by Ward Parker
Follett and Wilson ignored them and continued north. There was a bawdy house on the corner, evidenced by the young women sitting on the porch and leaning on the fence by the street. A well-dressed man in his forties stood among them, puffing on a cigar. Wilson slowed down, either out of caution for what lay ahead or because he was ogling the girls.
“Can I interest you, sir, in any entertainment?” the man shouted to Follett.
“Stop for a moment,” he told the driver. “We’ve got business up on Eighth Street,” he said to the man as he leaned out of the carriage. “Is it safe to go there?” He trusted this man’s judgment more than that of the drunks they had passed.
“Well, I’ve heard talk of unrest on account of another Negro going missing,” he said. His fingers sparkled with jeweled rings. “But honestly, I believe the local Klan-types are just looking for an excuse to lynch someone. I think they’re the ones who have been abducting these people, you know, to terrorize the community.”
Wilson snapped the reins and they left the bawdy house behind. When they neared the Bishops’, Follett saw neighbors gathered around the front porch. They glared at him with hostility as the buggy pulled up to the sandy front lawn. Follett approached the porch but remained on the lawn where he asked to speak to Mr. Bishop.
“I already talked to the marshal,” John Bishop said to Follett, his eyes wary. He had an islands-influenced British accent, this tall, powerful man with close-cropped hair that was turning gray.
Follett could tell he didn’t want to cooperate. He doubted that many in the community trusted white authority figures.
“My daughter is dead. And do they arrest the rich man who did it? No. They haul in my neighbor and beat a fake confession out of him.”
“Do you know who did it? You said ‘the rich man.’”
“That is what everyone believes—that it is a rich gentleman from Mr. Flagler’s hotels.”
“Could it be the Ku Klux Klan?”
“When the Klan attacks, they make sure everyone knows who did it. Whoever took Emily and the others has to be a rich man. Who else could get away with it so long without being caught?”
“Mr. Bishop, I’m here to help. I’m just a doctor, but I know that James is innocent.”
“You’re the New York doctor?” His scowl softened a bit. “Did you see what they did to my baby? How could anyone do that to a poor, soft-in-the-head sweetheart like her?”
“I know, I’m so sorry. I realize this is a difficult time for you, but I need you to help me ask around if anyone suspicious was seen around here the day she disappeared.”
“We already told the marshal what we’d seen. A white man, shortly before dawn. I saw him walking down this street right past my house here. White man with a limp in a long, dark coat. Shorty Rogers later saw him driving a wagon. There aren’t many white folks passing through here and we know the ones who do. I’ve never seen the man with a limp before.”
A limp.
Follett remembered the words written on the Bishop girl’s scalp: To Sawbones. Yes, the killer might have had surgery in the past. He wondered why DeBerry hadn’t told him about the man with a limp. When he looked up, more residents had gathered around them.
“Just like they’ve never seen you here before,” Bishop said, gesturing to the spectators.
“How bad of a limp was it?”
“Enough for me and others to notice.”
Trudy, the Angel Worm’s sister came to the edge of the porch. “He left a crate outside the window that he crawled in at our house,” she said. “He needed a crate to get up so he must’ve been lame.”
More people were crowding around Bishop and Follett and the mood was hostile. “I think, Doctor, that it would be wise for you to leave this neighborhood now.”
Follett nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said as he slipped through the crowd and back to the buggy.
* * *
It wasn’t yet four a.m. but Follett woke up with his heart pounding from dreams he couldn’t remember. It had been like this for months after Isabel died: sleep ruined by anxiety and then heavy drowsiness rolling over him in the afternoons. He got up and dressed, had a cup of tea from the samovar in the deserted lobby, and then walked to The Breakers in order to stare at the sea. He was the only person on the hotel’s veranda. Settling in on a rocking chair, he watched the waves rolling toward him in the moonlight. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the rocker, but sleep did not come.
* * *
He sees her early in the morning when the farthest edge of the ocean is lined by a faint glow and the sky turns to a fainter purple and the sea oats rustling in the slight breeze trick him into seeing movement in the corner of his eye. A female figure he thinks he sees flashes by behind the dunes. And deep in the infantile recesses of his brain he thinks it is her—he hopes it is her—and light fills his mind in advance of the dawn. The night is over; the pain of losing her has been but a bad dream. And then, slowly, as the sun pokes its glowing rim above the water and shapes of the landscape come into clear definition, his hopes are gone. Day is here, reality is here; there is no woman beyond the dunes. The sights of the breakers and the birds landing on the beach are beautiful, but a beauty that’s indifferent to him and his longings. Indifferent even to the slaughter that occurs when a school of mullet is attacked from below and the water boils with panicked fish. The day comes in and life proceeds and the predator fish feed without regret and the birds comb the beach for their own prey without a thought of the dying fish mere yards away or of the lonely doctor sitting on the porch watching it all, feeling sorry for himself. She is gone and the world, except for him, has long forgotten her. It is a new day and the world waits for him to perform his prescribed duties.
Chapter Ten
As Diana finished tightening her corset and pulled on her dress, she stared out her bedroom window and caught herself chewing on a fingernail. On the other side of Lake Worth stood the immense Royal Poinciana. Had it really been eight years since it was built? Nevertheless, it still seemed to her incongruous, rising above the low wall of trees along the otherwise unremarkable shoreline of Palm Beach.
She remembered when Henry Flagler first came to town to build his hotels. It had been like a military invasion. First, surveyors and engineers appeared like scouts and then later, as the few existing hotels filled, tents sprouted up both on the mainland and the island of Palm Beach as the army of workers began arriving. Barges loaded with raw material lined the lake shore on the island side and then railroad tracks were laid to hasten the delivery of construction material and supplies. Soon the sprawling six-story behemoth rose above the low line of trees on the island. When she’d see the sunrise streaming through the wooden skeleton it looked like a strange temple that had been lit on fire to please its god. Today, from any vantage point on the water in West Palm Beach you could see the massive temple of the American aristocracy gleaming in the sun, reminding the people of West Palm that they existed only to help feed this god of wealth.
Diana went downstairs, put on her hat and gathered her lesson plans. She called to her mother upstairs that she was leaving.
“I hope you’re not going to those crazy Stockhursts,” her mother said coming down the stairs.
“I told you, mother, I’m still under contract.”
“Of all the hundreds of wealthy families staying at that hotel, you have to sign on with the scandalous one?”
Her mother had prematurely gray hair cut austerely at her jawline and wore a black housecoat. She was stocky and serious, the hard years when they had first moved to Florida having set her like concrete. She looked down at Diana’s hands.
“Have you been biting off your nails again? You’ll never find a decent husband if you have the hands of a pineapple fieldworker.”
“Mother, you know it’s just a nervous habit.”
“Whatever is there to be nervous about in this backward place?”
“’Bye, mother.”
“Hal Bankley hasn’t come calling anymore. Did you drive him away?”
Hal delivered block ice from his father’s factory. He was rather cute but fancied himself a ladies’ man and dressed like a dandy on Saturday nights. She preferred classier types. Gentlemen like Dr. Follett, for instance, with his broad, intelligent face, elegant but not loud suits, and defiantly unfashionable short hair and beard. He had an air of importance about him, but probably wasn’t much older than his mid-thirties.
“Diana, you’re too pretty to be alone.”
“Goodbye, mother.”
Diana left the house. It still bothered her that her position as a tutor was nothing but a means to a wealthy husband in her mother’s eyes. Diana’s younger sister was married off at age twenty-one to a land agent and the pressure on her, at twenty-five not to end up a spinster intensified. But Diana had what few other women in pioneer Florida had—a college degree. Her very traditional parents had seen no need to send their daughters to college, so Diana saved over the years until she could afford two years at the Florida College School for Teachers in Tallahassee. With her teaching certificate, she tutored children who were missing school while brought by their parents to the Palm Beach-area hotels during Season. The rest of the year she worked for her father while she waited for the next local farming town to grow large enough to need a school and a teacher. She was in no hurry to get married and have to give up her new career. In a frontier land like Florida, a schoolteacher could truly make a difference. That, she had always been convinced, was her calling.
Recently, however, helping Darryl had become a mission for her. Never before had she thought an heir to great wealth would evoke pity in her, but never before had she known one could have handicaps such as Darryl’s. The society types that visited Florida came from a culture where wealth and social standing trumped everything. Yet Darryl was an outcast, all because of his appearance. How could modern civilization behave so barbarically toward one of its members for such a shallow reason?
When she arrived at the Stockhursts’ cottage, the maid, Angie, told her William wanted to see her in the study. She knocked and entered the mahogany-paneled room where he sat at a desk facing the door.
“Diana, I wanted to give you advance warning that I’m thinking of cutting our stay short this year.”
This was a blow. “But why?”
“There’s been too much negative attention on Darryl. Walter Spence and now this marshal interrogating us like we’re common criminals. I have a couple of social obligations to attend to and then we might head back to New York.”
“Mr. Stockhurst, I beg your pardon, but I ask for more time with Darryl. He has made great strides in calculus and should be ready for university next year if you think that’s appropriate for him. He says he enjoys working with me more than any other tutor.”
William smiled. “Yes, he is quite fond of you.”
“To me, this is more than simply teaching. I want to make a difference with him, to break through and get to the truly good soul in him.
William dabbed with his thumb at the corners of his glistening eyes.
“And there’s Doctor Follett,” she continued. “I believe his study of Darryl is very important and could make a difference.” She surprised herself saying this. Was she simply inventing excuses for the Stockhursts to stay or had she truly changed her mind about the doctor’s beneficence?
“The doctor can always see Darryl in New York.”
“But I live down here.”
“We could bring you with us.”
Diana paused. The possibility had never occurred to her. She said, “I don’t know if my parents would allow it. I simply ask that you stay for the rest of the season like you’d originally planned. The doctor and I can make tremendous progress in that time.”
“Well, this has been very enlightening. I’ll certainly consider it.”
Diana left the study and dropped her book bag on the table in the parlor. When she went to knock on Darryl’s door, voices came from inside—Darryl’s and another voice, one that barely sounded human.
“Another one will be taken soon,” Darryl’s voice said.
“Yes,” said a deep, raspy voice. “The hunger is insatiable.”
“But it is wrong. Impulses need to be controlled.”
“No, Darryl, impulses are the spark of existence, the source of power. Hunger is a void longing to be filled, emptiness replaced by substance. Death feeding upon life and becoming alive again.”
“You’re just spouting philosophical claptrap,” Darryl said. “Murder is wrong.”
A hideous, cackling laugh made Diana turn cold.
“No,” the strange voice said. “Murder is pleasure and power all wrapped up into one.”
* * *
Samuel Clemens sat at the small wrought-iron table beneath the palm trees, ignoring the tea and scones set before him. He was thinking about Susy, trying to focus on the good memories but reliving the times when he failed her as a father. They were mostly small things, but probably loomed huge in a girl’s mind. Even harmless acts, such as when he embarrassed her during a speaking engagement at her college by reading one of his favorite ghost stories when she had begged him not to because she felt it was too lowbrow.
He wanted to speak to her again. Just once more was all he asked. He needed to reassure her of how much he loved her and how worthy of his love she was. They had to find the Angel Worm girl, if she were still alive.
The string quartet perched on the hotel portico resumed playing as a group of young high society ladies took a table nearby, chaperoned by a heavyset matron. They were all dressed in fashionable resort wear, the kind of lightweight gowns they would wear in the summer in Newport and felt or velvet hats adorned with long, white and pink feathers. The girls were clearly here to be on display to eligible bachelors and they surveyed the crowd with pretend insouciance.
Clemens resumed staring at the gardens in front of him, but the movements of feathers at the corner of his eye kept distracting him as the girls at the next table turned their heads here and there people-watching.
Like a flock of birds, he thought.
He turned and studied the girls’ hats. The plumage was quite impressive and obviously came from exotic birds like the ones here in Florida, the long-legged wading ones he saw by the lake and around the resort. He recalled a recent article about the millinery trade and a campaign to protect birds from the plume hunters. Suddenly an idea came to him.
“Good afternoon, Sam. Enjoying the weather?” said Follett as he joined Clemens at the table.
“I’ve just been struck by an interesting idea and it might even lead us to Angelica’s kidnapper.”
“Tell me more.”
Clemens lit a cigar and took a long puff. “Everyone has assumed the culprit is a hotel guest because the abductions take place during the season. But tourists aren’t the only creatures that are seasonal. So are animals of the wild and the humans who hunt them.”
“Please stop toying with me, Sam, and get to the point.”
“Plumes,” he said.
“What?”
“As you have surely noticed, if you ever look at women anymore—if you only glance at the girls next to us—the fashion in women’s hats in recent years from Paris to New York has been those large, elegant bird feathers. It’s the plumage found on American wading birds during mating season. And the way those feathers are acquired is by plume hunters shooting birds in their rookeries down here in Florida, especially in the Everglades.”
“On the night I had my ramble with Darryl, we saw a shady man Darryl said was a plume hunter—a man with memories of murder according to Daryl’s mind reading.”
“Murderer or not, he’s a criminal, because there have been laws passed against plume hunting. Despite the laws, there is a tremendous amount of poaching, thanks to the demands of the millinery trade and our high society fashion plates,” Sam continued. “And guess what time it is now? Breeding seaso
n.”
“So plume hunters have been coming to the area.”
“Exactly. As they do each year. I think we should look into some of these characters.”
Chapter Eleven
The flat-bottomed skiff rounded a bend, propelled by the current in the tea-colored Loxahatchee River. N.C. Jones, the county fish and wildlife warden, steered with an oar from the stern. He was a compact man beneath his wide-brimmed hat, with a crooked nose that appeared to have been broken more than once and a thick, bushy black beard. He’d been hoping to find and arrest the one or possibly two illegal plume hunters reported to be in his territory and agreed to take Follett and Clemens with him on a reconnaissance expedition. Follett and Clemens sat on benches, Clemens by the bow and Follett in the middle of the boat. It was like being in a tunnel, with cypress trees arching overhead and palmettos and mangroves along the banks.
“It used to be that during breeding season the woods around us were white as if covered in snow,” Jones said. “So many nesting herons and ibis. Now they’re almost gone. There is a large rookery around the next bend that you must see.”
As they approached, an alligator warming itself on the bank slipped down the muddy slope into the water and disappeared.
“For years, a father and son named LeFevre have hunted plumes around here,” Jones continued. “After I had some run-ins with them, and made plenty of threats, they haven’t given me too much trouble lately. But there are one or two new poachers that have come to the territory. One of them lives down near Chokoloskee off-season, hiding from the law. I hear he’s killed some folks. No one’s gonna find you down there in the Ten Thousand Islands, that’s for sure.”
The river bent sharply to the left and as they turned, Jones had to push them away from a large cypress knee protruding from the water. From downriver came a high-pitched buzzing, made up of hundreds of desperate cheeping sounds.
