“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.
He’d had one beer. One damned beer.
And it seemed that the ledger on the table was moving. It was open.
He was tired. So damned tired. And more disturbed than ever. When Katie had gone on into the pub, Liam had told him that the police had gone into Danny Zigler’s house at last.
There had been no sign of books about the history of Key West.
There had been no money.
“You’re sure it’s what you saw, David?” Liam had asked him.
“Yes, I’m a photographer. I have pictures,” David told him.