Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow (17 page)

“I’d not be leaving you now, dear girl, for all the tea in China!”

“That’s kind, Bartholomew, but if the time comes when there’s a better place for you, I want you to go,” Katie told him earnestly.

He shook his head. “There’s the strange thing. Maybe I have waited all these years for you.”

“Really?”

“Well, you see, I was avenged,” Bartholomew told her.

“You were?”

“Oh, yes, and that’s probably why I like your boy David-even if I remain skeptical, wary and watchful. You see, his ancestor-Craig Beckett from many, many years ago-came back into town and saw that Eli Smith was hanged for his part in the attack and Victoria’s death. Maybe that’s what I hear!” Bartholomew said with a touch of bitterness. “Smith, eyes bulging, organs giving out, as he swung from the tree!”

As Katie glanced across the room, she saw a woman leaning against the wall near the ladies’ room. Her hair was loose, hanging down her back, and her clothing wasn’t the elegant apparel of a nineteenth-century lady, but more like that of a woman who worked hard in her home throughout the day. Her blouse was white cotton, open at her throat, which bore angry, red marks. She seemed very sad. Katie had seen her before, but the woman never spoke to her.

The ghost saw a table where a group of young children sat with a mother and father. The kids were drinking Shirley Temples and munching on fries.

The ghost drifted over to the table. She took an empty chair.

She looked longingly at the children.

The mother perked up, looking around. She nudged her husband, uncomfortable and not knowing why.

The husband asked for the check, and the family left.

The ghost faded away, still sad.

“I don’t believe that Danny Zigler was capable of either of the murders,” Katie said.

“You’re back to the same question,” Bartholomew told her. “Were they both committed by the same person? Or was this a copycat killing?”

Katie stood, deciding not to order any food. She left the girl bills that were double the price of the iced tea.

“Let’s go. I want to see if Liam is at the police station.”

“What? Why?” Bartholomew asked her.

“I don’t know-you said something that made me start thinking that somehow we’re missing something.”

“Like what?”

“Motive.”

“The killer is crazy in the head, that’s a motive!” Bartholomew said. “I’d hate to tell you a few of the things I saw in my day-just because someone could get away with it.”

But Katie was already moving. She heard Bartholomew sigh-and follow her.

It took a few minutes to get through to Liam on the phone, but David knew his cousin would find the time to talk to him. Eventually, Liam came on.

“Sorry, David, this place is insane today. Procedure. We’re bringing in everyone who worked at the strip club, and we’re trying to track down anyone who was at the strip club that night.”

“Understandable. What about Mike Sanderson? Has anyone pursued that angle?”

“We’ve put through some calls. Apparently, he became a salesman, and he isn’t working by computer. We’ve reached his wife, and she said he was traveling. She gave us all his numbers, but we haven’t reached him yet. We’ve contacted the Cleveland police to let them know that we need their help in a cold-case investigation.”

“So no one knows where he is right now, right?”

“No. But to go assuming he might be in the Keys or Key West again is a long shot, David.”

“I know. But it’s not the time to ignore any suspicion, however thin.”

“We’re not ignoring it, I promise. I don’t have much time. I have to get back to questioning folks. No one is under arrest-everyone is coming in willingly, so we have to make it all quick and cordial.”

“No word yet on Danny Zigler?”

“Nothing. There’s an APB out on him, and the black-and-whites have gone by his place to try to find him several times. We’re getting a search warrant.”

“Thanks.”

“So,” Liam said carefully, “what are you doing?”

“Following hunches.”

“Nothing illegal, please.”

“Liam, if I do anything illegal, I sure as hell don’t intend to tell you and compromise your position.”

“David-”

“Liam, I have the police reports and all the old crime-scene photos and info to study. Don’t worry, all right?”

“Keep me posted,” Liam said with a groan.

“I will,” David said.

And he would. After his next stop, he’d go by the station and turn in the credit card. The police might have already questioned the kid who had been with Stella.

He was glad to have the card; he wanted to talk to the kid. But he was pretty sure that Stella hadn’t been murdered by a chance john. Whoever had killed her had premeditated the murder. She’d been an easy mark. The display of her body had been far more important than her life.

He reached the house where Danny Zigler had his apartment.

It was on the second floor. He climbed up the stairs, came to the door and rapped on it loudly.

There was no answer.

He hesitated, looked around guiltily, then pulled out his key chain and looked for a small tool that had helped him a dozen times in his travels in third-world nations when his belongings had wound up behind locked doors. He jimmied the little tool in the lock and it gave easily. This was the kind of thing that Liam didn’t need to know.

The house had been built sometime in the eighteen nineties, divided into four apartments in the nineteen seventies and had had little done to it since. If there was one thing David knew well, it was Key West architecture. Two nice old features remained-open beams held up the ceiling, and the original marble fireplace stood across from the entry.

He stepped into the room. “Danny?”

But there was no reply. A quick look through all the rooms-kitchen, parlor, dining room, bedroom and bath-assured him that Danny wasn’t here. Frustrated, he stood in the parlor. Danny wasn’t particularly neat and clean, but it seemed that he picked up his clothing and washed his dishes.

A pile of books on the dining-room table drew David’s attention and he walked over to see what they were. He hadn’t thought of Danny as being a big reader.

They were all on Key West. One was on the New World discovery and Spanish settlement of the island, one was on David Porter, military rule and the end of piracy, and another was on the age of wrecking and salvage.

As he looked at the last, something fell out.

Money.

Ten thousand dollars.

Curiouser and curiouser, he thought.

Had Danny been bribing someone? Did he know something, and was he taking blackmail?

David wasn’t supposed to be in Danny’s apartment. Technically, he was guilty of breaking and entering. He really needed to get moving.

He laid the bills out on the table along with the books and reached into his pocket for the small digital camera he carried as naturally as his wallet. He took photographs of the bills and then the books, then returned the bills where they had been and stacked the books in their original position. He quickly walked around the apartment, taking shots of each room.

At last, he left.

As he did so, he had the feeling that Danny hadn’t been back to his apartment in a while. He wasn’t at home, and he wasn’t at work.

Somehow, that didn’t seem to bode well for Danny.

Sergeant Andy McCluskey was at the reception desk when Katie reached the station. He greeted her warmly. Andy had been a few years older than she in high school, and had been with the police department for the past four years.

“Liam is pretty busy right now,” Andy told her. He leaned across the counter, his voice low. “Nasty business going on. He’s interviewing folks one by one.”

“Of course. Well, I suppose there are a lot of people he needs to interview,” Katie said.

“I can tell him that you’re here,” Andy offered.

“No, no, that’s all right, thank you,” Katie said.

“I really don’t know what you thought you were going to do here, anyway,” Bartholomew said.

She ignored him, thanked Andy again and headed back out into the sunshine.

“What are you trying to do?” Bartholomew demanded.

“I don’t know. But when we were by the hanging tree, I felt that we needed to be looking into more than we’re looking into. Let’s say that these murders were carried out by the same person. That’s kind of crazy in itself. Bizarre murders, or bizarre display of the victims. Over ten years apart. And both when people were suddenly reappearing in town. Sam Barnard is suddenly back. David is suddenly back.”

“That’s two people,” Bartholomew pointed out.

“My brother is due in soon.”

“Three people. What a horde.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. It’s not at all gentlemanly,” Katie told him.

“Hmm. Forgive me. You’re young. I decided that my function in death was to keep you alive, and if it takes sarcasm…”

His voice drifted. She saw that he wasn’t paying the least attention to her. He was looking down the street. “There she goes.”

“Who?”

“My lady in white.”

“From the story you just told me, you were in love with Victoria.”

He nodded.

“Is she Victoria?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who she is.” He gave Katie his attention again. “Okay, so, you wanted old police records-that’s why we were visiting Liam. But I don’t think you were going to get anything. David might be able to get information from Liam, but they don’t hand out evidence to everyone on the street. We’re not going to get any further on this today so maybe we should look into something else. Maybe we can find out who the lady in white is through old records. Let’s go to the library.”

“Okay, but aren’t you a bit fickle? What about Victoria?” Katie asked.

“I know, in my bones-or lack thereof-that Victoria has moved on, and is happy. The woman in white needs help.” Bartholomew smiled. “She needs me. So…let’s go do some research at the library!”

After spending some time reading the history of Key West, Katie looked up at Bartholomew. She glanced at the book he was reading, and was surprised to note that he had managed to turn a page.

She looked around quickly, but they were the only two seated in that section of the library. Leaning across the table, she saw that he was studying wreckers.

“Anything?” she asked him.

“Yes!”

“What?” Katie asked.

Bartholomew looked at her. “I found my lady in white. Look-look at the picture. That’s her! You can see the picture has her in the same white dress we’ve seen her in. She’s Lucinda-Lucy-Wellington. Her parents died of a fever, and she and her brother were left in penury. The brother earned command of a ship. She watched every day for him to return from a voyage to Boston. Captain Wellington was caught in a storm just off the south side of the island. Lucy’s house was near O’Hara’s, and she spent the storm atop the widow’s walk, praying the ship would come home safely. The wreckers discovered the ship, but not the body of Captain Wellington. Some say that Lucy cast herself to her death from the same widow’s walk she had paced, and others say that she fell, trying to get a better view down to the shore when they were bringing in the flotsam and jetsam-and the bodies that washed up.”

“You were here then,” Katie reminded him.

He nodded. “Yes, I wasn’t hanged until a few years later.”

“But you didn’t know Lucy?”

He shook his head. “She might have been broke, but she was descended from…a better quality of people. I was a gentleman-surely you know that! But back then, social strata were strict. No matter what my demeanor, manners and riches, I wasn’t easily accepted.” He stared hard at Katie. “You have to talk to her for me.”

“Bartholomew, I will try,” she said firmly.

He smiled. “Look, Katie, I’ve turned another page.”

“That’s great. Can we keep reading then?”

“Aha! I just found a reference to your house, Katie. It was sold to Shamus O’Hara in eighteen twenty-nine. He purchased it from a John Moreland, who had bought it from John Whitehead. Am I ever glad I was named Bartholomew! They were all John in those days. Thank the Lord.” He looked up at her suddenly. “Imagine that, Katie. Your ancestors would have watched me on the day that I was hanged. And they certainly didn’t lift a finger to stop the injustice of my execution.”

It wasn’t difficult in the least to find Lewis Agaro.

David simply went from bar to bar, and found him in a small but rustic place near Mallory Square.

He sat down on a bar stool next to the slim young man. Lewis Agaro turned, took one look at him and started to bolt.

David set a hand on the kid’s on the bar.

“I’m not here to take you down,” he said.

Lewis looked around. He was looking for his older brother, David thought. But the brother didn’t appear to be here.

Lewis sat. A barmaid came up, and David ordered a beer.

“You’d be a blind and deaf man not to know about the murder,” David said, his tone conversational. “And I’m wondering how it feels. You were the last one with her. She might have been a prostitute and a stripper, but she was a human being and you’d definitely been attracted to her. Even though the cops were trying to bust you for something that she did.”

The kid let out a breath, picked up his drink and swallowed down the remainder. A pulse was ticking at his throat. “She was cool,” he said. “She-she had balls. She ripped me off, and I knew that when I woke up, but she didn’t take all my money-she left me enough to get around. I would have gone back to the club. I would have called her out on it, but I swear, I wouldn’t have hurt her.” He turned to David then, and he did look tortured.

“I don’t think that you killed her, kid,” David said.

Lewis Agaro let out a long breath. “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I had a night with her like no other. I woke up and my wallet had been rifled and she was gone. I went back to the club, but she wasn’t there. Then-they found her body.”

“Did you see anyone that night? Did she talk to you about anyone?”

Agaro frowned, shaking his head. He was thoughtful. “She-well, we talked about the fact that I had almost been arrested for a pocket she had picked! She thought it was funny, and she wasn’t afraid-even when I told her the cops thought it was her. She said she knew her way around town, and she knew her away around the law, real well. You-you don’t understand. She wasn’t a bad person. She was cool. She was like one of those folks on that TV show-Survivor! She wasn’t like all-sex. She was affectionate, she had feelings.”

“I’m sure she did.”

“The cops are going to arrest me, aren’t they? They’re going to think that I did it. Billy-my brother-he’s all disgusted with me. He wanted to get the hell off the island. Billy-” He paused, wincing. “Billy didn’t even know that I’d hired her for the night. He wound up hanging out with some of his friends from FSU. He thinks I’ll be called in-along with him-cause we were stopped in the street by that Neanderthal the other night and accused of robbing him.”

“You’re not going to be arrested, Lewis, but they will bring you in for questioning. Just tell them the truth. You’re a kid from out of town, you couldn’t possibly have staged the death scene at the museum. The cops aren’t stupid. They know that.” He pulled a cocktail napkin toward him and reached in his pocket for a pen. He scribbled down a name and handed the paper to the young man. “There’s a name for a good attorney down here-a criminal attorney. If you need help, call him. He’s a good guy.”

“I can’t afford an attorney.”

“Tell him I referred you. He’s older than hell, better than anyone else you’ll ever meet. I know-he stood by me once. He’s an old family friend. You’ll be all right. That’s over with, so… Think. Please, think. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

He perked up suddenly. “There was one thing. There was this guy. He’d been upstairs-during the show. He tried to get Stella to talk to him, but she ripped her arm away from him and hissed something at him. And he told her he was working a whole lot. He was going to get money-she should quit what she was doing. I think that he knew that she had promised to come home with me.”

“What did the guy look like?” David asked, though he was sure he knew the answer.

“Skinny, kind of thin face, about your age. Ah, hell, I’d seen him before around here. My brother’s friends were heckling one of the ghost tours, and he was the guy leading it. He made everybody yell at the hecklers, something like, ‘You’re cursed!’”

David nodded. “Thanks.”

He set a hand on the kid’s shoulder and rose.

Danny Zigler.

But where the hell was he now? David was afraid that he wasn’t going to find Danny. He still didn’t believe that Danny Zigler was capable of murder. But neither was Danny capable of holding down the kind of job that could account for the money he had at his apartment. Danny had known or suspected something-maybe he even knew why and how Stella had died. The police would find the money in Danny’s apartment eventually. Until then, it was something he was going to keep to himself.

He still had to find Danny. He was just afraid that he wasn’t going to find him alive.

Katie’s phone rang in the quiet of the library, making her jump. She answered it quickly, wondering if her heart was thumping because her caller ID read David Beckett, or just because she had been so startled.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Interesting. Danny Zigler is nowhere to be found.”

“Well, he’ll turn up, I’m certain.”

David didn’t reply to her statement. “Where are you?” he asked instead.

“The library.”

“That’s not on Duval Street.”

“It’s a happening place.”

He laughed softly. “Maybe, but…while you’re there, want to do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“I need these books,” he said, and rattled off three titles. She scrounged in her purse for a pen.

“All right, I’ll get them-if they have them.”

“I have a feeling that they do. Want to meet me at Craig’s place?”

He didn’t call it “my” house. He called it Craig’s place.

He didn’t intend to stay.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll get the books and be right there.”

She hung up. Bartholomew was watching her. “Well?”

“I’m meeting him at his house. Or-the Beckett house.”

“The museum?” Bartholomew asked, frowning.

“No, no. The old Beckett homestead. Are you-coming with me?”

“Good God, no. The Lord alone knows where the two of you might start madly coupling once you’re there! Far more than I want to know or see or…”

Katie groaned. “That’s not all that…it’s certainly not all that we do.”

“I’m going to hang around the street. Watch the Fantasy Fest preparations. See if I can find the regular habits of my lady in white. But I’ll walk you over, and I’ll not be gone too long. God knows, that fellow is so determined to find the truth, he keeps leaving you alone.”

Katie planted her hands on her hips. “Chill. He’s going to get me some pepper spray. And I’m not the karate kid, but I’m not a ninety-pound weakling, either.”

Bartholomew leaned toward her, his face set seriously. “Katie, this killer is strong. It seems that he snuck up on Stella Martin, surprised her and killed her with his bare hands. You’re not a weakling, but this isn’t someone you want to tackle.”

“Which makes it almost impossible for Danny to be guilty of anything,” Katie said. “He is just about a ninety-pound weakling.”

“Come, my dear, let me escort you,” Bartholomew said.

“I just have to get these books,” she said.

At home, David cleared off the formal dining-room table, removing his grandmother’s silver candlesticks and the lace doilies she had used to protect the beautiful old, carved mahogany.

He laid out the photos from the original crime scene.

He also laid out his photos of the second crime scene.

He set out the files with pertinent crime-scene information and witness reports, but the latter revealed nothing. No one had seen anyone at the museum. No one had seen anyone on the street. No one had seen anything. In Tanya’s case, she had been at O’Hara’s bar. She had left. She had never been seen again by anyone-except the killer-until she had appeared in the tableau.

Stella Martin. The police were still questioning people, but he knew more than the police did. She had slept with Lewis Agaro. She had rifled through his wallet, left his small lodging house through the rear and been killed beneath the branches of a large sea grape tree.

Someone had seen her leave the lodging house. She had been staying off Duval to avoid the cops, probably. She had gone around back. She had argued with Danny Zigler, and he was missing.

The crime-scene pictures were different. Tanya had been laid out like Sleeping Beauty; in death, she had been gorgeous, heart-wrenching.

Stella Martin had been dumped.

Two different killers?

The doorbell rang. He left the table and went to the door, letting Katie in. She seemed to enter hesitantly. He had a feeling that it was the first time she had been in the house since his grandfather had died.

And he hadn’t changed anything within it.

“Come on in,” he told her huskily. He reached out, taking her hand, pulling her in. Then he pulled her against him and she looked up and he stroked her cheek and kissed her. Instant fire. Anticipation increased by the fact that he knew her, and knew what could come.

He stepped back, smiling. “Sorry.”

“Not at all.” She cleared her throat, looking down the hallway. “I got the books. What about these books do you think will help?”

“They were the books Danny Zigler was reading.”

“And you know this because…?”

“I broke into his house.”

“Lord, David-”

“No one will know. I know what I’m doing.”

“Great. You’re a practiced lock pick.”

“It was important that I see his place.”

“Oh?”

“I think Danny was somehow in over his head. He was looking up all kinds of information on the area, too. Which makes me more curious about the past.”

“The past? You mean, the past as in ten years ago?” she asked.

“No, I mean the past. Something happened in the past, that is, history, that somehow has to do with all of this. I don’t really understand yet. I’m fishing. I think that Danny knows-or knew-something, and that it got him to thinking and…he was a carefree-Keys kind of guy, but we’re mistaken if we take him for stupid. Anyway…I don’t really know what we’re looking for. I’m hoping we’ll know when we find it.”

She was frowning. “You have no idea where Danny is? You made it sound like something might have happened to him!”

“I don’t know that at all,” he said. “Let’s just say that I’m concerned.”

He took the library books from her and set a hand on her back, guiding her into the dining room. She stepped away from him, frowning as she saw the display on the table. She whitened, looking at the full array of photos of the dead women, but she didn’t turn away.

“It’s almost as if Tanya was treated with respect, and Stella was…well, treated as if she were lower class.”

“Which makes me think that our killer may believe in a social stratum.”

“Possibly. But none of this seems to jive. You’d need someone like a good old boy to have such a feeling of superiority, and someone smart to carry off planting the corpse in the museum, even if she was rather-dumped.”

David pulled out a chair for Katie and then sat down, watching her. “Ah, Katie, it’s rather nice and totally naive that you feel that way. Trust me. I’ve seen it around the world. White supremacy groups-east, west, north and south-are not all peopled by the stupid or illiterate. And someone doesn’t have to be that rabid or prejudiced to feel superior to a woman they might see as white trash.”

“I suppose that’s true. David, what are the blue smudges-they’re on the faces of both women. It’s not something with the film, is it?” Katie asked.

He stood, rifled in a buffet drawer and produced a magnifying glass. He had noted the smudges before. They were on the tips of both noses, on the foreheads and the chins.

“They look like bruises. Pressure bruises, premortem,” David said. “And, I believe, it means that we are looking for one killer-a man who attacks from behind with a plastic bag or some such other item, smothering his victims before strangling them when they haven’t the breath left to struggle. He wears gloves, and that’s why his victims can’t get their nails into him.”

He sat back. “I’ve got to give Liam a call and then talk to Pete. He let me reopen the old case through Liam, just so long as I report to him. I really want to let them both know that they need to be taking a look at what I think are bruises. It really shows, in my opinion, that the victims were ambushed from behind.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“Then-let’s go barhopping.”

Dusk was coming. In another hour, the sun would fall. Then night, with the sound of music and laughter. It became distant, like whispers from the past. Darkness was a lovely time, a time when the old trees tipped down protective branches, when streets were shadowed, when all manner of evil might exist and never be seen.

She was with him again.

Soon, the sun would set again. A magnificent sunset, the kind that had made Key West famous. On Mallory Square the entertainers would begin their night’s work, hoping for tips. Cat trainers, magicians, acrobats, robotic people, all would begin in earnest…

Katie O’Hara was with David Beckett.

Ah, yes, once again, David Beckett on top, carrying with him all the pompous righteousness of decades of Becketts, Becketts who shouldn’t have survived to populate the island.

She couldn’t be with him all the time.

No, she couldn’t be with him all time. There were times when she would have to be alone.

He stared at the house, and he smiled, because he felt powerful. They all thought they were such great detectives, and they were such fools.

It was all moving along so smoothly. The island was agog with the murder of a whore, but hell, it was a capitalist’s world. Fantasy Fest was on the way.

Oh, Lord, that would be so much fun.

It would make everything so easy.

And it would set the scene for one final and beautiful curtain call. He would finish it all, taking down the family.

Katie would have to die, and be immortalized.

The main thorn was David Beckett, so beloved of Craig!