A game…
Key West loved her pirates.
She loved her ghost stories.
Her eccentrics…
She was a city that loved equality and fairness, a party, a good time, history, water and more.
This wasn’t customary.
Finally, though, the screams in the street became louder than the sounds of the sirens. The parade dispersed. Shopkeepers, innkeepers, costumed entertainers, bartenders-all came out to the streets, staring with horror. There was such a crowd that everyone had to whisper to everyone else, asking what had happened.
Uniformed officers on horseback were the first to arrive. The rescue vehicle was forced to park on a side road along with the detectives and crime-scene investigators.
Katie just stood, feeling it all, seeing all, sensing it all and feeling David’s supporting arms around her, for what seemed like forever.
Then Liam was there, the one to officially question her while they awaited Lieutenant Dryer’s arrival on the scene.
She heard snatches of conversation from the medical examiner and techs.
“Oh, Lord, he’s ripe!”
“Been in there at least a few days.”
“Must have been dead since he went missing.”
“Cause of death?”
“No way to know-he’s far too bloated. Got to get him to the morgue.”
“Katie,” Liam said. “What happened? Witnesses said that you just came to the effigy and started tearing at it. How did you know that Danny was in it?”
“What?” she asked, blinking.
“How did you know that Danny had been stuffed into the effigy?” Liam persisted.
“I-I, umm, well, I saw someone. Out the door-the doors at O’Hara’s are open, of course, you know. And I saw someone dressed in a Robert the Doll costume, and then the giant Robert the Doll effigy was right behind him, and I remembered the-the odor-and it seemed as if it was coming right in the bar and I…” She let her voice trail away. “I guess that I freaked out a bit, Liam. I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t take the smell and I suddenly realized it was coming from the effigy.”
“What about the manufacturer-how did Danny wind up in the doll?” David asked.
“The doll was up before Danny disappeared,” Liam said, glancing at his notes. “The manufacturer is local, just up on Stock Island. They’ve done these dozens of times. And the effigy was set up by the salsa club right there, and they’re baffled and mystified-again, they said that the doll was in perfect shape from the manufacturer when they assembled it.”
“So someone killed Danny Zigler and stuffed his body into a giant-size effigy of another Key West legend,” David said.
“That’s what it looks like so far,” Liam said.
The medical examiner and police photographers gave the word and the corpse was lifted into a body bag-oozing liquids-to be taken to the M.E.’s office.
The owners of the salsa bar argued with the police; that area of the street would have to remain cordoned off until it had been thoroughly inspected and cleared by crime scene. It was Fantasy Fest. What was the city going to do about the amount of money they were going to lose?
Katie had felt ridiculously frozen and weak. Paralyzed. Horrified.
But she was suddenly angry. It wasn’t a shock; she had seen Danny’s ghost. When she had looked out the door and seen him, then the costumed Robert the Doll performer, she had known. Danny had been showing her where he could be found. Poor Danny. He would have been so horrified. He loved Key West.
Now, he was part of Key West. Part of the stories and lore that would be told to generations from now until eternity.
“Am I free to go?” she asked Liam suddenly.
“Of course, Katie. But-” Liam began.
“Thank you,” she told him.
She made her way through the gaping crowd on the street and back to O’Hara’s. Her brother was there, looking aggravated, but managing to put up a stream of pirate songs with singers, music and words intact. He was startled when he saw her arrive.
“Katie, you just found the corpse of an old friend. Get David to take you home,” Sean said. “Or leave David. I’ll take you home. Hell, Jamie would close this place down and take you home.”
“No,” Katie said angrily. “No, everyone is acting like Danny is something disgusting in the street, as if he’s an annoyance, ruining a pirate parade.”
She took the microphone. “Folks, everyone knows that something terrible just happened. Everyone tried to get close, to find out what happened. Well, I’ll tell you. A friend of ours disappeared a few days ago. People were mad at him-they thought that he’d sloughed off work. In fact, it was even suspected that he had killed a woman. But he didn’t. He was murdered himself. He wasn’t an odor in the street-he was a good guy, a true conch, a real part of Key West. His name was Danny Zigler. He didn’t need a lot of money. He loved Key West, and he loved the simple things in life. This is for him. Honor him with me, if you will.”
She went to the computer and set “Danny Boy” to play. There was a dead silence at first.
“Danny Zigler was Irish?” Someone asked with confusion.
“Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s day,” a drunk sloshed out in reply.
“Sing along, a good fellow is gone and departed!” someone else said.
When it was over, she felt David at her side. “Katie, come on. We’re going.”
“We can’t go,” she said dully.
“We can. Sean and Clarinda can handle your system. And it will thin out early-even in the middle of Fantasy Fest, a dead man means something, Katie.”
She let him drag her away. She had known that Danny was dead. He hadn’t been her best friend, but he had been a fixture in her life. He had always been there.
David took her home. She wondered that he was with her, and she felt a little numb, and a little awed. He probably wanted to be haunting the police station. He’d want to know what happened to Danny Zigler. He had to be noting the fact that all the deaths were coupled with Key West legends.
At her house, she ran up and showered the minute they were inside. The smell of death had seemed to permeate her. She scrubbed her hair several times. At last she emerged and wrapped into her terry robe.
David had evidently decided to use her brother’s shower-the scent of decay and death had been too much for him, too. He was out of his pirate garb and in Sean’s clothing, something she was certain he would explain and Sean would understand. He had made her something hot.
“Tea-with a good dose of whiskey,” he told her, handing her the cup.
“I’m all right. I’m really all right. I knew that Danny was dead. It was just that it was so horrible-seeing him, like that. I’ve seen the dead before, I’ve been to funerals…but that!”
“Death is seldom gentle,” he told her.
She sipped the tea, and noted that it was very strongly laced with whiskey. She carried it out to the parlor and saw that Bartholomew was seated on the sofa, watching her with sorrowful eyes. “I wish I had realized, Katie. I can’t really…I don’t get scents and odors anymore. I would have stopped you. I tried to stop you, and you didn’t even see me.”
“It’s all right,” she murmured.
David had come behind her. He set his hands on her shoulders. “Go on up to bed, Katie. Try to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“You will. I’ll be here.”
She nodded after a moment, draining the tea. The whiskey washed through her, warm and soothing. “All right.”
She gave him the cup and headed for the stairs. She heard him make a startled sound. On the first step, she turned back.
David was still standing in the middle of the parlor, holding her cup.
He was staring at the table.
The ledger, the Beckett family ledger was moving.
Bartholomew was pushing it toward him, of course. He didn’t see Bartholomew.
But he had to see the ledger moving.
She went on up the stairs. As he had said, despite all that was haunting her mind-or perhaps because of it-she slept.