SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY

by Ann Cook

  No need to tell him yet that the State News Editor had assigned her an additional story about the Indian midden known as Shell Mound.

  The classified ad about the missing woman had first hooked the State News Editor. He had leaned his lanky frame back in his chair, studied it with cheeks puffed out, tapped his pencil once or twice on the desk, and nodded. “Okay, sounds weird enough. Check out this guy Rossi.” But one story wasn’t enough. Maybe he didn’t yet trust her to follow through. Reaching into a drawer, he’d handed her a memo. “Check out this Halloween feature while you’re in Cedar Key. A fishing buddy called this morning, said the local paper ran a story today about the Shell Mound spooks, a girl and her dog. Says they’re on the prowl again.” He’d grinned.

  The memo gave no details, only the name of the community paper and a contact there. Apparently the legend was well-known. She’d have to look for a new angle. But her first task was to find Rossi and pry loose his story, if there was one.

  With the interview in mind, she had stowed her usual jeans in her suitcase and chosen a tailored navy slack suit with a crisp white blouse for the day. On the telephone yesterday, a clerk at the Island Hotel said a Mr. Rossi was expected. She needed to produce a strong feature, or two, if she was ever to move from the three-person bureau to the news room downtown.

  John swung their small sedan left, onto a street of weathered cypress and stucco buildings, their Victorian balconies shading the sidewalk. “The whole town’s on the National Register of Historic Places,” Brandy said. “No beach. Fewer than a thousand people. That includes some laid back tourists.” She hoped this would be another long weekend like the one at Daytona a few months ago, lazy beach reading by day, making love by moonlight.

  They passed an art gallery, a small pink museum, a fire department tucked under a balcony railing, and a café. In the next block John pulled up to a square burgundy and cream building with the solid look of a nineteenth century fort. A large Island Hotel sign hung from the second floor balcony.

  John’s interest in the old structure had induced him to come. “One of the oldest hotels in the state,” she said. “I’ll find out about this guy Rossi while you register. Then I’ll take care of Meg. A clerk told me they would recommend a place to board her.”

  Instantly a thumping began in the back seat. She pushed the golden retriever away from John’s charcoal slacks, now sagging from the hook at the back window, and plucked from them a few red-blonde hairs—Meg’s, not her own. They were almost the same coppery color. She and her dog had been a pair three years longer than Brandy had known John Able, but he’d never quite accepted Meg, just as he’d never quite accepted the demands of her job. “Meg will love Shell Mound, too,” she said.

  Under the high ceiling fan, the lobby felt cool. Brandy gazed approvingly at the varnished chairs, the plain bench, the old Victrola beside a pot-bellied stove, the windows trimmed in cypress. From behind the counter on one side of the long room, a man of medium height with curly gray hair and very blue eyes came out of the shadows carrying a book. He glanced at the lap top computer in John’s hand, the Nikon around Brandy’s neck, and her loose leaf notebook. “Must be the newspaper lass. I’m your proprietor, Angus MacGill. Room’s ready, Miss O’Bannon.”

  “Gainesville Tribune,” she said. John was accustomed to her professional name, but he hated her to be addressed as “Miss.” She took his arm. “My husband, John Able. We’re both interested in the hotel. He renovates historic buildings. I write an occasional column about them.”

  “Hotel dates back to 1859,” the Scotsman said.

  Brandy peered at the register. Her quarry had already checked in. The name above John’s was Anthony Rossi of New York. “The gentleman who registered just before us is the person I came to see. Did you read his ad? He names the hotel.” She opened the notebook and handed the clipping to him. “I expect you’ll be getting his messages.”

  MacGill scanned the words, the mouth in his square face clamped tight, then thrust out his lower lip and scowled. A swinging door opened to his left as a young desk clerk with plastic rimmed glasses and French braids trotted in from a nearby passageway. “You were asking about Mr. Rossi?” she chirped. “He signed in yesterday.”

  Brandy looked at the hotel owner. “Mr. Rossi’s trying to locate a woman who hasn’t contacted her family for twenty years. Were you in Cedar Key in 1972?”

  The Scotsman shoved his book under one arm. “Nosy bugger, that Rossi. Pushy New Yorker. Asking a lot of questions. Not likely to win him friends around here. In Cedar Key we live and let live.”

  Brandy noticed the title of a volume on a short bookshelf behind him, the collected poems of Robert Burns. “Ah, yes,” she said, “but we mustn’t hold a man’s origins against him. ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’” Having a degree in literature came in handy, but she was aware that he had not answered her question.

  The clerk parked her glasses on the top of her head and leaned forward. “Mr. Rossi said he was going over to the police department a few minutes ago. Said we could reach him there if he had any calls.” From a stack of papers on the counter she handed Brandy a map of Cedar Key. “If you want to find him, he’ll probably still be there. A block off Second Avenue, behind City Hall.”

  MacGill’s mobile face went still. Then he glanced at the girl, his frown deepening. Behind him rose a print of Edinburgh Castle’s stark walls. Its dark parapets gave the lobby a brooding quality that the proprietor would not have intended.

  Brandy put a finger on the map and changed the subject. “We need to board our dog. Can you suggest a kennel in the area?”

  MacGill ran one stubby hand through his hair and paused. “A lass works here heard me say a newspaper reporter was coming this weekend. Says she’ll take care of your dog. She has a bonny fenced garden. She wants to talk to you about newspaper work, mind. We’ve got no kennel in Cedar Key.” He pointed toward the main street. “The lass’s not here now, but her mother will still be in her art gallery on Second Avenue. Be closing up in about half an hour. She’ll show you to the house. Name’s Marcia Waters. A water color artist.”

  Brandy handed John the camera. “While I’m finding Mr. Rossi and taking care of Meg, you can get us settled and imbibe the ambiance.”

  John looked out at the silent street, at its fringe of tattered cabbage palms and its cracked sidewalks, and then at the lobby sign that read “Neptune Lounge.” He gave her another lop-sided smile. “I plan to imbibe something with considerably more wallop. And soon.”

  Brandy grinned and started toward the double glass doors. He would enjoy lining up their shoes in the closet, facing all their clothes on hangers in the same direction, and organizing the medicine chest before she could bounce in and create her usual good-natured disorder. He’d set up his small tape player, put on one of his favorite études, and get in the mood to relax.

  In the car Meg laid her head with its curious cream-colored mask on the back of the driver›s seat and made a small, complaining noise in her throat. Brandy gave her a pat before wheeling back down Second Avenue. On a side street behind the white wooden city hall, she spotted a Police Department sign. The department shared a modest annex with the library, each marked by a bright blue door. Opening her bulging notebook, she removed a memo pad, tucked it into her purse, and swung out of the car.

  Inside the reception room, a swarthy man in an open-necked sport shirt was leaning over the counter, talking to a tall officer in a black uniform. Brandy moved up behind the petitioner. With one blunt finger the man tapped a large black and white photograph on the counter. “Back in June of 1972 somebody in Cedar Key saw this woman. I need to talk to the chief. Is he back yet?”

  Brandy›s blue eyes widened. Thanks to the chatty hotel clerk, her timing was perfect.

  “Hadda little kid with her, a girl two-years old. The woman meant to live here.”

  T
he officer ran a hand across his expanding forehead and into its bristly rim of hair and shook his head. “Never seen her. But I wasn›t here then. Sorry.” His melancholy eyes lent the last word credibility. “The chief gets back from vacation tomorrow. I›ll give him your card.” He glanced at a clipboard. “Anthony Rossi, right?”

  “You got it.” The New Yorker removed a pair of rimless glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I›ll leave a copy of the picture. Checked with a data base before I came down, and the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Jacksonville, driver›s licenses, everything. She gotta be using an alias. That don›t surprise me.”

  He replaced the glasses and tipped his head back, a stocky figure with an angular face and a prominent nose. “Somebody in a place this size oughta remember her. We know my client›s niece got here okay. The aunt got a post card from her niece. She mailed it from a café a few miles up the road, and she knew where to go for help.” He leaned on one elbow and stared at the portrait, as if willing the subject to appear. “Had plenty of scratch. Sold some bonds and cleaned out her checking account. My client didn’t figure on hearing from her niece again, unless she had trouble.”

  He looked up, pushing his face closer to the officer. “I checked the date. A hurricane hit the town early the next morning, but the record shows no one got hurt. The niece was to let my client know if she left Cedar Key.” He dropped his gaze. “The kid, she’d be grown now. My client don’t want me to give out the real names yet. Not ‘til we find her and get her okay.”

  Above his St. Bernard eyes, the officer raised his brows, but he nodded. “Right.”

  For the first time there was an appeal in the investigator’s voice. “It’s kinda urgent. My client’s in the hospital. Finding her niece, that’s her last wish. So far I got zippo. I’ll check with the chief when he gets back tomorrow. Until then, I still got one lead.”

  Brandy sidled closer and peered down at the eight by ten. It showed a slim young woman with delicate bone structure seated on a white bench, dark hair to her shoulders, dark, solemn eyes, arms crossed, a faint lift to her lips. She wore a white, lacy dress—maybe a bridal gown, Brandy thought—and on her left hand a large diamond with brilliant smaller ones descending on each side.

  The officer scooped up the photograph and slipped it into a manila folder. “We’ll check it out.”

  As the investigator turned away from the counter, Brandy stepped between him and the door. “Mr. Rossi, I’m from the Gainesville Tribune. We’re interested in your search. Cedar Key’s in our region.”

  Rossi scowled. “News sure gets around, don’t it? I got no information for reporters.”

  Brandy was surprised. He had, after all, placed the ad. She had expected him to welcome the paper’s help. Still, she smiled agreeably. “We could publicize your search. Lots of readers don’t look at the classifieds.”

  “We don’t want publicity, M’am.”

  Behind her the door opened. A secretary hurried in with two Styro-foam cups of coffee. As Brandy moved aside, Rossi stalked out onto the porch. He stopped on the steps and when she caught up with him, he was pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. He was not much taller than she, but his body was solid and his posture confident. He bent down and a light flickered under his cigarette. Then he straightened up, inhaled, and gazed at the quiet street under its haphazard clumps of cabbage palms. “Thought this was some kinda beach resort.”

  Brandy shook her head. “It’s not. That’s its charm.” Later, she would remember how he looked at that moment—the cheap sports coat and polyester pants, the creased forehead and alert stare—a wary alien on a quest, bewildered by the muted rhythm of Cedar Key.

  From her purse she took a card with her name, bureau address, and phone number. “I’m staying at the same hotel. Call me if you change your mind.”

  Although he shook his head, he thrust the card into his pocket before climbing into a two door blue Chevrolet with a Gainesville airport sticker. In her car a few minutes later she noted its description in her notebook, along with the facts she’d learned about the missing woman, and poked a few loose papers back into the binder. Brandy remembered how methodical, brief, and neatly printed John’s lists were, but she wrote down everything—books to read, people to talk to, ideas for feature stories, phrases that struck her fancy, facts from interviews.

  Rossi was hiding a good deal, she decided, as she rounded the corner of Second Avenue. That meant there must be a dramatic angle to the story. She would question anyone she could find who was in Cedar Key in 1972.

  The art gallery was the only tenant in a green frame building across the street from the Cedar Key Historical Museum. As she parked she could see through high windows into a shadowy room hung with watercolors. A bell jangled when she stepped inside and stood before somber splashes of browns and pale greens.

  In a frame on one wall a cormorant clung to a piece of driftwood, a black shape against an ashen sky. Next to it cabbage palms leaned above a dark river as an osprey plunged for the kill. On an easel in the foreground a horned owl soared above a tall mound pocked with moonlit shells. While Brandy absorbed Marcia Waters’ predatory vision, the artist herself emerged from a back room. She was pulling on a nubby black sweater—a rawboned woman, quite tall, with a thin, sun-browned face. She tucked a wisp of white hair into the bun at the nape of her neck and faced Brandy, eyebrows lifted.

  Brandy smiled. “Mr. MacGill at the Island Hotel sent me. I’m Brandy O’Bannon from the Gainesville Tribune. I’m working on a couple of Cedar Key stories. He said you could board our golden retriever.”

  Marcia Waters opened the door onto the sidewalk. “I believe my daughter promised Mr. MacGill. She charges ten dollars a night. The fact is, we have quite a menagerie already. I keep a private bird sanctuary.

  Brandy picked up a handout about the artist from a wall stand and followed her outside. “Do you always work on nature studies?” she asked as Mrs. Waters locked the door.

  The artist glanced back, her face somber. “It’s my way of preserving what’s left of old Florida.”

  Brandy looked at the brochure. “You’ve lived in Cedar Key since the 1940’s. Maybe you could help me with my two local stories.”

  Mrs. Waters snapped her head up. “That depends. We respect people’s privacy here.” She strode to a battered van at the curb. “Follow me. The house isn’t far.”

  As Brandy nosed her car out behind the van, she thought again of John waiting for her at the hotel, and felt like a gymnast on a balance beam, teetering between job and marriage. A working weekend had seemed like a brilliant strategy: she would ferret out a difficult story, maybe two, while keeping her husband safely at her side.

  These past few weeks, while she spent days on a color story in Ocala, two more in Tallahassee, and grueling overtime at the bureau, had she lost her husband to his intern? When he felt neglected, Tiffany Moore always found time for him. Even after hours, even on weekends. And this was only the first year of her three-year apprenticeship.

  Frowning, Brandy drove past white frame houses, turned northwest beside a tall Victorian home with a filigreed porch railing, and rounded a bay labeled Goose Cove on the map. She did not want to think now about Tiffany Moore, her mini skirts, her tight curls, or her low voice when she asked for John on the telephone. This weekend Brandy would focus all the charm she could muster on John. She had brought a snug dress that flattered her curves and seductively high heels.

  Through the windshield she watched late afternoon shadows settle over the hushed street and its canopy of Spanish moss. She couldn’t concentrate only on John. She had to interview someone about the Shell Mound ghost and locate, with or without the investigator’s help, the mother and daughter who came to Cedar Key twenty years ago, and then vanished.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mrs. Waters drew up before a one story cottage flanked by cabbage palms, a narro
w porch, and a bamboo fence. While the artist held open the gate, the retriever pulled Brandy in a red-gold blur across the front lawn, under the limb of a live oak into the back yard, and stopped on a gravel path between beds of black-eyed Susans, elderberry, and wax myrtle. In the corner of the garden a small fountain splashed in a tiny pond beside a wire enclosure.

  While Meg stood wagging her cream-colored plume of a tail, the artist stopped, and gave her a business-like pat. “My daughter’s probably finished feeding the birds. I expect she’ll take care of your dog next.”

  For a moment Brandy knelt and put her arms around Meg’s golden ruff. “You’d sniff out the missing woman if you had the chance,” she murmured. “Never mind. At Shell Mound I hear there’s a doggy spirit,

  ^ “

  too.

  Rising, she followed the older woman through a back door into a studio lined with wooden cabinets, some slotted for pictures, and shelves stacked with tubes of paint. Brandy stopped at a drawing board under a bank of windows to study a completed water color of a horned owl. From a gnarled branch it stared into the moonlight, a huge bird with ear tufts like demon horns and hooked claws. Brandy was struck by the round eyes in the flattened face, by the hypnotic effect of the stale yellow irises and the stony pupils.

  The artist looked at the picture with a slight smile. “A killing machine. Sometimes nature’s like that. People, too. Cara and I took some excellent night photographs of the owl. We even managed to make a tape of the owl’s hooting. It nests near Shell Mound.” She slipped into a paint-splattered smock and rolled up the sleeves, revealing sinewy arms and wrists.

  Brandy welcomed the opening. “I’m researching the legend of Shell Mound for a Halloween feature. You must’ve heard of a round light that’s supposed to appear there. Sometimes a girl with a dog.”