Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide (26 page)

Tears filled her eyes as she looked down at the pile of coins in its tattered wrapping. John James hadn’t taken the treasure to Cuba with him after all. John James had given Merriam a letter, and Merriam had lost it. Now, Isabel could start to imagine what the letter had said:
I must go away, but if you dig behind the back steps
— Had he planned to return?
I urge you to maintain secrecy, so it doesn’t benefit only my creditors
—

Her cheeks wet, she gathered up the opened packet of coins and, holding it close, edged out from under the house, inching forward on her elbows.

If only Merriam had known. If only she had known, everything would have been different.
Resentment at Merriam’s death vibrated in her. How could it be that Merriam would never know?

The man in the hood.

Scooter had told her he never wore a hood when he was diving.

She sat on the back steps and put the coins in her lap. They were as bright and beautiful as if they just been minted. She freed them from the disintegrating burlap and counted.

Twenty. Twenty gold pieces were lying on her shirttail. There were more still in the wash pot. Many more.

Why should I believe what Scooter said?
But she did believe him. She believed him because he hadn’t known why she was asking. He hadn’t known Merriam had talked about a man in a hood.

She doubted he had even known that Merriam was staying at Bernice Chatham’s. But others had.

The coins clinked when she stood, holding the bottom of her shirt to form a bag. She started to run, jingling at every step. She had to get to the telephone. She had to—

“You found it, I see,” a voice said.

She whirled. Ted Stiles was leaning against the corner of the house, grinning, his hands in his pockets. He said, “You sure were occupied. I could have ridden down here on an elephant.” He took a step toward her. “From what Scooter is telling down at the jailhouse, I gathered Harry Mercer didn’t get away with the whole thing. Some story about a porcelain bottle, and stuff buried on the property. Seemed worth keeping an eye on the activities around here.”

“Go to hell,” Isabel said. Ted Stiles. Absurdly, Kimmie Dee’s letter came into her mind:
I don’t like Mr. S.

“No, really,” Stiles said. “This is the best time there is. Not a soul in the world knows it’s been found except you and me.”

When he took his right hand out of his pocket, she saw that he held a gun.

Fighting to keep her breathing even, Isabel said, “I thought you were some kind of investigator, working undercover. That’s what Clem told me.”

Stiles chuckled. “I am. And when you’re talking about Spanish gold, that’s something worth investigating.”

They were face to face, Isabel clutching her shirttails. He reached down and picked up a coin. He turned it in his fingers, studying it, then slipped it in his pocket. “I tell you what, Miss Isabel. You’re coming along with me.” He pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket, shook it out, and handed it to her. “Tie those coins up first.”

Isabel knelt and spread the handkerchief on the ground. Constantly aware of the gun pointed at her head, she piled the coins on the handkerchief, twisted it and tied two of the ends together to make a pouch.

“Nice,” Stiles said. He took the bundle from her. “Now, what we’re going to do is, we’re going to walk down to the lighthouse. Stroll down, like we wanted some fresh air before dinner.” He gestured with the gun. “This is going to be in my pocket, pointed at you. Let’s go.”

The day was waning. They walked up the drive under the rustling palms and turned toward the lighthouse. There were no houses in this direction, only the dense palmetto woods, with overhanging live oaks and towering pines. Along the shore the waves boomed.

“You knew where Merriam was. You kept asking about her,” Isabel said.

He didn’t answer.

“You knew Scooter and Harry were salvaging. Clem said Buddy Burke told Darryl Kelly, trying to make a deal. Darryl Kelly must have told you.”

“He thought it was a joke,” Stiles said. “If it was such a damn joke, why was he checking it out? My guess is that he wanted it, too.”

“He caught you, so you killed him. Merriam saw you.”

“I hadn’t found anything but a couple of cannonballs. I would’ve just as soon nobody had to get hurt, but it didn’t work out that way.”

The intensity of her anger demolished Isabel’s fear. “You didn’t want to hurt anybody? You tracked down a helpless, sick old woman and murdered her!”

“She saw me,” Stiles said. “I wish she hadn’t, but she did. I had to do something, so she didn’t come to herself and start talking. I quit after that. Let Harry Mercer and his deckhand take it out, and I’d get it later.”

“That’s right,” Isabel said. “What would they do? Call the law?”

They reached the barrier and skirted the sandy knoll where the lighthouse stood. Laboring through the dunes, they came out on the opposite side of the peninsula. In a hidden inlet a blue boat with a ragged canvas roof was pulled up on the sand.

Stiles said, “Now, what you’re going to do, Isabel, is push this boat out into the water. I’d be a gentleman and do it myself, but I’ve got to keep an eye on you.”

Push the boat out, so he can take me out and kill me. Dump my body on the shoals. Just what he did with Darryl Kelly.
The gun was out of his pocket again. “Go on, now.” She pushed the boat’s bow. It scraped along the sand and floated out into the listless surf. Stiles waded after it, heedless of his shoes and pants legs. He tossed the coins in the boat and jumped in himself. “Keep pushing,” he said. “Take it out about waist deep.”

The water was warm. Waves broke around Isabel’s body, soaking her sneakers and jeans. She pushed the boat as Stiles watched her over the side, following her with the gun. When the water had reached her waist, he said, “That’s good. Deep enough to let the motor down. Get in.” He extended his free hand, and she clambered over the side. The boat had crosswise, benchlike seats. Stiles was sitting in the stern, beside the motor.

This, Isabel knew, was the only time she would have to do something. Stiles had to let the motor down and get it started. After that, there would be no more distractions until they were far enough from shore for him to shoot her without anyone hearing.

Stiles, in the back, was lowering the motor. Under the seat between the two of them lay the bundle of Spanish coins, where it had fallen when Stiles tossed it in the boat.

Isabel bent over and put her head on her knees.

“Sit up,” Stiles commanded. He had put the gun down next to his leg while he adjusted the motor.

“I’m sick,” Isabel said.

“If you’re going to puke, do it over the side.”

Not a bad idea. Clutching her stomach, Isabel slid off the seat and, on her knees, struggled to the side of the boat making retching sounds. She was now in a position to reach the coins, and Stiles was in her peripheral vision. When she saw him turn to the motor, she slumped and grabbed the bundle. Her fingers closed around the knot.

Isabel pushed up to the middle seat. She was aware of Stiles’s head turning as she lunged toward him. She drew back the bundle of coins and smashed it into his temple.

He gave a wheezing gasp. She could smell him, smell sweat and tobacco. She drew back and hit him again. His face dark red, he slipped sideways off the seat.

Isabel threw herself forward. Her fingers closed on the gun.

On his second day out, Harry got a job as a deckhand on a boat called the
Carina.
Rich people on vacation. The guy they’d had before got drunk once too often. They were planning to end up in Key West after a while. Once Harry got there, he was going to be a dive bum. Maybe that’s what he was meant to be all along.

He had the coins with him, still in the tackle box. The rest of the stuff he’d stashed in a safe place.

Treasure diving was what Harry really wanted to do. He was planning to hook up with an outfit in South Florida. Quite a bit of it went on down there, from what he had heard.

After a while, when he got himself in order, Harry would go back to Cape St. Elmo, sneak back, and see Isabel. She’d be sick of the place by that time and ready to come with him. Harry imagined a house down in the Keys, a simple place on the water, with a deck. He could see Isabel on that deck, her feet up, her sketchpad on her knees. She would be concentrating so hard, she wouldn’t hear Harry coming up next to her, wouldn’t know he was there until he touched her. Then she’d smile and put her drawing away. They’d sit in the dusk, watching the sun set far out over the water.

This was Harry’s new life. Across the way, Harry could see the lights on shore, bright points marking places he didn’t have to go to, where he wasn’t expected or known. He had a tackle box and some gold coins, and all the time in the world.

It was midafternoon on the Fourth of July. On a wooden platform in the St. Elmo Municipal Park, a man was playing “My Darling Clementine” on the harmonica. The bleachers were packed, and the smell of grilling hot dogs wafted from an open barbecue pit. Behind the bleachers, children and dogs chased one another. From the top row, Isabel Anders and Clem Davenant watched the talent show.

The wash pot had contained two hundred Spanish gold coins. All of them were legally Isabel’s, since they had been found on her land. They were worth a lot of money. That was good news, but it was only the beginning of a complicated story. The house and the woods around it were now a historic site, and with Isabel’s permission excavations would be done on the property by archaeologists. The place had to be protected from freelance treasure hunters who had learned about Isabel’s windfall. Who knew, after all, how much Spanish treasure was still buried in the woods? The site of the
Esperanza
, too, would be excavated by the State’s underwater archaeologists. Clem had suggested that when the work was finished, the place would be used as a recreational diving site, in memory of his son Edward. All of this was in various stages of planning. Isabel was working with Clem on dealing with the myriad legal details.

And what about the house? That remained to be decided. Isabel didn’t want to live there again, but neither did she intend, ever, to sell it and the land to developers. At the moment she and Clem were looking into donating the house and land to the state, with some idea that the house might be refurbished and used as a museum. That possible development was a long way down the road.

In the meantime, Isabel had left Merriam’s trailer and rented a cottage on the beach, still on Cape St. Elmo but closer to town. She was going to be here for a while. She wasn’t sure it would be forever. That, too, remained to be seen.

Ted Stiles, now in custody, was a fixture in her nightmares. Often she dreamed she had shot him and woke up wishing it were true. In life, she had brought him in with monumental calm, having been pushed to a place beyond emotion. In her sleep, she screamed obscenities at him and slashed at his eyes with her fingernails.

Working on
The Children from the Sea
had helped. She was almost finished with it. She thought it was macabre enough to please most children.

Harry was still at large. The police continued to claim he would be caught any day.

The last plaintive strains of “My Darling Clementine” faded and the audience broke into applause. Isabel was nervous. She craned to see the skinny figure in the red leotard and white boots at the foot of the steps leading to the stage.

The man with the harmonica took his last bow. When the clapping ended, the master of ceremonies moved to the mike and began to talk about “a little lady whose bravery has impressed us all, and who needs no introduction.” Kimmie Dee was climbing the steps. She stood at the back of the platform until he said her name, then stepped forward smartly. She stood in position, waiting for the music to begin.

THE END

To Victoria Dearing,
Once my neighbor
Always my friend

For invaluable assistance in writing this book, I am indebted to: Virginia Barber; Alan Friedman; Sheriff Al Harrison, of Gulf County, Florida; Herman Jones; Frances Kiernan; Sergeant David King, of the Marine Patrol; Captain Jimmy Lumley; Jerry Milanich, of the Florida State Museum of Natural History; Jim Miller, of the Bureau of Archaeological Research of the Museum of Florida History; Isadore Seltzer; and Dan Wharton, of the Bronx Zoo/ Wildlife Conservation Park.

They are not responsible for my mistakes or for the use I have made of the material they so generously provided me.

The French fairy tale “The Children from the Sea” can be found in
French Folktales
(Pantheon Books).

We’ll give you your money back if you find as many as five errors. (That’s five
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errors—punctuation or spelling that leaves no room for judgment calls or alternatives.) If you find more than five, we’ll give you a dollar for every one you catch up to twenty. More than that and we reproof and remake the book. Email
[email protected]
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