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“I’m sorry you missed Craig’s funeral,” Da
“I saw him when he was alive. He was always the mainstay of my life,” David told him.
“You been to the grave site?”
“Not yet.”
Da
“I’m not sure yet. I haven’t made any commitments for the near future. We’ll see. Tell me how you’ve been, Da
“Me? I’m fine. I don’t need a lot. Just enough to survive and enjoy myself.”
“Still never married? Is there a special girl?”
Da
“Sure.”
“No commitments, and that’s the way I like it. Don’t be feeling sorry for me, I’m a happy man. Really.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Da
“Settling affairs.”
“Of course. Hey, I have one of the ghost tours Saturday night. You should come. I’m in rare form, and I really do a good job.”
“Maybe I will.”
Da
“And you tell the story, too, right?” David asked.
“I’m sorry,” Da
“If you’re doing a ghost tour, I’m assuming it makes a good story, and it’s not your fault,” David assured him.
Da
David shook his head. “No, thanks, Da
Da
“You say that I was under suspicion, right?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” He was lying; he was lying out of kindness, so it seemed.
“Do you remember what really happened?” David asked.
“What do you mean, what really happened? I wasn’t working either day. You were working for me, don’t you remember?”
“Of course, I remember that. But what do you remember?”
“Not much, man.”
“What did you do the night of her murder with your free time?”
Da
“Did you see Tanya at all that night?” David asked.
“No…yes! Early. Well, it was late afternoon, I guess. Around five. I saw her down in one of the bars. I talked to her, I think. Yes, I did talk to her. I’d heard she was leaving town, and that things had kind of faded apart between you two. She said she had a few people to see that night, and that she’d be taking a rental up to Miami, and flying out from there the next day.”
“So, five o’clock. Where?”
Da
“Thanks, Da
“I’m sure that I did,” Da
“Because her killer has never been caught,” David said.
“Right,” Da
“Well, good to see you, and thanks again,” David told him.
“Sure thing. Sure. And I really can’t give you an ice cream?”
“No, but thanks,” David told him.
He waved to Da
Five o’clock. If Da
And Da
Important, if it was the truth. If he wasn’t covering up.
For himself.
Or for someone else.
It was Da
David had returned for the first tour the following morning.
Had she been laid out just for him to find?
The answer to that question might be the answer to her murder.
“People aren’t really to be found at the cemetery, you know,” Bartholomew said. “Well, most people. The thing is, of course, that most of us move on. And we remain behind only in the memories of those who loved us. Or hated us. Well, usually, people move on. Okay, okay, well, sometimes you can find people wandering around a cemetery, but… Well, that’s because they have to remain because… Wait, why am I remaining? Oh, hmm. I think it may be because of you. But I digress. You will not find Craig Beckett in this cemetery. He was a good man, and his conscience was clean. He’s moved on.”
“I know that he’s not in the cemetery,” Katie said.
“Then…why are we here?” Bartholomew asked.
“You don’t have to be here,” she said.
“No, I don’t have to be here. But you do not behave with the intelligence you were granted at birth. Therefore, I feel it is my cross to bear in life to follow you around,” Bartholomew told her.
“Hey! I am not your cross to bear, and I do behave intelligently,” Katie said, shaking her head and praying for patience. “It’s broad daylight. There are tourists all over the cemetery.”
“But why are we here?”
“Whether the person is here or not-and, of course, I don’t begin to assume that Craig Beckett’s soul would be in his worn and embalmed body in his tomb-I just like to come. It’s beautiful, and it’s a place where I can think. When other people, alive or dead, are not driving me right up the wall.”
“What is it you need to think about?” Bartholomew demanded.
“Craig. I just want to remember him. Could I have a bit of respectful silence?” she asked.
The Key West cemetery was on a high point in the center of the island. In 1846, a massive hurricane had washed up a number of earlier graves and sent bodies down Duval Street in a flood. After that, high ground was chosen. Now, many of the graves were in the ground, but many more were above-ground graves. Tombs, shelves and strange grave sites dotted the cemetery, along with more typical mausoleum-type graves.
It was estimated that there were one-hundred-thousand people interred at the Key West cemetery, in one way or another, triple the actual full-time population of the island.
Katie did love the cemetery. It was just like the island itself, historic and eccentric, full of the old and the new. There were Civil War soldiers buried here, there was a monument to those lost aboard the Maine and there were many graves with curious sentiments, her favorite being, “I told you I was sick!”
Craig Beckett was in a family mausoleum that had been there since the majority of the island’s dead had been moved here. One of the most beautiful angel sculptures in the cemetery stood high atop the roof of the mausoleum, and tourists were frequently near, taking pictures of the sculpture. When the Beckett family had originally purchased their final resting place, the cost had been minimal. Now such a structure, along with the small spit of ground it stood upon, would cost in the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“There she is!” Bartholomew said suddenly.
“Who? Where?” Katie asked.
“The woman in white,” Bartholomew said. “There, where the oldest graves are.”
Bartholomew was right. She was standing above one of the graves. Her head was lowered, and her hands were folded before her.
“I’m going to talk to her,” Bartholomew said.
“I don’t think she wants to talk,” Katie said. “Bartholomew, you should wait.”