Ghost Shadow

11

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!

And, at long last, David would go down.

He had seen his mistakes of the past; he knew better now. He had learned. David would go down.

Bless the state of Florida, and the death penalty.

The next time Katie’s phone rang, it was Clarinda. David was still on his own phone, pacing around the table in the dining room as he put through two calls, one to his cousin Liam and another to Lieutenant Dryer.

“Hey, hey, you there?” Clarinda asked.

“Yes, hey, what’s up?”

“Jonas and I are going to go down to Mallory Square. Want to join us?”

“You’re going to Mallory Square?” It was a huge destination for tourists, and, actually, beautiful and a lot of fun. The sunsets were spectacular. Jugglers, musicians, all kinds of entertainers came from all over the world to perform on the square.

“We thought it would be nice. I take it you’re still hanging with David Beckett?”

“Yes.”

“And, of course, you’re both obsessed with the death of that poor Stella Martin?”

“As you imagine,” Katie agreed.

“Well, no one can solve something like that, and if you two become too obsessed, you’ll be worthless because you won’t see straight. Come on out, we’ll have drinks and dinner.”

David had hung up. Katie looked over at him. “It’s Clarinda. She wants us to meet with her and Jonas and walk around Mallory Square, have drinks and dinner.”

She thought that he would turn down the idea, because he was-obsessed.

“That sounds fine. What time are we meeting them, where?”

“What time, where?” Katie repeated to Clarinda.

“Half an hour-sunset is coming soon. The bar behind the Westin, how’s that?”

David had turned and was starting for the stairs. “Hey, where are you going?”

“Just to freshen up.”

“Well, then, I have to freshen up, too!”

“Ten minutes!” he said. “We’ll run by your place, and you have twelve minutes.”

He was good to his word, but he came down having stepped into the shower, and with freshly shaven cheeks and damp hair. He was devastating, she thought. It wasn’t the simple fact of his good looks, it was more. There was something that seemed hard and chiseled about his features, strong about his stature and compelling when he smiled. She took one look at him and nearly ran for the door, eager to get out before she longed to do something rather than leave and make their appointment.

They walked to her house, and he seemed light, taking her hand, swinging it as they hurried along.

Once in the door, he was all business. “You have twelve to fourteen minutes,” he told her.

“I can be faster than a speeding bullet,” she promised.

And she was. She managed a sixty-second shower and chose a halter dress and sandals with one-inch heels, ran a brush through her hair, splashed water on her face and ran on back down.

“I’m impressed-you have two minutes to spare.”

She smiled, walked to him, leaned against him and kissed him. He smelled divine. He felt rock-hard, and yet warm and vital. His tongue moved in her mouth, and she forgot all about the sunset.

He moved back, smiling, smoothing her hair. She quickly opened the door and stepped into the night, locking the door behind her.

“Sunset on Mallory Square. I can’t remember the last time I was there,” he said.

“I haven’t been in a while myself,” she said.

The city seemed to be teeming with people, even though it was a weekday. The air was already a hint cooler, and the sun was low in the western sky. Shadows seemed to darken doorways, as lights came on in the streets and streamed from shops and bars.

They crossed Front Street and continued to the square. The bar was crowded. There were advertisements everywhere for Fantasy Fest.

Body painting here. Whatever body part you want-painted!

Costumes of the absurd!

Beer for a buck!

Live your Fantasy-clothes optional up in the Garden!

“Hmm. I guess we are pretty decadent here,” David said.

“Grown-ups still like to dress up, that’s all,” Katie said.

“Or dress down. I’ve seen lots of costumes that consisted of nothing but body paint,” he said, grinning.

They’d reached the bar. Clarinda, dressed casually in a white pinstripe dress-one that made Katie glad that she had changed-came running out to meet them. “Can you believe it? It’s crowded as hell in there, and we haven’t gotten to the first of the activities. But we’ve got a table up top, so we can see the sunset and some of the performers.” Clarinda smiled broadly, looping her arm through David’s. “Come on up and meet Jonas. He’s a conch, too, but younger than you-he was in our class in high school.”

“Sounds great,” David said pleasantly.

It might have been a normal night, Katie thought. Two couples out to enjoy time together.

Jonas was tall, on the thin side, with a shy smile, but a pleasant manner. He seemed honestly pleased to meet David, and greeted him without any mention of the past-or the present.

“The city is insane!” he said, beckoning to their waiter. Katie and David ordered the draft-beer special for the night. David had his camera in his pocket, and though it looked like the usual slim digital camera that many people carried, Katie noticed that the lens was larger than most, and that it seemed to extend farther. Jonas asked him about the camera and David showed it to him, giving him the technical specifications. As he did so, Clarinda turned to Katie.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Well, that poor girl…it’s a similar murder.”

“Yes.”

“It means a killer is loose,” Clarinda said, and shivered. “I’m not making a move by myself, not a single move. I’ve moved right in with Jonas, and you know that I always liked keeping my independence. You-you’re hanging with David, right?” she asked.

Katie opened her mouth to answer, but Clarinda kept going. “I mean, all you have to do is know him to know that he didn’t kill anyone, but it is so bizarre that he’s back here, and that girl…you know?”

“I have complete trust in David,” Katie assured her.

As she spoke, David, who had been showing the camera to Jonas with the lens extended, suddenly stood.

He stared through the camera for a long moment.

She tried to see what had so captured his attention.

Below them, one of the local entertainers-originally from France-was performing with his multitude of cats. Cats that walked on wires and hopped over one another, and cats who jumped through burning hoops. Katie had always liked the man-he adopted strays to train, or saved animals from the local pound. A group was around him, laughing and chatting, and he had just chosen two youngsters to come up and help with the act. Beyond him were a pair of comedians who worked with balloon animals, and they had the group around them laughing, as well.

Beyond the entertainers was the sea, darkening like the sky. It was a calm night. Sea and sky together were picture-perfect.

The lights in the square suddenly seemed to brighten.

The sun had taken another plunge downward into the night. Orange, mauve and crimson streaks were streaming across the sky, with a deep purple on top, promising that night was nearly here.

David suddenly moved. He dropped the camera on the table, and he was gone, streaking down the stairs to the ground level below.

“David!”

Katie strained again to see what had attracted his attention before grabbing the camera and bolting down to follow him.

Just past the balloon men, there was a lone figure gathering his own fair share of the audience. The actor was dressed up as Robert the Doll. His mask must have been off; as Katie watched him, frowning, she saw that he was adjusting it, retying the bow at the back of his head that held the mask in place.

Katie had always considered the doll to be an ugly thing-and she was stunned that any parents would have allowed anyone to give their child such a present. Maybe the parents had been afraid of the servant who had given their child the doll, and it was easy to believe that whoever had made the doll was well versed in voodoo. Though the real doll was about three feet tall, the man wearing the costume was at least six feet, his size seeming to make the “doll” even uglier. The man’s mask was well made, and he seemed to have a bizarre and creepy face, just like the doll. Most of the time, Robert sat at the East Martello Museum, but he had recently been at a paranormal convention where he had been reputed to show an aura with special photography. The doll was good for the museum and for tourism.

But it was creepy.

The actor was standing on a little plastic platform, holding a stuffed dog toy just like the real doll’s and looking around the crowd in straw-stuffed silence with threatening moves.

Katie saw that David was making his way through the crowds, watching the cat man and the balloon artists, and heading for the doll.

She raced down the stairs in his wake, doing her best to weave through the crowd without plowing anyone down.

But as she reached the area where Robert the Doll was working, David burst in on him.

The actor forgot that he was working in silence. He let out a startled scream, jumped off his pedestal and started running.

David took off after him, and Katie took off after David.

David caught up with Robert the Doll on the grass behind the aquarium. He tackled him, as if he were sacking a quarterback, and the two plowed to the earth together.

People around them jumped back. Some gasped. One lady screamed. Another laughed and said it was part of the entertainment.

Katie rushed up to David, grabbing him by the arm. “David! Stop it, stop! You’re going to be nabbed for assault. What the hell are you doing?”

The man beneath him wasn’t fighting. A crowd was gathering. David let her drag him up, but he stared down at the man below him, then extended his hand. The actor took it slowly. He rose. David reached out, ripping the straw mask from the actor’s face.

“Katie, I don’t think you ever met Mike Sanderson. Mike was the fellow Tanya fell in love with while I was gone. He was supposedly in Ohio when she was murdered. But he wasn’t. He was in St. Augustine, we know, the day after, which means he could have easily been down here when the deed was done. And how very, very odd. Here he is-back again. Playing with history, dressed up like Robert the Doll. Maybe he likes to play at being Carl Tanzler, Count von Cosel, too. Maybe he needs a new dead bride every decade.”

The man was big; as big as David, and even bulkier. The sailor suit had hidden some of his muscle.

But it didn’t look as if he wanted to fight anyone.

It looked as if he suddenly wanted to do anything but entertain the crowd.

There was a sudden spurt of applause. Katie turned around to see that they had garnered a loud crowd-and they seemed to think it was all being done for entertainment.

“Oh, good Lord! Go watch the cats,” Katie cried out.

Mike Sanderson hadn’t uttered a word. David was staring at him as if he could manifest daggers and press them into the man’s heart.

“Let’s get out of here!” she said.

She grabbed both men by the elbows, hating the fact that to get out of the crowd, she was going to have to get through the busy streets.

Walking arm in arm with Robert the Doll.

But Clarinda had reached them by then, and Jonas was right behind her. Neither of them had the least idea of what was going on, but Clarinda was always intuitive in any situation. “We can go right down Front Street, past the Old Customs House and the Westin, and then duck into Jonas’s place. Follow me.”

Katie felt absurdly like a college professor, struggling with fighting young adults. But after the first few seconds, there was no resistance from either man. When Mike Sanderson did stop suddenly, he explained himself quickly. “I have a boxful of money back there-I need it.” He blushed. “I’m supposed to be on a sales trip.”

“I’ll get it,” Jonas told them.

“You pretend to be on a sales trip-and you come here to pretend to be Robert the Doll?” David demanded.

“Fantasy Fest, every year,” Mike Sanderson admitted sheepishly.

“How long have you been doing this?” David asked.

“Since I left. Well, not exactly. I finished college, and then, since then…”

“Why?” Katie asked.

“I love it. I love Fantasy Fest. I always have. My wife hates it. So I pretend I’m on a sales trip.”

“How can you love this place-when Tanya died here?” David demanded.

Mike Sanderson stopped walking. He was rock-solid; Katie almost tripped when as she had been leading him along, he then pulled her back.

“I didn’t kill Tanya!” Sanderson said angrily. “And don’t kid yourself-I know exactly who you are, and I know that she stayed here just because she wanted to talk to you. I don’t think she was ever coming with me. Not once you had come back. But I didn’t kill her.”

“I really think we should get inside for this discussion,” Clarinda said. “That’s Jonas’s place, there.”

“It’s an inn,” David said.

“Yes, yes, but go up the stairs, he keeps the whole second floor of the main house for himself.”

As she spoke, Jonas came running back up to them, Mike’s donation hat in his hands. “Amazing, isn’t it? Crowd like that-not a soul touched his money. Sometimes, human beings are decent.”

No one answered him. He cleared his throat. “Okay, let’s get upstairs,” he said.

The outer door was open; it led to hallways with signs that indicated room numbers and pointed to cottages outside. They hurried up the stairs; the door in the hallway was locked and Jonas quickly opened it for them. They piled in.

Mike Sanderson moved first, striding across the room, tearing off the Velcro that held his Robert the Doll sailor outfit together in the back. He was wearing the costume over a pair of cutoff jeans and a simple white T-shirt. He folded it and put it at his feet. Katie realized that David was still holding the man’s cloth mask and sailor hat when Sanderson reached out to him. “Do you mind? I don’t intend to press charges, but I do make good money at this gig.”

“You make good money, standing in Mallory Square, pretending to be Robert the Doll?” Clarinda said incredulously.

“Four hundred bucks already tonight,” Sanderson said. “Beats selling vacuums, which I do to keep the family going.”

“But-you were supposed to be a big-shot football player at Ohio State!” Katie said.

“Knee injury. They loved me before it-I was yesterday’s news afterward,” Sanderson said.

She studied him. He was a big fellow with sandy-blond hair, light brown eyes and a pretty-boy face that seemed to be getting just a little fleshy at the edges now, as if he were a man who liked his booze.

“The police down here want to talk to you,” David told him.

“Yeah, I know, my wife called me,” he said.

“So why didn’t you come into the police station?” David asked him.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Sanderson said with a sigh of impatience. “Don’t you get it? No one knows I do this. Hell, what, everyone’s life turns out to be what they want? I come down here. I see all the naked painted boobs for Fantasy Fest. I don’t go with any lowlifes, I don’t pick up any sexual diseases, I just do a lot of looking and drinking, and I make money to bring home by putting on a Robert the Doll costume and scaring people in the square. It’s a personal thing. What the hell is wrong with you, and what the hell business is it of yours that I do this?”

“It’s police business because you lied when they questioned you a decade ago,” David said. “And it’s police business because another woman was murdered.”

“Look-I do this for the money! I’m not hung up on Key West legend,” Sanderson said. “I loved Tanya! I wouldn’t have hurt her for the world. I was young. I waited for her-then I figured that she’d chosen you over me. When I heard about the murder, I panicked, and I got the hell out!”

“You will have to tell that story to the police,” David said.

Sanderson straightened where he sat. “Sure. I’ll be happy to do so.”

“When did you get here?” he asked.

Sanderson shook his head and winced. “Last Friday,” he said.

“Before Stella Martin was murdered,” David pointed out.

Sanderson stood, pointing hard at David. “Look, you bastard, you were the jilted lover. You owned the damned museum. You’re a fucking conch, for God’s sake-you’re the one all into the history and legend of Key West. They would have locked your ass up if you weren’t David Beckett!”

To David’s credit, he completely controlled his temper. He stood dead still without speaking for long seconds.

Sanderson took a step back from him. “Look, maybe you didn’t do it. But I know this much-I didn’t do it and you can haul me down to the station anytime you want.”

David looked over at Jonas. “Want to take a ride?”

“I-uh-sure,” Jonas said.

“What the hell? The sun has been down a long time now,” Clarinda said. “What a lovely evening out with friends!”