Micanopy in Shadow Read Online Free PDF

Boulevard.
    “May I take these stories home and make copies?” Brandy asked. Her grandmother nodded and cleared away the cups and saucers. Brandy noticed the news story reported that Ada had no wedding ring. In the 1920s, the Women’s Club was unusually generous to fund the burial of an unmarried mother. John said the Irons family flourished in Micanopy for several generations. If Sybil Irons took an interest in 1921 in the case, perhaps her descendents would as well. Asking Mr. Irons what he knew was worth a shot. The town marshall of that day had firsthand information, but he would have died years ago. His relatives might know something. Someone in town knew who she was in 1921.
    “What have you learned about the monument?” Brandy asked.
    Her grandmother slumped in her chair. On moments like this, when she wasn’t starting some vigorous enterprise, her face looked gaunt. “Virtually nothing. According to the sheriff’s office then, the order was specific and anonymous—and paid for in cash. For several years after Ada’s death, someone left flowers on her grave. In the 1940s the company that made the monument was sold, and that company went out of business in the 1950s. Cemetery records only show the location of the plot and the name of the deceased.”
    “That leaves the jewelry,” Brandy said, glancing down at the box.
    Her grandmother ran her fingers tenderly across the narrow surface. “The truth is, this is the object I care most about. It’s something my mother must’ve worn when she drowned. I bought the box to keep it in.” Her eyes turned gravely to Brandy. “The town marshall said she held it at the last, like she was trying to save it. It had to mean a lot to her.”
    She opened the slim box and held it up. “I probably showed it to you when you were younger.” Brandy peered down at an oval cameo shell with a gold frame. A broken chain hung from a loop on a swivel at the top. “I’ve had it identified. It’s a 14 karat Victorian brooch or pendant. The portrait on the cameo is a lady in the Etruscan period. Unfortunately, it was a popular piece in the 1920s and not traceable.”
    Brandy had seen it when she was a college student, but she had not been as interested in her great-grandmother’s story then. The profile was in ivory, the upper bust draped in a tunic, and the background a golden orange. A leaf rested on the visible shoulder, and grapes and leaves decorated her upswept hair. Her features were classic: straight nose, large eyes, prominent chin. Brandy estimated the piece at about two inches by an inch and a half.
    Her grandmother sighed and closed the box. “We had it cleaned, of course. It was a pretty expensive piece at the time, but not uncommon.”
    Again, Brandy made notes. “I’ll get out my copy of the monument poem. A suitably tragic one, of course. Must have a deeper meaning, some relationship to Ada’s own story.” She gathered up the envelopes and laid them with care in her canvas bag. “A few leads here, maybe. But it’s been a long time. Even considering today’s computerized records, clues grow cold and witnesses die. Has anyone else looked at this case?”
    She didn’t expect the answer. “Oh, yes,” Hope said. “When I was little, for years a sheriff’s detective kept after it. But it wasn’t a high priority for the Sheriff.” She let her shoulders rise and fall. “He died several years ago. The detective, I mean. Sheriff, too, for that matter.”
    “Anyone recently, in the last few years? Someone I could interview?”
    Hope’s response sounded impatient. “The detective’s son made captain in the same division. He talked to me several times. He tried to follow up his father’s few leads. It was almost an obsession, finding out who Mother was, why she would kill herself. But suicide’s not a crime. They never called her death ‘murder.’”
    “Is the captain still around?”
    “He retired last year. S. L. Hunter. People call him