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abilities, they worked with evidence and cold hard facts. Even so, Jackson’s units had often been called in when cases involved historic properties that were supposedly haunted.
    Heart attack or not, she was convinced Gus had been murdered. His heart had stopped because he’d been startled or come upon some sight so horrible that he’d died of shock. She hoped that her email to Jackson Crow, filled with information on the history of Savannah and the Dragonslayer, would bring him out to investigate. She wasn’t sure how she could make a federal case out of the death of a Georgian in Georgia, but she couldn’t let it rest. She owed Gus way more than that.
    So, as she greeted the local law and government personnel who’d turned out in respect for Gus, she was polite and circumspect. She moved from one to another, thanking them all.
    She didn’t mention again her belief that he’d been murdered. She didn’t need more pitying stares from those who thought she was a little crazy with grief—or suspected that, fresh from the academy, she’d try to create problems between federal and local law enforcement.
    Luckily, the people she didn’t know didn’t stay long. An hour and a half later, she found herself at a table near the life-size image of Blue Anderson, still sipping the spiked tea Aldous had handed her, with Grant Green, the night manager, and a couple of her old friends, Roger English and Paul Westermark. She’d seen Roger and Paul portraying Blue Anderson and Scurvy Pete Martin when she’d arrived a week ago.
    “I thought he was immortal,” Roger said, sighing. “Lord, I loved that man. He knew how to keep the fun and magic in history. When we were kids, remember, he’d let us dress up? Sometimes we’d pretend to be captives that Blue had taken. Or mates running around, trying to shanghai other men down to the ships.”
    “Never, ever paid us late.” Paul smiled. “I remember during one of the storms that hit Savannah a few years back, Gus had us go and do a whole pirate day for a bunch of kids at one of the shelters. He just did it out of the goodness of his heart.”
    “He put me in a wig and dressed me up as a silly maiden in distress for that one,” Grant Green recalled, sipping on a beer. “Gus was the best. The day I applied to work here, I hadn’t even filled out a form and he was short a server, so he stuck an order pad in my hand and said, ‘Just sing some kind of pirate song if you mess up—you’ll be fine!’”
    “Gus was like that,” Abby said.
    “Ah, Gus!” Grant said sadly. “He was a force of nature. I don’t think any of us believed we’d ever really lose him.”
    She could see that Macy was thanking some of Gus’s church friends and saying goodbye. She should have gotten up and joined her.
    She couldn’t quite manage it.
    As she watched, Jerry Sullivan came to the table, bearing a fresh cup.
    “New one for you,” Sullivan told her. “The one you’re holding must be iced tea by now.” He shrugged. “Gus did think that a shot of whiskey in hot tea solved all.” He grinned at her, green eyes sympathetic. “It’s kind of an Irish thing—I know, ’cause of my folks.”
    “My great-grandfather married an Irish girl in the 1890s, fresh from Ellis Island, or so I heard.” Abby smiled back, accepting the tea. She had a feeling that Sullivan had heavily spiked this cup.
    He had, but it was good. It burned as she swallowed it, warming her stomach, and then seemed to move outward to her limbs.
    “Thanks, Sullivan.”
    “My pleasure,” he said, and went back to work.
    She watched him leave. Twisting, she saw that someone was standing at the bar with her grandfather’s trio of cronies.
    “Excuse me,” she murmured, rising from the table and heading to the bar.
    Before she even came near, she realized that the man was the same one who’d been watching her at the cemetery—few people were that tall with hair quite so dark. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed that