Chasing Shadows

by Karen Harper

  As they went out, she thought to herself, Among a lot of other things I’d like to know from her.

  * * *

  Cecilia lived in an area called St. Augustine Shores on Deva Street to the south of Old Town. Heck drove a curving road near a park along Moultrie Creek until they found it. She had a stucco home painted bright aqua with a plaster swordfish attached to the front, one that looked as if it was arching out of the water, pulling puppet string rather than a fishing line that had snagged it.

  “I’ll go up to that restaurant we passed for a while,” Heck told her as she got out. “I’ll be back in a half hour and just sit here ’til you come out, so don’t worry, yes?”

  “Thanks, Heck. I don’t know what I—or Nick—would do without you.”

  Claire wished Nick had come along today, but he was going to meet them at Shadowlawn this afternoon. She had the feeling the presence of Nick or Heck would have spooked—well, wrong word, after seeing Win’s photos—Cecilia, but the woman was obviously much more social than her twin sister had been.

  Cecilia opened the door before Claire knocked. The woman had a doll-like face, which greatly resembled Lola’s. It was difficult to tell how old she was, though Claire knew the twins’ ages from the newspaper. Besides round, painted eyes, her most dominant feature was a cupid-bow mouth. And her light brown hair—so much of it, the length halfway down her arms.

  “You saw me coming,” Claire said. “I appreciate your inviting me to drop by at such a difficult time.”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye out, hoping the reporters don’t come back again. And better you by far than more visits from the detective working on her case. I’m grateful and want to help him, but he’s just a reminder of how awful it must have been for her. But when you said you were working to learn if someone harmed Miss Francine... Well, I know Lola would have wanted to speak with you.”

  Claire blinked back tears as she went in. If something that horrible had happened to Darcy, she’d never get over it.

  The house seemed as if it had been draped for mourning, the way Mother had read to them in some of Charles Dickens’s novels. Not swagged in black but with colorful cloth over the windows and half of the furniture. Claire guessed the material must have been used for puppet show curtains. Some had animals or flowers on them.

  “I covered her part of the house,” Cecilia said. “We shared everything here but bought our own furniture.”

  “I wish I could have seen her work the puppets.”

  “She had many voices for them. Now they are all silent forever.”

  Cecilia indicated a sofa that was undraped. They both sat. Claire sensed she should not take notes, so she put her purse on the floor.

  “Her own voice—few heard that,” Cecilia went on. “She didn’t talk much, but she did talk to Miss Francine.”

  “I understand that went both ways.”

  Cecilia wiped under her eyes with her index fingers. “Yes, she was so good to Lola. And Lola honored her by taking good care of her and by doing her voice for our kindest marionettes in the show.”

  “Doing her voice?”

  “Yes, imitating her voice.”

  “Did Lola do men’s voices, too?”

  “Yes, and I think she had her friend Bronco Gates’s lingo down. He had the most quaint backwoods way of talking. She was much better at voices than me, but my part was painting the faces.”

  “I saw the one you must have done of Lola herself.”

  “Oh, yes, the one she gave to Bronco, because she would not give herself to him. You know what I mean.”

  Claire didn’t, exactly. In bed? In marriage? But Cecilia was doing such a great job of explaining her sister, Claire just nodded. Some of the earliest interview rules she’d learned were to never interrupt, never say the word but, or you’re wrong or that’s not right. Encourage, always encourage.

  So all Claire said in the little lull was, “Bronco thinks highly of her, misses her but said he would rather not come to the funeral. He’d like to remember her as she was.”

  “I, too. It wouldn’t do to have a funeral. I don’t know adults that would come with Miss Francine gone. And I don’t want the many children she entertained to attend a dreary funeral. When the ME releases her body, I’ll show you what I’m going to do, to have a special memorial service here.”

  She popped up and started toward a back room, so Claire followed. At the back of the house, a screened Florida room with sliding doors opened onto a patio. In the crowded room, at least thirty marionettes were all seated or standing by strings hooked onto a cross-hatching of boards on the ceiling. They were all turned toward a small table with a wooden, painted head on it that looked just like the one on Bronco’s bed—Lola’s.

  “I’m going to have her cremated and put her ashes in that for a sort of urn,” Cecilia explained. “Then I’ll have a private party here for her with all our children.”

  A chill raced up Claire’s spine. She meant these elaborately dressed and painted wooden people. And there was one, seated close to Lola’s head that looked like the photos Claire had seen of Francine.

  “But I’ll show you one who is not invited, who will be broken up and thrown away during the service!” Cecilia cried, her bland, sweet voice sharpening. She pushed aside several hanging bodies. They clattered and swung. Claire tried to steady herself. These figures were suspended just as Lola had been.

  “I know you recognize her!” Cecilia said, pointing at a figure that looked so much like Jasmine that Claire gasped. “I painted that face from a photo Lola borrowed from Shadowlawn. That woman told her mother more than once to let Lola go, and she fired her the day after Miss Francine died. If you hear her say anything about my sister harming Francine, she lies! Or maybe she thought Lola knew too much about how she treated her own mother.”

  “Too much—like what?” Claire asked.

  “That Jasmine wanted control of the house and to pull her mother’s strings! I can’t prove it, but I hope you do. When Lola stood up to Jasmine, she was horribly angry.”

  Letting the puppets come together to hide the figure of Jasmine, Cecilia turned back toward Claire. She had suddenly gone from shy girl to spitfire. “I didn’t say it in so many words, but no one had it in for Lola,” she said, her voice subdued again. “Except for Jasmine. I think she learned Miss Francine had invested big-time in our store when their wealth was fading.”

  Now that was news, Claire thought. Nor had Jasmine shared that with her or probably not with Nick. “So, you told the detective all that?”

  “Yes, and he told me Lola drank something put in her drink in the store that drugged her before she was lifted up to be hanged. If they put me on a witness stand, I will say who did it. Lola was small. That woman could lift her. If the puppets in the store could talk, they would say so. That woman hurt her mother and my sister, too!”

  16

  En route to Shadowlawn, Claire did not tell Heck Cecilia’s accusations against Jasmine. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but she had to tell Nick first, then help him strategize how to proceed—if he wanted help on that. If this turned into a murder case and she had to testify, she dreaded being away from Lexi for weeks when she’d already been gone four days this time.

  She did use some of their drive time to assure Heck that she’d be safe alone with Bronco. He was going to give her a tour of the river and estate, so she could ask him questions in an informal setting, which she thought was good.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll hang around outside and keep an eye on you from a distance. Boss’s orders.”

  As Heck pulled into the lane to the mansion, she told him, “I imagine Neil will greet us with drinks and baked goods again. Even though I sometimes inhale caffeine, I think I’ll pass and go right out to see Bronco, so please let me know if Neil says anything of interes
t. Do you know what time Nick will get here?”

  “Not sure. I might call him.”

  “Good. I need to fill him in on some things.”

  Again, as they approached the house, Claire leaned down and looked out the windshield at the line of live oaks.

  “Looking for what you told me about earlier—the ‘ghost’ tree?” Heck asked. “I wouldn’t be scared to check that out at night if you and Nick want me to.”

  “I don’t think that’s part of our case building here.” Her voice trailed off. As she stared at the last tree, a thought hit her like a punch to the gut. Jace had described the place where he’d been knocked out as the last set of live oaks, near the house, the one on the left side of the front entrance. He’d said he’d been hit on the head by someone who just suddenly appeared as if he’d dropped out of that tree, someone he didn’t even hear!

  No, ridiculous. Ghosts don’t hit living people on the head when they trespass. But who had hit him? This entire place was getting to her. And she didn’t look forward to telling Nick that Cecilia’s accusations against Jasmine would probably fall right into Sheriff Goodrich’s hands, and that he’d use them to charge her for Lola’s death, too.

  * * *

  Nick put the incoming call on Speaker so he could keep both hands on the wheel. “Heck, hi. What’s the update?”

  “I’m drinking coffee on the back patio, keeping an eye on Claire who’s with Bronco down by the river.”

  “Good. How did she do talking to Lola’s sister?”

  “Shook up over something, you ask me. But she didn’t say. We stopped at Win Jackson’s shop again ’cause he wanted to show her pics of the ghost tree, you know, where Bronco claims his old ancestor was hung by the neck until dead, like they say. Fidel and Raoul preferred fast firing squads, but don’t get me started on that.”

  “I won’t. I’m glad you were with her. I’ll be there in about a half hour. I was hoping you had some news for me about our slippery mystery man.”

  “Yes, something new. Not that I could trace him to a drone company or big new corporate buy, though. But in looking for that, I found a link to possible investments on Grand Cayman Island, under one of the aliases he uses.”

  “Good work! Any details? I mean, don’t give me names over the phone, but that place reeks of offshore banking and semi-legal investments. Can he be living there?”

  “Some expats are, but can’t find a trace of him in George Town. You know, during the last presidential election, the press got all over candidate Mitt Romney for huge investments there, though he proved he’d paid taxes on it, like, I mean, millions of dollars. It’s big bucks there, so that sounds promising for your guy.”

  “And that would be chump change for him. But don’t call him ‘my guy.’”

  “Right. But what’s chump change?”

  “No mucho pesos. Keep following that money trail, Heck. That bastard’s going to be at the end of it and probably into schemes just as illegal—and lethal—as what he used to bilk my dad. Make sure you don’t leave a trail.”

  “No, boss, don’t worry. I’m lots smarter than that.”

  * * *

  Bronco Gates was giving Claire her first real tour of the grounds of the estate. The roots of primeval-looking cypress trees crouched in the river, and egrets perched in the branches. In the shade of the massive, hunched trees, the water looked almost tea-colored in the splotches of sun, black in the shadows. But even the foreboding aura here couldn’t dampen the amusement she’d tried to hide at his straw hat with alligator teeth stuck in the brim. Not Crocodile Dundee but Gator Gates.

  She told him, “No wonder they got away with passing this off for the black lagoon, though that was supposed to be the Amazon River.”

  “This river’s really brown from goin’ through all the saw grass and tree roots. Some say it’s endangered too—industry and pollution, all that. Bet you didn’t know it’s one of the few US rivers flows north. It’s a mighty strange, special river, all right.”

  “Oh, is that your airboat?” she asked, pointing at the twelve-foot-long, flat-bottom aluminum craft pulled up on the bank in a small clearing and chained to a tree trunk. It had one elevated seat—a plastic, molded chair—which made the interior of the craft look homemade. The driver steered by a long vertical stick while its aircraft-type propeller shoved it through shallow water. She recalled how loud they were from the one she’d been on with Lexi and Darcy’s family, whipping through the “river of grass Everglades” south of Naples.

  “Yep, it’s mine. Good for hunting gators at night, strictly in season, almost over for this year. The hunting license for them says you can take only two, use the meat, sell the hides. Even catching and keeping a little gator for a pet’s a crime in this state.”

  “A pet? But they aren’t endangered, are they?”

  “Not anymore. Not as much as human beings ’round here lately,” he said with a grimace and a snort.

  Since he’d said “human beings,” he was obviously shaken not only by Lola’s loss, but by Francine’s, too. He’d said “’round here lately,” so he wasn’t thinking about his ancestor who was hanged on these grounds so many years ago. Although Claire had witnessed a show of temper from him, he seemed to be fairly stoic now. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t explode. Could he have lost control when Lola refused to “give herself to him,” as Cecilia had said?

  “But you got to be careful,” he went on, “even when you think you killed a gator. No such thing as a dead one, ’less you hit it in the back of the head with a bang stick.”

  She pictured the back of Jace’s head. Had someone—surely, not a ghost—banged a stick into the back of his head? These weren’t the kind of questions she had for Bronco, but she asked, “What’s a bang stick?”

  “An explosive charge set up at the end of a stick. An underwater bullet—to the brain in this case. Gator brain’s as small as a poker chip. It’s kill on capture, no kill and release. Meanwhile, think I see one.”

  He pushed aside a palmetto leaf hanging over the water. With a swish of its tail, a four-foot gator wriggled into the current and soon became only two wary, protruding eyes.

  “That’s the way to find them at night,” Bronco said, pointing. “Shine a light in their eyes at night, and they show up reddish. That one’s a kid. Biggest one I ever seen was fourteen feet. But if you ever come on one with a heaped-up nest or babies, get away fast.”

  “I think I’ll leave the gator watching to you.”

  “So Win Jackson showed you those ghost pictures, right?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject. She sensed that was what he’d been waiting to talk about. “Not quite gator eyes gleamin’ in the dark, but a body swingin’ under that tree out front. You want to see it close up?”

  “All right. Did you show it to Lola? I hear you researched it some.”

  “I swear I seen the ghost—that thing—walking on the grounds, checking things out at night like I do. He did once oversee the crops here, you know.”

  Now why hadn’t he answered the question she’d just asked? He certainly had his own agenda.

  “Don’t believe in reincarnation none,” he went on, “like I’m him come back to life. But I got to learn why he was lynched, if he was a thief or did really—maybe accident’ly—kill the master, Miss Rosalynn’s husband. That’s a rumor. And then, weird that Miss Francine died almost in the same place as Miss Rosalynn. You seen that big painted picture of her hangin’ up there? Now, talk about hauntin’s...”

  So Bronco had been in the house and upstairs. Well, why not, as he’d been here for years.

  He said, “Let’s cut around the side of the house this way. You see that empty field a-stretchin’ out far from here?”

  Her gaze followed his as they walked toward what must be the northern property line. “Yes, but that’s not Sha
dowlawn land anymore, is it?”

  “No, but it’s one a the fields my ancestor William Richards oversaw, thick with indigo, not cotton.”

  “I heard that’s what was grown here.”

  “I picked up stuff about that, trying to track him down at the liberry.”

  She didn’t correct his pronunciation. She fell easily into the rhythm of his words and unique grammar. Lola had evidently found it charming.

  “So indigo used to be a good cash crop?” she prompted, scolding herself again for getting off the subject of Francine’s demise. But she had picked up earlier that Bronco admired Francine and was even grateful to her for helping Lola. She wondered if he knew about the investment in the puppet shop, but she didn’t want to ask him yet. She needed Nick’s advice to pursue that.

  “Made beautiful blue dyes the slaves extracted right here. You know,” he said as they reached the so-called ghost tree and they both looked up into it, “I learned some of it can be used for more than dye. To kill pain, like stings and snakebites, even ulcers. Wisht I had some, ’cause I’m sure missin’ Lola and Miss Francine.”

  “Bronco, if Shadowlawn goes to the state or is sold at auction, you’d be in pain over that, too, wouldn’t you?”

  “For sure,” he said, gazing upward toward the branch where, she supposed, he imagined his ancestor William Richards had been hanged. Gator hunter or not, she thought, this was such a gentle man.

  He suddenly kicked the tree as hard as he could, then punched it with his fist without so much as a flinch. “We don’t need lots of folks here!” he shouted. “Someone sells this place is gonna answer to me! If I find out who hurt Lola, they gonna do more than answer to me!”

  So much, she thought, for all her supposed skills at reading people.

  * * *

  When Bronco went back by the river, Claire walked out the lane a ways to think things over. She had a lot to digest but felt pressure to get this over, to report what she’d learned to Nick—especially what Cecilia Moran had told her about Jasmine. Both Neil and Bronco had to be worried they’d have to leave Shadowlawn. Neil came off as nervous; Bronco, full of suppressed anger, but over Lola or at Lola? Would either of them have tried to get rid of Francine so that the land would go to Jasmine, who wanted to keep the place?