Ghost Shadow

10

“I just don’t see it, I really don’t see it,” Katie said. “I can’t believe Danny could be a murderer. He worked for your grandfather. I’d have had him work for me. Seriously, if we had to arrest everyone down here who didn’t make a fortune and was happy just to be, we’d be arresting a lot of people. And he’s responsible-he’s not living off anyone else. He does work. He just doesn’t need to own the world.”

“Katie, I came back, Sam Barnard came back-and Danny Zigler was suddenly busing tables at O’Hara’s. Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”

“No,” she said stubbornly. “Everyone is grabbing extra help with Fantasy Fest on the way. Hey-I don’t manage O’Hara’s, and I don’t want to,” she said. “Jon Merrillo hires on extra help when Uncle Jamie is away. Danny Zigler has worked there before.”

“Look, I don’t want Danny to be a bad guy, either,” David said. “But he was at O’Hara’s the night Tanya died, and he’s hanging around there now-and he was seeing Stella Martin. That makes him suspicious.”

“I don’t think that’s politically correct anymore,” Katie said. “He’s a person of interest.”

“Right. And I’m interested. And I want to talk to him before they get him down at the station, but I don’t want to hang on to evidence too long.” He looked at her. “Katie, I’m going to talk to Danny Zigler. I have to find him, of course, but he should be at the ice-cream parlor. I…”

“You don’t want me around,” she said.

“It will be easier for me to speak with him alone. And…”

“David, look, I appreciate the fact that you’re afraid for me, I really do. But it’s broad daylight. I’ll hang in clear sight, all right?” Katie said. He was still staring at her. “David, this is my home. A home I love. I intend to stay here, live here and be part of whatever the future brings. I cannot become afraid of my own home.” She inhaled, meeting his eyes. “I know how badly you want the truth, and I understand completely. But Tanya’s death went unsolved for more than a decade. Let’s face it, sometimes, things are never solved. I can’t become paranoid, but we should always know how to be very careful.”

“Do you ever carry Mace or pepper spray or anything like that?” he asked her.

“No. And I’m afraid I never took karate classes, either.”

“I’ll talk to Liam about getting you something,” David said.

“David, really-” She broke off, seeing his eyes. “Pepper spray sounds like something good to keep in my bag,” she agreed.

“All right. Listen for me to call, please,” he told her.

She nodded. “I’ll just get a bite to eat,” she said.

He went his way.

David didn’t know the man he found working at the ice-cream parlor.

When he asked about Danny Zigler, the man exploded, issuing a barrage of Spanish that David didn’t really follow. But he knew enough to understand that Danny Zigler was being cursed.

“I’m sorry-he didn’t show up for work?” David asked.

“The little rat bastard just disappeared,” the man said. “He was due in to open up at eight this morning, clean the machines, get it all going. At ten Mrs. Clasky calls me to tell me that the place is not open, and here I am myself, working, when I gave that good-for-nothing a job!” the man said.

“Did you try calling him?” David asked.

The man glared at him as if he was an idiot. “Of course, I call him! His phone is turned off.”

“Have you been to his house?” David asked.

The fellow, a tall, beefy man, leaned on the counter. “Do you see me here? If I’m here, I’m not going by his house!”

“Do you have an address for him?” David asked.

The man looked angry and exasperated. “You the cops or something?” he demanded.

“I’m the ‘something,’” David told him.

The man stared another moment, muttered, then reached under the counter for a memo pad. He wrote down an address off Union Street. David thanked him.

David’s cell rang as he started toward Union. It was Liam.

“Hey,” David said. “Have they brought anyone in for questioning yet?”

“No. Uniforms are out looking for Danny Zigler, I guess he and Stella were an item, and Pete is trying to track down the crowd that was outside O’Hara’s the other night. He thinks one of those college kids has to know something.”

“Zigler didn’t show up for work.”

“We don’t have anything for a search warrant, and he didn’t answer at his place,” Liam told him.

“So-do you have anything?” David asked.

“Yeah. You’d asked me before about tracing down Mike Sanderson-Tanya’s new boyfriend, the guy she was supposed to meet up at Ohio State.”

“And?”

“We know this much about Mike Sanderson-he used one of his credit cards for gas in St. Augustine on the thirteenth-the day after Tanya was killed,” Liam said.

Katie felt Bartholomew striding along at her side. She cast a sideways glance his way. “Where have you been?” she asked.

“Naturally, I have been using my charm and persuasion to discover the truth,” he told her.

“Oh? So-where have you been seeking this truth?” she asked him.

“I hung around the museum for a long time, just watching the crime-scene folks,” he said.

“And what did you learn there?”

“That they’re not going to get much of anything. Oh, well, I guess everyone knows this-there was no sign of a break-in. They had the owners and managers all gathered in an area, and that lieutenant fellow-Dryer-was pretty hard on them all, demanding to know how many keys were out and around. Two fellows-snowbirds-own the place, but there are three managers, and they’re all local. Dryer wasn’t getting anywhere, but Liam Beckett tried a bit more of an understanding approach, and it turns out that one of the managers left one of the employees to lock the place up a few nights ago, and she managed to lose the keys. They didn’t rekey the place, they just had another set of keys made. Whoever broke into the place used the keys, apparently knew the alarm code and didn’t disturb a thing-other than the Carl Tanzler/Elena de Hoyos exhibit. Oh-they found Elena. The mannequin of Elena, that is. She was just behind one of the other exhibits. So, this is what I know-whoever did it was bright enough to grab the security tapes, use gloves-and find out the alarm code before bringing in Stella Martin’s body.”

“So we are thinking local,” Katie murmured. “Because I’d say whoever did it had to have followed people around. When the employee lost the keys, he had to have found them-and he had to have known what they opened.”

Bartholomew grinned. “That, my dear, was not difficult. There was a medallion on the key chain that advertised the museum.”

“That opens it up, I guess. Hey, did the police hold anyone from the museum?”

“As far as I know, they have a task force going over everything that they have and they’ll be bringing folks in for questioning by this afternoon,” Bartholomew said.

“You were gone overnight,” Katie reminded Bartholomew.

“Ah, yes. I came back to the house, but you were-occupied. I turned on the coffeemaker again this morning. You didn’t even realize it!” He was hurt.

“I’m sorry, Bartholomew,” Katie said. “I really am. I didn’t see you and David had gone down first.”

“David!” Bartholomew said, and sniffed. “You have rushed headfirst into this!” he said.

“I keep telling you, make up your mind. You like him or you don’t like him,” Katie said.

“Since he was with you, he definitely didn’t kill the prostitute,” Bartholomew said. “All right, I like the fellow enough. He reminds me of someone I knew a very long time ago.”

“Really?”

Bartholomew swept aside, as if he were physically there, as a group carrying fresh margaritas came down the street, laughing.

They could have walked through him.

Bartholomew liked to think that there was substance to him.

“Sea captain,” Bartholomew said. “Decent fellow.”

“Maybe he was one of David’s ancestors,” Katie said. “The family dates back to the early years.”

“That’s what I figure,” Bartholomew said.

She didn’t reply; a woman standing with a beer just outside Sloppy Joe’s was staring at her. It was evident that the woman was wondering if Katie was a crazy person talking to herself, or if she had started drinking too early.

Katie turned down Greene Street. Captain Tony’s had been the original Sloppy Joe’s. Sloppy Joe, however, had been a real Key West character. Angry over a hike in his rent, he had simply moved his establishment in the middle of the night, lock, stock and barrel. Now, Sloppy Joe’s was right on Duval, and the space on Greene Street was Captain Tony’s.

She stepped on into the bar.

A large, open doorway led to a setting with the feel of rustic outdoors, but air-conditioning still coursed through the place. The “hanging tree” was in the center of a sitting area, and it had become vogue for visitors to leave behind their bras, elegant and old-fashioned, whatever someone might be wearing.

Katie took a table near the tree. It was impossible to know, through the years, what was authentic and what was legend about the place. Fact or fiction, the stories behind the bar and the building were true Key West legend.

As she took her seat at the table, she closed her eyes and thought about all of the history behind this very spot.

Sloppy Joe, Joe Russell, had become friends with Hemingway when he had cashed a check for him that the banks wouldn’t. He had been larger than life, just like Hemingway, and the two had been good friends. But, before that, the building had been a telegraph station that had first received the news about the Maine, an icehouse doubling as the city morgue, a cigar factory and a bordello.

The hanging tree in the middle of the room was now covered in undergarments. Throughout many years, it had been the place of execution for Key West and its environs. A woman had died here, accused of killing her husband and child, and she supposedly haunted the ladies’ room.

“What can I get you?”

Katie opened her eyes. A perky and very young waitress smiled as she asked the question.

“A giant iced tea and a menu, please,” Katie told her.

She seemed disappointed that Katie hadn’t come in to drown her sorrows with some form of expensive alcohol, but her smile barely cracked. “Coming right up!” she said.

Bartholomew had seated himself next to Katie, extending a booted leg from one chair to another and doffing his hat. He looked disgusted.

“Is there a reason we’re here?” he asked.

“I like the place.”

“You’re hoping that it’s teeming with ghosts who will give you all the answers you want. Well, don’t count on it. They’re all still whining over the past, and they’re not going to help you with anything in the present,” he said.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “Stella Martin’s ghost helped me tremendously.”

“So, she should have told you who killed her, flat out!” Bartholomew said.

“But she doesn’t know. Still, she led me to a clue.”

“Yeah?”

“A credit card-and it was smudged with ice cream.”

Bartholomew let out a chortle. A few tables up, Katie saw a woman frown and look around. Then she shivered. She had felt that a ghost was near, apparently.

“Behave,” Katie murmured.

“Me? You’re the one who appears to be talking to herself!”

She grimaced and waited for her tea. She thanked the young girl, sipped it and halfway closed her eyes. She tried to open up to anything that might be going on.

“Can you hear the rope swing against the branches?” Bartholomew asked softly. “You can hear it, back and forth, back and forth…swinging with the weight of a man.”

She kept her glass in front of her lips. “You died here.”

“Yes, I died here. I was snatched out of bed and dragged down to the hanging tree-for an act of piracy I did not commit. A bastard pirate named Eli Smith attacked an unarmed American vessel out in the straits, but when he was confronted by the authorities, he swore I was the guilty party, and I was hanged before the truth could be known. I was dead by the time a friend-the original Craig Beckett-came around to decry the act and tell them that I had truly turned merchant when my privateering days were over, and it was Eli Smith who attacked the vessel in the eight-gun sloop Bessie Blue. The true tragedy is that I, of all men, would have never attacked that ship. I was madly in love with Victoria Wyeth, and she died in the attack. Her father became a madman because of her death.”

“Why did they believe Eli Smith and assume you had attacked the ship?” Katie asked.

“Because Victoria had been the love of my life, and we were going to run away together. Her father sent her out ahead, planning to make her live with relatives in Virginia until she forgot about me. I knew that I didn’t have a chance of living with her, happily ever after, if I didn’t convince her family that I was the man she should have, and Craig Beckett was highly respected. I’d been on a simple fishing expedition with him when the attack had taken place, and he had promised that-after dealing with a smuggling problem up the islands-he’d see to it that the old bastard Wyeth learned that I had been a privateer, and that I had never been a cutthroat pirate. All right, in some instance, there might have been little difference. But I had never, ever attacked an American ship. But that night, I was down toward the south of the island, sound asleep, and a lynch mob broke in on me. I managed a bit of a defense-slashed the nose off one hairy, old bastard!-but there were two dozen of them, and me. And so I was hanged from the neck until dead, and when I come in here now, I can still hear the rope scrape against the tree.”

She forgot where they were, forgot that people might be watching, and set her hand over his. “Bartholomew, I am so sorry.”

He nodded. “Well, there were interesting years, and dreary years. I wanted to get to know Hemingway, he was an odd and interesting fellow-and that Carl Tanzler, he was certainly a curiosity. I wondered what I was doing here. My Victoria seemed to be long gone. Then I came across you, and well, if nothing else, Katie-oke is entertaining, and I think I’ve decided that I’m hanging around because you so obviously need help and guidance!”

“Bartholomew, that’s very sweet, but seriously, I’m all right.”

“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.”