Mystery of a Woman.”
“How do you know that this is Dona Isabella?” Vanessa asked.
Marty smiled, proud of his acquisition. He opened the frame, showing the old parchment on which the portrait had been sketched, and the signature of the artist. Len Adams had sketched the picture, and he had written, “Dona Isabella at Tea with a Friend, 1834.”
“I’ve had it authenticated, of course,” Marty said. “Len Adams is known down here—his pieces are coveted. He died very young of tuberculosis, so he doesn’t have an extensive body of work. He came here because he was dying in the north. He died anyway. But he sketched many wonderful portraits.”
Vanessa was fascinated by the picture, and suddenly felt guilty about her slasher-film script. Of course, in the movie, Dona Isabella had been the victim of Kitty Cutlass, quickly in the film, and quickly out. It had been Kitty Cutlass who’d returned from her watery grave to join with the ghost of Mad Miller to wreak murder, mayhem and havoc upon the unsuspecting teens sailing to Bimini and on Haunt Island.
“Oh, girl, you’re one after my own heart!” Marty said, appreciating the way she looked at the picture. “I’ll copy it for you—won’t be the original, but you’ll have the beauty anytime you choose. Poor thing! So lovely, such a coquette and so tragically young to be a victim.” He looked at Vanessa. “Boy, that would be something, wouldn’t it? What if your people were killed because the ghosts of Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass are out there, cruising between Key West and Bimini, right into the Triangle, alive through some wild magnetic source?”
Vanessa stared at him.
He gave her a tap on the shoulder. “Joshing with you, girl. But if you want more pirate history, you come on back here anytime, all right? And if you need anything at all, you come to see me. I’m like a Key West structure, an institution, always here, and I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.”
She thanked him, and she and Katie said goodbye.
“Do you think that the murders might have had something to do with the story you were filming?” Katie asked as they walked. “No, wait. We’ll wait until we all get together, and then we’ll talk about it. I don’t want to make you repeat it all over and over.”
They stopped in front of the Beckett house and Vanessa looked up at the grand facade. “So you’re living in the Beckett house!” Vanessa teased.
Katie shrugged. “Life is pretty bizarre, just like death.”
“So it seems,” Vanessa agreed.
Katie opened the front door with a key and they stepped into the hallway. She paused. “I guess they’re already here,” she said. They walked through the large parlor, through the kitchen and to the back porch, handsomely furnished with white wicker and plush jungle-colored cushions. There were three men there already—not just the two tall, dark-haired men Vanessa assumed to be Liam and David Beckett, but Sean O’Hara, as well.
They all stood as Vanessa and Katie came into the room.
She envied Katie, who walked comfortably up to David Beckett and slipped an arm around him. There was something nicely sure and confident in the motion, and more so in David’s smile of response. They were happy.
David and Liam shook hands with Vanessa and were pleasant and cordial. Sean, of course, she had already met.
He waited quietly.
Then the awkward silence fell at last.
“Why doesn’t everyone sit, and I’ll get some drinks and snacks,” Katie suggested.
Great! Vanessa glared at her, feeling as if she had suddenly been thrown to the wolves.
But she was the one who wanted help!
She sat stiffly, folding her hands around her knees as she looked at the three. “Perhaps this is way out of bounds. But I don’t know where else to go from here.”
“Start at the beginning,” David suggested. “Sean has told us what you want us to do—but start back at the beginning, the film shoot you did, everything that happened that night and everything that happened after.”
Vanessa decided to start out looking straight ahead, and then she decided to speak as naturally as possible and not avoid anyone’s eyes. “I’ve loved Key West since I was a child, since my father first brought me down here. When my friend Jay Allen came to me saying that he wanted to make a film, the first thing that came to my mind was the story of Mad Miller, his mistress, Kitty Cutlass, and the murder of poor Dona Isabella. Everything went fine, and we were down to a skeleton crew—Georgia and Travis, the last characters who remained alive, Jay and myself, of course, two young production assistants, Bill Hinton and Jake Magnoli, and Barry Melkie, our soundman. Zoe was everything as far as props, costume and makeup, with the help of Bill and Jake. Oh, and of course, Carlos Roca. Lew, our Bahamian guide, was there, too. That night, we had just about wrapped, and I was by the fire…Jay was there, I’m not sure who else at first, but everyone was just winding down. Suddenly, Georgia came screaming down the beach—she’d seen heads sticking out of the sand, arms. She described a scene that was the exact one in which we found her and Travis the following morning.”
“You found Georgia and Travis?” David asked.
She nodded gravely.
“You found the bodies?” Sean asked.
“I did,” Vanessa said. “Lew and Jay came quickly down to the beach, then the others…and then the Bahamian authorities.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight, though,” Sean said. “Georgia and Travis were found dead. Georgia had been running down the beach. Where was Travis?”
“No one knew,” Vanessa said.
“Then why didn’t you look for him?” Sean asked.
“Frankly, we thought he was part of a huge prank being pulled on Georgia. Jay was aggravated with him. We did go down the beach—Lew, Jay and I—and there was nothing there. Except—”
“Except?” Liam asked.
“The sand where we later found the two had been churned up. It looked as if maybe there had been something stuck in the sand.”
“And that didn’t bother you?” Sean asked.
“We were filming a horror movie. We thought that someone was playing an elaborate prank, and, as I said, that Travis was involved in the prank. I’m afraid that a lot of pranks are carried out on film sets,” Vanessa said evenly. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, Georgia was in terror—she wasn’t going to stay on the island. She was having an absolute fit, so Carlos said that he could take her into Miami and head back first thing in the morning. We all thought it was best. But Georgia and Travis were found on the beach, and Carlos and the boat disappeared.”
“I’m not sure there’s much of a mystery there,” Sean said. “Apparently, Carlos stole the boat after he killed the two.”
“I don’t believe it, not for a minute,” Vanessa said. “The police, the Coast Guard, the FBI—every known agency looked for the boat and Carlos, but it was as if they had vanished. What you don’t understand is that
