by Ann Cook
Brandy savored a spoonful of her yogurt. “Something new has come up. The old case is re–opened.” He raised a quizzical gray eyebrow again. “A skeleton was found last night on the property.”
No need, she thought, to tell where. “It’s been there long enough to be Eva Stone’s. It’s bound to be identified soon. The story will be in all the papers tomorrow. If it’s Eva Stone’s, you know what that means.”
His mouth turned down in a glum line. His curiosity aroused, he seemed to forget he was ending the interview. “Yeah. People don’t usually bury themselves.”
Ace raised his hand to the waitress for a second coffee. “In light of this discovery, Mr. Langdon——Ace——what else can you tell me about Eva Stone’s last hours?”
He emptied a packet of sugar into the new cup, stirred it, and rubbed his chin. “No reason to hide anything I know about that day.” His hand was tanned and solid for a man his age, his opal ring at least as expensive as Blackthorne’s sapphire. Able Citrus bought that, Brandy thought, and felt a pang of sympathy for tall, awkward Sylvania Able.
“It was a weekend celebration, you know,” he said. “I didn’t go hunting with the rest of the fellows the morning after the big party. Kind of hung over, for one thing. I was also hoping for other fish to fry.” He winked. “When I woke up, the Moose was busy helping her Mama tidy up downstairs, and getting lunch ready for the other girls.” Ace took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and searched his trousers for a lighter. ”Keep trying to quit, but no dice.” He didn’t strike Brandy as a man who could give up any addiction——cigarettes, alcohol, or women.
“And did you see Eva?” To jog her memory later, Brandy scribbled a few words. Ace didn’t appear to notice. Once he’d started, he seemed to relish telling his tale. “I went looking for her late that afternoon. I won’t deny it. Sweet little thing, but feisty.” He cocked his head, appraising her. “You remind me of her a lot. Same shape face and hair length.” His glance traveled down her blouse. “Same figure.”
She found the table a comforting barrier between them. “Let’s get back to Eva Stone. Did you find her?”
“Briefly.” He sighed. “Before the war her father ran a two–bit café down town. He closed it to move up near Camp Blanding during the war. Opened a place there. Afterward the family moved back to Tavares and he re–opened his place here. She worked in the business. That’s why she was back in town.
“The party was my chance to get her alone without Brookfield horning in.” He grinned at the possibility for a pun, but Brandy’s stern expression pushed him on. “You look like her, but you’re more prim, I think. What I did that afternoon is no secret. I told the cops then. Anyhow, I caught up with her in the living room. She was setting her suitcase down by the front door, but she didn’t act like she wanted to leave yet. The other girls had gone home, all but one with car trouble. I figured Eva was hanging around, waiting for Brookfield, but so was Grace. Eva didn’t have any time with him at the party, which was fine with me.”
“Where was Grace?”
“Out by her car by then. It was a friend of hers had the flat tire. The yard man was up under the car, trying to get the jack to work. Eva thought I ought to go out and help him.”
Brandy couldn’t imagine even a youthful Ace Langdon lying in the sand to change a tire. “And did you?”
“I went out there, but the old fellow was about through with the job. He’d got the tire off. He found a spare that would fit and some tools in the trunk of Grace’s car. About all I could do was throw the tools on the floor of Grace’s Buick. The Moose and her mother had piled the trunk full of towels and sheets to go back to the Southerlands. I guess Grace left then. I went back in the house to try to find Eva. I didn’t. Instead I shot some pool by myself in the game room. You know the rest.”
And no one to witness that solitary game, Brandy thought. “Were you one of those who swam out looking for Eva?”
Langdon had gotten the cigarette going with a hotel match, and for a few seconds he watched the smoke rise between them. “I’m not a good swimmer. The Moose was the first one in. She was a strong swimmer, still is. I waded out some, but it was hopeless. No one could tell where Eva had gone down. The water there’s like brown soup.”
“If the skeleton belongs to Eva Stone, now we know she didn’t drown.”
“A puzzle isn’t it?” He shook his head of lush gray hair.
“When did Brookfield and the others get back?”
Straggled back in pick–ups and on foot about the time the deputies arrived. Old man Able tried to use the dogs to pick up Eva’s scent from her suitcase and clothes. The dogs just churned around in the yard. They were no help at all.”
“Could Brookfield have been on the grounds when Eva went into the water?”
Langdon stood and mashed his cigarette into an ashtray on the table. “That I couldn’t say. I’ve told you all I know. I can’t remember everything that happened forty–five years ago.”
Brandy pressed further. “What about Brookfield’s fiancée? What about Grace? Where was she at the time?”
“I believe one fellow said Grace’s car passed him while he was walking back.” Ace faced the coffee shop doors, then turned and added. “If you’re planning to see Grace, last I heard she went into some kind of depression after Brookfield’s death. Kept a tight rein on his wife, Old Brookfield did. You wouldn’t have approved. After he died two years ago, she kind of fell apart.”
Ace tapped his gold watch with well–manicured fingernails. “Look, I’ve got a date. I don’t usually lose out to the other guy. Eva Stone was an exception.”
Brandy remembered her flower show appointment with Grace Able at four. She hoped the widow would be as talkative. First she might have time to search for Lily Mae Brown.
“I mean to find out what happened to Eva Stone,” Brandy called after Ace. She noticed he wasn’t still smiling as he sauntered toward his vintage Porsche. Before she looked for a phone, she watched him spurt out of the parking lot. Time to check with her office, then see if she could locate the witness to Eva Stone’s fatal walk into Lake Dora.
TWELVE
I’m tired of mixed signals about Brookfield Able, Brandy thought, as she approached a phone booth in the motel lobby. According to his sister, Brookfield was a saint. According to his old war buddy Ace, he was clearly something less. For one thing, he’d been courting two women at the same time.
Now Ace said his friend was a controlling husband. At Sylvania’s he’d also said Brookfield was a better buddy than boss. But Ace was clearly jealous of Brookfield. He had also paid a price for the job his friend arranged at A & S Citrus——marrying Brookfield’s unappealing sister. More than most, Ace Langdon was a man who valued a pretty girl.
Time to check with the office. She punched in the code for her answering machine. Steve Able’s gruff voice came on, keeping his promise. “Thought you’d like to know we finally reached Sylvania. She was staying in a guest room at the retirement center. There’s something else. You might as well know now what the medical examiner says. You’ll get details later. It’s off the record until the briefing, but the back of the skull was smashed in.”
Brandy leaned against the wall, suddenly weak. Eva Stone had been dead so long, others didn’t seem to consider her important. But Brandy had seen her photograph, seen that skull. In 1945 Eva’s life was just beginning. That life was as important now as it had ever been. At that moment finding who killed Eva Stone became more vital to Brandy than her feature story. Even if John would never believe that fact.
In her hatchback once more, Brandy dragged her county map out of the glove compartment and opened her loose leaf notebook on the seat beside her. The 1945 clipping about Eva’s disappearance gave an address for Lily Mae Brown. She had to make a start somewhere. For once Brandy was grateful that Tavares was small.
Within an hour she had located the one–story shot–gun house in a neighborhood of dirt streets and barren yards. T
he last forty–six years had not been kind to the house, yet it still stood, crumpling slightly to one side on its squat concrete pillars, like a man gone lame in one leg. She pushed a doorbell, and then, hearing no sound, knocked loudly.
Around the corner of the house a black boy of about five appeared, pulling a wagon loaded with tomatoes. In his pinched little face, suspicion waged a losing battle with curiosity.
“Ma’s out back,” he announced at last.
She followed him through the loose sand into the back yard where a short, plump woman was holding an apron cupped in one hand and throwing grain with the other to some hens in a chicken–wire pen.
“I’m looking for a Lily Mae Brown,” Brandy began. “She used to live here back in the late forties.”
“Lordy,” the woman said. “How I know who lived here all that time ago? Nobody by the name of Brown live around here anymore.” She emptied out the last of the grain and, facing Brandy, put her hand on her hip. Brandy waited. “Why you don’t go down the street to old lady Wilson’s house? She been here forever.” She pointed toward the road to her left. “She’s setting on the porch.”
Brandy eased her car along the ruts and parked in front of the Wilson house. Mrs. Wilson sat in a swing, moving slowly back and forth, shelling peas and dropping them into a big iron kettle. Her eyes appraised Brandy from a face as golden brown and dry as a tobacco leaf.
Brandy repeated her question.
“I think I recollect the Brown family,” the old lady said in a high, thin voice. “That family didn’t have but two girls. Why you want to know?” She peered up at Brandy, cautious.
“I’m writing a story for the Beacon about that big house the Ables own up on Lake Dora. Lily Mae Brown used to work there.”
“Guess that’s all right, then,” the old woman said. “I recollect the Brown family moved a long time ago to Mount Dora. Old man Brown got a job near there for a fruit packing company.” Her busy fingers paused. “That girl, Lily Mae——if my memory be right——she married a fellow there, a fellow named Hall. Don’t recollect the first name. Last I heard they still lived in Mount Dora. Maybe that’ll help you, young lady.”
When Brandy reached into her purse, the old woman waved her away. “Might not help you,” she said. “It’s all I know.”
Thirty minutes later Brandy stopped at a fast food restaurant on the edge of Mount Dora, wolfed down a hamburger and coke, and borrowed the telephone book. The number of Halls was daunting, but she did find a Martin Luther King Center listed on the east side of town. It was worth a try.
By three she was standing at the front desk in a one story, white concrete block building, staring hopefully at an elderly black woman in a paisley dress. In a larger adjoining room two teenagers in baggy jeans cracked ping pong balls across a table tennis net.
The woman raised her eyebrows and looked up. “Lily Mae Hall?” she asked, her eyes behind her glasses as thoughtful and reserved as the old lady’s on the swing. “Let’s see now. Seems like I recollect…” She pulled a notebook from a shelf behind her and flipped through several pages of handwritten names.
Was she stalling? “I would like to interview Mrs. Hall for a story I’m writing for the Beacon newspaper. I don’t think she’d mind. I want to ask a few details about an old house where she worked years ago.”
The woman paused and placed one finger on a name. “If she’s the lady I’m thinking of, she’s a supporter but we don’t see her here much. Don’t think she’s been right well.” She turned the book toward Brandy. “You might want to take down the number, see if she’s the lady you want.”
Quickly Brandy jotted down name, address, and phone number. Trotting back down the sidewalk toward her car, she checked her watch. There was barely time for the drive back to Tavares for Grace Able’s flower show. She would have to telephone Lily Mae tonight.
When Brandy entered the spacious home of the garden club member, she asked for Grace Able, then waited by French doors in a foyer that opened onto the north shore of Lake Dora. The judging had concluded. Grace came mincing in from an adjoining room in high heels, her face flushed. “Miss O’Bannon, I believe.” In the living room, she drew Brandy aside.
“Color Under the Sun” read a large placard on an end table. Plumes of red bottlebrush thrust up from a vase on the other end piece, a sprightly pot of golden marigolds brightened a coffee table, a mass of deep pink bougainvillea cascaded from a bowl on the mantel, and a cluster of bromeliads lifted scarlet blooms like inverted bells from a wide pot on the piano.
Grace directed Brandy’s attention to the last arrangement. “The judges criticized the size of my container,” she said in a low voice. “Too large in proportion to its location.” She waved a dainty hand at the bright blooms and the tracery of green Swiss cheese and snake plants that filled in the pot.
Inwardly Brandy smiled. Grace’s huge diamond and wide platinum wedding band could also be called out of proportion to her slender finger. The well–bred voice quivered. “I grow bromeliads in my little patio. You can see my design is easily the most pleasing and certainly it has the most exceptional plants.”
Brandy glanced from the oval face with its cream complexion and pained blue eyes to the bromeliads on the piano top and their red ribbon. A blue one dangled from the mantel.
Grace sniffed. “Bougainvillea takes no effort in Florida. Excellent balance and proportion, indeed!”
She was almost too thin in a pale silvery green dress with a wide swinging skirt, but well–proportioned, if her arrangement was not. Against the soft folds at the neckline lay a strand of pearls.
“Of course, this is just a local placement show. I should take a first place at the county show next fall in Eustis. The regular shows end in May, but the girls thought a little June summer flower show would be fun.” Her voice dropped conspiratorially. “I’m not really surprised at the ribbon, though. They’ve got new judges this year. Just trained. And they don’t like me to compete. I’m too old. They think I ought to step aside for newer members.”
She touched the careful waves in her blonde–white hair. “Of course, there’s the Able and Southerland Company thing. People in a small town hold money against you, you know.” She gave a mirthless little laugh. “As if any amount of money could compensate for the loss of my husband.”
Brandy seized on the reference to Brookfield Able’s death. “I heard you say you didn’t care about the Able homestead, but it was your husband’s. For my story, you must have some pleasant memories of it.”
The older woman laid a graceful hand on Brandy’s arm and led her toward an isolated love seat. “Brookfield didn’t like it any better than I. Too far out of town. Too gloomy.”
“Your sister–in–law feels the same. It’s a pity. It’s such a part of county history.”
“Poor Sylvania.” Grace looked down, a tiny lift to the corners of her mouth. “She never cared much for me, either. Such different interests! Doesn’t cherish beautiful things. You’ve seen her garden, or the lack of it.”
“Did you dislike the house when you lived there?”
Grace’s eyelids drooped. “I don’t know how Sylvania and that dreadful man she married stayed out there so long.”
“After Eva Stone disappeared into the lake, you must have heard rumors about unusual sightings there.”
The almond–shaped blue eyes opened wide and inspected Brandy for a moment. “I’ve heard,” she said at last quietly.
“I understand you were the guest of honor that weekend. What can you tell me about Eva Stone and her drowning?”
Grace paused, her eyes still averted. “I didn’t know her at all well. The drowning happened after I’d already left. A dreadful tragedy. Spoiled our engagement party. Afterwards, it was all people could talk about. If the girl were going to drown herself, I wished she’d picked another time and place.” She smoothed the silky skirt across her lap. “I can tell you this. I would not stay in that house again.”
Brandy wondered if
she had a quotable witness at last. “What exactly did you see that makes you say that?”
Grace’s delicate fingers fluttered. “It’s only a feeling, really. Like a presence, especially upstairs. A coldness in the air.” She shuddered.
“Ever see anything on the lawn? Or near the boat house?”
Grace rose, stepped to the piano, and picked up the red ribbon. “No,” she said after a pause. “The family doesn’t like to talk about it. Brings gawkers around, you know. Maybe if Sylvania has the house pulled down, that will put a stop to the talk.”
“May I quote you?”
“Oh, no, please. Sylvania doesn’t like me now. She’d really be angry if I commented to a reporter about——you know——those stories.”
She tucked the ribbon in a tote bag and lifted her pot carefully with both hands. “Just say I haven’t lived in the house for over forty years and have no sentimental attachment to it.”
Brandy sighed and reached for the pot. “Let me help you to the car. I ought to tell you the case is being re–opened. There’s been a new development.”
Just as Brandy’s fingers tightened around the pot, Grace released her hold and one hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, dear. Must they bring all that up again?”
“I’m afraid so.” Brandy said. “Last night a skeleton was found buried near the house. There’s a chance it’s Eva Stone’s.” No need to tell Grace about the damaged skull. She might refuse then to talk at all. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the weekend she disappeared.”
“We certainly can’t speak privately here, Miss O’Bannon.” Grace cocked her head and looked at Brandy. “O’Bannon. I believe I met your mother once or twice. Barbara O’Bannon?” Brandy nodded. “Last time was at a Garden Club round robin where we had dessert at different houses. She didn’t stay active in the club. Had no free time, people said. I thought teachers got their summers off, and school’s over by three or four in the afternoon.”
