Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon

1513—Ponce de Leon is thought to be the first European to discover Florida, which he claimed for Spain. His sailors, watching as they pass the southern islands (the Keys), decide that the mangrove roots look like tortured souls and call them Los Martires, or “the Martyrs.”

Circa 1600—Key West begins to appear on European maps and charts. The first explorers came upon the bones of deceased native tribes, and thus the island was called “the Island of Bones,” or Cayo Hueso.

The Golden Age of Piracy begins as New World ships carry vast treasures through dangerous waters.

1763—The Treaty of Paris gives Florida and Key West to the British and Cuba to the Spanish. The Spanish and Native Americans are forced to leave the Keys and move to Havana. The Spanish, however, claim that the Keys are not part of mainland Florida and were really North Havana. The English say no, the Keys are a part of Florida. In reality, this dispute is merely a war of words. Hardy souls of many nationalities fish, cut timber, hunt turtles—and avoid pirates—with little restraint from any government.

1783—The Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolution and returns Florida to Spain.

1815–Spain deeds the island of Key West to a loyal Spaniard, Juan Pablo Salas of St. Augustine, Florida.

1819–1822—Florida is ceded to the United States. Salas sells the island to John Simonton for $2,000. Simonton divides the island into four parts, three going to businessmen John Whitehead, John Fleming and Pardon Greene. Cayo Hueso becomes more generally known as Key West.

1822—Simonton convinces the U.S. Navy to come to Key West—the deep-water harbor, which had kept pirates, wreckers and others busy while the land was scarcely developed, would be an incredible asset to the U.S. Lieutenant Matthew C. Perry arrives to assess the situation. Perry reports favorably on the strategic military importance but warns the government that the area is filled with unsavory characters—such as pirates.

1823—Captain David Porter is appointed commodore of the West Indies Anti-Pirate Squadron, known as the “Mosquito Fleet.” He takes over ruthlessly, basically putting Key West under martial law. People do not like him. However, starting in 1823, he does begin to put a halt to piracy in the area.

The United States of America is in full control of Key West, which is part of the U.S. territory of Florida, and
colonizing begins in earnest by Americans, though, as always, those Americans come from many places.

Circa 1828—Wrecking becomes a big business in Key West, and much of the island becomes involved in the activity. It’s such big business that over the next twenty years, the island becomes one of the richest areas per capita in the United States. In the minds of some, a new kind of piracy has replaced the old. Although wrecking and salvage were licensed and legal, many a ship was lured to its doom by less than scrupulous businessmen.

1845—Florida becomes a state. Construction begins on a fort to protect Key West.

1846—Construction of Fort Jefferson is begun in the Dry Tortugas.

1850—The fort on the island of Key West is named after President Zachary Taylor.

New lighthouses bring about the end of the Golden Age of Wrecking.

1861—Florida secedes from the Union on January 10. Fort Zachary Taylor is staunchly held in Union hands and helps defeat the Confederate Navy and control the movement of blockade runners during the war. Key West remains a divided city throughout the great conflict. Construction is begun on the East and West Martello towers, which will serve as supply depots. The salt ponds of Key West supply both sides.

1865—The War of Northern Aggression comes to an end with the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. Salvage of blockade runners comes to an end.

Dr. Samuel Mudd, deemed guilty of conspiracy after setting John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after Lincoln’s assassination, is incarcerated at Fort Jefferson, the Dry Tortugas.

As salt and salvage industries come to an end, cigar making becomes a major business. The Keys are filled with Cuban cigar makers following Cuba’s war of independence, but the cigar makers eventually move to Ybor City. Sponging is also big business for a period, but the sponge divers head for waters near Tampa as disease riddles Key West’s beds and the remote location makes industry difficult.

1890—The building that will become known as “the little White House” is built for use as an officer’s quarters at the naval station. President Truman will spend at least 175 days here, and it will be visited by Eisenhower, Kennedy and many other dignitaries.

1898—The USS
Maine
explodes in Havana Harbor, precipitating the Spanish-American War. Her loss is heavily felt in Key West, as she had been sent from Key West to Havana.

Circa 1900—Robert Eugene Otto is born. At the age of four, he receives the doll he will call “Robert,” and a legend is born as well.

1912—Henry Flagler brings the Overseas Railroad to Key West, connecting the islands to the mainland for the first time.

1917—On April 6, the United States enters World War I. Key West maintains a military presence.

1919—Treaty of Versailles ends World War I.

1920s—Prohibition gives Key West a new industry—bootlegging.

1927—Pan American World Airways is founded in Key West to fly visitors back and forth to Havana.

Carl Tanzler, “Count von Cosel,” arrives in Key West and takes a job at the U.S. Marine Hospital as a radiologist.

1928—Ernest Hemingway comes to Key West. It’s rumored that while waiting for a roadster from the factory he writes
A Farewell to Arms.

1931—Hemingway and his wife, Pauline, are gifted with the house on Whitehead Street. Polydactyl cats descend from his pet, Snowball.

Death of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos.

1933—Count von Cosel removes Elena’s body from the cemetery.

1935—The Labor Day Hurricane wipes out the Overseas Railroad and kills hundreds of people. The railroad will not be rebuilt. The Great Depression comes to Key West, as well, and the island, once the richest in the country, struggles with severe unemployment.

1938—An overseas highway is completed, U.S. 1, connecting Key West and the Keys to the mainland.

1940—Hemingway and Pauline divorce; Key West loses its great writer, except as a visitor.

Tanzler is found living with Elena’s corpse. Her second viewing at the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home draws thousands of visitors.

1941—December 7, “a date that will live in infamy,” occurs, and the U.S. enters World War II.

Tennessee Williams first comes to Key West.

1945—World War II ends with the armistice of August 14 (Europe) and the surrender of Japan, September 2.

Key West struggles to regain a livable economy.

1947—It is believed that Tennessee Williams wrote his first draft of
A Streetcar Named Desire
while staying at La Concha Hotel on Duval Street.

1962—The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs. President John F. Kennedy warns the United States that Cuba is only ninety miles away.

1979—The first Fantasy Fest is celebrated.

1980—The Mariel boatlift brings tens of thousands of Cuban refugees to Key West.

1982—The Conch Republic is born. In an effort to control illegal immigration and drugs, the U.S. sets up a blockade in Florida City, at the northern end of U.S. 1. Traffic is at a stop for seventeen miles, and the mayor of Key West retaliates on April 23, seceding from the U.S. Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow declares war, surrenders and demands foreign aid. As the U.S. has never responded, under International law, the Conch Republic still exists. Its foreign policy is stated as, “The Mitigation of World Tension through the Exercise of Humor.” Even though the U.S. never officially recognizes the action, it has the desired effect: the paralyzing blockade is lifted.

1985—Jimmy Buffet opens his first Margaritaville restaurant in Key West.

Fort Zachary Taylor becomes a Florida State Park (and a wonderful place for reenactments, picnics and beach bumming).

Treasure hunter Mel Fisher at long last finds the
Atocha.

1999—First Pirates in Paradise is celebrated.

2000–Present—Key West remains a unique paradise, garish, loud, charming, filled with history, water sports, family activities, and down and dirty bars. “The Gibraltar
of the East,” she offers diving, shipwrecks and the spirit of adventure that makes her a fabulous destination, for a day, or forever.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

T
he sun was setting, casting a bloodred hue upon the land and the Merlin house.

The house was quite odd, sitting on a spit of peninsula that stretched in a small curlicue from the Old Town mainland of Key West. One of a kind, it was Victorian and elegant—and in a state of neglect and decay that made it appear as if it were haunted, almost a living, breathing entity. Shadowed windows might have been eyes, watching all activity that surrounded the place. The fading gray paint created a trick of light in the coming darkness, making it seem as if there was a pulse in the façade of the place. It sat, quiet, dormant, and yet alive…waiting.

Liam Beckett parked his car in the overgrown gravel drive of the old house, dreading what he would find within, and thinking back many years.

This had been Kelsey’s home for so long. Until her mother had died, and her father had taken her away. Cutter Merlin had stayed behind, either mourning his only daughter or left behind by his son-in-law. Liam didn’t know. He remembered Kelsey, though. She’d been his enemy—the little girl who tortured him with
spitballs while he’d slipped behind her to tie knots in her hair—and then, somewhere along the way, they’d become friends. And then she had become the first real crush of his life, a dark-haired tomboy who had become a lithe and elegant young woman. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye.

And now…

He walked to the front door and knocked. The house was nearly seven thousand square feet, and Cutter lived in it alone, so—with or without his sense of dread—there was no reason to fear because his initial knock wasn’t answered. He pressed the buzzer for the doorbell, but he was certain that it hadn’t worked in years.

He heard nothing within the house.

He banged on the door again, but there was still no response.

He stepped back on the porch. As Jason Fried had reported, the mail was piling up.

Maybe Cutter Merlin had gone somewhere. Out to see his granddaughter in California, perhaps.

But that wasn’t the case, and Liam knew it.

Cutter Merlin hadn’t left the island in a decade.

He walked around back. The house itself sat on a solid coral-and-limestone shelf that gave way to sand, sea grapes and mangroves. Bony pines and low scruff foliage surrounded the house, most of it appearing to be dead and unkempt, adding to the barren, forgotten and forlorn appearance of the property. Liam knew how to break in: when Kelsey had forgotten her keys, they had crept through the brush—once tended—to the rear of the house and the laundry room. There was a loose screen
over the washer and dryer, and it was a piece of cake to move it.

Liam did so.

He slipped the screen out and crawled in, then leapt down from the dryer to the floor.

The odor assailed him immediately, and he knew.

He just had to find the body.

He flicked the switch, but the lights in the laundry room were out. He doubted it had been used in a long time. The connecting door between the kitchen and the laundry room was unlocked, though, giving to his touch. In the kitchen, he flicked another light switch.

A dim bulb came to life.

Cutter Merlin had been fixing himself something to eat. Flies buzzed around a bowl of tomato soup and the sandwich on the plate beside it. Liam touched the bread; it was hard as a rock. An odor different from the intense smell of death but nearly as bad rose from the sandwich.

He walked through to the massive dining room. A bay window seat to the north usually gave a beautiful view of the Gulf, a magnificent site to watch the sunset. But he couldn’t see the dying sun except for a sliver of light; the drapes had been drawn.

There was a patina of dust over the house. Cobwebs covered the chandelier over the dining table.

“Cutter?” Liam called the man’s name, and then felt like an ass, talking to himself. He knew that Cutter was dead. No living man could have remained in that house with the odor, a miasma that was palpable.

One tile step led to the grand living room. The
light from the kitchen wasn’t enough to filter in, but, trying another switch, Liam discovered that it, too, was dead.

The room was cast in the eerie bloodred that was darkened by the shadows of the coming night.

It had once been beautiful, with Italian marble floors, elegant throw rugs and crimson Duncan Fife furnishings. Over the years, it had become cluttered, and not with the usual accumulation of silly souvenirs, magazines or papers. There were boxes everywhere. A suit of armor—real—stood in a corner, near a Victorian coffin with a window at the head and a painting beneath the window to display how the dead might have been shown. A mummy case lay to one side of the fireplace, and an authentic voodoo altar lay to the right. A glass dome covered a shrunken head he knew to be from New Guinea, and a stuffed raven took precedence on the mantel. Everywhere you looked, there was an artifact from somewhere, some in pristine condition, others worn and falling apart. Animal heads adorned the walls along with African masks and feathered spears.

There was so much in the room to attract the eye in the strange mixture of shadow and light that Liam didn’t even see the dead man at first.

And then he did.

Like one of his relics, Cutter Merlin was covered in a thin patina of dust. A spider had spun her web from the edge of Cutter’s reading glasses to the armrest of the rocking chair on which he sat.

Liam felt his heart sink. He’d known, of course. He found himself suddenly wishing that he—or
someone—had kept up with the old recluse. Cutter Merlin had always been kind to children. He’d been filled with wonderful tales about distant lands: Asia, Far East, Middle East, the jungles of South America and the sands of the Sahara desert. But his daughter had died, his son-in-law and granddaughter had moved away and he had closed himself in with his treasures. Then there had been the strange rumors about the old hermit and his collections. He practiced black magic. He made deals with the devil.

He sat now, just sat, a book in his hands, dust motes dancing in the crimson air around him. Old and frail, his hair long and white, his cheeks covered in a stubble of white beard, he looked as if he might speak. But, of course, he would never speak again.

“Ah, Mr. Merlin!” Liam said softly, walking toward the old man. He noted then that the corpse’s mouth was slightly open, while its eyes were wide-open as well behind steel-framed reading glasses. It was as if Cutter Merlin had died staring toward the foyer and the grand front entry, terrified of whatever he saw there. The expression on his face was so filled with horror that Liam found himself turning to look.

But there was nothing there. He turned and came down on one knee by the corpse. He realized that he would be saturated with the smell of death when he left, but it didn’t matter; he had known the man. He was a sad old fellow who had given a great deal, and he had died alone, in fear.

He sighed softly, shaking his head sadly. He took out
his cell and called in the death; the medical examiner would arrive soon.

There wasn’t a terrible rush; Cutter Merlin was dead. The spider that had spun the web about him emerged from the old man’s mouth, causing Liam to start and shudder—and be glad that no one had been there to see his horrified reaction.

Liam frowned, noting the book on the old man’s lap. It was large, with gold trim on the pages, and Liam judged it to be a hundred or more years old. He carefully lifted the cover, but the bloodred twilight was turning to darker and darker shadow, so he took his flashlight from his pocket, carefully lifting the book with the tip of the light.

In Defense from Dark Magick.

There was something in the old man’s hand, as well. Liam knew not to touch him until the M.E. came, but he was curious, and it hardly appeared that this could be a case of murder. An old man had scared himself, and died from a heart attack.

His gloves were in the car, so he used the tip of the small laser light to shift the hand and see what was clutched in the fingers. The old man had long since gone in and out of rigor, so he wasn’t stiff, and Liam was easily able to see what he clutched.

It was a casket, a little gold casket, like a jewelry box with its lid open for a special piece. Liam hadn’t been an altar boy, but he had been brought to church every Sunday when he’d been growing up. It seemed to him that the box was some kind of reliquary. It appeared to contain a small gold ball, filigreed, with the
ball designed to fit into the casket, and the casket designed just to fit the ball.

Beneath the book on his lap, Cutter held an old sawed-off shotgun.

“What were you doing, old man?” Liam asked softly aloud. He shook his head and stood, looking around the room again. Boxes and crates and pieces—some priceless, some surely pure junk—seemed piled en masse. Now, the shadows stretched out like bone-fingered tentacles. Liam walked across the room to the main entrance, and, once again with his flashlight, studied the door. Odd. Cutter Merlin had prepared his dinner, simple soup and a sandwich. But he had never eaten it. He had taken a book and an old relic and gone to sit in his rocking chair by the fire, staring at the front door.

Staring as if he were waiting for someone, but with a book and gold casket as his weapons, along with a sawed-off shotgun. He hadn’t pulled out the shotgun to aim at anyone; it remained on his lap, beneath the book.

Cutter Merlin had been called eccentric as long as Liam could remember.

In the last years, he had been referred to as a crazy hermit. To keep their children from playing near the shoreline where the boats came and the water could suddenly become deep, local parents had warned that the man was loony, that he might have been the devil.

The front door was locked. In fact, there were three bolts on the door now, and they were all secured.

It was as if Cutter Merlin had become quite frightened of some visitor in his dotage. Who?

He’d probably begun to suffer dementia. Alzheimer’s. And none of them had really known. Or cared. Liam felt horrible again; how had they all forgotten this man?

He walked back to the corpse. Cutter still stared at the door in fear—and determination. He had been clutching the little casket as if his life had depended upon it.

“Poor old fellow,” Liam said. “You were always good to me. I’m sorry that I forgot you.”

Hearing the approach of the M.E.’s car, he returned to the door. He was about to unlatch the locks when he decided that he just might want to investigate the death further. He headed into the kitchen for a towel and covered his fingers to unlatch the bolts.

The M.E. was Franklin Valaski, a veteran of many a death, natural and unnatural. He was nearly Cutter Merlin’s own age, or at least he looked nearly as old. Maybe his years observing death had made him old early and given him that look of an old bulldog. He was short, stout, wrinkled and excellent at his job. He was followed by an assistant, one of the dieners at the morgue, who bore a stretcher.

“So, old Merlin finally bit the dust, eh?” Valaski said, shaking his head. “Tell you the truth, I had all but forgotten the old bastard was out here.”

“Sad, huh?” Liam murmured. “Looks like a heart attack.”

“Lead the way,” Valaski said.

Liam pointed to the rocking chair, and Valaski went on over to the corpse. The young diener nodded an appropriately grim greeting to Liam, which Liam returned, and then stared around the house.

The diener was gaping at what he saw.

You didn’t know Merlin!
Liam thought.

Then, naturally, he found himself thinking about Kelsey. Her mother had died here. He didn’t know much about it—he had been fifteen at the time. It had been a tragic accident, he knew, and Kelsey’s father hadn’t wanted to do anything except escape Key West—and the place where his beloved wife had perished.

He had been brokenhearted to see Kelsey go. But then, half his class had been in love with or in awe of Kelsey—all of them budding into adolescence, a bit slowly, being boys. She had been a whirlwind of smiles and energy. In grade school, she had been a freckled little thing with thick pigtails. But in middle school she had shot up, and she had acquired an amazing shape. Unruly dark hair had become a beautiful and sleek deep brown, so shiny it seemed black, like a raven’s wing. Her freckles had faded, and her eyes had become the deepest shade of blue that he had ever seen. She had been friendly to everyone, kind to the kids other kids picked on, and she had eschewed as sophomoric the idea of being a cheerleader or belonging to any club.

Sometimes, when people had teased her about her grandfather, she had let her eyes grow big and assured them that he was the devil. Then she’d laughed and told them that he was an adventurer, and, until he had turned sixty, he had traveled the globe, battling primitive tribes on the islands of the Pacific and riding camels in the Sahara. She had defended him as the most magnificent explorer in the world. He’d even been to the North Pole!

Liam realized he hadn’t thought about Kelsey in years, either. He’d heard about her father’s death; he had succumbed to a virulent flu a few years ago.

He’d sent her an e-mail knowing that he had learned about it long after the funeral. No flowers to send—even if he had known where to send them.

Now, of course, he’d have to find Kelsey, wherever she was. Probably still in California—she had become a cartoonist, he’d heard. Naturally—she’d always been a good artist. He’d find a phone number; it was one thing to send sympathy in a note after the fact; it was quite a different matter to tell her about a death that way. He didn’t know what she would feel; Liam was pretty sure that she hadn’t seen Cutter Merlin since she’d left Key West.

“Odd,” Valaski announced.

“What’s odd?” Liam asked, walking toward the M.E.

“Looks like a coronary, but…”

“Yeah?”

“It looks as if he were…scared to death,” Valaski said.

“He was an old man, and he probably wasn’t under any medical care,” Liam said. “He might have been suffering from delusions.”

“Hmm,” Valaski said, agreeing. “Odd, though—a man who lived with a mummy, shrunken skulls, coffins and voodoo offerings. Stuffed animals. Bones. Petrified flesh. You wouldn’t think he’d scare easy.”