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.