by Ann Cook
He smiled again.
“You asked about my investigative work in town. I’m sure you both know the story of Ada Losterman. The mystery woman who came to Micanopy and drowned the same day in 1921?”
Lily Lou turned enormous eyes toward Brandy, expectant and curious.
“You’ll remember that she left a little girl almost three. I’m looking into that case again. John may already have told you. The daughter is my grandmother, and she’s waited all her life for answers.”
Lily Lou gave a little squeal. “Do you mean Hope O’Bannon? I’ve heard she’s that child. How exciting! A real mystery right here in little old Micanopy!”
Brandy turned to Montgomery, her tone confidential. “Your own grandmother took up a collection to see that Ada was properly buried. A very gracious gesture.”
Lily Lou entered into the spirit of the quest. “I heard the story! The Micanopy’s Women’s Club raised the money.” She pointed a finger with a gigantic diamond ring at her chest. “I’ve become a member myself now.”
Irons studied Brandy thoughtfully. “I believe I’ve talked to your grandmother at her antique store.” He cut his eyes upward and dropped his voice. “She ought to look in now and then, see how the store’s being managed—or, as a matter of fact, not being managed—while’s she’s away.” He gave her an apologetic half smile.
Brandy had heard other criticisms of her cousin. “Thanks for the tip,” she said honestly. “Grandmother had knee surgery recently. She shouldn’t have to go in. I’ll help her check on things. But about Ada, we think someone here still knows who she was. Everyone in town seems to know the story, but I’ve very little to go on.” She cocked her head and looked up at him. “The newspaper accounts at the time say she met the owner of a dry goods store before she died. Are descendants of that man still in the area? The owner might confide in his family when he wouldn’t confide in a reporter.”
Lily Lou Irons moved closer to her husband and looked up at him through long lashes. Her most arresting feature were her huge, round blue eyes. How fortunate that she married a very tall man. Otherwise her little girl persona wouldn’t work so well. “Don’t his people now operate the drugstore in town?”
Irons shrugged massive shoulders. “I believe so. The family owned a lot of property here and they stayed. Caleb Stark Sr. owned the dry goods store. We don’t know much about his people. What about the woman who reared your grandmother? Surely she’d tell Ada Losterman’s daughter all the facts about her mother’s death. We’re not up on local gossip. We’ve been living in Naples.”
“I’m questioning Grandmother closely, of course, but her foster mother might not have known much. I’ve talked to the retired detective Shot Hunter, too. He’s promised to share files from the old Sheriff’s Office investigation.”
Lily Lou Irons collected the expensive bag she’d set on the window seat. “Monty rented a tacky little cottage in town, just until this job is done.” She dug into her Gucci bag. “I’ll give you the address.” She handed Brandy a card, then laid slender fingers on her husband’s arm. Lily Lou was ready to move on, but her eyes were still alert.
Brandy smiled. “You’ve been helpful. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay in touch, let you both know what I find out.” She turned to Irons.
He rocked back on his heels. “In the matter of Mrs. O’Bannon’s mother—the Chamber of Commerce gave money to the burial fund, too. As a matter of fact, my grandfather spearheaded the effort. But neither fund paid for the elaborate monument.”
“I know. Please tell John if you think of anything that might be useful. The truth is, I don’t believe Ada Losterman’s death was suicide.”
Irons raised furry eyebrows. “There wasn’t any evidence of foul play that I ever heard. You have a reason for thinking that?”
Brandy could not admit a medium raised the issue. “Just a hunch.”
But at least she could talk now to real people—Shot Hunter, Caleb Stark’s relative, and Zeke Wilson’s father. She needn’t pin her hopes on the spirit world.
After Montgomery and Lily Lou had walked hand and hand down the steps, John closed the door. “I’ve never worked for a client as wealthy as Irons. He’s worth millions. This isn’t their only house. A few years ago, he sold a mansion in Tampa and bought the beachfront place near Naples. But he does care about family history. If the job goes well, he has other properties—and contacts.”
“Affable if a bit unctuous, but you can tolerate that,” Brandy said. On her notepad she jotted down Irons’ few useful remarks, while John looked toward the kitchen.
“I brought a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and an apple. I’ll share,” he said. She followed him into the kitchen, where he had set up two folding chairs at the counter.
* * *
After lunch, as she drove back to Cholokka Boulevard, she was tempted to avoid the fatal pond altogether. In the end she detoured past it, half attracted and half repelled. It lay about a hundred and fifty feet to the left, down a slope to a round hollow, ringed by tall grasses. Between patches of pale green scum, stagnant water stood still and black. She smelled rotting weeds and the musty odor of mud. Thickets of oaks and palmettos crowded the opposite shore.
A haunting line from another poem by Poe came to her:
“… It was night, in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim tarn of Auber.
In the misty mid-region of Weir—
Ada drowned in October, and it was October now. Ada’s anonymous mourner had chosen Poe. That person knew a bit about American literature.
Brandy took a last look at the pond, then drove slowly around the corner and set out for the two-block downtown again, scarcely noticing the little silver car that started up in the block behind her.
SIX
At the drugstore Brandy hoped to learn more about Ada’s drowning. She pulled in beside other cars parallel parked under the oaks. Antique and book collectors, as well as sightseers, strolled in and out of shops in the two-story red brick building that housed the pharmacy. Its two long front windows flanked a white double door.
A boldly lettered sign above the threshold announced Stark’s Drug Store. Beside the entrance a modest plaque read: “Founded 1920, Member of Chamber of Commerce since 1921.” Inside, Brandy let her eyes adjust to the sudden dimness. A cash register sat on a counter to one side of the door. Beside it stood racks of Florida postcards, sunglasses, scarves, and notions. Next came shelves of over-the-counter drugs, cough drops, breath mints, candy bars, and magazines. The store could have been imported from the 1930s except for the lack of a soda fountain. A solitary woman hesitated in the center aisle, dropping items into a push-basket. At the rear of the long room, a window opened into the pharmacy where a sturdy young man with a buzz cut and a white pharmacist’s jacket leaned on the counter, fanning himself with a flimsy magazine. He looked as athletic and burly as a college linebacker.
In a rocking chair near the window sat a narrow-chested old man, a sizable book balanced on his potbelly and a walker beside him. Stale smelling heat radiated from an electric heater in the corner. On a flimsy table at his elbow a cigarette stub burned in an ashtray. He turned a page with knobby fingers.
As Brandy walked toward the rocker, the perspiring pharmacist hailed the shopper, “Prescription’s ready!” When he saw Brandy, he nodded at the old man and rolled his eyes. His own face glistened with sweat, but his elder wore a long-sleeved shirt and a light sweater. Brandy thought he was her more likely quarry.
She stooped before him. “I hate to interrupt your reading,” she said, “but I’m looking for someone in the Stark family. Can you help?”
Watery blue eyes glanced up from a face too small and pinched looking for his protruding stomach. He set down the book and pushed back a few strands of gray hair that trail
ed down his collar from the fringe around his head. His crooked fingers picked up the smoldering cigarette. The Stark Drug Store had not noted Florida’s non-smoking law.
“I’m Caleb Stark Jr.,” he said, his voice stronger than Brandy had expected. He squinted up at her, suspicious. “What’s your business?” He had deep-set, light-colored eyes and a nose too long for his thin face.
Brandy flashed her most engaging smile. “I’m researching the town’s history. I understand the Starks have been in Micanopy a long time.” She lifted her notepad and pencil from her bag.
“My daddy started up a business here in 1920—a dry goods store—Caleb Sr. When that one folded, I switched to running a drugstore. You must’ve seen the sign.” He shook his head. “Micanopy was a fine little ole’ town in them days.” Brandy recognized a common trend—an elder lamenting the loss of a better era. “In them days shoppers bought everything right here in town.
Nowadays.…” He didn’t finish the thought. “I don’t know how long we can stay open. My grandson there, he got his pharmacist license. Thinks he can build the business, add a bunch of other geegaws.” He spat out the final word, “Modernize!” He drew in his cheeks. “Well, I reckon he’ll inherit the business and the building soon enough.” The Starks owned a lot of property in the area, according to Montgomery Irons. In spite of appearances, being Caleb’s heir might be profitable.
She didn’t see another chair, so she knelt beside him. “You probably remember some of the earlier days. I’m asking around about an event your father was familiar with: the 1921 Ada Losterman case. She was the young woman who drowned in Micanopy. A newspaper story at the time mentioned your father. Did he ever talk about the case?”
The old man took a deep drag on the cigarette butt, appraised its length, shook his head again, and snuffed it out. Brandy gave a brief cough at the acrid tobacco smell.
“I recollect him talking about the case some. When I was a young’ un, folks was still asking questions. He was just a young fellow at the time it happened. He’d been slightly wounded in the Great War—World War I, it was. A couple of years after the war, he set up the store.”
Brandy waved away the lingering smoke. “What did he say about the case? A reporter wrote that he talked to Ada Losterman the day she disappeared.” Stark gave her a cagey look. She went on quickly, “I’m a journalist. I’m looking for human-interest stories to use in a book about Micanopy. The old mystery might make people curious about the town, interest more of them in coming here.”
The old man’s lips twisted in a dry smile. He was deep into reminiscing. “My daddy figured she was up to no good, to begin with—coming into town by herself like that. Gals then didn’t travel by theirselves—leaving her young’ un at the hotel with a woman she didn’t even know. Gallivantin’ around town, asking strange men for work. Daddy figured it wasn’t really work she was looking for, if you get my drift.”
Brandy bit back a defensive retort. “Did he recall anything about her appearance?”
“Said she was a looker, all right, dolled up like she was going someplace. He told her he’d help find her a job. He was still a single fellow hisself. I reckon he was out for a good time, too.”
Would the aging druggist be as frank if she explained that her grandmother was Ada Losterman’s daughter? In a town the size of Micanopy, he was bound to know Hope O’Bannon and to learn the connection. She didn’t tell him.
Also, better not let him think she was traveling by herself. He made clear how he felt about that. She rose. “My husband and I are renting an apartment across the street. If you think of anything that might be helpful, please tell Mrs. Gibbons in the café. She’ll get a message to me.”
The old man’s narrow forehead contracted in a sudden scowl. “I oughtn’t to talk so free to an outsider. Folks here won’t want you rooting around in that old case. Be dragging good people through the mud, like as not. Forget what I said. Find some other place to dig up dirt.”
Brandy smiled agreeably. “I’ll remember what you said.”
She was startled to recognize the book Caleb Jr. was holding. It was a badly worn college text she’d used years ago, The American Tradition in Literature.
He followed her gaze and said almost apologetically, “Comes from so many old book stores on the block. Gives me something to do. Daddy used to read to us kids, back when there wasn’t no radio or TV. Reckon I got the taste for it then.”
Brandy wondered if Caleb Stark Sr. had a taste for Edgar Allan Poe.
Suddenly the old man looked up. “One more thing, young lady. I recollect a man was here years ago, asking a lot of questions.” His voice swelled. “Wrote a dad-blamed story for a Florida magazine about this town that caused us a passel of trouble. Bad publicity.”
“What was the name of the magazine, Mr. Stark?”
“Don’t recollect, but it ain’t published no more. Just remember, folks here like their privacy.” With that final comment he picked up his book and did not glance at Brandy again.
She did not want to make an enemy. She smiled again and walked back toward the entrance. Midway she passed the half-open door of a storeroom. Inside were taped boxes marked as merchandise and a dusty, four-drawer metal file cabinet. Ada had borrowed the first Caleb’s telephone. Was this the original office? She wished she could delve into its files. When she stopped to stare into the small room, the young pharmacist came out from behind his counter and closed the door. He had a fuller face than his grandfather’s, more attractive, but he had the same prominent nose and pale blue eyes.
“Do you know if any of the store’s records go back to the 1920s?” Brandy asked. He didn’t answer, but nodded at her and followed her to the front. “Need to get away from that heater, know what I mean? Beats me how these old people feel cold all the time.” He glanced back at the storeroom door. “Looked into that cabinet once. Nothing of interest there. I think my granddaddy’s forgotten about it.”
He paused at the entrance. “Heard you talking to granddaddy. Not surprised he feels like he does. People try to protect their family name, you know.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweaty cheek and neck.
Brandy paused and asked pleasantly, “And why would the Stark family name need protecting?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard about the main occupation in all these little towns in the twenties.” His grin widened. “Bootlegging. Moonshine. My great-granddaddy’s specialty. And half the male population’s.” He pushed open the door with one muscular arm and breathed in fresh air.
Brandy made a mental note to add Micanopy bootlegging to her Ada Losteman file.
Under a sky still overcast, she crossed the street and hurried up the stairs to the apartment. Kyra met her, Brad in her arms. Shesahuna sat quietly on the couch, textbook and notebook in her lap. Once again Brandy had the curious feeling the girl was observing her closely.
“Talked to my boyfriend,” Kyra said, her voice eager. “You’ve got, like, the appointment.”
Brandy reached for the toddler, who was stretching his arms toward her and beginning to whimper. “Great. When?”
“Grant will meet you at the gate tomorrow afternoon. Like at 2:00, Paynes Prairie, of course. He’s a ranger. He’ll be in uniform.”
Brandy has seen the State Preserve on a Florida map between Micanopy and Gainesville. “And his grandfather?”
“Grant will, like, take you to his grandfather’s house. The other side of the Preserve.”
Brandy smiled. She was making progress.
* * *
After supper, John flipped through the latest Time and then listened to a Chopin étude. Brandy knew better than to talk. He prided himself on the large speakers he’d carefully moved from Tampa. The sound was exquisite, and he did not like interruptions. She took her seat at the computer and Googled doll web-sites.
&nbs
p; After paging through dolls of the twenties, she finally narrowed her search to the cloth dolls of Martha Chase in the February 1997 edition of Doll Collector. She scanned the pages and suddenly drew in her breath. The doll in a photograph matched Ada’s—the same jointed arms and legs under a long yellow and white print dress, the same varnished head with oil-painted features. Both were as large as a real infant. According to the magazine, it had realistic cavities, like a living infant would. Brandy hadn’t noticed them, but they made the doll useful as a hospital training mannequin. It made sense for a nurse—either Ada or her mother—to give it to Hope because it also functioned as a child’s toy. She printed a two-page article, eager to show her finding to Shot Hunter. His father didn’t have the advantage of the internet.
She dialed Hunter’s number. “I’ll be there in the morning,” she said when he answered. “My sitter should be here by 9:00.” For drama she paused. “Mr. Hunter, I think someone got away with murdering Ada Losterman.”
He didn’t react with surprise. Instead he said, “I may have something for you. I’ve had a promising response. I’ll explain what my dad was working on when you’re here.”
Hunter still wasn’t giving anything away.
* * *
At 8:00 A.M. the fog hadn’t yet burned off. A mockingbird pecking at the grass below the breakfast room window was a gray blur. John took his last spoonful of Wheaties, sliced banana, and milk. “Do you think Montgomery’s Irons’s wife is as flaky as she seems?” he asked. “She gets in my hair almost every time I’m at the house. She drives the contractors crazy with questions and suggestions.”
“Lily Lou Irons finds it profitable to seem like a little girl. But she may not actually be one, and she’s bored with such a small town.”
Brad was making satisfied noises from his crib, entertained for the moment by his full tummy, the elephant mobile rotating above him, and a cloth book. Brandy glanced up as John set his bowl on the kitchen counter. “I’ve got an appointment this morning with the retired sheriff’s e detective.”
