Ghost Night

Chapter Two

Vanessa walked back into O’Hara’s, trying to feel as if she hadn’t just been crushed in a major defeat.

Katie was sitting at the bar, talking to her uncle. She watched Vanessa as she came up and took the stool next to her. Vanessa had known Katie forever, or so it seemed. They’d met when Katie’s school had brought a group of Key West students up to dive the springs and Vanessa’s school had been hosting the week of camp. She wasn’t sure if she’d liked her at first, being ten and wary of kids who came from cool places like Key West. But she’d been paired with Katie, who had an exceptional voice, for the talent show, and Vanessa had been her harmony and backup act, and they’d won the grand prize—two new regulators for their scuba equipment. That had begun the friendship. Of course, they’d been kids living almost four hundred miles away from one another even if it was the same state, but they’d kept up as much as possible, visiting one another at their respective colleges and meeting whenever they could.

By the time they had been able to get together in Key West, or anywhere in the Keys, Sean had been gone most of the time, so it really wasn’t that strange that she’d never had a chance to meet him before.

It seemed odd that the O’Haras could so clearly resemble one another and yet look so different. When she’d asked Jamie O’Hara what Sean looked like, he told her that Katie was Sean in a dress. That wasn’t true at all. Sean was very tall, three or four inches over six feet, with a linebacker’s shoulders. Katie was slim and willowy. While Katie had auburn hair, Sean’s was lighter, though with the same streaks of red. Katie’s eyes were a hazel green while Sean’s were more of a golden color. He had almost classic features, just like Katie, but he looked like a man who had braved the wind many a time, and his jaw leaned toward the square side.

Maybe that had just been because he’d been talking to her—and she sensed that she’d irritated him.

“Maybe I should have mentioned first that I knew you both,” Vanessa said dryly to Katie.

Katie smiled and swirled a stirrer in her coffee cup. “Ha-ha. Perhaps he’s feeling as if we’re ganging up on him! Oh, well, Sean is just being—Sean. He’ll get over it. Really, I think the lure of the mystery will get to him, once he thinks it all out. I think.” She looked at Vanessa with concern. “But…are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you should just leave it all alone.”

“You know I can’t do that—you know you couldn’t do that! Hey, I’ve talked to people around here. You plunged headfirst into finding out what had happened in David’s past, a pretty dangerous occupation, so I heard,” Vanessa said.

“Yes, but I didn’t realize at the beginning that there were going to be more bodies,” Katie murmured. “And David was determined.”

“All right, then, let me put it this way—could you just forget about it? Katie, I saw that poor girl the night she disappeared—and wound up dead. She was terrified. There was something on that beach. Other people go over there still, despite what happened.”

Katie frowned. “But nothing has happened since, right?”

“Not on Haunt Island,” Vanessa said.

“What happened otherwise?” Katie asked.

“In two years’ time? I don’t know everything, but I’m suspicious every time I hear about any bad things happening. I know about one boat that disappeared in that area. A charter boat on its way to Bimini about a year ago. Disappeared, as in vanished.”

“Things don’t really disappear in the Bermuda Triangle,” Katie said. “It was just that for years, we didn’t know what had happened. But they found the planes that went down years ago, after World War II. They finally found them. No one knows why they went down, but they certainly have educated theories. So a charter boat didn’t really disappear—it’s out there somewhere.”

“Well, one of Jay’s boats disappeared,” Vanessa said flatly. “It disappeared—and Travis and Georgia were found dead on the beach.”

Katie looked at her sympathetically. “The Bahamian authorities, Florida State authorities, and even the FBI got in on the investigation, Vanessa. There’s a problem with the ocean—when things go down, they may go down miles. There are storms, there are currents. There were no clues on the island.” She cleared her throat. “They, um, never found the rest of the bodies, right?”

Vanessa shook her head. “I’d say they actively investigated for months…maybe even a year. The torsos, hips and legs were never found. God, I can’t even believe I’m saying that!”

“But there was a suspect, right? Carlos…someone?”

“Carlos Roca,” Vanessa told her. “But he was a good guy. A friend.”

“Okay, so, no matter how you might think that he was a good guy, and even if he was a friend, you have to admit, Vanessa, it does appear as if Carlos had already killed Travis, and that when he said he’d take Georgia back to Miami, he was lying. What he did was kill her, get the boat down the beach, find where he’d stashed Travis’s body, and stage the heads and arms. Then he stole the boat and dumped the rest of the bodies into the ocean. Oh, Vanessa, I know you don’t want to believe that. But there’s no other explanation.”

“Carlos would have popped up somewhere. And the boat would have been found.”

Katie let out a long sigh. “Nessa, the boat could have gotten into trouble—and it might have sunk. And Carlos might have gone down with it. God knows where he might have tried to go from Haunt Island. But that boat’s out there somewhere. I don’t know about the bodies anymore—fish are ravenous little creatures, really—and not so little, often. Time, salt water…”

“Isn’t David’s cousin, Liam, a detective now? Could he know something?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes, I talked to him after you called me. He was never in on that investigation. He’d heard about it, of course, but he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Jamie O’Hara strode down the bar to where the two of them were sitting. “Don’t you be worrying, Miss Loren. If I know my nephew, and I think I do, he’ll come around.”

Katie arched a brow at Jamie. “Uncle Jamie, don’t go getting her hopes up, hmm?”

Jamie winked at Vanessa.

“You think he’ll come around, too, don’t you, Katie?”

Katie frowned. Then she sighed. “Yes, I started on David this morning, so…well, we’ll see. But, Vanessa, I don’t want you to be so—obsessed. I know my brother and David, and I know that they’re fascinated by mysteries like this, but…you have to understand,” she added quietly. “David came home determined to discover the truth behind a ten-year-old murder case because he had been accused of murder.”

“Yes, I know,” Vanessa said. She’d read all about the insanity that had first driven David Beckett out of Key West, and then home. Naturally. She had been friends with Katie O’Hara for years. She had read every word in the papers when the case had been solved, and that had brought her back here. Key West had two of its own native conchs—David Beckett and Sean O’Hara—about to embark on a film project that would bring to light many of the mysteries that surrounded the area throughout the decades and even centuries. David Beckett had a military background, and Sean O’Hara had filmed in many dangerous places, had received a great deal of defensive training and certainly knew how to take care of himself. Beckett also had a cousin who was a detective with the Key West police. They were the right people to at least explore the waters, and the story, and make her feel at the very least as if she were doing all that she could to find out just what had happened to Georgia, Travis—and Carlos Roca.

“Oh, I mean, David’s a great person!” Katie said, quickly defending the love of her life. “You have to understand, it’s not that he wouldn’t care, or that he wouldn’t be horrified—but he’s not FBI, a cop or any other kind of law enforcement.” She brightened suddenly. “Hey, I’ll set up a meeting with Liam. I mean, if Liam gets into it, maybe he could help us out.”

“That would be great—thanks, Katie. I’d like to meet him and hear what he thinks, because I’m sure he had to have heard about it, at least when it was all taking place.”

“Well,” Jamie said, “well and good. Now you can’t sit here in the bar, moping about all day. Go enjoy the fall. Beautiful days we’ve got going here now. Days that are the kind that bring people south. Get—get out of bar, go and do something.”

“Hey, I know that my friend Marty—big-time into pirates—is getting ready for his booth and show for the Pirates in Paradise performances this year. Let’s go give him a hand—he loves to talk pirates. I bet he knows all about that pirate you were using for your horror movie, Mad Miller. And I can almost guarantee you he knows about Kitty Cutlass and Dona Isabella, too.”

“Katie,” Vanessa said, “I did tons of research. And I love the history—love it!—but we’re talking about people murdered just two years ago.”

“But you were filming history, right?”

Vanessa grimaced. “Well, history—fractured beyond belief—that we were using for a slasher flick.”

“So I’ll call Liam. We’ll have dinner. We’ll have him over to the house.”

“David will be there, right? I mean—you are living with David at the Beckett house, right?” Vanessa asked her.

“David will be on your side,” Katie said. “I’ll call while we head over to Marty’s.”

“How do you know that you’ll convince David to be on my side?” Vanessa asked.

Katie laughed. “I can be very persuasive. No, all kidding aside, they should agree to follow your mystery. It’s good film. They’ll be delving into piracy, the founding of the area—and something that’s contemporary and horrible. People like justice and a satisfactory ending. No one can bring the dead back to life, but there is something to be said for closure. We don’t feel that we failed those who died if we can figure out a riddle and bring a killer to justice.”

“I may have you do all the talking,” Vanessa told her.

“It will work out,” Katie said.

Vanessa wasn’t at all sure that she believed Katie, but she had to keep trying. She had exhausted other possibilities. She had plagued many law-enforcement agencies, and people had been kind and they had said the right things. But the case, though open, was not being actively investigated. Her only recourse was filmmakers—and those with a preplanned budget and a plan. And a wealth of knowledge about the history of the area.

“Great,” Vanessa said. She smiled at the elder O’Hara behind the bar. “Thank you, Jamie. Katie, let’s go play with the pirates.”

Clear air turbulence in the Bermuda Triangle.

That was one of the main causes listed on a number of the flights—major commercial flights and smaller, private craft—that had plunged a thousand feet or more or had trouble in the last few decades.

There were other losses, however. A number of disappearances in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. It wasn’t officially an area at all, and had only become so in latter history—the U.S. Board of Geographical Names didn’t recognize it as a place with a name at all. Superstition ruled a lot of what people believed about the area, and it had a doppelgänger on the other side of the world called “the Devil’s Sea” by Japanese and Filipino people.

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the strange events in the area had to do with magnetism. In the Bermuda Triangle, magnets might point “true north” in contrast to “magnetic north,” which had to do with circumnavigating the earth. The compass variations could be as great as twenty degrees, which would definitely cause havoc when attempting to reach a destination.

Sean leaned back in his computer chair, studying the screen.

The next theory had to do with gas—gas from the sea itself. Subterranean beds shifting due to underwater landslides could cause a vast leakage of methane gas. An Englishman from Leeds University had proposed the theory as late as the 1990s that the weight of the gas in the water could cause a ship to sink like a rock and also that the gas in the air could cause instantaneous combustion of a fuel-filled jet in seconds flat. Boom.

The first odd occurrence went all the way back to Christopher Columbus, who, along with several of his men, reported mass compass malfunctions, a massive bolt of fire that suddenly fell from the sky into the sea and then strange lights on the horizon—all in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

Switching from site to site on the Internet, Sean had to admit that he found what he was reading fascinating.

But from magnets and gas, the theories went off into other realms, ones he was certain he couldn’t buy himself.

Aliens. Apparently, the belief that aliens were responsible for the disappearances was more widespread than he’d wanted to know. Some people believed that extraterrestrials had brought down a massive ship hundreds of years ago. That ship was down below the ocean floor. Sometimes the aliens were angry and destructive. Sometimes, to perform their evil deeds in their evil laboratories, they would send out their own vessels to snag ships or planes and bring them down below the surface.

Some people believed that they made trips to earth only now and then to snatch planes from the sky and ships from the sea.

Another theory had to do with the lost city of Atlantis. The psychic Edgar Cayce, who passed away in 1945, had claimed that he—and many other people—were reincarnated residents of the doomed Atlantis. He said that the city had not been in the Old World at all but near Bimini, in the Bahamas. The people had been highly advanced and used fire crystals for their power—fire crystals that had gotten out of hand and exploded, thus causing the sinking of Atlantis. There were still fire crystals deeply embedded in the ocean, and their power surged sometimes, causing ships, people, planes and debris to disappear. He prophesied that Atlantis would rise again in 1968 or ’69.

In 1968, the Bimini Road or Bimini Wall was discovered—a rock formation of rounded stones beneath the sea near North Bimini that definitely bore the appearance of an ancient great highway. Some geologists argued that it was a natural highway; others were convinced that it might have been a man-made structure dating back three to four thousand years.

Sean had seen the Bimini Wall, and it was fascinating, but he wasn’t a structural scholar, so he couldn’t determine if the wall had been there forever, lurking beneath sand and the elements, or if it had been man-made.

He didn’t believe that Cayce had once been a citizen of the fabled Atlantis.

Another man had put forth a crystal theory—Ray Brown. While diving in the area in 1970, he had gotten cut off from his friends. He’d found an underwater cave. The cave had been extraordinary. He’d seen a pyramid formation against a beautiful aquamarine light. Obviously, some higher intelligence had been at work in the cave, creating the light, the formation and the smooth workmanship within the cave.

He’d found a crystal sphere in the pyramid, and taken it. When he’d left the cave, he’d heard a voice telling him to get out and never to return.

Sean sat back, shaking his head, puzzled. If he’d ever found such a cave, he’d have partners and film crew down in the water before he ever came out of it.

Ray Brown didn’t do that.

He didn’t tell the world about his remarkable experience.

He brought his crystal to a psychics fair in Phoenix in 1975.

If his cave had ever been discovered or the secret of the crystal divulged, Sean didn’t know about it, nor, going from site to site to site on the Internet, could he find any mention of it—the cave, that was. There was mention only of the crystal.

Behind him, Bartholomew sniffed.

“God! Would you not read over my shoulder?” Sean asked.

Bartholomew ignored the question.

“They are referring to the Gulf Stream. They are referring to an area that, even in my day, was one of the most heavily traveled sea passages in the world. The current is always five to six knots, storms rise up constantly out of nowhere, and statistically, it would be almost impossible for things not to happen in the area. Ah, but absurd things do happen. So is there a Bermuda Triangle? Or is it just the natural state of the world?” he queried.

“I believe that you’re right about the fact that the sea can be dangerous, the Gulf Stream can be treacherous and human beings can make errors. There was a case just a few years ago where seven fishermen were out. The captain had sailed the waters more than thirty years. They left on a clear day, and a rogue wave overturned the boat. They weren’t five nautical miles from shore, but after the wave hit, the boat overturned. Two died and five were found alive. If the five hadn’t been recovered, it would have been another case for the Bermuda Triangle, because no trace of the fishing boat was ever discovered and they were in relatively shallow waters, close to shore, when it happened. I don’t believe in crystals or aliens. Who knows? Maybe a city was sunk thousands of years ago—I’ve been places where they know that one day the volcanoes beneath the surface will blow—and old islands will go down and new ones will be formed. Hawaii will sink—hell, one day, Florida will sink. That’s the planet. But as far as people being murdered by the Bermuda Triangle, crystals, aliens, or even a subspecies of humanity with gills—I don’t believe it for an instant.”

Bartholomew laughed. “That from a man carrying on a conversation with a ghost!”

Sean glared at him.

“Hey!” Bartholomew protested. “I’m just pointing out that there is more in the world than what most people are willing to see or accept. But frankly, I’m with you. I don’t believe in aliens—not from other planets. Oh, there may be life out there, but I have a feeling that life might be fungi or sponges. And no one sees the future—except for God. I’ve been around a very long time. I’ve been able to observe quite a bit. Like the fact that you’re thinking about all of this because you’ve spent the day on the computer.”

“Is there no one else you can go haunt?” Sean asked him. “Where is your beautiful lady in white?”

Bartholomew waved a hand in the air. “I’ll see her later.”

A ghost, yes. He was talking to a ghost. Not his fault—he blamed that on Katie! So he was talking to a ghost, and calling others absurd!

“Ghosts are different,” Bartholomew said, as if reading his mind. “We were, we lived and breathed. Energy doesn’t die—and we are the result. Most human beings have a religious or spiritual belief, and if you believe in what you don’t see, as in God, then it’s not such a stretch to believe that souls exist. And we all know that even among the living, some people can communicate and some can’t. But I do agree with you. The perpetrator of the evil deeds surrounding the film crew was not the Bermuda Triangle, the power of a crystal or a little green man popping out of the ocean. There’s a live person, homicidal, organized and possibly psychotic,” he finished.

Sean stared at him, hiding a smile.

“I have spent some time in the police station, obviously,” Bartholomew said. “Actually, it’s quite something. People are always saying ‘I’d just love to be a fly on the wall.’ Well, that is one thing about departing one’s earthly form. I am able to be a fly on the wall.”

“Ah, so you’re an expert now on all things law enforcement,” Sean teased.

“No, I’m gifted at listening to other people—and you may never know when you need the services of an excellent eavesdropper.”

“Point noted, thank you. Isn’t it time for high tea, or something like that?” Sean asked.

“I’m off to find my dear beauty in white,” Bartholomew said. “Be nice to me, Sean O’Hara—I believe I’m still here to watch out for you, so you just may find that you need me!”

Bartholomew walked to the door, and disappeared through it.

Sean turned back to the computer and keyed in the name Vanessa Loren.

“Fascinating!” Marty said to Vanessa. She and Katie had joined him at his house on Fleming Street. It was what they called a “shotgun” house, built with a long hall or breezeway, so that if the front and back doors were both open, you could fire a shotgun and the bullet would run right through the house. Basically, the plan was to keep the air going through the house at all times, since it had been built long before air-conditioning became a customary feature in homes in the hot, subtropical climes of the Keys.

Marty seemed like a very nice guy. Vanessa had actually seen him before, stopping in at O’Hara’s for Katie’s business, Katie-oke. O’Hara’s was always pleasant and laid-back, and a lot of locals planning acts for different festivals, private parties or any such ventures spent time there. The bar had the kind of comfortable feel that worked for locals and tourists alike. Vanessa hadn’t met Marty formally before, but she’d seen him do a good job with a pirate bellow in a rollicky sea shanty.

His house was decorated to fit the man. There were a number of ship’s bells, ships in bottles, old figureheads, anchors and other paraphernalia from the past set up around the house; he was a collector of books, music, logs, parchments, deeds, old money and more. The place was eclectic and comfortable. Vanessa thought that he must have a small fortune in the place as far as the value of some of the antiques would go, but it was still comfortable and casual.

“Fascinating!” Marty repeated, then he looked sheepish and rueful. “Oh, that’s terrible, that’s really terrible of me to say. I’m so, so sorry about your friends, of course. And I suppose it all did terrible things to the futures of those who survived. But that it all happened when you were working on a movie about Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass…I’ve always been intrigued by the tales of people that have come down to us. History. People make it so dry. This date and that date. It’s not dates schoolchildren should be remembering—it’s the people. History should be like a reality show—or Oprah. No, Jerry Springer. People love the weaknesses, the cruelty and sometimes even the honor of others!”

“Maybe an enterprising person will get it together that way one day, Marty,” Katie said.

“Aha!” Marty told her happily. “That’s exactly what I’m doing at the fort this year. An interview with a few of our notorious pirates and their consorts. You have to come. Better yet, you could be consorts, harlots, barmaids—”

“I have to work, Marty,” Katie reminded him.

“I’m hoping to be working,” Vanessa said.

Marty sighed, disappointed, and studied Vanessa. “Have you not worked for the last two years—since the incident on Bimini?”