Flash Flood (14 page)

“No, why?” He didn't want to admit it, but his curiosity was piqued.

“They needed someone innocent to go to the other world and keep the spirit of a dead man from coming back.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“If someone sees a ghost, and if this ghost could cause some harm, a go-between is used to beg the spirit to go away, continue his travel to the other world and leave the living alone. If the ghost is a man, they use a pretty young girl.”

“Who told you this?”

“Maria, in the kitchen. Most of the people believe in the Santeria.”

Dan sat bolt upright. What had Carolyn said? Dona Mari was a Santera. Dona Mari had seen Eric. Did she think she was seeing the dead? Was she behind the killing of this girl? A sacrifice to keep a very much alive ‘ghost' from coming back? To keep Eric from hurting Carolyn or Phillip? She was that devoted. He thought of the dead chicken. She was already using magic to keep evil from the house. Her involvement in all this wasn't as far-fetched as it seemed.

“I'm supposed to tell you to move on out here soon as you can.”

Dan was jolted back to the present. Here was the invitation he'd been waiting for. Nothing against the Silver Spur but the drive was time consuming, not to mention the motel's faulty air-conditioning and easy access for unexpected visitors. He wasn't looking forward to seeing Eric again soon.

“Thanks. I'd like that.”

“Billy Roland thinks it'd be easier for you to do the inventory. Work out here. Not have to drive back and forth. Get three squares, and not in some coffee shop.”

Iris could sound seductive without trying, he decided. She just oozed come-on and probably didn't know it. He turned to look at her full pouty lips, trying not to stare at the two perfectly rounded breasts that pushed up over the halter top. The barest sprinkling of freckles over each.

“Thank him for me. But I don't want to put anyone out.”

“You won't be.” Iris was running her tongue over her upper lip, mouth open forming a rosy “O.” Maybe the seduction was calculated after all. He turned away. He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow Dona Mari had had something to do with what he'd seen earlier. Did Carolyn or Phillip know the extent of her involvement?

“So, we're all set then?” He hadn't heard Iris step over the casement to stand behind him.

“Yeah.” He stood quickly. Better to have her in view than not. “I'll go into town this afternoon and check out.”

***

It hadn't taken him long to pack, a couple suitcases, a box of work-related folders, computer print-outs, notes on the case, his laptop. He'd left a twenty-dollar bill for the maid and returned the key before he put into words what was bothering him. He wanted to talk with someone about what he'd seen that morning. And who better than Judge Franklin Cyrus? Someone, besides Billy Roland, who had lived in Tatum all his life.

The judge was busy, but Dan didn't mind waiting. He took the old leather overstuffed chair offered by Junior, who had slid it closer to the window.

“Thought you might like some light.”

Dan wasn't sure for what, but the view wasn't unpleasant. The space between the bank and Lil's Mercantile on the north had been blocked off to form a garden hidden from view to those on the sidewalk in front. Dan could see white benches next to a sundial and to the right of a birdbath. A tangle of elms with old climbing roses winding up their trunks caught his eye, splashes of red against the brown. It looked like a memorial garden. Dan vaguely wondered to whom.

“Pretty, isn't it?”

“Very. Who's the gardener?” As long as Junior wanted to be chatty, he'd go along.

“Dad. And, sometimes I plant a few things. It's supposed to be a copy of an English garden.”

“I'd say you were successful.”

“We need more rain. Everything does so much better with rain water.”

Dan thought they had just about reached the limit of his green thumb knowledge or interest; anyway, he had a couple questions he'd like to ask.

“Did Eric Linden keep an account at Midland Central?”

Junior pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I don't know whether I'm supposed to let out that kind of information.”

“Let out what kind of information?” Judge Cyrus boomed from the doorway to his office. Fantastic hearing, Dan thought.

“He was just asking—”

“Just curiosity.” Dan smiled at Junior, who seemed to pale and back toward his desk.

“Well, I bet I know what you're curious about. Good idea to talk with an expert. C'mon in.” The judge was waving him toward his office. “Who told you I was up on my witchcraft?”

“Overheard someone mention your name this morning,” Dan lied, but was beginning to feel his luck had changed.

“Nasty business out there. I heard about it. Couldn't get away to have a look myself. Course, wasn't the first time. This sort of thing happens. Goes with the territory if you live this close to the border.”

Dan wasn't sure how to start, but was saved any uncertainty by the judge's eagerness to discuss it. So he just sat back across the wide desk and let the judge continue.

“I suppose we've been plagued with this sort of thing about thirty odd years now. Doesn't seem possible it could be that long ago, but it must be.” The judge paused, picked a cigar out of the ashtray and thoughtfully sucked on a well-worked end before lighting it. “Had ourselves a real Voodoo priest in our midst back then. Started out harmless enough. The Methodists sponsored a family from Haiti. Brought 'em here to start over after one coup or another. That country has more crazy trouble. Everyone in Tatum was behind it. Billy Roland offered the man work along with his wife over at the Double Horseshoe.”

“Did they have children?”

“Two girls. Want a little something to wet your whistle?”

Dan shook his head but watched Judge Cyrus go to a liquor cabinet built into the bookcases. He brought a cut-glass decanter of whiskey back to the desk.

“Well, the first thing to happen was the wife died. I'm not sure I even remember what from. Something she came over here with, jungle fever. But the husband blamed us, the hospital and doctors here. Next thing we started hearing about were strange rituals out at the McCandless place.”

“McCandless place?”

“Herb McCandless, deacon in the Methodist church. He and his wife, Jane, gave the poor unfortunates a home. Shack, really, but with running water, out behind their house 'bout five miles out of town.”

“What kind of rituals?”

“Coming to that, hold yer horses.” The judge poured a generous two fingers of whiskey into a glass.

“All of a sudden-like, Herb and Jane quit coming to church or even into town more than once a month. Might not seem strange to you but, let me tell you, that had some tongues wagging. So, I get talked into taking a group and riding out to their farm to have a look around.”

“I'll never forget it. You've lived long enough to see some bizarre stuff in your life, I'll bet—” the judge didn't wait for Dan to comment before going on— “but this will beat anything. Anything.”

“When we rode up, first thing we saw was ol' Herb McCandless standing inside a circle drawn on the ground with flour out under a tree in his front yard, barefoot, in his boxer shorts and undershirt. Just standing there under an old elm with this Voodoo priest dancing around, covered with feathers and beads and body paint, sweating up a storm and chanting some convoluted scripture in a mixture of Creole and Latin.” The judge paused to pull on his cigar.

“I don't need to tell you we all just about dropped our teeth.”

“Where was the wife?”

“It gets even stranger. Jane wasn't in the house and from the mess things was in didn't look like she'd been paying much attention to it for some time. So, a couple of us started scouting around. And we found her, all right, cowering behind the outhouse, stark naked 'cept for a loin cloth out of some sort of goat's skin. And she was got up bad as the priest, feathers, paint, and totally wacked out. God knows on what. But it took weeks to get her straight again.”

“What did you do?”

“It was touchy. We slapped the priest in jail. Probably a mistake. He drove everybody nuts, yelling curses, exorcising the deputies. Another family took in the two young girls. But we couldn't really hold him. Without the McCandlesses bringing charges, we didn't have a thing. And Herb and Jane refused. They never were the same. In the middle of the night about six months later, they just up and pulled out. Had a cousin take over the farm.”

“What did you do with the priest?”

“Turned out to be a halfway decent guy. Stayed on at the farm, worked the fields. Finally went down to Chihuahua and brought back another wife, older Mexican woman probably in her forties at the time. His girls got raised and moved away. A bunch of us always thought he just needed to understand that the United States was different. We didn't practice a religion like his over here. Anyway, we never did have any more trouble.”

“What happened to him?”

“Died, finally. Maybe twenty years ago, now. Old age. Hard to know how old those guys are. They don't look their age. You ever take a close look at a National Geographic? Can't tell the young bucks from the old.”

Dan decided the question was rhetorical, and asked what had been bothering him. “And the girls?”

“Never did see them again. Never came to visit that I remember. The second wife's still around, though. That Dona Mari who works for your sister. She must be seventy-five by now, if she's a day.”

“Dona Mari?” He was glad he was sitting down. He wondered if Carolyn knew the story about Dona Mari's husband. “Did she ever practice Voodoo that you know of?”

The judge's laugh boomed out, “Some say she does, even today. Some won't invest a penny without consulting her, getting some kind of good luck charm. She's harmless, if that's what you're thinking.”

“But, in the woods this morning—”

“Don't think there's a connection. No, your Dona Mari is more of a fortune teller. Folks swear by her as an herbalist, too.”

Dan wasn't so sure. But then he was the only one who knew the connection with Eric. Dan thanked the judge for his time and headed back to the Double Horseshoe.

***

“Should we start with the paperwork first?” Wednesday morning and Dan was finally getting started on the inventory.

He was moved in, back in the room upstairs at the Double Horseshoe, and had slept like the dead, only that wasn't a good comparison anymore. Not after yesterday morning and the girl in the woods.

He hadn't called Elaine, had fought with just showing up on her doorstep and saying…but that's as far as he got. He hadn't heard from Eric; it obviously made meeting more difficult with him being at the Double Horseshoe. But he felt better being out here. The less he saw Eric, the less risk of inadvertently putting Elaine's life in danger. Good common sense told him he should just step out of the picture altogether and let husband and wife figure things out.

“I thought you might like to take a look at Taber's Shortcake Dream.” Hank seemed to be the designated guide.

“I've seen the pictures.”

“I mean the carcass. We froze it. Thought we should save it until United L & C sent someone down. The UFO museum in Roswell has asked for it. Guess that's where it'll end up…depending on you guys, of course.”

“UFO museum?”

“Corner of Third and Main. Opened up about a year and a half ago. Good place to have one if you remember the incident in 1947.”

Dan was going to assume that Hank didn't think he was old enough to remember '47 clearly, which was the truth. But he had read about the sighting of a spaceship and the possibility of a government cover-up of an alien survivor.

“Suppose you're right. What will they do with it?”

“Put it on display. They've got a replica of an alien, you know, one of those little guys, comes up to about here,” Hank paused to point to belt-buckle level, “with those big slant eyes, almost no nose or mouth. It's one of the most popular things they got. People all the time are getting their pictures taken standing beside it. An honest to God mutilated cow might be even better. Bigger draw.”

Seemed he'd hooked up with an expert, but what the hell, a good investigator never ruled anything out. “Do a lot of people around here believe in the sightings?”

“Not just around here. Thousands have visited the museum since it opened.”

“Have there been a lot of mutilations in this area?” He needed to keep Hank on track. He could always visit the museum himself.

“Haven't been any for years. Then starting last spring we had two and the Johnson spread had one.”

“I show no record of any loss at that time due to mutilation.”

“Naw, I know. If the cow's not worth over a couple thousand, it's not reported. Ranchers get tired of the skeptics. It was a fluke that Shortcake Dream was out that night.”

“How so?”

“Her handler had to go home to Chihuahua and a new kid was with her. Somehow, and I'm not saying the heifer didn't do it herself, the paddock was left open, and she just skittered on out and wandered off.”

“Where was she found?”

“In the woods.”

“Where the girl was found?”

“Yeah. That's what makes it look like the work of Masons or one of those groups from across the border. Aliens usually just leave the bodies out in the open.”

There was no doubt that Hank was a believer. But Masons?

“What do you mean by Masons?”

“Masonic Temple in town. Ol' Judge Cyrus heads it up, wife's in Eastern Star. I know he's a friend of Mr. Eklund, but I've never trusted a….”

Dan thought he was reluctant to say dwarf but made a note to check his story. Wouldn't that be something. Local banker, judge, and civic leader slices up a cow now and then in the woods.