Ghost Shadow

“I’m sorry, muttering to myself, practicing for tonight,” Katie told her.

Her cell phone was ringing. She saw that it was Clarinda. She answered quickly. “Sorry, I saw an old friend-from school,” she said quickly.

“Anyone I know?” Clarinda asked.

“College,” Katie lied, and winced. “Meet me on Duval and Front, okay?”

“I’m there, looking for you.”

“I’m there!” Katie promised.

Katie offered the bartender a bill and slipped off the bar stool.

She turned, and Tanya was there, staring straight at her. Her lips were moving. Katie froze, staring, and then inhaled, watching Tanya’s lips.

Then she could hear. Barely.

“Revenge. He whispered the word when he was behind me. Revenge.”

Tanya then stared at Bartholomew; her lips moved again, and she seemed distressed.

She faded, and was gone.

“See, she wants you to listen to me,” Bartholomew said. “That’s why she brought you here. Revenge! And she must somehow know or sense that it has to do with the past.”

Katie nodded. “Right. She’s gaining strength as a ghost.”

“And she just used it all, bringing you here, whispering.”

“I got it, I got it!” Katie assured him.

Her cell started ringing again. Clarinda!

She waved a thanks to the bartender and hurried out. It was all crazy. Two women were dead, dressed up and laid out like a twentieth-century corpse. And yet Tanya had come here, and Bartholomew insisted that it all went back to something that had occurred before the buildings here even existed.

She saw Clarinda on the street, waved and blocked her mouth with her hand as she told Bartholomew, “Please, please, please! Don’t make me keep talking, okay?”

He didn’t reply. He was silent as they met Clarinda.

“Let’s head back to O’Hara’s, and I’ll get the car and we’ll bring it back later. We’ve only got an hour or so, but I’d like to take a shower before tonight. I feel like I’m covered in bangers and grits,” Katie said.

“Ah, and I have a fine sheen of maple syrup,” Clarinda said. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

As they walked along, Katie thought that she might tease and mock, but she loved Fantasy Fest. So many of the costumes were amazing. They passed by a fellow dressed up as a parrot; he had magnificent feathers, body paint-and the subtle decency to wear a brilliantly fashioned loincloth. It was a beautiful costume-fitting right in with the fellow’s Mohawk-and both Katie and Clarinda gave him quick compliments as they passed.

As they neared O’Hara’s, Katie wrinkled her nose.

“Someone from the city has to get out here and find out what that smell is!” Clarinda said.

“We’ll have Jamie call it in,” Katie agreed.

They reached O’Hara’s. As they started in, Katie felt the brush of Bartholomew’s fingers on her shoulder.

She spun around.

And there was Da

He lifted a beseeching hand to her.

Then faded into the crowd.

At the station, Liam told David that Mike Sanderson and Sam Barnard were being held at the detention center up in Stock Island.

“They’ll be let out soon. They were just being held for drunk and disorderly, and, well, the place’ll be filling up with pirates and vampires now,” Liam said.

“Can you find out if they’ve already been released?” David asked.

“Sure.”

Liam put through a call. The two would be released within the hour.

“I hope I can make it in time,” David muttered.

“You can.” Liam stood. “We’ll take a patrol car.”

“I thought you were holding down the fort, with Dryer prowling the streets,” David said.

Liam shrugged. “We have more units. The lieutenant is good, but no one is on duty all the time. I’ll just tell the chief that I’m leaving, working the case.”

“Don’t get in trouble here-”

“The chief is a cool guy. He put in his hours-bike patrol, night shift, day shift. And we’re speaking with persons of interest in two murder cases, even if we haven’t a shred of evidence.”

Liam was gone less than a few minutes; a detective sergeant took over his place at the desk, which had apparently become the hot spot for the Stella Martin investigation.

The drive to Stock Island in the patrol car, even with mad traffic streaming into the city, took less than twenty minutes.

When they arrived, Sanderson and Barnard were already being released.

David and Liam stood at the exit, watching as the men procured their belongings and signed out. Sam saw them first, and stood still. Mike halted behind Sam.

“You came to pick us up?” Mike asked hopefully.

“Sure,” Liam said. “I’ve got a car just outside.”

“Look, it was a drunken bar brawl,” Mike said. “That’s all.”

“Over what?” David asked.

The two looked at one another sheepishly. “My sister,” Sam said at last.

Mike looked at David remorsefully. “I called her-a not nice name. I told him that if Tanya had ever been able to really make up her mind, she might still be alive.”

“Let’s take it outside,” David suggested.

The two followed David and Liam to the patrol car. They looked suspiciously at Liam. “You’re not under arrest-it’s a ride,” he said.

They crawled in. Liam took the wheel and David sat in the front passenger’s side. “What were you two doing together to begin with?” David asked.

“Well, first it was friendly,” Mike said. “We started talking about Stella Martin-who was a whore, I mean, no doubt about it.”

“Tanya wasn’t a whore,” Sam said.

“God, no,” Mike said. “That was never what I meant. I was hung up on her, totally smitten. She was beautiful, man. So much spirit in her!”

David glanced over at Liam. The two had to be sober now, but it almost looked as if they were going to fall into a hug and sob together.

“So, let’s work the whole thing out,” David said.

Liam pulled the car over into the lot of a fishing-and-tackle store that had closed its doors for the weekend.

Mike and Sam looked at one another again.

“Mike, you were a liar. You told the cops you were up north the night that Tanya was murdered. You weren’t up north,” Sam said.

Mike looked out the window. “I was in Miami.”

“Can you prove it? We’ve managed to dredge up the information that you were in St. Augustine twenty-four hours after she was killed, but the night of the murder…” Liam said.

“Lord, do you know how long ago that was?” Mike asked. “But I can tell you where I was.”

“And what he was doing,” Sam said bitterly.

“What were you doing?” Liam asked sharply.

Mike let out a sigh. “I was with a prostitute.”

“A decade ago-that is going to be hard to prove,” Liam noted.

“You know her name?” David asked.

“Yeah-Tiffany.”

“You have a last name for her?” Liam asked.

“Tiffany-Number One?” Mike suggested. “Hell, that year, half the working girls in the country were named Tiffany.” He stiffened suddenly. “Look, I’m not the asshole I sound like, really. I told you, I didn’t believe that Tanya was going to come with me. She’d seen you again, David. I wasn’t old, I wasn’t mature-and I was lonely and hurt.”

“You cheated on her-with a whore,” Sam said morosely.

“I didn’t cheat. She was leaving me, and I knew it,” Mike said. He straightened suddenly. “Hey, maybe I can prove it! She was working for something called Elegant Escorts, and soon after, there was some kind of a sting operation on them. I did pay with a credit card.” He looked out the window again, embarrassed. “I didn’t help with the prosecution. I told them that I had just signed on for a massage and that nothing else happened. I was a kid. I lived at home. My mother would have killed me.”

David looked at Liam. Liam shrugged. “We can track it,” he said.