Ghost Shadow

9

Strippers came in all sizes, shapes and varieties-even ages. Once, in college, David and a friend had done a piece on the strippers of north Florida. A lot of their other friends had ribbed them about the project, but it had earned them both superior marks for a photojournalism class.

A lot of young and very attractive women went into the work for the money. And the story was usually the same. It was good money with little effort. Prostitution and stripping were not the same, though the latter sometimes led to the first. One girl they had interviewed told them that drugs were readily available, so stripping sometimes led to drug or alcohol addiction. The addiction meant that more money needed to be earned, and stripping allowed a girl to find out who had money and who didn’t, and who would pay, what they would pay for and how much.

Some strippers remained, even when not addicted to drugs, alcohol or sex, because they liked the thrill of being sexy on a pole. To some, it was empowering.

Others did love sex.

Some just loved money.

When Morgana appeared on the floor, David at first felt sorry for her. The woman was not young, nor did she have a perfect body.

But she could move. He imagined, watching her, that as a young girl, she had wanted to be a dancer-a dancer, not a stripper. When she moved, there was something special about her.

Some of the customers in the establishment were talking and didn’t even notice her. Some of the clientele hooted and hollered.

She seemed oblivious to all of them.

And yet, when her music ended, she was back playing the game. David thought it was all by rote. There was a look of abject sadness in her eyes, even when she smiled. She was far away, even when she bent down to squeeze a bill between her breasts or accept an offering in the thong bikini she wore that was just strings.

When she walked from the stage, David rose to meet her, reaching out a hundred-dollar bill. She looked at him, and her eyes grew wider. Fear registered in them. He was afraid she was going to press the bill back into his hands and run.

“My friend Katie told me about you today,” he said quickly. “I’m so sorry. I just want to talk to you. I was hoping you could tell me more about Stella Martin.”

She hesitated. She stared at him. “The place downstairs has a quiet patio in back. But the bartender is a big, old bruiser, and he’s a good friend of mine,” she said.

He smiled. “I swear, I have no intention of hurting you,” he said gently.

“And don’t go getting the police on me!” she warned.

“No,” he said.

“Five minutes,” she told him.

She left, and as she did so, David turned to see that someone was leaving from the far back of the room.

Someone who had been sitting in the shadows, and was now just about hugging the wall and the darkness to hurry out.

Danny Zigler.

There she was. Katie O’Hara. She was leaving her house behind, as she had surely done thousands of times before.

Katie O’Hara. Such a pretty thing. Sweet kid. She always had been. No doormat, she could handle a drunk out of control, speak with a cool authority that seemed to demand attention and hold her own with the best of them. Actually, she might be called beautiful now. All the rough edges of the child and the teen were gone; she was a woman. She had a magical speaking voice, and as far as Katie-oke went, ah, she was great.

Katie O’Hara…

She was there, she was alone, she was vulnerable.

Tonight…

Ah, tonight…

Tonight was too soon.

Too soon; the death of the stripper had to be noted, puzzled and plastered all over the news. A stripper might be forgotten quickly. That was the way of the world. But Stella Martin, pathetic user that she had been, had now taken her place in importance. Now she was history; she was legend.

And, of course, that would be it with Katie, too.

For a moment, he frowned, regretting the fact that he had chosen such a whore to be his victim. Stella hadn’t really deserved to be remembered in any way.

Then again, Tanya Barnard hadn’t been pristine, either.

Katie…well, Katie was a good girl. She deserved the best. She truly deserved to be legend.

Something very, very special would have to be done for her. Nothing quick, nothing spur-of-the-moment. It must be thought out carefully.

Fantasy Fest was coming…

Ah, yes. Something truly magnificent could be done with Fantasy Fest.

On a Monday night, the streets were quiet. Comparatively.

There were still people out and about. The bars were open on Duval, and scattered venues around the city. It was an odd Monday-still Monday, but a Monday with the city beginning to fill. Many people planned vacations around Fantasy Fest, and some had already trickled in. More would arrive on Friday night, when the city went into high gear.

Katie wondered if there would be an air of nervousness, or if tourists would simply need the diversion for their own lives.

Usually, people could rationalize away something wrong, heinous or even evil.

I’m not a prostitute. I can’t be affected.

I am always with my friends…husband…lover…

I will be safe.

Of course it was true.

The ghost walked ahead of Katie.

She thought that the ghost of Stella Martin was going to turn down the block before Duval, but she didn’t. She seemed to hesitate, as if thinking out her move. She looked at Katie, and then she moved on to Duval.

Katie followed. There was no reason for her to be afraid. Duval was as familiar to her as her own front walk.

Rick’s was open, as was the Irish bar across the street, and both seemed to be busy. Up ahead, more bars were still issuing the sounds of music out to the road and all those who still prowled the town. They passed the smallest bar, and a few old friends were hanging around; they waved to Katie. She waved back and hurried on.

They were near one of the inns on Duval Street that many people might pass on a daily basis-and barely notice. They were wonderful places for the city. Small, on top of storefronts, they often had the kind of rooms where spring-breakers might find an affordable stay. Her brother had rented one with a group of friends once. “Katie, there’s one bed. There’s a bed under the bed, and when you open the closet, there’s a mattress standing up! It’s just great. Of course, you have a ton of folks and one bathroom, but it means that kids can afford to come!”

The ghost stopped. She stared at Katie, frowned, looked worried, then sighed.

And walked around back.

Katie hesitated, then followed her.

A narrow alley led to the back of the building and stairs that allowed guests at the place to depart through the rear of the establishment. Another alley ran between the shops, bars and restaurants on the main street and the shops, bars, restaurants, B and Bs and homes that were on the other side.

Katie could hear all the sounds from the street. The laughter. The music. The cars and small motorcycles going by. She could hear the light toot of a horn.

Laughter again.

The ghost looked anxiously about and ran along the back alley, then stood in the midst of bushes and the dripping branches of a large sea grape tree.

Katie walked over to her. The ghost seemed very afraid; she looked around constantly.

She opened her mouth. She couldn’t really make sound. She wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable in her death as Bartholomew had come to be. Katie could barely hear her.

I was here, it’s all I remember, but the plastic, the darkness and the fact that I couldn’t breathe. Then the hands, I can’t forget the hands around my neck.

A car backfired away on the streets; the ghost of Stella Martin actually seemed to jump.

Get to the light, get to the light and the people, it’s the darkness…he knows the streets. He was following me… I didn’t realize…

“Stella,” Katie said aloud, “was it Danny? Danny Zigler?”

Stella frowned. I…no. I don’t know. I don’t know! But go…please. It’s dark. Go now, and help me, please help me. Go, and don’t get yourself killed, or how the hell will you help me?

The ghost was finding her personality. Brash in life, she would be so in death.

Katie turned.

She knew the city so well. Knew the streets, the legends, even where trees grew and bushes were thick, where foliage had been cut back, where locals gathered, and where they did not.

She knew her city.

But she felt as if she was being watched.

As if she had been followed.

And while just a block away the city was alive and bursting with music and colorful revelers, those who had come from near and from far, she felt alone.

But she knew it; she had been seen.

She had been seen talking to thin air, right at the place where Stella had been killed.

Something seemed to creep along her nape. Something more frightening than she had ever experienced. Not of another world, but of this world.

She sensed evil. Living, breathing evil.

He was hidden, watching. Her senses seemed acutely attuned, and it was as if she could hear him standing still, and yet causing a slight rustling. Watching her. Stalking her. Waiting, his breath coming fast, his hands clenched at his sides. Strong hands, the kind that could quickly cause suffocation, and then squeeze the life from the living.

The ghost was agitated, too.

She began to fade.

“Run!” she said.

And Katie did.

Cleaned up, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, her face scrubbed, her hair in a ponytail, Stella’s friend Morgana Willams seemed like a woman in her late thirties-in fact, she looked like the girl next door.

“I know who you are,” she told David wearily.

He had offered to buy her a drink. She hadn’t wanted alcohol; just a cup of coffee. It was still readily available.

They sat at a little open-air table in the far back of the establishment, within sight of many who were escaping the music and yet still partying. Some looked as if they were already preparing for hellacious hangovers the next day.

Some had been moderate, and were watching out for their friends.

“I didn’t kill your friend,” he said.

She smiled, a dampness about her eyes. “I believe you. Of course, I wasn’t here ten years ago. I came down from the farmlands of Indiana. I didn’t want a boring life, you know. I’m not sure I exactly planned on this life, but…hey. Maybe I’ll find Mr. Right somewhere.”

“You never know,” he told her.

“The police already questioned me,” she told him.

“Well, it makes sense,” he told her.

“They questioned everyone in the club. One of the guys is your relative, isn’t he? A cop named Liam Beckett.”

“He’s my cousin.”

“Yeah, you can tell.”

“He’s a good guy,” David told her.

She nodded. “He was real respectful. He didn’t treat us like we were all whores-or the underbelly of society.”

David smiled. “Well, you are gainfully employed. And, by the way, I thought you might have been a dancer-as in musicals-at some time. Were you?”

Her face lit up. She was almost pretty. “You could tell that? Really?”

He nodded.

“I started off in the Big Apple-New York City,” she said. “I even worked Off Broadway. But then I met Joe, and Joe introduced me to…a few friends who weren’t friends at all. Cocaine and heroin, and before I knew it… Never mind. You’re not here to listen to my story, are you?”

“You can dance,” he assured her simply.

She sipped her coffee. “I can’t tell you anything I haven’t already told the cops. Stella did have a thing with Danny Zigler-on again, off again. And she had some regulars, but she didn’t even tell me about them. She said that she was sworn to silence, ’cause big muckety-mucks never wanted anyone to know that they hung around with folks like us. I told her that the muckety-mucks were ashamed that they needed help to get it up, you know what I mean? But-you think that Danny might have killed her? Danny always seems like a nice guy. He’s not ambitious, but…lots of guys down here aren’t exactly balls of fire, you know what I mean?”

“So you can’t name anyone else she might have had a regular relationship with?”

Morgana sniffed. “You got a cigarette?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “No, but I’ll get you one.”

The bar itself was still open. The fellow running it seemed to be Eastern European, possibly Russian. When David asked for a pack of cigarettes, the fellow’s accent confirmed his thought. Russian or Ukrainian.

The bartender didn’t know him, and he accepted the money for the cigarettes with no comment on his past or the day’s events.

David brought the cigarettes to Morgana. She lit up and inhaled greedily, looking at David. “Yeah, yeah, they’re going to kill me one day. But they keep me off the hard stuff.”

“I’m not a judge, I promise,” David told her.

She managed a laugh. “No, no you’re not, are you. All right, what else can I tell you? Whoever local she was seeing who was in the higher echelon or whatever, I don’t know. She did care about Danny, and they did see each other.”

“Thank you for helping me, for telling me that. What I need to know now is what happened that night. When did you last see Stella?” David asked.

Morgana inhaled deeply and was silent for a few seconds. When she spoke at last, it was thoughtfully. “We worked that night, but she took off early. No, no, wait, that wasn’t right. She took a break and went down the street. Then she came running back in. I tried to ask her what was going on-but she wouldn’t tell me.” Morgana hesitated a minute. She grimaced weakly and shrugged. “She-she could be a bit of a pickpocket, but she told me she figured she was actually helping the youth of America. If she stole their money and their cards, they couldn’t get plastered and kill themselves on their way back up the island.”

David smiled. “I guess there’s some logic to that.”

Morgana’s smile deepened, and then faded.

“She really wasn’t a bad person,” she said. “She just-well, you know. She just didn’t get the real opportunities in life. Both her folks are dead, at least that’s what she told people. Whatever, she went from foster home to foster home and I guess she kind of learned how to survive. You understand?”

David nodded. He set a hand on Morgana’s. “Morgana, you certainly don’t have to excuse your friend to me. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. She had her quirks, she might have been a petty thief and even a prostitute. But I understand. She’d never physically hurt anyone.”

Morgana nodded vehemently. “That’s it, exactly. I’ve seen the news. Some of those reporters are making it sound like she almost deserved what happened because of the life she led.” Tears formed in Morgana’s eyes again. “Oh, God, it must have been horrible. I can just imagine… I hope she didn’t suffer long.”

David said, “Morgana, I saw her. I think it was very quick. She might not have known anything at all-until it happened. And she probably lost consciousness very quickly, and died after she had passed out.”

“You think?” she asked. “I mean, we’re all going to die, aren’t we? I just pray that she didn’t suffer.”

He waited for her to go on, but she seemed lost in thought.

“Morgana, please, help me,” he said softly.

She stared at him and nodded. “Right. She came back in, and she worked until late. Three or four in the morning. But she was all excited. She’d met a college kid. He’d been in here earlier with friends. I think she was seeing him after. She didn’t tell me, she wouldn’t-because I don’t turn tricks. I won’t. Okay, maybe I’m a fairly naked dancer and I do posture in front of old, hairy men, but I don’t turn tricks!”

“So she wouldn’t tell you about it-but you think she went back out to find someone. Was it a real date, do you think? Or was she out looking, hoping to make it a real date?”

Morgana was thoughtful. “I’m trying so hard to remember what she said… All right, I think she had a run-in with the police. No! Wait, not a run-in. I think she escaped because someone else got nabbed, but let go.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She said something about the ‘poor kid’ being a cutie and she sure hoped that she could make it up to him.”

“All right. She was out-picking a pocket. She returned, and she went back out again. But you think the kid-or young man-she went out to find had been in the club?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Would you recognize the men who had been in?”

“Probably. Maybe,” she said softly.

David leaned back. “You’ve been helpful, Morgana. You’ve been great.” College kids. He was sure they were the kids he’d helped Pete with on the street the other night. He was already making a mental note of the local places that he’d need to go to find them again. Liam was already on the case, of course, and he’d already done a lot of the questioning that might be pertinent to this new information. “Let me walk you home,” he told her.

“I’m way down on the south end. Off the really far south end of Duval.”

“It’s all right. I’ll walk you,” David assured her.

She smiled. Just as she did so, someone suddenly burst out from the bushes behind them, streaking into the light of the bar’s patio area. She was running so fast she plowed directly into their table.

David stared in amazement while Morgana said, “What the fu-?”

David jumped up to steady the whirlwind, already confused and angry.

Even before she looked at him with wide, green eyes, he knew who it was.

Katie O’Hara.

“When I said wait for me, I didn’t mean in a dark alley. There’s a murderer on the loose.”

David was seriously aggravated with her. Even before they had dropped Morgana at her apartment, his jaw had seemed locked, his words had been stilted and, when he touched her, it certainly wasn’t with affection.

And what in God’s name did she say?

You’ll never believe this, but I see ghosts. And yes, they can startle me at times, but I’m not afraid of them-they’re just looking for something. They’re here because they need help.

Her brother had already warned her. She didn’t want to be known as the crazy woman who lived in Key West.

She didn’t know what to say. She decided that she had to be on the offensive.

She shook her head. “David, look. I like you. I really like you. But I grew up here. I work here. This is my home. I have walked these streets thousands of times. I can’t lock myself in and forget about my life just because you’ve suddenly come home, determined to catch a murderer, certain that what went on in the past is relevant to today.”

“Gee. What a concept,” he said, his tone grating. She looked at his face. If his features became any more tense, she thought that they might crack and then shatter, like glass.

He stopped dead. They were alone; the street was deserted.

He spun around to stare at her, not touching her, his hands at his sides and far too knotted to do so. “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded. “That was the most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever heard! I just decided to go the quiet way,” he mimicked. “And there was a rustle in the grass, and silly me, I just panicked. My God, is that a crock!”

Staring back at him, fighting for both composure and the right words, she felt ridiculously like crying herself.

It was really so hard. So hard to find someone in life who could make her feel the way that David made her feel. She’d spent so little time with him, and yet, when bizarre things hadn’t been happening, he hadn’t been just sensually and sexually amazing, he’d been someone who really knew her world, loved her world, diving, boats, the water, island life…

She lifted her hands. It hadn’t gone that far, and by the look of him, it wasn’t going any further. Stop it all right now before she was in deep, before it all hurt more than it already did.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I felt that I needed to be out. I’d intended to stay on Duval with a zillion other people. Then I idiotically cut off and-this should please you-managed to scare myself half to death. Nothing happened. Nothing happened at all. I heard a leaf rustle, and in my present mood, I crashed back into light and noise as quickly as I could. How the hell did I know you were going to be there? Okay, sorry, I did know you were going to the strip club, but I didn’t know that you’d be out on the patio. I mean, they strip inside. Except at Fantasy Fest, and that’s not really stripping, that’s just folks who like to show off their body paint.”

He just stared at her incredulously. Then he shook his head.

“Why are you lying?”

“I’m not lying!” But she was.

He stared at her awhile longer. She realized that she had caught her breath.

“Please, I’m sorry, and yet I’m not. I live here, this is my life,” she told him. “You left, and now you’re back, but that doesn’t change the island and I-I can’t let it change me. Please understand.”

He let out a sigh of impatience.

He took her by the crook of her arm.

“All right. I’m not getting anything else out of you, not tonight anyway. Let’s get you home.”

At least he wasn’t going to walk off, just leave her in the street.

They started walking, almost ten blocks down Duval. Again, music grew loud.

They turned off and came to her house. She opened the door, and looked at him.

“Am I invited in?” he asked flatly.

“Yes, of course. To stay,” she added softly.

They walked in.

And there was truth to tension, passion and emotion creating something wild and turbulent. In the hallway, they were in one another’s arms.

As they moved up the stairs, they were already removing one another’s clothing and their own.

In her room, they didn’t touch a light or even the bedspread.

They just crashed down, naked and hot, seeking one another’s lips and flesh, and making love as if they had known one another forever…

And as if there would never be another tomorrow.

David talked to Liam first thing in the morning, asking him if anyone had reported a burglary-other than the pickpocket the night before Stella Martin had been found. Liam brought up the reports for the night and the next day and told him no.

“Why are you asking?”

“I talked to Stella’s friend Morgana.”

“So did I,” Liam told him.

“I know. She said that you were a gentleman.”

“Well, gee, shucks. Glad to hear it,” Liam said. “I’ve been checking out the angle you’re talking about. I’m assuming that the guy you and Pete met up with Saturday night-the guy who filed a pickpocket report-is the guy who Stella worked over. Maybe those college guys involved in the fight are the guys Morgana is talking about.”

“Morgana said she thought that Stella met up with a college student,” David said.

“But the thing is, I don’t think she was killed by a college student. Not that a psycho can’t be that age-just that I doubt one of the kids down for the weekend would have the what-have-you to get into that museum, steal the tape and disappear without leaving behind a fingerprint, hair or single skin cell.”

“Do you know that there was no physical evidence?” David asked.

“If there is, the crime-scene folk don’t have it so far.”

“Still, I’m going around to see if I can find out who was with Stella,” David said.

“I’ll give you a list of where I, or other officers, have already been,” Liam told him.

“Thanks,” David said.

“You’re going to double-check anyway, aren’t you?” Liam asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m doing my best on this, you know that,” Liam told him.

“I know. I know you’ve got my back, and I’m grateful,” David assured him.

He was just closing his phone when Katie came down the stairs. She was freshly showered, her hair wet and back, wearing a terry robe.

“Good morning,” he said a little huskily.

She came up to him. He was perched on one of the bar stools at the kitchen pass-through and she sat on the one beside him, setting her hands on his knees.

“I think I know where Stella might have been murdered,” she told him.

He frowned and asked carefully, “Oh?”

She nodded, her gaze meeting his steadily. But she didn’t speak again; she stood and walked around to help herself to coffee.

“Walk with me, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

She sipped her coffee black, staring at him over the rim of the cup.

“Why do you think you know?” he asked her.

“Logic,” she told him flatly.

“Maybe you want to explain that logic?” he said.

“Come with me. Give me a minute-I just have to hop into some clothes, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

“All right,” he said gravely.

She smiled, and he realized that she had been waiting for him to believe in her.

“I’d like to get home, though. I need to shower and change,” he told her.

“Go to Sean’s room, just grab something of his for this time,” she said.

“Isn’t Sean on his way home? I feel a little strange, helping myself to his belongings.”

She shrugged. “He told me ages ago that if he hadn’t taken things, they didn’t matter that much. And you two were friends. His room is down the hall from mine.”

“Okay, thanks. But I still have to get home for a bit.”

“Of course. But let’s do this first. I may really be able to help you.”

“All right.”

She still stared at him for a moment. Smiling.

He should know the feeling. She looked at him the way people had once looked at him. He remembered his grandparents, his aunts and his cousin. Remembered what it was like to know that they didn’t look at him with suspicion, but complete belief.

She turned and headed for the stairs. He followed her a second later. Sean and he were about the same size. He felt like an intruder, but he also hated putting on the same clothing after a shower. He figured Sean wouldn’t mind a friend borrowing a pair of button-fly jeans and polo shirt.

He came downstairs, perched on the bar stool again and waited for Katie.

As he sat there, the newspaper sitting on the table, with a headline reading Murder in Paradise, suddenly rustled-and moved.

He frowned. He walked over to the table, thinking that the air-conditioning system must have a vent over the table.

But there was no vent.

He moved the paper. Nothing happened; there was no erstwhile bug hiding under the paper.

His imagination?

No, he’d seen it move.

Even as he still pondered the strange rustling, Katie came running back down the stairs, now wearing a pin-striped sundress.

He found himself watching her.

She was…

Katie. Stunning, perfect and with that smile and those eyes that seemed to offer so much honesty, and yet…

Not really. She was keeping something from him. He hoped that she’d trust him soon, and tell him what it was.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He nodded.

They left the house together. He was silent, waiting for her to talk as they came around Duval.

She pointed. “There-the museum where Stella was posed.”

“Right.”

“I’m thinking that the person she was with stayed just on Duval-one of the cheaper places. But he didn’t stay in a massive room with a bunch of other people. So, I was thinking there-” She paused and pointed across the street. There was a little inn above a swimsuit shop. “Or there.” She pointed on the same side of the street, just down from the bar and the strip club.

“Possibly,” he agreed.

“Now, if they were on this side of the street, she might have come through the back, trying to avoid the cops. Assuming that Stella did rip someone off. The cops tend to be on Duval. So if she ran around in back… Come on. I’ll show you what I mean.”

During the day, especially this early, the patio was quiet. There were people walking around, sipping coffee here and there, but not that many. The place really began to come alive in the afternoon.

Katie took his hand and led him across the bar’s patio and to the alley. There were private homes and B and Bs lining that side of the street, with a Vespa rental place at the end of the corner.

“Here. Right here,” Katie said.

She stood beneath the shade of a beautiful, old sea grape tree. The branches were overgrown, and it could certainly offer cover. If she had come here, though, and been murdered, she had to have been followed.

By her mark-or her john for the night?

Or by someone else. Someone else who may have known her lifestyle and her hours, and who might have followed her. If all the timing was right, she had been taken in the early or even late afternoon, before the real nightlife and music started.

Frowning, he came to stand beneath the sea grape tree. There were a lot of wild crotons in the area as well, making it a place where there was cover-where people might be hidden.

As he did so, he looked around, studying the patches of overgrown grass and weeds around them.

The wind rustled the leaves on the tree.

The sun glinted through.

David frowned and walked a few feet. He bent down. Something had caught the sun for just a moment.

It was a charge card, a “gold” card.

“You have a tissue?” he asked Katie.

She produced one. He carefully picked the card up by an edge. It bore the name Lewis Agaro.

Lewis Agaro. He was the kid he had chased down in the street for Pete Dryer. The kid who had been accused of being a pickpocket, when it was probably Stella Martin who had done the picking.

“You know the name?”

“Yes. I know who the kid is, but I sure don’t see him murdering anyone. He was terrified when the cops looked at him for maybe being a thief. I’m pretty sure Pete will remember him, too. I think the kid was innocent, Pete just let him go. I think a few guys had been rolled by Stella, and they’d complained, and Pete was ready to call her out for her extracurricular activities.”

“So, you think-”

“No, but I want to talk to the kid myself before the cops do. And I want to find Danny first.” He frowned pensively. “Look. There’s something sticky on the card.”

Katie studied the card, as well. “What does it mean-anything?”

“Maybe. If Stella rolled her last john, she might have lost something along the way-this guy’s stolen credit card. If you’re right about her being killed here, it might help us. If you’re right, it might lead us to the kid Stella spent her last night with-Lewis Agaro,” he said. “But what the hell is on the card?”

She started to touch the card, but stopped, aware they might need to find prints on it. She looked him in the eyes. “If I’m not mistaken,” she said, “I think it’s the remnants of drying chocolate ice cream.”

“Danny Zigler,” he said.