Chapter 25
The East Martello Tower sat on the southern edge of the island. It was a squat and sturdy brick building with arms that enveloped an inner courtyard. As Sam and Faith stood in front of what they were told for the most part was an 'art gallery,' taking in the masonry details, the two treasure hunters, one seasoned and one new, felt as if they had been smacked square in the middle of the forehead.
"Are you seeing this Samuel?" Faith asked as her eyes wandered the building.
Sam stood silent, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Seriously, are you seeing this? Narrow windows, adjacent to the sea, turrets! Turrets, Samuel! This was a fort!"
"When did you suddenly become so knowledgeable in fort construction?" He asked, his head cocked to the side, letting the sun beat down on the birds in flight on his neck.
"Since I've been surrounded by history books and infomercials at 2AM for the last month. How did we miss this?" Faith marveled.
"We've been busy looking everywhere else. Art galleries with haunted dolls weren't exactly high on the priority list."
"But we passed by this building a dozen times, how did we not notice it?"
"I don't know about you, but I was trying to not run over the people that were running across the road. It's sort of a busy spot if you hadn't noticed," Sam said, pointing across the four-lane ocean side highway. A long swath of beach that hosted a crowd of swimmers, surfers and sun worshippers sat on the other side. People on bikes and rollerblades with dogs in tow rode the length of the sidewalk. It had to have been the busiest beach Faith had ever seen.
"C'mon, let's go. Still feel like an idiot cause we missed this," She grumbled, shoving her hands into the front pockets of her Capri cargo pants as they walked towards the front door.
The brick, concrete, and cement brought a damp coolness to the hallways of the Martello Tower, providing a brief respite for them from the warm temperatures outside. Modern metalwork sculptures dotted the gardens in the courtyard. Paintings and photographs, all rich in color and detail, lined the dull, gray stone halls, a timeline of the island told through the displayed artwork.
Faith grabbed a thin pamphlet from the rack inside the doors and opened it hastily. Sam snatched it from her hands.
"You really love your maps, don't you?"
Faith glowered at him.
"Yes I do Mr. Treasure Hunter," She said with her best 'Well if that ain't the pot calling the kettle black' voice.
"C'mon, let's just poke around and see what we can find," He said, discreetly putting the map back in the rack behind him and directed her down a curving hallway, his hand on the small of her back, urging her forward.
Faith let her eyes meander blankly over the paintings of sunsets and shipwrecks. In the back of her mind, negativity was abounding. She had already convinced herself that they weren't going to find anything here. As they wandered down the hall, it became evident the building modernized, and any hope of finding anything leftover waned, short of digging up the garden in the building's center.
Meanwhile, Sam ran his hands' overexposed walls and checked the stone windowsills. He hadn't expected to find anything here either except that damn doll, but he figured he should be thorough and check the place over anyway.
Entering the courtyard, Faith's eyes were drawn the large piece in front of her. She had quickly made her way through the cement hallway, the paintings of indigenous flowers and marine life failing to grab her attention.
At ten feet tall, the yellow seahorse was the largest metal sculpture in the garden. Tucked away in the corner like a forgotten relic, it towered over the overgrown parrot's beak plants that flanked it from either side.
Faith stared up at the piece, appreciating its quirkiness and sheer size. In her content state, a thought began to grow.
Look what they let happen to this thing, she thought in a small voice as she began to notice the wear and tear on the artwork. Her brows furrowed.
They let it waste away. It's here, but it's not the same as it was. It's just a shell of what it was. The thoughts in her head began to ramp up the speed on the crazy treadmill they were on.
It was amazing, and it withered away to nothing! Nothing! And it won't do anything to save itself! Nope, can't do that! And you wanna know why? An angry haze haloed her mind as the rational thought was thrown out the window for this trip down an A.D.D mental rabbit hole of inner turmoil.
You're not worth it. You're not enough.
"I found your Chucky doll," Sam whispered in her ear from behind. The voice and two strong hands suddenly resting on Faith's shoulders made her jump.
"Don't do that!" She said, twisting away from him. "People are following us you know! I don't need to be anymore jumpy!"
"Sorry," He apologized with his hands defensively in the air, his lips pursed together in a thin line to suppress his laughter.
Faith let out a frustration relieving snort, but internally thankful to him for pulling her out of her own head, which could be a terrifying place sometimes.
In front of the statue, she let her fingers jump across the pokey gears that made up its belly. The once vibrant yellow paint had dulled over time. The hot Florida sun was baking the color out while the sea salt from the Gulf took the color off, leaving small pits in the paint. A roughly cut piece of volcanic glass served as an eye. The rock's deep black color absorbed the afternoon sunlight and reflected a hidden green tint in the stone, giving the art a striking quality.
"That supposed to be a seahorse?" Sam asked, looking up at the protruding snout.
"Yup, made out of old bike gears."
"Had a cellmate in prison for a little while that made these little animal carvings out of wet newspapers."
"Well, that's interesting."
"He'd also put pieces of bologna over the light in the cell to try and make jerky. Always made the place stink like goddamn burnt hot dogs."
Faith stared at him blankly.
"Well, it did."
The duo crossed to the other side of the large courtyard and through a stone doorway which lead to the other side of the old fort. A sign pointed left, announcing the 'WEIRDLY KEY WEST COLLECTION, FEATURING KEY WEST'S OWN ROBERT THE DOLL'! Sam's pace stalled as he read the sign and came to a halt.
"You go find your doll, I'm gonna poke around down here," Sam dismissed her with a wave and started towards the right wing of the building.
"You don't wanna see Robert?"
Sam thought back to the morning he sat with Nathan. The two brothers, finally reunited after almost 15 years, watched the sun come up over the river in New Orleans. Nate regaled Sam with tales of his adventures and the wonders he experienced since he had last seen him. Sam heard about El Dorado, Shambala, Iram... and all of the supernatural beings that Nate had run into while looking for them. Searching for the lost documents of Abraham Lincoln wasn't exactly looking for the lost city of Atlantis, but he felt the need to play it safe for once and avoid anything with the potential of being otherworldly.
"Nah, I'm good," Sam assured her.
Faith passed underneath the wide stone arches of the fort, the ever-present layer of sand crunching against the cement floor under her shoes echoed through the hallway.
A moderate size vestibule retrofitted with modern glass doors held the bulk of the exhibit with Robert, their central showpiece, getting his own special room at the back. Faith spied a large group of tourists crowded around a glass case in the middle of Robert's room, holding up cell phones with the occasional flash lighting up the room for a picture, talking excitedly. Assuming that they would be a while, Faith hung back. She wanted to get a good look at him without having to peek and squeeze around the tourists.
A mix of paintings and enlarged photographs hung on the walls, while odd trinkets stood in front of large explanatory signs.
Faith meandered around the stone chamber. The lid of a coffin leaned against one wall behind a blue velvet rope, along with a warning of DO NOT TOUCH. There were two black and whites of Key West Cemetery. She examined them with light-hearted curiosity, hoping to maybe get a glimpse of where she and Sam had found the headstones for the men from the Third Artillery, just to say to herself, 'Hey! I've been there!'
Faith turned to head towards the other side of the room. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe, and a sharp nail ran down her spine as she locked eyes with the portrait and plaque across from her.
After weeks of research, she knew all of the major players from the Lincoln assassination, as well as anyone associated with his widow until her death in 1882.
And she knew the man on the wall.
The man was Dr. Samuel Mudd.
She approached the side of the room cautiously, almost afraid that if she moved too quickly, the information would bolt like a scared dog or dissolve into thin air as if just a hopeful dream. Finally standing in front of it, Faith reached out, ignoring the signs of warning posted around the museum, and touched the portrait affixed to the wall. It was real.
Faith bolted down the hallway. She ran at full speed, bouncing off the shoulders of tourists like a pinball against its bumpers. She skidded to a stop almost toppling over Sam, who was examining a large canon that had been painted lime green.
Sam's arms shot up reflexively and grabbed her shoulders before she could bowl him over.
"Whoa! Hey! Easy now!"
"Sam," She said gruffly, her voice hoarse from the quick sprint and the adrenaline that pumped through her veins.
"You ever think they hid anything in here?" He asked, motioning to the large metal barrel.
"I found something," Faith breathed.
Sam's train of thought derailed and disappeared. Those were the words he had been wanting to say or waiting to hear for weeks.
"Show me."