“Then someone else let themselves into Danny’s apartment. Hell, David, I may have to let Pete know that you were in there.”
“Liam, don’t do anything just yet. Give me a little more time before I get arrested myself, thrown off the island, or until Pete decides he’s not letting me move out the door.”
“David, I’m feeling pretty damned slimy right now,” Liam told him.
“Pretend I never trusted you. Just give me a little more time. I don’t know why-I’m feeling that I can almost touch the last piece of the puzzle.”
He hated what he was asking Liam to do. But he also knew that someone out there was wearing a facade of complete normalcy-and killing people under that cover.
The ledger had been moving. In his mind’s eye, anyway. It was subconsciously telling him that the answers were right in front of him-he had to find them.
He set Katie’s empty teacup down and walked toward the ledger. It was open to a page filled with elaborate script that was somewhat difficult to read. But he knew the book; it had been in the family forever. Craig had told him that Alice and Esther had decided that their role in life was to preserve family history. They had recorded births and deaths, and events that had occurred in Key West during their lives.
Before Alice and Esther had recorded in the book, the task had been taken on by Josiah Beckett, his great-grandfather. Before that, it had been Helena, youngest daughter of the first Craig Beckett. And before that, it had been Beckett himself who had kept the records.
None of that mattered. The book was open to a page that recorded when the territory of Florida had become a state, and when David Porter had brought down his Mosquito Squadron, and piracy had been brought to an end.
He read over and over the part about the assault on the ship, the death of Victoria and the lynching of Bartholomew. He read about his ancestor’s fury and insistence that an innocent man had been hanged, and that a guilty man must be brought to justice. And how he had watched at the hanging tree himself while Smith had met with his end. Craig Beckett had stood there while Smith had cursed his family, something that hadn’t disturbed him in the least. He believed in men, in justice and in God-he did not believe in curses.
He definitely hadn’t been cursed, David thought. The first Craig Beckett had lived out a long and prosperous life.
The key turned in the outside lock and Sean O’Hara came in. David glanced at his watch. It was nearly 5:00 a.m. He should have been sleeping himself.
Sean came into the parlor. “Katie?” he asked.
“She went to bed several hours ago,” David said.
Sean nodded. “What a night, huh? Life is so-messed up, really. And then, maybe not. Maybe we all know that we’re mortal, and we live just like Poe suggested in ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Dance until we drop ourselves. A man was found dead-even the most dense person has to assume murdered, since it would have been impossible for him to stuff his own corpse in an effigy. The revelry continued though. Cities have lives of their own, I suppose. And since tourists didn’t know Danny Zigler…”
Sean left off. “Did you wonder why I came home, David?” he asked then.
“Because you knew I was coming here,” David answered.
Sean nodded. “Bizarre, really. I knew that you hadn’t killed Tanya. Or, should I say, I believed that you hadn’t killed Tanya. But there was just something about the fact that you were going to be here. I didn’t know that you were seeing Katie, but I knew she wanted to open the museum. Maybe I knew that you would try to stop her. God knows, you’re the only one not trying to make a buck off of tragedy! But something is going on. Something that started when we were kids just out of school and heading into college. It’s still going on.” He reached into his pocket. “I’ve made a list.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re on it, and I’m on it.”
“Naturally.”
Sean came in and sat down on the end of the sofa, spreading out his list, made on a cocktail napkin.
In a neat row Sean had lined up names.
Pete Dryer
Pete Dryer’s family
David Beckett
Liam Beckett
Mike Sanderson
Sam Barnard
Sean O’Hara
Jamie O’Hara
Danny Zigler
“I’ve made a similar list a dozen times in my mind,” David said. “We can scratch out Danny Zigler-Danny is dead. We can scratch out Dryer’s family. I don’t think they’ve ever come back, even though they don’t live far away. Oh, you can scratch out Mike Sanderson-he proved that he had an alibi this afternoon.”
“And I’m going to scratch out you and me.”
“You can scratch out Jamie, your uncle, too. A dozen witnesses knew that he never left O’Hara’s that night,” David said.
“Okay, so that leaves Tanya’s brother, Sam Barnard, my cousin and a cop, Liam Beckett, and Pete Dryer, a major-league cop,” David said.
“That’s right.”