some way. Either that or the killer was a patron of the tavern.
Dirk. Most obvious suspect. He ran a pirate ship. He played a pirate daily.
Sullivan? The bartender knew the place like few others.
Aldous, Bootsie, Grant, Macy. Bootsie was an old man. Macy was a woman, which didn’t clear her, but the sexual activity the women had engaged in—rape?—before death had been with a man. Still, she could be in on it. A facilitator.
He wasn’t going to be able to sleep, so he got up and studied Gus’s room. It made him wish he’d had the opportunity to know the man. He’d evidently loved the river and history and ships. His room wasn’t furnished with reproduction pieces; the lamps and harpoons and other paraphernalia were original, probably worth a small fortune.
When he opened the old sea chest at the foot of the bed, he saw that it contained neatly folded blankets. Wandering around the small space, he discovered that the room didn’t have a closet, just an old oak armoire, but it had been emptied except for a few shirts and a woolen captain’s coat.
There was one dresser in the room. On top of it sat a few pictures. One he guessed was Abby as a child with her parents. Another was of Abby and, surely, Gus. Another was Abby’s college graduation photo. She was young and beautiful, and her eyes were filled with the bright light of one anticipating the future.
She still had that look about her, but now it was tempered by loss. The important people in her family had died. She’d made it through the academy and certainly seen enough of the brutality that could exist. It hadn’t silenced the resilient, vibrant chord of life within her; she’d seen something wrong in her grandfather’s death and was determined to get to the root of it.
And, she knew there was more in the world than what was seen by most people. Maybe she hadn’t had a lot of experience—but then, you didn’t really need a lot. Once you’d experienced the dead appearing before you or speaking to you, you recognized that it was possible.
He paused for a moment before opening the first drawer. Although he’d already been prying, he murmured, “Forgive me, Gus, I have to see if there’s anything here that will help us.”
The first drawer held neatly folded briefs and nothing more. It didn’t seem that Abby had gotten around to going through Gus’s more personal items.
In the second drawer he found T-shirts and two sets of long underwear. Savannah, on the river, could get damply cold in winter.
Third drawer contained jeans. He looked under them.
There was a newspaper neatly folded beneath the several layers of jeans. Malachi glanced at the date— three months earlier. He studied the paper. A brief article on the bottom of the front page had a headline that read Savannah Underground!
He scanned the article, which was interesting; apparently, years ago, Savannah had teemed with life below the surface.
He started to put the jeans back, deciding that, with more time, he’d refer back to the article. As he held the jeans, he felt something in one of the pockets.
He pulled out a small plastic bag. There was a Post-it stuck to the bag with a note. “Police. Found at bottom of tunnel ladder. Must get to right person.”
Curious, Malachi examined the contents of the bag. He couldn’t figure out what the object was and then a chill seemed to settle in his bones. The...thing was small and oddly dark, as if it were growing charred. He had to open the bag and let it spill out before he saw what it was.
A finger. Presumably a ring finger. Decaying. He looked at the note again. It had to mean that Gus had found the finger and meant to give it to the police. But he’d wanted to talk to his granddaughter—someone he trusted. Gus had known or suspected something.
“Hello?” Abby tapped at his door. He opened it.
“I heard you rummaging around,” she said. “So I knew you were awake. I wanted to tell you that Grant and Sullivan are gone. The Dragonslayer’s empty except for the two of us.”
He didn’t reply right away.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Gus was onto something.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “Gus found a...um, finger. He found a finger at the bottom of the tunnel. He knew that someone who had some involvement with the murders had been in the tunnel. Except the police never released the fact that the ring finger of the left hand had been taken from each of the victims. So he probably didn’t know exactly what he’d found—which was why he wanted to talk to you.”
Abby lowered her head. “He died,” she said dully, “because I didn’t get here fast enough.”
“Abby,” he said, lifting her chin, “he died because it was his time. He died doing what was right, and that would’ve been important to Gus.”
She nodded and he released her. “You’re right, even though you didn’t know him.”
“I wish I had, but I know that much about him.”
He realized she was far too close. She smelled sweetly of soap and shampoo, and he was surprised that it was suddenly so difficult for him to separate a coworker from someone...
Someone he wanted.
“What should we do with the finger?”
He stepped awkwardly back as her words broke through his thoughts. “Give it to Kat,” he said. “She’ll tell us whether it’s new and showing some kind of decay or if it’s been in the tunnel for ages.”
“Unlikely—since this killer is taking fingers.”
“I agree. But we’ll give it to Kat,” he said.
“All right.”
He paused for a minute. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“And then we’ll give it to the cops, right?”
He nodded. “Okay, now show me the Dragonslayer,” he said.
She led him through the upstairs first, leaving the family apartment behind to show him Gus’s office, the manager’s office, the employee lounge, lockers and restroom. They went to the supply room and she showed him the stairs that went down to the dining room below.
Only the night-lights were on. When they went down the stairs, they were greeted by the image of Blue Anderson standing guard over the grate that led to the tunnel below. The robotic mannequin—handsomely crafted—was eerie in the half-light.
But it wasn’t the Blue he’d met the night he arrived.
“You’ve been in the bar and the dining rooms,” Abby told him. “Oh, and the kitchen is reached through the server entrance over there.” She paused and pointed to a doorway. “It’s always open. Gus thought diners had a right to see where their food was cooked. And there’s a little service window that opens to the bar.”
He gazed carefully around. “If someone knew the routine here—the hours of business, when people were where—it would be possible for that person to be upstairs, maybe, in the storeroom, and come down those stairs...and all the way to the tunnel.”
“But we keep the grating locked,” Abby said.
“It wasn’t locked when I got here.”
She knew he was right. “The lock on the grate is a combination lock Gus had for years.”
“And you really don’t know who—or just how many people—might have the combination.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “New lock in the morning.”
“I think we’re okay for tonight,” he said. “But tomorrow I’ll go out and get a combination lock. How many people have keys to the tavern?”
“Grant, Macy, our morning chef and Sullivan. That’s as far as I know. I don’t think Gus would have given the keys to anyone else. When I was a child, we were almost broken into one night.” She hesitated. “That’s when I saw Blue for the first time. He woke my grandfather. I heard them and came out of bed and looked downstairs— my grandparents were outside with the police by then—and I saw Blue standing by the door. My grandfather suggested I not mention that I’d seen him to anyone else. I never did. Until now...”
“I never talked about seeing people, either,” Malachi told her. “I had—have—a few friends who suspect I
