Ghosts of Bliss Bayou

by Jack Massa

  “Don’t go accusing folks you know nothing about! You and your uppity tree-humpin’ friends.”

  “Oh, I know all about you. We’ll catch up with you ignorant crackers sooner or later.”

  Casper smirks at that. “Ignorant crackers? You candy-ass turd!”

  I can’t believe this is happening.

  Jonas rushes around the table and stands chest to chest with the other man. “Call me that again.”

  Casper sneers. “I just said what you are, you candy—”

  He doesn’t get to finish. Mild-mannered Jonas Carter has sucker-punched him hard in the nose. Casper staggers back and lands on his butt.

  He looks shocked for a moment, blood flowing out of one nostril. Then he shakes himself and climbs to his feet. A crowd has gathered around them now, and someone yells, “Git him, Daddy!”

  Casper Wainwright charges, tackles Jonas, and drags him to the ground. Now they’re rolling around on the pavement, heaving, punching each other. Everyone just stands there, looking stunned—except for a few guys who are cheering them on.

  What should I do? I saw a police car parked at the barricade at the end of the lane. I should run down there and find a cop. But I shouldn’t leave the booth unattended. And Jonas is not exactly in a good place to be watching it right now. I take out my phone and call 911. I’m connected to a dispatcher in a call center somewhere. She asks for my name, then asks me to spell it, then asks for my exact location, then asks me to describe what’s happening.

  “Two white-haired old men are rolling around on the ground punching each other. For god’s sake, please send the police!”

  As she’s patching the call through, a Harmony Springs officer shows up and pushes her way through the bystanders. She yells at the two men to stop, then drags them apart. Both guys have scrapes on their arms and knees. Casper has blood dripping out of his nose and a swollen eye. Jonas is trembling like he can barely stand. I hurry over to prop him up.

  The officer asks how this got started. Casper and several people from the crowd start answering. While the officer shouts for them to be quiet, Jonas frees himself from my arm. Before anyone knows what’s happening, he’s picked up a watermelon from the booth behind us. He lifts it over his head, staggers forward, and flings it at Casper.

  In best-case scenarios, a watermelon is not much of a weapon. Here, the officer sees it coming and blocks it with her arm. The watermelon drops and smashes on the street.

  “That does it!” the officer says. She forces Jonas’ arms behind his back and puts him in handcuffs.

  Casper, still bleeding, taunts him. “This isn’t over, you puny wimp.”

  “Don’t come near my house, or you’ll regret it!” Jonas tells him.

  “That’s enough out of both of you,” the officer says.

  She uses her walkie-talkie to call for backup. Casper’s two sons, skinny guys in T-shirts and caps, examine their dad’s wounds and congratulate him on the fight. Jonas stands next to me, shoulders slumped. He looks bewildered.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” he says.

  But I think I do. He feeds on fear and rage. He is made of human evil. Hot and sweaty as I am, I shiver.

  Two more officers arrive shortly after that and take statements. Everyone agrees that Jonas threw the first punch. Casper insists on pressing charges, so the officers have to arrest Jonas. They lead him away, still wearing the handcuffs and looking confused. I ask, and the first officer promises to see that Jonas gets medical attention at the station.

  I go back and sit behind the Save Harmony Springs table. I wonder if I should call someone on the committee to tell them what happened. But it’s twelve thirty, and more volunteers are due in about twenty minutes to help pack up. The farmer’s market is already starting to shut down, and the lane is almost empty.

  For a while I stare at the smashed watermelon on the pavement, wondering who’s going to clean it up. Finally I realize no one is, so I get two paper plates from a food stand and use them to scrape up the mess.

  

  I have the feeling it’s going to be another bad Saturday night in Harmony Springs.

  Unfortunately, my psychic antenna is right on target. Granma and I hear police sirens several times after sundown, coming from both sides of the river. The atmosphere seems full of urgency, anxiety, and helplessness. Bad things are happening, and there’s nothing we can do.

  Around eleven, I’m lying in bed reading when I hear what sounds like a gunshot close by. I jump up and go into the hallway, where I meet Granma.

  “That sounded like it came from the Parkers’ house,” she tells me, pulling on her robe.

  I follow her downstairs to the kitchen. Out the back window, through the woods, we can see the porch light is on over at the Parkers’. Then I spot another light—someone is moving around the backyard with a flashlight.

  “I better call,” Granma says.

  We go to her study, and she gets Emily Parker on the phone. From the side of the conversation I can hear, I gather Mrs. Parker is upset.

  “Have you called the police?” Granma asks her. Then: “No, don’t worry, Emily. I’ll hang up and call them right now.”

  She explains to me as she’s pressing the buttons. “Someone threw rocks. John chased them off with his shotgun. He fired both barrels.”

  Granma puts in the call and explains what’s happened. Ten minutes later, we hear the police siren coming up the road. It stops at the Parkers’. By now we’ve put on clothes and shoes. Granma takes a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, and we head out the back door. Now that the police are here, she’s confident no one will shoot at us. With only John Parker and his shotgun patrolling the property, she wasn’t so sure.

  I’m still not sure. But Granma is determined, so I figure I’d better go with her.

  When we get to the Parkers’ backyard, they are talking with a heavyset police officer. It takes me a second to recognize that it’s Chief Quick himself, Molly’s dad. He’s none too happy to see us.

  “Ms. Renshaw,” he says, “please go back home. You two really shouldn’t be out here.”

  “I just want to make sure my neighbors are all right,” Granma answers.

  “I assure you, everything is under control,” the Chief says.

  The Parkers do look perfectly fine. A second officer is moving around the back of the yard, examining the ground with a flashlight.

  “Hey, Chief,” he calls. “Fresh blood back here.”

  Chief Quick grimaces in Mr. Parker’s direction. “Well, John. Seems you hit something.”

  

  When Granma and I get to the shop Sunday afternoon, my phone has three texts from Molly.

  From last night: “OMG. Tell me what happened at the Farmer’s Market!”

  From this morning: “Tell me what happened last night at the Parkers!”

  Then later: “We need to talk. Call me.”

  I touch the phone icon, and she answers on the second ring. “Hey, I’m at the police station. Things are poppin’.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll have to call you back.”

  An hour and forty-five minutes later, she rings me. “Whoosh. I’m outside the station. This has been a really interesting day.”

  “Talk to me, Molly.”

  “Right. They arrested Cletis Wainwright—one of Casper Wainwright’s sons. Get this: he has a gunshot wound in the upper thigh and buttocks. And the footprint in the mud at the Parkers’ house matches a shoe they found in his closet. They’re running a match on his blood now. That should be back from the lab tomorrow. Now get this: in the same closet they found not one but two black nylon bodysuits with ski masks. Sound like anyone we know?”

  “Shadow Man.”

  “Exactly. My dad thinks Cletis and his brother, Wendell, are responsible for most, if not all, of the vandalism.”

  “Wow…”

  “I know.”

  I r
emember Casper Wainwright fighting with Jonas Carter yesterday. I also remember him speaking up loudly at the first Save Harmony Springs meeting and cursing at me and Molly when we carried the petition around.

  I say to Molly, “So the Wainwrights are for the developers and against Save Harmony Springs. That would explain the vandalism against Jonas and the other anti-development people. But what about the vandalism on the other side?”

  “Yeah, my dad has two theories. One, someone on the Save Harmony Springs side took reprisals. Or two, the Wainwrights got carried away and acted indiscriminately. That family is bad news. They’ve been in trouble before. And they’ve had other feuds with their neighbors.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “Yup. So far Cletis has refused to say anything to implicate his brother, but Dad thinks if they work on him long enough, he might crack. Right now they got Cletis over at the hospital, picking the birdshot out of his butt.”

  “Eww.”

  “I know. Serves him right, though. Anyway, Dad’s hoping he can put both Cletis and Wendell in jail for a while. And that that will calm everybody down.”

  “That would be great.” I’m turning it all over in my mind. “What about Mr. Carter? Will this help with his case?”

  “It might, since he allegedly started the fight because he believed the Wainwrights vandalized his house. He’s at home now, released on his own recognizance till the hearing.”

  “That’s good. I feel so sorry for him.”

  “Yeah, fill me in on what happened. I only know what the officers told me. How did it start?”

  I give Molly the details, up to and including the watermelon.

  “That’s so strange,” she says. “What could have made Mr. Carter go off like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Evil spirits?”

  “Well, it’s a theory.”

  “Yeah,” Molly says. “But if the Wainwrights are behind all the Shadow Man sightings, I don’t know where that leaves our whole paranormal investigation.”

  I’ve been thinking that too. Except it sure wasn’t the Wainwrights who I saw expelled by magic from Granma’s house or who made me hallucinate about drowning over and over. I just say to Molly, “I don’t know.”

  “Right. We’ll have to look for new leads on that,” she says. “I gotta go nose around some more. Don’t forget about tomorrow.”

  “Dinner at your house.”

  “Right. See you, girl.”

  

  I was invited for dinner at the Quicks’ house because Molly’s mom wanted to meet me. I’m flattered. I’m also in a quandary as to what to wear. I have to admit this is mostly because Ray-Ray will probably be there. I finally decide on my yellow sundress, and to leave my hair down. In the Florida heat, I’ve taken to wearing it up or in a ponytail with a baseball cap, but today I brush it out and wear it loose past my shoulders. I even consider eye makeup but decide against it.

  Let’s not get carried away.

  Molly picks me up at the shop, and we ride over on her bike. The Quicks live a few blocks from downtown, in a neighborhood of mostly brick houses with small front lawns and wooded backyards.

  We go around to the back and enter the kitchen. Molly introduces me to her mom, Beatrice, who is energetically chopping vegetables. Mrs. Quick is large and heavyset, a lot like her husband. Unlike Chief Quick, she has a wide mouth and sparkling, amused eyes. She feels like the kind of person who never lets anything trouble her too much.

  Mrs. Quick wipes her hands on her apron and then shakes my hand. “Welcome, Abby. Molly’s told us a lot about you. I’m really glad she’s found such a good friend right here in town.”

  “Thanks. It’s been great for me too. Can I help you fix anything?”

  “Well, you are different from Molly. Cooking’s not exactly her strongest interest.”

  “I can cook,” Molly says, handing me a glass of ice water. “I’d just rather serve up tasty writing.”

  Mrs. Quick laughs, rolling her eyes. “You girls go hang out in the cool. Dinner will be ready in a half hour. Hopefully the boys will be home by then.”

  The “boys” are Chief Quick and Ray-Ray. I know from talking with Molly that they’re not always able to get off work according to schedule. The Harmony Springs police force has only eleven employees—nine sworn officers and two administrative staff members. It’s not easy for them to police the whole town 24/7. Molly’s told me that a lot of rural towns in Florida have given up their police forces in favor of contracting for law enforcement from their county governments. It’s an ongoing challenge for Chief Quick to keep the town satisfied with the force, and to keep his job.

  Of course, all the recent troubles have made that harder.

  We chill out in Molly’s room, and she updates me on the latest news. The police were never able to get Cletis to incriminate his brother, but it turned out not to matter. They pulled in Wendell for questioning and let him drink from a bottle of water. Then they told him they were going to match the DNA on the bottle to evidence found in one of the black bodysuits. That was enough to break him down. With Wendell under arrest, Cletis confessed too. In exchange for reduced sentences, they admitted to every act of vandalism the police tossed out at them.

  “So you think they really did them all?” I ask.

  “Apparently.”

  “But what about the fact that they never left a trail or footprints?”

  Molly shrugs. “Most of the time they worked from a canoe and cut right back to the water. As my dad said, they’re backwoods boys and pretty crafty about not leaving trails when they don’t want to. Cletis only got careless and left prints after he was shot.”

  Chief Quick and Ray-Ray show up at ten minutes before six, right on time. Ray-Ray smiles like he’s happy to see me. He goes to change out of his uniform. Chief Quick flops down in a recliner and puts his feet up. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him relax.

  He asks after my Granma, and if I’ve seen John and Emily Parker since Saturday night. I tell him I haven’t. Then I ask if Mr. Parker will be in any trouble over the shooting.

  “None at all,” he says. “He was defending his property. The law’s completely on his side.”

  Mrs. Quick brings in a plate of sliced carrots and celery with dip, and Molly follows with a pitcher of iced tea. They both go back to the kitchen, and then Molly returns with a bottle of beer, which she hands to Chief Quick.

  “You can take off your shoes, Dad,” she says. “Abby won’t mind.”

  “Don’t do it, Arthur!” Mrs. Quick calls from the kitchen. “We have company.”

  Chief Quick had started to reach for his laces. Now he actually looks sheepish.

  “Please go ahead,” I tell him. “I really don’t mind. You should be comfortable.”

  He smiles. “Molly, I like your friend.”

  Ray-Ray comes in, wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. He plops down in a chair and reaches for the iced tea.

  “I see Dad’s shoes are off already,” Ray-Ray says. “You know what that means, Abby?”

  “Uh. No.”

  “You’re officially no longer a guest. Now you’re part of the family.”

  They all smile at me, and it touches something in my heart. “Well…that suits me fine.”

  Awhile later we go into the dining room. Ray-Ray and Molly help Mrs. Quick carry in the dinner. There’s grilled pompano with lemon, rice garnished with almonds and orange slices, green salad, and homemade cornbread. Everything is light and really tasty.

  As we’re eating, Mrs. Quick asks me about my mom and her job, and what it’s like in New Jersey. She’s impressed that Mom works for an investment bank, and even more that I turned down a chance to spend a month in London. I explain that Mom would have needed to concentrate on her work, and besides, I’m really enjoying Harmony Springs.

  They ask about my plans after high school, and I admit I haven’t decided
on anything yet. “Unlike Molly and Ray-Ray. I really admire how they have their acts together.”

  I get a little smile from Ray-Ray for that, and it makes me braver. “So, there’s something I’ve been wondering about,” I say. “If you don’t mind my asking, where does the name Ray-Ray come from?”

  They all think that’s funny. Mrs. Quick says, “Well, we have Molly to thank for that. His real name is John Raymond. But when Molly first started to talk, she would only call him Ray-Ray. For some reason, it stuck. He’s been Ray-Ray ever since.”

  “The first of many, many problems Molly has caused in my life,” Ray-Ray says with mock gravity.

  He’s capable of irony. Who knew?

  Of course, so is Molly. She looks solemnly at her brother. “I’m so sorry…John Raymond.”

  17. True magic is never an easy road

  The following night, I gather my courage and try the First Advancement ceremony again. Same result—the lights go out just as I’m getting started. At least now I know what to expect, so I’m less afraid. I immediately begin visualizing the Fountains and am able to work my way out of the darkness and back to my room.

  I try again two nights later. Same, same.

  Apart from these snags on the inner planes, the week is perfectly quiet—no fights, no spooks, no vandalism. The July weather is broiling and humid, with a few afternoon thunderstorms cooling things off. I help Granma in the shop, work on my summer reading assignments, continue my magical studies. After all the fear and turmoil, Harmony Springs feels unnaturally peaceful. I wonder if the arrest of the Wainwright brothers might really have brought a close to the troubles.

  Or is this the lull before another storm?

  Molly is wondering too. While she’s published two posts in the Quick Report about the arrests and people’s reactions, her Quick Paranormal Investigations blog is at a standstill. With no further sightings of Shadow Man or Margaret’s ghost, I’ve had no news for her. She’s asked for copies of the Circle of Harmony papers that I showed her, and permission to publish them, but Violet said definitely not.