Micanopy in Shadow (32 page)

Brandy sat mute, unable to think how to divert the tirade. All she needed now was for Caleb Stark’s muscular grandson to make an appearance. Liz pushed back a strand of gray hair that had escaped from the severe knot at the back of her head and went on venomously. “Someone said your old grandmother’s here, too, barely alive. Well, she won’t be at the ceremony either and neither will you. I promise you that.”

John stalked toward her. “If that’s a threat, you’ll answer to me!”

The two glared at each other until the sturdy figure of Detective Noble strolled into the room. The sergeant’s slacks and shirt looked rumpled and damp, but his shock of thick gray hair was brushed back in a neat wave above his forehead, and he now wore a tie. He shook hands with John and looked quizzically at Liz, who bridled for a few seconds more, then wheeled, and clomped back into the hall. “What’s got her knickers in a knot?” he asked.

Brandy said, “It’s complicated, but she’s someone who hates me and my grandmother both.”

The sergeant scribbled in his pocket notepad. “Thought you’d like to know,” he said, “that the fingerprint tech picked up a blurry print high up on the screen door frame.” Brandy sent an elated glance at John. Maybe they could prove someone was there who should not be. “Both of you stop by the Sheriff’s Office tomorrow and give us yours. I’ll take care of getting Mrs. O’Bannon’s.”

When a nurse stepped into the doorway, Brandy recognized her as one she had seen at the nearby desk. “Mrs. O’Bannon’s family member can see her for a few minutes,” she said.” She turned to John. “Only one.” She also glanced at the detective.

He rose from his chair and flashed his badge. “I need to talk to the lady, too, nurse. I’m the investigator.”

The nurse frowned. “You can come, too, but not for long. Mrs. O’Bannon mustn’t strain her voice. But she
is
eager to communicate something. I’m afraid she won’t rest until she does.”

Noble turned to Brandy. “You got to remember, being strangled can blot out her memory. Lots of times the victims can’t remember much.” He ended with the comment Brandy had come to expect. “Can’t be helped.”

Hope lay in the bed, her silver hair a halo on the pillow, her magnificent eyes dulled and sunken, and the angular planes of her face in sharp relief. She had aged years in one day. She looked fragile and bony, unlike the vigorous eighty-four year old who tore around Micanopy in her pickup truck. When Hope saw Brandy, her eyes widened. Slowly, she stretched a frail hand toward her granddaughter, fingers trembling, and rasped, “They say I’ll make it.”

Brandy perched on a straight, bedside chair. She smelled an antiseptic odor again and thought, they have bathed her already. “You certainly will,” she said, “but talk as little as you can. A detective’s here to see you.”

Hope gave a slight nod.

Noble stepped forward, mouth grim. He edged closer to the bed and leaned forward. “Do you remember anything about the attack? Anything that might help us identify who did this?”

Hope targeted him with those large gray eyes. The muscles of her face tensed. Finally she managed to say, “Didn’t see. Came from behind. No warning.”

Brandy laid a steadying hand on her arm. “Take it easy.”

“Anything at all you can tell us, M’am?”

Hope reached again for Brandy’s arm and murmured: “Box.” She could hardly force the muted words. “Box on table. Locked.”

Brandy took her cold hand. “There was no box on the table,” she said. “Not in the kitchen. Not in the living room or dining room.”

Hope gripped Brandy’s fingers and rocked her head from side to side. “Yes, yes!” she gasped. “Stolen!”

Brandy glanced at the detective. “You examined everything carefully. The fingerprint technicians dusted. Could anyone have come into the kitchen or porch before I got there?” She remembered the light rain, the muddy grass.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Hard to tell. So much walking in and out. There’s the fingerprint we haven’t yet identified.” He looked back at Hope. “Miss O’Bannon here told me you threatened your business partner with the law. I checked with the Captain in Operations. They’ve had
Treasures & Trinkets
under surveillance for quite a while.”

The well-dressed, middle-aged customer Brandy had seen several times in the store—was he an officer on stake-out?

The detective went on quickly. “Operations suspects the store is a front for drugs. Haven’s contact worked out of a crooked estate sales outfit in Tampa. Hid the stuff in shipments of furniture and glassware. Cocaine and crack, they think. The Sheriff’s Office was ready to pounce anyway. But it’s good you reported it. We figured you weren’t involved.”

A wry smile curved the corners of Hope’s lips. “Great,” she croaked. She fingered the blanket, apology in her glance at Brandy, and whispered, “Shouldn’t have threatened him. Look at me.”

Before Hope strained herself further, Brandy said, “I’m almost certain he didn’t do this to you. I’ll explain later. But Snug will be forced to sell now. He’ll need money to pay an attorney.”

Her grandmother’s lips drew tight in her effort to make them understand. “Don’t forget box.”

Brandy patted her hand and tucked it back under the covers. “You rest, now,” she said. “We’ll check for a box, I promise.”

Back in the waiting room, she sank into an upholstered chair beside John and drummed her open palm on its padded arm. “I know just one person who could attack us both. And kill poor Shot Hunter, as well. But I can’t work out the reason.”

The detective zipped up his jacket, ready to leave. He hadn’t learned much to record in his notepad.

“Look, Bran,” John said. “The strain’s beginning to tell on you. Go on home, too, please. I’ll stay a while, if you like. I care about your grandmother, too, you know.”

Suddenly Brandy felt wearier than she had ever been in her life. Her legs were weak; her head ached. The muscles in her shoulders and back were so stiff they cramped.

“I should listen to you for a change.” She dragged herself out of the chair, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, picked up her canvas bag, and followed the detective down the hall. At the elevator she punched the ground floor button, relieved Hope would recover but feeling defeated and helpless. She and the detective didn’t speak. Nothing more to say. There hadn’t been a box in Hope’s kitchen, or the entire house. Where else could they look? Brandy thought of the folder that disappeared from Hunter’s kitchen, too.

Downstairs, she scarcely noticed the volunteer manning the marbleized counter or the few wan relatives slumped in lobby chairs. Outside, beyond the front doors, the night looked hazy, the pavement wet. A few people pushed their way in, one or two shaking raindrops from their umbrellas. A gust of chill, moist air swept through the open door, bringing with it the clean smell of freshly scoured sidewalks. Brandy turned up her jacket collar and felt for its hood, ready to step outside and ask valet parking for her car.

She began to brush past a slender woman in a smartly tailored navy raincoat and matching hat when she heard the rap of spike heels on the tile floor beside her. A familiar voice chirped, “Why, I declare! How
precious
to find you here. I didn’t know
where
to look. Your sitter—that darling little Kyra Gibbons—told me to check Shands.” Lily Lou Irons teetered toward Brandy. “I have something here I believe belongs to your grandmother.”

Brandy’s lips parted in amazement. With both hands, Lily Lou thrust toward her a medium-sized wooden box, the metal lock hanging open.

Brandy had almost forgotten about the detective. Now Noble pressed forward and reached for the box. Lily Lou stepped back, eyes wide, fingers clenched around her prize. “I really don’t believe I know you, sir!” she said.

Quickly Brandy intervened. “It’s all right, Lily Lou.” Her energy revived at the sight of the box. “This is Detective Sergeant Noble, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. He’s investigating the attack on my grandmother. And this,” she added to the officer, “is Lily Lou Irons, wife of Montgomery Irons. My husband’s his architect.”

The detective moved closer to Lily Lou. “Mrs. O’Bannon says someone took a box like that from her house.”

Lily Lou’s huge blue eyes grew even wider. “Is she going to be all right?”

“We think so.” Noble tried to control his impatience. “We think the contents of that box may be important to the case.”

“Oh, goodness.” Lily Lou glanced around the lobby. “Can we go somewhere and talk more privately?”

The detective strode to the counter, flashed his badge, and said a few terse words to a woman in a pink uniform while Brandy jerked her cell from her bag and punched in the number of the waiting room upstairs. When John picked up the phone, she said, “You’d better go on home, check on Brad and Kyra. Something’s come up with the detective here. I’ll be delayed.” She shut the cell phone off before he could object.

The volunteer at the desk rose and led the three of them into a small, unoccupied room adjoining the lobby, closed the door, and left. Lily Lou chose to sit in a cushioned chair opposite a sofa, tucking the box beside her. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts. She removed her dripping, soft-brimmed rain hat, folded it, and laid it on the other side. Then she unzipped her raincoat and opened it to reveal a white acetate-spandex tunic and pants, trimmed in lace. “This is harder than I thought. I didn’t know a police detective would be here.” She turned on him her high voltage smile.

Sergeant Noble’s calm tone was reassuring. “Just start at the beginning, Mrs. Irons. Take it slowly.” He slipped his small spiral notebook from an inside pocket, but as she glanced at it and hesitated, he thrust it back.

Brandy tried to imagine the languid Lily Lou sneaking up on her grandmother from the rear, strangling her, and grabbing the box. The image simply would not come clear, although she suspected Montgomery Iron’s wife was not nearly as delicate as she made herself appear. But the lock had been cut. Would the contents still be there? Perhaps Lily Lou was returning an empty box.

Lily Lou seemed to make an effort, her voice low. “It happened like this. Goodness, this will be so hard.” She locked her slender fingers together, great blue eyes imploring. “One of the men working in the hall, a carpenter’s helper—you know, at the house—came into the parlor where I was sitting. I sometimes go over there, looking for Monty or out of curiosity. I don’t know the man’s name. Someone the contractor hired. He had this box in his hands. He said, ‘Mrs. Irons, I found this when we were taking down the closet wall. It was in a hidden panel that just popped open.’

“Well, I took the thing—it was padlocked then.” Finally she handed it to the detective. “The label is faint, but it reads, ‘
Hope
.’” She turned for the first time toward Brandy. “You said you were missing a part of the puzzle, so I thought at once of Hope O’Bannon. You know, I’ve been interested in what you were doing. I knew that closet was added by Monty’s mother years ago—used to be part of the old library. Monty said lots of men in the town worked on the remodeling. The kitchen and bathrooms, too.”

Noble reached deep into a pocket and pulled out a pair of thin plastic gloves, then carefully removed the lock and lifted up the hinged lid. Lily Lou unclasped her hands. Her fingers fluttered at the box. “The papers will be all in a jumble. I
am
sorry, but I didn’t have time to tidy them. I was in such a rush.” She fumbled in a small black pocketbook for a handkerchief. “I haven’t got to the hard part yet.”

Brandy frowned impatiently. “But we know the box was at my grandmother’s, probably on the kitchen table with the rest of her mail.”

Lily Lou gave her a severe look. “Well, of course, I know that. When I saw the words on the lid and thought it might be Mrs. O’Bannon’s, I tried to deliver it. Monty hadn’t gotten to the house yet. He was in Gainesville on business. Well, of course, your grandmother wasn’t home, so I left it in her mailbox before I went shopping.” She settled back, pleased.

“Did you break the lock?” Brandy asked.

Lily Lou pursed her full lips, offended. “Of course not! Monty must’ve done that later. When I got back to the big house, I smelled smoke. Well, I don’t care much about actually living there, but goodness, I don’t want it to burn down. I followed the odor around in back, and there was Monty, all in a sweat. He had a large metal can, and he was pulling papers out of the box with one hand and stoking the fire with the other. The lock was dangling like it is now. It’s been cut. Well, I called out, ‘Monty, honey, stop! Those papers must belong to Mrs. O’Bannon. Well,” she shook her head sadly, “he didn’t stop. So I ran to the corner of the porch, and I yelled, ‘Monty! A Sheriff’s car’s parked out front! They’re coming onto the porch.’”

“Was there?” Brandy asked, bewildered.

“Oh, no. It was all I could think to say to stop him. He said, ‘Here, you feed these papers into the fire. I’ll explain later,’ and he ran around the corner of the house, looking for the deputy, I guess. Well, I stuffed the papers back into the box, jumped into my car, and got out of there as fast as I could.”

Her tight smile showed pride. “I took that box and went to your apartment, Brandy. I knew Mrs. O’Bannon wasn’t home. If she’d given the box to Monty, he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to burn the papers, now would he? I didn’t know how Monty got them.”

Noble was lifting a yellowed sheet from the box. “Did you look at the documents?” he asked.