Micanopy in Shadow (21 page)

Hope settled back in the chair, lips in a thin line. “I don’t know either, and that’s a fact. But you aren’t going to try to find out. Not if I can help it.”

The look in Brandy’s eyes remained dreamy. She longed for the notes in her canvas bag; she longed to review the facts she had already discovered. “We’ve got some unfinished business, you know,” she said, changing the subject. “We promised we’d put more pressure on dear Cousin Snug to sell the shop. He’s into something illegal, I’m sure of it.

Hope shook her head. “Pity you can’t arrest a man for his scruffy friends.”

“One of them looked decent, but he wasn’t buying anything. A timely tip to the Sheriff’s Office could start an investigation. He knows that. We’ll give him one more chance as soon as they release me.” Brandy picked up the edge of her sheet and folded it back and forth, planning her words. “I’ve got to call that hospital in Atlanta, too. A contact was trying to check out the nurses who worked there in the 1920s.”

Hope focused suspicious gray eyes on her granddaughter. “I don’t suppose that could hurt,” she said slowly. “No one in Micanopy would know about the call.”

Brandy nodded, emboldened. “There’s that interview with the old lady in Evinton. She knows the rumor about Ada’s drowning that circulated for years in the black community. Kyra’s friend went to the all the trouble of arranging an appointment.”

Hope’s lips curved down and her eyebrows up. “That’s investigating,” she said firmly.

“Well, I wouldn’t need to be alone. If John couldn’t go with me, I could take Kyra.”

“I don’t think John will want two women to go alone.”

Brandy smoothed down the edge of the sheet. “Well, we needn’t decide anything—now.” Delaying a decision was always a smart tactic.

Hope frowned. “I mean what I say. I won’t have you poking about in the case any longer. We don’t even know who wants you to drop it—and wants you to drop dead, as well.”

That’s just it. Who did? And for what reason?

* * *

The first day Brandy was in the hospital, a carpenter at the Irons house had chauffeured John to Paynes Prairie to pick up her car. The Preserve law enforcement officer told him they had made no real progress in the case. A volunteer at the tollbooth had found the envelope with Brandy’s name typed on the outside about noon the day of the attack. Someone had staked out the tollbooth, the officer said, and when the volunteer left to get more maps, slipped the envelope through the window. So many cars came and went throughout the afternoon that no one noticed the one involved.

At the site, a ranger found fresh bison tracks and the sizable rock lying nearby in the marsh grasses. They also found Hope’s binoculars where Brandy had dropped them. But the crushed asphalt preserved no footprints, and by floundering around to escape the water-filled ditch, Brandy scoured away any tracks that her attacker made in the wet soil.

* * *

John drove them home on a gray Wednesday afternoon. The weather matched her sour mood. Only after she opened the door to their apartment did it finally lift. She heard Brad’s voice calling from his crib where Kyra had stashed him to nap while she cleaned the kitchen. Brandy knelt beside him, delighted to see his brown eyes widen with joy. She felt herself shaking. The doctor had removed the sling before she left the hospital, and she managed to hug him with her right arm and press his warm little body close. What if the attack had succeeded? What if she never saw her little boy again? He would grow up without his mother, as Hope had. She kissed the damp, sweet-smelling forehead. She must be cautious from now on, for Brad’s sake.

John laid her overnight bag on the bed. “I’ve got to go over to the Irons house again this afternoon,” he said. “It’ll save time if we start painting the rooms upstairs. We’re ready to take care of a few remodeling changes downstairs. I need to be there.” He gazed pointedly at Brandy. “I’d like you to drive over, if you feel up to it. The Irons will be there, and they’re always asking about you.” He paused at the door. “I’d feel better if you were with me.”

Brandy nodded. Her new resolution guaranteed him a passive façade. Any move she made had to be discreet. “Give me a few minutes to visit with Brad and put away my things. Then I’ll come along. Maybe I’ll bring him. I hate to be away again so soon.”

John bent over and tousled the little boy’s silky hair. “I’d rather you didn’t. Kyra said she could stay this afternoon. We’ve got tools lying around and a crew working in the living room and dining room. He’s safer at home.”

“All right,” Brandy said. She stepped over and lifted her lips to him in the doorway. It would be good to cuddle up again together tonight. There would be no arguments.

As the door closed behind him, Kyra called, “Someone phoned from Atlanta today.”

Brandy turned, brightening. “Did they leave a message?”

Kyra hurried in from the kitchen, drying her hands, and handed Brandy a memo pad from her desktop. “Here. I wrote down a number.”

Brandy recognized the name of her contact at Grady Memorial Hospital. “It
would
be my luck to miss this call,” she said. Quickly, she punched the number. “This is Brandy O’Bannon in Micanopy, Florida,” she said. Her tone was mechanical. “Thanks for calling back. I’ll phone again this evening.” She banged down the receiver, scowling. “Phone tag,” she said to Kyra. “I left a message. This call could tell me whether Ada or her mother was a nurse in Atlanta.”

* * *

On the way to the Irons house, Brandy slowed down as she came to the curve in the road she knew so well. Her heart always lurched a little when she passed the pond. She understood something now about the agony of drowning. But no one came to save her tragic great-grandmother—still so young. Brandy’s car crept past. The leaves on the overhanging oaks were beginning to turn yellow and coppery. Some drifted on the black surface. Lines from Poe’s “Ulalume” echoed through her thoughts like dark strains of music:

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves were crisped and sere—

As the leaves that were withering and sere—

And I cried—“It was surely October,

On this very night of last year, That I journeyed—and I journeyed down here!—

That I brought a dread burden down here”—

It had surely been October, although surely not one year ago but eighty-one. Someone had “journeyed down here,” had plunged a “dread burden” into the pond “down here”—Ada. Brandy wondered bleakly, could she really set aside her inquiries? Forget the crime? Watch her grandmother go to her grave, never knowing who she really was? Brandy drove on, a little faster. In the hospital she had decided not to make herself vulnerable again. She would stop asking pointed questions; but for some reason, someone wanted her dead before she learned the answers.

But her questions could be subtle. She could somehow placate her grandmother’s and John’s genuine concerns, stay safe for Brad, and still find answers.

Brandy parked and pattered up the front steps of the Irons mansion, knocked briefly, then swung open the heavy door. Lily Lou was seated in a low-slung canvas camp chair in the entrance hall, samples of ceramic tile stacked beside her, looking bored. She had crossed her knees and was swinging a shapely leg back and forth, her eyes focused on the parlor. Brandy could hear the sonorous rise and fall of Montgomery’s voice.

“.… gives the entrance its original look,” he was saying in his usual monotone. “The ceiling molding works well, too, and the parlor cornices.”

Lily Lou blinked her eyes. His monotone might put anyone to sleep. As Brandy closed the front door behind her, the languid sweep on the leg halted, and the huge blue eyes turned to Brandy. “How precious to see you again. Monty and I heard the news. How perfectly awful for you! I hope you got our card.” She laid a tile aside and managed to stand from the low chair with the liquid grace of all her movements. She extended a slender white hand.

Brandy stepped forward and gave it a slight squeeze. “Not to worry. I’m quite all right now, thank you. The doctor removed the sling, and I’m only a little hoarse.” They stood companionably together. “I’m afraid I fell for a scam. Someone lured me to Paynes Prairie by promising new information about my great-grandmother’s death.” She gave Lily Lou a twisted smile. “Instead, I got something I never expected.”

Lily Lou laid her hand on Brandy’s good arm. “I know. How frightening!”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to stop asking questions. Some facts will have to stay buried with Ada Losterman.”

Lily Lou nodded sorrowfully, then brightened. She patted Brandy’s hand and the golden confection of hair that swept up from her forehead quivered. She took Brandy’s arm. “Come with me.” Brandy admired the creamy perfection of her long-sleeved blouse. “I’ve something to show you.”

When she began strolling toward the living room, Brandy spoke up. “John said they’d be working in the front parlor. We might be in the way.”

“Don’t pay any attention to these men. They’re such bores! We’ll just not bother them, that’s all.” Brandy didn’t find John’s sharp wit or his straight, sturdy body all that boring, but she remained silent. “I think the carpenters packed up several minutes ago, anyway.” They stopped in the parlor doorway. “Look beside the fireplace.”

Brandy first admired the black-and-white marbleized mantel, re-finished since she last saw it, and then noticed the ornate gold frames stacked to one side. Her spirits soared.

“You were interested in the photographs in Monty’s old albums.” Lily Lou paused dramatically. “In the attic I found something better. Not photographs—portraits!”

Brandy hurried to the fireplace and stooped to study the two before her, clues to life in her great-grandmother’s era. The oil paint had cracked in a few spots and the color flaked off, but all considered, they were in good condition. The full-length portrait of Adrian Irons mimicked the photograph she had seen earlier. He had posed standing with one hand on the mantel. The painting must have been an aid in restoring its glistening perfection. He had dropped his other arm at his side, and his hand touched the head of the black-and-white spaniel sitting at his feet. His stance conveyed a controlled tension. His mustache had been neatly trimmed, his dark hair combed back well above the collar of a white shirt, which he wore with a black tie. The lapels of his black suit were narrower than they would be today, and the coat buttoned closer to the neck. Below his belt gleamed a gold watch chain. Adrian Irons, well-groomed gentleman of his time—yet his deep-set eyes gazed back, lifeless, as they had in the photograph.

The seated Sybil Ann was also much like her picture in the album. Elaborately carved scrolls of a Victorian chair rose above each shoulder. She wore a filmy white gown with a wide square neckline with gathers across her ample bosom, and long loose sleeves that reached to the wrists. Her hands clasped a white hat, its wide brim festooned with small, pink flowers. Around her neck dangled a diamond brooch, but Brandy’s gaze focused on the huge, round diamond earrings, trimmed in matching gold, that sparkled in each ear. Short curls clustered like frames around each one. In Micanopy society and probably in Gainesville as well, Sybil Irons certainly represented the well-dressed, well-heeled upper crust.

Her gray eyes gazed back from a square face with the firm chin and humorless mouth Brandy remembered from her photograph. She cautioned herself not to read too much in either of Monty’s grandparent’s expressions. They had to hold a pose not only for the photographer, but for the painter as well. Still, they looked like a couple who would feel their social responsibilities and act upon them.

“Thank you for sharing these. Mr. Irons must be pleased to have them,” Brandy said.

A slight frown creased Lily Lou’s ivory forehead. “But he says they’ve been damaged over the years in the attic. His parents didn’t care for them properly. His daddy has been gone for years, of course. His mother is in an assisted living facility. She’s not interested.” Lily Lou ran a pink fingernail along the ornate gold frame of Adrian Irons’ portrait. “Monty’s having them cleaned and restored. It’s lucky you dropped by today. Tomorrow he’s sending them to an expert in the university’s art department. They’ve been up there for ages among mice and roaches and God knows what all.”

Well-preserved portraits from the early twenties might be valuable in themselves.

Montgomery Irons’s voice rumbled closer. The men were re-entering the parlor, the owner still talking about the restoration of the front hall. “I’m eager to see the elegance of the arched entrance restored.”

“Moving the wall here will do it,” John said. “There were challenges in the parlor. The painter had to get into all decorative cut-outs, like the ones around the cornices—anything that had exposed ends.”

Montgomery paused on the threshold as he spotted Brandy and boomed, “Well, little lady, you gave us all a real scare. You look as glorious as ever. How do you feel?”

“Quite recovered,” Brandy said. “I received your handsome card and thank you.”

He loomed up before her, his voice stern. “I hope you’ll to be more careful in the future. No investigation is worth your life, you know.”

John moved up beside her and put his hand on her right arm. “We’ve told her that many times,” he said. “It hasn’t helped.”

Brandy turned toward the front window and stared pensively out at the dark waters of the lake. “These portraits your wife discovered give me an idea of society here in the twenties. I’d like to know more about the Starks and the Wilsons at that time, too. Just idle curiosity, at this point. I’ve promised John—no more sleuthing.”