The Gathering

by Mary Bowers

  “No.” He took his glasses off and began to play with them, a sure sign of nervousness. “Actually, the new owners of The Bakery saw something, or think they did. They called me –“

  “You mean the twins?” I asked.

  “Yes. Poppy Tays and Rosie Carter. They called me yesterday morning to report that one of them had seen something strange behind their building, near the shop’s back door. It was early in the morning, and they were expecting a delivery. When Rosie went to the door, the delivery truck wasn’t there, but something else was. Something that was –“

  “Grunting,” I said.

  “Exactly. Then it ran away.”

  Bernie scribbled something on a note pad by her landline telephone.

  “Bernie, no,” I said. “You know the twins. If something is going on, they want to be in on it. They exaggerate. Please don’t play it up just to increase circulation.”

  “Why not? There’s a long tradition of stretching the truth to bump up sales. How do you think Hearst finally got the edge on Pulitzer? And without the London tabloids, Jack the Ripper would’ve been just some nameless guy who got away with it. They’re pretty sure it was a reporter who came up with the catchy name, by the way, when he wrote a bogus letter to the police.”

  “Yellow journalism?” I said, sad and disappointed. “Here in Tropical Breeze?”

  “Hey, why should St. Augustine get all the tourist dollars? Besides, the twins give a great interview. You saw the article I did on them when they bought The Bakery, building and all, and moved in over the shop?”

  “Of course, and you did a wonderful job, but this is different. Hyped-up articles about alien encounters will only bring in the crazies.”

  Bernie squinted as she lit up one of her little cigarillos. She only smokes in her office, and only while she’s working, so I knew she was actually composing an article right then and there, which she’d quickly bang out as soon as we left. “Crazies gotta eat too,” she said. “And they like souvenirs. It’d be good for the local economy.”

  “Ladies, if you don’t mind,” Ed said a bit impatiently. His little voice recorder was on the desk with the red-dot light illuminated, and I saw him give it a glance. He always recorded meetings. It didn’t bother me, but it brought up the point that we were trivializing something he was deadly serious about.

  I took a sip of cold coffee and set the cup back down. “Do me a favor, Bernie,” I began. She lifted intelligent eyes to me and waited. “Don’t mention Cadbury House. At least not yet. The dogs were pretty stirred up last night, and I don’t want this kind of thing happening night after night, or even day after day. Present company excepted, paranormal investigators can be pretty obnoxious.”

  Ed inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment, and said, “They’re on a mission. They don’t always stop to consider property rights. And unfortunately, with a paranormal conference about to start in a few days, there are a lot of interested people in the area.”

  “Oh lord,” I said, “I forgot about that. Are you going?” I asked him.

  “I organized it, remember? I’m introducing the keynote speaker when ParaCon opens on Friday, and conducting a workshop on séance etiquette.”

  I didn’t ask. Probably something about not bothering the spirits during sleepy time. While processing a few mental grumbles, I managed to keep an interested look on my face, and Ed immediately said, “No, Taylor, I wouldn’t advise you to attend the workshop. I know it sounds fascinating, but the paranormal is not a joke. It can be dangerous. We use the honor system about having the right prerequisites for attending workshops, but I happen to know you don’t have any experience at all with the Ouija board, for instance, and I’ll be covering that as well. The Ouija board,” he said sternly, “is not a toy. You’re welcome to come and hear the keynote speaker, of course. Orwell Quest has accepted our invitation. We’re lucky. He makes very few public appearances, and he even hesitated when his colleagues suggested forming The Questian Society in the first place.”

  I’d heard of the guy. Personally, I thought he was perpetrating a gigantic hoax on the world, with his theories and counter-theories and counter-counter-theories. Either that or he was the world’s most dedicated crackpot, but somehow he had managed to achieve kind of godhood among the paranormal crowd, all the time dismissing real scientific investigators, mathematicians and anybody who thought Einstein wasn’t a fool.

  “I’ve always wondered why they didn’t just call it The Question Society,” Bernie said idly.

  Ed tilted his head, considering. “I never thought of that. No, using the word ‘question’ would have sounded generic, and I suppose they couldn’t call it the Orwellian Society. That’s another thing altogether.”

  Bernie gave him a wry smile. “From what I know of the man, it would probably have been appropriate.”

  “You’re not going to bring in that silly psychic from Spuds to help you with this, are you?” I asked. “She’s strictly ghosts, right?”

  “Ghosts and folklore. Oh, no, I won’t be consulting with Purity on this. She will be at ParaCon, of course; she’s conducting a workshop, too. Perhaps you should attend that one. It’s aimed at beginners. It’s a sell-out, but I could squeeze you in. It’s called ‘Ouija 101.’ You could use it.”

  “Uh uh. Pass.”

  “What about you, Bernie?” he said.

  “I have to do the workshops, yours included,” she said, stubbing out the cigarillo with more force than strictly necessary. “I’m covering it for The Beach Buzz. Can’t have a major conference in our own backyard without at least mentioning it in the paper, and considering the subject matter, people are going to want wall-to-wall coverage. It’ll make good bathtub reading.”

  “Okay, then who will you be needing to investigate the sightings?” I asked, because by now I could see he was mentally assembling a team, and I can only take one crank at a time.

  “Well, there is this guy from Savannah. I’ll be seeing him at the conference anyway, but I happen to know that he’s already in Tropical Breeze. I think I’ll get in touch with him ahead of time and run it past him. He has mechanical skills, and I may need his help.”

  “What guy from Savannah?” I asked.

  “His name is Sparky –“

  “Sparky? What, does he blow stuff up or something?”

  “Sparky is an old nickname for anybody who deals with electric devices,” he said patiently. “Sparky Fritz. We’ve co-anchored debate teams at the conventions. I’ll burn a DVD of an episode of his TV show for you, if you’d like.”

  “No thanks.” I looked at Bernie for ideas. I didn’t know whether to argue with him about old Sparky or not, but I had a bad feeling.

  “He’s a true genius in his way,” Ed was saying. “When I first met him, he was a member of a ghost-hunting squad, but his native talents regarding mechanics and technology have made him sort of a cross-over between the fields. He’s been extremely useful when it comes to applying modern technology to the ancient art of ghost-hunting. It’s just that he’s a bit –“

  “What?”

  “Oh, what’s the expression? Rock and roll? Or maybe that was just a phase he was going through. The tattoos are going to be permanent, though,” he added grimly.

  I managed not to groan. Bernie was grinning. She turned to the computer keyboard and started tippity-tapping, and after she clicked the mouse a few times, her grin spread out and became a brilliant smile. She swiveled the monitor toward us and said, “His website.”

  Raucous music had begun to come from the speaker, along with a thin tenor voice making a grandiose mission statement. She hit the mute button, leaving us gazing into the brilliant blue eyes of a skinny, Gothy guy in a black leather vest with tattoos all over his bare arms. He had the complexion and freckles of a natural red-head, but he had dyed his hair a completely unnatural shade of crimson. He seemed to have two minions, a handsome, boy-next-door type with silky blond hair and large blue eyes, and a taller, loftier fellow – the
kind that always tries to look bored and fakes an English accent from time to time, just to be cute. He had Oscar Wilde hair and was shown in a tight-fitting vest and ruffled shirt. Bubble pictures of them floated in the background, the blond chalking complicated formulae across a blackboard, and the dark-haired one pouring a green liquid into a test tube. But the star was definitely Sparky.

  “Why do you need a guy with mechanical skills?” I asked.

  “I want to set up some surveillance equipment for the weekend. I’ll be spending all my time at ParaCon this weekend, of course, so I won’t be able to stand guard at the cemetery.”

  “Well, it’s only Monday. We’ll see. If nothing else happens this week, maybe you guys can just set up a camera and we can leave it at that. It’s probably not a bad idea anyway, with the way kids can’t leave Waffles’ grave alone.” I didn’t bother telling him he didn’t have to sleep in the graveyard for the coming week. He likes that kind of thing, and if he wanted to, I wasn’t going to stop him.

  Bernie let out a dry cackle. “’Waffles!’ Gets me every time. Those turn-of-the-century nicknames were a hoot, especially when attached to a man with a high-toned name like Kingsley Danvers Cadbury.”

  “It’s no worse than the names some rappers give themselves today,” I said. “I just wish the local kids wouldn’t listen to those old stories about his grave.”

  “The grave of a Gilded Age archeologist? Fat chance. Only people below the age of fifteen are goofy enough to think anybody would actually bury ancient Egyptian treasure in a modern grave, but those are exactly the ones who do things on a dare. Get used to it. It’s been a Tropical Breeze rite of passage since the man was buried in 1928.”

  “We should’ve set up surveillance a long time ago,” I muttered. I turned to Ed. “Great idea. I appreciate this, Ed.”

  “My pleasure. Of course. I’ll set it up so you can view it live any time from your cell phone or computer, and there will also be a recording. I’d like, if I may, to be able to view it myself, as well, if you don’t mind.”

  “Fine with me. Every paranormal investigator should have a live feed to a cemetery, just in case he needs a little inspiration, right?” I gave him a teasing grin.

  The meeting was breaking up, and Ed turned his recorder off and stood up. “I’ll stake out the cemetery for the rest of the week, but as soon as ParaCon starts . . . well. Would you like to come on Friday for the keynote address?”

  “Sure,” I said, standing up. I hadn’t really thought about it, but what the heck.

  Which is how I got myself boiled into the stew of psychics, ghost hunters and reality show stars that come together with a bang at paranormal conferences. And also how I met one of the most unusual characters I’ve come across in this unusual life of mine: Orwell Quest.

  Chapter 4

  It had been a week since I’d seen Florence Purdy. She’s the sweet old darling who runs the animal shelter’s resale shop, Girlfriend’s, in downtown Tropical Breeze. I usually check in with her on Mondays, see if she needs any help with donations that came in over the weekend, and see what the weekly receipts were. Monday was the day Florence made the bank deposits. The week before, Florence had been coming down with a cold, and by mid-week she had felt too lousy to work at the shop. She has part-time people coming in throughout the week, but Florence is the engine that keeps the shop running, and without her we might not be able to open up for a day or so. I had a busy week planned, and I didn’t want to have to cancel meetings to go in and stand in the shop all day. That’s when Myrtle stepped up.

  Florence’s sister Myrtle works as our housekeeper out at Cadbury House, but when she heard that Florence was sick, she offered to man the shop for a few days, even though commerce was not “her thing.” So she was staying in town to cluck over her sick sister and run Girlfriend’s until Florence was better.

  Myrtle is kind of a dunderhead. A cranky dunderhead, but I suppose every group has one. We put up with them because they belong to us, to our circle of friends, and especially to our families. So I had the ulterior motive of making sure Myrtle didn’t dismantle Florence’s showroom displays at the shop, or accidentally take the bank deposit to the Post Office and drop it in a mailbox.

  The house that Florence and Myrtle inherited from their parents is on Palmetto Street, very close to Bernie’s house, so I went there next.

  Florence was red-nosed and bleary-eyed but on her feet and fully dressed, so that was a good sign. She’s 73 now, and at that age, colds have a way of turning into pneumonia if you’re not careful. She welcomed me in and offered me tea.

  Just as I was saying, “Please don’t bother, I just wanted to see how you were,” her black-and-white tuxedo cat, Wicked, pounced hard onto the overstuffed chair I was standing next to and looked up hoping to see that he’d scared me. I gave him a bland look and said, “Oh, hello there. Taking the day off too?”

  Wicked is the resale shop’s official mascot. He’d been going in to the shop with Florence for years, presiding over the showroom from the top of an entertainment center. Myrtle always lavished Wicked with affection, talking baby talk at him and then turning around and snapping at everybody else. In return, Wicked treated Myrtle like dirt. Florence was his lady, and he always wanted to be near her, even when she had her clumsy days and kept stepping on his tail.

  “He was worried about me,” Florence said, stroking the cat’s head. He closed his eyes and angled his head up, pushing into Florence’s hand in a burst of feline ecstasy.

  “Why don’t we just sit here in the living room and talk for a little while. Then I’ll go over to Girlfriend’s and make sure Myrtle isn’t making a mess of the place.”

  We settled into the worn, plump furniture purchased on revolving credit by her parents back in the ‘seventies. After a few general remarks about the weather, I slipped into the subject I was really interested in.

  “Did you hear that some lady broke into Michael’s house last night?”

  “Janet came over with some chicken soup and told me all about it.”

  “How sweet of her.”

  “Oh, Janet didn’t make the soup. She just got a can of Campbell’s out of her pantry and brought it over. Didn’t even wipe the dust off the top of the can. It’s past its expiration date, but only by a year. I’m sure it’s still good. It was just an excuse to have somebody to gossip with about that Court woman.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said innocently. “Michael mentioned that he had known her at one time. Vanessa Court. Apparently, she’s a Breezer, originally. They went to school together.”

  She smiled at me knowingly. “Now don’t get yourself tied into a knot, Taylor. She’s just an old girlfriend, and he was only dating her because she was such a pretty little thing. They weren’t right for each other at all, and he at least had the sense to see that before they got serious. Before he got serious. I hear she never married,” she added.

  “And now she’s breaking into his house,” I said, as if that were kind of nice.

  “She always did go straight after anything she wanted. I suppose that’s why she’s been successful, though she doesn’t work for that big TV network anymore. I didn’t hear that they’d fired her, but it wouldn’t surprise me . . . but there! I shouldn’t gossip. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?”

  “No thanks. I just had coffee over at Bernie’s.”

  “You should’ve asked Bernie about Vanessa while you were over there. The Sheriff’s her best friend. She could’ve called him and found out just how things went after Vanessa broke into the house and got herself busted.”

  “It’s the Tropical Breeze cops that caught her, not the county Sheriff. Jack Peterson brought her in. Anyway, Edson Darby-Deaver was there at Bernie’s, and I didn’t want to bring up Vanessa in front of him. Bernie would’ve gotten ribald about it, and you know how prim and proper Ed is.”

  “He’s more of an old maid than I am,” she said complacently, stroking down Wicked’s back and all the way out to the tip
of his tail. “Yes, I’ve heard a few things about Miss Vanessa that shouldn’t be talked about in front of the children.”

  “Like what?” I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward and lazered in.

  “Now, Taylor, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. You and Michael are so right for each other, and Vanessa was never Michael’s cup of tea. She does golf, though. Michael is sort of addicted to golf, isn’t he?”

  “He won a trophy or something yesterday. They had a banquet.”

  “And you didn’t go?”

  “It was just a bunch of sunburned golfers eating and drinking too much. He asked me if I wanted to meet him at the club after the tournament, but I could tell by the way he asked that he was only doing it for the sake of form. He didn’t expect me to go.”

  She looked at me very directly. “I see. He knew you wouldn’t be interested.” She was rocking and nodding, scratching Wicked’s head. “Still, it was nice of him to ask.”

  “Michael and I have our relationship worked out,” I said, and I guess I did get a bit snippy. “I don’t drag around the golf course getting sunstroke and he doesn’t offer to clean out the cages at the shelter. He does like to play with the new puppies and kittens, though.”

  “So you’ve got it all worked out. How nice. Well, if Vanessa’s back in town to stay, maybe she’ll join his foursome. Or if he doesn’t need a fourth, they can just go golfing as a couple every now and then.”

  “Florence, I have no interest in golf! Are you trying to get me worried?”

  “Of course not, dear. It’s just that men who go to banquets without their ladies are usually said to be going stag. At least that’s what we used to call it back in the day. And a stag male of any age is . . . well, apt to run wild.”

  I started to splutter, but Florence held up a hand, and Wicked jumped down, glared at me and stalked off into the kitchen. “Anyway,” Florence said, struggling to her feet, “I’m hardly the one to comment on relationships. I did have a boyfriend once, but that was so long ago I can’t even remember what he looked like. Well. Not down to the last detail. He had reddish hair and freckles, and this funny little sideways smile. Freddie, his name was. Not many Freddies around anymore,” she said wistfully. Then she gave a little shake and said, “Anyway, I’m sure young couples are doing things completely differently now. ‘Hooking up,’ and such,” she said, as if she were delving into a foreign language. “Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m sure you two are just fine. Come on into the kitchen, it’s time to feed Wicked. Just what were you talking to Bernie and Edson about this morning? Oh, yes! I bet it was the little green men running around town. Strange, isn’t it? We’ve been locking up at night, Myrtle and me. Don’t want to wake up and find ourselves in a space ship the other side of the moon, being probed!”