by Catie Rhodes
“Hooty says bring the towels here. And, Peri Jean? Darlin’?”
“Yes?”
“Move your skinny ass.”
2
Hooty’s graceful two-story house on Spence Street usually made me smile. I helped paint the gingerbread trim white and the house its lovely wisteria color when Hooty and his wife Esther restored the 1920s home. Today, the sight of Eddie’s beat up old truck in the house’s driveway settled a heavy weight onto my shoulders. Much as I didn’t want to argue my duty to help find Hooty’s lost family heirlooms, I knew the only way to extract myself from the drama was to listen to what they had to say.
Gaslight City residents called Hooty’s neighborhood Bed and Breakfast Row. True to its namesake, and despite the hellish late summer weather, tourists determined to get in one last vacation before school started swarmed the street. I had to drive five miles per hour to keep from hitting any of the nitwits wandering around holding up their cameras and cellphones, totally unaware of the world around them. I caught a mini SUV vacating a parking spot right in front of Hooty’s house and slipped into the space, slick as mayonnaise.
“Hey!” A guy wearing a golf visor leaned out of his huge diesel truck. “We’ve been waiting for that spot for five minutes.”
“There’s a public lot a block over.” I locked my car and started up Hooty’s stone walkway.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Groaning, I turned back to them. A woman with perfectly straight, perfectly tinted blond hair, and super white teeth leaned over her husband, her coral tank top sliding to reveal a matching bra strap.
“Are you Peri Jean Mace? Of the Mace Treasure?”
“No.” I spun around and jogged up the walk. I got to the door and realized I’d forgotten Amanda’s towels. I sure as hell didn’t want to go back for them. I knocked on the door, and Esther Bruce opened it.
“What’s going on out there?”
“Tourists. Mace Treasure.” I pulled out my cigarettes, took in Esther’s ick face, and put them away.
“It’s like a TV show to them. We aren’t even real people. My advice? Ignore it.” She motioned me inside, closing the door behind me, and pulled me into a gentle hug, which I returned just as gently to make sure I didn’t make her injuries flare up.
“How are things?” I gestured at her hip, which seemed to give her the most trouble.
“Quite well. I’m trying a new therapy. It’s given me some relief.” Her smile seemed less forced than when I saw her last. I hoped the treatment continued to help.
“What’s the therapy?” I knew nothing about medicine but thought it polite to ask.
Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, but she recovered quickly and smiled again. “One of those new age type things. Your grandmother’s the one who told me about it.” Her shoulders cranked up nearly to her ears, and her jaw clenched. She obviously didn’t want me to ask any more about her therapy.
“Hooty’s expecting me.”
“Oh, he sure is. They’re back in his study.” She led me through the antique-filled foyer and living room. The ugly limp she picked up with her injury was absent, and she moved faster, even kneeling to pick up a piece of paper from the floor. What is this mystery treatment? We walked down a short hallway off the living room and she tapped on a closed door.
“I saw her drive up.” Hooty’s deep voice floated through the door. “Peri Jean, come on in.”
Esther patted me on the shoulder and got away from me before I could ask her more about her miracle healing. I made a mental note to ask Memaw what treatment she was taking and hoped it wasn’t a regimen of expensive vitamins. I opened the door to a roomful of people. Should have known Eddie would bring out the heavy artillery.
Hannah sat in a leather chair leafing through a huge book. Rainey Bruce, Hooty and Esther’s daughter, sat in a stiff, carved wooden chair next to the bay window. Eddie, head lowered and scribbling in one of his many notebooks, took up most of the loveseat. Hooty half rose from behind a paper-piled desk.
“Do you want coffee? Or a cool drink?” He gestured at a restored Art Deco bar, which held a coffee maker with a full pot of coffee.
“Don’t do it,” Eddie said. “He buys the cheap shit. Apparently, his congregants and his customers from the funeral home don’t rate the good coffee.”
Hooty doubled up one fist and shook it at Eddie, but he wore a smile. I went to the mini-fridge and took out a bottle of water. Hooty motioned me toward a Victorian-style, high-backed chair upholstered in lilac velvet, roses carved into its rosewood trim.
“Let’s get down to business.” Rainey checked the slim watch on her wrist. “I’ve got paperwork to finish before Dean’s campaign barbecue tonight.”
A sharp reminder I had to get my poop together before the barbecue kicked me in the chest. Sour acid oozed into my stomach and burned. I dug into my pocket, found a roll of antacids and crunched one.
“Pressure getting to you, short stuff?” Rainey’s steel gaze flicked over me and amusement lit her face. “Get used to it. When he wins, you’ll be in the public eye all the time.”
I ate another antacid.
“Rainey.” Hooty stared down his daughter who turned her gaze to her expensive, high-heeled shoes. He turned to speak to me. “Hannah said you have some inside knowledge about the loss of our family heirlooms.”
“Nice way of saying I saw a ghost steal them.” I glanced at the roll of gut soother, considered it, and slipped them back into my pocket without taking another one.
“Hannah also said you don’t want to help find the journals or the book of folk medicine.” Eddie glared at me the same way Hooty had glared at his own daughter. Though Eddie and I weren’t related by blood, he was the only father I remembered having.
“Hannah knows everything I know,” I said.
“There’s no chance you could do more?” Eddie set aside his notebook. “I see you got your black opal necklace back on. Don’t it make your powers stronger?”
I retrieved my antacids from my pocket and ate three.
“Peri Jean used the black opal to enhance what she could see.” Hannah gave me an apologetic glance, looking away when I bared my teeth at her. “But she couldn’t identify the ghost.”
“Even if I could,” I said, “I have no idea who’s controlling it.” The tortured voice and the shadowed figure in the backseat of my car popped back into my mind, almost like it had never been gone. How did such spooky shit slip away from me? Am I so stressed out I can’t remember stuff from an hour ago? I rubbed my aching shoulders.
“Do you think you could contact the ghost itself?” Leave it to Rainey Bruce to cut to the heart of the matter. A barracuda in the courtroom and in life, she didn’t care who she offended. She set her course and never stopped.
“Maybe, but I don’t want to.” I played it Rainey’s way, subtle as a jackhammer at dawn.
Eddie pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at me.
“If somebody were dead over this, I’d try, but contacting ghosts ain’t my business. Matter of fact, it’s gotten me thrown in the loony bin before. I don’t think it’s a fun way to pass the time.”
“This isn’t for fun.” Hannah’s voice tightened. “This is justice. Someone stole from the museum, which is the same as stealing from this town.”
I thought back to the curious stares in Amanda’s Hair Flairs and assessed my give-a-shit level. It wasn’t too high. Rainey rolled her eyes.
“Forget about the people in this mud hole who can’t stand you because they’re afraid. What about your friends?” She gestured around the room, silver bracelets jangling on her dark arm to punctuate her point.
I lowered my head, face flaming. “Dean’s on it.”
“Oh come on. Don’t play stupid,” Hannah said. “He’s doing all he knows to do—contacting pawn shops, encouraging us to make the theft as public as possible so people will know to be on the lookout, but he can’t do what you can. And you know it.”
&n
bsp; “Listen.” Rainey pointed one sharp, red fingernail at me. “I will not let my family’s heirlooms disappear and not fight to get them back. Just because you don’t care about your family, doesn’t mean I don’t care about mine. I’m proud of my family’s heritage in this county.”
“Would you be so proud of it if people treated you like an attraction at a carnival?” My voice raised. All the fatigue and hurt of the last few months bubbled, its steam becoming anger.
“Enough. Both of you.” Hooty stood behind his desk. “I know you like to stay away from the Mace Treasure. I respect your reasoning, though I don’t necessarily agree with it. I’ll ask you to try to understand the reason we want our heirlooms back so badly. It isn’t so much the connection to the Mace Treasure but their historical value we care about.”
“Hooty, I brought the video from last night’s Museum board meeting.” Hannah dug in her bag and came up with a DVD in a plastic jewel case. “Maybe we could let Peri Jean see the part where you read from the journal.”
“I’m willing if she’s willing.” Hooty stared at my face, waiting for my answer.
I wanted to say no so badly it hurt. Getting embroiled in the Mace Treasure nonsense and communicating with the spirit world did not appeal to me at all. Rainey’s reminder this room was filled with my friends stopped me. I needed to at least hear them out.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll watch.” I ate the last two antacids from my roll and washed them down with water, mindful of Eddie’s worried gaze lingering on me.
Hooty took the DVD from Hannah and plugged it into a combo DVD player/TV sitting on a converted antique sewing table. The video began to play, and I sat back in my chair, wondering how I’d gone from wanting to step away from the crazy to sitting here watching its tendrils sneaking into my life.
The scene showed the long oval table in the museum’s main classroom, each chair taken by a museum board member.
Felicia Holze and her father-in-law Sheriff Joey Holze both wore sour expressions. It probably rubbed their asses raw to attend the meeting, but I bet they’d allow their fingernails to be yanked out before they gave up their spots on the museum board. They got their jollies making other folks miserable.
Amanda King sat at the table, ignoring everyone else and tapping on her cellphone. It surprised me not to see her animated and socializing. Maybe she got enough of it at the salon.
Eddie Kennedy and Julie Woodson sat huddled together, smiling and whispering. The two dated on and off but wouldn’t commit to each other. It made me feel sorry for Eddie because I thought having someone to come home to would do him good.
Hooty sat with a battered book in front of him. Its cloth cover had worn away in spots, revealing the cardboard underneath, the page edges faded to yellowish tan. The book reminded me of the picture-book sized ledgers I sometimes saw in antique stores, and I could almost imagine the dry, musty smell coming off it.
Rainey sat next to Hooty, staring at something she held out of sight in her lap. I assumed it was a cellphone until she raised it to table level and saw it was a card-sized photograph. I couldn’t make out any details. She leaned over to Hooty, and the two had a whispered discussion. Rainey shook her head and slipped the photograph into a padded envelope and put it in her purse.
“Okay, Hooty, we’re ready,” Hannah said from somewhere off screen.
Hooty nodded and opened the journal to a marked place and began to speak. The door opened before he could, and Benny Longstreet rushed in.
“Sorry y’all. Had an emergency at the plant. Almost thought I wouldn’t make it.” He glanced around the room, embarrassment dawning slowly on his long, homely face. “Oh. Y’all done started, ain’t you? Lemme just set down.” He pulled a rolling chair away from the wall and sat next to Amanda who scooted away from him. I didn’t blame her. Benny turned my stomach, too.
“Okay, then,” Hannah said. “Hooty, please continue.”
“All right. First I’d like to introduce what I’m about to read.” He held up the journal. “This journal belonged to Hezekiah Bruce, the first of my family to settle in Burns County. His parents were slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. They instilled a sense of entrepreneurship in him. He saved his money, came here, and opened a general store. He was the first black business owner in Burns County. He used these ledgers to record the goings-on he saw.” The barrel-chested man’s voice boomed through the room, and it sounded like he was getting ready to deliver a sermon at church. Hooty took a deep breath and began to read from the journal.
“When I settled in Burns County to raise my family, I knew I would run into some of the same problems my parents suffered in Mississippi. But I never expected to see the horror I saw last night.
Around dark time, men came on horses and rode past our store and home. Usually nobody rides past because the last house on this road is that of Priscilla Herrera and she is thought to be a witch. My children ran out to see the commotion, but my wife shooed them back inside. I told her to hide them. Everything about these men and their horses scared me. As a boy, I saw a mob come take a man away who they decided had abused a white woman. This had the same feeling.
After I made sure my wife understood to keep the children and herself out of sight, I sneaked through the woods, going as quiet as I could, and found the men crowded in front of Priscilla Herrera’s, just where I expected.
One man said to her, “You made Reginald Mace lose his mind and fall ill with your sorcery.”
She said, “I did no such thing. Reggie and I were friends. I helped him, and he helped me.”
Another man said, “The bible says to never suffer a witch to live.”
She said, “You didn’t care about that when you and your wife wanted a child.”
He slapped her, and she fell down.
It was then I heard footsteps sneaking up behind me. I spun around, ready to fight for my life, only to find the children of Priscilla, a boy named Samuel and a girl named Samantha. Twins, but the ones who don’t look the same. Tears streaked those two little faces. I knew right away their momma sent them away to keep them from harm. I sent the two to hide with my wife and children. I didn’t know what I’d do with them, but helping others is the way of a Christian.
The men dragged Priscilla from the house, kicking and screaming. They tied her to a horse and left with her. I went back home, saddled my mare, and rode the short distance to town. They had her over to the jail. A crowd had gathered.”
I motioned Hooty to pause the video and spoke to Eddie.
“This is the witch you told me cursed the treasure?” My vague memories of the conversation didn’t render much detail. At the time, I’d been solving my cousin Rae’s murder and didn’t pay close attention.
He nodded.
“The old newspaper article you showed me only mentioned Priscilla Herrera having a son.”
“I showed you all the information I had at the time.” He shrugged and spread out his hands. “The article also mentioned the boy was deaf, but Hezekiah’s account says nothing of it. Lots of information gets lost or mixed up.”
“As long as we are clearing up facts, Reginald Mace was Peri Jean’s great-great grandfather?” Rainey asked.
“More like four greats.” Eddie counted on his fingers. “Peri Jean ought to make the effort to know all this herself.” He shot me a stinky glare.
Hooty started the video again.
They already had her on the gallows with a noose around her neck.
Old Bertram Holze said to her, “There is one way to save yourself. Tell us where Reginald Mace’s fortune is hid. That way, we’ll know you mean only good to this community.”
Well, Priscilla snorted at him and said, “You done made up your mind what to do with me, no matter what I tell you. But I’ll tell you something you did not expect. None of you, save one who has the blood, will have the treasure. Trespassers will come to a bad end.”
“What kinda bad end?” That was from old Theo Franklin who never
had any sense to begin with.
“Those who don’t die will wish they had.”
Bert Holze threw the trap door, and Priscilla hanged right there. It was a bad sight, one I’ll remember all my days. I came home to more confusion. My wife said the children ran off as soon as her back was turned. I pray for their safety but feel powerless to do more. My wife and children need me.
Those men came back and tore apart Priscilla’s house. Don’t know if they found nothing useful, but one of them rode away from the house on his horse like the hounds of hell chased after him. Old Doc came the next morning to ask after my family. Said he was checking in as he does about once a month, but I saw the fear in his eyes. I told him the events I witnessed. Old Doc allowed the man I saw fleeing on his horse didn’t survive the night. He died foaming at the mouth and snapping at his family like an animal. Another of the men developed whelps all over his body and was in a bad way. Maybe what Priscilla said about trespassers seeking the treasure had some truth. Old Doc advised me to lay low for a while. Some of the town folks wondered if my involvement with Priscilla included hiding her children. But I have no idea where those children ended up. My sole hint of their continued existence is a rumor poor Priscilla Herrera’s body was stolen.
For me and my family, I keep my eyes and ears open. If the tide is about to turn for us here, we may have to run.
Hooty stopped reading and turned to another marked page in the book. “This entry’s shorter, but it might interest the board to hear it, too.”
Last week, Luther Palmore’s house burned in the night. All inside perished. Nothing is left but the brick chimney, and it is charred black. It does not escape my attention that Luther Palmore and Reginald Mace were great friends. Did the same mob who hanged Priscilla Herrera pay Luther Palmore a deadly visit?
I gasped. Everyone stopped listening to the video to stare at me, and I flinched, sorry I’d interrupted. The Palmore property sat behind Memaw’s land. It was as haunted as a cheesy B-rated horror movie. I waved my hand at them to let them know I would live.
