HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (3 page)

Brandy started back toward the pier. The detective stood beside the body, back very straight, hands on his hips. Brandy hoped the deputies would soon cover the corpse and move it to the lab. She felt an obligation to Timothy Hart. She had believed him. Instead the detective began directing both the first young deputy and then second, who now walked carefully about, snapping photographs of the yard and the body from every angle. Brandy had reached the dock before she recognized the detective. She had not expected to see him again, certainly not in Homosassa. Their last meeting had been in Cedar Key in nearby Levy County. Brandy had been persistent about a homicide case there. She had begged this detective to help her with a scheme and at last he had agreed, mainly to get rid of her.

She stood patiently without speaking while he knelt to make his own examination. He carefully scooped up a sample of the vomit, then paced around the yard and shore, noticing every blemish in the soil, every indentation in the coating of oyster shells.

“Detective Strong!” she called finally, smiling. “Are you working in Citrus County now?”

Puzzled, Sergeant Jeremiah Strong turned. His slacks and shirt were as crisp as the leaves of a cardboard fern, his expression as unbending. She had hoped for an answering grin. Instead, he clapped one large hand to his forehead and shook his head. “Lord, protect me,” he said. She waited for his hallmark Bible quotation. It came, perhaps predictably, from the book of Job. “The thing I have greatly feared is come upon me. How long will ye vex my soul?”

Brandy stepped forward and held out her hand, which he took briefly, then sighed. “I never know what to call you women who don’t use your husband’s last name. Are you Mrs. Able or Miss O’Bannon?”

Brandy smiled. “Neither, actually. I’m the wife of John Able, whose name is Brandy O’Bannon. But come on now, friend. Working together in Cedar Key wasn’t all that bad, was it? After all, you caught the bad guy red-handed. I thought you were pleased.”

He dropped his head. “Almost lost my rank over that case, O’Bannon. Your little plan wasn’t exactly accepted procedure. I put a civilian in danger. You.”

She moved a few feet closer. “But I’m sure that’s not why you’re in Citrus County now.”

He crossed long arms over his chest and looked down at her. “No. Better pay. A bigger county, and one that’s growing. In spite of a certain reporter, I had a good reputation. It saved me. We moved to Inverness two years ago so I could take a job at the Sheriffs Office there.” Brandy remembered hearing about Strong’s family. He had a patient wife and two children, one a boy he coached in Little League. She’d liked that about him.

The body of Timothy Hart, covered with a sheet at last, was being lifted into the patrol boat on a litter, accompanied by the medical examiner. The deputies glanced at Strong, seeking his okay. He nodded.

“Now looks like we have another death,” Brandy said. “May be natural, of course. Mr. Hart said he was sick. Still, the medical examiner was a little suspicious, and the victim did ask me to get in touch with him. He had a story he wanted to tell.”

Strong put his hand back on his hips and leaned forward. “Look, Miss O’Bannon or Mrs. Able, or whatever you call yourself, let me be clear. This is law enforcement business. Sometimes you got a problem with that. The Sheriff s Office has a spokesperson, a nice lady you’ll find at the Command Center in Inverness. Go talk to her tomorrow. I have the statement you gave the deputy. I’ll call you if I need you.”

Strong did not wait for a reply, but began stalking toward the house. Brandy followed. “Forgive me for coming along, Sergeant,” she said sweetly, “but I’ve been invited for lunch by Mrs. Flint. She lives here.”

Brandy thought she heard him groan as he knocked on the door, but she also thought her presence made Alma May more welcoming when she admitted them both. They stepped into a living room with sturdy maple sideboard and table, a fireplace with a mantle, a stiff looking sofa and two upholstered chairs. The detective asked to use a separate room. He would first speak to the realtor, Melba Grapple.

Alma May headed back toward the kitchen. “Beats all,” she said. “Finally get a buyer and he passes away. Thought he was looking poorly. I’ve still got one other boarder, but he’s leaving tomorrow.” She paused and glanced at Brandy. “Hope you and Melba like home-made vegetable soup. I’ll heat up some from last night. Early this morning, I brought in a mess of greens and fresh tomatoes.” She gave Brandy a no-nonsense look.

“And don’t come into the kitchen and try to help. I work quicker by myself.”

While her hostess banged pans around, Brandy peered at black and white family photographs on the mantle—Alma May as a child with stern looking parents in front of this same house and a portrait of an elderly man with a white beard she supposed was a grandfather. A small shelf under the window held two chipped green bottles, a cream pitcher with a broken spout, and a pewter spoon. In a few minutes, the realtor came back into the living room, while Detective Strong coaxed Mrs. Flint to join him. Next Melba took a seat on the sofa and pulled a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of her bag. She held the flame beneath the cigarette until the end glowed, then dragged an oyster shell ashtray across the maple table toward her. Her middle-aged face had an aristocratic cast—a beak-like nose, high cheekbones, large clear eyes. Her jeans were designer, her hair job professional. Brandy wondered how she had come to live in Homo-sassa.

“This house seems to have an interesting history,” Brandy said. “A feature story might help it sell.”

Melba swung her cigarette in a graceful arc. “Perhaps. The Flints were early settlers. And, of course, there was the Yulee Plantation here. Alma May and I like to explore the grounds. It’s a hobby. Sometimes I find broken pottery or glass bottles. I sent for an Archaeological Site short form. It lets us poke around and record what I find. Alma May’s picked up a few items, too. There’s never been a proper survey, though.”

“Any chance of valuable artifacts there?”

Melba ran her fingers through her ash-blonde hair and shook her head. “Anything of value would’ve been found over a hundred years ago.” In the library Brandy had read about David Yulee’s extensive sugar plantation. The crew of a Union gunboat had burned the main house, slave quarters, and chapel, but Homosassa still prided itself on the town’s remaining sugar mill ruins.

Alma May and Sergeant Strong appeared in the doorway. “I’ll let myself out,” he said. He nodded to Brandy and Melba, opened the front door, and crunched back over the oyster sells.

The old lady began slapping bowls and small plates on the table, then carried in a wooden bowl of salad greens and sliced tomatoes. Brandy could see Alma May’s vegetable garden through the dining room window. “Law’s started poking and prying, all right,” Alma May said and sighed. “We won’t have a moment’s peace.”

Brandy shifted the subject. “I was asking about the history of your house, Mrs. Flint.”

“Flints were here long before David Yulee,” she said, her voice sharp. “They had a little old cabin here before the county was settled. Passel of durned Indians burnt it to the ground. Killed everyone with knives and hatchets but my great-grandpa. He was just a boy then. If he hadn’t been out duck hunting, I wouldn’t be here.”

Melba took another lady-like puff on her cigarette and said in a quiet voice, “The massacre happened during the second Seminole War, of course. In the mid-eighteen-thirties.”

Brandy remembered the bartender’s comment last night. “What about the Seminoles who hid out on the island?”

Alma May’s lip curled downward. “Durned savages. I don’t allow no Indians on my place.”

Melba spoke up again. “Of course, there haven’t been any Indians around here in more than a century. They were all sent west, except for the few hundred who escaped into the Everglades.”

Brandy glanced at Alma May. “I saw one last night—with Mr. Hart.”

The old woman’s eyes glinted. “Well, he ain’t staying here. I hear he’s camping out on the island. It’s a big island. Can’t stop that.”

After they were seated at the table, Brandy broached the subject of Hart’s search. “Last night Mr. Hart talked about making an important discovery around here. I don’t know if it was something worth a lot of money, or just something of historical interest.” She watched their faces.

Melba looked up quickly, maybe surprised, maybe concerned, and murmured, “Of course, the Seminoles who came through here owned nothing of value. They were impoverished people, on the run.” Alma May paused in the kitchen door, holding a pan of steaming soup with a pot holder, eyebrows raised. “Thought you was interested in my house, young lady. I don’t go snooping into a boarder’s business, thank you very much.”

Brandy’s tone softened. “I am interested in your house, Mrs. Flint. But everyone’s going to ask you about Mr. Hart. Did you see him before you left this morning?”

Alma May ladled a thick broth of vegetables into three bowls. “Not this morning. Most often he didn’t get up early. I set some cereal and sweet rolls out for him before I left to pick up Melba. He’d been looking peaked. Only been here about a week. Said last night at supper he was going in to see a doctor. He had the trots, I think, and stomach cramps. He’d rented his own boat, so I went on down the creek.”

“Who’s the other boarder you mentioned, Mrs. Flint?” Brandy asked.

“The fellow who’s working at the Indian mound on the Little Homo-sassa. Sent down here by the state. Mound’s not far from here, so it makes it easy for him to go back and forth in his own boat. He leaves the house even earlier than I do.”

The archaeologist, Brandy realized. Hart’s attractive friend in the University of Florida tee shirt. He and Timothy Hart were fellow boarders. That was why they were together last night. That fact didn’t explain the Seminole.

“Just my luck,” Alma May added. “He’s fixing to leave, too. Taking a couple of rooms at a motel in town. Says he needs the extra space for a few items he wants to study.”

They finished their meal in silence. Brandy kept glancing out the window. How would she react if she were a settler and a warlike face appeared suddenly above the sill? When they had savored the last morsel of soup and salad, she rose and helped carry the plates and silverware back into the kitchen. “I really appreciate the delicious lunch,” she said, and meant it. “It’s a rare treat to get vegetables fresh out of a garden.” She picked up her canvas bag and moved to the door. “I’d like to come back, if I may, talk to you more about the house and Tiger Tail Island.”

“I reckon that would be all right,” Alma May said slowly, her blue eyes wary.

* * * *

In the late afternoon Brandy swung her boat into its slip at the concrete block house she was renting. For months she and her husband had paid Carole to leave their boat there so that it would be in the water when they wanted to fish or cruise the river. Now Brandy tied the pontoon securely fore and aft, crossed the narrow road, and knelt to hug her aging golden retriever. After she unsnapped the long lead that allowed Meg the full range of the unfenced yard, she banged through the front door. The home itself included three bedrooms, a screen porch, living room, and utility.

In the kitchen Brandy again set out dry cat food and water for her friend’s haughty cat and fed Meg, then poured a small glass of Merlot and passed on into the living room. Carole gave her a deep discount for a two-week vacation here, as long as she cared for the Persian. Carole had scheduled her own vacation for this time, and those plans locked in the dates for Brandy. Weekends her husband John would make the two and a half hour drive up from Tampa, where his architectural firm had assigned him to work a temporary job.

Brandy paused at a bookcase by Carole’s easy chair and noted the row of Folger Library copies of Shakespeare’s plays. Carole was one of her more literary friends from university days, where they had both majored in English Lit. Only two weeks ago, Carole had driven to Gainesville to join Brandy for a University of Florida theater production of The Tempest. Brandy pulled out the slender volume of the play and flipped to a few favorite passages before returning the book to its alphabetical place. She had made a curious connection. Timothy Hart died under suspicious conditions on an island that also appeared to house a sorcerer—medicine man Fishhawk—wandering spirits, and a witch or monster capable of murder. Unfortunately for Hart, the monster on Tiger Tail Island ranged unchecked. In any case, his sad fate promised a dramatic human interest story.

Brandy sat for a while at the wicker table on the porch, sipping her wine and watching the boats gently rise and fall with the tide. The shadows of tall pines lengthened across the canal. Overhead, a cloud of turkey vultures swooped past on their way to roost on the town’s water tower. Although the birds were valuable to the ecology, she never saw them without a sense of dread. For the moment, the approaching night seemed to gather its forces of secrecy and darkness.

Brandy tried to shake off the somber feeling by planning for tomorrow. She would call the Sheriff s Office and ask about the spokeswoman Sergeant Strong had mentioned. She would have time for a briefing. John wouldn’t arrive for the weekend until the evening. She would use Carole’s Chevrolet for the drive to the Citrus County capitol of Inverness and the Sheriff s Office Command Center. Because Carole had asked Brandy not to let her car sit idle for the whole two weeks, Brandy had left her own Toyota coupe in Gainesville and driven to Homosassa with John.

After a restless night, she finished a solitary breakfast of grapefruit and English muffin, then telephoned the Sheriffs Command Center and learned she could sit in on a press briefing of the Hart inquiry at 2:00 P.M. For the next hour she transcribed her hasty notes of the day before, filled in the details she could remember, and noted the facts she knew about Alma May Flint and her friend, Melba Grapple. At the top of the first page she drew a pencil sketch of the log house, the small boat pulled up on shore, and a stick figure lying beside it.

Next Brandy phoned her editor and brought him up-to-date. He agreed that she should look into the circumstances of Hart’s death, as long as she was already on the spot. She was to let him know if it promised a story of interest to their readers. Brandy sighed. John already had a reason to argue with her. This case would give him another. He would not be happy to find her investigating a feature story, one that again might involve a murder, and that might occupy her time this weekend.