highway status, but it made no difference. We would ride it back to our abode.
He drove in silence for a minute or two, stopping at a long red light. Finally, James turned to me and grinned.
“Dude. You smarted off to that police officer. The “Big D” thing.”
“I did.”
“You’re the buttoned-up guy. My man who usually plays by the rules, doesn’t want to ruffle feathers.”
“I am that guy. Usually.”
“Pard, I’m impressed.”
A tandem semi pulled up behind us, the driver’s air brakes screeching. For a moment the sinister-looking dude made eye contact, the man nodding at me as I checked my side mirror.
“You’re not a murderer, James. You’re my best friend. I don’t hang around with killers. You know?”
Without missing a beat my best friend turned to me and said, “You killed Ferraro. How did it feel?”
His eyes were steady, turning back to the road as cars whipped by us in the southbound lane.
“A quote, but I have no idea from where.”
“
“My God, James. Sixty years ago. Black-and-white for God’s sake. I bow to your knowledge.”
He nodded, a smile forming on his lips.
“I have a soul in the history of cinema, Skip.” Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he said, “It may not be relevant to what’s happening today, but-”
“
“Oh, come on, pard.” He lifted his hands from the wheel. “Rerun. That’s from
Damn. I’d been found out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mary Trueblood was waiting for us when we got back. She must have seen the truck pull in and she met us in the parking lot while James added oil to the engine.
“Boys, this is getting a lot messier than I thought it would. If you walked away right now I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Mrs. T., we found the Coral Belle.”
Her eyes got big. “Any chance we can find the foundation?” No more thought of walking away.
“The property is empty. Some doctor has it all fenced off, but we can probably sneak in there tonight. We were thinking of maybe taking a couple of shovels and seeing if we can find any sign of a foundation.”
“You want to stick it out?”
James nodded enthusiastically. “Look, we know where the hotel was. That’s a real positive. And someone was killed while they were searching our room, leading us to believe people want to stop the investigation, so it seems we’re on the right track.”
“Okay.” She still sounded skeptical. “What’s your next step?”
“There’s got to be a library in this town. Let’s see if we can find pictures of the Coral Belle.”
Every once in a while James comes up with a good idea.
Kathy Ebert, the library director, pointed us to files and files of newspaper stories, and we sorted them out on a large table.
“There was just one restaurant back then. Look at this.” James pointed to a photograph of The Russell Cafe. The sign outside boasted Key lime pie and coconut cake.
“And here’s the Matecumbe Hotel. After the storm. That windy sucker knocked one whole corner off the building.”
“But it’s still standing in that picture.”
James studied one page, I studied another.
“There was a post office, a Methodist church, a school-”
I looked up from my page, “and pineapple docks. They imported a lot of pineapples from Cuba, then transported them by train up to Miami.”
“I thought we got most of our pineapples from Hawaii.”
“Check it out, James. Hawaii was thousands of miles away. According to this story, Islamorada imported cheap pineapples and limes from Cuba. Havana and Matanzas, Cuba.”
“Cuba. Who would have thought. We’re getting a history lesson here, brother.”
“Yeah.” History. We were investigating something that happened seventy-five years ago. Something we’d studied in the eighth grade.
“I guess you just loaded the fruit on a boat and brought it into Islamorada.” James looked back at the old news article.
“Unload it at the docks here, load it onto Flagler’s train, and take it to Miami.”
“Looks like it was a big business,” I said.
“And there was a Methodist cemetery.” James pointed to another article.
“There still is,” Kathy said. “The Methodists were insistent that it stay in the same place. They refused to give in to the Cheeca Lodge, so right there, by the swimming pool and the beach, is a home for dead people.”
“It still exists?” I couldn’t believe that people would tolerate a cemetery in the middle of a resort.
“It does. The Pioneer Cemetery.”
My cell phone buzzed and I grabbed for it. Em.
“Hey, Em. I miss you.”
“You miss me where?”
“In my heart?”
“No, silly, where are you that you miss me?”
“Well, we’re somewhere in the Keys. Mrs. T. didn’t want us to tell anyone about our mission and-”
“Skip, I got a letter today regarding Mary Trueblood and you.”
“What? Me and Mrs. T.? She’s a little old for me, Em. And besides, nobody gets letters anymore.”
“I did, Skip, and it isn’t funny. The letter is unsigned, and it scared me.”
“What did it say?” I couldn’t imagine someone writing Em and saying that I was having an affair with-
“It said that all the gold in Islamorada couldn’t save you if you didn’t abandon your treasure hunt. You, your partner, and Mary Trueblood would end up at the bottom of the ocean if you didn’t go back home.”
I was silent for a moment. James was poring over old papers, and Mary Trueblood was back at the resort. Was I the intended victim in the room at the Pelican Cove? Did the killer make a mistake and knock down the wrong person?
“Skip?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“Someone wants to kill you. Did you hear me?”
“Maybe someone already tried.”
“What do you mean?”
I walked outside the library and got into our truck for privacy. I told her about the murder, about the gold, and about the fenced-in property. I knew it was supposed to be a secret, but I end up telling Em almost everything. Almost. What I don’t tell her, she usually finds out.
When I hung up, I looked across the street. There was the monument that had been built to commemorate the hurricane victims. Three hundred people’s ashes were in that stone structure.
I walked back in, and James motioned me to the table.
“Check it out, amigo. Here’s the Coral Belle. You can see the water about twenty, twenty-five feet from the porch.”
“Yeah. And the southeast corner would be straight across from where we were on that little beach.”
