by Ann Cook
Brandy turned back to Cara, trying to concentrate on her skeleton story. “If she’s our woman from Otter Creek, sounds as if she were killed in a bedroom.”
Cara nodded and dropped her voice. “Maybe. They didn’t find any jewelry, any remnants of a purse, nothing else except a corroded aluminum flashlight, a big one. The police thought it was the murder weapon. The medical examiner said the cracks in the front of the skull and the bad break there matched the flashlight.”
Brandy made a quick note. “We’ll ask the Otter Creek cashier tomorrow what she remembers about the woman and child who stopped there.” Brandy was aware that Hunt was studying Cara, the look in his eyes intense. Cara would be vulnerable to his suave attentions, Brandy thought. She wanted him to ignore her young friend. Fortunately, he had seemed to focus all his attention on Brandy herself. It surprised her. Cara was much more available.
“So here’s where you’re hiding out!” Startled, they turned as Truck’s hulking figure lunged into the doorway and marched over to the table. “I been looking all over for you. Let’s go.” He still wore black boots, a heavy shirt, and denim pants that smelled faintly of shell fish.
Brandy glanced up, her voice firm. “Cara’s having a drink, It’s been a tough day.”
MacGill followed Truck into the room, and before the younger man noticed him, slid into the bench beside Cara. “Pack it in, Truck,” he said. “Have a beer on the house. You worry too much about the girl, lad.” Pulling a long face, the proprietor looked around the lounge. “Rossi’s death will be in tomorrow’s papers. I’ll soon seen how many bloody cancellations I get.”
Truck’s lips tightened under the heavy mustache. “You worry too much about the hotel, friend.”
MacGill’s misplaced spade apparently still rankled. A lithe Nathan Hunt moved forward and took a chair next to Brandy. “The party gathers.” He set his highball on the table. Brandy faced him, hoping to catch him off guard. “Tell us about yourself, Mr. Hunt. We don’t know anything about you except that you’re from Miami Beach. With a murder investigation going on, looks like you’d want to clear out. Spoils the fishing.”
Hunt continued to smile, no humor in his eyes. “I will clear out when I’ve safely stowed my boat in case the storm hits, and when the detective gives the okay.”
“Damn near everyone’s a suspect,” Truck growled. He had acquired a mug of beer, but he still stood. “Hell, I don’t even know the frigging guy. Saw a bunch of deputies across the bay tonight, swarming all over the cemetery. Bunch of comedians. That coon from the Sheriff s Office don’t know shit from shinola.”
The table went quiet. Brandy broke the silence, even though she knew the futility of reasoning with Truck. “I wouldn’t let the good detective hear you say that.” What interested her most was that Strong had taken her suggestion about the cemetery.
Cara flushed and stared into her wine glass. “Brandy’s investigating, too. She’s going to New York Monday morning to find out what Mr. Rossi knew. Maybe he was killed because he stirred up the old Island Hotel murder case.”
Brandy frowned at Cara. She had not planned to advertise her trip. “It’s true I’m checking out tomorrow, Mr. MacGill,” she said. “Since John had to leave early, Cara’s taking me to Gainesville.”
MacGill raised his hand and signaled to the woman behind the bar. Truck’s small eyes fastened on Hunt, who was still gazing at Cara with a frozen smile. The big man shifted his weight and edged closer to Cara. “All this murder talk makes things rough on my girl.” He bent toward Cara. “Makes her feel bad about her real folks. Makes her want to get away, be a photographer somewheres else.”
He squatted on his heels beside her and looked into her drawn face. “Soon’s oyster season’s over, I’ll take you on a vacation, anywhere you want to go. You can forget all this stuff. When we get spliced, I’ll let you spend all your time with a camera, if that’s what you want.” Brandy sensed Cara stiffen. Truck would let her. He doesn’t have a clue, she thought. Cara herself scarcely seemed to hear him.
“If I could only remember,” she whispered, her mind still on the first murder. “I was there. On some level I must know what happened to my real mother.”
No one at the table disputed that Cara was, indeed, the child Rossi had been trying to find. But no one had told Rossi.
The plump arm of the barmaid reached down and set a whiskey and water before MacGill. “Why don’t you try hypnosis, honey?” she said. “I saw a TV show where a guy put some woman under, took her all the way back to when she was almost a baby. Like two-years old. The woman remembered all kinds of little things. She could describe the house she lived in and what the maid looked like who took care of her. It might work for you.”
Cara looked up. “Do you really think so? Maybe I could find someone who practices hypnosis at the university.”
The table went quiet again. Brandy was aware that Hunt’s arm now lay along the back of her chair. She looked at her watch. Almost eleven. Surely John would be home. She rose.
“I’d drive you to the airport,” Hunt said. “Any time at all. Just ask.” His grin was back. “I want to hear more about the old murder case. That’s a real mystery.”
“Cara’s taking me, thanks,” Brandy said. “We can talk about the case another time, perhaps.” She moved away from the table as Truck heaved himself to his feet.
“You didn’t give me an answer.” He bent toward Cara. “What about we get away?”
She gave Truck an unsmiling glance. “Don’t get all riled up. You can drive me home.” She might’ve been addressing a child. “I’ll pick up the station wagon in the morning.” She faced Brandy. “See you at breakfast.”
Truck beamed and followed her out the door. As Brandy turned to leave the lounge, Hunt’s limber body leaned uncomfortably close, exuding an undeniable magnetism.
“New York’s a big place,” he said. “You’ll get lost. Better play it safe. Do your investigating where you know your way around, like right here. You could begin with me.” She found herself remembering the flimsy latch on her bedroom door.
“Thanks for the advice, but I’ll have help. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I need to call my husband and pack.” She felt his eyes on her as she left the room.
The phone rang four times before John’s impersonal voice came on the answering machine. When she left a message that she would call again tomorrow, she suppressed the alarm in her voice. Where was he at eleven o’clock?
After jotting a few lines in her notebook and carefully dating them October 1992, she crawled into bed, missing John’s warmth, his arms around her. His pillow still held the spicy scent of his cologne. She picked up Dante’s Inferno and flipped through a few cantos. She had loved the quirky savagery of his circles of hell. But the atmosphere in Cedar Key tonight did not put her in the mood for them now. Although the blind was drawn as John left it, she knew beyond the window lay the black waters of the lagoon, and below, the wide doors that led into the basement. A kind of hell had happened there twenty years ago, and the punishment was overdue.
The wind had risen. She could hear cabbage palms and cedars scrape against the old building like forgotten ghosts. Sleep came in fragments, each haunted by a fragile Cara Waters. Once Brandy woke to a shuffling sound in the hall. She heard a soft rap on the door and a rattle of the latch. Nathan Hunt? She sat up and stared. But the chain stayed in place, and she left it there.
CHAPTER 11
In the morning Brandy tapped out on the lap top a brief story about the few facts Detective Strong had released. She would call the department before she left to see if any others had emerged. The Halloween feature could wait until later. Maybe Cara’s Shell Mound picture would add bite to the familiar legend.
At breakfast she was relieved to hear that Hunt had left for the marina at the town of Suwannee, and that the tropical storm was still st
alled off Naples. She expected Cara to be pleased, yet her friend was zipping among the tables with a tight look around her mouth. After Brandy finished her herbed eggs and muffin, Cara cleared the table with a wan smile. “Marcia wants to see you. She drove me to work this morning, and I’m afraid she’s waiting in the lobby to dump a guilt trip on you.” Cara lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, but for a long time I’ve thought she knows more than she’s told me. I stepped into her bedroom this morning to tell her I was ready.” She sighed. “I’d swear she was hiding something.”
This is a time to be assertive, Brandy thought, standing. “I’ll talk to her.”
When she entered the lobby, Brandy saw Marcia Waters seated beside the coffee table, staring out at the quiet street. Brandy lifted her chin and took a seat across from her. “Cara said you wanted to see me.”
Marcia kept her long hands in her lap, her eyes on Brandy. She wore an ankle length denim skirt and a man’s white shirt with a paint smear on one pocket. Several strands of gray hair had escaped the firm bun at the nape of her neck.
“I’m here about Cara.” She paused to control a slight quiver in her voice. “I know you’re trying to find out if that investigator knew who Cara’s parents were.” Her fingers crept up to the corner of her mouth. “The fact is, you’re upsetting Cara, giving her false hopes. All for a newspaper story. The woman the man was looking for probably had no connection to Cara.”
Brandy nodded. “Maybe that’s what I’ll find. Cara just wants the truth, but there’s another reason to investigate. Mr. Rossi said the woman’s daughter had money coming to her. If we can prove Cara’s her daughter, Cara may be able to pay for college herself. Is there anything else, anything at all, you know about Cara’s past that would help us?”
A look of anguish flickered for a second in the artist’s eyes. “Cara can’t find happiness by leaving Cedar Key. She’s loved here. She does important work here. She can grow in her chosen profession here.” Her hands clasped again “Fact is, you can’t know what you’ll find. Suppose one of her parents is a criminal?” She stood, her thin body very straight, and it seemed to Brandy, very vulnerable. “They abandoned her, Miss O’Bannon. I’ll thank you to leave my family as you found it.”
Brandy rose and stretched out her hand to the artist. Behind her she could see the counter clerk, head bent over the morning Beacon, listening. A page had not turned since Marcia began talking.
“Please understand,” Brandy said. “Cara asked for my help. She’s a grown woman. She has a right to make this search, and I have a right to cover the story my editor assigned.” When Marcia ignored her hand, Brandy dropped it. “Whatever I find, Cara will always love you as her mother.”
Marcia pivoted on her heel, then glanced back. “I understand my daughter’s driving you to Gainesville today and picking you up on Wednesday about noon. I hope you don’t plan to return to Cedar Key. We don’t need more of your kind of help.”
With regret Brandy watched her sweep out of the lobby. She admired Marcia Waters, admired her dramatic watercolors, her bird sanctuary, her concern for the environment. But she had lost any expectation of her friendship. She only hoped Marcia’s hostility was caused by love for her daughter, not by fear.
As the artist strode down the sidewalk toward the art gallery, Brandy stepped once more into the phone booth. Once more the answering machine clicked on and she listened to John’s flat voice inviting her to leave a message. Could he be walking Meg? Unlikely. He would keep her in the fenced yard. If he were outside looking for the Sunday paper, would he think to check the answering machine? Could he have gone to the office on Sunday before nine-thirty?
“I’ll be in Manhattan Monday and Tuesday at my old friend Thea Ridge’s apartment,” she said when the beeps stopped. “I’ll call.” She left Thea’s phone number, but she was thinking not of Thea but of Tiffany—the artful tangle of her hair and her mini-skirt. When John’s boss suggested interns should dress more conservatively, John had laughed. “He’s so old fashioned,” he joked at the table over Brandy’s homemade shepherd’s pie, while she watched images of Tiffany and her unusually white skin float among the lamb and mashed potatoes. His protege’s saucer-shaped eyes went wide with admiration every time John spoke. Brandy had seen that phenomenon at the office picnic, and once a neighbor had told her, oh, so helpfully, that she sometimes saw John lunching at the mall with Tiffany. If that happened when Brandy was in town, what went on when she was gone?
And Tiffany Moore lived alone.
Brandy slammed down the receiver. Coming out of the booth, she met the clerk’s eye. “I’m expecting a call from my husband. If he phones before I check out, please let me know.”
The clerk’s half-smile, Brandy thought savagely, could be called a smirk. “Check-out time’s, you know, at noon,” the young woman said.
Upstairs Brandy had begun throwing clothes into her suitcase, when she heard a knock at the door, this time one with authority. She opened to the imposing figure of Detective Jeremiah Strong.
“We need a fuller statement from you, Ma’am,” he said, stepping back, “and I need to know how to reach your husband.”
Brandy checked her watch. “Fair enough. Then I’m out of here.”
While Strong carried her bag downstairs and into a small room between MacGill’s apartment and the bar, she followed with her lap top and notebook, glad she had jotted down all the details she could remember. The detective directed her into one of two cane chairs and swung the other around to sit facing her, his spiral note pad braced on the ladder back. As she flipped to her Rossi entry, he raised an eyebrow at the loose pages, the smeary scribble, the doodling in the margins of oak trees and boats and lately, of Marcia Water’s predatory owls. But he took notes as she read aloud every remark she had heard from or about Rossi. She ended by giving him John’s office number, as well as the one at home.
“Got a positive ID this morning,” he said, “and you can give your newspaper the Shell Mound location, say he was staying at the hotel here. But no details about the body or the burial.” He looked down, a bit sheepish. “Reckon I ought to thank you for the cemetery tip.”
“The murder scene?”
He nodded. “Could be. Metal detector turned up a coupla cartridge casings. Ophthalmologist in Chiefland’s gonna check out the glass fragments we found there, see if they match the victim’s glasses. Tire tracks look like those at Shell Mound. Don’t help us identify the killer, anyhow. The vehicle was the victim’s rental car.”
Brandy reached for a pencil. “You’re saying someone killed Rossi, buried the body, then came back and ran the car into the Gulf?”
Strong nodded again. “Guess the perp thought fresh digging would show up in the graveyard, but not in a hidden spot off the park trail.
He didn’t figure on your dog.” He put his note pad in his pocket, stood, and swiveled the chair back in place. “But that fact’s still off the record. I’m not giving out details ‘til we’ve got a suspect.”
Brandy tapped the pencil on the blank page. “Only one set of tire tracks in the cemetery? Rossi must’ve gone there with the killer. Rossi must’ve known him—or her. But why the cemetery?
A hint of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “A nice quiet place. Fits my drug scenario. Most likely a deal gone sour.”
She paused, remembering something else. “Shell Mound dirt should be full of shell fragments. Is the spade being tested?”
He flashed one of his broad white smiles. “You don’t miss much, Ma’am. But the spade’s not a lot of help, either. Several folks say it belongs to the hotel, but there’s no fingerprints.”
“Still, it might give the crime a local connection. If the spade checks out, it means the killer knew where it was kept. Besides who besides the killer would be using a spade in the middle of the night? Handle’s probably wiped clean. Otherwise you’d have the y
ard man’s prints.” She cocked her head. “Found the weapon yet?”
Strong shook his head as Brandy snapped the notebook shut and stood. She hesitated at the lounge door. “I should tell you I’m going to New York tomorrow. I want to find out what Rossi knew when he placed that classified ad.”
The dark brows converged. “No law against it, I guess. I been in touch with New York P.D. They’ll seal the victim’s records. Come down to it, I reckon I’ll go up there soon myself. Check out the drug connection.”
As Brandy stepped into the deserted bar, he followed, then halted and faced her. “Ma’am, I’ll tell you again. Best leave the investigation to law enforcement. You heading for a peck of trouble. Whatever Rossi knew, got him killed. The Bible say, ‘The evil is sown, but the destruction thereof is not yet done.’” He winked and slid past her.
I’m never quite sure what the detective means, she thought. Was he winking to make me feel better about the scolding? Or to say he knows
I’ll do whatever’s necessary to get the story? Or to emphasize his warning. Detective Jeremiah Strong was a puzzle.
At the desk she stopped to offer her credit card and keys and saw a note in her box. The clerk handed Brandy the slip. “Your husband called. Says he’ll be out of the office today.”
Brandy glanced at the clerk’s neat handwriting. “Mr. Able will be with a client on the job site most of the day. He got your message.”
Brandy crumpled up the paper. “I asked you to call me. You saw where I went.”
The clerk gave a righteous lift to her head. “I never interrupt anyone in Mr. MacGill’s conference room, know what I mean?”
Another murder wouldn’t solve the problem, Brandy thought, tempted as she was. She jotted down Thea’s name and phone number. “If he calls again, be sure he knows how to reach me at my friend’s apartment tomorrow.”