Trace Their Shadows (12 page)

“I’ll meet you in the coffee shop,” she said firmly. “At eleven.”

His voice raised an octave. “Coffee?”

“Coffee.” He chuckled, but he agreed.

Brandy finished the work on her desk, and promptly at eleven pulled into the Comfort Inn lot. The old gentleman was already ensconced in a booth, nursing a mug of coffee, a paper cup on the side.

He raised his mug when he saw her and flashed his dimples. “Irish coffee. A little whiskey improves the taste.”

Brandy slid into the opposite seat. She had decided to wait until the end of the interview to spring her news bulletin. She signaled the waitress.

“You’ll remember I’m writing a feature about the Able homestead,” she said, “because it may be torn down. I’m doing the historical research, but I also need an account of Eva Stone’s disappearance, including the rumors about it.”

Brandy let Ace reflect while she ordered decaf and a dish of frozen yogurt. While she pulled out her note pad, he poured a dollop of clear liquid into his mug, then rubbed one ear. “I remember your assignment well enough, but I can’t tell you anything that’s not already on record.”

Brandy gave him a dead level look. “Let me be the judge of that. I plan to find the maid who saw Eva Stone walk into the water——Lily Mae Brown. If she’s still alive. I want to talk to all the witnesses at the party. I hear Eva still has family here.”

He sighed and looked down into his cup. “Oh, yes. I was there all right. Gorgeous girl. Terrible pity, her death.”

“Can you shed any light on why she’d kill herself?”

“I thought what everybody else did——she was nuts about Brookfield. Went over the edge when he announced his engagement to Grace.” He gave a short laugh. “Not that she couldn’t have had any other man there. Me included.”

“Had you known her before that party, then?”

“I came here with Brookfield on leave the year before. That’s when I met the Moose.” He grinned. “Pardon me. I mean Sylvania.” He took a slow sip of coffee. “Brookfield and I both saw Eva a few times, alone and together. But, well…” His mouth twisted down suddenly. “She didn’t succumb to my considerable charms. She and Brookfield had an old romance going way back.”

Brandy remembered their yearbook picture and nodded. “What about Grace?”

“Oh, these Southern folks are real big on Daddy fixing up the marriages. Or they used to be. Kind of medieval. Didn’t exactly force anyone, of course. But Daddy could really push the advantages of the right match. And Grace Southerland was already smitten with Brookfield. He was seeing Eva as well as Grace then. But the Southerland Fruit Company combined with Able Citrus made a tempting package. Eva couldn’t compete. Financially, I mean. Old Man Able tempted me, too, I admit. Later Brookfield’s daddy gave us both employment. Me, of course——” his voice dropped,”——on a much lower level. In order to qualify for the job, I had to accept a certain——”he glanced away——“a certain handicap.”

Poor Sylvania, Brandy thought, her marriage doomed from the start. She might even have been in love with the brash young pilot, her beloved brother’s best friend. But it was Brookfield’s relationship with Eva Stone that Brandy wanted to probe. “Then Brookfield didn’t propose to Grace when he was in town the year before?”

He elevated one eyebrow. “You’re a very nosy young lady. Why should I tell you that?”

“Because, Mr. Langdon, we’re trying to figure out what happened to Eva Stone. You say you cared about her.”

Ace sighed and fingered his cup. “He probably wrote her a letter when we got back to England. With a little long distance prodding from Daddy, of course.”

“Why was Eva Stone invited to the engagement party, then? It seems cruel.”

Ace gave a short, barking laugh. “She wasn’t. I’m sure the Moose wouldn’t tell you that. Eva had been out of town. She heard that Brookfield’s parents were giving him a welcome home party and turned up to see him. I don’t think she knew about the engagement. She thought his folks just hadn’t included her. Able family——all snobs, you know. Would’ve made Eva mad.”

“Did you talk to Eva much that weekend?”

Ace looked toward the door. “Eva never gave me a tumble, so I cut a deal with Old Man Able.” Brandy pictured the pitiful contrast between the two young women. “But the Moose is right about one thing. Don’t rake it all up now.”

Brandy ignored his advice. “I’ve heard a lot of stories about the house. About unusual sightings. You lived there for years. Would you comment on those stories?”

Ace was still for a minute, looking down at the counter, twisting his now almost empty paper cup. “The Moose doesn’t like to talk about those stories,” he said at last. “But I’ll tell you this. There’s something strange in that house. The Moose sleeps downstairs on the second floor. When I was invited to move up to the third, I took the room farthest from the stairs, and I didn’t go up to the fourth. Now that’s all I’m saying. I’m speaking just for myself. I ought to get a medal for going up those stairs at all.” He pushed his cup away. “I’ve enjoyed being grilled by a beautiful reporter, but I think I’ve said enough.”

Brandy savored a spoonful of her yogurt. “Something new has come up. The old case is re–opened.” He raised a quizzical gray eyebrow again. “A skeleton was found last night on the property.”

No need, she thought, to tell where. “It’s been there long enough to be Eva Stone’s. It’s bound to be identified soon. The story will be in all the papers tomorrow. If it’s Eva Stone’s, you know what that means.”

His mouth turned down in a glum line. His curiosity aroused, he seemed to forget he was ending the interview. “Yeah. People don’t usually bury themselves.”

Ace raised his hand to the waitress for a second coffee. “In light of this discovery, Mr. Langdon——Ace——what else can you tell me about Eva Stone’s last hours?”

He emptied a packet of sugar into the new cup, stirred it, and rubbed his chin. “No reason to hide anything I know about that day.” His hand was tanned and solid for a man his age, his opal ring at least as expensive as Blackthorne’s sapphire. Able Citrus bought that, Brandy thought, and felt a pang of sympathy for tall, awkward Sylvania Able.

“It was a weekend celebration, you know,” he said. “I didn’t go hunting with the rest of the fellows the morning after the big party. Kind of hung over, for one thing. I was also hoping for other fish to fry.” He winked. “When I woke up, the Moose was busy helping her Mama tidy up downstairs, and getting lunch ready for the other girls.” Ace took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and searched his trousers for a lighter. ”Keep trying to quit, but no dice.” He didn’t strike Brandy as a man who could give up any addiction——cigarettes, alcohol, or women.

“And did you see Eva?” To jog her memory later, Brandy scribbled a few words. Ace didn’t appear to notice. Once he’d started, he seemed to relish telling his tale. “I went looking for her late that afternoon. I won’t deny it. Sweet little thing, but feisty.” He cocked his head, appraising her. “You remind me of her a lot. Same shape face and hair length.” His glance traveled down her blouse. “Same figure.”

She found the table a comforting barrier between them. “Let’s get back to Eva Stone. Did you find her?”

“Briefly.” He sighed. “Before the war her father ran a two–bit café down town. He closed it to move up near Camp Blanding during the war. Opened a place there. Afterward the family moved back to Tavares and he re–opened his place here. She worked in the business. That’s why she was back in town.

“The party was my chance to get her alone without Brookfield horning in.” He grinned at the possibility for a pun, but Brandy’s stern expression pushed him on. “You look like her, but you’re more prim, I think. What I did that afternoon is no secret. I told the cops then. Anyhow, I caught up with her in the living room. She was setting her suitcase down by the front door, but she didn’t act like she wanted to leave yet. The other girls had gone home, all but one with car trouble. I figured Eva was hanging around, waiting for Brookfield, but so was Grace. Eva didn’t have any time with him at the party, which was fine with me.”

“Where was Grace?”

“Out by her car by then. It was a friend of hers had the flat tire. The yard man was up under the car, trying to get the jack to work. Eva thought I ought to go out and help him.”

Brandy couldn’t imagine even a youthful Ace Langdon lying in the sand to change a tire. “And did you?”

“I went out there, but the old fellow was about through with the job. He’d got the tire off. He found a spare that would fit and some tools in the trunk of Grace’s car. About all I could do was throw the tools on the floor of Grace’s Buick. The Moose and her mother had piled the trunk full of towels and sheets to go back to the Southerlands. I guess Grace left then. I went back in the house to try to find Eva. I didn’t. Instead I shot some pool by myself in the game room. You know the rest.”

And no one to witness that solitary game, Brandy thought. “Were you one of those who swam out looking for Eva?”

Langdon had gotten the cigarette going with a hotel match, and for a few seconds he watched the smoke rise between them. “I’m not a good swimmer. The Moose was the first one in. She was a strong swimmer, still is. I waded out some, but it was hopeless. No one could tell where Eva had gone down. The water there’s like brown soup.”

“If the skeleton belongs to Eva Stone, now we know she didn’t drown.”

“A puzzle isn’t it?” He shook his head of lush gray hair.

“When did Brookfield and the others get back?”

Straggled back in pick–ups and on foot about the time the deputies arrived. Old man Able tried to use the dogs to pick up Eva’s scent from her suitcase and clothes. The dogs just churned around in the yard. They were no help at all.”

“Could Brookfield have been on the grounds when Eva went into the water?”

Langdon stood and mashed his cigarette into an ashtray on the table. “That I couldn’t say. I’ve told you all I know. I can’t remember everything that happened forty–five years ago.”

Brandy pressed further. “What about Brookfield’s fiancée? What about Grace? Where was she at the time?”

“I believe one fellow said Grace’s car passed him while he was walking back.” Ace faced the coffee shop doors, then turned and added. “If you’re planning to see Grace, last I heard she went into some kind of depression after Brookfield’s death. Kept a tight rein on his wife, Old Brookfield did. You wouldn’t have approved. After he died two years ago, she kind of fell apart.”

Ace tapped his gold watch with well–manicured fingernails. “Look, I’ve got a date. I don’t usually lose out to the other guy. Eva Stone was an exception.”

Brandy remembered her flower show appointment with Grace Able at four. She hoped the widow would be as talkative. First she might have time to search for Lily Mae Brown.

“I mean to find out what happened to Eva Stone,” Brandy called after Ace. She noticed he wasn’t still smiling as he sauntered toward his vintage Porsche. Before she looked for a phone, she watched him spurt out of the parking lot. Time to check with her office, then see if she could locate the witness to Eva Stone’s fatal walk into Lake Dora.

TWELVE
 

I’m tired of mixed signals about Brookfield Able, Brandy thought, as she approached a phone booth in the motel lobby. According to his sister, Brookfield was a saint. According to his old war buddy Ace, he was clearly something less. For one thing, he’d been courting two women at the same time.

Now Ace said his friend was a controlling husband. At Sylvania’s he’d also said Brookfield was a better buddy than boss. But Ace was clearly jealous of Brookfield. He had also paid a price for the job his friend arranged at A & S Citrus——marrying Brookfield’s unappealing sister. More than most, Ace Langdon was a man who valued a pretty girl.

Time to check with the office. She punched in the code for her answering machine. Steve Able’s gruff voice came on, keeping his promise. “Thought you’d like to know we finally reached Sylvania. She was staying in a guest room at the retirement center. There’s something else. You might as well know now what the medical examiner says. You’ll get details later. It’s off the record until the briefing, but the back of the skull was smashed in.”

Brandy leaned against the wall, suddenly weak. Eva Stone had been dead so long, others didn’t seem to consider her important. But Brandy had seen her photograph, seen that skull. In 1945 Eva’s life was just beginning. That life was as important now as it had ever been. At that moment finding who killed Eva Stone became more vital to Brandy than her feature story. Even if John would never believe that fact.

In her hatchback once more, Brandy dragged her county map out of the glove compartment and opened her loose leaf notebook on the seat beside her. The 1945 clipping about Eva’s disappearance gave an address for Lily Mae Brown. She had to make a start somewhere. For once Brandy was grateful that Tavares was small.

Within an hour she had located the one–story shot–gun house in a neighborhood of dirt streets and barren yards. The last forty–six years had not been kind to the house, yet it still stood, crumpling slightly to one side on its squat concrete pillars, like a man gone lame in one leg. She pushed a doorbell, and then, hearing no sound, knocked loudly.

Around the corner of the house a black boy of about five appeared, pulling a wagon loaded with tomatoes. In his pinched little face, suspicion waged a losing battle with curiosity.

“Ma’s out back,” he announced at last.

She followed him through the loose sand into the back yard where a short, plump woman was holding an apron cupped in one hand and throwing grain with the other to some hens in a chicken–wire pen.

“I’m looking for a Lily Mae Brown,” Brandy began. “She used to live here back in the late forties.”

“Lordy,” the woman said. “How I know who lived here all that time ago? Nobody by the name of Brown live around here anymore.” She emptied out the last of the grain and, facing Brandy, put her hand on her hip. Brandy waited. “Why you don’t go down the street to old lady Wilson’s house? She been here forever.” She pointed toward the road to her left. “She’s setting on the porch.”