panted. Then she heard heavier footfalls. It would be too dark outside now for volunteers.
Whoever dropped the lid shut might’ve returned to finish the job. But anything was better than slow suffocation. She strained with every muscle to listen, heard only snuffling around the edges of the lid. Was it only an animal? She flicked on the tiny flash and sent the beam upward. More rustling sounds, like brush being pushed aside. Then a dog barked, a blessed woof of discovery. Her heartbeat soared. Grif must’ve come looking for her and brought Meg. After all, she didn’t return as promised for the drive to Gainesville.
The lid rasped partially aside. Again her pulse raced. “Grif!It’s Brandy! I fell in.”
A light golden muzzle sniffed through the crack. Meg and her educated nose. As the lid slid aside, Brandy exploded in sobs, too weak to stand. A wave of night air washed over her. The beam of a larger flashlight swept the cistern, but the face that peered down a second later came as a shock. It was John’s. “Are you all right?” Anxious. Then a stiffer tone. “I’m not your friend Grif. Only your husband.”
Her answer came brokenly. “You said—you weren’t coming—this weekend.”
The answer sounded even sharper. “I had an interesting phone call from Homosassa. I tried to call you, but I still couldn’t reach you.”
With a sinking in her stomach, Brandy knew that call probably came from Bibi Brier. Bibi had made good on her threat, but Brandy couldn’t deal with that problem now. She looked down into the stale water. “I’m afraid my ankle’s hurt.” She tried to control the quiver in her voice. “Not really bad. I’ll need a rope.”
“Got a line on the boat. I’ll be right back.” He retreated, called, “Meg, stay,” and tramped away through the underbrush. Meg lowered her muzzle next to the cistern lip and whined. Brandy felt the cool air on her upturned face, drank in its freshness, murmured her thanks to the glittering canopy of stars.
In a few minutes John knelt again at the opening and threw down a heavy line. “I’ve tied the other end to a big hickory tree up here. Someone else tied a rope there in the past.” He tried to flick the rope near her hands. “Can you grab on and walk yourself up the wall?”
Brandy’s trembling fingers grasped the end of the line. “I can try,” she said. She sloshed upright in the fetid water. “Can’t put much weight on my right foot.”
“Try,” John said. “Otherwise I’ve got to call fire rescue. They’d bring a ladder, but it would take time to get equipment here, especially this time of night.”
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Brandy began creeping up the slimy limestone, brushing through cobwebs, canvas bag swinging against her shoulder, fingers burning where she gripped the rope. As soon as she neared the top, John reached down, put his hands under her arms and lifted her to the surface. She collapsed against him and threw her arms around his neck, gasping, “Thank God you got here.”
John removed her arms. Still, she leaned against him, alarmed, her joy hedged with hurt.
No matter what Bibi said, John should trust her, should be excited to see her. Yet he had not touched her except to drag her out of the cistern. He was sensitive, she knew, and withdrew when his feelings were injured, but this was different. He was angry.
“We have to get to the boat,” he said, rising, his voice brittle.
Brandy sank back. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ve had a shock. But so have I. We’ll talk about it later.” He pointed the flashlight at her. “Can you walk? I’ve got a boat at the mouth of the canal. As soon as we get to the house, I’ll wrap that ankle.”
“I’ll try,” she said again, then looked at the heavy boards he had shoved aside. “We ought to put the lid back. It was left off. On purpose.”
He bent down, replaced the cover, then pulled her to her feet and guided her body against his, still without warmth, the gesture of a medic. She saw the earlier rope John had mentioned, wound around the base of the hickory tree, and chopped off just below the knot. Had someone used it to descend into the cistern and out again?
“How did you know I was missing?” she whispered as they shuffled through the underbrush, Meg trotting beside them, tail high, in a better mood than her owners.
“After the call from Homosassa, I called Carole’s neighbors. They said they hadn’t seen you since early this morning and the boat was gone. I drove up to look for you and eventually found your notebook on the porch. You wrote down where you planned to search for the little girl.”
A spasm shot through Brandy’s leg and she paused for a second. “Someone left the lid off and then closed me up in there, deliberately. I’ve been down there for hours, since early afternoon.” She glanced at her watch. Midnight.
Across the canal, lights burned in the Flint house. “I’ll ask those people to call the Sheriff s Office,” he said.
She glanced up. “Don’t,” she said, “please. I don’t want them to know about me. I can’t trust anyone. Everyone knew one way or the other where I planned to search. We’ll call the Sheriff s Office ourselves. A deputy was supposed to meet me.”
In the dim light she could see John’s mouth tighten. “If you say. You do get into messes, Bran.” He helped her down the steep bank and into an aging marina jon boat moored to a tree at the water’s edge. Meg leapt aboard and huddled at her feet.
“Had a devil of a time finding anyone who’d let me have a boat so late,” John said. “Finally found a young fellow who works at the marina and talked him into renting it. He thinks he knows you.” The skinny fellow who pumped gas for her. The talker with the inquisitive nature. He’d be quick to pass on the tidbit that she was in trouble.
She had more bad news for John. “I heard someone drive our boat away.” By the boat’s running light, she fumbled her way toward the bow and stumbled onto the seat. “I’d left our boat behind in the canal. I’m sorry. I don’t know what they did with it.”
He settled her under the bow light, and sat down next to the outboard kicker. “I’d hate to lose that boat,” he said.
Brandy dropped her head. She might as well know the worst. “You said you had a shock.”
John grasped the pull chord. “After I read your notes, I spoke to the neighbor who was feeding the animals. She gave me a few insights about your visitors.” He knew about Sergeant Strong. She thought miserably, that left only Grif Hackett. John gave the cord a vicious yank. The boat rocked, but the engine only sputtered.
John gripped the cord a second time. “First, I looked at the marina, and I got more interesting information there. The employees suggested I check at the motel.” He gave the cord a mighty pull and the engine caught at last. “The clerk at the desk confirmed what my anonymous female caller told me. Seems you didn’t confine your private visit to the lobby. She also mentioned that I might learn something at the adjoining restaurant, too.” Even in the dark Brandy could see the anger in his rigid face. “The reports were an eye-opener.”
A weight settled in her chest. She recalled the inviting voice of the clerk with the towering hairdo. She’d had her eye on Grif; she’d been angling for him herself. Brandy had eaten at the restaurant, of course, with Grif, and then gone to his rooms. How long had she stayed? She was too flustered to remember.
John spoke in a fierce, clipped tone. “I went all through Carole’s place,” he went on, steering the boat into the creek, “I was looking for a clue to where you’d gone.” He raised his voice above the clatter of the old engine, and she braced herself against sudden jarring as they rounded the bend into the river. “Your notebook was on the porch table. You planned to check out this end of the island today.” He glanced down at Meg, and his voice softened. “Meg’s a good tracker. Once we landed here she ran around, then zeroed in on the cistern.” He pointed to an old shirt of Brandy’s tucked around his belt. “I brought this along to keep her on target.” He shook his head. “This is the most trouble you’ve gotten into yet.”
She would have to swallow his criticism. It was better than the black hole he had pulled her out of.
“It’s a shock to learn you have a boyfriend.”
Brandy felt nauseated, flustered, unable to cope. “It’s not like that,” she said faintly. “Not at all.” It could be, she thought, but it isn’t.
“We’ll talk about it later. I don’t want to talk now.”
She sank against the back of the hard bench. Before she collapsed, there was something she had to take care of besides John’s feelings. What was it? It had once seemed so vital. “I found an important thing in the cistern,” she said suddenly. “I found something for the Sheriffs Office.” With a start, she realized she had used almost those same words earlier, much earlier, shouted them to someone before the cistern lid slammed down. That frightened statement might’ve sealed her fate. Whoever stole the treasure knew about the pouch from the journal, but hadn’t found it. That person would not want it turned over to the Sheriff.
Her job now was to preserve the evidence. “Is there a box or a plastic container on the boat? I need to keep it wet.”
With one hand he rummaged in a storage bin next to the console, pulled out a flat plastic box, and thrust it at her. “I brought my old first aid kit. It’s pretty clean. You can take the stuff out.” He frowned into the darkness ahead. “I thought I might need it.”
Brandy eased her canvas bag up from the floor, unzipped it, and carefully extracted the folded scarf. “This pouch is more than one hundred fifty years old,” she explained. “I’ve got to give it to Sergeant Strong. It could be a clue in a murder case.” She leaned over the side of the boat, dipped water into the blue box, laid her treasure into it, and snapped the lid shut.
As John steered across the black waters and through the reflection of a silver half-moon, he did not seem impressed. The wind scoured the sweat from Brandy’s face. She stared at the receding tip of the island and its thick growth of cedars, while the curve of the river vanished into a midnight of distance. Above them, a wan slice of moon glided in and out of clouds. She shivered, thinking of all those who had suffered over the centuries on that small plot of land. The fear that clutched her, she knew, was not rational, yet these forgotten souls, in some way, were here. Could the Medicine Man Fishhawk and his sacred bundle really send these agonized spirits to their final resting place in the West? He had vowed he could. She hoped he was right. When trapped in the cistern, she had felt these presences. She never wanted to feel them again.
East of the Salt River mouth, jungle gave way to darkened, elaborate stucco and frame homes, then to the black clump that was Bird Island, and next the commercial fishing docks. The only lights shone from the Tiki bar where a waiter and a barkeep were sweeping up. John nodded toward it. “The bartender told me you’d been there a lot with your archaeologist friend.” He kept his voice level.
Brandy flushed. “Grif Hackett is as interested in this case as I am. I went to the motel to see some wonderful old Indian pottery.”
“I see,” John said dryly. He swung the bo
at into the short canal and nosed it into their boat slip. After tying up, he helped her stand. “I’ll take the rental boat back tomorrow before I leave. Marine Patrol should be able to locate ours.”
She took his hand and limped off the boat onto the dock, Meg at her heels. “John, my relationship with Grif Hackett isn’t what you think. We’re both trying to help with this case. And a child’s missing.” Her voice trailed away.
“The hotel room, remember.”
“I told you, old pottery. He wanted to show me Indian pots.”
“Sure he did. Most people go to museums.” He took her arm and helped her through the porch door.
“Nothing happened.” She hobbled into the living room.
He did not look at her. Instead he led her to the bathroom. “We’ve got to clean you up. Then you need to go to bed.”
“I’ve got to call Sergeant Strong at the Sheriff’s Office,” she said. “His number’s in my address book in my bag.”
He picked up the canvas bag. “I’ll call,” he said.
Brandy sat down on a stool beside the shower, still feeling weak. She could scarcely tug off her muddy boots. “Leave a message,” she said. “Tell whoever answers that the cistern ought to be roped off in case they can find out who shut me up there.” She waved a weary hand. “Footprints, fingerprints, something. Say I need to talk to Strong tomorrow.”
He left her and went to the kitchen phone. She could hear him talking quietly, an exclamation, and then he returned with a clean wash cloth and towel. “You had a message. Detective Strong called about noon. Somebody named ‘Grapple,’ I think, was released on bail this morning.”
Not really news. That afternoon she had overheard the fact from Melba and Alma May.
“Can you stand in the shower?”