The turnpike took her to Florida City, and she headed down U.S. 1, past the gas stations, one real restaurant and fast-food eateries to the eighteen-mile stretch of nothingness that led to Key Largo and from there south and then west to Key West.
They’d improved the road, though she still saw signs and crosses where those in a hurry had tried to pass, only to pay the ultimate price. She managed to get behind a truck towing a huge boat trailer, but she didn’t mind waiting for the passing zone.
It had been a long time.
The day was beautiful. The turquoise water glistened, the waves were gentle and calm. In a few areas, construction workers were still claiming land to widen the road and the stench of stagnant water overpowered the view, but the sight of a cormorant soaring above the water seemed to lift the stench beyond her windows, and then she was past it.
A new overpass made getting into Key Largo a bit easier and faster, and it was still daylight when she arrived. Key Largo was built up. She assumed she’d see that all the way down the Keys.
By six-thirty she had lost the daylight, and she had come to the middle Keys where there were still vast tracts that didn’t seem to have been built up much. Marathon had acquired another shopping center, but the lower Keys were still tiny and starkly populated. She slowed at the signs warning that her speed needed to be minimal in honor of the little Key deer that roamed the area, and at last, in darkness, she reached Stock Island and then drove on to Key West. Following North Roosevelt Boulevard around, she sought out the shopping plaza on the newer part of the island where the attorney had assured her he would leave the key to the Merlin house in a lockbox—a brand-new key because the police lieutenant had suggested new locks. She found the shopping center easily enough, decided she’d just stop quickly for a sandwich at a small Cuban restaurant and went to procure the key. As she punched in the number Joe Richter had given her, the door to his office in the plaza opened.
“Kelsey. Kelsey Donovan! Young lady, you have grown up!”
Joe Richter was probably about fifty. She remembered him the minute she saw him because he hadn’t changed at all. His hair was snow-white, and he had a full head of it. He was lean, a gaunt man who managed to maintain a presence and a tremendous sense of dignity.
“Joe, I remember you, of course,” she said. When she had called about Cutter’s death, he hadn’t reminded her that she knew him. But she had been distracted when she called—still wallowing in guilt.
“I was just about to leave—you just caught me. I wanted to let you know we can do a formal reading of the will anytime you like. You’re the only heir, so…Then,” he added, clearing his throat, “we do need to make arrangements for Cutter’s burial. He’s still at the morgue, awaiting your plans.”
“Thank you, Joe, for handling everything so far,” Kelsey said.
“He was my client for years, though even I had barely seen him lately,” Joe said.
“When did you see him last?”
“About six months ago.”
“That long? Was there any special reason you saw him then?”
Joe shook his head. “No. His will has remained the same since your mother died. I happened to be shopping down on Front Street, so I took a ride out. I told him he needed a maid—he said that he’d tried hiring someone once, but she’d left in the middle of the job, screaming. I guess the house isn’t for everyone.”
“No,” Kelsey agreed, smiling.
“Well, young lady, I’m going to suggest you get some help to clean the place out. It’s going to need a lot of work.” He hesitated. “Can I do anything for you now? Would you rather stay somewhere else? I can get you a reservation…. Of course, you could have gotten your own reservation, if you had wanted,” he added gently.
“No, I think I need to get out to the house. Everything is actually working, right? Electric, plumbing…that kind of thing?”
“Oh, yeah, the police saw to it. All I had to do was hire the locksmith—safety’s sake, you know?”
“Sure, thank you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she told him.
He nodded and watched her head out to her car. She revved the engine and found herself looking around the plaza. She might have been almost anywhere in America, in this parking lot. This portion of the island was fairly new, created by dredging salt ponds, digging some places, dumping others. Once she headed down Roosevelt toward Old Town, things changed. Hospitals, restaurants, tourist shops and bars were interspersed among old Victorian buildings, and grand dames from the past sat side by side with neon lights. The Hard Rock Cafe was located in one of the old Curry mansions—in fact, it was “haunted,” of course. Robert Curry, unable to sustain the family fortune due to ill health and a lack of business smarts, had killed himself there. Also on Duval was St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, rebuilt and rebuilt again—and still the haunt of a sea captain and a group of children tragically killed in a fire. Key West jealously guarded her ghosts, just as she did her bizarre history and all her citizens who had come and gone.
Kelsey didn’t drive as far as Duval, though, turning to take Simonton down to the wharf and then turning onto the private road that led out to Cutter Merlin’s house.
Her house.
She hesitated a minute at the overgrown gravel drive that led out to the house. Funny—as a child, she had never thought of the house as remote.
That night, in the darkness, the road looked like something out of a slasher film, and the house seemed to sit in a lonely jungle far from the mainland.
It wasn’t far, she reminded herself. She and her friends had swum the distance from the house’s spit of land over to the mainland many a time. Of course, they were good swimmers. They knew the currents that could sweep by, but the eddy would keep them closer to the road, and they had learned as kids never to strike out alone. Her mother had been an amazing swimmer and diver, and she had taught Kelsey that the biggest mistake those who knew what they were doing made was that they didn’t take common-sense precautions.
Still, the house seemed so austere, so alone out here tonight.
All right. So much for the swimming. She had walked in and out of town as a kid. There was nothing far or remote about the place.
It was hers, and she had to take care of the place.
She could wait until morning.
That would be ridiculous. She didn’t need a hotel room. She owned a house. Even if she planned on selling it, she owned the house.
She pulled the rental car around the side of the house, where they had always parked the family car. There were no cars there; she wondered if Cutter had stopped driving as the years had gone by. There was a lot she had forgotten to ask Joe. But she had just arrived; she’d spend time with him learning about the entire situation tomorrow.
If Cutter had employed a maid who had run away, he had stopped hiring a gardener as well, that was certain.
She exited the car, and was startled to feel an uneasy sense of being watched the second she did so. She looked around. She could see the lights across the tiny inlet, and the lights in the house itself. A porch light was on, and light glowed from the living room.
Parlor, she corrected herself. Cutter had always called it the parlor. Now it would be called a living room.
Maybe she was having a ridiculous argument with herself about semantics because she just wasn’t sure she wanted to go in.
She had always loved the house. Her mother’s death had been an accident. She had tripped and fallen down the stairs. She might have just broken a leg, or an arm. She might have tumbled down and been fine, just bruised and shaken. But the way she had fallen…
She had broken her neck.
Kelsey dug in her over-the-shoulder bag for the new keys. On the porch, she discovered that there were two bolts, thus the chain of keys. She turned both, opened the door and walked on in.
She thought that memories would come flooding back, that she might feel weepy and nostalgic, but the house was actually different. Not the house per se but the appearance of the house. When she and her parents had lived here with her grandfather, the clutter had been at a minimum. There had still been strange objects everywhere: a hundred-year-old stuffed leopard on a dais, mounted heads on the wall—none of them killed by her family, and none less than a century old—native American art, dream catchers, Indian statues of Kali and other gods and goddesses, Roman busts, wiccan wands and so on. The items had been displayed on the wall, or in etageres, or freestanding on mounts. Now…items were everywhere, boxes were everywhere, and the objects on the walls were strewn with dust and spiderwebs. Cutter’s glass-encased six-foot bookstand—which had held priceless first editions of many works—was open, and it seemed that the spiders and other crawling creatures had done their damage in there, as well. Sawdust and packing material was strewn haphazardly here and there, almost as if Cutter—or someone else—had been feverishly looking for something special among the endless supply of things in the house.
Standing there, looking around, she felt a sinking sensation. The work this place was going to require would be enormous. And yet…they had been her grandfather’s treasures. Joe Richter had his will and his detailed papers on where things should go. Only Cutter would have known what had value, what belonged in a museum, and what had been sentimental to him.
A prickly sensation teased her spine, and she looked around quickly, having the eerie feeling once again of being watched. She didn’t know how that was possible, except that….
Well, actually, anyone could be hiding just about anywhere.
She walked forward and turned on more lights. She frowned as she surveyed all the boxes and crates. She had nearly reached the kitchen when she heard someone on the porch.
They would knock—if they were legitimate.
They didn’t knock. She heard a scratching sound, and something like metal against metal.
With her heart in her throat, she went flying across the room. She reached for the poker in the stand by the fireplace and grabbed the ash sweep instead. No matter; there was no time. She flew for the light switch, turned it off and dived behind one of the boxes.