Thistle and Twigg (16 page)

T
he next day, Cal asked me to bring my car to his house. He’d been busy gathering books and other materials into boxes that he insisted I take. The number of boxes he had stacked and waiting for me was more than I expected, seventeen of them numbered with red marker. I hurried so I could load them all myself. Cal was so stubborn about taking it easy and I worried he’d overexert himself. Once home, I stacked them next to my own boxes that I had yet to unpack in the den.

I’d promised Phoebe I’d go into town with her that morning. She wanted to keep a watch on the progress of her house repairs and also needed help in choosing new colors for the painters.

We passed the Piggly Wiggly before the turn onto her street. She gave a little yelp, goosed the accelerator, and drove past her street to the square up ahead. She pointed to a man walking into Wriggle’s Sporting Goods.

“Look, look, look!” she said. ‘That’s Jack Blaylock, the one who had the gun seminar.”

I only had a glimpse of his face, saw that he had a moustache, before he entered the store. His hat and boots looked expensive. Phoebe covered her heart with her hand. “Oh, he is so handsome. Do we need anything from Wriggle’s?”

“Was he there the day we met? He looks vaguely familiar.”

“You must have seen him on TV. He’s got his own show.”

“What sort?”

“Fishing and hunting and other outdoors-y things.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“You’d like it, seeing all the local fishing spots on the river and all. I’m sure they show plenty of trees, too.”

Then I remembered. He was the size and build of the man I saw at the grocery giving the ex-military man a fishing rod and duffel bag.

We stayed at Phoebe’s only a little while. At home, I baked an apple pie and spent the rest of the day about the house. Only two events in the outside world caught my attention. At about one o’clock, I heard the rumble and chug of Cal’s truck as it came out of his road and headed toward town. A few hours later, Shelley Bar-nette’s yellow Volkswagen turned into Cal’s driveway and disappeared from view.

Later that night, Phoebe and I had unexpected visitors. Phoebe answered the door. She put her hands on her hips. “Now what are y’all up to?” she said, then turned to me. “It’s them crazy ghost-hunting kids again. You want me to tell them to go haunt somebody else?”

“Of course not,” I said with a laugh. “Do come in. Are you off on another trek tonight?” Sarah, the tall blond girl, turned herself and walked in sideways so her leather tool belt wouldn’t knock against the door frame. Behind her, Callie did likewise.

Riley brought up the rear. With care, he let the screen door close behind him while he took in his immediate surroundings. He did a thorough, steady sweep from left to right. Several times, his hand reached up and touched the night visor atop his head. He wanted badly to yank it down for a good look, I was sure. He had his hand in the air again but caught me watching and instead adjusted the visor’s band slightly to a more snug fit. “Yes’m. We might go around a little.”

As I looked at the three of them, all rigged in full ghost-hunting complement, I smiled. Each gazed about the inside of the house with wide eyes and a studied nonchalance that told me they “might” be hopeful of an in-house hunt.

“Brought these,” Riley said, as he held out a packet of photos. “Said you’d like to see ‘em.” The photos showed various shots of the graveyard from our previous encounter. Most had little in the way of photogenic scenery, considering they contained only badly lit tombstones and tree trunks in the night. Riley touched the edge of the photo I held.

“This is for real. We didn’t doctor it up in developing neither. Dropped them off at Wal-Mart. Unbiased second party. And we sure didn’t do nothing funny when we took the pictures. You know that. That right there,” he said, as he tapped the images with his finger. “You didn’t see them orbs floating around like that, did you?”

I hesitated. “Ah. No, indeed I didn’t.” I failed to mention I distinctly saw them thrown, not floating around.

I could feel Phoebe breathing over my shoulder. She reached around and snatched the pictures from my hand. “What kind of foolishness are y’all talking about?” She eyed the top photo from several vantage points, up close, at arm’s length, held upward toward the chandelier light, and down again at the end of her nose. “Huh,” she said.

“You see?” Riley asked.

“No. I need my bifocals.” With that, she turned on her heels and strode to the kitchen with the photos clutched in her hand.

My guests hardly noticed. All remained intent on surveying the living room, all stepping in slow circles to take in everything. “You sure have a pretty house,” Callie said in soft, slightly awestruck tones.

“Why, thank you, dear. Have you never been here before then?” All shook their heads. “Perhaps you’d like a small tour? Even though I’ve not finished unpacking?” They answered together with “Yes, ma’am” before I’d finished the sentence.

Riley held up a finger. “Have you had any… oh, say… strange things happen? Like we did the other night?”

“Well, I’ve certainly not seen any orbs.”

“Because if you have, or if you ever did, we’d all be glad to check the house for you, official like,” he said, with indications to the others and his own equipment. “Free of charge. Anytime.”

“How kind. But of course I wouldn’t want to impose.” Another louder round of comments came from the group, all protesting that I was most welcome to both their time and detecting talents. “In that case, feel free to … do whatever it is you do.”

A collective sigh of relief arose as they each busied themselves in taking out and readying their devices. Phoebe returned with her glasses to see the young people settling into their new search. “What in the world are y’all up to now?”

“Riley and the girls have kindly offered to check my house.”

“For what? There ain’t none of them light balls in here.”

“No. No anomalies here,” I said.

Phoebe leaned closer and whispered, “That’s a mighty big word, Jane. Around here, we call them dee-lusions.’“

I laughed. “What does it hurt to give them a little fun? They’ve come with the hope of discovering something exciting. I couldn’t deprive them, not when they’re so obviously enjoying themselves. They’re just kids.”

Phoebe’s suspicious, hard stare softened as her lips turned up in a smile. “You’re right. Let them look all they want. They aren’t going to find anything. And maybe looking around will get it out of their systems so they won’t come messing around bothering you anymore.”

I didn’t tell Phoebe that they might actually be useful. There was no point. I doubted anything would come of their testing, but I was interested to see if they “read” anything unusual in the two spots where, in fact, there had been instances of “anomalies.”

The makeshift, home-modified look of Riley and the girls’ equipment didn’t instill much confidence. Yet I couldn’t deny the photos of the orbs. Riley may not have seen them as I did, but his methods did produce results in the photos. Tagging along behind these three might prove to be fun as well as informative. I certainly intended to watch closely in case they turned something up. As it happened, that didn’t take long.

“We got something,” Callie said from the front room. She held her modified voltmeter out and over the corner of my maroon Persian rug and the intervening floor space between the rug and my fireplace. The black hand of the meter jumped behind its clear plastic casing when she moved the device over that particular spot, and each time she did so, with no exceptions.

The other two joined her and immediately deployed their own instruments, Sarah with her handheld scanner-like device, red lights pulsing, and Riley with his night visors snapped into position.

Phoebe closed her eyes and shook her head. She waved her hands in our direction in a dismissive gesture. “I’m fixing coffee.” She shuffled away in her house slippers toward the kitchen.

“Okay, everybody,” Riley said. “That’s good. That’s something. Now.” He took out his camera and gestured for us to step back. He snapped pictures from all angles, some with and some without benefit of flash. The girls moved away from the spot with reluctance when Riley gave the order to move on.

“What would you say that means? In your experience?” I asked.

Riley shrugged. “Everybody be sure and write everything down real good,” he said and turned to me. “We’ll sit down and do some analyzing once we get some hard data.”

“A scientific approach,” I said. “Excellent.” He sniffed authoritatively and pocketed the device, held together by duct tape, before leading the troops onward.

We turned our attention to the upstairs. All took great interest in the staircase itself, which I admit does have a certain air about it. Its design and workmanship speak from another age, but apparently not from another dimension, as nothing registered on the devices.

We passed down the upstairs hallway, entering each of the three bedrooms. As Sarah passed the bedside table in my own room, we heard a quiet blip from her scanner. She paused at the telephone, ran her device over it, the table, and the wall just behind it several more times with more corresponding blips. “Weak,” she said. “But something.”

Once all had written down their notes and measurements, we returned downstairs. We had two rooms left to explore, the former dining room that would now serve as my den, and the kitchen. In the den, Callie flipped her pigtails behind her back and took the outer perimeter. It was therefore she who first found what we came to call the Hot Spot.

I’d lingered by the door, watching the three of them and their slow, methodical search. Riley went straight to the fireplace there, hoping, I suppose, for a repeat of the success in the front room earlier. Sarah started by turning left and testing the large built-in china cabinet. She opened each door, scanned each shelf. Meanwhile, Callie began her search, going along the right wall. It contained only stacks of boxes and the next wall contained the new bookshelves I’d installed, still empty, so she had relatively little to test.

It was when she reached the outer wall and the large bay window that overlooks the backyard that her equipment went, in her words, “doggone bozo.” We knew immediately she’d found something, for she yelped and jerked the device in her hand. When we all turned to see what was the matter, she said, “It’s … it’s warm. It’s warming up in my hand.”

We gathered round and witnessed an astonishing sight, that of the meter knocking repeatedly into the red. Sarah reached into a pouch on her leather belt and withdrew a digital video camera, hardly bigger than her palm, to record the phenomenon.

I was suddenly aware of the aroma of coffee and remembered Phoebe. She hadn’t responded to our outburst, so I called out, “Phoebe, come look!” She didn’t hurry. I kept looking for her over my shoulder as Riley and the girls used every gadget, including ones I’d not seen, from belts, lanyards, and inner pockets. All did not give a reading, but most did respond in some way.

“What?” Phoebe said when she finally arrived at the doorway

The blonde said, “Callie’s meter is getting hot.”

Phoebe came across the room, stood beside her, and put an arm around her shoulder. “Let me see if I can fix that,” she said. She eyed the gadget, noting its jumping meter with raised eyebrows, but remained unimpressed as she turned her attention to the bay window. She bent to the floor, swung down her arm, and flicked the heater vent shut with one motion. Once standing straight, she dusted her palms together.

“Y’all holler when you find Elvis,” she said as she turned to go, her slippers flapping away on the wood floor.

Riley watching Phoebe’s performance from behind his visors, shook his head. “Skeptics. Can’t tell ’em nothing.”

Much time was spent in gathering and recording information until, weary from the excitement, we retired to the kitchen, which was the last room left to scan. When I first walked in, Phoebe was looking closely at the photos scattered about the table. She quickly pushed them all together and neatened them into a stack before the others followed me in.

Sarah’s scanner blipped as she walked through the center of the room. After several tests of the area, it appeared only a small spot prompted the blips, and it wasn’t on or around an object but in mid-air.

Phoebe ignored them as they made a cursory sweep around her. Riley took pictures, as he had throughout the house, with a camera containing special film. “Good for auras,” he said with an arcing gesture of his long, skinny arm. “Spectrum. Everthang.”

They stayed for coffee, chatting about the house, all so very excited about their readings. The photos from my graveyard had apparently been their greatest success to date. Now, they had ever so much more to talk about, a thought that worried me a bit.

“I wonder if I might ask you a favor,” I said. “It’s rather a big favor, I’m afraid.” They took my request to keep our evening’s adventure to ourselves quite well. There was a little disappointment at first, but all agreed it would be best to evaluate things first.

“Plus,” Sarah said, “people might start bothering you. You wouldn’t want strange folks coming around.” Phoebe said nothing as she gave each of our guests pointed looks. A small silence ensued, during which the unspoken idea of keeping my house and its supernatural possibilities our own little secret hung between us.

T
he next morning, I left Jane’s and went to my house to see how the Blaze boys were doing. They only had a little bit more framing to replace around where the oven was. Bless their hearts, they moved my old oven and refrigerator to the backyard, out of the way, so their cousin Judy’s husband Darren could lay the vinyl flooring down that I picked out. They said I could have the appliance store bring my new oven and refrigerator the next day.

The painters, some young boys that were friends of the Blazes, were making progress and doing a fine job. They were done with the upstairs and had all the downstairs finished except the kitchen. Ricky said they’d have it ready before Darren got there later in the afternoon. I tell you what, it was a relief to have those boys taking care of everything. All that was left was to pick up my drapes and living room rugs from the dry cleaners. I’d do that last.

Until noon, I spent my time wiping down and polishing my tables, picture frames, and everything else in sight. I went to the kitchen and said, “Is that door going to be done today?”

“Sure will,” he said.

“And it’ll lock good?”

“Yes, ma’am. She’s ready to go.”

I’d promised Jane I’d come back for lunch and then we would take a walk. I suggested we go out to the shooting range on Cal’s place. She didn’t like the idea.

“Cal said you could come anytime you wanted, didn’t he?” I said.

“Yes. Still, I wouldn’t want to without talking to him first.”

“He doesn’t care. It’s practically yours, or will be in a day or two.”

“Only in name. Nothing will change. I’m a little surprised you’d want to go there, after the bad experience we had.”

“Oh, pooh. I’m over it. Besides, we need to find some clues. We’ve got to find the perps so the fuzz can throw ’em in the slam-mer.

Jane laughed like little tinkling bells. “We’ve not done very well so far, have we?” she said.

“We’ve been distracted.”

“Yes. Don’t worry, dear. They’ll find who killed that young man and those responsible for burning your house.”

“Jane, quit thinking like a girl scout. They would’ve arrested somebody by now if they had a clue. We’re gonna have to crack this case if it’s gonna get cracked. And who better to do it?”

“The police who have years of experience in these matters?”

“You know what I mean.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “I understand it’s frustrating and it’s hard when you want to feel useful. But Detective Waters seems quite capable of handling the job himself.”

“But what if he missed something?”

“After combing the area, as they’ve surely done several times over by now? No, dear, we wouldn’t find anything after such thorough searches.”

I let it drop. There’s no convincing some people. If they’re hardheads, you might as well be hollering at a slab of concrete.

We headed out to take our walk on one of the refuge trails. A police car was still stationed between the entrance to the refuge and the road onto Cal’s land. We waved at the young boy behind the wheel.

“Is he spying on us?”

“I rather doubt it. More likely, he’s here to deter the curious.” It’s true that Jane and I had noticed lots of cars on the road lately, going slow and gawking at Cal’s gate.

“Yeah, but they’re watching for Cal, too. To make sure he doesn’t run off before we find who really killed that boy.” After we got well out of earshot, I said to Jane, “
Beverly Hills Cop.”

Jane cocked her head, thought a second, and said, “No, Phoebe.”

“No what?” I said all innocent but half giggling.

She gave me one of those looks. “You know perfectly well. I am not going to distract that poor young officer with food while you stick a banana up his tailpipe.”

“See there. We’re thinking on the same wavelength.”

“A fact that disturbs me greatly,” she said all serious, but then she grinned and we both laughed. She looped her arm around my elbow. “I remember Cal showing me a place where this trail curved very near his land. Let’s see if we can find it.”

“We won’t get lost, will we?”

“No, no. From where we stood that day, I could see the trail clearly. It was no more than thirty feet away. The clearing had very distinctive rock formations. I’m sure I’ll know it. I have my compass, just in case.”

The refuge is okay but it’s nothing special. Just trees like every where else around here. The walking trail is nice new asphalt though, so you don’t feel like you’re too far from civilization. I wasn’t sure I wanted to traipse through the woods without even a dirt path to go on and no road or trail in sight.

Jane found the spot she was talking about. We didn’t have to walk far away to be square on Cal’s land. We stomped our way through bushes with some sticky bristles and then went over a little hill. I turned around to look back, but the hill hid the refuge trail.

“I saw the roof of a cabin last time, just past these rocks. Let’s take a look.” We hadn’t gone far when Jane bent down to pick up something in a stream running across our path.

“Whatcha got?” I said.

“It’s a shell.” Jane didn’t sound too pleased.

“What, a mussel shell? There’s millions of them around here.”

“Not that kind.” She held out her hand. There was something gold in it. “A bullet casing,” she said.

“Huh. Cal must’ve been hunting something over this way.”

Jane shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. Not so close to the refuge. I can’t be sure what guns Cal might have that I’ve not seen, but I know one thing—this is not the type of ammunition common to hunting guns.” She slipped it into her pocket and kept walking, searching the ground as we went.

I stood there and stared at her. Something was different about Jane all of a sudden. It was almost like her face got flipped around and another one, her real one, came out. The sweet one I’d seen up until then was really her, too, I guess, but this new one had a whole lot of serious in it and it changed her features just enough to make me think Mob Boss or SWAT team commander or some such. I kept a couple of steps behind her.

We went on a little ways until we came to a clearing with a log cabin set back near the trees. Out in the middle of the clearing, a stuffed dummy had its waist and neck tied to a pole. Straw stuck out of bullet holes all over its chest. Farther to the left was another homemade archery target. It looked like a child had drawn the red rings. The bull’s eye was torn so bad it was just about gone.

“Look at this stuff!” I said. “Cal must really like to practice to go to all this trouble. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like the feel of this place,” Jane said. She bent down a moment and inspected the ground around the stuffed targets. “This doesn’t look like Cal’s work. He wouldn’t use bullets of such large caliber.”

“It’s got to be. Nobody else would have the guts to come here.”

Jane shook her head. “He wouldn’t litter the ground with trash either. Look. Nor with cigarette butts. He’s certainly too thrifty to leave casings about. He reuses them.” She picked up a few more of the spent shells nearby. “Look at the size of them.”

I whistled. “Goodness. I believe those are bigger than my Israeli bullets.”

“Yes. I’ve seen the type before. I know of several military-issue rifles that use them.”

“Oh, really?” I said. Maybe the Colonel had those particular military rifles. Or maybe she learned about them herself somewhere else. “So, this place is a military camp?”

“No, dear. It’s much too crude.”

I snapped my fingers. “Those guys from the gun show! They talked about their base camp. This is it! I know it!” I ran over and went in the cabin.

It was one room furnished with only a pine table and three chairs. The old fireplace was a small one. It looked like somebody had been using it to burn trash. Cigarette tips were all over the floor. A couple of Styrofoam cups had an icky mixture of black ash and coffee.

“Trashy. Needs a good cleaning.”

Jane looked around real nervous. “Come, Phoebe. I don’t like this place. Let’s not hang about.” I didn’t argue. It felt creepy to me, too.

“Are you sure this is Cal’s land right here?” I asked once we were outside.

“It must be. I saw the top of the cabin, but from the other direction, on the other side of that ridge. We saw nothing like this,” she said, as we passed the straw dummy, “and Cal certainly didn’t say anything about such things.”

We went back the way we came, over the hill again, slid down through the leaves and bushes, and got back on the refuge trail. Jane didn’t say much at first. She looked off into the sky, distracted like. Once she started noticing all the birds and trees around her again, she was more like her normal nature-freak self. I figured I better start a real conversation before she started taking deep breaths and got to talking about “Save the Bark” or some such foolishness.

“I don’t know, Jane. It’s weird. Bullet casings. Calibers. Military-issue rifles…,”

“Yes, it’s all quite confusing.”

She looked away from me, like she was hiding something.

“No, that’s not what I meant. What I meant was, I’m amazed at how much you know about guns and military stuff. Are you sure you never worked for the Feebs or for the CIA or somebody?”