Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island by H. Terrell Griffin

Author:H. Terrell Griffin [Griffin, H. Terrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781933515212
Amazon: B001L5S4W4
Goodreads: 3421103
Published: 2008-11-30T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was mid-afternoon, and hot. The breeze off the water was negligible. Spring was beginning to turn into summer, and soon the days would all be hot and humid.

A few of the charter boats had returned from the day's fishing. A small group of tourists, a family perhaps, with too much red skin, was standing on the dock behind a moored boat. One of them, a teenaged boy, held a string of fish in his hands. The captain was taking their picture as they stood with goofy grins next to a sign advertising his services. A young man wearing only cutoffs was washing down the boat. A half dozen pelicans floated in the basin, waiting for the fish scraps they knew would be coming from the cleaning tables. Cars and trucks rumbled by on Roosevelt Avenue, leaving the smell of exhaust hovering over the docks.

I looked at the scene, picturing what the camera would catch, that instant in time when the family was together, happiness evident in their grins. The photograph would also hold the image of the boy cleaning the boat, and probably the pelicans lazing in the sun.

I wondered about that picture, about what would happen to it after it was admired and put away. Maybe one day an old man would pull it from a drawer, gaze at it, and remember when he was a teenager holding a string of fish, happy to be with his parents, now long dead. Would he wonder about the life lived by the boy washing the boat? Would he put the picture back in the drawer, never to be seen again? Life is fleeting, and when we near the end, we grab our memories and hold onto them with a ferocity that eluded us at the time of their creation.

I had a lot of time to kill. I couldn't do anything before dark, and I didn't want to go back to my room. If people were looking for me, they might have located the rooming house.

I stopped in a souvenir shop on Palm Avenue and bought a khakicolored baseball cap with a sailfish and the words "Key West" embroidered on the front. I wore it out of the shop, keeping the bill low on my eyes. My dark sunglasses would help cover my face, and I didn't think a casual observer would recognize me.

I decided to visit the cemetery where the monument to the battleship Maine was located. The fabled ship, whose demise gave an excuse for the Spanish-American War, had sailed from Key West on its fateful journey to Havana Harbor. Many of its sailors were buried in this last piece of America they experienced.

I was walking idly down Angela Street when I saw a familiar figure cross the road in the next block. It was Michelle Browne, the lady who had introduced herself in Sarasota as the Reverend Robert William Simmermon's assistant. She was wearing a beige skirt, dark blue blouse, and sensible white pumps. Her auburn hair was in a ponytail, and her bracelets glinted in the sun.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.