SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY Read online

  SHADOW OVER

  CEDAR KEY

  A Brandy O’Bannon Mystery

  Ann Turner Cook

  Mystery and Suspense Press

  New York Lincoln Shanghai

  by the same author

  The first Brandy O’Bannon mystery;

  Trace Their Shadows

  SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY

  A Brandy O’Bannon Mystery

  All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Ann Turner Cook

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Mystery and Suspense Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

  For information address:

  iUniverse, Inc.

  2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

  Lincoln, NE 68512

  www.iuniverse.com

  ISBN: 0-595-27843-4

  ISBN13: 978-1-469-73600-6 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Foreword

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  To my husband, Jim, who is always patiently supportive,

  and to our four children, Jan, Carol, Cliff, and

  Kathy, who daily honor the bond between mother

  and child

  Foreword

  Once the center of commerce on the Gulf coast of Florida, the hamlet of Cedar Key still thrives—as it has since 1859—at the end of its isolated road, about 130 miles north of Tampa and St. Petersburg. Most of the time it goes about its quiet business of crab and oyster fishing, except for a lively seafood festival in October and another for art in April. Visitors have been tip-toeing in and out of this laid-back nineteenth century village for years, fearful that it might succumb to the tourist trade like most of old Florida.

  But this pioneer community of about one thousand has survived almost intact. The Cedar Key Historical Society featured in the novel still maintains its museum, the walking tour, and its authentic old homes. The centerpiece and Grande Dame of the town remains the 145 year old Island Hotel.

  A few miles to the north lies Shell Mound, brooding above the waters of the Gulf as it has for perhaps twenty-five centuries. According to reports in the local newspaper, the site is still haunted by a woman with a round light, the ghost story that intrigues our reporter. The best account of this specter appears in an October 31, 1982, St. Petersburg Times Halloween story by Mark Allan Ralls. Historic details about the Island Hotel come from “Island Hotel: Cedar Key’s Old Gray Lady,” North Florida Living, April 1986.

  As depicted, Cedar Key was pummeled by the well-documented hurricanes of 1950 and 1972, the rogue Easy with much more deadly force than the later Agnes, although neither actually cost lives.

  The plundering of the forests and the oyster beds during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were true disasters, which contemporary environmentalists now work to correct.

  The characters, however, are all fictional. The hotel has never been owned by a Scotsman. Five generation families do exist in Cedar Key, but none to my knowledge by the names of Waters and Thompson. The golden retriever Meg, however, was real. She lay at my feet while many of these chapters were written and seemed gratified to have a key role.

  Because the novel has a 1992 setting, the research was conducted then and reflects that time period. For example, the telephone company has plucked the quaint phone booth from the hotel lobby, a victim of the ubiquitous cell phone. Still, the hotel retains its historic charm.

  I owe a special debt to Molly Brown, once a member of the Island Hotel staff, who first told me of the hotel basement and later gave me a tour of its dusty compartments. I also want to thank Harriet Smith, a local naturalist, for information about the area, and my newspaper friend Lenora Lake Guidry for her insights.

  I am especially grateful for the cooperation of the Levy County Sheriff s Office of Florida and the Cedar Key Police Department.

  Sheriff Walter C. Heinrich, Retired, of Hillsborough County, advised me on the crime scene and the potential oflaser fingerprinting. I also need to thank literary agent Lettie Lee of the Ann Elmo Agency in New York, who believed my books should be published, and most important, editor and Life Enrichment Center writing instructor Staci Backauskas, whose editorial assistance was invaluable.

  The Island Hotel abounds in legends—some ghostly. The current owner will probably be glad to draw up a chair in the lobby, turn through the album of the hotel’s historic photographs, and explain to guests its sometimes eerie and always impressive past.

  PROLOGUE

  Allison did not think about death when she arrived in Cedar Key, only about the approaching storm. Tense and shaking, she carried her little girl from the car through the wind and rain and up the cabin steps. But the hurricane was not what she feared most.

  The downpour stung the toddler’s cheeks and she whimpered. Allison made a shushing sound, immediately lost in the creak of tree trunks and the rush of water along the shore. Wind shrilled through the cabbage palms beside the road, where three other resort cottages stood dark and silent.

  Behind her the car trunk slammed shut. Allison could see the sturdy stranger in a raincoat, her suitcase in one hand, splashing around beside the driver’s side. She pushed open the unlocked door and stepped into the bleak front room. Without this good Samaritan, they would still be stranded at the café near the bus stop, twenty-three miles from Cedar Key. She could find no taxi cab, no local bus service, only this friendly driver on the way home before the storm.

  Her heavy bag landed with a thud beside a tattered day bed. “If the hurricane hits at all,” her rescuer said, “it’ll come ashore in the next two, three hours. If it gets bad, I’ll come back. Take you to the school house. Be ready in case.”

  Allison had heard from her aunt about these occasional hurricanes. Cedar Key, linked by bridges to the Florida mainland, made a vulnerable target. Through a back window above the kitchen table she could see curling white spray, could hear the pounding of surf. The sky boiled with mammoth black shapes.

  The stranger dropped the sodden newspaper she had bought on the table, snapped on a gas heater in one dim corner, and handed her a heavy flashlight from a shelf over the stove. “Electricity’s gone off. It’ll be dark soon.” From the musty smell, she knew no one had recently stayed here.

  Allison remembered her aunt’s instructions when she left New York. “I should make a local call.”

  “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Phones are out.” The door opened again to a blast of cold air, closed, and she could hear her benefactor sloshing back down the few steps.

  Allison unwrapped the damp blanket from around her two-year old and carried her little girl down a short hall and into the only bedroom. She’d been able
to buy milk and hamburgers at the café, but the child was tired. Her tiny arm drooped, fingers still clutching her blue terry cloth teddy bear. She’d had three days of smelly strangers, unfamiliar bus stations, her mother’s constant tension, then the last long drive in the fading light.

  Allison pulled down the spread and laid her on the double bed. Brushing back her silky hair, she bent to kiss the pinched little face. “We’re finally here, Bee.” She pulled off the child’s slip-on shoes, decided to leave her in the pink bib overalls, and tucked a quilt around her. Rain beat against the window. “We may move again tonight. Right now you and bear have a nice sleep.”

  For a minute Allison sat on the bed, hands clenched, a slim young figure in the shadowy room. She felt sure she had more than enough money to last until she found a job. She planned to hold a comfortable amount in reserve. When Allison had opened her thick billfold in the café, the cashier warned her about carrying so much cash, but she had no choice. Now she wouldn’t have the hotel bill she’d expected. Until the weather cleared, the helpful stranger said she could use the cottage rent free.

  After the storm, she would telephone her aunt’s friend and open a bank account. The woman did not anticipate her call, but when she saw Allison’s letter of introduction, she would surely help her get settled. Allison had planned with care. She would wait tables, work in a gift shop, clean at the one hotel, anything. She would stay in Cedar Key, miles from the nearest highway, in an old town the rest of the world had forgotten. When the window pane rattled, she glanced up, dark hair glistening, olive skin almost white against the shadows. Rain drummed above her. At least her aunt would know they had arrived safely. She had mailed a postcard from the café at Otter Creek.

  Rising, she looked again at the child snuggled against her blue bear, dark eyes closed. It was because of little Bee that she was here. She pulled the door partly closed behind her, and to the whine of the rising wind, the little girl slept.

  In the chill of the front room, Allison tested the flashlight by sweeping a beam of light across the wooden floor before setting it on an end table. Then she opened the suitcase, pulled out a dry pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, and stepped into the cramped bathroom to strip off her wet blouse and slacks. After laying her rain slicker on a chair, she sank down on the day bed opposite the bedroom door, draped the chenille cover over her legs, and scanned the soggy newspaper. Below stories on the bombing in Viet Nam and the campaign of Senator McGovern, she found a bulletin about Hurricane Agnes. It was plowing up the west coast with winds of ninety-five miles an hour.

  She could hear water lap against the pilings under the cottage and wind tear at the roof. Through threadbare curtains at the front window, she watched headlights flicker past through the heavy rain, moving away from the shore. While she wondered whether to dress, bundle Bee in blankets, and find her own way to the school, a car ground to a stop in the driveway and someone ran up the steps, rapped sharply at the door, and shouted, “Open the door! I’ve come for you. Hurry!”

  With relief she leapt up and flung open the door.

  * * * *

  Loud sounds roused the sleeping child. Angry voices in the next room. A door slammed. Her eyes snapped open. Bee pushed the covers aside and drew the cloth bear closer. She heard her mother’s voice, first calm and insistent, then suddenly high and shrill. “No! No!” Something heavy fell with a creak and a grating of metal springs.

  Then a scream swelled beyond the wall, and a terrible thumping began. The child’s heart jumped. Kicking off the sheet, she struggled with her bear to the edge of the bed, clung to the covers, slipped over the mattress edge to the floor, and crawled under the bed. In the other room she heard a gasp.

  Trembling, Bee peered through the half open doorway. She could see the back of a dripping figure lean across the day bed, a long arm raised. For a split second the big flashlight gleamed, then fell again with a thud. Bee no longer heard her mother’s voice. Instead the figure turned. The feet strode across the floor toward the bedroom. As the door swung open wider, Bee shrank farther back against the wall. The shoes halted, paused for a minute, then retreated. Again the front door opened. For a moment she thought the person had gone. Then the figure hurried back. It pulled the hood closer around its head, bent, and shuffled backward, dragging a limp form in jeans to the outer door.

  The red trail from the day bed to the door meant nothing to the little girl, but paralyzed with fear, she saw her mother’s matted hair moving across the threshold, saw her still, pale face. In a flash, the arms reached down from outside and lifted up her mother’s body. A car trunk banged shut. Bee crept out from under the bed. She heard splashing outside and an engine started up in the growing darkness. With a sob she tottered into the room.

  Her mother was gone, everything she had carried into the room—her suitcase, her purse—was gone. Even the day bed cover. Rain splattered in through the open door, smearing the scarlet puddles on the floor.

  She screamed, “Mama!” No answer. The car gone, too. Water swirled at the foot of the cement steps, giant shapes swayed up and down, and the air roared around her. She put one small foot down on the cold step and drew it back. Whimpering, she trotted back into the bedroom, dropped to the floor, and pushed her feet into her slip-ons, the way her mother had taught her. Beneath her, water washed against the planks of the floor.

  She struggled to her feet and trudged back toward the outside door. Here she picked up the bear, clung to him, turned around, and backed down the cement steps into the wind, her only thought to find her mother. Behind her the door slammed shut.

  Her legs stung with cold. Soon her pink coveralls were plastered against her small body. Her soaked hair flew around her head. She righted herself at the foot of the steps, wavered, and plunged forward, still screaming, “Mama!” The only answer was the bellowing of the wind, a sharp salty smell, and frigid water pelting her face. Waves thundered nearby on big rocks, poured around them, crept near her feet. Wind gusts knocked her over next to a tree, drove her down in the flood up to her knees. She pulled herself up, clutching the trunk, beyond crying. Her eyelids would scarcely open. Where was her mother?

  Far, far away she could see a thin glow. Leaving the tree behind, she pushed on through the spinning water toward the distant light, but was caught by a fierce blast and blown into a mass of shrubbery. Gripping the soggy bear, she closed the numb fingers of the other hand around a root and held on.

  CHAPTER 1

  The road ran west under the clear Florida sunlight. As her husband drove over the final bridge into Cedar Key, Brandy O’Bannon opened an untidy notebook and studied the classified ad clipped to a page:

  Wanted: Woman, daughter, 2, moved to Cedar Key June 18, 1972. Urgent message. Contact immediately. Privacy assured.

  Emergency. Leave phone number for Anthony Rossi, Island Hotel.

  This ad had intrigued her. On a slow day at the Gainesville bureau, reporters often flipped through the regional classifieds, searching for story ideas. Who was this woman who had disappeared for twenty years? And in a tiny Florida town of artists and fishermen and aging docks?

  As a potential feature, the missing woman ad was a long shot, but Brandy needed this working holiday with John. She smiled up at him. “I read that a cat can sleep undisturbed in the street here. My woman and child should be easy to spot.” Only now, she thought, the child would be about twenty-two.

  Fifty miles of pines and back roads separated the busy university city of Gainesville from nineteenth century Cedar Key, as exposed on its Gulf coast island as a shell washed ashore. They passed a shallow bay, bristling at low tide with oyster beds and a cluster of crab traps, then a fish processing company. Brandy jotted down a few descriptive notes, then glanced again at John. Since they left the main highway thirty minutes ago, he had hardly looked at the cabbage palm hammocks, the pines, the soaring hawks and turkey buzzards, the isolation. Usually he
gloried in escaping the city, in taking their pontoon boat far down the Florida rivers, in camping out in the wildlife refuges and the state parks.

  “Near here there’s a wonderful out-of-the-way fish camp on the Suwannee,” she said. “It’s at Fowler’s Bluff. We could rent a boat there. Meg would love it.” On cue, the golden retriever sleeping on the back seat raised her creamy-gold head and peered out the window.

  Today John probably didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be in Gainesville. She watched his profile in the strong October light—deep-set eyes, a straight nose, if a bit sharp, an assertive chin. Now his lips turned up in a rare half-smile. “The main trouble with Cedar Key is that it’s always getting slammed by hurricanes. That empty lot we just passed—years ago some vacation cottages were swept away there. You picked some weekend get-a-way.”

  “Not to worry. The only bad weather now is off Cuba.” Brandy tucked a cartoon they had both laughed at back into the notebook and closed it. Her random note-taking offended John’s sense of order. Architects were tidy by instinct.

  “I should’ve stayed in town and worked on the bank restoration drawings. We’ve had some structural problems.” His dark eyebrows lifted. “I’ve been on stories with you before. You going to stash me away in some seedy hotel and forget about us?” He gave her a rueful glance.

  “No way, my love.” She patted his knee. He would not pour over the bank plans alone. He’d have the help of his intern, Tiffany Moore, a perky blonde with high cheek bones and a sultry voice. Brandy worried about the time John spent with her. Brandy’s own face, she thought, was a bit too round, her mouth overly wide. She consoled herself that he had once admired the elegant tilt of her nose.

  Of course Brandy wanted him here, but it wasn’t easy, working on a story while she tried to tantalize her own husband. She cocked her head toward him. “There’s either a story about this missing woman or there’s not. You’ll like the historic hotel, and we’ll have most of the weekend for ourselves. We can check out the fish camp and picnic at Shell Mound Park tomorrow. It’ll be romantic. You’ll see.”