HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (18 page)

She lifted it, trying not to disturb anything beneath. Under it lay pottery fragments, some large, some decorated like the ones Grif had shown her. Surely, he had not left these artifacts here. Vandals must again be at work. In one corner someone had stuffed a bag of white powder—cocaine? Brandy sagged with disappointment. No sign of Daria. At least she could report what she had found, only scattered pottery and probably drugs.

Smuggling had always been a problem on this jagged coast. She dropped the tarp back in place. Still, the shack had been worth checking. Deputies searching for Daria wouldn’t think of it.

Brandy had turned to leave when a sound outside paralyzed her—the crunch of shells under heavy boots. She froze. Someone was tramping over the hill, then down toward the hut. She held her breath, peered through a crack in the flimsy wall, saw nothing but cedars and sky. The outer door creaked. She shoved the door before her shut and pressed against the store-room’s pitted back wall, eyes wide, heart thumping. Had Grif come back for more pots? To herself she cried “Please, let it be Grif!”

The outer door banged open, footsteps echoed across the wooden floor. Then the inner door flung wide and a figure loomed before her—not Grif s. Even before the man laughed, his fleshy frame was unmistakable. A shaved head ducked under the lintel.

“Didn’t pay me no never mind, did you, bitch?” Tugboat said. “No never mind a-t’all. Still sticking your nose where it ain’t wanted.” One meaty hand grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her into the larger room. His moist lips and beard stank of whiskey, but he hadn’t drunk enough to be harmless. He dropped his grasp and stood, legs apart, hands on his hips. She felt faint with terror, knowing what he might try next.

But for now he wanted to talk. “Let’s see. Found yourself a good place to poke around, I reckon. A good place. Hardly nobody comes up here. And your boyfriend’s done finished his work. Now ain’t that a shame.” He spat a wad of tobacco into the corner of the room. A spider, its body the size of a fifty-cent piece, scurried into a corner.

Brandy said nothing. She hadn’t seen his Rottweiler. Was the dog trained to attack? Tugboat reached forward and snatched the canvas bag from her shoulder. No great loss, she thought. Bug repellent, note pad, a few bills, some coins, a lipstick and comb. He rummaged through it, grinned, and threw it back.

“Reckon I’ll just lock you up a spell, so’s you can think about the trouble you in.” He pulled a padlock from a jeans pocket. “I’d best do a little planning, before your boyfriend comes looking for you.”

Brandy’s throat felt like ashes; her body stiffened. Grif was busy, wouldn’t try to reach her until tomorrow. John wasn’t coming at all. Carole wasn’t due back for another week. Brandy had asked a neighbor to feed the animals if she was out late. No one knew her schedule. She had written in her notebook on the porch that she would search the north end of Tiger Tail Island, not here, and Annie had her cell. Brandy waited, trembling.

Tugboat squinted into the room. “Got to do things right. Lots of digging been going on, what with your boyfriend fooling around up here. Oh, I know what he’s up to. But he’s gone now. No one’s gonna pay no attention to a tad more digging. Reckon them old Indian bones won’t mind a little company.” He grinned at his joke. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.” He gave another gravelly chuckle, stepped outside, and the door slammed shut. Brandy heard the hasps snap together on the padlock. She had a few minutes, no more.

Had he gone for a gun? A man like that always had one, a rifle probably for hunting. And a shovel? Rope, maybe? She spun wildly around, raced back into the storage room, and knelt in one corner. She had seen something. It seemed unimportant then—a crack under the foundation board that supported the back wall. She thrust a finger through the opening. The dirt was almost pure sand, not shells as she feared. In the rear of the shed, rain had washed much of the loose soil down the slope.

The clay fragments on the shelf must be sturdy. She lifted the tarp and picked up a piece about six inches square with a sharp, serrated edge. It felt firm and grainy in her fingers. How much time? Maybe Tugboat would stop for another swig. Her heart drummed, hands shook. She began to dig. Once Jeremiah Strong had told her, if you can push your head through an opening, your whole body will fit. Useful knowledge for jailers, and he had served once, he said, in the county jail. Her nails broke, dirt rained down on her jeans and shirt, her face became a sandy mask. She dared not stop, even to glance at her watch. What lay outside? She would have to try to reach her boat. She couldn’t find help on this lonely island.

At last she threw herself down, face up, and tried to slither under. Her forehead struck the splintered bottom board and bled. She dug some more, tried again. This time she scraped the board, squirmed further.

Pushing hard with her feet in the sand, she shoved her way into the open air, reached back into the opening for the canvas bag, and took a few seconds to swipe some ofthe sand back into the hole. Don’t leave a clear trail, she thought, and dropped the pottery fragment into her bag. Then she squatted, quivering, her frenzied gaze searching for a route to the river. Behind the hut lay a stretch of silvery needlerush, knee high, beyond it more clusters of red cedars, a spiky century plant. A light wind felt cool on her sweaty forehead.

How had the Seminoles escaped the soldiers and seemed to vanish? They crawled.

Brandy dropped to her knees, worked her way into the tall rushes, lay on her stomach, and pulled herself along, hoping that the movement of the wind would hide her own motion. She could hear nothing. No boat engine. No footsteps. She did not dare rise and look back. Instead, she tried to remember where the base of the mound lay. She had to circle it, make her way to the water, through the reed and marsh grasses, avoiding the spines on the sharp side of the sawgrass. She had pulled the boat ashore near a stand of tall cedar. For that she said a grateful prayer.

Brandy lost all sense of time. Reaching forward with aching fingers, she pulled her body after them, writhing like a snake through high grasses that scratched and scraped. Sand spurs embedded in her hands, clung to her shirt and pants. Mosquitoes and yellow flies buzzed and stung. Her nostrils filled with the acrid odor of damp soil and soggy weeds.

Finally, she allowed herself to creep forward on her knees, keeping her head well down. Her hands began to sink into marsh. She must be nearer the river. When she reached the shelter of the cedars, she crouched forward, picked up a fallen branch, still laced with a few berries, as a shield and slithered from tree to tree. She was out of sight of the shack now, but keeping a circular distance from the mound summit. Tugboat might’ve left the island, gone elsewhere for his gun and his tools. Her spirits rose.

Above an osprey soared up with a fish in its claws. That meant the river. She spotted a heron poised on the low branch of a turkey oak. It must be fishing along the shore. She dropped her leafy camouflage and knelt behind a wide cedar. She could see her boat, but not Tugboat’s, although it could be in the cove. Hers was about ten yards away. Again she crawled over sharp oyster shells, hands bleeding. Not daring to look up, she shoved the pontoons into the water and pulled herself through the aluminum gate. With a paddle she pushed the pontoons far enough to cover the electric prop. Tugboat had not searched her pockets, had not found her keys. Maybe he thought she had left them in the boat. She would drift out into the current, then switch on the electric motor. As soon as she could get far enough down river, she’d shift to the gasoline engine. Her pulse pounded.

And then Brandy heard the shout. “Thought you’d get away, bitch?” Tugboat stood in a clear space between two cedars, maybe twenty yards away, his Rottweiler beside him, a rifle in his hand. The dog might’ve tracked her. Through the silent air she heard the metallic shell snapping into place. She had been so close, so ready to sneak away. Tugboat could’ve been watching her, could’ve relished her struggle through the weeds before he finished it with one powerful bullet. A boy teasing a doomed fly. In that second, one half of her brain felt paralyzed, the other half thought: I’ve been here before. But Fishhawk had not meant to kill her with his rifle. Tugboat clearly did. To lose to Tugboat now—it was too much to bear.

Brandy dropped to the deck. Her fevered mind grasped one hope—where was the crab fisherman? By now he should be on his way back. On her port side she could hear the faint drone of an engine. As Tugboat lifted the rifle to his shoulder and lowered his head to sight down the barrel, the thrumming sound increased. Around the closest bend glided the flat-bottomed boat, the gray-bearded fisherman at the tiller. His engine roared, then abruptly stopped. Brandy leaped up, shouted, “Help!” waved her bag.

He steered nearer. “Something the matter? Can’t get ‘er going? Need a tow?” He tipped back his cap and waited. A teen-aged boy stood amidships holding a trap. At some level of consciousness, Brandy was aware of a large blue crab wiggling down the wire toward a bucket. Their engine idled.

She found her voice, did not look back at Tugboat. “Think I can get her started okay now,” she shouted. “Can I follow you in?”

The man nodded and called back, “Keep to the middle of the channel.”

Before she switched on her gasoline engine, she glanced at the shore. She had heard Tugboat’s loud laugh, but he had now vanished. She could not tell if the fisherman had seen him. Her pontoon boat surged ahead as she shifted gear with trembling fingers, came around, and plowed along behind the crabber. Each time he stopped to check a trap, she stopped. As they made their slow way back to the commercial fishing docks, she did not hear a boat behind them.

There she waved her thanks to the man and his son, noted the name “Margaret Ann” on its hull, and cruised on to the marina. She could not bring herself to go back alone to the house. She wondered if she would ever feel safe alone again. She wanted to be around people, but her matted hair and filthy shirt and pants made her look as if she’d dragged herself out of a coal mine. The one person she wanted to see was Detective Jeremiah Strong. Fat chance. At the marina pier near the motel, she tied up and stumbled up onto the patio deck beside a small outdoor Tiki bar, sat down at a picnic table, and dropped her head on her arms. Had Tugboat laughed because he only meant to frighten her with this threats, or because he was for the moment outwitted?

A tourist from the motel, an older man, came down a gravel path toward her, concerned. “You all right, Miss?”

Brandy lifted her head. “I need a phone.”

He nodded toward the restaurant wall and pay phone. She remembered her canvas bag. Tugboat had not taken her change. To the man’s obvious surprise, she thumped it and shook off a shower of sand before hobbling over to dial the Sheriff s Office in Inverness.

She had never been as glad to hear a voice. “Jeremiah Strong here,” it said. “What can I do for you?”

Brandy went limp with relief. “Come to Homosassa,” she whimpered, “and lend me a shoulder to cry on. I’m scared.”

CHAPTER 12
 

An hour after Brandy called Detective Strong, she emerged from a hot shower, kicked her sand spur-laden jeans aside, pulled on a fresh pair and shirt, and stepped into the living room smelling of talcum powder and fresh soap. She felt human again. The Sergeant had driven immediately to the Homosassa marina, persuaded her to leave her boat there, helped her into his car and, picked up two Cuban sandwiches at a local restaurant for a late lunch. He then deposited her at her front door and was waiting on the screened porch for a briefing. She paused in the kitchen to pour iced tea and warm the sandwiches in the toaster oven before joining him. Strong sat with his note pad flipped open, his face a mask of patient resignation.

“You’ve learned a lesson, I hope,” he said. “Almost got yourself killed. ‘Be not curious about unnecessary matters,’ I believe I told you.”

Brandy bristled. “I’m grateful to the bone for your help, Sergeant. But what I was doing was necessary. No one else planned to look for Daria Pine in that shack, and I found what I’m sure is a stash of cocaine. I didn’t interfere with your investigation. I was a volunteer in the search.”

“The volunteer search, young lady, was coordinated by the Sheriffs Office. We weren’t asking for lone rangers.”

A subdued Brandy set down the iced tea and Cubans, while Strong glanced at his note pad where he had already jotted a few precise lines. “Tugboat Grapple has a reputation in these parts, all right. Petty stuff, as far as I can tell, but the locals figure he might be bringing dope in from ships out in the Gulf.”

Suddenly Brandy was shaking with hunger and nipped into the crusty, flattened bread and layers of ham, cheese, roast pork, and salami, trying not to look greedy. An eternity had passed since breakfast, but it was only two-thirty in the afternoon. Between savory mouthfuls, she said, “I think Tugboat—and maybe his wife and Alma May Flint—are behind the vandalism at the Indian mound. Stealing artifacts and peddling them in the black market. They’re at it again. It may be his side line. I overheard Alma May say Melba needed money, mostly because of Tugboat’s gambling. And Alma May herself wants to sell her house, so she may be short of funds, too. They seem to have their own private agenda.”

Strong folded a napkin neatly over his lap. Brandy had never seen him rumpled or his trousers without a crease. She didn’t know whether to credit the detective himself or his devoted wife back in Inverness.

“I’ve got a detective looking for Tugboat Grapple now,” he said. “Smugglers love this coast, all these little inlets and rivers. You probably stumbled into one operation, all right. We’ll find out.”

Brandy tried to eat as tidily as Strong, but she felt mayonnaise oozing from the corner of her lips. While she dabbed her chin, she shuddered at a sudden memory. “He was going to shoot me and bury my body with the mound builders.” Her voice rose. “He could’ve gutted my boat and sunk it in some dead-end creek where it wouldn’t be found for months.” Worse, she knew no one would’ve found her, either.