by Ann Cook
The Scotsman twisted in his chair and thumped one square fist on the table. “Can’t find the blooming thing. Got talked into buying one, in case of robbers or someone cutting up rough. Like a fool, I kept a semi-automatic in a drawer at the desk. Wasn’t loaded.” He thrust out his lower lip. “Haven’t seen it in weeks. Now it’s gone.”
Hunt leaned toward MacGill. A side lamp lit a profile Brandy thought too white and smooth for anything but an occasional fisherman. “And the bullets?”
“In the drawer, too, damn it,” the Scotsman growled. “Gone.”
John looked at his watch, slid his chair back, and bent to speak in Brandy’s ear. “Let’s not get involved again.” There was urgency in his hushed voice and she squeezed his hand. While he moved away to find the cocktail waitress, Brandy said good night to MacGill and Hunt and sauntered to the door. In spite of the homicide detective’s size, she almost overlooked him in the shadows. Inside the lobby she found herself looking up into the dark face with its widely spaced eyes and tidy mustache. She was quick with a question. “Did Cara Waters talk to you?
He rocked slightly on the balls of his feet. “Cara Waters may have some important information for us, maybe a picture come Tuesday. She’s not sure because of the light. She’ll call when she checks the prints.” He fixed Brandy with a knowing stare, brows elevated. “Seems the young lady has a particular interest in Mr. Rossi, but she never met the man. Got all her information second hand, and not from Mrs. Waters or her employer.”
Brandy knew when she was being gently put down, but she whipped out the tattered note pad anyway. “This is an informal press conference. I called my editor. Are you ready to release any information now?”
“Can’t give you much now, Ma’am. The victim is Anthony Rossi of New York City. No suspects yet. We’re in the process of double-checking his I.D. and locating his family. The investigation’s just started. But you know that already.” He smiled. “First time I ever investigated an investigator.”
She noticed the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines, someone called them, although a detective didn’t see much that was amusing. Perhaps Jeremiah Strong’s sense of irony made disinterred corpses more tolerable. “When we got more, I’ll get back to you and local newspapers. Come down to it, we’ll want a longer interview with you and your husband. Let us know where you’ll be for the next few days.”
When John returned from the bar and started toward her, she spoke in a hurry. “I was trying to think where I saw tire tracks today, besides Shell Mound. I’ve remembered. In the Cedar Key cemetery this morning. Tire tracks and small pieces of glass. I believe Rossi’s broken glasses were found in the car.” She tucked the pad back into her purse. “I suppose you’re still trying to find the murder scene.” She reached for John’s hand as he joined them. “As for me, I’m actually more interested in the first murder here—the woman found nineteen years ago in the hotel basement. Cara Waters and I think there’s a connection.”
Again Jeremiah Strong’s brows went up, and he placed his hands on his hips. “All in good time, Ma’am. We got us a fresh body here and lots to do. How about you and Miss Waters leave this investigation to the Sheriff s Office? Give us a little time to sort things out.” The white teeth flashed. “I reckon you take pride in being a mighty good news-woman, Ma’am. But remember what the Good Book say: ‘The patient in spirit is better than the proud.’”
Jeremiah Strong, she thought, master of the courteous put down. As the detective disappeared into the lounge, John faced her and put a hand on each shoulder. Anxiety showed in his eyes. “Take his advice. It’s good and it’s professional. Someone tried to warn you off this morning with that phone call.”
Brandy lifted her face and kissed him on the cheek. “Touché.” But even as he touched her coppery hair, she was conscious of a suppressed sob coming from the kitchen alcove. She ran her hand down John’s arm. “More problems, I’m afraid.” She pulled away and crossed the lobby.
Cara, huddled in a chair beside a huge fern, glanced up, eyes glistening in a pinched face. “The detective doesn’t care about the skeleton in the basement. He thinks I’m imagining a connection. He won’t check what Rossi knew about the missing woman. They think he’s just some petty drug dealer.” She sniffed and pulled a tissue out of her pocket. “I don’t want to go home to Marcia. You’re the only one who’ll pay attention. You’re the only one who can help me find the truth.”
Brandy knelt beside her and put one arm around her thin shoulders. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I’ve got to talk to you tonight. I’ve got a plan but you’re the best one to carry it out.”
Brandy glanced back at John, waiting beside the stairs. “You should go home tonight. We can talk tomorrow, before I leave.”
Fresh tears trembled in Cara’s eyes. “This has got to be done now. I’ve saved some money. The station wagon’s here at the hotel. I’ll leave Cedar Key, go to New York. My God, I may have a father somewhere.” She rose shakily. “I know it’s not your problem.”
Brandy put a hand on her arm. “Wait. Don’t do anything rash.” She walked quickly over to John. “An emergency. It’s Cara. She’s talking about taking off to New York to check on Rossi herself. I’ve got to talk her out of it.”
He bowed his head for a moment. “I’m going up.”
Back in the alcove Brandy took Cara’s hand and drew her onto the deserted lobby couch. She wondered where Truck had gone, but she hadn’t time to ask. “Now what’s the plan you need me for?”
The pleading look came again in Cara’s eyes. “We have Mr. Rossi’s address. Someone’s got to check out his office, find out who he was searching for. You said someone in his agency must know something. If we don’t move fast, all the information will be lost. His client is dead. No one else will care.”
Brandy sank back. “Rossi said he knew the woman’s name, that he was hired by her aunt.”
Cara drew a long breath. “I’ve got $2,000 saved for college. It’s in the bank. I could repay you if you’d go to New York. There’d be a story in it, wouldn’t there?” She clasped her hands in her lap, her voice rising. “I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d be totally lost. But you’d know.”
Brandy bit her lip. “A girlfriend from college shares an apartment in Greenwich Village. We used to room together. She works for a big law firm in mid-town Manhattan. She knows the city like a book.”
“Then you’ll do it?” Eyes glowing, Cara sat up straight. “I already checked the flights out of Gainesville. The hotel keeps up to date because we have guests who fly in and out. The only regularly scheduled flight out is about eight in the morning.”
Brandy gave her a calming pat. “Just a minute. Let me think. In the first place, I couldn’t take your money. It would be unethical, and I couldn’t leave tomorrow. I’ve got a perfectly good husband who’s been very patient. I promised him the rest of the weekend.”
Cara frowned. “Later may be too late.”
“Nevertheless, it will have to wait. But I do need to give a quick call to my editor. Strong released a few facts. Maybe I could go later.”
While Cara brooded, Brandy dialed the news room. When she reported that the private investigator she’d been assigned to cover had indeed been murdered, she was startled by the editor’s reaction. “Things are pretty slow right now, and we’re first on the Cedar Key murder.” His voice took on an urgency. “I want you to get up to New York as soon as you can. Could be your big break. Find out if this guy Rossi was really onto something. See how he ties in with Cedar Key. Hold on a minute.”
He rustled some papers and came back on the line. “We ran down your cashier. Betsy Mae Terry is listed in the Williston phone book. Lives in a retirement trailer park.” She jotted down a phone number and address. “It’s on the way to the Gainesville airport. Get a flight as soon you can.”
Troubled, Brandy stepped out of the phone booth. “Well,” she said to Cara, “looks like you get your wish. I only hope John understands. I’ll have tomorrow here, anyway.”
Cara drew her knees up and hugged them with her slim arms. “Maybe I’ll find out who I really am.”
Brandy’s gaze drifted to the dark castle walls behind the desk and then to the kitchen door that swung open into an almost forgotten horror. Another feeling of dread washed over her, the same squeezing of the heart she’d felt beside the Suwannee. Her voice fell. “We can’t be sure the truth will be good news.”
But Cara was irrepressible. “Call your old roommate tonight!”
Brandy looked at her watch. Nine o’clock. “I’ll have to call for reservations, and I need to reach Betsy Mae Terry.”
As she started for the phone booth, the phone rang at the hotel desk. She noticed the clerk write a few lines, then scurry upstairs. Brandy was in the telephone booth making reservations for Monday morning. when John strode into the lobby, carrying his small suitcase. He looked around for a moment, saw her with the phone, pointed up toward their room, waved, and then blew her a kiss. Before she could finish her call, the hotel door opened and closed, and their car squealed away from the curb.
CHAPTER 10
As Brandy shoved open the phone booth door, the hotel clerk gave an embarrassed cough and turned away. Brandy rushed past her and up the stairs, barely noticing the yellow evidence tape still strung across Rossi’s door. In their own room John’s jogging and dress shoes that had been lined up heel to heel and his tidy row of shorts and slacks were gone from the closet, along with the precisely folded socks from the dresser drawer. Tucked out of sight on a corner shelf, he had left the Nikon for her. She darted into the bathroom. No trim shaving kit sat beside her rumpled bag of make-up. But her blue nightgown had been moved from the back of a chair and laid out on the bed, her slippers collected from the middle of the floor and aligned under the dust ruffle, the bamboo blind drawn against the darkness. On the pillow she spotted a note in John’s careful, spiky hand:
I just had a call. More problems with the bank plans. I’ve got to get back now. You really are too busy with your own story, anyway. Our weekend get-a-away wasn’t working out. You’re still occupied with Cara Waters.
She felt her eyes grow moist. But there was more. John was always practical.
I’m picking up Meg. Your new friend will surely drive you home when you finish here.
There was a considerable blank space, and then a last thought: It was sweet while it lasted.
She slumped on the bed, still holding the paper, and reached for a tissue from a box on the bedside table. Her mother, the English teacher, would call that last it an unclear pronoun reference. Did John refer to the weekend, or the marriage? And who made this sudden request? She could guess. What severe problem could develop on a weekend? Tomorrow, while she researched her story and tried to help Cara, he would be with his adoring intern, her blueprints at the ready and all her curves in the right place. She had heard newspaper people say that a journalist should marry only another journalist. No one else could understand the demands of a deadline.
Brandy was blowing her nose when she heard a faint rap on the door. It would be Cara. She lifted her head. She had to call her friend Thea. Maybe she should stay with her. She’d need Thea’s help to find her way around New York. She reached into the purse she had flung beside the lap top, eons ago, before dinner, before she slipped on the marriage-work balance beam. John would need more than an hour to drive the sixty miles home. She couldn’t phone yet. Giving her eyes a last swipe, she drew out her credit card case.
“Okay, Cara,” she said, opening the door. “I’m coming downstairs to make my calls. I’m set for the flight Monday at 8:10.” She pulled the door closed behind her and looked at the grave young face waiting in the shadows. “But you’ll have to drive me to the Gainesville airport.”
In the lobby Brandy leaned over the counter toward the clerk. “My husband had an unexpected emergency. Did you notice who called?”
The clerk took a few seconds to adjust her glasses, then scarcely opened her lips when she spoke, as if reluctant to answer. Yet a glimmer in her eyes revealed a hidden relish. “He did have a call this evening. A young lady.”
Somehow, Brandy thought, I’ve antagonized this woman. Maybe not shone enough deference to her boss. She heard a movement behind her.
“Abandoned? The girl with the perky nose?” The pitying look in Nathan Hunt’s icy eyes, the furrows on his well-shaped forehead, seemed to her more calculating than sympathetic.
“An emergency,” she mumbled.
The blond eyebrows lifted as he edged nearer and laid a hand beside Brandy on the counter. “Let’s commiserate over a drink. The bar’s still open.” She was aware of his aggressive gaze, of his green onyx ring banded in gold, of his expensive cologne.
“Thanks, but Cara and I have some calls to make.” She glanced across at her friend, who had dropped into a lobby chair close to the phone booth.
He grinned. “Maybe later? A man shouldn’t desert such a pretty woman. Reeks of over-confidence.” He gave her a light touch on the shoulder as the clerk beamed up at him. “I’ll be in the lounge if you change your mind. I’m interested in your story, even if your husband isn t.
Why do I keep bumping my shins on you every time I turn around? Brandy thought. Why is such a cosmopolitan playboy hanging out in a backwater town like Cedar Key, claiming to be a fisherman?
Mentally filing Nathan Hunt away for future speculation, she crossed to Cara. “I’ll see if I can reach Betsy Mae Terry and then call my New York friend. You ought to go on home.”
Cara’s eyes showed the strain, but she shook her head. “I’m not eager to see Marcia tonight. You know how she feels.”
Brandy sighed. She was partly responsible for the break between them. “You shouldn’t blame your foster mother too much. She’s afraid she’ll lose you if we find your biological family.” Brandy remembered John’s cautionary warning. “And even if we do, it may not be a happy discovery. There might be a reason why no one has searched for you or your mother.”
Opening her purse, she rooted in the bottom for her address book with the Otter Creek cashier’s phone number before trudging back into the booth. The phone for Betsy Mae Terry rang six times before the woman picked up. She might already have been in bed. A slow, foggy voice answered, but Mrs. Terry did agree to see Brandy Sunday afternoon.
Next Brandy dialed Thea Ridge in New York. Six years ago, after Thea graduated, Brandy had thrown a farewell dinner party for her suite mate at a Gainesville restaurant. The next day she has seen Thea off for New York, where her friend’s well-connected uncle had handed her a word processor’s job in his Manhattan law firm, fulfilling Thea’s dream of working in Manhattan.
Her old friend’s voice boomed in her ear. “Be a treat to see you, Bran, get in some overdue catching up. But it’s short notice. I’d be glad to steer you around town. You’re welcome to stay here, but you’ll have to sleep on the floor, okay?”
Brandy tried to picture Thea in that far off Greenwich Village world. Her figure had the kind of tall boniness that designer clothes craved. On the job her suit would be tailored, her nails manicured, her brown bangs neatly trimmed, and below them, her big eyes outlined in black. They served as beacons for an agile mind. But it was after ten. Now Thea would be in jeans or her long, baggy nightshirt with the University of Florida logo on the front.
“Sure, I’ll sleep anywhere. I have two nights, max. It’ll save time.”
“It’s a studio apartment. We’re lucky to have it. I wish I could farm my roommate out to friends, but you’ll need her here to get in.” A nasal tone grated in the background, but Brandy couldn’t make out the words. “I would’ve welcomed the excuse.”
Through the glass door Brandy made a t
humbs-up sign to Cara. “Two nights, max, Thea. My plane gets into JFK about 12:45 Monday. I’ll take a cab, be there by two.”
Thea laughed. “Not by New York traffic time, you won’t. My roommate should be out of bed by the time you get here. She works nights. I’ll leave work and try to be home by 5:30.”
Brandy peered at the scribble in her address book under Rossi. “Monday afternoon I need to find an address on East Tenth Street.”
Thea paused. “You’re getting into East Village there, friend. Maybe that area was okay in the past, but this is 1992. Got to be more careful. A lot more druggies there, but my roommate knows the area.”
Brandy’s only return flight option was Wednesday at eight in the morning. She had a lot of ground to cover in a day and a half, maybe far too much.
As she emerged from the booth, she signaled Cara. “Come on. Let’s have a nightcap in the lounge while you tell me anything else you know about the skeleton found here. After that, you’ve got to go home and face Marcia.”
In the darkened lounge, she recognized Hunt’s sleek ducktail and his cultivated voice, joking with the cocktail waitress at the bar. At a table under a wall lamp, Brandy dragged her dog-eared note pad from her purse. Once again when the barmaid’s round face bobbed toward them, Hunt swiveled around, saw Brandy, and raised his glass level with those flat blue eyes. His lips mouthed “hello.”
Brandy ordered a prudent white wine, and Cara did the same, then leaned forward, fingers gripping the edge of the table. “A couple of years ago I read all the 1973 July issues of the local papers. That was the month the skeleton was discovered.” Her forehead furrowed. “The reports said the police found fragments of cloth with it. They didn’t help identify the victim, but they came from a chenille bedspread.”
As the waitress set down their glasses, Brandy reached for her credit card. The woman held up a pudgy hand. “Taken care of.”
Hunt stood behind the waitress with an inviting smile. Brandy could ignore his magazine model good looks, his clothes out of Gentlemen ‘s Quarterly, a grin that would make other female knees go weak. Still, she had to admit that unlike John, he had shown an interest in her work.