I shrug. “Where I come from, New Orleans is below sea level.”
He contemplates this and I think I see some form of emotion appear on that face but I’m likely imagining it.
“Then what happened?”
“I sat down,” I tell him. “I laid down on the grass and closed my eyes, hoping that would help.”
He writes this down. “For how long?”
Ghost visions sometimes seem like minutes but when I wake up hours have passed. It goes the other way too, dreams that never seem to end and I’ve only been out for minutes.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I must have fallen asleep.”
He looks at me sternly and I know what he’s thinking, how convenient.
“I wasn’t anywhere near her,” I insist.
McGee turns to TB and asks about his whereabouts, where he found me, what I was doing. TB explained how he had hung back at the picnic area, helping Shelby clean up but then felt a need to follow our group up the path.
“Felt a need?” McGee asks.
“You know, felt like going on a hike. After that big lunch and all.”
There’s something strange about TB’s statement; he’s not telling the truth. TB’s one of those innocent souls who loves unconditionally and that means he has no talent to lie. None. McGee, thankfully, doesn’t notice.
“When I got to the overlook,” TB continues, “Kelly was on the ground with the broken leg, Joe said she had fallen over the side, and I didn’t see Vi. When I walked around the side of that information building, Vi was on the grass sleeping.”
“And that’s all you have to report?” He looks at us both.
We glance at each other, wondering what else could be said.
“Yes,” I answer.
“And yesterday?”
“Yesterday?”
“Were you sleeping, too, when that animal was killed?”
I sigh and rub my eyes, reminded that I was visiting Cora before Pepper came knocking at my door. “Yes, I was napping then, too.”
“You take a lot of naps, Mrs. Valentine.”
I’m getting tired of this inquisition, and my aggravation leaks out. “I told you, I’ve been having these headaches.”
“What do you think she did?” TB asks. “Got off the van, ran into the woods, found a fox, killed it, dismembered it, and put blood on the walls of Pepper’s cabin, all before I returned with the truck?”
McGee smiles grimly and closes his notebook. “They’re both strange circumstances.”
“I’ll say,” I say. Wow, I sound like Foghorn Leghorn. I demand myself to focus and get out of the Saturday cartoons.
“What did the others say?” TB asks. “Surely, they were there when Kelly fell.”
“Or was pushed,” I add, then wished I hadn’t.
McGee finally relaxes, leans back in his chair, and much to our surprise starts scratching Stinky behind an ear. Naturally, our cat eats this up and McGee softens. “Mr. Garrett had a lot to say about the pushing.”
TB and I exchange looks and McGee doesn’t miss anything. “What?”
Now, how do I explain this?
“What?” McGee demands.
I exhale. “One of the people on our trip, Carmine Kelsey, knows Dwayne from high school, said Dwayne and some other jocks beat him mercilessly when he was about seventeen. He almost died.” It’s none of McGee’s business but it might help the case, so I add, “Carmine’s gay.”
“Carmine doesn’t like the guy, for good reason,” TB adds. “Neither do I.”
No one could deny my husband’s truthfulness now.
“And you, Mrs. Valentine? Do you like this man?”
TB studies me hard, those normally sweet eyes staring at me accusingly. I send him a questioning glance because I can’t understand why he’s looking at me like that.
“No,” I answer. “I don’t trust him.”
McGee drops his chair back on the floor and Stinky flees. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” and both men look my way. “Kelly, Pepper, and Dwayne got into an argument, before I left for the shelter. Joe Pennington was there. He might be able to tell you more.”
“You didn’t see this altercation I assume,” McGee asks with a sly smile.
“In the beginning. Dwayne showed Pepper attention and Kelly was furious. The first night, Dwayne was with Kelly. According to Pepper this morning, he was with her last night.”
TB appears confused and sends me a questioning look. I send one back. His mind is traveling places I’m not following.
McGee stands, slips the notebook in his back pocket. “I’ll look into it. But if Mr. Garrett’s telling the truth, about you conveniently being absent when bad things keep happening, you can expect to see me again.” I’m appalled and am about to say as much, but McGee continues, “If he’s lying, then I would watch your back.”
His comment makes me change direction. “Why?”
“Because he’s been saying lots of things about you, Mrs. Valentine. And none of them good.”
Trace of a Ghost
Chapter Nine
After McGee leaves the cabin and we watch him head to the main house, where four members of our group are located, we breathe easier.
“Why did you lie?” TB finally asks.
“Why did you?” I retort, although I quickly add, “I wasn’t lying.”
He exhibits that same serious expression he gave McGee. “What are you talking about?”
“‘l felt the need to go on a hike?’”
TB shakes his head and heads to the table where he pours himself a drink of the muscadine. “You’re not the only one with intuition.”
This stops me cold, never considered TB to come running because he felt the need, but I’m starting to think I don’t know my husband very well.
“Why do you think I was lying?” I ask.
TB takes a sip of the juice and grimaces.
“It’s not wine,” I say. “This is run by a Christian academy.”
TB swallows the juice anyway, then takes a deep breath and exhales, his shoulders dropping a good inch on the way out. “I saw Dwayne coming back from your trailer when I was delivering donuts.”
Suddenly, I’m so very tired. I slip into the chair and pour my own glass of way-too-sweet grape nectar. “Dwayne Garrett’s getting on my last nerve.”
TB sits down across from me. “What was he doing there?”
I shake my head, anything to get the craziness of the past few days to make sense. “TB, when you were gone, I showered, changed, and packed both our bags. They were sitting at the front door of the trailer when you came back with the donuts. I cleaned the dishes from the night before, dried them, and put them away, in case you didn’t notice. When did you think I had time to make love with Dwayne Garrett?”
TB drops his head in thought. “He was coming out of our trailer. Passed me on the way with a wink and said I had some amazing wife in there.”
Now, I’m scared. Maybe Carmine’s right, that this man has supernatural powers that I can’t begin to understand. Maybe he really is Lucifer in travel writer clothes.
“He wasn’t there, TB. No one was in that trailer but me until you arrived. No one.”
We sit in silence for what seems like forever, TB studying me from behind his glass, me grinding my teeth thinking about what my husband thought he saw and the man who planted that brain seed. When we hear a door open and close and see McGee heading to his car through the front cabin window, it spurs me to action.
“Time for Carmine to do some explaining,” I announce, and pull my jacket from the back of the chair.
TB starts to follow but I put an end to that immediately. “I’m doing this alone,” I say sternly.
“Why?”
“Why?” I feel the heat rising in my chest. “Because you thought I cheated on you this morning. And I’m not sure I can forgive you for that.”
With that final statement, I slam the door in my wake and head to the Carriage House.
I find Jeff, our driver, talking up a storm while Carmine is pulling on his own jacket, something tweed with leather on the elbows that looks like it came out of Harrods of London. Knowing Carmine, that’s exactly where it came from.
“Where are you going?” I ask Carmine.
“Where do you think?”
I look over at Jeff who’s endlessly discussing “bagging a deer” in the wilds of Mississippi and doesn’t understand why Charlie freaked out like he did.
“I mean, if you’re from these parts, you’ve bound to see a dead animal once in a while,” Jeff says, adding with a laugh, “and hell, there’s enough road kill to thicken up your skin.”
I immediately surmise he’s one of those people who turn on like there’s a button you push and keep talking no matter who’s listening, caring or talking back. I long to describe what this particular dead animal looked like but I do what I usually do in these circumstances, politely listen, smile, then find a way to escape. Carmine’s heading out the door so I follow and say something insipid like, “That’s so interesting, gotta go.”
“Wow, he’s a talker,” I say once we clear the accommodations. “I hope he doesn’t do that all the way down the Trace.”
Like he did at the SCANC convention, Carmine’s trotting off to the parking lot like a sprint pony and suddenly reins in at my last comment. I’m an inch away of slamming into that tweed.
“What do you want, Vi?”
Why is the world suddenly aggravated with me? “What did I do to you?”
Carmine crosses his arms across his jacket, which looks pretty spiffy on him, I might add. I’m longing to touch it and ask where he acquired this beauty; it looks that good.
“I’m heading to the Starkville police station, thanks to you.”
My attention’s back. “What? Why?”
“Sergeant McGee has to get back and he needs my statement.”
I look over Carmine’s Tallyho shoulder and McGee’s leaning against his patrol car, cell phone in hand, eyeing me suspiciously.
“I might have mentioned to the good sergeant that Dwayne beat you up in high school.”
“Yeah,” Carmine says, eyes narrowed. He’s not pleased. “There’s that.”
He turns to go but I catch that leathered elbow. “Why’s that a big secret?”
He’s got that look that TB had earlier, like he’s holding something back. “It’s my secret, Vi. My secret to tell.”
Did I mention how tired I am? Exhausted from the visions, Dwayne’s weirdness and deceit, being accused of everything from sleeping with the devil to pushing a prima donna off a cliff. Most of all, I’m weary of my good friend slammed shut like a clam.
I release my fingers on his tweed. “Fine. Go. I’m done with you and all your secrets, all your warnings of evil but ‘Let’s not discuss it now, Vi.’ All your talk of angels but you can’t give me rational reasons why I should avoid Dwayne except some crazy idea about souls. And now, when I’m being accused of attempted murder, you can’t be bothered? Screw you, Carmine.”
It’s my turn to cross my arms about my chest but Carmine’s face doesn’t change emotions. At all. He stares at me for a moment, once again warns me to “Stay away from Dwayne,” and then walks to McGee and his waiting patrol car. I stand there, in the middle of the parking lot surrounded by woods and buildings from the 1800s, a wonderful scent of wood burning filling the air, all of which would normally thrill me to no end, but I feel as frustrated as the day I first starting seeing my watery ghosts. And now that the one person who can mentor me in my “gift” has been hauled off to jail — well, not jail exactly — I don’t know where to turn.
I decide to visit the Etherworld.
I stomp back in my cabin and TB’s sitting at the table drinking that overly sweet grape juice. I think to warn him that he might go into a diabetic coma but I’m too mad to care.
“Vi,” he calls out but I ignore him, grab my purse, and bound up the stairs to the cabin’s loft and lay down on one of the twin beds.
“Vi, let’s talk,” is the last thing I hear as I pull out Cora’s photos and close my eyes. That sad look she exhibits blurs as the vision comes through, much like the lights fading in a movie theater as the screen comes alive with the picture.
I’m outside the action this time, an observer. We’re at Briarwood and the witch clan is still hanging around. Everyone is seated in the parlor while an African American kitchen maid serves them coffee and dollar biscuits with muscadine jam. Cora takes a sip of her coffee and grimaces.
“Is this normal?” Cora asks Nancy. “The coffee’s mighty strong.”
Nancy laughs. “It has chicory in it, pretty popular around these parts. It’s an acquired taste.”
The maid turns her attention to Cora. “May I get you something else, ma’am?”
Cora’s uncomfortable with someone pampering her, not something she’s used to having lived on the kindness of others. She can’t even look this maid in the eye.
“No, thank you, Menasha,” she says. “I don’t want to bother.”
“It’s no bother,” Menasha assures her, but when Cora fails to answer, Menasha shakes her head and heads off to the kitchen.
Nancy takes Cora’s hand. “Honey, she’s not your maid as you like to call her, she’s your property, whether you like it or not. She’s here to serve you.”
“Tell her what you want,” Mel adds. “There’s no need for thank you’s.”
Cora shakes her head. “I was brought up to be polite and polite I will be.”
“I agree with Cora,” Teresa says while enjoying a biscuit. “No reason to be rude.”
“That’s all fine and dandy, honey, but you do have to act the boss,” Nancy adds. “You’re not doing them any favors by acting as meek as a mouse.”
Cora shifts in her seat and it’s clear bossing people around was not what she had in mind when she dreamed of financial independence. I also sense that Menasha and the other slaves scare her. I wonder if they are the first black people — or Negroes as everyone keeps saying — she has met.
“When we leave,” Nancy adds, “you will have to run this place.”
Poor Cora. Her eyes enlarge and she starts to shake. “Can’t y’all stay longer? Do you have to move on to New Orleans?”
“Yes, honey,” Mel says. “Our family and friends are expecting us.”
Cora takes a deep breath and looks away, holding back tears. Nancy takes her hand and squeezes. “We’ll stay until the overseer arrives from town. After that, you will have to decide whether you want to stay here and make a go of things or sell the property.”
Tears course down Cora’s cheeks and she doesn’t bother wiping them away. “I’ll sell. I can’t abide owning people. Although I don’t know how and I dread having to travel the Trace back to Kentucky.”
The three women exchange glances.
“You’ll have to wait until spring, dear,” Mel finally says. “With winter coming, it’s best to stay put.”
More tears fall, because waiting months means bossing these people around in the meantime.
“My best friend is marrying next month,” Cora whispers. “I should have stayed in Kentucky.”
Menasha returns to the parlor, this time bringing Cora a cup of tea.
“Why thank you, Menasha,” Teresa says, sending Cora a wink. “While you’re here, may we ask for your input.”
Menasha is taken aback; I doubt she has ever been part of a conversation in this male-dominated household, although as kitchen slave she likely runs the place.
“Yes, ma’am,” she says.
“Your mistress, Miss Cora Schumacher, has never run a household,” Teresa explains. “She was orphaned young and went to live with friends of the family, who took care of her.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Menasha says although she doesn’t look at Cora.
“Would you please guide her in her role as mistress of this house? I’m afraid Miss Cora’s a little overwhelmed. She wasn’t expecting slaves.”
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Menasha finally looks at Cora, but there’s no warmth in her stare. It’s all matter of fact. “Yes, ma’am.”
It’s not the answer anyone was expecting, so a silence falls about the group.
“Thanks, Menasha,” Nancy finally says. “That’ll be all.”
When Menasha is out of earshot, Mel shakes her head. “Not sure what help she’ll be able to offer, so stand your ground and tell her what you want.”
They begin discussing travel arrangements to New Orleans when sounds of a horse entering the front yard can be heard. Teresa and Nancy head to the window.
“That must be our overseer,” Mel says, also standing, “although he looks a bit worse for wear.”
Cora remains seated, twisting the calico fabric of her skirt into knots. I sense that Cora was hoping to find a small plot of land to farm, something she would manage herself, maybe hire a farm hand or two when needed. She would cook her own meals, decide whether coffee had chicory added or not.
Now, this burly man is waltzing through the front of her home like he owns it and she must put him in his place to establish order. How many times have women been forced to act like someone they’re not only to prove themselves to men?
“What’s this?” the giant of a man asks.
The witch trio are about to introduce themselves when, to their amazement, Cora stands. She’s unsteady on her feet but she’s determined.
“I’m Cora Schumacher, your new boss.”
The overseer pauses in his manliness for a minute, then rubs a beard as red as his thick curly hair and takes her in from head to toe. “Pleasure.”
Cora’s still not comfortable, especially since this man is taking liberties with his gaze, but she knows her duty so she straightens her back and introduces the trio. “These are my friends and traveling companions.”
“I’m Tyson McDaniels,” the man says, and it’s then I recognize a slight Scottish accent. “I run the place.”
“For now,” Nancy says with a smile.
This disarms McDaniels and I want to cheer.
“What the hell does that mean?”
He begins a long discourse of how Walter Schumacher hired him and he’s been running things for the past two years. How Walter assured him that no matter who inherited Briarwood Plantation, he would always be the boss.
Trace of a Ghost Page 13