Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow (27 page)

The room was cold, sterile. He could remember similar occasions, but in far less pristine conditions, when he had served in the military.

Land mine, a man’s body all but blown to bits, picking up the pieces.

Unchecked syphilis.

Gunfire straight in the face.

Danny Zigler, more bloated, distorted and discolored than any horror he had seen before.

It wasn’t right.

No, it wasn’t right. And why Danny? He had been a suspect himself, a perfect patsy, just about.

“All right, he died somewhere else,” Liam said, suddenly impatient. “How did he die?”

There was silence. The medical examiner looked at him. “Liam, that’s what I’m trying to determine.”

Still, something about Liam’s words made him change his intended direction. He turned to one of his assistants. “Let’s slide him into X-ray.”

Rearrangements were made. They stared at a computer screen.

“X-ray of the body shows a broken cervix. The neck was broken when he was strangled.”

Sean stared up at the Beckett museum.

Katie looked at her brother, and then the old Victorian mansion.

There was something forlorn about it today. Craig had loved the place. He had believed that he had found a way to preserve a history he loved. He’d been such a good and decent man, and she had really loved him. What was the future for the museum? The oddities museum down the street was already back up and running.

“Hate the place. Hate it,” Sean said, looking at her.

“It’s a beautiful old house,” Katie said.

“You don’t remember everything that happened as clearly as I do,” Sean said. “David had been my friend. Tanya and Sam…they’d been friends. Everything fell apart. Craig Beckett was never the same. David left, the Barnards left.”

“People move on, no matter what,” Katie said.

“Maybe I hate it most because David had been my friend. Did I back away from him?” Sean said.

“We were kids,” she reminded him. She smiled, touching her brother’s shoulder. “Maybe you actually learned from it, and became a stronger person?”

He laughed. “All righty, Katie-oke. Let’s do this thing.”

Katie tried the door, remembering how it had been unopened the night she had come to find David here. What a fool she had been, walking right in. Bartholomew had warned her. But she hadn’t believed at the time that such a heinous crime could come back to haunt Key West again, in the way that it had. She had been worried about a commercial venture, which seemed silly and so long ago already!

Today, the door was securely locked; both bolts were secured. But her keys worked, and within seconds, they stepped into the entry.

Sunlight gleamed in. From the stairway, Hemingway looked down at them both, as if they were intruders on a secret party that raged when the doors were closed.

“Where are the keys?” Sean asked.

“Desk. Third drawer.”

He leapt over the turnstile and pulled open the third drawer. Katie leapt the stile and stood behind him, looking around. Sunlight couldn’t penetrate the whole house. She was pretty sure that David still kept auxiliary lights in the floor, but they were on a timer.

Now, with the sun falling but not quite down, the place was cast in a strange shadow. It was somehow disturbing. Through the door to her left, she could see a number of the displays.

She had never been afraid or uneasy in the museum. Even knowing its history.

The figures were frozen in place.

And yet, in the ghost shadow of the house, it seemed that they might move at any minute.

And, if she were to move into the hallway, she knew what exhibit she would come to. That of the Otto family, Artist House and Robert the Doll.

She didn’t want to look through the doorway that led to the exhibit. Danny had been found in an effigy of Robert the Doll.

She had to look. She had to make sure that the little robotic was standing right where he should have been.

He was.

Sean was oblivious to her.

“What’s the matter with David? Sending us on a wild-goose chase. They’re not here,” Sean said.

“Of course they are. He wouldn’t have told us to come if the keys weren’t here,” Katie said. “Oh, hell. It’s already heading toward sunset. I’m not going to have any time to read anything if we don’t hurry. I’m supposed to be at work soon.”

“Okay, where did he say-exactly-that they were?” Sean said.

“The third drawer, under the old guidebooks,” Katie said. “He was certain of it.”

“They’re not here,” Sean said.

Bartholomew had followed them in. “Impatient fellow, your brother.”

Katie sighed. “You, chill,” she said to Sean. “And, you! You just hush up,” she said to Bartholomew.

“Great. Your ghost is still with us?” Sean asked.

“Tell him that I’m learning to work a razor. I’ll shave his hair right off his head next time,” Bartholomew said.

“Bartholomew is with us, yes,” Katie said. “And David might have been wrong, or mistaken. Try the second drawer. Never mind, move. I’ll find the keys. I don’t mind messing anything up here. I was already in here with Liam,” Katie said.

She glanced up as she started rummaging through the drawers. Sunset was coming, and it was causing the light to play tricks.

It looked as if something was moving.

Something…a ghost shadow, in that first exhibit where Robert the Doll and the Otto family reigned supreme.

“Katie, you need to get out of here!” Bartholomew said.

“What the hell is that?” Sean demanded.

“Sean, let’s just go,” Katie said.

But Sean didn’t heed her warning. “Katie, call the cops,” he said. He started toward the exhibit.

“Sean, no, let’s just get out of here!” Katie pleaded.

“Whoever the hell you are,” Sean yelled angrily, his voice loud and deep, “show yourself. Come on out-you’re breaking and entering and the cops are on the way.”

Katie had dropped her purse when she’d started rifling through the drawers. She reached for it, couldn’t find her cell phone and dumped the contents on the desk.

“Sean!” she called.

Bartholomew swore; she saw the ghost go striding after her brother.

Sean became shadow, walking through the doorway to the Otto family tableau.

She found her phone. Her fingers curled around it. She keyed in 911, and to her dismay, got a busy signal. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

She searched her entries and found Pete Dryer’s cell number and punched it in. There was no answer.

“Son of a bitch!” Sean roared.

“Pete, Pete, it’s Katie O’Hara, I’m in the old Beckett museum, and there’s someone in here. Please, please get this, and come quickly!”

Sean let out an oath, and then it seemed as if the world exploded. The sounds of breaking glass, thumping, crashes, came shrieking out at her.

“Sean!”

Katie grabbed a paperweight from the desk, and went tearing in after her brother.

They were in the car, driving back to town. David turned to Liam.

“The killer is playing with Key West legend. He’s someone that history means a great deal to. He’s fascinated by all the legends.” He was quiet for a minute. “You don’t know anyone named Smith, do you?”

Liam laughed. “Smith? In my life, I’m sure I’ve met a number of people named Smith. And Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Jones…and I even know a pack of O’Haras, none of them related.”

“Okay, Liam. I believe that Tanya was murdered to hurt our family. So, there is someone out there who is carrying a grudge. And it seems to be a grudge that’s hundreds of years old. Okay, first off, think about it. It couldn’t be Sanderson to begin with-he was a tourist. He didn’t know the Elena legend, he didn’t know our family. He was an outsider.”

“An outsider with an alibi,” Liam reminded him.

“All right, as odd as it may sound then-Sam Barnard.”

“Tanya’s own brother?”

“He knew the island like the back of his hand. Knew all the legends. He admits that he saw Tanya the night that she was killed. He admits that they argued. He told me that he was angry with her for acting like a flirt-a tramp. And maybe it even went deeper. Damn it! If we’d just found Danny alive, he might have known something. He had the books, and the money. Lord, here’s what it has to be-the killer read something sometime, during his life that ticked him off about the Becketts. Maybe he’s like a functioning psycho. I believed from the time I came back here that the murder wasn’t random. Think about it. Stella Martin winds up dead. The method of death didn’t change. Danny winds up dead. Danny is small, but still, he might have put up a fight. Get him from behind. Smother him. Strangle him. And then here’s the piece that makes it the same-he is found in a giant effigy of Robert the Doll. Who else knows these legends and stories better than anyone else? A local. And when violence happens, don’t the police look at family members first?”

“All right, so what do I do? Well, I’ll give your reasoning to the team, of course,” Liam said. “But there’s the thing-we still don’t have a shred of physical evidence.”

“I know. And I’m not certain. I think I will be-if I just get through those books,” David said. “Maybe, by the time we get there, Katie will have found something. Maybe she’s already found something,” he said. He pulled out his phone and called Katie’s cell. It went directly to voice mail. He swore softly.

“What?”

“She’s either talking, or she never charged her battery,” David said.

He was already dialing again.

“Sean?” Liam asked.

David nodded. But Sean’s phone rang and rang-and went to voice mail.

“Hurry,” David told Liam.

“Hell, this isn’t a sci-fi car, even if I have a siren!” Liam said. “I can’t fly over those other cars.”

“Put the siren on, do your best. Hey, have someone get over to Katie’s house, and to my place, Liam. Please. Have them do it now.”

There were figures tussling on the floor. Sean. And someone else. Someone else big and brawny, rolling with Sean. She heard a whack-a fist connecting with flesh. She heard another whack.

Robert the Doll stood in place, looking at her with his ugly face and beady eyes. She looked beyond him to the small-scale model of Artist House.

“Bastard! Asshole!” Sean raged. “The cops are on the way, you idiot!”

For a moment, one of the shadow figures rose high above the other. He turned blindly, heading toward the archway that lead to the next exhibit.

“Hey!” Sean roared, making it to his feet. Ahead of him, as if he had hit a wall that wasn’t there, the big shadow figure suddenly fell back to the ground.

“Sean, stop it, let him go!” Katie cried.

The figure crawled to its feet, then doubled over and came at Sean like a bull. Katie heard the sickening thud as they met. Her brother went down with the lug on top of him. Katie found a piece of wood that had been used to construct the miniature of Artist House.

She wrenched it free, and brought it down with all her strength on the back of the man on top of her brother.

He bellowed in pain, rose and staggered toward her.

She held the wood, and whacked him again, as hard as she could, across the shoulder.

Sean was up, hurrying toward her.

Light suddenly flickered in from a car passing by on the street.

It was Sam. Sam Barnard. And he was stumbling toward her now with the ceaseless drive of a zombie, his face frozen into a mask of anger.

“Stop!”

Sam lunged for her. She tried to back up; she crashed against the Artist House miniature and fell flat back on the floor.

Sam came down on her.

She screamed.

Robert the Doll looked down at her with malign eyes.

Sean was on top of Sam next, dragging him off her. He straddled over Sam, punched him, and punched him again.

“Stop!” Sam screamed. “Stop!”

“You murdering bastard!” Sean raged.

“No, no, no! I didn’t murder anyone,” Sam said. “I swear, I swear. I just came here…because I had to come here. Tanya was killed. That whore was killed. And now Danny!”

“Right. You were just sneaking around in here,” Sean said.

“You’re breaking my ribs, Sean, please, get up,” Sam said.

“No. The cops are coming, right, Katie?”

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t really know if they were coming or not. She was struggling up from the broken pieces of the Artist House.

Pete would come. For the moment, though, they were in the house, alone, with Sam. And she didn’t know for the life of her if he was telling the truth or not!

“I’ll help you up,” Bartholomew said. “Hey, did you like that stop? Did you see it? Don’t tell me you didn’t see it. I stopped him like a brick wall.”

“I saw it,” she assured Bartholomew. He had extended his hand. She took it, not expecting much real help. But she could feel him-she could actually feel him, as she got to her feet.

“What’s she doing, who’s she talking to?” Sam cried out, as if he were in mortal terror.

“My sister talks to ghosts,” Sean said, eyes widening, waving his arms in the air. “And guess what, asshole? The ghosts aren’t saying good things about you.”

“What?” Sam cried.

“The spirits are assembling!” Sean said.

“Sean!” Katie protested, stunned. But Sam was scared. It was the place, it was her brother’s fury. Maybe it was a combination.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Sam swore. “Yeah, all right, I broke in here, but I just needed to see the place. I needed to see the place again where my sister died.”

There was something forming in the shadows behind Sam and her brother. The two were still talking, but Katie didn’t hear them.

It was Danny. Danny Zigler. And once again, just as in her dream, the girls were with him. Tanya and Stella. They flanked him, looking over at her with sorrowful expressions.

Danny pointed upward. She frowned, and realized that he was referring to the exhibits above them. She thought briefly, and she knew which tableau stood right above them, on the second floor.

The hanging tree.

They heard the door open.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Pete Dryer demanded in his husky, authoritative voice.

“Thank God!” Sean breathed. “Pete, we found this bastard lurking around in here,” Sean said.