Mark of the Devil Read Online Free Page B

Diver
pulled alongside its assigned berth at the marina, Matt sat with his feet propped against the topside console dash. Punching in several numbers on his cell phone, he explained to Park, “Calling an old friend. She heads up the state’s archeological division over in Tallahassee. Maybe she knows something about that thingamajig we found.”
    Switching off the ignition, Park griped, “You couldn’t do it after helping me tie up, could you?” A quick jab to Matt’s right shoulder emphasized his feigned irritation before he clambered down the ladder to the main deck and jumped to the pier with a nylon line in hand.
    “C’mon, Steve,” Matt yelled down. “This is important and, besides, who’s already promised to buy the beer?” Just then, Matt heard over the phone, “Florida Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Archeological Research.”
    Dropping his feet to the deck, Matt leaned forward and cupped his hands over the mouthpiece to shield it from the surrounding marina noise. “Dr. Brandy Mason.”
    “Who’s calling, please?”
    “Matt Berkeley, North American Archeological Research and Preservation Association. NAARPA.”
    “Oh, Mr. Berkeley, yes sir. It’s been awhile. If you’ll hold a moment, I’ll get Dr. Mason.”
    Matt watched the activity along the several slips as boats pulled in from their day’s run for overnight stays or for refueling before continuing up the St. Johns River towards Jacksonville and other marinas along the riverfront. “Be with you in a minute,” he called to Park, who was securing the lines on cleats bolted into the pier.
    “Yeah, I do all the hard work,” Park shouted back, “and whatta you do?”
    “Mr. Berkeley,” Matt heard over the cell phone, “Dr. Mason’s on the line.”
    Waving Park off, Matt asked, “Brandy?”
    “Where in the world are you this time, Matt?”
    “In your backyard, sweetheart. Mayport, Florida. How’s Tallahassee treating you?”
    Dr. Brandy Mason’s satiny brown skin and athletic good looks hid a forty-year span of fighting to get off the bottom of society’s unforgiving pile. She might have been the wrong color and the wrong sex, but those things had never stood in the way of her commanding a place at the “archaeological table.” Her sheer determination and high level of innate intelligence had left most of her contemporaries in the dust.
    Shifting a pile of papers to one side of her desk and pulling out a pad and pencil to take notes, Brandy spoke into a speakerphone. “The bureaucracy in this place is something else. Sometimes wish I was back at Florida State teaching the young and uninformed, but Tallahassee’s a challenge and otherwise downright exhilarating.”
    “And how’s my godson, that football-playing brother of yours?” Matt asked. “Since he got traded to the Rams, the only thing I see of him is the back of his jersey on Sunday afternoon TV.”
    “Jeff’s knees are gonna be the death of him, but he refuses to retire until he’s got a Super Bowl ring.”
    “The way the Rams are playing this year, I’d say he might just do it.”
    “What about you, Mr. Matthew W. Berkeley? Staying out of trouble, or should I ask?”
    Matt braced himself against the nudge of a 40-foot fishing craft as it worked its way in beside
Native Diver,
angling toward the adjoining pier. “Me, trouble? No way. I’m working hard and loving every minute of it. Reason I’m calling, I’ve found something and not real sure under Florida law what I can do with it.”
    “What’ve you got?”
    “Dunno. To make a long story short, Coast Guard asked a friend of mine to check out a barge that sank off Jacksonville Beach during the recent hurricane. I went with him. We found it just inside the three-mile limit, buoyed it as a hazard to navigation, but found something else in the process.”
    “What do you mean?” Brandy asked, nodding to a nattily dressed man entering the room. “Just lying there? Partially buried? What?” She