Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow (19 page)

“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!”

The night sergeant on duty was ready to bring them in. David had called Liam, and Liam, who had just left for the evening, called Pete Dryer, who had left just a bit earlier, and the result was that both men would be returning to the station.

Clarinda sat in the waiting area, shaking her head at Katie. “I feel as if I’ve just been brought in on some kind of a sting. Look around, will you?”

There was an odd assortment of people in the station that night. There was a drunk who was crying in the arms of another drunk.

A junkie.

A belligerent fellow being held on a drunk-driving charge.

It was hopping.

Fantasy Fest was all but here.

Liam Beckett came back through the door first. His white polo shirt bore a police insignia and he was in neat work khakis. He was totally professional, shaking hands with Mike Sanderson and thanking him for coming in on a voluntary basis. Pete came through the doorway just a minute later, looking worn-as he should. One of the city’s most important and biggest festivals was on the way, and a murderer was loose in the city.

Pete nodded at David. “Thanks. Thanks for talking this fellow into coming in. We can take this from here, David.”

For a moment, David looked as if he didn’t want to move. Then he nodded. “Of course,” he said.

But as they started out, he held back for a minute. “Hang on, I just have to catch Liam quickly.”

He went back in before Katie could try to stop him.

“Oh, Lord-is he coming back out, do you think?” Clarinda asked.

“I think,” Katie said.

“Umm, maybe not,” Jonas said after a minute.

Just when Katie was about to give up, David came out. He was smiling. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and one around Clarinda’s shoulders. “Where shall we go for dinner?” he asked.

“Umm-anywhere,” Jonas said.

“I’m not so sure we can get in anywhere,” Clarinda said. “The city is teeming.”

“O’Hara’s,” Katie said dryly. “I can always get in there.”

Clarinda laughed. “My night off! But that’s all right-I do know they have good food.”

“And we can park in back there, too. I know the owner,” Katie pointed out.

The evening ended, oddly enough, on a good note. Jonas was fascinated with photography, and David talked about different places he had been. Jonas pointed out that with all that David did, now was the time for him to go back and do some shots and film work in his own backyard. “My God, think about it. We’ve got more wildlife and shipwrecks than a dog has fleas,” Jonas pointed out.

“You know, that’s odd,” Clarinda noted. “David, you and Sean wound up going into just about the same thing. You’ve been very successful with your still work and Sean’s usually doing video or film or whatever. Do you ever work with video?”

David nodded. “I love both. Still life is capturing a single moment with the subject, light and characters just right. But film is great-it’s life in motion, or dust motes moving through the air. Last year, I did some work in Australia, filming oceanographers searching for one of the really well-preserved wrecks recently discovered there.”

“But have you and Sean worked together?” Jonas asked.

David shook his head. “I haven’t seen Sean in ten years,” he said. “We keep up with e-mail now and then, but we’ve never worked on the same project.”

Jon Merrillo, Jamie O’Hara’s main manager in his absence, stopped by the table. He was about forty, and hadn’t been in the Keys very long. He had taken to the area like a native; he loved it, and never wanted to go back North.

“You guys can’t get enough of this place, huh?” he teased.

“I just love a night when the drunks aren’t pestering me!” Clarinda told him.

“Hey, we don’t let drunks pester folks here, Clarinda, and you know I’d never let that happen,” Jon said.

“I do know, Jon.”

Jon nodded. “Hey, Katie, have you talked with your uncle Jamie?” he asked her.

She felt guilty. She shook her head. “No, but I have spoken with Sean. Sean is coming home-I expect by tomorrow.”

“Well, it will be good to see Sean. I’ll give Jamie a call myself tomorrow. I figured he’d want to be back by the end of the week. It’s already getting insane.”

He left them. Clarinda sighed. “Ah, well, so much for my plans for a lovely sunset and dinner on the water.”

“We’ll try again later in the week,” Katie said.

Clarinda sniffed. “I get next Monday off and that’s it-we’re heading straight into ten days of events and pure mayhem.”

“So, we’ll go next Monday,” David assured her.

They finished with their coffee and the Key lime pie-really homemade-that Katie had talked them all into ordering. In the car, Jonas asked, “Should I drop Katie, we’ll see her in safely, and then drop you, David?”

Clarinda smacked him on the arm. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just go to Katie’s place. David is staying there. This is not a time for pretense of any kind. Katie should not be alone, and that’s that.”

“Aha,” Jonas said. He looked at David and David nodded.

Jonas left them at Katie’s house, and they waved goodbye. They could still hear the loud sounds of revelry coming from Duval Street. “Kind of like Christmas, huh?” David asked. “Fantasy Fest starts just a little bit earlier every year.”

“We need to be glad. We do survive off tourism,” Katie pointed out.

“Yep. I guess I have been gone a long time,” David noted.

They walked into the house. Katie moved ahead, into the kitchen. “You know, it’s interesting that Danny Zigler was reading about the history of Key West. I mean, he grew up down here, we all heard it all the time.”

“We heard the history-but Danny must have had a reason to want to learn more about it.”

Bartholomew thought so, too. So did she.

Katie made a mental note to pursue that theory the following day. “Do you think that something happened in the far past that might have had something to do with Tanya’s murder? Is that why her body was left in the museum?”

“I don’t know. Oh, by the way, I gave the credit card we found to Liam and told him that I was pretty sure that the stuff on the card was ice cream. I don’t know what is going on, but sure, maybe something from the past can explain it all. Tanya was from the area, and her family went way back-I don’t know. I just don’t know. But, I intend to find out. I’ll start reading the books tomorrow,” David said.

She had started to pick up the kettle. “Want some tea or something?” she asked.

He took the kettle from her hands and set it back on the range top. He pulled her into his arms. “Yes…I want to bury myself in you, and forget the world, and even my own obsessions for the night,” he told her. “I mean, of course, if you don’t mind.”

She smiled. She stared up at him, wondering how she could feel so mesmerized by the sound of his voice and the feel of his arms.

She threaded her fingers through his dark hair and met his eyes. “You’re good, you know,” she teased. “Very good.”

“Oh?”

“Eloquent.”

“With words?”

“Oh, very.”

“Really? It gets worse. I was thinking that I could die in the radiant sunset of your hair, drown in the sea of your eyes.”

“My eyes are kind of hazel-green.”

“I’ve seen our waters blue and green, every shade between, and even dark and wild and wicked when storms are coming through.”

“Very eloquent.”

“And strong, too,” he assured her.

“Really?”

He swept her up into his arms.

Her world was in turmoil; he was still, she was certain, to others, a person of interest in a murder case-or cases. He was obsessed with the truth.

But at that moment, it didn’t matter. The world was holding still, and the world was pure magic. Wonderful, carnal, hot, wet magic.

“Strong, too,” she agreed.

They fell into her bed so easily. So quickly, naturally. Clothing only half off, they were kissing and removing tangles of clothes. She was aware of him as she had never been before, the sound of his breathing, every movement of his muscles, twist and turn, the beating of his heart. He was an experienced lover, and she didn’t want to think of anything that had come before in his life, or in her own. She just wanted to feel. And it was so easy. He knew where to touch, and where to kiss, and where to tease most sensuously with his tongue and teeth. Movements could be so tempestuous and passionate, and then just a breath or a whisper against her skin could send her spinning into a new spiral of arousal.

He kissed along her breasts. Ribs and abdomen. Teased beneath her thighs.

Moved ever more erotically.

And when she nearly reached a pinnacle, he would pause, just to lead her upward again, until she was frantic, returning every whispered breath, every touch, seeking to crawl into his very flesh, writhe and arch in absolute unison and abandon.

Eventually they lay together sated, exhausted and replete, and still touching while the cool air moved over their flesh.

She curled more closely to him.

“Ever so eloquent, in so many ways!” she whispered to him.

“Aye, but you make it so very easy to speak ever so ardently!” he assured her.

Smiling, she lay against him, and slept.

An hour later, she opened her eyes.

A breeze was blowing.

A breeze shouldn’t have been blowing. The windows were all closed.

But…

She thought that her drapes were billowing, blowing inward.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

And for a moment, it seemed that Danny Zigler was standing there. Standing there-just outside her window. He couldn’t have been; her bedroom was on the second floor. There was no balcony beyond it. There was just…air.

She gasped, blinking.

She bolted up, and next to her, David bolted up, as well.

“What is it?”

“The window!” she said.

He jumped out of bed and went over to the window. The drapes were flat; there was no breeze. He moved the drapes.

The window was closed. And bolted.

He turned back to her in the shadows of night.

“David…I’m sorry. I must have had a nightmare,” she said. “I’m truly sorry to have wakened you.”

“That’s all right. It’s all right, perfectly all right,” he assured her, climbing back in bed with her and taking her into his arms. “I’m probably the reason you’re having nightmares,” he said, smoothing her hair back.

She felt cold, chilled, and yet he was warming her.

She didn’t speak, she just curled against him.

He wasn’t the reason for her nightmares, she might have said. He was far more a dream of something real and wonderful.

But time here and now was suspended; she didn’t know where it could take him, and pride was a wonderful thing. Something that was great to cling to-when the warmth went away. If it went away. She just didn’t know what the future would bring.

She lay silent.

She drifted off, and it wasn’t until morning that she opened her eyes and really wondered about what had happened the night before. What she had seen in her mind’s eye, or in her soul, or with the strange gift/curse that was just part of who she was.

A sense of dread and pain filled her.

Danny Zigler was dead.

Coffee had already brewed when David came down the stairs. He was surprised; he’d never seen her set a timer the previous night, but the coffee was good.

He had come down quietly, trying not to wake Katie after slipping into Sean’s room for a shower. He didn’t dress, just put on a towel, but swept up his clothing, needing his cell phone, which was in the back pocket of his jeans.

It had seemed that Katie had tossed and turned much of the night. He didn’t want to awaken her until she was ready; she might want to sleep late. He didn’t want to leave the door unlocked, but he was also anxious to get to his house-they’d left the books there.

But he could at least make phone calls.

After he poured himself coffee, he called Liam.

“So?” he asked his cousin.

“So, we spent a couple of hours with Mike Sanderson. I have a bunch of computer geeks following all the information he gave me. He said that he wasn’t in Key West when Tanya was killed, that he had gone up to Miami, and he can surely find the charge-card slips to prove that he’d taken a room-and if he can’t find them, we can get them from the credit-card company. We found the one for St. Augustine, but not Miami, and he claims he had a bunch of student cards.”

“Even if he was in Miami, it’s a three- or three-and-a-half-hour drive down. You could easily book a room in Miami and come back down here.”

“It’s possible. But I’m not taking Mike Sanderson to be a boy genius. I just don’t see him renting a room, getting down here, killing Tanya and getting her into the museum.”

“Do you see Danny Zigler managing such a feat?” David demanded.

“Don’t know. We still can’t find hide nor hair of Danny Zigler,” Liam told him. “He didn’t show up for work as a tour guide last night. We’re getting a search warrant to go through his house.”

“Did you pick up the kid? Lewis Agaro?”

“Picked him up and questioned him. And I had the lab analyze the substance on the credit card. It was sticky, and might have given us a clue as to where Stella had gone once she took the card. Of course, the kid might have gotten the stuff on the card himself, but we can’t leave anything to chance. Have to follow up on everything.”

“It was chocolate ice cream,” David said.

“How did you know?”

“I just do. I think Stella was pretty tight with Danny Zigler, which, of course, doesn’t mean anything. She might have seen Danny, and she might not have,” David said. “But I believe Danny knows something.”

“Like what?”

“I went into his place. He was researching Key West, and had thousands of dollars in one of the books he was using. Liam, for now, let’s not let this get out to others, or to the press.”

Liam laughed. “I can’t! I’d have to admit my cousin was guilty of breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t break anything,” David assured him.

“Pete has called the D.A. about getting a warrant to get in there, but if Danny has been guilty of…something, he wants it all by the book. I’m assuming a warrant is coming soon,” Liam said. “But-you didn’t leave fingerprints anywhere, did you?”