Except, as he spoke the last words, he wasn’t. He disappeared as if he’d never been there.
Abby realized she was shaking.
She sat down on the chair in front of the computer screens. She gazed at them for a moment, her mind strangely blank and her hands still trembling. She clenched them into loose fists.
The screens showed her that Sullivan remained behind the bar, Macy chatted with customers, Bootsie raised a beer to his lips.
Will Chan sat and watched.
In the dining room, Paul and Roger were still at the table. Paul was speaking earnestly to Roger; Roger nodded and kept drinking.
He was going to play an interesting Blue the following day if he didn’t stop.
She left the computer screens, knowing that someone at the house on Chippewa was always watching them. By the time she came downstairs, Bootsie and Will were gone. Sullivan worked behind the bar, putting away glasses.
Macy was off-duty, and Grant Green had taken her position at the host stand.
“Hey, girl,” Grant said to her. “I’m glad you’re here. You getting any rest?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Abby said.
“No luck on the missing girl, huh?”
“Not yet.”
He leaned toward her. “I’m having the waitress bring a check to Paul and Roger. I’m pretty sure Paul wants to get Roger out of here. At least the two of them won’t be driving.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” Abby said.
“It’s all right to...hurry them out?”
“Grant, yes of course. You’re the manager. You can and should refuse to sell to anyone who appears inebriated. That includes my high school friends.”
He smiled. “Thanks. It’s just kind of... Well, we’re entering a new era at the Dragonslayer. We all need to adjust.”
She refrained from telling him that, at the moment, the running of the tavern was the last of her concerns.
“But you know what? I’m here. I’ll take care of this,” she told him.
She walked over to the table where Paul and Roger were still sitting. She slid in next to Roger and took his hands. “Look at me, Roger.”
When he did, she said, “You’re going home now. Go to bed and get some sleep. We’re doing the pirate show for the crowd tomorrow. I need you to be in good shape. You and Paul. I’m not an actor. I can only do it because I grew up here—and because I have the two of you. Okay?”
He smiled at her a little blearily. “Yeah, you know about Missy Tweed, don’t you?”
“She was ransomed,” Abby said.
“But she fell in love with Blue. She wanted to stay with him. He did save her—he came back to his ship to find that bastard, Scurvy Pete, trying to attack her. Scurvy Pete told him she was a captive and they were pirates and he was being a fool. So Missy thought Blue was her savior. Of course, Blue had seized her off her father’s ship, but that didn’t stop Missy from loving him. He was a businessman, Abby. Blue was a businessman. He only attacked ships that belonged to England’s enemies. He took her off her father’s ship when he saved the crew because the ship had been caught in a storm and wrecked and began sinking. So...Blue actually saved Missy twice,” he concluded.
“It’s a great story, Roger. And we’ll do it well tomorrow. If you go home now.”
Paul looked at her with gratitude. “Come on, Roger. I’ll get you home.”
Paul helped him up and they left together, arm in arm. As Abby watched, a man in a colorful tourist shirt rose from his table and followed.
Abby smiled. The police were at work; she knew the man had to be a plainclothes officer, doing his job.
Following Roger English.
“I busted into an empty cabin,” Malachi told Jackson. “And I’m afraid I dripped water all over that beautiful yacht. But I did find this.”
He hadn’t heard anything in the cabin and hadn’t really expected to find Bianca Salzburg. If she’d been there, she would’ve made some sound—unless she’d been gagged and Helen hadn’t said anything about being gagged, just blindfolded.
So, no Bianca. But what he had found was more than a little suspicious.
Maybe not under normal circumstances. But under these circumstances...
He handed Jackson the scarf. It was a large pirate-themed scarf, the kind that was sold all over the city. It had been crumpled and kicked half under the bed. He wondered if it was used as a blindfold by someone.
Aldous?
The man was big and burly. He looked like a pirate. He was rich. He owned ships and a private yacht. He was in the prime of his health.
“Where did he go when he left here?” Malachi asked, sitting on a bench to get his shoes back on as they spoke.
“He was followed to his house. There’s an officer outside now,” Jackson said.
“Did they get anything off that partial gum wrapper?”
“Testing isn’t in yet.”
Malachi nodded. Fingerprints, if there were any, weren’t necessarily easy to match, since they might not be in any law enforcement database.
Malachi stared out at the river. One of the big paddle wheelers was going by; the music and laughter traveled all the way to shore.
People looked at him curiously as they passed. On the riverfront, it was growing late. But tourists, in smaller numbers, were still passing by. The news of a missing woman—and the murders—was surely disconcerting to them. But if they traveled as couples or in groups, the horror was removed. They could sympathize, but this wasn’t their home, and it wasn’t their friend, lover or child who’d been killed or was missing.
No person could embrace every tragedy. It would make life unbearable.
There was nothing Malachi could see on the river. Not then.
“I guess I’ll call it a night.” He turned to Jackson. “They’ll watch him through the night?”
“There’ll be a man on his house at all times,” Jackson said.
Malachi nodded. “Good.” Then he frowned, shaking his head. “Jackson, something is bothering me. Helen talked about a sound. Tap, tap, tap. Does that mean anything to you?”
Jackson looked tired. “They weren’t taken by the ghosts of Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly,” he said. “Tap, tap, tap. I don’t know. I’ll try to think of things that could make that kind of sound. And I’ll see that the whole team is aware.”
“It’s hard,” Malachi said. “Situations like this always are. But,” he admitted, “it’s better when you work with others—the right others.”
Jackson managed a smile. “So, you’re in? As more than a consultant?”
Only if we find Bianca alive, Malachi thought.
“Assuming we solve this,” he said.
“We’ll solve it,” Jackson vowed. “We have to. And we will. We have a perfect record so far.”
They left the riverfront together, parting ways on Bay Street. Jackson had brought his car and Malachi didn’t want a ride for the few blocks to the Dragonslayer. He could dry off enough walking back, then he’d slink up the stairs before anyone noticed him.
The Dragonslayer was still open when he returned, but he didn’t pause to speak to anyone; he just started up the stairs. Grant, at the host stand, saw him and waved, and he waved back. None of the barflies was present, nor did he recognize anyone at the tables.
When he entered the apartment, Abby came rushing over to him and threw herself into his arms.
“I can’t wait to tell you what happened!” she said excitedly before drawing back. “Ugh. You’re all wet!”
“I went swimming,” Malachi said. He was sorry the moment he said the words. Hope sprang into her eyes.
“You found Bianca?” she asked excitedly.
“No. I dove into the river to get to Aldous’s yacht.” He inhaled. “Abby, the rowboat Roger saw on the river—it belonged to a ship owned by one of Aldous’s companies. The police searched the ship, welcomed by the captain.”
“Does that prove anything?” she asked. “Other than that a rowboat from a big ship broke away?”
“Maybe that’s all it is. But I also found a scarf on his yacht that might...that might’ve been used as a blindfold.”
“Might have been used as a blindfold. And that would hold up in court?” she asked.
“Abby, we’re searching for a killer. We’re not in court. We’re trying to find a young woman while she’s still alive.”
Abby let out a breath. “I know,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“Nothing’s been proven—we’re watching Aldous, Dirk, Roger, among others—and keeping an eye on Bootsie, of course.”
“He’s seventy!”
Malachi nodded. “But we have to watch everyone, Abby. Everyone who was familiar with Gus—and the Dragonslayer,” he went on. “Gus knew something because of what he’d seen here. There’s no way out of that. Don’t forget he found one victim’s finger.”
She nodded again. She looked deflated but seemed to have accepted the truth. “So much time is going by. Bianca doesn’t stand much of a chance, does she?”
“She’s strong and resilient. She may be playing it just right,” Malachi said. “He wants a captive who will fall in love with him. He’s trying to live out a fantasy.”
“If he doesn’t give himself away somehow, we’ll never find him,” Abby muttered.
“We will,” Malachi said with assurance. “He was afraid when he came to the Dragonslayer the other night. Why he came when he did, I don’t know. Maybe just to prove that he could.”
“The only people with keys are—”
Malachi interrupted her. “How closely did Gus watch his keys around his friends?” he asked.
She pursed her lips and then sighed. “He kept his keys on a hook behind the bar,” she said. “I guess anyone could have borrowed them and had copies made.”
