Haunted Page 6

  Birdy’s patience was also wearing thin. She interrupted to say her sheriff’s department had brought in an expert on Florida Gypsies, part of a continuing education program.

  “Why would anyone care?”

  “Someone bothered to put it on a sign,” I countered. “Why do you think, Birdy?”

  “The place could be sued for discrimination, is what I think. Gypsy is considered a racial slur. The accepted term is the Romani people. Or Roms. Carnivals attracted them to Florida way, way back. Most went legitimate. Assimilation, that’s what happens to most ethnic groups. But not all, and the ones who’ve stuck to the old ways can be very bad news. Dollarwise, it’s incredible the amount of crime they get away with.”

  Theo again. “Yeah? But back to what I was saying—”

  I blocked him. “What else did the expert say, Birdy?”

  My friend continued, “Traditional Roms only marry among themselves—arranged marriages, usually—and they still pay dowries. Can you imagine? A few—not all, of course—but some think cheating an outsider is a badge of honor. They work in packs. Con games and fraud. Fortune-telling from the carnival days is still a favorite gambit, but now it’s high-tech. Seriously—a billion-dollar business. In Lauderdale, they just busted a fortune-telling ring. Like twenty people, all with the same last name. Cops confiscated boxes of electronics: eavesdropping and surveillance gear, stolen hard drives. And then there are the simple cons: bogus house repairs or yard work. Some pass themselves off as Hispanic. Like a pretty Latina home health care nurse, she goes in while her brothers rob old couples blind.”

  Theo said, “Profiling and stereotyping nonwhites—does your department offer courses on that, too?” Then tried to make it into a joke. “I’m kidding. I know law enforcement is tough. So you’re an intelligent woman, very attractive. Why did you choose such a crazy occupation?”

  Birdy threw it right back at him. “Because I like handcuffing men who are twice my size but ten times as naïve—which is probably why they make half my salary.”

  Theo said, “Ouch,” in a humorous way. “Do I have time to apologize before you do the Miranda rights thing?”

  Birdy laughed at that. Damn.

  “The woman who sold me the chrysanthemum resin? Just a warning—don’t tell her or anyone else you’re a cop.”

  We had rounded a bend: pop-up campers and RVs set apart in clusters, three fires and a tent, people gathered tribally in separate halos of light.

  Birdy asked, “Is she a Gypsy?”

  Theo, back in control, said, “You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

  • • •

  THREE WOMEN, all with long gray hair, two wearing tie-dyed dresses, looked up from a bong they were passing around, happy to see Theo until they noticed us. Their smiles flattened. The bong vanished under the table. The table held a plate of cookies, burning incense, and a battery-powered candle that flickered in its plastic chimney.

  Birdy whispered to me, “Except for the chubby one, they could pass for my mother. Throw in a tofu turkey and it’s my pain-in-the-ass childhood all over again. Let’s make this quick.”

  Woodsmoke, incense, and reefer, the odors clung to the clearing. Trees screened all but a circle of sky. Opposite us was a domed tent and an RV camper. Two men sat playing a board game by lantern light. Theo called, “See you in a minute,” as we passed them. One man waved and the other said, “Righty-o!”

  It was probably the Civil War hobbyist he had mentioned. I liked the older man’s looks: solid, grandfatherly in slacks and gray hair. But he and his friend were outsiders, segregated by space and a lack of shade. Others here were different. I could see it in the furtive looks, felt it in the air. Nearer the river was a van and more pop-up campers, all attached to vehicles that had towed them. Except for a CBS house—Office on a sign out front—and one trailer, an old single-wide on blocks, the roofline curved like the lines of an aging Cadillac. A small wooden porch held it to the ground.

  Tyrone and the park manager are the only full-time residents, Theo had told us.

  I didn’t want to linger on the image of a man with scales, so I replied to Birdy, “I’m thinking I should talk to the owner of the vaccine place or whoever runs it. I don’t see how a bunch of weekend campers can help.”

  “Hipster-genarians,” she muttered, meaning the three women. “The Butterfly Generation is turning into moths.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t bother him tonight, of course. Tomorrow, I’ll look up the number—Theo has to be wrong about his phone being unlisted. Don’t you think we’re wasting our time here?”

  “I bet they’re all high as kites,” my friend said. “Look at their expressions—sixty-year-old flower chicks hoping to score some good lovin’ from Theo. Very, very groovy until we show up.”

  “Don’t be mean,” I whispered.

  We stopped while Theo approached the women, arms outstretched to symbolize a group embrace. One stood to hug him. She also planted a serious kiss on his lips, her eyes shifting to check us out. Smug, her expression, this sixty-year-old woman braless but fit enough to look pretty good in an exotic muumuu, a hibiscus behind her ear. “You’re late,” she pouted and pressed her body to Theo in an extended hug, then stepped back and ignored us from fifteen paces.

  Birdy, not whispering, but not loud, remarked, “If I make it to menopause, please have my vagina sutured. Or just shoot me if I get that desperate.”

  “Keep your voice down,” I said, “she might beat me to it.”

  The women stared with fixed smiles while the attractive one hooked an arm around Theo’s waist. “Who are your friends, Theo? Shame on you for not warning them.”

  Theo, instead of inviting us over, sounded nervous when he asked, “About what?”

  “Their clothes. Or, at least, you could have warned me.”

  As if we hadn’t heard, he held up a finger and called, “Give us a sec, okay?”

  Birdy spoke to me from the side of her mouth. “Do you believe this? Turn up your hearing aid, Granny.”

  “It’s your fault,” the woman told Theo. “They’re dressed like sales clerks, not for star channeling—you know, kicking back under all this space. Tell me they’re not totally straight.” She glanced over. “Starch and mall outlets—whew—it clashes with, you know, the vibe we’re trying to achieve.”

  “Achieve a vibe?” Birdy whispered. “Star channeling? Oh my god. And check out that dress—they’ve got Target stores in the jungle someplace.”

  “Definitely a bitch,” I agreed. The word was out of my mouth before I realized it.

  Birdy said, “There’s hope for you yet,” and walked toward the table. I started after her but stopped for no reason other than a strange sensation blooming within me: a sudden wariness of the verbal sparring that awaited. I didn’t know these women. I didn’t want to know them. What was I doing here?

  Paranoia. Mild, but it was there in my head.

  Too much rum, plus that smoke, I thought. Or was it the smoldering bong beneath the table? Reefer and incense and woodsmoke swirled, the dusty air corralled by shadows, the moon sliding westward. The moon seemed the only familiar and trustworthy thing for miles. My eyes swung from Birdy to the activity around us. Three campfires, the biggest near a cluster of trucks, men and women milling, drinking, talking, too far away to decipher words. People who did a lot of this, set up in campgrounds, miniature homes bolted to their trucks, always ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  Gypsies? I wondered. Until Birdy’s summary, I was unaware that Gypsies lived in Florida.

  You’re being unfair. That came into my mind, too, and it was true.

  A camper door opened, a woman the size of a child stepped out. She walked with the quick, muscle-bound strides of a dwarf—“Little people,” I corrected myself. Another miniature woman joined her. In her hands, a basket of something, while her friend, hea
d bowed, lit a cigarette . . . or a joint.

  Not Gypsies, carnival workers, I realized. Suddenly, I felt more at ease. Like the moon, carnies and circus performers were familiar. Not commonplace, but they fit in because it is true that Florida’s their traditional wintering place. Just across the street from where my mother lives, and where I grew up, is a colony of gingerbread cottages known as Munchkinville. Supposedly, carnival folks built them years ago. When I was a girl, my uncle would take me to Gibsonton, which is on the Myakka River near Tampa and north of Sarasota, where there is a trapeze-and-clown academy. I had enjoyed those trips, usually by truck but once by boat. We’d seen elephants being washed along the river and caged monkeys. We ate at the Giant’s Restaurant and toured shops and a post office that provided a special mail slot at dwarf level because so many little people lived nearby.

  I had met the “Werewolf-faced Lady,” who was very kind, although shy, and clean-shaven during the off-season. I’d had my photo taken with the sweetest little woman you can imagine, despite her age and fame. “Miz Margaret,” I had called her. Ms. Margaret, only three-feet-something tall, had been the “Flowerpot Munchkin” in The Wizard of Oz, one of my all-time favorites. She’d also played other roles in the film, wearing different costumes throughout. On the day we’d met, a back ailment was causing her pain, but she had brightened like a rose for the camera while I’d knelt beside her and managed a smile of my own.

  Margaret . . . Margaret Pellegrini. It took a moment to recall her last name. And a news story, a few years back, that reported her death at age eighty-nine. I’d been in middle school when we’d met. For no rational reason, I suddenly wanted to fill in the blanks. It was at least fifteen years since I’d seen her. How had Ms. Margaret’s life gone during the intervening years? I wondered if it would be rude to intrude on the two tiny women across the clearing who stood alone near a fire sharing a joint, not a cigarette. Even stoned, they would certainly know the name Margaret Pellegrini.

  “Hey . . . Smithie . . . are you okay?” Birdy, who looked out of place in her slacks and stylish blouse, stood next to Theo, who was a foot taller, while the three women gabbed among themselves.

  I felt better but wanted to keep moving. “I’ll be right back,” I told her.

  Don’t abandon me was the look on her face.

  Theo called, “Hey . . . first, I want to introduce you to three honest-to-god witches. Or ‘sorceresses,’ they prefer. All from Cassadaga, so it’s got to be true.”

  Thanks to my mother, I knew that Cassadaga was a village in central Florida founded by an old-time spiritualist. The place is still known for witches and fortune-tellers.

  Instead of laughing at Theo’s claim, the women puffed up in importance, bored, but willing to indulge the good-looking archaeologist.

  “The correct term is Magissas,” the heaviest of the three warned when I was close enough. “From the Greek. And we don’t shake hands.”

  Fine with me. I forgot her name and the name of the other woman within seconds of hearing them. The lean, attractive one was Lucia. Lucia, with her sharp, aggressive eyes, said, “I do shake hands,” and we did, but she caged mine with her fingers and wouldn’t let go until I pulled free.

  “Don’t be offended,” she said, “it was actually a compliment,” then explained to her friends, “This one has some beasties bottled up inside her head—I’ll tell you later.”

  I said, “Excuse me?”

  Using her eyebrows, she communicated with her friends: See what I mean?

  “Lucia picks up on”—Theo grinned at the woman—“what did you call it? Through skin contact with certain people, Lucia says she can splice into their thoughts, sense past traumas or health issues. Neuro-communication . . . no, -cognation. No, neuro-cognition, that’s it.”

  Birdy didn’t approve. “You have a P-H-D but still believe that sort of crap?”

  Lucia, speaking to Theo, said, “I’m used to it,” then addressed Birdy. “I don’t bother to prove myself unless I find an interesting subject—a person with enough spiritual layers to teach me something. The habitually unevolved . . . simpletons, them I avoid. Theo?” The woman waved away the question Birdy was in the middle of asking. “They’re your friends. I don’t want to upset you. But if she wants proof, I’ll give it to her.”

  There was a dreamy, superior quality in Lucia’s voice that would have been more effective without the nasal whine.

  My read on the situation: The assistant professor didn’t want to be in the middle. He had been bedding Lucia, despite her age, but tonight had his sights set on a younger woman, even though she was a cop.

  Theo tried diplomacy. “Whatever you say. But, first, I didn’t tell you this but Bertie and Hannah have the keys to the old Cadence mansion. They’re sort of camping there tonight and—”

  “They’re what?” the women at the table asked simultaneously. Envious, not incredulous.

  Theo said, “Bertie’s aunt bought the place.”

  All three straightened, a reflexive deference to my friend’s new importance. One of them asked, “Have you heard the weeping bride yet? I’ve spoken to her many times.”

  She was referring to Irene Cadence—the woman on the balcony. I didn’t believe it, of course, but couldn’t help asking, “What did she tell you?”

  Theo drowned out my question. “They’re doing the sleep-in-the-haunted-house thing, but a scorpion stung the hell out of Bertie a few minutes ago. That’s why I brought the girls to see you.” He addressed us. “These ladies know more about herbal medicine than anyone I know. Scorpions, the ones here, aren’t supposed to be dangerous, but—”

  “They can be damn dangerous,” Lucia warned and got to her feet. “Where did it sting you?”

  Birdy said, “If I needed a doctor, I’d call one, okay?” Then weakened. “What do you mean dangerous?”

  “Stung you where, dearie? It’s important.”

  “Well . . . on the neck. It was throbbing but doesn’t hurt much now. Do you mean dangerous as in a delayed reaction?”

  Lucia, in Mother Teresa mode, came around the table. “Let me have a look. How close to the jugular? Judy . . . we’ll need a poultice.”

  Both women stood from the table, wobbling some, concerned but obviously stoned.

  Birdy, lifting her head, asked me, “What do you think?”

  I was disappointed the woman hadn’t answered me about Irene Cadence but said, “You’re doing just fine already. A poultice wouldn’t hurt, I guess, as long as they don’t ask you to swallow or smoke something. What kind of poultice?”

  Lucia, who was my height, gave me a cutting look . . . returned her attention to Birdy’s neck and touched a hand to her necklace, a pendant hidden beneath her dress. “Ask her to swallow something? I’m not surprised to hear you say that. But I don’t practice violence against living things.”

  I said, “It pays to be cautious.”

  “Yes . . . but it doesn’t pay to be rude. Suspicion is always rooted in guilt. Yours is anyway. Dearie, I know what you did.”

  Birdy’s eyes squinched into slits. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Lucia shrugged. “I’m seldom wrong about these things,” while her eyes stuck to mine: hard eyes that appeared silver by battery candlelight but were probably green or blue.

  “If you’re accusing me of something, come out and say it.”

  Theo tried to intervene. “Of course she’s not.”

  “I already know the answer,” Lucia said, “why would I bother?”

  The man I shot—that’s what she meant. Impossible . . . yet I sensed it was true. For the second time that night, I said, “Excuse me?” which, so far, was the cleverest response I could manage.

  Lucia smiled, but the smile flattened before she dropped the subject. “Diviner’s root and camphor and whatever else the girls come up with. A poultice will draw out the poison
—something I learned while studying tribal medicine. That’s why I’m worried. The poison”—she lifted Birdy’s chin again—“it’s so damn close to your brain. But of course it’s up to you, dearie.”

  The abandoned house—the Cadence mansion, Theo had called it—that’s what this was about. Lucia’s sudden warmth was her way of getting a look inside. Never mind how she had guessed I’d shot a man. No . . . not guessed—it was a trick. Don’t we all carry secret guilt inside? Lucia was a manipulator. She had used a fortune-teller’s device. I realized it. Did Birdy?

  Yes . . . she did. Birdy took a seat, her back to the picnic table, and waited. She pretended to listen to Theo while Lucia snuck the bong away and carried it inside. Every few seconds, Birdy and I exchanged looks. Each time, her expression sent a message, but I prolonged the exchange to be certain.

  Lucia is a fraud. I know it.

  That was Birdy’s message.

  There was a second message: Get lost.

  Liberty Tupplemeyer wanted to do some police work on her own.

  Speaking to Theo, I said, “Keep an eye on her, you mind? I’m going to introduce myself to those women.”

  He was confused, then followed my gaze. “Oh . . . the midget twins. They’re always so stoned—don’t be surprised by anything they say.”

  It wasn’t a warning, he was worried. The archaeologist didn’t want me speaking to the locals.

  I told Birdy, “I’m not going far,” meaning I would be watching her, too.

  Before I could lure the tiny women into a conversation about Ms. Margaret and Oz, the man awaiting Theo’s attention lured me into a conversation about old bottles and the Civil War. His RV was closer to where two witches and a . . . and Lucia were preparing a poultice, so I let him convince me to sit for a while.

  Another reason: Tyrone’s trailer was on the path and I’d seen a face appear at the window. Possibly checking if it was safe to go out or simply peeping at women again. For me, hanging close, waiting for Birdy, was more comfortable.