John sighed, “Let’s end the love fest and get back to the story, Jason. But first, let’s take a five minute break.”
Sam’s voice rose as he stood up, “Yep, I’m gonna take a tour of the camp real quick. Just in case.”
The rest of the guys wandered back toward the canoes. I could hear a few bottles clinking and a few streams hitting the black water surrounding us. I was watering a bush when I heard something moving behind me, and I jumped when Foster put his hand on my shoulder. “True ghost stories, bourbon, weed, a hunt for an escaped lunatic,” he slapped my ass, “and things that go bump in the night—this is one helluva sleepover you’ve put together, Bo.”
We all gathered back around the stone ring and settled back in. “Okay, fellas. After I saw Rose that day I had a major distraction in my life. I met Jonas when we were leavin’ school. He was parked next to me.”
John sounded skeptical. “You met a 300-year-old pirate in high school? And he had his own car?”
“No, John, not that Jonas Parker. My Jonas, or my ex-Jonas, whatever. The guy I moved to New York with.”
“The guy who’s sittin’ in jail right now for, among other things, tryin’ to kill you?” Billy asked.
“Some relationships end worse than others, Billy,” I explained. “He was a year younger, we had different classes and schedules. He was a Parker, a direct descendent of the Jonas in this story. So of course he was tall, dark and handsome. He played on almost every team at school—wrestling, basketball, baseball, and lacrosse. We talked at school more often and made some vague plans to hangout on weekends and whatnot. I was so caught up in the hope of that it caught me off guard when Ty called me and basically begged me to come over.
“It was a Thursday or Friday, and I’d gone over to the island to see Bucky, and maybe dig around in the town archives to see if I could find out anything more about Elizabeth. So when Ty called I hopped in the car and was at his front door in about five minutes. He opened it before I could even knock and hustled me into his study. He had lost even more weight, his cheeks were sunken in and his eyes were dim and watery. A gaunt, black, Abraham Lincoln was staring at me like he was watching a losing battle. ‘Jason, I’ve known you since your mother gave birth to you, but we need to part ways—maybe for a week, maybe a month, maybe longer. I know you’ve tried to help, and I appreciate your...discretion. It’s wrong of me and Rose to keep you in this mess. I can’t ask you to try and help, to understand all of this, or even believe me when I tell you it’s your time to walk away.’
“I started turning red and I could feel my pulse in my ears and in my throat. ‘No, Ty, I’m not gonna do that! I care too much, and I feel like I’m close to figurin’ out some things that might help you two.’
“I watched as he poured a glass of clear something, somethin’ that I was sure wasn’t water. I took in the smell of the office, all swamp weed and sweat and spilled liquor. There were pills of different sizes and colors lined up along the edge of his desk. ‘Trying to help us, trying to figure this out, Jason—is something you’d regret, something that could ruin you. Look at me, look at what’s happened to me. I haven’t seen a patient in weeks, I’ve barely been out of the house. I seriously doubt I’ll ever walk in that damn garden again. And things are just getting worse. Rose is sleeping in the guest room now, she keeps telling me to keep the dog with me and keep my door locked at night. With all the shit going on in the house now I’m considering putting a deadbolt on my bedroom door.’
“I stared at him and I began to believe he was right, that I shouldn’t be involved in this shit. But I just couldn’t stand to see all this hurt. ‘So, what, exactly, is goin’ on?’
“I followed him to the door of the study and he paused before he opened it. ‘I’m going to show you what life’s like around here these days, and nights. I’m going to show you everything, and then you’ll walk out the front door and hop into your car and you’ll never come back here again, at least not until I tell you it’s safe to. Please don’t tell Bucky, your friends, and especially not your parents, what you’re about to see. If you tell anyone you may end up in the room next to me in some mental hospital far away from here.’ ”
It’s Getting Stranger
“I nodded and he led me out of the room and toward the back of the house. He pointed at a muddy mess crossin’ from the back door toward the staircase in the hall. The friggin’ hall itself was something that could have pushed me over the edge—there were so many footprints, maybe even paw prints or something, that I just couldn’t make sense of it. And then we went to see things upstairs. We started climbing the steps and my feet started growin’ concrete boots. On the carpeted steps rising above us, along the walls, even on the fuckin’ ceiling, were muddy footprints. And other things, long scratches in the plaster, framed photos lying on the steps with their glass fronts shattered. And the damn feathers—”
“Feathers? What kind of feathers, Jason?’ Billy asked, like he didn’t already know.
“Snowy-white feathers, Billy. Owl. Of course. And as I followed Ty up the steps, and into the real hell of the house, some of the feathers lifted and blew around in his wake. They settled on my shirt, in my hair, and I got that feelin’ you have when you walk through a spider’s web and wonder if you’ve snagged the spider, too. It also felt a little like we were climbin’ Everest, my knees were trembling and I was short of breath. When we finally reached the top Ty put a hand on my chest and blocked me from moving further. ‘I stopped trying to actually sleep in my bedroom a few days ago. I keep myself awake with pills and just stare at the inside of the door. Sometimes the doorknob turns a little, sometimes the door itself seems to bump around in the frame. I took the dog to the kennel, he was too panicked and scared to keep him here while all this is...playing out.’ He pointed to huge gashes in the carpet, the worst were the ones at the foot of the doors. The feathers were everywhere, and the muddy footprints tapered off at Rose’s room. The smell up there was like ripe compost, like the swamp smells tonight only muggier, more dense or whatnot. ‘Let’s go downstairs, things are just a little…too odd up here to think straight.’ I raised an eyebrow and just nodded.
“I started backing down the stairs and almost busted my ass when my hand slid on some muddy goop on the bannister. I stared all around me and told him, ‘With what I’m seeing here, odd has taken on a whole new fuckin’ meaning, Ty. But yeah, let’s get outta here.’ He nodded and we scooted back down and into the study. He sat down behind the desk and poured us each a drink. It was only after he’d lit a joint and handed it to me that I could talk again. ‘Get out, Ty. Grab Rose and leave, fly to New Orleans, Vegas or LA or fuckin’ Vietnam, but get out of here—’ ”
“I don’t know about ‘Nam or Vegas, but creepy shit happens in LA all the time. That place may’ve freaked him out even more,” Foster commented.
I nodded in the dark and kept going. “He told me he couldn’t leave, he said Rose would get so worked up, so scared, that she would tremble as she pleaded with him. ‘We can’t leave together, Ty,’ she’d moan. ‘I have to leave here soon, but he’s not going to let us leave together. He’d go crazy evil on everybody in our families, every friend we care about, if he can’t have me to himself.’
“I couldn’t believe I was sayin’ it, and I knew Bucky’d kick my ass if he ever heard me talk like I was. ‘Can we...kill him? You and me, can we wait until tonight with a gun or a knife or something, and just end it?’
“Ty shook his head and pointed upstairs. ‘Really Jason, murder something that climbs walls and ceilings, leaves feathers floating around, and that can evidently bypass locked doors and alarm systems? And don’t think I haven’t thought about other things. I might be a psychiatrist but I know a good situation for an exorcism when I see it. I tried talking to the minister of the chapel, Evan or Ethan or something, but it’s really hard to convince someone that your wife’s having an affair with some kind of monster from the swamp. Especially when you’ve downed a fifth of Jac
k and some Darvocet before you make the call.’ ”
That’s when John spoke up. “Here’s where I can add a little to this story, I think. I was at my grandfather’s house around that time and they were having their tribal council meeting. I saw Ty pull up and got curious, so I moved around to the living room windows where I could listen in. I couldn’t figure out why a psychiatrist would be going to a meeting where a bunch of old men got high, took mushrooms, and chanted to the theme song of the Lone Ranger.”
“I think I’ve been to that party,” Foster commented.
“No doubt, Foster. But after they got done with all the usual bullshit one of them told Ty to explain his problem to the group. Ty’s always been so soft spoken it was hard to hear his part of the conversation, but I could hear most of what the old men were saying and it sounded like what Jason said—Ty was pretty drunk, and then pretty high, but he did seem to be asking for some kind of Native American exorcism. One of the men questioned Ty and when he got to the part about the white feathers they stopped him. One of the elders told Ty that it was White Owl, a messenger of death on a good day, or the actual deliverer of death on a bad one. It was an ancient spirit, they told him, and one they said they’d never disturb. There was a little bit of an argument, and I know I heard Rose’s name, and Elizabeth’s, too. I watched Ty leave, his head was tilted down at the ground and he sat in the car for a few minutes before he drove off. I asked my grandfather about White Owl a few weeks after that. He told me about Elizabeth, Jonas and the brave. He said the tribe’s tale about the Parker witch and the brave she married had a different ending than the pirates’ version. After Jonas attacked the two of them, some of the women from the tribe came across the brave’s body at the edge of the creek. His arms were folded over his chest and flowers were scattered over his body. When they returned with braves to carry the body home it was gone, only the flowers were left. After that White Owl began appearing in their dreams, and there were tales of it flying and flapping over the Indian village on moonlit nights. The spot where he was found became kind of a lovers’ lane in the swamp. Braves would take women to the spot and tell tales of the two newlyweds’ tragic ending.”
Sam said, “An old tale, a romantic tale braves told in the hopes they were gonna get laid.”
“Exactly,” said John. “But after a few years, after the tragedy began to fade into history, some of the women would come back with tiny wild roses tucked into the braids of their hair or little bouquets of the flowers in one hand. The grin on the face of the brave and the little red flowers let all of the younger members of the tribe know what the couple had been up to. Every year or so a member of the tribe would claim to have seen a huge white owl in the swamp, always near the creek. Most of the tribe would blame it on a little too much swamp weed and they’d laugh the tale away.”
I heard something chattering and hopping from tree to tree above our heads. “What the hell is that?”
“Swamp monkeys,” Foster said cautiously.
John spoke up. “I’ve never seen one of those around here. If there is such a thing they’d probably all go south for the winter—to Florida, for oranges and bananas, not hang out around here in the cold, freezing their little monkey asses off.”
“I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel about these rare monkeys, swamp monkeys.” Foster said, “They sneak up on unsuspecting humans and steal their eyeballs.” He paused and sounded a little less sure of himself. “Maybe it was in a movie, maybe it wasn’t a documentary—but that noise it’s making sounds just like they sounded on TV. I’m positive of that.”
A Safe Place
“Pass that joint to somebody else, Foster,” I told him. “I have never, ever, heard of swamp monkeys. So, anyway, after Ty showed me his demon-infested house I was so freaked out I stayed away. I spent some time finishing up the computer project for Bucky, and it was all I could do not to say anything to him about the house down the street. I was walking back from the men’s room one day when Betty popped out of a doorway and pointed at me. ‘Jason, step in here for a minute, please.’
“We went into a classroom and she cut right to the chase. ‘Something, young man, is going on with you. You can’t fool me. And you need to stop this mission you seem to be on. Leave the Parker’s be, your kind has no business getting involved like this.’
“I thought I knew what she was saying and I got a little pissed. ‘Look, Ms. Parker, it’s the 1990’s, not the 1890’s when you were still young. What Jonas and I end up doing, or not doing, is none of your damn business. Nothin’s going on between the two of us, not yet, anyway.’
“Betty looked at me and then surprised me by laughing. ‘You dumb little shit. I meant you being a Rumpholt, not a homosexual. I’m talking about this whole nonsense with the Parker witch story. I don’t buy the school paper or party-costume tales you’re telling around here. Something’s got you digging into that old legend a little too much. And you should leave Ty and Rose alone, as well. You’re walking around here like you’ve seen a ghost, no pun intended, because I think maybe you have seen something. I know you think I’m hard on you, that I don’t approve of you, Jason. That’s not true. I’m not so old that I can’t see the good young man you’re becoming. But you’re a little too wild, a little too reckless, with what you’re getting into right now. This isn’t something you or Bucky should get involved with. Leave it to Ty and Rose to settle.’
“I figured that I was already in the whole thing too far, and I told her so. She raised her hand to shut me up and said, ‘I want to show you two things, two things that will hopefully stop you from getting yourself too tangled up in...events.’ I told her that seemed to be the theme of things around here, and I’d seen shit at Ty’s that had to be worse than anything we were about to look at. She shook her head and actually shushed me and then led me into the gallery room. There were tons of old portraits and seascapes that people had donated or lent to Betty’s museum. She pointed at one and told me, ‘I happened to come across this portrait at an estate sale. This is Elizabeth with her father, a few months before her voyage with Jonas. Her family was wealthy, her father was a duke or lord or something. Part of her face is covered in shadow, the main subject was the father. But look carefully at her, Jason.’
“I did what she said. It was...it was like going to the eye doctor and having him flip those lenses back and forth in the machine. My eyes focused on Elizabeth’s face, and of course it was Rose’s face, too. It wasn’t a mirror image of Rose, but it was who Rose was...becoming.
“I told her I was running late for something and needed to run, to leave ASAP. She shook her head and grabbed my arm with her boney shaky fingers. ‘Look at him, Jason. What do you see on his belt?’
“There was a decorative sword hanging off his right hip, all jewels and gold and shit. But then I saw what was on his left hip. It was a dagger in the same pattern as the sword, tucked into a scabbard. ‘Everyone’s always thought that Jonas used his own knife to kill Rose. But that wasn’t right, it was her knife. At the same auction where I found the portrait there was a section of a diary from one of Elizabeth’s peers. I could only afford the painting but I did get a look at the transcript of the diary. Before Elizabeth ran away with Jonas there were rumors floating around London—gossip about Elizabeth and a few children who disappeared at the family’s country estate. They were the children of servants and there wasn’t a thorough investigation, but the diary seemed to hint that Elizabeth was involved. She also mentioned Elizabeth had stolen the dagger from her father. She brought it with her when she married Jonas and left on their honeymoon of piracy and hurricanes. I know that because the dagger is here, in this building. And it’s the exact same knife as the one in this painting.’
“I looked around the room and she shook her head. ‘Not in here, not where...anybody could see it, or God forbid touch the cursed thing. It’s in a safe, in a locked room down the hall. I haven’t opened that safe since I put it in there. I found it at home, in a box in my
husband’s study. I asked him about it and he said it was a family heirloom, that I should leave it alone. Jonas had confessed to his son that it was the murder weapon he had used to kill his first wife and her new husband. The knife had been passed down through the generations as some kind of secret to be guarded. I really didn’t think too much about it, I was busy trying to find other…artifacts.’ ”
“Meaning treasure, I guess.” John sighed. “Everybody knew the Rumpholts were hiding treasure when the ship sank here. But maybe there was more treasure than people thought. Or, maybe Elizabeth managed to escape England with a little treasure chest of her own.”
“I think Betty was always convinced there were more gems and gold than people realized. So, one morning Betty fixes her husband some coffee and brings it to his study, just like any other morning. ‘He was sitting at his desk when he had his stroke,’ she said. ‘He was gone, face down on the desktop. There was some girlie magazine under his nose and his fly was open, not a very dignified way to go, but appropriate for him. I walked over to him and knew it was pointless, but I felt for a pulse anyway. He’d had a long life and was starting to get a little flakey around the edges. So his death didn’t surprise me, but seeing that damn dagger in his right hand sure did.’
“I cocked my head at her and pulled my eyebrows together, and just waited for her to keep talking. ‘I put the thing in a drawer, Jason, and called Bucky. He got there quick and the ambulance was right behind him. He ruled out foul play, and tactfully zipped my husband’s fly and tossed out the magazine. He signed the death certificate, sent the ambulance away and called Jenkin’s Funeral Home. They came with a hearse and took John away.’ ”
“Wait a minute.” Sam asked, “Bucky Parker—my father, he was police chief, mayor and coroner?”
The Tale of the Swamp and the Rose (Parker's Bluff) Page 5