HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (2 page)

Brandy knew the house. She didn’t know it was for sale. “I’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll be glad to write your story.”

The bartender picked up Hart’s unfinished drink. “The island’s named for a Seminole war chief,” he said. “He once hid out there with his band.”

“Whatever,” Hart murmured. He slumped a little as the other two loomed up on either side, and taking his arms, shepherded him toward the dock. Above them a sliver of moon, white as bone, slid from beneath a cloud. Brandy watched Hart stumble onto the deck of a stripped down pontoon boat. The Indian cast off the lines, the archaeologist took the wheel, and the red and green bow lights flickered on. As the three headed down river, the white stern light receded into the growing darkness.

* * * *

The following morning, Brandy put down a dish of Friskies for her friend Carole’s Persian cat, who was her charge during Brandy’s vacation. Then she doled out dog food on the small porch for her own golden retriever. Once Meg had finished her dog food, Brandy staked her on a long chain in the front yard, gave her a vigorous belly rub, and left her to enjoy the attentions of passing friends in the development. Then Brandy turned toward the boat slip in front of the black and white concrete block home, untied her pontoon boat from its mooring in the canal, and stepped aboard.

She loved it as much as her husband did, its sleek aluminum hull, its movable canvas top, the eighteen-foot deck, the vinyl covered benches, and the small table. After she raised the top against the mid-day sun, she took her seat behind the wheel, and backed into the canal that ran in front of the house, eager for a spin down river. She cruised past shrimp boats and fine mansions along the upper Homosassa, swung by Marker 72, and crossed the mouth of the Salt River.

Brandy relished boating on the river, watching the herons and egrets fish along the water’s edge, admiring the gnarled cedars, the turkey oaks, the clusters of black mangrove, and the ragged head of an occasional cabbage palm. Wheeling in an arc around Tiger Tail Bay, she scanned Tiger Tail Island for the solitary house where Timothy Hart was staying. At breakfast she’d decided to follow up the pudgy little man’s story.

John wouldn’t drive up from Tampa until tomorrow evening. She might as well do the interview now, possibly uncover a fresh story, maybe even a feature. When she finally spotted the roof and pier, she drifted close to the narrow riverbank and picked up her boat hook, ready to pull the pontoon to a post where she could tie up. A quick glance made her aware of oyster shells spread across the yard and cattails growing in the shallow water. Then her heart jumped. A body sprawled in the weeds.

Pulling the throttle to low, she idled nearer, tossed the boat’s fenders into the river, and with a trembling hand, threw a line around a post on the pier. The man lay on his back, arms flung wide. She glimpsed the crown of a bald head, and thought she recognized the plaid shirt. Near the house a slight wind lifted palmetto fronds, and she heard the hoarse cry of a heron, but the log house itself stood in total silence.

She reached into her canvas bag for her cell phone, then slung the bag over one shoulder. First, she had to make sure. Stomach churning, she stepped across the uneven wooden pier and knelt beside the body. She flinched at the sight of the clenched fingers, the pale, sadly familiar face, the startled eyes. She could see no sign of injury, no blood on the face or shorts or shirt, could smell nothing but the odor of vomit spreading under the head.

Willing herself to remain calm, she placed her fingers on the cool wrist. No pulse. She dialed 9-1-1. When a female voice at the Homosassa Springs Sheriff s Office answered, Brandy made an effort to control her voice. “I’m Brandy O’Bannon, Gainesville Star. I found a body on Tiger Tail Island, past Marker 70. It’s near Alma May Flint’s house.” Anyone who knew Homosassa knew Alma May. Brandy had spent enough time in Homosassa to know the old lady herself. She cleared her throat. “I think I can identify the body.”

After the dispatcher agreed to send help, Brandy crossed the yard to the house and called out “Anybody home?” to the blank windows and closed door. Her voice was unsteady as she knocked loudly, but the only answer was the rustle of cabbage palms and the buzz of flies among the cedars. A sense of unease settled over her. It didn’t seem to come from the cottage itself, but from the very land she stood on. The feeling isn’t surprising, she assured herself. I just found a dead man.

Hurrying back across the yard, she sidled past the body, stepped up onto the pier, and took her seat again behind the wheel. For a moment she paused, listening to the slap of water against the posts, then heard a motor-boat pick up speed as it zoomed out of the slower manatee zone.

From a pocket on the console she pulled her small reporter’s notebook. Jotting down every detail was important, not only for the Sheriff s Office, but for the story she would eventually write. Careful notes were her hallmark. She began recording her observations. Near Hart’s corpse a Carolina skiff with a marine decal had been dragged out of the water and turned over; Alma May Flint’s own fishing boat was gone; above the high water mark on the pier hung a faded sign: Rooms by Week. Meals. Brandy scanned the yard, barren except for tufts of wiregrass, a scattering of oyster shells, and a large Grapple Realty For Sale sign.

Apparently, fishermen didn’t provide Alma May with enough income to make ends meet. Maybe she’d grown tired of life on this isolated island, of boating into town for all her supplies, and realized at last she was too old for the routine. Maybe she had grown tired of her hobby, scavenging among the island’s sugar plantation ruins. Behind a satellite dish and the Realtor’s sign, the Flint family’s historic log house had been painted a bilious green, in a pitiful effort, she imagined, to pretty it up for the market. Still, it offered a choice Florida location to sports fisherman: access to tarpon offshore, as well as to gulf flats and the river. But Brandy didn’t think for a minute that Timothy Hart was excited last night about catching tarpon or grouper. There was something else—something he said would be a momentous “discovery.”

The story she would write might not be the one Timothy Hart had expected. After all, he didn’t know he would die. But when Brandy looked at the still form in the weeds, she remembered how eager he had been to make his great find and report it to the world. Last night she had found

Hart oddly endearing, stutter and all, and vulnerable. Whatever had almost been in his grasp, now was forever lost to him. She made a silent vow. She would learn if some kind of treasure did exist in this old town. If it did, she would report it as Hart had wished, not only for herself, but because she had promised him she would.

Brandy laid down her pencil and ran her fingers through her clipped, reddish hair, damp now in the April sunlight. She remembered with a shudder the black vultures that squatted in turkey oaks along the shore. She wanted to see Hart’s body covered. It deserved to be treated with dignity

She shifted her gaze to the river ahead and spotted the Sheriff’s Office patrol boat, slicing toward the island. A youthful deputy in a deep green uniform moored near her boat and stepped out onto the pier. A stick of a man in slacks, carrying a black bag, followed close behind.

The deputy looked at Brandy and removed a green cap with a white star. “Much obliged for your call, M’am,” he said, forehead glistening with perspiration.

She walked across the dock where he stood and stared down at the body. “I’ve got some information about the dead man that might help,” she said, “I met him and his friends last night. He said he wasn’t feeling well, said his name was Timothy Hart.”

While the deputy printed her current phone number and address in careful letters in his notebook, the medical examiner sat back on his heels beside the corpse, thin legs bent like coat hangers. “Autopsy should show something,” he reported in a dry voice. “No obvious cause of death.” He poked, listened, sighed. “Might be stroke or heart. Not my guess, though.” He stood and brushed the seat of his trousers. “Before we move him, better give homicide a holler.”

While the deputy made the call to the command center, Brandy watched with a puzzled frown. Hart had symptoms of an illness last night. Probably the doctor couldn’t detect the disease that killed him and wanted to cover all bases.

“For one thing,” the examiner added, “looks like the guy was searched. Pockets are wrong side out, and he’s been turned over. A person doesn’t usually collapse on the back.”

Brandy had not thought about the body’s position. “Last night Hart said he expected to make some important discovery here in Homosassa.”

The deputy shook his head. “Tourists,” he said, disdain in his voice. “I could’ve saved him some trouble. There’s sure nothing valuable in old Homosassa.”

He began stringing yellow crime scene tape far out in the yard around the body. “I walked across the yard myself,” Brandy explained.

The young man made more notes, then flipped the pad shut. “You know Mrs. Flint, old lady lives here?” Brandy nodded. “She’ll be fit to be tied. A dead guy on her property, probably a tenant, won’t help her get more renters.” He gazed for a moment at the river. “You live in a small town, you get to know folks’ habits. Mrs. Flint’s likely in town grocery shopping, or poking around the old plantation grounds, like she does.”

Brandy remembered Alma May Flint as self-sufficient and elderly and much admired by Brandy’s Homosassa friend, Carole. “Met her a couple of times at craft shows,” she said. “Hart claimed he was buying her house.” She glanced at the “For Sale’ sign, still posted.

The deputy lifted his cap to let a light breeze ruffle his sand-colored hair, and resettled it at a smart angle. “You’re free to go now, Miss. I’ll tell the sergeant where he can reach you.”

On her own note pad Brandy doodled a stick figure with a round head, lying face up. “Believe I’ll wait,” she said. “I’d like to talk to the detective.” She added, not quite truthfully, “I might be able to help Mrs. Flint.”

The young deputy shrugged. “Suit yourself, Miss. The sergeant will want your statement, all right, but he won’t want to talk to the press. He won’t like it, you’re being a reporter. He won’t like it one cotton-pickin’ bit.”

Brandy stepped back into her boat without answering. She dropped into the captain’s chair, relieved to be off her feet. She felt weak, overcome by more than the death of Timothy Hart. The history of Tiger Tail Island was riddled with violence. She’d read about the sugar plantation that burned during the Civil War, and an earlier Seminole Indian massacre. Even before that, the Spaniards led a deadly clash with the first Indians along the river.

A cloud passed over the sun and cast a shadow across the island. Brandy felt a gathering force. A chill crept over her, in spite of the morning heat. The sensation was stronger than the unease she had felt earlier. She wrapped her arms protectively around herself. Timothy Hart was not the only person who had died on this island, and most died violently. She could almost feel the impact of all that fear and tragedy. Some would say she could still feel their anguish.

CHAPTER 2
 

Brandy heard Alma May Flint’s jon boat churning down Petty Creek before she saw it. The old lady herself was perched at the tiller, strands of gray hair flying from a crude knot at the back of her head. Another woman sat on the middle seat, a scarf wrapped around her head, a large cloth bag clutched in one hand, the other gripping the bare plank. Alma May maneuvered the boat into her slip, tied up, and clambered onto the pier, a long, shapeless smock clinging to her legs. Without waiting for her companion, she stalked across the dock, a wiry figure, not more than five feet tall, a set look on her small, pinched face.

“Seen your boat at my place soon’s I come around the last turn,” she said to the deputy. “What’s the problem, son?”

The young deputy removed his cap. “Sorry, Mrs. Flint. This lady here,” he motioned toward Brandy in her pontoon boat, “she called us about an hour ago. I’m afraid she found a body near your house. I’m waiting for the detective.”

“Well, I swan,” Mrs. Flint said. She marched over the rough boards and peered down at the still uncovered figure near the shore. “Dad-gum! He’s my boarder, all right, poor soul, and my buyer, too. I told him he needed a doctor.” She turned toward the other woman, now struggling up onto the dock. “You hear that, Melba? We lost our Mr. Hart.”

Brandy studied the older woman’s tall, bony friend with interest. She must be Melba Grapple, the real estate agent who had sold half the properties in Homosassa. The woman pulled off her scarf, thrust it into her bag, shook out her short, bleached hair, and followed Alma May as she started across the yard.

“It’s okay to go on in the house,” the deputy said. “Couldn’t find any tracks. Shells are too hard packed.”

Mrs. Flint turned sharp blue eyes on him, an edge to her voice. “Indeed, young man, I hope to heaven I can always go into my own house.”

“Someone’s been here before Miss O’Bannon,” he explained, his tone more subdued.

Brandy stood quickly. “Mrs. Flint!” she called to the old woman’s retreating back. “Remember me? The reporter from the Gainesville Star? We met through my friend Carol Brewster.” As Mrs. Flint paused, Brandy strode closer. “I’m waiting to talk to the detective. I feel awful about what happened to Mr. Hart. I met him last night.”

Alma May squinted at Brandy for a second, a hand shielding her eyes. “Carol Brewster? I knew her mama.” She beckoned with one bent finger. “C’mon in out of the heat. Have a bite to eat. Reckon it’s about lunch time.”

Brandy swung in behind Mrs. Flint’s stooped figure. “I’d like that,” she said. “I see you plan to sell your house. Maybe a story in the papers about the history of Tiger Tail Island and the house would help the sale.” She was picking her way past the satellite dish toward the front steps when another boat engine growled up to the riverbank. While a deputy threw a line around a post, a tall black man in a sports shirt and slacks stepped from the second patrol boat. Brandy halted.

“Reckon we got to put up with more law men,” Alma May said from the doorway. “Go on now, see him if you got to, and Melba and me will rustle up something to eat.”