by Ann Cook
The New York private eye sat a small table by the lobby door. As he picked up his menu, Brandy wondered if a New Yorker would have a taste for Florida’s fresh heart of palm salad. When he reached into his shirt pocket for his glasses, she nodded but he ignored her. She hoped he had kept her card. Maybe they could collaborate. Her lead was better than his.
Remembering Cara’s suggestion they try to photograph the Shell Mound ghost tonight, she smiled at John. “I would really like your help on the Shell Mound story,” she said. He hadn’t forgotten her earlier suggestion and frowned across the mauve tablecloth. “Be practical. Tramping through the swamps at night isn’t my idea of quality time. And, of course, we’d see nothing. Some female let her imagination run away with her. Are you going to believe a car load of scared kids?”
“People keep seeing something. I’m not saying it’s a ghost.”
He leaned forward, over the crystal wine and water glasses. “Don’t even think you two women could go out there alone. No telling what kind of scumbags hang around the area at night. I don’t care how well your new friend knows her way around. It isn’t safe.” He settled back and unfolded his napkin. “I thought we’d spend most of the weekend together. If you’re too busy, I could go back home and check on the bank plans.”
Brandy shook her head, re-shuffling her priorities. “We’ll see Shell Mound tomorrow, together. In the daylight. I ought to call my editor, though. Let him know I haven’t got anything yet on either story.”
As she spoke, Angus MacGill came into the dining room and bent over the investigator’s shoulder. “Telephone, Mr. Rossi,” he said. The New Yorker rose and followed MacGill into the lobby. Brandy was wondering if Rossi had a call about the missing woman, when Cara appeared to take their order. Through the swinging door came the tantalizing smell of the hotel’s famous spicy chowder. Brandy looked up, apologetic. “I’m sorry, but my husband says our plan is too dangerous. I guess he’s right.”
Cara raised her pencil above her pad. “That’s okay.” Her face remained expressionless. “I totally understand. Of course, with the right equipment one person could do it. Someone who knows the area.”
Someone like Cara, Brandy thought.
“The moon should be bright tonight,” Cara added. The young woman reminded Brandy of the Pre-Raphaelite women she had seen pictured in English literature books, all lithe necks and pale hands. That image fitted her obsessive fear of storms Marcia Waters had mentioned. Yet Cara had unexpected toughness. She was ready to plunge into the woods alone. Brandy felt a pang of guilt. She had suggested the venture.
After a dinner of Shrimp Island Hotel, they found MacGill in the lobby, posting Brandy’s historic preservation column on a bulletin board beside the counter. Behind it, the man with the ducktail was now cozily chatting with the clerk. Fast worker, Brandy thought.
The owner gestured toward the open door of the Neptune Lounge. “Mind you see our famous murals. How about an after-dinner liqueur?”
A crowded lounge makes a ripe source of information, Brandy thought. When she tugged at John’s arm, they followed MacGill into a dim, cypress-lined side room. Several patrons had already gathered at the bar. Above tiers of bottles, rose a faded painting of the bearded god Neptune presiding over a bevy of submissive mermaids.
“Painted in 1946 with some locals as models,” the hotel owner said. “Some say the mermaid on the left looks a wee bit like our friend Mar-cia Waters.” He winked one bright blue eye at Brandy. “As she was about forty years ago.” MacGill moved past a pale mural of a coastal river and selected a table. “Marcia’s a fine artist, but a bit daft. Has a lovely daughter, mind.” John and Brandy sat down in canvas chairs opposite MacGill, while he softened his last remark with an infectious grin. Through the back window Brandy could see a full moon above the bayou and a fisherman’s skiff in the black water.
MacGill signaled a plump cocktail waitress behind the bar. “Cara’s a wee slip of a thing, but smart. More’s the pity she’s not at a university.”
Brandy shook her head. “Looks like Mama wants to keep her ‘a violet by a mossy stone, Half-hidden from the eye.’ I understand Cara has a boyfriend here.”
MacGill lifted his head at the Wordsworth quotation, then nodded toward a heavy set man in jeans and rubber boots at the bar. “Truck Thompson.” He dropped his voice. “He’s wanted to marry Cara for years, before she ever got out of high school. Marcia’s dead keen on the idea.”
Brandy swiveled about to get a better look. Thompson was leaning on his elbows, his back to the bar, talking to someone at a table by the door. She saw a wide face, sun-reddened, a bristly mustache, a thick neck and body. She frowned. “He’s a bit old for our Cara, isn’t he?”
“Truck’s about fifteen years older, but Marcia says he’s well established. Bottom line is, if she marries him, she’ll stay in Cedar Key. Marcia hasn’t any family. Cara’s all she has. It’s not been easy for Marcia, or for Cara either, after Mr. Waters died. I’ve given Cara what work I could at the hotel.”
When the middle-aged waitress with the chubby face appeared, MacGill ordered Drambuies for the three of them. Then he tilted his head back, his words deliberate. “Mind, Truck fits Marcia’s scheme of things. Inherited a fleet of fishing boats from his father and made a go of it. Has a fish and oyster house on the street behind the hotel.” When the waitress returned with their drinks, MacGill sipped from the delicate glass and rolled his eyes in appreciation.
“And what about Cara’s feelings?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Oh, Cara? I don’t think the lass fancies him much. I think she wants to get away.”
Brandy decided to probe a bit further. “Cara was saying some pretty strange things to me this afternoon about not being the real Cara Waters.”
The muscles in MacGill’s jaw stiffened. “Gets her knickers in a twist now and then, does our Cara. Goes dramatic about being a foster kid. I’d take no notice.”
A movement in the doorway caught Brandy’s attention. She looked across the packed lounge where the private investigator had paused, adjusting his eyes to the shadows. Something in the curve of his shoulders and the set of his head suggested defeat. He glanced around, then crossed the room and took a seat behind them.
MacGill leaned toward him. “It’s your first time with us, lad. I’ll stand you to a drink. What’ll it be?”
Rossi ran one hand through his thin, dark hair, weighing the offer. “Scotch on the rocks,” he said at last. “And thanks.”
MacGill beckoned to the cocktail waitress again, gave the order, and turned again to Rossi. “All the locals know by now you’re on the lookout for some woman’s gone missing. Find out anything?”
A lull fell over the voices at the bar. Truck Thompson turned toward their table. By his blond ducktail, Brandy recognized the Miami Beach tourist in fashionable polo shirt and corduroys, a foot on the rail, half facing them.
“Mind, I hope the phone call at dinner was good news,” the Scotsman added.
Rossi sat back while the cocktail waitress set down his drink. “My client was a cancer patient. Wanted to see her niece before she died. The aunt had news for her, but she didn’t make it.” He sighed and wiped his rimless glasses with a handkerchief.
“So you’re giving up the search then?”
“I got an agreement for my fee. I’ll collect the rest of it, okay. And I know someone else who’ll be interested, but it’s too bad about the old lady.”
Rossi thought a minute, then settled his glasses on his nose, pulled a small manila envelope out of a breast pocket, removed a black and white photograph, and placed on the table a smaller copy of the picture Brandy had seen at the police station. Once again she gazed at the poised set of the woman’s head, the long straight hair, the dainty features.
“Take a gander,” the investigator said to MacGill. “See if it ja
rs loose any kinda recollection.”
“A pretty little thing,” John said.
MacGill glanced down and away. “Never saw the lass.”
“You here in ‘72?” It was the second time MacGill had been asked that question. Brandy was conscious of the waitress’s moon face looking over her shoulder as the proprietor nodded, his shrewd bright gaze on Rossi. He ordered a Stoli on the rocks along with another Scotch whiskey for the private detective. Truck Thompson had followed the waitress to the table, a beer in one beefy hand. He stared down at the picture, pale eyes close together in a broad face.
“She come here June 19, 1972,” Rossi said, his voice a little loud. “The picture’s twenty years old. Would look a lot different now, probably. Had a kid with her about two and a half, a girl.”
Truck’s head jerked up, a startled look in his colorless eyes. Rossi studied the oyster man. For a minute no one spoke. Then Truck fingered his heavy mustache. “Don’t remember her,” he said, backing away. “Hey, never seen anyone like that around here.”
The Miami tourist now left the bar and edged into the group next to Brandy. His eyes swept her coppery hair and the smooth curves of her breasts with a look that left her feeling undressed. Close up, he reminded her of those sullen male models in Gentleman’s Quarterly. She recognized the Armani jacket and the Gucci watch. Probably a man in his early thirties.
“This lad’s Nathan Hunt,” MacGill said, eyebrows twitching upward. “Mr. and Mrs. Able. Care to join us?”
“Couldn’t help hearing the gentleman here,” Hunt said easily, setting a highball glass on the investigator’s table. When he shook hands around, Truck stepped farther back, maybe, Brandy thought, because of the professional fisherman’s disdain for the amateur. Hunt pulled a chair between Brandy and Rossi. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Cedar Key,” he added. “Not as far back as ‘72, of course, but I have friends who have.” He took a quick look as Rossi slid the photograph back into its folder. “I could make a few phone calls, ask some questions. I might turn up something.”
Rossi took a long swallow, removed his glasses again, and tapped the rim against the envelope. “Might jog somebody’s memory if I said there’s a lotta money involved, for the kid, anyways. If the woman, or her daughter, don’t wanna be found, that’s okay. I’ll collect the rest of my fee and fade.”
His dark eyes locked first with MacGill’s, then with Thompson’s. “A life of luxury’s out there for that girl, if she wants it.” He sat back and thrust the envelope into his breast pocket.
MacGill turned his squat glass in a circle on the table, Truck’s silent bulk still behind him. Hunt leaned back and laid one ankle across the opposite knee. Brandy was surprised to see on his socks, above his costly Italian shoe, the finely stitched monogram, “B.B.” His half grin showed perfect teeth. “What do the local gendarmes say?”
“Not much—yet.” Rossi was making quick work of the second Scotch. Next to the elegant Hunt, his rumpled sport shirt, perma press pants, and cheap walking shoes looked shabby.
John yawned, rubbed Brandy’s sleeve, and nodded toward the door, but she was studying the faces around her. In the low light MacGill might be the subject of an Old Master’s portrait. He had the calculating eyes and the strong chin of a prosperous burgher. Truck would’ve been a muscular peasant, toiling in the corner of the canvas.
“I like to finish my jobs.” Rossi was looser now. A touch of alcohol, Brandy thought, does wonders to oil the flow of language.
“Maybe the woman and child never came to Cedar Key,” Hunt said.
“She come here all right.” The private detective paused and lifted his glass. “Maybe even to this hotel. She was supposed to stay here, but she changed her plans. Mailed a postcard from the Greyhound bus stop at Otter Creek. It gave the new address.”
There was a pregnant pause. Truck’s gravelly voice broke the silence. “That date. That’s the day before Hurricane Agnes struck. Wouldn’t nobody come to Cedar Key then.”
Rossi drained his glass. “You gotta good memory for dates.” He tilted his gaze up at Truck. “She did come, though. We know that much. Somebody drove her here.”
Truck’s heavy shoulders lifted, a disbelieving shrug.
“The woman couldn’t of left town right after the hurricane, either,” Rossi said. “I’ve done some checking. For a coupla days the only road out was flooded.” He gave them all a level look. “She never wrote again. That means she’s still gotta be here. That was the agreement with her aunt, that she’d write again if she left.”
Brandy realized many of the customers had deserted the lounge, and once again it grew quiet. “Let’s split,” John whispered, running one hand down her back, his lips against her ear.
Her dress had done its job and Brandy patted his arm, her eyes still on Rossi. He removed his glasses again and folded them into a case, his hands now a trifle unsteady. “I checked out that local address this afternoon. The lot’s empty now, but the deed records oughta show what used to be there. And who owned the place. Whoever that was, must’ve seen her and the driver.” His face darkened. “Could be the same person.”
He stood and rifled through his billfold for a tip. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, but the clerk at the court house promised to look it up and give me a call.”
He started for the door, then turned. “I got an appointment with the police chief tomorrow. He was here then. He’ll check his records. I expect the woman and her daughter are walking around Cedar Key right now, using different names. Anyone think of something, I’ll be in Room 27.”
MacGill began pushing back his own chair. “I do need to see someone before it gets any later.” For a minute the waitress lingered beside MacGill’s table, settling the bills, full lips twisted in an odd smile, as if they shared an in-house joke. “Do you think,” she murmured as she pocketed her tips, “that private eye showed up at the hotel nineteen years too late?”
MacGill paused. Brandy noticed his eyebrows lower and his mouth contract into a thin line as he glowered at the waitress without answering.
CHAPTER 4
In the dim upstairs lobby Brandy followed John past murals of a savannah and into the rear corridor. A light burned under the private detective’s door, #27, one of the smaller rooms that had a private bath across the hall. She noticed a second bedroom off the passage, still dark, beside the back door where a staircase descended from a metal landing to the yard and garage. On the screen door a note reminded hotel guests to lock up if they came in through the rear entrance after the hotel closed at eleven.
“How small town quaint,” John remarked.
Beyond the narrow road behind the yard, Brandy could see a pier and in the unfenced area between the garage and the street, a rake and spade where someone had started a garden. Mosquito netting draped their bed, an anachronism, given the screens and air conditioner. On the bed lay two books she had packed, the latest P. D. James mystery and another more slender volume, John Ciardi’s translation of Dante’s Inferno. She’d expected to catch up on leisure reading and continue a review of classics she’d enjoyed in college, but she’d have little chance this weekend, after all. Brandy crossed to the window and peered below the rolled bamboo blind. A bushy southern red cedar crowded against the pane. Beyond Third Street lay Back Bayou, its black waters rising with the tide. Truck Thompson’s fish and oyster house, she remembered, was down that road. She released the blind.
“Did you notice that everyone in the lounge except us, and maybe the fisherman from Miami Beach, had something to hide? Even the cocktail waitress. Did you hear her last remark?” She watched John remove his shoes. Without answering, he pulled back the mosquito net canopy over the bed, while she crossed to the old-fashioned dresser with its framed mirror and removed her earrings. “There’s an unidentified skeleton in the cemetery, too. Cara wants to tell me about it. Maybe these things are all somehow
connected.”
As he unbuttoned his shirt, John shook his head. “If Rossi won’t tell you who he’s looking for, I don’t see how you can cover that story. I’d keep quiet about your suspicions.” Brandy thought she was good at a lot of things, but not at keeping quiet. He stepped out of his slacks and folded them over a hanger. “And I didn’t care for the way the guy from Miami Beach was giving you the eye.”
Brandy smiled. “Keeps you on your toes.” But she didn’t feel light-hearted. Through the window a bright moon outlined the ragged pines and oaks rimming the island. Several dark miles to the north lay Shell Mound. She thought of Cara Waters and her camera. If Cara went out there tonight on the Halloween assignment, Brandy would feel responsible. Unfastening her gold belt, she leaned forward and pulled her dress and slip over her head. “Cara feels abandoned by one mother and trapped by the other.” She tossed the two on a chair. “She needs help. Besides, I hate to go home without either story.”
John came toward her, a slight edge to his voice. “I don’t want to hear any more about missing women or unnamed skeletons.” He encircled her in his arms. “You weren’t very eager to leave the lounge. Tonight’s supposed to be ours.”
“I know,” She laid her head for a moment against his chest. Remember your priorities, idiot, she told herself.
Deftly he unhooked her bra. “Forget your job tonight.”
“That’s not hard.” But even as she tilted her chin upward and gave him a deep kiss, she thought how dark the woods at Shell Mound must be.
* * * *
During the night Brandy awoke to the muffled closing of a nearby door and the creak of a floor board. The old hotel seemed alive with the gathered energy of the years—Federal and rebel officers from the Civil War era, long-ago merchants from its general store days, dead owners from the past. When footsteps shuffled past their door, her heart jumped. Only some guest going to a bathroom off the hall, she reasoned, while taking a measured breath. She glanced at her travel alarm clock—twelve-thirty, surely too early for a fisherman to leave. Voices murmured in the hall, then quieted. Perhaps a late visitor answering the private detective’s invitation. She would check with Rossi in the morning. The back door of the hotel squeaked open and then closed. Her curiosity almost drove her to the window, but she remembered the chill blackness of the Cedar Key night and snuggled instead against John, feeling reassured by his warmth. He was breathing deeply, but he moved his arm across her back. In spite of Tiffany Moore, they’d been close tonight. At least that part of her scheme was working.