Haunted

7

From the way Birdy suddenly went quiet, I knew we would be sleeping in a motel tonight, not the house, so I beat her to it, saying, “Let’s find a place in Labelle and come back in the morning with bug bombs. We’ll set them off before Theo shows us the dig site. By evening, it’ll be okay to sleep.”

Birdy, her mind somewhere else, said, “Huh? Oh-I can’t. You know I work Sunday mornings, so I can’t stay tomorrow night.” She peered ahead, unsure of something. Several steps later, she took my arm and whispered, “Someone’s coming.”

“Where?”

“A person. See?”

No. The moon was to our left. Enough light pooled on the road so that we didn’t need our flashlights, but not enough to make out details. When I reached for my flashlight, Birdy, voice low, ordered, “Don’t. Keep moving,” then slipped the purse off her shoulder; a purse that contained a semiauto pistol loaded with police man-stopper rounds.

“Whatever you say,” I replied-both of us whispering-but then changed my mind when I saw movement near the sign we’d seen earlier: Slew Vaccine and Herpetile.

I planted my feet, which dragged Birdy to a halt. “Mr. Matás pulled in there by accident the other night and a big dog or something charged his car. I don’t want you to shoot someone’s dog.”

Her purse was open but she hadn’t taken the gun out. “I wouldn’t-unless I had to. Even out here, dogs should be on a leash.” She thought for a moment. “What do you mean or something?”

I said, “Shush,” because details were emerging from the trees. It was a person carrying something heavy, a formless shape that breached the entrance to what Theo had described as a small, modern facility. The object looked like an oversized trash can; the person, male, was wide-shouldered, strong, but as short as a child. He squatted, placed the can by the road, then reversed his course, walking with the odd teeter-totter strides of someone who is muscle-bound or on stilts. There was a gate. He pulled it closed behind him.

Birdy gave it a long, uneasy minute before saying into my ear, “A dwarf. That’s another dwarf… isn’t it?”

I sniffed the air flowing toward us, a light breeze from the north. Garbage… fermenting fruit… and a fecal musk that forced my head to turn.

Birdy’s, too. “My god, what’s that stink?”

I said, “Mr. Matás could have been wrong about the dog. At first he said it was something else, maybe a-” I hesitated.

“A what?”

“At first he thought it was a chimpanzee.”

“A chimp? Jesus Christ, how do you confuse a dog with a chimp?”

I shushed her again. “That was his first impression. It was dark, he was in that rental RV of his. Then an old man came out, yelling, and Mr. Matás is close to eighty himself. Anyone that age would’ve been confused. Now he thinks it was one of the large breeds like a Saint Bernard.”

“A chimp!” She reached into her purse. “Those things are monsters. Did you read what a chimp did to that poor woman? She had to have a face transplant.” Birdy had her pistol out, a flashlight in her other hand. She stood taller to scout ahead. “Come on, let’s have a look.”

“A look at what?”

“Footprints. The road’s mostly sand. That’ll tell us. Special permits are required to keep dangerous pets. I’ll have the owner’s ass if there’s an illegal chimp roaming around here at night.”

I said, “A person who makes snake vaccine probably knows more about permits than either one of us. Let’s go back and ask someone to drive us.”

She kept walking. “Then whoever owns the thing can, by god, show me the paperwork.”

I grabbed her arm, but Birdy remained focused on the gate. “Stay here, if you want. Tell me you didn’t read about the woman who had her face chewed off.”

“You are off duty. And what if the dog or whatever it is bites? Call your office and tell them about this once we’re safe and in the car. Let’s get a few deputies out here.” Another tug, but it was the wrong thing to say.

“I am a deputy sheriff,” she reasoned, but spoke to herself. “Off duty or not, I’m still an officer of the court. Let’s at least look for tracks.” She pulled away and walked toward the drive, pistol at her side.

I followed along. The sign posted at the driveway glittered with yellow reflective tape, oaks formed a cavern above. Cicadas buzzed a seesaw chorus until we were near the mouth of the drive, then suddenly went silent.

Birdy stopped. “That thing has to weigh a ton.” She was referring to the trash can. It was industrial-sized and stuffed with pruned tree limbs, pieces of furniture, and broken tile. “It would take both of us to lift it.”

“Seriously-let’s come back in a car.”

“Stop worrying. This is what I’m trained to do.” Pistol ready, she continued walking.

I didn’t share her confidence. In my pocket was an LED flashlight, small but dazzlingly bright. It was a gift from the biologist I had dated, a man who, I suspected, had traveled to many dark places and was particular about light. When I switched it on, Birdy said, “Wow, that helps,” but then crouched and said, “What the hell was that?”

The light had spooked something in the bushes to our right. We heard the heavy crunch of breaking limbs. The noise started at ground level, then seemed to ascend higher into the trees.

I whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

Instead, Birdy hollered toward the driveway, “Sheriff’s Department. Come out and identify yourself.” With the pistol pointed at the ground, she walked toward the whip and crackle of branches.

I couldn’t run off and leave her, so I used the flashlight-painted the tree canopy and tracked the sound-but was always a second behind. All we saw were moving branches and a cascade of falling leaves. I stabbed the beam ahead at a massive oak. I hoped to intercept whatever it was. When I did, the tree exploded with a thumping, squawking cloud of birds… birds the size of vultures.

Birdy, the cop, ducked and said, “Shit,” while I kept the light steady.

That’s what I thought they were-vultures-until one soared toward me, its clumsy wings struggling to stay airborne and follow the others, who also appeared too large for flight. The birds scattered overhead. The sound of falling rain pattered around us, then they regrouped and crash-dived toward the river while I chased them with the flashlight.

“What the hell!”

I responded, “My heart damn near stopped!”

“Are they pelicans?”

“Turkeys,” I said. “Wild turkeys. My lord, they scared the fire out of me.”

Birdy took a deep breath and made a whistling sound. “I hope you noticed not once did I point my weapon at them. That’s training-wait until you’ve identified your subject.”

My reply was equally off topic. “My uncle took me turkey hunting two or three times, but this is the first time I was ever close enough. There had to be at least a dozen. Wild turkeys, they’re very smart.”

We went back and forth like that-nervous talk-until I saw a glob of gray goo on my shoe that matched a streak of gray on my jeans. Birdy noticed something on her shoulder… then in her hair. She touched it and sniffed. “Bird shit.” She made a queasy noise.

“Turkey shit,” I amended, my vocabulary still out of control while my beating heart slowed.

“What a night. First, a scorpion bites me, then my hundred-dollar blouse gets turd-bombed. A foot of snow and Boston is sounding pretty good right now.” Birdy found hand wipes in her purse, then proved my instincts right by adding, “No way in hell am I going to bed without a shower. We either get a hotel or I’m following you home. What time is it?”

It was ten-twenty, which I told her while my brain settled and began to work again. I wanted to believe my flashlight had tracked turkeys clattering through the trees. But I didn’t believe it. The turkeys had been roosting. Something else bothered me: I had smelled fermenting fruit and garbage, not limbs and broken furniture. To confirm the incongruity, I swung my light to the trash container ten yards away. It was piled high with wood.

Birdy sobered. “Yeah… let’s check for tracks.”

“Why? That’s not what I was looking for.”

“Stay here, if you want.”

I couldn’t do that, so only muttered, “Lucia must’ve slipped a crazy pill into your drink.”

I dreaded what we might find but felt better when Birdy knelt by the can and used her index finger to trace a deep impression in the sand. “It was a man wearing shoes,” she said. “See? He turned around here-the tracks aren’t as deep-and walked back to the vaccine place. Size seven or eight in ladies’ shoes, I’d say. Tiny for a man, so he’s short but wide and strong as hell.”

“Sandals,” I corrected her, “no heel prints.” I wanted to share my friend’s relief but couldn’t muster the conviction.

Birdy sensed it. “Chimps don’t wear sandals or heels. Let’s find a Holiday Inn.”

“After I get Captain Summerlin’s journal,” I replied.

WHAT WE FOUND was better, the River’s Edge Motel on Old County Road 78, just across the bridge from Labelle, a pretty little town with a friendly cowboy flavor. The motel had large, clean rooms that overlooked the Caloosahatchee River and a dock where three trawlers and a houseboat were moored among smaller boats.

“Screw sleeping with scorpions,” Birdy said after she had showered and joined me on the porch. “I like this place. How about we book two rooms for the week and bill my aunt? It’s only thirty minutes to the old house and no more than forty for me to get to work on Sunday morning. That way, I can stay tomorrow night.”

I agreed it was a nice motel but was in a foul, suspicious mood. “There’s less chance of being robbed, at least, or people snooping,” I said. I was referring to what I’d found after returning to the Cadence house. The door was still padlocked and Capt. Summerlin’s journal was on the mantel, but not exactly as I’d left it. I’m particular about how I place things. Right away, I knew. The box lid was sealed; I’d left it ajar so air could circulate. Further proof was a torn page and new cracks in the binding; the cracks could have been caused by flattening the book to photograph the contents.

Birdy, whose room was three doors down from mine, said, “We’re off duty. We’ve got clean sheets and bathrooms, so stop with the paranoia. What you need is a drink.”

There was no nearby bar to provide mojitos, so we’d bought a bottle of red wine at a 7-Eleven, a store not known for fine wines. That didn’t seem to matter at eleven-fifteen on a Friday night, the two of us eager for a shower and beds to sleep in.

I replied, “You said yourself that Theo disappeared long enough to break in. I don’t trust him. Was he still hitting on you?”

Birdy, fussing with her buttons, nodded. “He put his hand on my ass. I told him it was a little early in the game for heavy petting, but maybe after the doctor took his cast off.”

“That’s all you said?”

“Threatening to break his arm wasn’t enough? Besides, being a pompous prick isn’t a deal breaker with me. Not if he’s got nice bone structure and nice hands. Did you notice Theo’s? Kind of delicate for a man his size.”

“There’s a word for that kind of behavior,” I told her. “Are you sure the witches didn’t drug you?”

Birdy smiled, “Hold that thought,” and returned with the wine and two glass tumblers, the River’s Edge being a mom-and-pop motel with kitchenettes and cupboards fully stocked. She poured the glasses, handed me one, then offered a toast-“To separate bathrooms”-before telling me about her time alone with Theo and the three women.

“They knew that my aunt sent us. And she knew way too much about me for it to be a series of lucky guesses. I’d like to say I don’t believe in paranormal powers, but…” Birdy sipped her wine, made a face, and said, “God, this is awful.”

“You’re talking about Lucia?” I asked. “What did she say?”

Birdy sniffed her glass and focused on the dock, where the trawlers were buttoned up for the night but the houseboat’s windows were bright. On the roof deck, two long, lean silhouettes listened to Garth Brooks, the music softer than male laughter. “I bet those men have an extra cold beer or two. If there’s a God in heaven, maybe even some decent tequila and a lime.”

I replied, “It’s too late to go begging drinks from strange men. Answer my question.” I was tired-another reason I wasn’t in good humor. This was the first chance we’d had to talk because Birdy had followed me in her BMW rather than leave one of our vehicles unattended at the Cadence place.

“You’ve got a prudish streak in you, Smithie.”

“It’s a good thing one of us does. Maybe this wine needs to breathe a little. Tell me what happened while we wait.”

“C-P-R and a respirator can’t change vinegar into merlot. How much did you pay for this?”

I said, “About the same as a gallon of gas. Now, tell me what happened.”

What happened was, Lucia had done a good job of proving-in Theo’s words-that she could splice into the thoughts of certain people, especially those who also had psychic gifts. That made Birdy an especially difficult subject, according to Lucia, an insult my friend fumed over while explaining, “I don’t know how the bitch did it. She told me things about my childhood that no one-I mean, no one-knows. I’ve gone over and over it in my head. It’s an act, a fortune-teller’s act, but how did she do it?”

I had a theory. Bunny Tupplemeyer had confided secrets to her astrologician, a person who wasn’t trustworthy. It was guesswork on my part and a serious charge that might offend the socialite if she heard. So I let my friend talk.

“The clever thing was, Lucia didn’t come right out and state such and such happened at whatever age I happened to be at the time. She would make a statement, then ask leading questions, like, ‘You have a scar on your lower abdomen, the right side. Children have their appendix removed, but I don’t see an operation in your past.’ You know, talking in that superior tone of hers. Then comes the question, but she already knew the answer, I’d bet on it. She asks me, ‘What happened when you were fourteen years old?’ No, she says, ‘What happened, dearie.’ The way she uses that word, it’s like a razor with a smile.”

Birdy hated being called dearie, but had tolerated it, just as she had tolerated the other women fussing over a poultice made of herbs wrapped in cheesecloth. Theo had sat cross-legged on the picnic table, watching, not saying much except to marvel over Lucia’s accuracy

I asked, “What about the scar? Was she right?”

“I was sixteen, not fourteen-see what I mean? Even her mistakes are convincing. It’s a technique.”

“Yeah, but how did it happen?”

Birdy talked over me. “Same with asking questions. Remember her crack about your guilty conscience? She knows you shot someone, I think.”

I said, “I thought about that on the way here,” but still withheld my theory.

“Lucia is smooth. The questions make her routine more believable. You know, force people to participate. It allowed her to manipulate me into giving answers that, like I said, she already knew. Maybe not the specifics, but close enough. Very professional. But how the hell does she do it? Oh”-Birdy snapped her fingers-“and there was something else. I’d bet that Lucia and Theo have known each other for a lot longer than three weeks.” She sniffed her wine again. “Tell the truth, do you think he’s screwing her?”

“Theo and Lucia?” I asked, but decided it was wiser to take a guess about the scar. “You did something really stupid when you were sixteen, didn’t you? That’s why you won’t say.”

“The way Theo would chime in, it was almost like he was working as her shill. That would be a deal breaker for me. The timing, a sort of patter they had going.” Birdy ruminated over Theo’s behavior but finally answered, “I wouldn’t call getting a kiss from David Ortiz stupid.”

I couldn’t place the name but said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope, but it didn’t start out as fun as it sounds. I was at Fenway Park and fell over the railing when I stretched too far for a foul ball. Next to the dugout is a sort of camera pit and I landed on a field keeper’s rake-seven stitches-but Big Papi was right there and swept me up. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’ll show you the ball he signed.”

She was a Red Sox fan. I knew she was talking about baseball but had to ask, “What about David Ortiz? Why did he kiss you?”

Birdy, amused for some reason, replied, “I didn’t say he kissed me” and laughed but was watching the houseboat. The two men were lounging while a new song floated over mown grass and a hint of distant jasmine. She gave the wine another try, then dumped it. “They’re probably locals-fishermen, maybe. So they might have some good stories about the Cadence place. That could be helpful.” She let that settle, then asked, “Do you know anything about country music?”

I knew what she was working up to. “They’re playing Garth Brooks-but don’t you dare go bothering them this late.” She had called me prudish, which I am not, so it felt okay to play the role I’d been assigned-until I proved her wrong. And I would.

Birdy stood and straightened her collar, prettying herself up. “Is he popular?”

“Think of David Ortiz in a cowboy hat,” I said. Then I swung over the railing so that I was the first to introduce myself to the men on the houseboat.