Ghost Shadow

David clearly stated that he was sure the police would work every bit as hard; a human life was a human life, none less valuable than others.

Katie sipped a rum and Coke, listening to him. Bartholomew watched him, and turned back to her. “Ah, if I could but taste that grog,” he moaned. “Hey!” He straightened in his seat. “Look. There.”

Katie looked down the bar. There was a woman with huge breasts and tight shorts sitting at the end of the counter, shaded by some of the palms that covered the bar.

“I’m looking,” she said.

“I don’t know her name, but she works at the strip club.”

“And you know this because…?” Katie asked.

“Well, I may be dead, but I can watch!” Bartholomew said.

Katie stood up and came around the bar slowly. She didn’t recognize the woman. Strippers, however, had a tendency to be very transient. She might not have been in Key West long.

“Hi,” Katie said, sliding up on the stool beside her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, fine,” the woman said, trying to act as if she hadn’t been crying. She seemed defensive. And scared.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. You just appear to be very sad, as if you’d lost a friend, and I just wanted to say that I’m so, so sorry.”

The woman had been twirling her swizzle stick in her pink drink; she looked over at Katie. She nodded slowly. “Yes, we were friends. Stella had a few bad habits, but…she liked money. She wanted to travel one day-far, far from Florida. She was born in a trailer up in Palatka, and she always wanted to get out of the state.”

“Well, we can imagine heaven as a place far away, and maybe as wonderful as anyplace she might have wanted to see.”

The woman stared at her. “You-you’re Katie-oke, right?”

Katie nodded.

“Stella liked to stand outside and listen. She had a nice voice.”

“She should have come in to sing,” Katie said. “Do you know who…was she fighting with anyone? Do you know where she’d been?”

“She picked up a kid the night before… Well, they say she died Sunday afternoon sometime. Yeah, she was with a kid. I might recognize him if I saw him again. But…he was young. He didn’t look like a killer. Then again, that’s what they always tell us-God alone knows what a killer looks like. Oh, Lord-she was murdered!” the woman said, and huge tears formed in her eyes again.

“Hey, hey,” Katie murmured. She didn’t try to tell the woman that everything was all right-murder wasn’t all right. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Morgana,” the woman said.

“Um-is that your real name?” Katie asked.

The woman managed a smile. “Yeah, it’s my real name, not my stripper’s pseudonym. My mom was a big fan of the King Arthur tales and fantasy.”

“It’s a pretty name,” Katie told her. “Just unusual, even today. Umm, did Stella see anyone regularly?” Katie asked.

“Anyone?” Morgana asked. She blushed and looked away. “Lots of anyones. Stella said that these days, people came to bars-men and women-just to hook up for the night. She was smarter. You could get paid for sex, and why the hell not?”

“I meant like…like, almost a boyfriend, maybe?”

The woman sat up and stared across the street. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes.”

“Yes-who?”

The girl pointed.

Katie followed her line of vision.

She was pointing at Da

The museum was closed for the day, but as the afternoon rolled in, reporters a

Fantasy Fest was coming.

Key West might have once been one of the wealthiest cities in the United States, but the days of privateers, wreckers and sponge divers were long gone.

The city survived on tourism, cruise ships and snowbirds longing for the sun. Fantasy Fest drew people from around the globe, and it was one of the many local festivals that kept the local shopkeepers, i

David made a point of staying on Duval Street during the day. He spoke with any reporter who approached him.

Katie was glad to see that he intended to keep himself in the public eye.

She was somewhat a

It was late when the news of the spectacular murder gave way at last to interviews about the upcoming festival days. David had made himself so available that by nightfall, he had spoken to just about every reporter who had rushed down to the city.

Morgana had disappeared by then. But as David slipped his arm through hers, suggesting that they pick up food somewhere and head back to her house or the Beckett home to eat in peace, Katie managed to tell him that she had talked to the woman, and that Morgana had told her that Stella Martin had carried on a somewhat long-term relationship with Da

He listened to her gravely, and then said that they should head to her place. Along the way, they picked up a few to-go meals from the Hog’s Breath Saloon. They headed to Katie’s.

Bartholomew was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Katie hadn’t seen him all afternoon.

They set up their meal on Katie’s dining-room table. “I know you’ve already been talking to Da

“Hey, women have lived with serial killers for years and not known what their husbands or boyfriends did at night,” David reminded her.

“Okay-but you seem to think that whoever killed Tanya had an agenda. So maybe he’s not your usual serial killer,” Katie pointed out. She shook her head. “But Da

“As a customer?”

“More like a boyfriend. That’s what I asked her-if Stella saw anybody more like a boyfriend,” Katie told him.

“That doesn’t necessarily make him a killer,” David said.

“Do you think that they’ll get anything from forensics?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know,” David said. He finished off his last bite of chicken and stood, slipping his hand into the pocket of his short-sleeved tailored shirt. “You have a computer here?”

“Sure-what’s that?”

“I’m going to study the photographs I have of the murder scene.”

“In the back,” Katie said, rising, as well. “In the family room.”

David nodded and walked on through. He hit the power button and waited for the computer to boot up, then slid in the small memory stick he held.

He looked at Katie. “You may not want to see these.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is the age of media-soldiers dead on the battlefield, et cetera. I’m fine.”

He studied her, then nodded and hit the key to open his photos. Despite her words of assurance, Katie wasn’t really ready for what she saw.

The scene. The scene of Tanzler and Elena she knew so well from being a kid growing up in Key West was familiar and yet horrible.

But there was Tanzler.

And there was a woman in Elena’s place on her bed who had lived and breathed at a different time. Elena had died of tuberculosis, the woman had been murdered.

And though Katie had never known her, she knew her.

She had seen her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had seen the huge tear form in her eye, and trail down her cheek.

Stella Martin had not been a great beauty. In death, she was like a caricature of Elena.

“Just like Tanya, and yet…” David murmured.

“What do you mean? It’s a copycat killing?”

He shook his head. “I think the same person killed Tanya and this woman,” he said. “She is not laid out as carefully as Tanya had been. There’s something rushed about the display. And Stella was older and not as beautiful as Tanya. There’s something almost garish about Stella. I think she was a handy victim. I think the killer wanted her displayed because I’m here, because Sam is here. Why else would the killer wait all of this time to kill again? Nothing else makes sense.”