He cursed the fact.
He had never believed in ghosts. He’d never wanted to believe. In fact, he’d warned Katie not to ever talk about the fact that she had “strange encounters” or had been “gifted” or “cursed” from a young age. The majority of the world would think that she should be institutionalized.
He wasn’t pleased that he saw Bartholomew. Now he had the fear that he would one day wind up institutionalized himself.
And he was far from pleased that the dapper centuries-old entity had now decided to affix himself to Sean.
“I will not answer you. I will never answer you in public,” Sean said.
Bartholomew laughed. “You just answered me. Then again, we’re hardly in public, you know. I think the whole island is still asleep. Besides, you’re a filmmaker. An ‘artiste!’ People will happily believe that you are eccentric, and it’s your brilliance causing you to speak to yourself.”
“Right. Don’t you feel that you should go and haunt my sister?” Sean asked.
“I believe she’s busy.”
“I’m busy,” Sean said.
“Look, I’m apparently hanging around for something,” Bartholomew said. “Others have gone on, and I haven’t. You seem to be someone I must help.”
“I don’t need help.”
“You will, I’m sure of it,” Bartholomew said.
Sean kept walking.
“So what do you think he wanted?” Bartholomew persisted.
“I don’t know,” Sean said flatly. “But he wanted something, and that’s why I’m going to see him.” He cast a glance Bartholomew’s way. The privateer—hanged long ago for a deed he hadn’t committed—was really quite a sight. His frock coat and stockings, buckle shoes, vest and tricornered hat all fit his tall, lean physique quite well. In his lifetime, Sean thought dryly, he had probably made a few hearts flutter. Sadly, he had died because of the death of the love of his life, and an act of piracy blamed upon him. However, after haunting the island since then, he had recently found a new love, the “lady in white,” legendary in Key West. When they filmed their documentary, Sean meant to make sure that he covered Bartholomew’s case and those of his old and new loves.
He’d heard once that ghosts remained on earth for a reason. They wanted to avenge their unjust deaths, they needed to help an ancestor or they were searching for truth. There were supposedly ghosts who were caught in time, reenacting the last moments of their lives. But that was considered “residual haunting,” while Bartholomew’s determination to remain on earth in a spectral form was known as “active” or “intelligent” haunting.
Bartholomew had been around for a reason—he had been unjustly killed. But Sean couldn’t figure out why he remained now. His past had been aligned with David Beckett and his family, and Sean had to admit that Bartholomew had been helpful in solving the Effigy Murders, all connected to the Becketts.
Maybe he had stayed because of the injustice done to him and because he still felt that he owed something to the Becketts. All Sean knew was that he had been Katie’s ghost—if there was such a thing—and now he seemed to be with him all the time.
Sean liked Bartholomew. He had a great deal of wit and he knew his history. He was loyal and might well have contributed to saving their lives.
But it was unnerving from the get-go to realize that you were seeing a ghost. It was worse realizing that the ghost was no longer determined to stick to Katie like glue, but had moved on to him. He was a good conversationalist—and thus the problem. Sean was far too tempted to talk to him, reply in public and definitely appear stark, raving mad upon occasion.
Ghosts were all over the place, Bartholomew had informed him. Most people felt a whisper in the breeze, sometimes a little pang of sorrow, and if the ghost was “intelligent” and “active,” it might enjoy a bit of fun now and then, creating a breeze, causing a bang in the dark of night, and so on. Katie had real vision for the souls lurking this side of the veil. So far, thank God, he’d seen only Bartholomew, and maybe a mist of others in the shadows now and then.
Sean had been damned happy before he’d “seen” a ghost at all.
Pirate Cut, he noted mentally. A good place to begin shooting. They hadn’t known in Bartholomew’s day that the reefs needed to be protected. They had brought their ships to the deep-water plunge just off the reef many times. Bartholomew knew for a fact that the legend about the area was true—ships of many nations had foundered here in storms, been cut up on the reefs and left to the destruction of time and the elements. But there was treasure scattered here, treasure and history, even if it had been picked over in the many years since.
It would also make for beautiful underwater footage. The colors were brilliant; the light was excellent. And it was near the area where Bartholomew had allegedly chased and gunned down a ship and murdered those aboard. Falsely accused, in the days after David Porter’s Pirate Squadron had been established, he had been hanged quickly, and it had been only after his unjust death that his innocence had been proven.
It was a good story for a documentary. Especially considering the events of the recent past, when a madman had decided that it was his ancestor who had been wronged and that the Becketts were to pay.
The whole story needed to be told, and it would.
And perhaps, if he managed to get Bartholomew’s story out there, with any luck Bartholomew might “see the light” and move on to the better world he believed he would find.
It was true that Bartholomew was not a bad guy and that, if he were flesh and blood, he’d be great to hang out with. But with Katie engaged to David Beckett now and basically living at the Beckett house, it seemed that Bartholomew was really all his.
And no way out of it—it was awkward. Disconcerting. And he was starting to look as if he walked around talking to himself. So much for an intelligent and manly image, Sean thought dryly.
“Bartholomew, please, stop talking to me. You’re well aware that I look crazy as all hell when people see me talking to you, right?” Sean demanded.
“I keep telling you, you’re an artist. And a true conch,” Bartholomew said. “Born and bred on the island. Tall, with that great red hair, good and bronzed—hey, fellow, a man’s man as they say,” Bartholomew told him, waving a ringed hand in the air. “Trust me—you’re masculine, virile, beloved and—an artist. You’re allowed to be crazy. And, good God, man—this is Key West!”
“Right. Then the tourists will have me arrested,” Sean said.
They’d reached O’Hara’s, toward the southern end of Duval. Sean cast Bartholomew a warning glare. Bartholomew shrugged and followed Sean in.
Sean walked straight up to the bar. Jamie O’Hara himself was working his taps that day.
“Hey, what’s up?” Sean asked, setting his hands on the bar and looking at Jamie, who was busy drying a beer glass.
It was early in the day—by Key West bar standards. Just after eleven. Jamie, when he was in town, usually opened the place around eleven-thirty, and whoever of his old friends, locals, or even tourists who wandered in for lunch early were served by Jamie himself. He cooked, bussed and made his drinks, poured his own Guinnesses—seven minutes to properly fill a Guinness glass—and he did so because he liked being a pub owner and he was the kind of employer who liked people, his employees and his establishment. He could handle the place in the early hour—unless there was a festival in town. Which, quite often, there was. Starting at the end of this week, he’d have double shifts going on—Pirates in Paradise was coming to town.
At this moment, though, O’Hara’s was quiet. Just Jamie, behind the bar.
Jamie was the perfect Irish barkeep—though he had been born in Key West. He, like Sean’s dad, had spent a great deal of time in the “old country” visiting their mother’s family—O’Casey folk—and he and Sean’s dad had both gone to college in Dublin. Jamie could put on a great brogue when he chose, but he could also slip into a laid-back Keys Southern drawl. Sean had always thought he should have been an actor. Jamie said that owning a pub was nearly the same thing. He had a rich head full of gray hair, a weather-worn but distinguished face, bright blue eyes and a fine-trimmed beard and mustache, both in that steel-gray that seemed to make him appear to be some kind of clan chieftain, or an old ard-ri, high king, of Ireland. He was well over six feet, with broad shoulders and a seaman’s muscles.
Jamie indicated the last booth in the bar area of the pub, which was now cast in shadow.
He realized that someone was sitting in the booth.
He couldn’t help but grin at his uncle. “You’re harboring a spy? A double agent? Someone from the CIA working the Keys connection?”
Sean knew that bad things—very bad things—could happen, even in Key West, Florida, “island paradise” though it might be. He’d seen them. But someone hiding in the shadows seemed a bit out of the ordinary.
Jamie shrugged and spoke softly. “Who knows why she’s sitting in the dark? She’s a nice kid. Came in here, I guess, ’cause the world seems to consider it neutral ground or something. She heard about you and David and the documentary you two are going to film together.”
Sean frowned. “We’ve had ads in the papers for crews for the boats and the filming. David and I have been setting up for interviews at his place.”
“What do you want from me, son, eh? She came in here, knowing I was related to the O’Hara looking to film about Key West and her mysteries. I said yes, and she asked if there was any way she could speak to you alone.”
“She’s applying for a job? Then she should go about it just like all the others and ask for an interview,” Sean said, annoyed. He couldn’t really see the woman in the corner, but he thought she seemed young. Maybe she was trying to secure a position by coming through the back door, flirting, drawing on his uncle’s sympathies.
