HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (12 page)

“At least the income helped build the Seminole museum off Alligator Alley.” Brandy said, lifting her notebook from her bag, and jotting a few lines. “I guess Fishhawk doesn’t need Hart’s treasure for the money it would bring.”

“The Seminoles lost all they owned during the Seminole wars,” he said. “Their museum had to borrow from other museums. Fishhawk would probably like to contribute a valuable artifact.”

“Enough to murder?”

Grif raised his eyebrows and paused. “I know he’s obsessed with Seminole history. He wouldn’t want anyone to snatch something precious that belongs to the tribe. I don’t know what he’d do to prevent it.”

As Hackett steered his boat into the dock beside Brandy’s, she noticed lights in the living room windows of the Flint house. Clouds hid the sun, and a chill wind from the gulf kicked up waves half a foot high in the river. “I’ll follow you back to your canal,” he said. “It may get a little dicey if the current’s running fast. I’ve got business at the marina near there, anyway.”

On the other side of the pier Alma May’s little jon boat swayed, but Brandy could see Tugboat Grapple’s Grady White boat wasn’t there.

“Before we go,” she said. “I want to talk to Mrs. Flint and Melba, too, if she’s still here. I wonder what they found after a day’s foraging. And I want to find out where that first house stood, the one the Indians burned.” As Hackett tied up his boat, Brandy stepped out onto the dock. Melba Grapple’s real estate sign had disappeared. If one or both had read the journal, they may have decided a sale was premature.

When Brandy and Grif reached the porch, they heard raised voices inside. Brandy recognized the waspish sound of Alma May. “Not on your sweet life! I won’t hear of it!”

Melba answered, her tone not loud, but acidic. “I’m not giving you a choice.” Hackett waited as Brandy rapped at the front door.

Alma May spoke again. “I reckon your man’s gambled away everything, like he does. You might be obliged for my help.” Apparently Tugboat had become a financial problem.

Melba spoke again. “I can handle Tugboat. Answer the door. Someone’s here.”

Alma May flung it open and stared at Brandy, surprised. “What do you want this time, young lady?” She remained in the doorway.

Hackett moved forward and interrupted. “I came by to say I’m staying at the motel in town tonight. I’ve almost finished at the mound. I’ll check out with you tomorrow.”

Alma May stepped aside. If Hackett didn’t room here, Brandy knew she might not be allowed in again. The real estate agent had tossed her head scarf aside and sat on the couch, glaring with arms crossed at a brown bottle with a broken neck and a corroded pewter spoon on the coffee table. Beside them lay a stained pair of garden gloves and a smoldering cigarette in the ashtray. Melba swept her hand above the coffee table.

“You see before you the sole result of a day at the plantation site,” she said. She unfolded her archaeological chart. “I’ve marked where I found each piece.” When the sharp fronds of a scrub palmetto blew against the windowpane, Brandy glanced outside. A spade leaned against the wall, its blade soiled with fresh dirt.

“Digging?” Brandy asked as Grif disappeared down the hall.

Melba blew a jet of smoke to one side. “Not for Yulee silver, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Brandy smiled. “We’ve been to visit the little Indian family who’s spending some time on the island.”

She watched Alma May’s face harden. “I’ve already seen more of that man than I want to,” she snapped.

Brandy frowned. “I didn’t think he’d ever been here.”

“He wasn’t no guest.” Alma May stumped toward the kitchen and lifted a chunk of left over pot roast from the refrigerator. Brandy followed her and stood by the counter as the old lady took a sharp knife from a wall holder and began dicing the meat. “I was in my garden,” Alma May said. “I could see over the canal there.” Ker-chunk went the blade, and a cube of meat rolled onto the cutting board. She raised the knife again, face set. Ker-chunk! Maybe Alma May was visualizing Fishhawk under her knife. “He was slipping around behind the wax myrtles on the other side, like he was hiding. But I knew him all right. No mistaking that coal black hair and reddish skin. Gave me the shivers. Made me think of the Flint massacre. Blamed Indians!”

Brandy glanced back at Melba and the other woman rolled her eyes.

Brandy spoke softly. “What do you suppose he was doing there, Mrs. Flint?”

“Snooping, that’s what. How do I know what he was looking for?” But, of course, they could all guess.

CHAPTER 8
 

Brandy did not intend to leave Alma May’s without having her main question answered. Hackett would not need much longer to gather up his clothes to move to the motel. “I meant to ask you,” she said to Alma May, “where the original house stood. I need to know for my article about the history of the island.”

Alma May wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and pointed a crooked forefinger toward the dining area. “There’s an old picture on the wall took of the second house in the 1870’s. It stands about where the first one was, the one burnt by the Indians.” Brandy remembered the journal entry. The warrior had hidden whatever he found near that original cabin. The second one must’ve been built after the former soldier made his return trip and found an empty lot.

Alma May cocked her head, one thin hand poking a wisp of gray hair back into the knot at the nape of her neck. “That one weren’t much more than a cabin, either. After the Indians was all cleared out, the survivor come back, re-built, and lived there ‘til he was an old man. One of his sons tore the place down and used the wood in this one.”

Brandy turned on the overhead light in the dining area and studied the faded photograph. It showed a two-room shingle house separated by a passage called a “dog trot” that John had told her promoted ventilation in early Florida houses. A long roofed porch spanned the front. In the rear stood a small log barn, a shed, a fenced garden with a lush stand of corn, and a narrow outhouse discreetly placed behind the garden. Next to the shed, a woman in a sunbonnet stood under a tall tree, holding a bucket.

Alma May moved up beside Brandy. “The Mrs. Flint of that day.” She placed her hands on her angular hips. “That house set back a ways from the river, same as the first. In them days folks built on pilings and high ground. Didn’t want no floods or snakes or other varmints in the house, thank you very much. Like I said, it was tore down for the lumber when this one was built closer to the water.”

“So you can’t figure out what the Indian Fishhawk was doing near this site?” Brandy asked.

Alma May snorted. “Maybe trying to find Mr. Hart’s fool journal.”

Melba drew in a quick breath. She realized, Brandy thought, what the old lady had said. The two weren’t supposed to know about the journal. Certainly not that it had been hidden outside the house. It might be an admission that one or both of them concealed it after Timothy Hart’s death. Brandy must tell Sergeant Strong. Fingerprints might show what Brandy suspected—at least one of them had handled the briefcase or turned the journal pages.

Alma May tried to cover up. She glowered at Brandy. “I seen you and the Sergeant looking at a book you found yesterday.” Brandy doubted that Hart himself would bury his journal. He did not seem to keep its contents secret, not nearly secret enough. Again Alma May began whacking the roast into dice-sized cubes, her blows so forceful they startled Brandy. No delicate flower, this old lady.

“I’ve admired your garden,” Brandy said in an effort to soften the old lady’s attitude before asking her question. “Tomorrow there’ll be a news story in the paper about Mr. Hart’s death. The Sheriff’s Office wants to know who grows pokeweed around here. Can you help? I don’t suppose it’s grown in a garden.”

The question did not improve Mrs. Flint’s disposition. “Just plumb full of ideas, ain’t you? Do I grow that weed with my vegetables? No, I don’t. But it’s on the island and if you want to know, I’ve used young shoots in salads.” Again her bent fingers settled on her hips. “But not lately, thank you very much.”

Melba rose, shook out her short, ash blonde hair, snuffed out her cigarette, and picked up her head scarf. She left the bottle and spoon on the table and avoided her friend’s eyes.

When Grif re-appeared in the hall, carrying a duffle bag, he looked into the kitchen. “Moving most of my stuff today,” he said to Alma May. “We’d better get started before the weather gets worse.”

“I thank you for all the information, Mrs. Flint,” Brandy said.

Alma May grew more relaxed and her tone milder. “I’ll be much obliged if your story in the papers gets folks interested in the house. I reckon I’ll put it up for sale again shortly.”

Melba stood and tied her scarf tightly around her hair. “I wonder if you’d drop me off at my place up river from Bird Island? You’re going my way. No need for Alma May to run me home before a storm.” Along the waterfront Brandy could see palms bent low, their fronds fluttering wildly.

Alma May stayed in the kitchen while the three let themselves out. As they walked through the rising wind toward the pier, Brandy caught up with Melba. “I’ve wanted to ask,” she said, “why Alma May is called ‘Mrs. Flint.’ If this is the Flint homestead, isn’t it her husband’s family home, not her own ancestors’?”

The Realtor adjusted her scarf. “Alma May’s husband died years before I moved here. She preferred to take back her own name. Flints are quite an old family here, and prominent. Sometimes they make their own rules. She always preferred to be known as a Flint.” Melba edged onto Grifs rocking boat deck, gripping the rail, her head lifted high. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Alma May can be difficult, and that’s a fact.”

Brandy ducked her head against the wind, climbed into her own boat, and turned the key. The sky had darkened, and the smell of rain hung in the air. As the two pontoon boats started single file across Tiger Tail Bay, Brandy searched for the pair of ospreys. Ospreys mated for life. Would the strong wind drive either away from the nest on the tall channel marker? She caught sight of the male, feathers ruffled and head pressed to his breast, clutching the branch of an oak a few yards from the nest. The female’s head was still thrust above the untidy pile of sticks and brush.

Brandy wondered if Fishhawk and Annie would weather the approaching storm as well.

Brandy slowed almost to idle, bow facing the waves, while Hackett pulled up to Melba’s elaborate dock. On the pier stood the bald, thick-set man with the ragged beard, hands on hips and legs apart. Brandy recognized him from the night before at the Tiki bar.

“About time, woman!” he shouted. Again Brandy felt pity for the Realtor. No wonder Alma May thought Melba’s husband needed handling. It was hard to imagine he was once her hero.

The archaeologist helped Melba ashore as the first drops of rain rattled down on the hulls, then clamored back aboard, and roared on after Brandy’s pitching pontoon. “Let’s have dinner again tonight,” he called as she reached the mouth of the canal. He whipped his lurching boat around for the trip to the motel marina. “I’ll pick you up in less than an hour. No ve got news.

Brandy was too far away to reply. Grif Hackett was getting to be a habit. And John would probably call tonight. She scooted on down the canal, relieved to be in calmer waters. From the Gulf blew a gust of wind-driven rain.

After stepping into the screened porch with Meg, Brandy watched the cabbage palm beside the house toss in the wind, and thought about Annie Pine. This weather wouldn’t make Annie any happier about staying on Tiger Tail Island. She wondered if Fishhawk’s wife knew about Timothy Hart and his search. Obviously Fishhawk himself knew more than he admitted. If the Indian hadn’t read the journal, what was he doing more than a mile from his camp at the site of the first Flint homestead? And Brandy only had his word that he did not read Muskokee.

She picked up the phone in the kitchen and called her regional office, wishing she had done it earlier. “Look,” she said to a fellow reporter, “I’ve got to ask a favor. It’s probably too late to get an answer tonight, but see if you can reach anyone at the Seminole Tribune in Hollywood, Florida. Got a pencil? I need a translation of the following Muskokee words. They were written more than a century ago, the way they sounded in English.” She waited a few seconds, then carefully spelled out the unknown syllables from Lieutenant Henry Hart’s journal. “I need that translation as soon as possible. If I’m not here, leave it on this answering machine.” She wandered back onto the porch, picked up her notebook, and jotted down a record of her visit to Fishhawk’s camp.

In a few minutes Hackett pulled up in his van. Brandy settled on a raincoat with a hood, then stepped out on the front step. “It’s a little wet for the Tiki bar tonight,” he said, reaching across and opening the passenger door. “They’ve got good food at the tavern by the old sugar mill.”

They drove down a road that curved under a canopy of branches cloaked in Spanish moss. “Melba’s husband gets to me,” she said as they parked among a throng of other cars before the small cypress building. Here she’d had the morose Friday night supper with John.

“He’s a full time boozer these days, I hear,” Hackett said. Brandy wondered how Tugboat was involved in the quarrel she’d overheard between Melba and Alma May.

“And your news?” she asked.

In spite of the rain, Grif walked around and opened her door. “It’s almost time for me to leave Homosassa. I’ve taken a two-room suite at the motel to help get organized. I set up a field lab a few days ago, and I need a couple of days to pack up. I kept a few choice specimens of pottery for the museum. I want you to see the one with a bird handle.” They lowered their heads to the moist air and a southeast wind, entered the little restaurant, and found a table near the bar. The piped music was soft. Fishermen and fishing guides with day old beards were perched at the bar. Glasses clinked, and from the pass-through kitchen window Brandy caught the tantalizing smell of seared beef.

It was Sunday night. That left some time before Hackett wanted to leave. “Sergeant Strong should be finished with us all by Wednesday, I’d think. I’ll stay in touch with the cops, of course, in case they need me. Which I doubt.”