SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY (21 page)

Bad news, maybe, for Cara, Brandy thought. Louise had explained why Bullen seemed restrained about Cara. “At least Mr. Bullen had one child to raise,” Brandy said. Then she realized what was missing from the town house. Where were the portraits of his son by the first wife, the boy who had stayed with his father? “What happened to the son?”

Louise drew her mouth down and frowned. “A big zero. Could’ve had any career he wanted. Mr. Bullen could’ve got him in law school. But the boy was like his mother. Running around, flunking out of schools. Went to a coupla prep schools in New England. Then started in at a partying kinda college, but he finally just quit. Dabbles now in this and that. Importing business, last I heard. Mr. Bullen settled an allowance on him several years ago, and we don’t hear nothing much from him anymore. Lived in Las Vegas for a while, then down around Miami. Likes boating. Oh, he tries to butter Mr. Bullen up now and then. He’d be over thirty now.”

“I wondered why there weren’t any photographs.”

“Mr. Bullen had as soon forget about Blade, I think. Nice looking boy, though.”

Brandy recalled a monogram B.B. on a pair of socks worn by a Miami fisherman. “I used to know a Blade Bullen in Miami. Got a picture handy?”

Louise scuttled upstairs and returned with a dusty album. She wiped it with a cloth, then flipped to a page in the middle of the book. Brandy noticed several blank pages. “Allison,” Louise said. “Mr. Bullen took her pictures out. Said he couldn’t bear to look at them.” She settled on a page and held it open for Brandy. “There’s the little blister’s prep school picture, before he was kicked out. Drunk as a skunk.”

Brandy drew in her breath. The boy’s eyes were unfocused, the lips sagged in a silly grin, the blond hair was disheveled. But she was looking into the adolescent face of the man she knew in Cedar Key as Nathan Hunt.

CHAPTER 16
 

When Brandy opened the door to Thea’s apartment that afternoon, Sonata was emerging from the bathroom, her arms laden with lingerie and hose, her smile sunny. “A Libra,” she announced, “like sensitive, artistic, entertaining. Tonight will be a sensation.” Brandy set Thea’s key on the foyer table, beside a newspaper open to the astrology section, and scrambled to make a connection. With Sonata, Brandy always felt as if she’d stumbled into a conversation already in progress. Probably Sonata was referring to her daily horoscope. Brandy wondered if Allegro’s mattered, but she didn’t ask.

The parrot was whacking away at his cuttlebone and barely cocked his head at her. Sonata began poking her slips and underpants and stockings into any drawer that would hold them. “What’s your sign?”

Brandy crunched over the scattered birdseed and picked up the telephone book. “Scorpio, I think.” Sonata peered at the newspaper page and knitted her pencil-thin eyebrows. “Big thing for you is unexpected danger. Like, Look out!”

Brandy stacked her notebook and note pad on the table. “Everybody in New York wants to warn me.” She thought of Cedar Key’s three man police force. Despite what Cara believed, small towns had advantages. Still, even in tiny Cedar Key there had been a drug bust at the dock. She picked up one of the telephone books on the shelf in

Thea’s area, studied the yellow pages under Manhattan dentists, and found a Dr. Edward Linebaugh. A call netted some concrete information. This Linebaugh was the son of the original dentist, now retired. After a wait of several minutes, the appointment secretary came back on the line and reported that records were kept for at least twenty-five years. If proper authorities contacted the office, she would fax the charts.

Next Brandy placed a call to Detective Strong at his Bronson office. She was not so fortunate this time. The detective was in Cedar Key. She left a message that she had exciting news and asked that he call her in New York about nine that night. She wondered what he would make of Nathan Hunt’s real identity. At least it might raise questions. Why was Frank Bullen’s son sniffing around Rossi’s missing person’s investigation? Maybe he was the other interested party, trying to keep the relationship hidden. Whatever his father’s suspicions, legally little Belinda Bullen would be his half-sister.

The Sheriff’s Office could request an exhumation order. A comparison of dental charts and teeth would show if the Cedar Key skeleton with the cracked skull was Allison Bullen.

Brandy had scrawled a record of her interviews across several notebook pages and decorated the margins with a square cistern and an oval tombstone when a familiar voice startled her. “I wanna be me,” Allegro rasped, one shiny eye following someone up the stone steps.

“And so does Cara,” Brandy murmured.

Sonata giggled. “A freaking feathered watch dog.” She reached for the locks to admit Thea.

That night, after Tandoori Chicken at an Indian restaurant on East Sixth Street, Brandy returned to find no message from Cara on Thea’s answering machine. Disappointed, Brandy decided that Cara didn’t snap a recognizable picture at Shell Mound. But the agreement had been that she would call either way. Brandy dialed Marcia’s number and let the phone ring ten times. No answer. Both out. She would ask about the photograph tomorrow.

Next Brandy phoned the car service Thea recommended, making certain she had a ride to the airport early in the morning.

Then she called home again. John answered, still disgruntled. “Busy as hell. Are you ever coming home?” A waltz played in the background. It didn’t reflect John’s taste, and she could hear a woman’s voice. Maybe the radio was on. Brandy vowed to stay cheerful. “I’ll be home tomorrow. I didn’t know I’d have to come to New York. We’ll take a weekend soon, go to that place on the Suwannee you liked. Promise.” In the end she couldn’t help asking, “Do you have company?”

John paused a beat. “Tiff and I had to re-do some computer drawings. She’s just leaving. We had problems to solve before the contractors start work tomorrow.”

So it was “Tiff” now. Brandy’s grip on the receiver tightened, but she knew better than to start a quarrel a thousand miles from home. “Cara’s to pick me up about noon. She’ll drop me off.” Brandy drew the mouthpiece close to her lips and tried a more sultry tone. “Try to be home early. Love you.”

“I hope you do,” he said, stressing the second word; then the other receiver clicked down. If this investigation doesn’t end soon, she thought grimly, my marriage might.

It was nine-thirty before Detective Strong returned Brandy’s call. He listened without comment to her report, but she thought his breathing quickened. “I’ll have me a good talk with Mr. Blade Bullen, AKA Nathan Hunt. I’ll also contact the medical examiner. That New York dentist—give me his name and number.”

Brandy called out the information. “Maybe you can close two cases for the price of one.”

Strong’s grunt sounded skeptical. “In the Rossi case, we think we found the murder weapon. But I’ll follow up on the dental exam. A judge has to order an exhumation.” He paused while she imagined him slowly shaking his head. “Jesus do say, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’”

No argument there. “I hope the judge grants it. Mainly I want to help Cara Waters. I’ll be back in Gainesville tomorrow.”

“Your friend Cara’s mama, she’s a basket case. You know anything about her daughter leaving town?”

Brandy steadied her elbow on the desk, and her voice raised an octave. “Left town? When? She’s supposed to meet me at the airport.”

“Likely will. The mama don’t tell us much. She called, all tore up. Said her daughter got mad, pulled a couple of hundred dollars out of her savings and cleared out. Wouldn’t tell me why the girl was mad. Wanted us to drop everything and look for her. She’d already called all the girl’s friends. ‘Now, M’am,’ I told her, ‘the law can’t go after every grown woman reckons she’ll leave town.’”

Brandy began jotting down a quick list of Things to Do Tomorrow. Item one was “Ask Cara about argument with Marcia.”

“I’m sure Cara will meet me. She’ll want to know what I learned in New York. I’ll call you and Mrs. Waters when I see her.”

Brandy hung up, disturbed. Like mother, like daughter, I hope not, she said to herself. There was an eerie similarity in Cara and Allison’s running away. She could understand that Marcia’s possessiveness might finally drive Cara out of town. But why hadn’t she called Brandy afterward?

In the morning Brandy was up by five-thirty, almost two hours after the parrot act returned, and dressed in the bathroom, breathing in the warm, soapy smell, and ducking Sonata’s drip dry costumes. She’d asked that the car pick her up in front of the building at six. She left a thank-you note for Thea on the table, slipped into her jacket, and quietly opened the door. Allegro turned his dove-gray head, then without comment, resumed sentinel duty by the window.

Outside a cold, misty darkness still hung over the deserted streets, and a dim pocket of light glowed behind clouds to the east. On the lookout for the hired car, Brandy trotted down the long flight of stone steps, vaguely conscious of a movement below the wrought iron gate and railing of the basement well. Early for the tenant to be there, she thought, remembering the man with the garbage.

She had started across the narrow sidewalk toward a street lamp when she heard the scuffle of footsteps behind her. She whirled. A thick figure was rising from the basement entry, its face grotesque, a blur of mashed lips and flattened nose. Brandy dropped her suitcase. Her heart thudded and her fingers tightened around the straps of her bag. A stocking mask, of course. Gasping, she stumbled backward, even as the figure covered the pavement between them in a few clumsy strides, one gloved hand outstretched, in the other a short, ugly cosh like a club. Her brain flashed all the warnings. A mugging. Give up the handbag. But she thought of her airline tickets, her credit cards, her driver’s license, and she clutched it, too stunned to cry out. From somewhere behind her, she could hear a car engine.

In the split second that the weapon whipped higher, a command rasped from the first floor window, “Go away, bad boy! Go away, bad boy!”

The mugger paused, twisted around, stared upward, and in that instant the hired car swept up to the curb and the driver leaped out. For a second the mask hesitated, glanced at the razor ribbon between the buildings, and then sprinted down the sidewalk, tugging off the stocking as he ran.

Brandy tottered back toward the building and sagged against the railing. “You okay, lady?” The driver took her arm.

She nodded, swallowing hard, suddenly sick. A window opened in the basement apartment and a man in his undershirt looked out. “Dammit,” he said crossly. “Got to remember to lock the gate.”

“Go away, bad boy,” said Allegro.

Brandy smiled at the driver’s puzzled expression. “Don’t ask.” She stood for a second, trembling. “I’m all right now.”

On the sidewalk he recovered her fallen suitcase and the tote bag with her notebook. “You wanna call the cops? I seen the guy, but I don’t think I could I.D. him.”

Brandy shook her head. “I’ve got a plane to catch. I’m not hurt.”

The driver stooped and retrieved a piece of paper blown against the metal posts of the basement entry. “The guy was in one big fat hurry. Dropped something.”

He settled Brandy in his car and laid the paper beside her on the back seat. As he stowed her suitcase in the trunk and climbed behind the wheel, Brandy closed her eyes and leaned back, still shaken. In her mind she saw her father again, rumpled and grinning, among his students’ papers and his books. “You’ll be a first rate journalist, Bran,” he was saying. “First rate. You care about people.” But researching Cara Waters’ story had become too strenuous.

She opened her eyes and with an unsteady hand picked up the strip of newsprint. It took her a minute to recognize the historic restoration column with her photograph. She’d given it to Angus MacGill when she arrived at the hotel and he’d tacked it on the bulletin board. They’d talked about it Sunday. How did it come to New York? Oh,

Daddy, she thought, what have we gotten me into?

* * * *

At the Gainesville airport Brandy stepped into warmer, damper weather. Heavy clouds were gathering to the west. At the gate and the luggage carousel she scanned the line of cars for the old station wagon. No Cara. Uneasy now, she located a phone booth in the terminal, reported in to her bureau, and asked for her messages. They did not include one from Cara. Immediately, she placed another call to Strong and reached him at the Sheriff s office.

“Cara didn’t show,” she said. “I’m concerned.”

“She’ll turn up. Just been gone overnight. She knows your office number.” Brandy did not feel comforted. The detective probably wouldn’t tell her, even if he were worried. “I also want you to know,” she added,” that I was attacked this morning, right outside my friend’s apartment building. Man with some kind of a blunt instrument. He was scared off. There’s got to be a connection with this case.”

“Lots of folks get mugged in New York.”

“But most muggers don’t drop their victim’s photograph. The clipping came from Cedar Key, from the hotel.

The detective paused, then he said quietly, “Fed Ex or a fax, I reckon. You gotta be more careful, young lady. Someone’s mighty anxious to shut you up.”

“They might have reason to shut Cara up, too.”

“Looks like she cut out her own self. But I ought to admit, we got evidence that connects Rossi and the old hotel murder. Before the autopsy on Rossi, we found a list stuffed in his wallet. Got overlooked in the first body search. Handwriting checks out. It’s headed ‘Search for Missing Woman,’ then lists the things he did, like check the drivers’ license records, the local school, the library, the police department. Last thing he wrote was ‘Hunt missing woman at cemetery.’ Sounds like somebody tipped him off, told him she’d been murdered.”

Brandy felt a rush of sympathy for Rossi, a fellow list-maker. That’s why Strong was willing to talk yesterday about a quick exhumation order. “So now you don’t think Rossi was a drug dealer who crossed someone?”

“We’re still looking at that, but the case got lots of angles. I pulled the skeleton case folder outta the cold case file, and got the old HRS records on the kid that turned up in Cedar Key during the hurricane. Cops tried to find out if the kid was the same one left the café with her mother. Cashier’s statement’s interesting. She could recollect most of the folks she saw in the café. Couple of your buddies turned up on her list. MacGill stopped on his way home from Chiefland. And she says Truck Thompson came tearing up for gas in his daddy’s pick-up. A wild young punk then, still in high school.”