Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (25 page)

She was slated to make landfall at Dauphin Island Saturday afternoon—unless she hit a strong steering current. She could roar to shore in a matter of hours.

Agitation took me in its teeth and shook me hard. For a moment, panic ruled. I needed to wake up the household and get packed. After a few deep breaths, I forced myself to calm. It would take no more than half an hour to load the car. We could be on our way by 7
A.M
. There was no need to shake people out of bed before dawn. We had at least twenty-four hours to evacuate, and the storm was not that severe.

I refocused on the DJ’s voice. Reports from Alabama elected officials made it clear that no one expected the savage destruction of Katrina. The real danger was in floods across roads and the tornadoes a hurricane could spawn and send in any direction. There could be millions of dollars lost in timber, physical buildings, road damage, and flooding. But for humans who practiced a degree of safety and did not live in flood zones, it would be a minimal event except for the loss of power that always came with a storm. I could not comprehend for the life of me why power lines weren’t buried in areas where the soil was easy to dig. Every year they blew down or trees fell on them. In the Delta, ice took them down every winter. It made no sense to me.

Because I didn’t want to go back inside and wait for folks to wake up, I drove to the old fort. I found my way to the battlements and watched the surf as it battered the bulkhead of cement riprap. The sound almost deafened me.

Spray spewed in flumes that left me wet and tacky with salt. John Trotter’s watercolors came to mind. The water had the same clarity and hue. Using a translucent background was a stroke of genius on his part. Maybe one day, the paintings would be worth a lot.

Thoughts of art left my head as an angry wave smashed at my feet. While dangerous, the power in the water and wind was also exhilarating. Jitty had recently appeared to me as Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, reminding me that her monster was created by the power of a strong electrical storm.

Perhaps it was my gothic musings or my last chance encounter with a stalker that made the hair on my neck stand at attention. Whatever, I knew I was under observation.

“You should see the Irish Sea crashing against the cliffs. Now there’s a sight to stir a literary imagination.”

The Irish accent, complete with such proper articulation, clued me in to Jitty’s presence. Yet again she wore the full weeds of Victorian widowhood. To be sure, I couldn’t identify her this time. “Who are you portraying?” I asked.

“To be courted by two literary giants was never my dream.”

I searched my memory and still couldn’t place the phantom. She carried herself with great pride, and she was a beauty. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes that caught the last of the starlight and sparkled.

“Another clue, Jitty.”

“My husband created a literary masterpiece on a par with Shelley’s
Frankenstein.”

“Mrs. Stoker, the honor is mine.” I gave a low bow. I didn’t care that she’d scared me a little. I was desperately glad for the company. “What brings you to the battlements of Fort Gaines?”

“I’m contemplating my legacy. Did you know I was courted by Oscar Wilde?”

My knowledge of history was slim. “Didn’t he go to prison for—”

“He did.” She cut me off. “Ridiculous. He was a genius. Like Bram. And he was a gentle man.”

“Which was the better conversationalist?” I had to ask. I loved the plays of Oscar Wilde, but
Dracula
had imprinted me with all the secret joy of the vampire world.

“Oscar was funnier. Bram the better storyteller.”

“And you’re here to lament your love life?”

She laughed. “No, that’s your role. I’m here to tell you that love can’t be rationed.” She sighed. “I outlived my husband by a quarter century. I survived on memories. That’s what it comes down to. Make some good ones, because they will sustain you.”

“Jitty, what is with the widows? Spit it out!”

She came closer. “Bram danced with the darkness of death. Out of it, he made great literature.”

“I don’t want to live death or write about it. I want to be happy. I want to go home to Dahlia House with Graf and my critters and have a wedding and start a family. I finally accept this is what I want. And before you point it out, yes, I do want it all. Husband, family, heritage, careers. And why shouldn’t I?”

“Awareness sometimes comes too late. The art to living is learning to fight on and yet surrender.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m serious. That’s a crock of shit! It’s unacceptable.”

Jitty’s low chuckle came again. “At least I got your Irish up. Now you’re ready to fight. Crawl out of that hole of doubt and self-pity and show me your mama’s girl.”

And then she was gone.

A wave hit the riprap so hard the water almost knocked me off the wall. I backed away. In the east the sun rose, highlighting the massive storm clouds to the south. They boiled at the horizon’s edge. It was time to leave.

I slipped into the fort. Walking the empty corridors, my footsteps swallowed by the pounding surf, I felt more like a shade than a flesh-and-blood person. This must be how Jitty felt. Disconnected from the physical world. There, yet not there.

I found myself in what had once been used as a dungeon. Because the fort was built on the shifting sand of a barrier island, prisoners were at ground level, not the traditional dank dungeons of books such as
The Count of Monte Cristo.
I wondered if Armand and LuAnn had been held here.

Life was indeed cruel. And unpredictable.

Sunlight crept into the room, almost as if nature offered a bit of solace. The wall of the cell, a dun color, caught the sunlight and turned into a golden shade so beautiful I stopped to examine it. As the light intensified, a drawing began to come through. I froze.

Someone had drawn a coastline and words written in French. Had the image been there all along, hiding in the shadows of the cell? Surely if that were true, someone would have found it before now. But even as I watched, the sun rose higher and the quality of light changed. The drawing began to disappear.

I whipped out my cell phone and snapped a dozen photos, hoping to capture the details of the drawing even as the light changed and the wall became, once again, a dunnish blank. If I brought in floodlights and angled them just so, could I make the image reappear? I couldn’t say. The genius of the disappearing drawing had to do with sunlight. Armand Couteau, who I believed from the bottom of my soul had scrawled the message on the wall, could never have predicted electric light.

But there was no need for artificial illumination. I checked my phone. I’d captured the map. Now all I had to do was figure out what it meant.

Was it possible John Trotter had found this? Was this part of the legend that would lead us to the pirate’s booty that had eluded discovery for almost two hundred years?

I left the old fort at a trot. I could only hope the storm wouldn’t damage the historic place, but Fort Gaines had survived far worse than Hurricane Margene.

Sunshine angled over the parking lot when I hurried out of the fort, but even before I could reach the car a cloud passed in front of the sun. We had to hurry. As Florence/Jitty had warned me, sometimes awareness came too late.

As I opened the car door, a gust of wind almost took it off its hinges. No time to waste now. I sped toward the cottage.

The voice of a radio newscaster, almost breathless with the rush of a breaking story, caught my attention. “Evacuation for Dauphin Island, Gulf Shores, and low-lying areas south of I-10 are advised by Alabama officials. Residents in flood zones are asked to begin the process of moving into shelters. The governor is considering a mandatory evacuation, but so far has taken no action in that direction.”

Mandatory evacuation. Now this was something I’d never faced before. In my head, I was mentally packing and preparing for flight from the storm. Before I returned to the cottage, I detoured the short distance to the marina. The
Miss Adventure
’s berth would be empty, but I hoped to see Arley on the wharf. I needed confirmation that Angela and the ship had safely made the passage upriver.

When I turned into the marina, fear touched my gut. The
Miss Adventure
tossed on the rough water. She hadn’t moved an inch.

And there was no sign of Angela.

20

I returned to the cottage to pack up. If Graf had already finished, he could drive the SUV to New Orleans with the pets while Tinkie and I tracked down Angela. If he wanted distance, he was going to get it.

I called Angela several times, but she never picked up. A gust of wind pushed sand over the roadway, a tiny reminder that I was in terrain I didn’t know well. Beach scenes were fun and sand and sun—a bad storm was another matter.

Doing my best to stay calm, I ran up the stairs and into the cottage. “Where have you been?” Tinkie asked. “Is Graf with you?”

“What?” I glanced about the room. “Where is he?”

“When I woke up, both of you were gone. I assumed you were together.” Worry knotted her forehead. “Where the hell did you get off to?”

I told her and showed her the photos I’d taken in the fort—while it didn’t stop her worry, it did slow her complaints about my abrupt morning departure.

“This is a clue, Sarah Booth.” Tinkie couldn’t suppress her excitement, even though it was offset with worry about the storm. “Our Internet connection is going in and out, but when we get to New Orleans or someplace where we have a reliable connection, we can research what this says. It’s French. Something about sunrise and a cross. I don’t know. I should have paid more attention in class back at Ole Miss.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“
Le Soleil Levant intersecte avec l’ombre d’un mur. Là se trouve le croisement du destin et de la fortune.”
Tinkie mouthed the words with a certain flair, but they had no meaning whatsoever to me. “Dammit. I just can’t get hold of it.”

“Translating the French will be easy enough once we find someone who speaks the language. I’m more concerned about Angela. She never moved her boat.”

“That young woman needs to get her priorities straight.” She paced the room. “I’m curious. What made you go to the fort?”

“I didn’t sleep well. I was ready to pack at four
A.M
., but you and Graf were sound asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Maybe you should get a shock collar for Graf. One with a physical limit, so if he goes beyond the boundaries, he gets toasted.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, though I would never do such a thing to Sweetie Pie. Graf was a different situation.

Tinkie’s next statement echoed my thoughts. “If he’s helping his honey pack up while we’re here loading our crap by ourselves, I say we drive off and leave him.” My partner was highly agitato.

“Let’s check on Angela.” I tried to call her from the landline. There was no answer at her cottage or on her cell. Her cell phone, like mine and the Internet service, could be suffering intermittent transmission.

“Put the stuff in the SUV and let’s drive over to the marina. Maybe she’s there by now, though I wonder if it isn’t too late to try to sail out of here.” Tinkie could be counted on for practical solutions.

We hustled our suitcases down the stairs. The weather still held, but we had to fight an occasional stiff wind. Nothing an experienced sailor couldn’t handle, but would Angela be able to round up a crew at this late date?

We hefted our bags into the back of the SUV. Even Sweetie trotted up and down the steps carrying her dog bed and supplies.

“This weather is ominous,” Tinkie said. “Due south it looks like the sky might fall at any minute. The hard thing is, we know it’s coming our way and we can’t stop it.”

“Feeder bands will arrive first. They can extend hundreds of miles from the eye.”

“That makes me feel oodles better.” Tinkie didn’t bother to sound less than snippy. “The weather station says New Orleans is overcast, but not so much wind. The ball will go on as planned.”

“Margene is tight. She’ll only impact the place she lands and to the east. The Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans are safe this time around.”

“Then let’s beat a path for the Crescent City.”

When we had everything packed, we left the loaded SUV and took Pluto and Sweetie in Tinkie’s Caddy to swing by Angela’s cottage on the east end of the island. Overnight, the look of the small neighborhood had changed. Plywood shuttered windows, and many carports and garages were empty. People had evacuated. Stranded on an island without power or access to emergency help was no one’s dream of the good life.

Angela’s cottage was the exception. The front door swung open ominously as the wind gusted. The carport was empty. Not a window was boarded up, and lawn furniture and gardening tools, which should have been stowed inside, were scattered about the yard. Almost as if she’d been whisked away by goblins.

“This doesn’t look good,” Tinkie said.

“Maybe I should go in first.” I couldn’t take putting anyone else I loved in danger.

“Fat chance that’ll happen. Sweetie, Pluto, and I are on you like glue.”

We abandoned the car and halted at the front door.

“Angela!” I called into the house. My voiced reverberated, like yelling into a well. “Angela! Are you in here?”

“Turn on a light,” Tinkie advised. “Don’t you just hate those forensic shows where they go into a house and search by flashlight when all they have to do is flip a switch?”

I did. Light flooded the interior. The place was wrecked. Chairs and sofas had been toppled and the stuffing cut out of them.

“We’d better call nine-one-one,” Tinkie said.

I pulled out my cell phone—still no signal—and then thought better of alerting the authorities. I wasn’t sure they were uninvolved in ransacking Angela’s house.

“Let’s see what we find before we get the law involved.” I continued forward to the bedroom and bath. Both were empty, and both had been torn apart. The only room left was the kitchen. A bad feeling made me hesitate.