Ahead, a boiling cloud of gulls flocked over a fishing boat as it steamed toward the Gulf Stream beyond the reef. To the south lay Indian Key; at their backs, Upper Matecumbe. Both receded, leaving Pelican Key to its-how had Pice put it-its “blessed isolation.”
That isolation was perhaps part of the reason why the place had never been developed into a resort hotel complex or a tournament golf course. Route 1, the elevated highway that played connect-the-dots with most of the islands, had missed Pelican Key by three miles. Henry Flagler’s railroad, built years earlier and demolished in the hurricane of ’35, had come no closer. No bridge or causeway linked Upper Matecumbe to Pelican Key. The only access to it was by boat, helicopter, or seaplane.
Nobody had ever much desired to go there anyway. Compared with most other local islands, Pelican Key was small-only three-quarters of a mile long and a quarter-mile wide-and a good part of its hundred and twenty acres was taken up by mangrove swamp. Hardly a developer’s dream.
A lime plantation operated on Pelican Key during the early years of this century; the Depression shut it down. After that, the island remained unwanted until Donald Larson bought it in 1946. Larson was a young man who’d already made a great deal of money in aviation and was destined to make much more. His dream was to restore the plantation house, a victim of time and storms, and retire to it someday.
Someday didn’t come until 1980, when Larson, no longer young, finally began the renovations planned decades earlier. In the interim he’d fought a fierce, protracted battle with the state government, which had wanted to purchase Pelican Key and preserve it as a park.
Larson held on to the property and forestalled an eminent-domain ruling only by guaranteeing that no further development would be attempted there, either in his lifetime or afterward. The house and other features already present would be repaired, modernized, and maintained; otherwise, Pelican Key would remain as the coral polyps and red mangrove had made it.
He was true to his word. And from 1981 onward he lived in the big limestone house on the island’s south end, enjoying, no doubt, his blessed isolation.
When he died two years ago, in 1992, his heirs faced the dilemma of what to do with Pelican Key. A considerable tax write-off could be realized by donating it to the state of Florida. But some residue of the elder Larson’s stubborn pride and sentimental attachment to the island had prevented such a move.
Instead the estate continued to maintain the house and pay the property taxes, offsetting part of the costs by renting out Pelican Key to vacationers as a private retreat, on a monthly basis in season, with biweekly deals available during the hot, wet summer months.
Steve had found out about the vacation rentals in March. The need to return to the island had been driving him like a quiet frenzy ever since.
“I see it,” Kirstie said suddenly, leaning forward.
Steve craned his neck, following her gaze, and picked out a smear of tropical verdure against the blinding sun.
Close now. Unexpectedly close, appearing out of the dazzle like a vision in a dream.
Down in the cockpit, Anastasia barked, as if in confirmation of the sighting.
“There’s the house.” Pice pointed. “See the windows shining like coins?”
Steve nodded eagerly. “Yes. I see.” A broad tile roof was visible now, partly screened by branches. “Larson must have gone all out on the restoration. The place was a ruin when Jack and I used to come here.”
“Could you go inside?” Kirstie asked.
“Oh, sure. Found a dead coral snake in a bathtub once. Must have crawled in there for some reason and died.”
Her nose wrinkled prettily. “Remind me not to bathe for the next two weeks.”
“Don’t worry. It’s a big bathtub. Plenty of room for you and a snake.”
The rap of her knuckles on his arm was meant to be playful, but hurt anyway.
The Black Caesar motored closer. Pice glanced back at them with a grin. “What do you say we circle her once, just to say hello?”
He was already steering the boat northeast. The mangrove fringe on the island’s western side blurred past-dense clumps of twisted trees, foreboding and mysterious, the eldritch landscape of another world.
At the north end, there was a small cove, a semicircle of shallow water, mirror-lustrous, bordered by mangroves and stands of hardwood trees.
“That’s where we used to beach the dinghy,” Steve said, remembering. “There’s a Calusa Indian midden not far inland-you know, a shell mound. The salt ponds are nearby, too.”
Kirstie studied him. “How much time did you and Jack spend here, anyway?”
“Oh, about four days a summer, three summers in all. Maybe twelve days, total.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like much, does it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had love affairs that were briefer.”
“None recently, I hope.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
They were cruising along the seaward side now, past a narrow beach composed of broken bits of coral, pebbly and coarse, over a solid coral foundation. Palms and the imported Australian pines called casuarinas fringed the beach, swaying gently as if to unheard music.
Near the southern tip of the key, the motorboat Pice had promised came into view, bobbing in the shallows. It was moored to a small dock at the end of a pathway twisting down from the house between landscaped beds of poinsettias and yellow jasmine.
The dock was new to Steve. It hadn’t been there when he and Jack explored the key. Neither had the path, for that matter, nor the flower beds. A lot had changed. But the important things had remained untouched, unsullied-a small but precious part of his life that had never been tainted.
The boat glided toward the dock. Anastasia was barking again. Pelican Key waited, silent and calm.
Abruptly, Kirstie turned to him, her face almost solemn. “Steve. I
… I hope this works out for you. For both of us.”
“What does?”
“The trip. The time we spend here. I hope you find… whatever it is you’re looking for.”
The words touched him in a tender place. He reached out, stroked her hair, soft and golden, and she did not pull away.
“I don’t need anything more than what I have right now,” he whispered.
It was the right thing to say. But he no longer knew if it was true-or if it could be true for him, ever again.
3
At eight-fifteen on Saturday morning, a tenant of Saguaro Terraces was unlocking his Jeep Cherokee in the carport when he noticed the ceiling light in a Toyota Paseo glowing dimly, the passenger-side door slightly ajar.
He found a young woman lying in the driver’s seat, which had been levered back to a nearly horizontal position. Her dress had been lifted above her hips, her panties shredded.
“Miss?”
He rapped on the windshield and, when that failed to rouse her, reached through the open window and shook her gently.
She listed sideways in her seat, her pretty face turning toward him as her head rolled. Through a net of blond hair, her eyes stared at him and through him, their blue gaze fixed on death.
After that, things happened very fast.
Phoenix P.D. was on the scene by 8:27. A senior homicide investigator, Detective Robert Ashe, arrived soon afterward. Examining the body with gloved hands, he found the needle mark at the side of the throat.
Ashe was a twenty-year veteran, eligible for a full pension and thinking seriously about taking it, but he was still conscientious enough to read the bulletins that crossed his desk. He recognized the pattern.