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.
“I don’t think that it’s work she’s looking for, but I don’t know. She’s pretty tense. She wanted to know about the recent business down here—you know, all the nasty stuff with the murders—and she was mainly wanting to know, so it seemed, how you all coped with the bad things going on. Like, frankly, were you a pack of cowards, was it really all solved by the police, did I think that you were capable people—and did you really know the area.”
“Oh, great. She sounds like someone I really want to hire!” Sean said.
Jamie laughed. “She’s not that bad—she was dead honest in the questions she asked me. She didn’t use the word coward, that was mine. There’s something I like about her, Sean. Talk to her. She seems tense and nervous—and somehow, the real deal.” His uncle leaned closer to him. “There’s some mystery about this girl, and yet something real. Talk to her. Oh, and by the way, she is really something. She’s got every diving certificate, advanced, teacher, you name it. She’s gotten awards for her writing, and oh—hmm. She happens to have amazing blond hair, giant blue eyes and a shape to die for, nephew. Check it out. Go ahead. What’s the matter, boy, scared?”
Sean looked at his uncle in surprise and laughed. Scared? No. He was at least intrigued. Couldn’t hurt to talk to the woman. He and David were anxious to get started on their project because it was important to both of them—and it was also what they were best known for in their separate careers. But they were discussing just what bits and pieces and stories they would use for their documentary. Bartholomew’s situation was a must, Robert the Doll was a must, and the bizarre, true and fairly recent history of Elena and Count von Cosel was also a must. It wouldn’t be Key West if they didn’t touch on Hemingway and the writing connection. And there had to be pirates, wreckers, sponge divers and cigar makers, and how the Conch Republic became the Conch Republic. But as to exactly what they were using and what they were concentrating on, they were still open. They hadn’t made any hard-and-fast decisions yet, but since David was home and planning a wedding with Sean’s sister, they had decided that, at long last, they should work together. Friends in school who hadn’t seen each other in a decade, they had both gone the same route—film. Once the tension and terror of a murderer at work in Key West had died down, David had decided he was going to stay home awhile. That had a lot to do with the fact that he was in love with Sean’s sister, Katie O’Hara. But David was a conch, too—born and bred in Key West from nearly two generations of conchs. David belonged here.
Sean had stayed away from home a lot, too. But now he was excited about the idea of working with David—and working on a history about Key West and the surrounding area, bringing to light what truth they could discover that lay behind many of the legends. One thing had never been more true—fact was far stranger than fiction. But as he knew from living here, fact could become distorted.
