Ghost Shadow

Page 30

“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.