SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY

by Ann Cook

  Cara brushed her hair back with fingers that trembled a little, her voice low. “Mr. MacGill lets me have the flowers from the dining room. I’m taking some out there in about half an hour. Meet me there. I’ve got an old newspaper clipping to show you.”

  Brandy had started across the downstairs lobby when the desk clerk called to her. Reaching behind her, the woman lifted a message from a mail slot. “With Mr. Rossi gone and all, I forgot. I took a phone call for you early this morning, about seven-thirty.” She handed Brandy the paper. Brandy scanned the clerk’s neat hand. “Forget the classified ad story,” the note read. “A more important one’s breaking here. Come back to the bureau as soon as you can.”

  “Can I call back?”

  “The person said they couldn’t be reached today or tomorrow.”

  It didn’t sound like the State News Editor or his assistant. No specifics. “Did the caller leave a name?”

  The clerk shook her head. “Said he was calling for your boss. I couldn’t even tell for sure if it was a man. There was a lot of noise and the person spoke real soft.”

  Brandy asked John to wait, stalked to the phone booth, and called the bureau. The sports editor answered. No one else was in the office. He didn’t know of a change in anyone’s story budget. Or about any sudden big news. Both the State News Editor and his assistant would be at the city desk today as usual. Brandy asked if he would verify the early morning message and call her back if it were genuine. She hung up, a bit rattled. Was Rossi that concerned about her questions? Who else would want her off the story?

  About a half an hour later Brandy and John located the old graveyard on Cemetery Point, bounded on three sides by marsh land and shallow inlets. It lay on a gentle rise, its graves covered with pine needles, a few of the oldest with oyster shells. At one side of the circular drive sat an unkempt station wagon.

  While John stayed behind the wheel, reading a leaflet about historic homes, Brandy stepped out into the sharp smell of salt air. A cool breeze made her thankful for her long-sleeved white shirt. The only sound came from traffic on the other side of a shallow bay, the only motion from Cara at the edge of the graveyard, laying a centerpiece of white and gold chrysanthemums before a small headstone.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Brandy said to John.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s nine-forty. If you’re set on taking Meg, we’d better pick her up soon. We ought to get to the Suwannee fish camp around noon.”

  Brandy nodded and began picking her way among tombstones. When she was quite close, Cara sat back on her heels and squinted up at her. “Someone was in the cemetery last night,” she said. “There’s no real protection, not even a fence. Kids come in to party.” She pointed to tire tracks over a grassy area and a few pieces of broken glass beside the ruts.

  “It’s a shame,” Brandy agreed. She peered at the modest gray stone. She could read “Rest in Peace, Ye known but to God,” and below that, “Female, 1973.”

  Cara settled down on the grass. “Got a minute?”

  Brandy lowered herself beside Cara, while an osprey wheeled up from a nest in a tall marsh pine and dived toward the water.

  “Marcia doesn’t like me to come here. I don’t tell her anymore.” Cara gestured toward Brandy, palms up. “After all, she hasn’t told me much. She found me during the hurricane of 1972. She was on her way to the school house for shelter. My foster dad was already there, but Marcia had been helping a friend on First Street board up her windows.” Cara glanced down. “I’m sure she saved my life. I can never forget that. She says I must’ve been left by migrants. Some came here several days earlier, she said, looking for work at the fish houses. The Health and Rehabilitation Service office finally let Marcia and my foster dad keep me. They’d been foster parents before.”

  “And the woman buried here?”

  Cara’s large eyes met hers. “More than a year after the 1972 hurricane, a skeleton of a young woman was found in the old cistern in the hotel basement. No one knows how it got there.” Her voice quivered. “But the day I was found, a woman and a little girl about my age left Otter Creek for Cedar Key. The woman was educated, well-dressed. I read about them in an old newspaper at the Historical Society Museum. I brought you a copy of the story. No one knows what happened to them.”

  She made an effort to steady her voice. “I think the woman buried here was my mother.”

  Carefully Cara lifted a Xerox copy of a clipping from a plastic bag and handed it to Brandy. Then she looked away. “I think I must be that girl, and if I am, my mother was not some migrant worker that can’t be located.”

  Brandy folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket to read later. “You said there was another Cara Waters.”

  “Long before I was born, Marcia had a little girl about my age. Looked a lot like me. She was lost.” Cara drew her knees up and locked her slender arms around them.

  “Lost?”

  “Like I told you, her name was Cara, too. She drowned in the hurricane of 1950. They had a house on the Gulf then, and it got swept away, the little girl with it. Marcia thinks her death was part of some awful retribution. The whole fishing fleet was smashed. Oyster men lost everything. They’d been ruining the beds, of course, over-harvesting. My foster dad was the foreman of a timber company. Then, of course, lumbering wasn’t controlled. All the old forest was already gone. He was almost killed when the wind ripped the roof off the shack he’d gone to for shelter.”

  “No wonder you’re frightened of hurricanes.”

  “Mr. MacGill says hurricanes hit here so often because we’re stuck in an island in the Gulf. But Marcia thinks nature’s programmed to strike back.”

  A horn honked. Brandy looked at her watch. Five of ten. As she lifted herself up and brushed off her slacks, Cara scrambled up beside her. “After the first little Cara drowned, Marcia worked with environmentalists for twenty years. She thought people had been ruining the natural environment. If they were being punished by nature, Marcia wanted to restore what had been lost.” She looked up to see the osprey fly back to its nest, then began again. “Then she found me in another hurricane near the same place. It was like her child had been brought back by the storm. That’s why she gave me the same name.”

  Puzzled, Brandy looked at her as they started back toward the road. “Did she think you were the same child?”

  “We looked similar, but I don’t think she really confused us, not after a while. But deep down, maybe she always has.”

  “And when you were found, you couldn’t identify yourself?”

  Cara shook her head. “Marcia says no one could make out what I was saying. I was too scared. They say I wasn’t even three yet.”

  As John eased the car down the road toward them, Brandy reached the driveway, Cara beside her. “We’re going to pick up Meg and go out to Shell Mound this afternoon,” Brandy said. “I’ll take some pictures of my own.”

  Cara nodded. “You could stop at the caretakers and report the digging. He doesn’t have a phone in the trailer.”

  Brandy opened the passenger door and paused. John would certainly say that Cara’s identity was not Brandy’s problem. He had asked her to be quiet about her suspicions. Yet someone should tell Cara about Rossi.

  “A private investigator from New York was staying at the hotel,” Brandy said. “He was looking for a woman who disappeared in 1972, said she came to Cedar Key with a little girl. He wouldn’t tell me the missing woman’s name. The investigator was Anthony Rossi. He left this morning early, but he said money was involved for the missing child. You should try to reach him.”

  Cara’s eyes widened. “The hotel should have his address.” The quiver returned to her voice. “The newspaper said the woman buried at the hotel was murdered. The case was never solved.” She put one hand on Brandy’s arm. “You’re a reporter. You know how to investigate t
hings. I hope you’ll help me find the truth.”

  Brandy gave a slight nod and slipped into the car seat. “I’ll think about it.”

  When Cara turned away, John gunned the engine and headed for the cemetery entrance. “That girl’s not your problem, Bran.”

  She opened her notebook and scribbled a few lines. “Just curious. Might be a story there. And I do wish I could do something to help her.”

  He gave her a tight-lipped glance. “You may end by doing the girl more harm than good.” She wished John was not so often right. She doodled a gravestone in the margin, then closed the book, unfolded the Cedar Key map, and switched to a topic he would find more agreeable. “Why don’t I drop you off on the main street? You could pick up a picnic lunch at the café while I collect Meg.”

  Neither MacGill nor Truck had told Rossi about the skeleton in the hotel cistern, a reservoir for storing water long ago abandoned. Why? She hoped Rossi had not left town without keeping his appointment with the police chief. Surely the chief would mention the unsolved murder. Brandy gripped her notebook, eager to jot down the thought that had taken form. She wondered if the cocktail waitress was referring to the skeleton in the basement when she said Rossi came to the hotel nineteen years too late. Brandy would have to bounce that idea off Rossi when she saw him again—if she saw him again.

  CHAPTER 6

  John stepped out of the car at the café. “Next stop, the Suwannee River.” Brandy was pleased to see his rare half-smile. Before she drove to Cara’s house for Meg, she pulled the folded newspaper clipping from her pocket. It was from the regional edition of the Gainesville paper, dated June 25, 1972. Below items about George McGovern’s campaign aides and the bombing in Viet Nam, Brandy read:

  MYSTERY CHILD STILL UNCLAIMED

  Officials in Cedar Key are still unable to locate the parents of the little girl found wandering along a Gulf-side street the night of June 18, as Hurricane Agnes began moving into the area. Charlotte Wilson, H.R.S. spokesman who now has custody of the child, estimated her to be two years of age. No one is reported missing in the area and inquiries nationwide have produced no response.

  During a search of Levy County for the girl’s parents, local police officers interviewed a cashier at the Otter Creek Cafe who said a young woman and small child arrived there on a Greyhound bus and ate at the restaurant late the afternoon before the storm struck. The cashier, Betsy Mae Terry, said the woman inquired about a bus to Cedar Key.

  About thirty minutes later the woman told the cashier she had found a ride and drove away in a car. Mrs. Terry did not see the driver, however, and said she did not get a good look at the child. She was unable to identify the little girl later found in Cedar Key. She gave the police a detailed description of the woman, and they are attempting to locate her.

  Police Chief Wiley Saunders suggested that the girl might have been abandoned by migrant workers who were seen in town prior to the hurricane and whose whereabouts are unknown.

  The child is in good condition, but disoriented, and unable to help with her identification. She was rescued from the storm by artist Marcia Waters, 46, of Cedar Key and taken to the school house for safety. Mrs. Waters and her husband, prominent local citizens and approved foster parents, have asked to care for the little girl until her parents can be found.

  Brandy tucked the newspaper article with care into her notebook—another piece of the puzzle. She would fax a copy to Rossi’s office. Swinging the car around, she drove back up Second Avenue to collect her golden retriever. Marcia’s station wagon already stood in her driveway.

  The artist met Brandy on the porch in a white shirt, long denim skirt, and sandals instead of her smock, probably a concession to meeting customers in the gallery. She folded her arms across her chest. “I understand you encouraged Cara to take a foolish risk last night,” she said.

  As Brandy edged into the living room, a door in the hallway opened. Uncomfortable, Brandy shifted her focus to Cara’s slight figure coming out of the hall. Since their meeting in the cemetery, Cara had changed into a blue and pink paisley print dress with a Peter Pan collar. Brandy wondered if the immature style had been Marcia’s selection.

  “I had no idea Cara would go to Shell Mound alone,” Marcia said.

  Cara hesitated in the doorway, but she spoke up. “Catching whoever was digging near the mound was a real service to the parks department, even if I didn’t get the picture I went for.” She straightened her shoulders, as if remembering something else, even more important. “This morning Brandy told me something no one else would.”

  Brandy dropped her gaze while Cara stared at Marcia. “An investigator’s been in town. He had information about a woman who might be my mother. I’m sure that’s what Mr. MacGill came here to tell you last night. You know how much I’ve wanted to find out about my birth parents! Now the man’s gone.”

  Marcia flushed, Brandy did not know if from anger or hurt. “I suppose she told you money might be involved. Is that what really interests you?

  Cara’s eyes clouded and she sank into a chair before the fireplace. Confronting her foster mother, Brandy thought, was not what she did best. Marcia turned to Brandy. “We have to leave now. Cara’s helping in the gallery today. Your dog’s leash is on a peg at the back door.”

  Brandy glanced at the photographs on the mantel. In the faded one, the child’s eyes and hair were lighter than Cara’s, the oval of her face a bit fuller, but they had a similar delicacy. Marcia Waters had lost one daughter, Brandy reminded herself. She did not intend to lose another. Brandy moved toward the door. “Is there a description of the child who came here with her mother? Anything that would connect her with Cara?”

  “The cashier at the Otter Creek café was the only person who talked to the woman,” Cara said. “You’ve seen her account. Useless.”

  Brandy looked at the artist, but Marcia shook her head. “A hurricane was coming. I’m sure the woman simply changed her mind about coming to Cedar Key. Quite sensible.” She arched her neck and seemed to look down at Cara from a great height. “Cara persists in this fiction. Her attitude’s common among adopted children. She wants to glamorize her birth parents. The fact is, she was most likely abandoned by workers trying to escape the storm. We’re not likely to learn anymore at this late date.” Marcia picked up her black sweater from the back of a chair. “We’ve got to go. The gallery should be open now. The weekend’s our best time.”

  Cara helped lift Brandy’s bouncing retriever onto the rear seat and gave her a quick nuzzle. “You’re a sweet dog,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight.” But the life had gone out of her voice.

  Cara’s trapped, Brandy thought, as she pulled away from the curb. Unless she had help, Marcia Waters would never let her break free. She’d never go away to study, or find her original family or be herself. She looked again at her watch. She was fifteen minutes late for meeting John.

  She was almost to Second Avenue when she slowed at an intersection and noticed a commotion at a tiny Gulf beach a block to her right. Several men in jeans and coveralls were standing around or leaning on pick-ups, a fish and oyster panel truck was parked to one side, and what appeared to be a wrecking truck was backing toward the water. A white police car with red and blue stripes zipped past.

  A few minutes later Brandy found John beside the salmon-colored museum, his camera aimed at a flock of yellow-breasted birds feeding on the berries of a Red Cedar. He held up a white café bag, proof that he had kept his part of the bargain, and opened the driver’s door. “I can’t wait to check the width of the boat slips at Fowler’s Bluff.” He grinned. “I’ll see if our boat would fit. Then on to your Shell Mound picnic among the haunts.”

  Brandy slid over into the passenger seat. “One short detour,” she said, her smile apologetic. “Something’s going on at the end of E Street, just a couple of blocks from here.” She loved the unadorned
labeling of Cedar Key’s downtown streets. No developer’s Sunset Lanes and Rolling Gulf Avenues. Just plain numbers and letters in proper sequence. “Let’s duck down and take a look.”

  Above Atsena Otie Key the sky threatened rain, and the morning’s breeze had become keener. “The paper says the storm’s going to hit Key West,” John said, turning left at the next block. “At the rate it’s moving, it won’t get near here ‘til the middle of the week.”

  Brandy reached back to open a window for Meg, letting in a pungent whiff of rotting seaweed. “We’ll be long gone then.”

  By now the wrecker had backed across a band of flattened sandbags and a few feet of beach, littered with Gulf sea grasses. A cable was slowly reeling in a car. She could see the shiny black suit of a diver in the water. A small crowd in jackets and jeans had collected along the concrete abutment left of the narrow strip of sand. A pick-up truck stood to one side, a Marine Service Divers sign on the cab.

  Near a clump of cabbage palms at the corner stood the tall officer Brandy had seen with Rossi at the police department, and with him Angus MacGill in a knitted cap and sweater. When the policeman waved their car away, John turned at the bottom of the slight hill and parked down the block on First Street. As Brandy climbed out of the car, she could see shrimpers watching from a trawler that lay off shore, and a sports fishing boat with a covered command console drifting toward them.

  “Tide’s about out,” MacGill said as they joined him. “It was high about four this morning. No one copped onto the car until ten.” He gestured toward a frame house on the other side of an adjoining vacant lot. “Then someone over there rang these lads.”

  John looked across the street at a white frame house with concrete steps leading up a hill to a screen porch. “Didn’t anyone hear a car go into the water?”