Haunted (5 page)

He emptied the bag. Smoke boiled into the room. A pleasant incense odor at first, like a burning mosquito coil that was soon overpowering.

“Hurry up, I want to check something,” he said. “Where were you sleeping when you got stung?”

Birdy had covered her nose and mouth. “You can burn the place down, I wouldn’t go back in that room.”

“You’ll get a kick out of this, promise.” He appealed to me. “Hannah?”

I said, “If we don’t suffocate first,” and walked toward the hall, Theo behind me carrying the light, which looked high-tech, a rectangle of LEDs with a battery pack.

When he turned it on inside the room, the darkness became eerie blue velvet with a glowing fringe. “Ultraviolet light,” he explained. He held the thing like a shield and entered, panning it across the ceiling.

I have seen scorpions under ultraviolet light before, but always with cheap flashlights or neon tubes, nothing like the unit Theo carried. The ceiling, the walls, glittered with emeralds. The room moved, its skin alive. When several clattering green comets fell to the floor, Theo stomped them with his Birks.

“Scientists don’t understand why some insects react to UV light,” he said, backing away. “That’s why I brought this. When we come back later, we’ll know if they’re gone or not.”

I called to the hallway, “Birdy—you need to see this.”

No, she didn’t. The three of us went coughing out the front
door. The smoke, or holding my breath, caused me to feel oddly separated from my body, a slight buzz that added a blue corona to my flashlight’s beam.

On the steps, Theo explained to Birdy, “Pyrethrum is the active ingredient in the resin. How are you feeling?”

“Like the only time in my life I tried mushrooms, sort of . . . nice. How about you, Hannah?”

“I think he should have warned us,” I replied. I needed air so kept walking.

“Pyrethrum isn’t dangerous. It was one of the first insecticides. Persian soldiers depended on it. I wish you’d have seen those scorpions under UV. We use it a lot in the field, but for finding bone fragments and pottery shards, not insects. They fluoresce, too.”

Birdy’s girlish streak vanished, but only I realized it, knew it because she used his remark as an opening. “In Guatemala, my professor would have killed for a lab-grade UV light. I did three weeks on a Maya project there. I’d love to see the techniques used by someone who really knows what they’re doing.”

Theo stopped as if to return to the house. “Then let’s go back.”

“No, I mean the archaeological applications. I want you to show us your dig site. It’s on the way, isn’t it? And you’re already hauling that light around.”

Theo balked, saying it was late.

Birdy used psychology by addressing me. “Most people don’t understand how disappointing a dig site can be. You can excavate for years and not find anything significant. Poor Theo’s been here only for a few weeks, so I totally understand.”

Theo, who was leading the way, turned to block our path. “That’s not the reason.”

Birdy pretended to empathize. “You never told us the name of the lead archaeologist. Is it too late to call and ask permission? I’m a cop. I understand the chain of command.”

It worked.

After a detour, Theo used a flashlight to guide us under a rope onto the dig site. Mosquitoes greeted us from the shadows while a night bird screeched, its wings black against the moon.

A sudden thought stopped me—or paranoia caused by the smoke. I let the other two go ahead, but they backtracked. Birdy asked, “Something wrong?”

“I left the journal on the fireplace mantel,” I said. “What if the house burns down?”

Theo snickered at the improbability. “She keeps a journal?”
Journals were for teenagers.
It was in his tone.

I shot back, “If you have a question, it’s faster to ask me directly. No, I don’t keep a journal—well, I do, a fishing journal, but that’s for business reasons. I was talking about something else.”

“Oh, you’re a fishing guide, too, huh? Along with being an expert on history.” Taunting me now.

Birdy told him, “Back off, boogaloo. As a matter of fact, she is.”

Theo grinned. “Oh?”

“Hannah is fifth- or sixth-generation Floridian. She’s named after a great-aunt who chopped wood for a living. Look up Hannah and Sarah Smith—they’re in the history books. But it’s her
uncle
’s journal. He was a blockade-runner. What was his name again? Captain Summerlin. But I forget his first name.”

My friend, by intending to bruise Theo’s ego, had let a confidence slip. The man’s attention zoomed. He stared at me. “Captain
Jake
Summerlin?”

Theo was referring to another distant relative who had exported cattle to Cuba, not Ben Summerlin, who had expanded beyond cattle into blockade-running and also dabbled in rum. The error allowed me an out.

“A different man,” I said. “I’d better go back to the house.”

The expert on Civil War battlefields didn’t believe me—or didn’t want to believe me—but his demeanor changed. “Hannah and Sarah Smith,” he repeated.

Birdy started to say she would return to the house with me, but Theo interrupted. “Well, now! I think we got off to a bad start, Hannah. I didn’t realize you’re related to the Summerlins and the old-time Florida Smiths. Seriously,
Sarah Smith
?” Then he proved his knowledge of history by explaining to Birdy, “She was the first woman to drive an oxcart across the Everglades. This was back in like 1910, 1911.”

The temptation was to correct him—the first
person
to do it—but I remained cautious because Theo, I realized, wanted to get his paws on Ben Summerlin’s journal. So I played dumb. “Was she really?”

Theo saw through my lie. His certainty was in an absurd bow, a gentleman deferring to a lady’s reticence. He checked the time while his mind retooled. “You know . . . instead of rushing, why not wait until morning? I’ve got three excavation sites going. And UV light works just as well in sunlight. Really spectacular, what you’ll see.”

He suggested we freshen our drinks and go straight to the RV park. “I’m late, as it is. There’s a Civil War hobbyist—he’s giving me some kind of award. And don’t forget about Tyrone.”

“I don’t need to meet Tyrone,” I said. Truth is, I didn’t want to intrude on a stranger who walked around at night to avoid gawkers.

Theo ignored me. “Have you ever used ground-penetrating radar, Bertie? Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to operate one of the best units made.”

My friend, as if enjoying a sudden estrogen spike, replied, “That is so sweet. But if we go to the campground, will we still have time for a drink later?”

I was thinking,
The journal—I should go back and get it?

I didn’t.

A mistake.

What the Palm Beach attorney had described as a mom-and-pop RV park wasn’t. The strangest combination of people I’d ever seen inhabited the other side of the river, down a private road where campers and RVs were nestled near dockage for boats and canoes.

According to Theo, getting there would have taken twenty minutes by car, so we walked. Followed him across a defunct railroad bridge, the moon behind us. Every few minutes, I looked over my shoulder, worried the old house was ablaze, but the sky remained a steady onyx-silver above the trees.

We exited a path onto the private road. Two signs were posted. One was a warning to those entering the campground:
No Rednecks, Gypsies, Boom Boxes, or Close-Minded Nabobs. Cash Only.

Nabobs?
I could guess what the word meant.

The other sign was smaller, posted at a gated gravel drive:

SLEW VACCINE AND HERPETILE

TRESPASSERS RISK ENVENOMATION

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

The signs were stenciled in red, made by someone with an ego.

Theo confided, “A processing lab, supposedly,” and didn’t look back.

My mind was on the journal in the house that was fuming with vapors, the front door padlocked, not that I was comforted by that. Thieves could easily break a window or shimmy up to the balcony and through the French doors.

Birdy said,
“Gyspies,” as if she found that interesting yet disapproved. “I know ‘Herpetile’ means snakes, but is slew the owner’s name or slew as in swamp?” She turned to me. “That’s another word for swamp
,
isn’t it?”

Theo had been talking nonstop but tolerated the interruption. “Call it anything you want, it’s still a snake farm. Can you imagine milking snakes for a living? The guy has to be twisted. Or hung up on the money thing.”

“I doubt if hospitals care one way or the other,” Birdy replied.

“Oh? I guess you’d like handling snakes—you know, real thick, long ones.”

Theo thought that was funny. Birdy didn’t. So he tried another
approach. “I do what I do because I love it. I have a commercial pilot’s license, too, but it’s my life, you know? Jesus . . . dealing with reptiles all day sounds sort of freakish to me.” Odd, his response—a mix of contempt and hubris.

Birdy picked up on that. “Three weeks here and you haven’t met the owner?”

“‘By appointment only,’ the sign says, but I’ve seen the place from the outside. There’s not much, three buildings and an old Land Rover. One of the classics, though—an old Defender, like in the jungle movies. At least we’d have something to talk about—if I bothered.”

I was thinking,
This man is nuts,
while Birdy asked, “Did you try calling?”

“Businesses don’t take calls anymore. It’s all Internet-driven. There’s money in raw snake vaccine, I don’t doubt that. But, from those signs? He’s got to be a pretty strange animal.”

Finally Birdy agreed. “A pompous prick, is what he sounds like. ‘Envenomation’—why not just say poisoned?”

Theo replied, “Because they are two very different things,” sounding like a pompous prick himself. “It’s not like the RV park gets a lot of traffic. A dozen trailers and a few tents, is the busiest I’ve seen it. And that was yesterday.” Then he resumed talking about the man he was supposed to meet and the award he was receiving—a subject I had tuned out ten minutes ago.

Birdy’s patience was also wearing thin. She interrupted to say her sheriff’s department had brought in an expert on Florida Gypsies, part of a continuing education program.

“Why would anyone care?”

“Someone bothered to put it on a sign,” I countered. “Why do you think, Birdy?”

“The place could be sued for discrimination, is what I think. Gypsy is considered a racial slur. The accepted term is the Romani people. Or Roms. Carnivals attracted them to Florida way, way back. Most went legitimate. Assimilation, that’s what happens to most ethnic groups. But not all, and the ones who’ve stuck to the old ways can be very bad news. Dollarwise, it’s incredible the amount of crime they get away with.”

Theo again. “Yeah? But back to what I was saying—”

I blocked him. “What else did the expert say, Birdy?”

My friend continued, “Traditional Roms only marry among themselves—arranged marriages, usually—and they still pay dowries. Can you imagine? A few—not all, of course—but some think cheating an outsider is a badge of honor. They work in packs. Con games and fraud. Fortune-telling from the carnival days is still a favorite gambit, but now it’s high-tech. Seriously—a
billion
-dollar business. In Lauderdale, they just busted a fortune-telling ring. Like twenty people, all with the same last name. Cops confiscated boxes of electronics: eavesdropping and surveillance gear, stolen hard drives. And then there are the simple cons: bogus house repairs or yard work. Some pass themselves off as Hispanic. Like a pretty Latina home health care nurse, she goes in while her brothers rob old couples blind.”

Theo said, “Profiling and stereotyping nonwhites—does your department offer courses on that, too?” Then tried to make it into a joke. “I’m
kidding
. I know law enforcement is tough. So you’re an
intelligent woman, very attractive. Why did you choose such a crazy occupation?”

Birdy threw it right back at him. “Because I like handcuffing men who are twice my size but ten times as naïve—which is probably why they make half my salary.”

Theo said, “Ouch,” in a humorous way. “Do I have time to apologize before you do the Miranda rights thing?”

Birdy laughed at that.
Damn.

“The woman who sold me the chrysanthemum resin? Just a warning—don’t tell her or anyone else you’re a cop.”

We had rounded a bend: pop-up campers and RVs set apart in clusters, three fires and a tent, people gathered tribally in separate halos of light.

Birdy asked, “Is she a Gypsy?”

Theo, back in control, said, “You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

•   •   •

T
HREE WOMEN,
all with long gray hair, two wearing tie-dyed dresses, looked up from a bong they were passing around, happy to see Theo until they noticed us. Their smiles flattened. The bong vanished under the table. The table held a plate of cookies, burning incense, and a battery-powered candle that flickered in its plastic chimney.

Birdy whispered to me, “Except for the chubby one, they could pass for my mother. Throw in a tofu turkey and it’s my pain-in-the-ass childhood all over again. Let’s make this quick.”

Woodsmoke, incense, and reefer, the odors clung to the
clearing. Trees screened all but a circle of sky. Opposite us was a domed tent and an RV camper. Two men sat playing a board game by lantern light. Theo called, “See you in a minute,” as we passed them. One man waved and the other said, “Righty-o!”

It was probably the Civil War hobbyist he had mentioned. I liked the older man’s looks: solid, grandfatherly in slacks and gray hair. But he and his friend were outsiders, segregated by space and a lack of shade. Others here were different. I could see it in the furtive looks, felt it in the air. Nearer the river was a van and more pop-up campers, all attached to vehicles that had towed them. Except for a CBS house—
Office
on a sign out front—and one trailer, an old single-wide on blocks, the roofline curved like the lines of an aging Cadillac. A small wooden porch held it to the ground.

Tyrone and the park manager are the only full-time residents,
Theo had told us.

I didn’t want to linger on the image of a man with scales, so I replied to Birdy, “I’m thinking I should talk to the owner of the vaccine place or whoever runs it. I don’t see how a bunch of weekend campers can help.”

“Hipster-genarians,” she muttered, meaning the three women. “The Butterfly Generation is turning into moths.”

I said, “I wouldn’t bother him tonight, of course. Tomorrow, I’ll look up the number—Theo has to be wrong about his phone being unlisted. Don’t you think we’re wasting our time here?”

“I bet they’re all high as kites,” my friend said. “Look at their expressions—sixty-year-old flower chicks hoping to score some good lovin’ from Theo. Very, very groovy until we show up.”

“Don’t be mean,” I whispered.

We stopped while Theo approached the women, arms outstretched to symbolize a group embrace. One stood to hug him. She also planted a serious kiss on his lips, her eyes shifting to check us out. Smug, her expression, this sixty-year-old woman braless but fit enough to look pretty good in an exotic muumuu, a hibiscus behind her ear. “
You’re
late,” she pouted and pressed her body to Theo in an extended hug, then stepped back and ignored us from fifteen paces.

Birdy, not whispering, but not loud, remarked, “If I make it to menopause, please have my vagina sutured. Or just shoot me if I get that desperate.”

“Keep your voice down,” I said, “she might beat me to it.”

The women stared with fixed smiles while the attractive one hooked an arm around Theo’s waist. “Who are your friends, Theo? Shame on you for not warning them.”

Theo, instead of inviting us over, sounded nervous when he asked, “About what?”

“Their clothes. Or, at least, you could have warned me.”

As if we hadn’t heard, he held up a finger and called, “Give us a sec, okay?”

Birdy spoke to me from the side of her mouth. “Do you believe this? Turn up your hearing aid, Granny.”

“It’s your fault,” the woman told Theo. “They’re dressed like sales clerks, not for star channeling—you know, kicking back under all this space. Tell me they’re not totally straight.” She glanced over. “Starch and mall outlets—whew—it clashes with, you know, the vibe we’re trying to achieve.”

“Achieve a vibe?” Birdy whispered. “Star channeling? Oh my
god. And check out that dress—they’ve got Target stores in the jungle someplace.”

“Definitely a bitch,” I agreed. The word was out of my mouth before I realized it.

Birdy said, “There’s hope for you yet,” and walked toward the table. I started after her but stopped for no reason other than a strange sensation blooming within me: a sudden wariness of the verbal sparring that awaited. I didn’t know these women. I didn’t want to know them. What was I doing here?

Paranoia. Mild, but it was there in my head.

Too much rum, plus that smoke,
I thought. Or was it the smoldering bong beneath the table? Reefer and incense and woodsmoke swirled, the dusty air corralled by shadows, the moon sliding westward. The moon seemed the only familiar and trustworthy thing for miles. My eyes swung from Birdy to the activity around us. Three campfires, the biggest near a cluster of trucks, men and women milling, drinking, talking, too far away to decipher words. People who did a lot of this, set up in campgrounds, miniature homes bolted to their trucks, always ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Gypsies? I wondered. Until Birdy’s summary, I was unaware that Gypsies lived in Florida.

You’re being unfair.
That came into my mind, too, and it was true.

A camper door opened, a woman the size of a child stepped out. She walked with the quick, muscle-bound strides of a dwarf—“Little people,” I corrected myself. Another miniature woman
joined her. In her hands, a basket of something, while her friend, head bowed, lit a cigarette . . . or a joint.

Not Gypsies, carnival workers, I realized. Suddenly, I felt more at ease. Like the moon, carnies and circus performers were familiar. Not commonplace, but they fit in because it is true that Florida’s their traditional wintering place. Just across the street from where my mother lives, and where I grew up, is a colony of gingerbread cottages known as Munchkinville. Supposedly, carnival folks built them years ago. When I was a girl, my uncle would take me to Gibsonton, which is on the Myakka River near Tampa and north of Sarasota, where there is a trapeze-and-clown academy. I had enjoyed those trips, usually by truck but once by boat. We’d seen elephants being washed along the river and caged monkeys. We ate at the Giant’s Restaurant and toured shops and a post office that provided a special mail slot at dwarf level because so many little people lived nearby.

I had met the “Werewolf-faced Lady,” who was very kind, although shy, and clean-shaven during the off-season. I’d had my photo taken with the sweetest little woman you can imagine, despite her age and fame. “Miz Margaret,” I had called her. Ms. Margaret, only three-feet-something tall, had been the “Flowerpot Munchkin” in
The Wizard of Oz
, one of my all-time favorites. She’d also played other roles in the film, wearing different costumes throughout. On the day we’d met, a back ailment was causing her pain, but she had brightened like a rose for the camera while I’d knelt beside her and managed a smile of my own.

Margaret . . . Margaret
Pellegrini
.
It took a moment to recall her
last name. And a news story, a few years back, that reported her death at age eighty-nine. I’d been in middle school when we’d met. For no rational reason, I suddenly wanted to fill in the blanks. It was at least fifteen years since I’d seen her. How had Ms. Margaret’s life gone during the intervening years? I wondered if it would be rude to intrude on the two tiny women across the clearing who stood alone near a fire sharing a joint, not a cigarette. Even stoned, they would certainly know the name Margaret Pellegrini.