HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (31 page)

Brandy took a hasty look at Fishhawk in his truck. He seemed to be waiting with a cemetery official for something. She knew he would be eager to finish the ordeal.

“Hurry,” Brandy said. “We’ve got one more job to do before you hand over the Indian girl’s skeleton.”

Strong looked puzzled, but Brandy was already out of her seat and hurrying to the back of the minivan. She pulled up the hatchback. “You’ve got to open the container, Sergeant,” she said. “I think you’ll find more than bones.”

For once he did not stop to question her. “You better know what you’re talking about, young lady,” he said. “It’s against the law to tamper with Indian bones.”

But he stepped to his own car and reached for his detective’s kit. Brandy nodded. She knew it would hold a camera and the implements he might need. “The box is the perfect hiding place,” she said. “By law no one can disturb it. I think you will find what Timothy Hart searched for and what he died for.” She held her breath while Strong removed his penknife from a pocket and forced the lid. The musty smell of stale water and old fabric lifted into the air. Through a film of moisture, at first Brandy saw only the slender, broken femurs, a fragile clavicle, tiny teeth, the scrap of matting.

“You needn’t remove the skeleton parts,” she added. “Fishhawk will know if they need to come out of the Tupperware box.” She prayed her hunch would be right. Among the bones they both could see the edge of a plastic bag.

Strong lifted a small camera from the kit and snapped a photograph. Then he pulled on a pair of thin gloves, lifted the plastic bag out of the water and unwound a layer of bubble wrap. His eyes widened in surprise. Then with great care he spread out on the minivan carpet Hart’s trea-sure—a long necklace of twelve large, grinning golden skulls, all strung together on two lengthy strands of turquoise beads. Their round turquoise eyes radiated malignancy; their fleshless lips stretched in the cruel parody of a grin.

Again the camera flashed. From his kit, the detective lifted a little cardboard box. Skulls, Brandy thought. The thing of darkness was a universal symbol of death, skeletal heads that Indians would avoid at all costs, but made of the gold that white men craved. No wonder the nineteenth century warrior had found them horrifying, had said the necklace should go to a medicine man. No wonder he wanted to keep it from his enemies and use its power against them. It would certainly terrify anyone who believed skeletons brought pain and death, yet it was an object of enormous value to collectors. The necklace would be much older than the150 years it waited discovery in Homosassa, and the workmanship was exquisite.

Brandy slipped around to John’s window. “Come back here,” she whispered. “This is your chance to see Timothy Hart’s treasure.”

Strong spoke slowly. “Dr. Hackett was the only one who had charge of the bones or the box.” He arranged the golden necklace in the smaller box, scrawled a label on the lid, and stowed it in his trunk with the kit. “Then he must be the murderer.”

“He checks out, motive and opportunity,” Brandy said. “Hackett was desperate to leave his dull job in Florida and take part in the exciting Mayan digs. With what this artifact would bring, he could afford to. And he liked expensive things.”

The final Seminole mourner had pulled into the cemetery. From his truck Fishhawk called to the Sergeant, “Glad you got here!” He walked a few paces toward them. “Bring the box and follow me.” While Strong slid the lid firmly back onto the Tupperware container, Brandy and John stepped to one side and stood watching. She knew they had been asked to come no nearer to the service.

From the distance of a small knoll, sheltered from the morning sun by over hanging branches, they watched Strong make a dignified transfer of the covered box of bones to Fishhawk. A few women in long skirts and capes, banded in blue, yellow, white and red, gathered around the small plot, along with men in colorful matching jackets.

Fishhawk raised what appeared to be a gourd above the grave. Brandy could make out the child-size, oblong casket resting on the grass, could see the welcoming portal in the ground, but she could not understand the solemn, muffled chant—too far away, too Indian. Brandy wondered if Fish-hawk would use his medicine bundle. She knew she would never know.

She edged closer, touching John’s shoulder. “Grif Hackett himself helped me understand how the treasure got into the Safety Harbor mound. He told me that in the sixteenth century Indians dived on Spanish shipwrecks along the Gulf coast. They murdered the survivors and then salvaged the treasure the Spaniards had stolen from Mexico and South America. For a few years, the Spaniards didn’t melt down gold artifacts.”

A slight wind carried faint sounds of the ritual toward them. Still watching the figures across the graveyard, John asked, “And the artifact—the necklace? Where did it come from?”

“From what I’ve read about Mexican treasures, it’s probably Mixtec from the state of Oaxaca. They’re famous for gold and silver work. I remember a similar skull necklace in the Pre-Columbian exhibit at Dumbarton Oaks in D.C. The Seminole warrior must’ve found this one near the old Safety Harbor village when he was digging for clams.”

Brandy entwined her fingers with John’s. “I doubt Hackett originally meant to kill Hart. He thought he’d make off with the necklace and Hart would never know. But Fishhawk could read the journal, too, in spite of what he said. He staked out the cistern. He must’ve seen Hackett find the necklace and told Hart. Then the poor guy was a danger to Hackett.

“After I got involved, Hackett considered me a spy, or else another person after the artifact. He became really anxious when I looked into the box of bones in his motel room. He must’ve thought I saw the plastic bag hidden in the burial bundle, so I needed to be silenced. Ironically, I never saw it.” She smiled with sudden satisfaction. “Strong thinks they can match the rope I saw in Hackett’s van with the cut-off rope on the hickory tree at the cistern.

“I finally began to realize the murderer had to be Hackett. Tugboat had no way to persuade Hart to eat pokeweed, but Hart trusted Hackett. Poisoning wasn’t a method Tugboat would choose, anyway.”

The ceremony before them was winding down. Brandy thought she saw the casket lowered. Behind them a car pulled up beside the cemetery gates.

“Then there was the cistern trap,” she added. “Tugboat had no way of knowing I’d search that end of the island, or when. But I told Hackett myself the night after Daria disappeared.”

John tilted his head and looked down at her. “What about the two women, the home owner and her Realtor friend?”

“If Alma May or Melba had found the necklace—or even knew where to look—they wouldn’t still be digging holes in the area. I’m sure Tugboat pried the story out of Melba, but he hadn’t a clue where to look. He figured someone had found the treasure, and he was after whoever had it. In the meantime, he threatened Melba, probably Alma May, too, if they told the Sheriff about his pot hunting and drug running. Of course, they got involved with the pot selling, too. I once thought they might be holding Daria, but Strong said the sound I heard in a room there was just what Alma May claimed it was—a sick cat.

“Both Strong and I suspected Fishhawk for a time because he didn’t want deputies searching for Daria. We know now he was afraid of what

Hackett would do to her. He believed I was in on the theft and the kidnapping because I was Hackett’s friend.”

John tugged at his tie. He’d come dressed for a formal occasion that he could scarcely see, and the sun was growing hotter. Brandy patted his arm.

“Actually, Hackett’s girl friend was his grad student. This morning Strong told me she was caught at the airport trying to leave the country. She’d held poor little Daria in the wildlife preserve. At the hospital, deputies found two one-way tickets to Mexico on Hackett. Now Bibi Brier’s singing like a bird.”

“And what happens to the necklace?”

“It belongs to Alma May. She’ll sell it for thousands to a Mexican collector, like Hackett planned to. It’ll go back where it belongs. As for Melba, Tugboat’s in the tank to stay for a while. It gives her a chance to sell out in Homosassa and move back to New Jersey, sadder but wiser, I’d say.

“And the Seminole tobacco pouch you were so concerned about?”

“I gave it to Sergeant Strong. He thinks he can persuade Alma to sell it through a middle-man to the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki museum off Alligator Alley. It really belongs in a Seminole collection. Fishhawk will like that.”

They heard the scramble of small feet and turned to see a flash of red and blue. Annie and Daria had come in the car they’d just heard arrive. The little girl scampered to Brandy, her wide, fluted collar fluttering above a skirt ringed with red and white bands, each brightened by a lightning motif. She raised her hands to be picked up. Brandy smiled, encircled the squirming body in her arms and laid her head against Daria’s cheek.

“That something else we need to talk about,” she said to John. “I’ve been thinking.” She looked into the child’s dark eyes, at the round, laughing face.

“I’d like to spend more time in Tampa, as long as you’re here. I might even look for a job on one of the Tampa Bay papers. I might try my luck at freelancing. I want to write that article about Tiger Tail Island. Maybe more about the Seminoles. I think I could find markets.”

“Wait for Mother!” Annie called, rushing up in another skirt of brilliant horizontal stripes. She swept Daria into her own arms and peered toward the figures at the far side of the cemetery. “Didn’t want little miss here to interrupt the ceremony.”

In front of their minivan, Sergeant Strong was striding toward his car. He waved briskly. “Got to get back to Citrus County.” He paused a moment. “You worry me to death, O’Bannon, but I got to admit, you get a few good ideas.” He gave a vigorous nod to his head. “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” Brandy agreed that the Biblical quotation was relevant to their morning’s discovery. Smiling, she waved back as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Fishhawk had finished and was hurrying with the others toward the road that wound between gravesites. He had released the Safety Harbor child’s spirit to go west. Brandy wondered if Fishhawk’s chants and medicine bundle had been able to send those other spirits west, the slaughtered settlers on Tiger Tail Island, Timothy Hart himself.

“Some day I’d like to go back to the island,” she said, “and see if I get the same awful feeling there.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Of course, you won’t. You won’t expect to. Those presences you feel are in your mind, Bran. They’re not external.” When she looked stricken, he pressed her hand. “It’s not a bad thing, you know, to be aware of the suffering of others.”

Brandy knew she couldn’t explain a sensation that she couldn’t prove. She brushed back her damp, coppery hair, glanced at mother and child as they rushed to greet Fishhawk, and spoke softly. “I wanted to tell you, you were right about a family now.”

John’s arm crept around her waist and tightened.

She thought of all that had happened since she first saw Timothy Hart at the Tiki Bar. Especially, she remembered Hackett, crumpled on the Cultural Center walkway. The monster on Tiger Tail Island had been conquered, and the sorcerer had laid aside his staff and book. “The Hart murder case is over,” she said. “I guess our revels now are ended.”

“Not if what you say is true.” With both hands, John tilted her face up to his. “I’d say our revels have just begun.”

Reference books, in alphabetical order by author, used as sources

Carter, W. Horace, The Nature Coast Tales and Truths, Tabor, N. C.: Atlantic Publishing Co., 1993; Nature’s Masterpiece at Homosassa. Tabor, N.C.: Atlantic Publishing Co.,1981.

Downs, Dorothy, Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Gainesville, FL et al: University of Florida Press, 1995.

Hall, Francis Wyly, Be Careful in Florida: Know These Poisonous Snakes, Insects, Plants. St. Petersburg. FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Co.,1980.

Jumper, Betty Mae, Legends of the Seminole. Sarasota, FL : Pineapple Press, Inc., 1994.

Mahon, John K. History of the Second Seminole War 1835-1842. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1985.

Milanich, Jerald T., Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Florida. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1994; Florida’s Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1995; Florida’s Indians from Ancient Times to the Present. Gainesville, Fl et al: University Press of Florida, 1998.

Perry, I. Mac, Indian Mounds You Can Visit, 165 Aboriginal Sites on Florida’s West Coast. St. Petersburg, FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Co., 1993.

Seminole Tribune, 1994-1999. 6300 Stirling Road, Hollywood, FL 33024

Singer, Steven D., Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press Inc. 1998.

Snow, Alice Micco and Susan Enns Stans, Healing Plants, Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indians. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Weisman, Brent Richards, Like Beads on a String: A Culture History of the Seminole Indians in North Peninsular Florida. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1989; Unconquered People; Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Tuscaloosa and London: University Press of Florida, 1999.

Wickman, Patricia Riles, Osceola’s Legacy. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press 1994; The Tree That Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the Maskoki People. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1999.