SIX
I spent a nearly sleepless night and was haunted by nightmares of Peter’s great-uncle each time I drifted off. When I woke from the one that ended with a cottonmouth snake hissing out through the hole I’d left in the man’s chest, I decided that enough was enough and that I’d rather stay awake to greet the dawn. I found my phone and saw that Peter had texted me at some point while I was wrestling with his relative’s zombie in a dream. Peter’s messages said that he loved me. That his mom was upset. Really upset, considering that they hadn’t even seen Uncle Peadar in over twenty years. Maybe because the police thought he might have been murdered? He’d call after he finished the walkthrough with Tucker at the site of the job he was taking on.
First light found me up and heading to Colonial Cemetery, looking for Jilo. She did her magic a bit farther out, at a crossroads hidden off the dead end of Normandy Street, but she handled the money end of her business here in Colonial.
“Well you been busy, ain’t ya?” she said as she plodded across the field toward me, using the lawn chair she always carried with her to Colonial as a makeshift walker.
“How did you know?”
“Girl, they a police station right next door to this here boneyard, and Mother may be old, but she ain’t deaf. Now you tell her what you been up to.”
“A man showed up after you left the powder magazine,” I confessed, relieved to share with someone. Maybe it was unfair, maybe not, but I couldn’t help resenting my mother for her silence. She had to know I needed her. I touched the chain of her locket and pushed the thought away. “The poor man was sick,” I continued, trying to focus on the story I could share with Jilo. “Confused. I think he might have had Alzheimer’s or something.”
“Mm-hmm,” she prompted me.
“I was talking to him, trying to figure out where he belonged, when he keeled over. He wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse . . .”
“And you thought you would jolt him back to life with a wee touch of magic?”
I nodded.
“And ended up burning a hole clean through the old buzzard,” she said, and then started laughing, that unnerving wheezing of hers that always ended up sounding like a death rattle. She winded herself, and leaned most of her weight against the folded chair while she wheezed. I reached out toward her, but she held up her hand. “Don’t you go helpin’ Jilo none. She done seen what yo’ kind of help leads to, and she ain’t ready to stand outside them pearly gates just yet.”
She burst into another bout of laughter, but managed to gain control of herself again when she took note of the tears that were forming in my eyes. “Shoot. You stop worryin’, girl. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong. Ain’t got a thing to feel bad about. That old fella of yours, he already dead when you put your hands to him.” Jilo did her best to offer me absolution, but it didn’t stick.
“How could you know that? You weren’t there.”
“Did he have a pulse? Was he breathing?”
“No. He had turned blue.”
“Well, there you go then. A blue cracker is a dead cracker.” A smile of encouragement quivered on her lips. She reached out and wiped at my tears with her calloused fingers. “Hell, most folk would have never even stopped and tried to help him anyway. You a good girl. You done all you could for him,” she said, but then gave me the stink eye. “They somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ Jilo, though, ain’t they. Get on with it, girl. You tell Mother.”
She flipped the lawn chair open and eased her way into it. Sometimes she seemed like such a force of nature, but lately I could tell she was growing frailer. I sat down at her feet, and she pulled my head over to her knee, running her gnarled fingers through my hair. I don’t know exactly when it had happened, but over the past few weeks, I’d grown quite attached to the old woman of the crossroads, and I knew that whether she liked it or not, she had come to feel the same way about me.
The secret Jilo sensed weighing on me was the truth about my mother. I wanted so desperately to tell someone. To try to get a bead on what had happened. Jilo knew my family’s history better than anyone else. I felt certain she could help me understand the circumstances, but I wouldn’t betray my mother—at least not yet. She had made me promise to tell no one, and that definitely included Jilo. Besides, I could tell that the help Jilo was giving me in my attempts to find Maisie was taxing her. So until I knew the lay of the land, I couldn’t risk bringing her in on something that might just be more than she could handle. I offered up a lesser truth. “The man. When the police found him, he had a picture of Peter and his parents on him. Turns out he was some long-lost great-uncle. Peadar was his name. I guess they named Peter after him. Sort of, anyway. The Tierneys had no idea he was even in town.”
Jilo cackled softly. “Well, my girl, if that true, then you in for a good surprise.” I looked up at her. “That long-lost uncle you done barbequed? That picture not the only thing they found on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Police ain’t tellin’ nobody yet, but that old man, he had a damn fortune in jewels and coins sewed up in the linin’ of his coat. Unless they prove it stolen, Jilo imagine it end up comin’ to yo’ brand new family, at least what the gov’ment don’ see fit to keep fo’ theyself, that is. The Tierneys, they probably don’t even know ’bout it yet. You know how the police are. They always tryin’ to figure out some motive, never figurin’ that they might be some well-meanin’ girl at the bottom of they troubles.” I tried to glare at her, but she smiled at me warmly. When her eyes looked away from me and up over my shoulder, any kindness faded to concrete.
“Two of my favorite ladies.” A man’s voice came from behind me. I turned quickly to see that Tucker Perry had managed to sneak up on us. Jilo’s hand gave me a gentle but firm push away.
“You best have the rest of my money to go with those sweet words, Perry,” Jilo’s teeth ground together as she spoke. She forced herself up out of her chair and strode toward Tucker, poking him in his chest with her forefinger. She had turned angry in a split second—angry at having been caught in a tender moment, angry at having been seen as anything other than the dark lady of the crossroads.
“You’ve been working spells for him?” I asked in disbelief.
“His money as green as anybody else’s,” she spat over her shoulder at me.
“Oh, Mother and I go a long way back, don’t we?” Tucker asked, stepping around Jilo and coming closer to me. I struggled to stand, and he offered me his hand. I refused, and worked my way up on my own. My center of gravity had changed, and getting around had become a little harder than it normally was. All the same, there was no way I’d let that man taint me with his touch.
Tucker acted as if he hadn’t noticed my refusal. “And now, the two of us have a long and mutually beneficial arrangement to look forward to as well.” I said nothing. I stared at him blankly, determined not to give him any satisfaction. “Thanks to your fiancé,” he continued. “I am sure we will have many opportunities to meet up,” he said and winked at me. “You sure are looking good, Mercy. I like you with a few curves.” I was just about to lay into him but then he turned back to Jilo. He pulled out an envelope stuffed fat with bills and held it out to her.
Jilo snatched it from him. “Pleasure doin’ business with you, Perry. Now get the hell out of here.”
He smiled widely at the two of us. “Yes, a pleasure as always, Mother.” He took his time making an exit, stopping once to examine one of the few remaining headstones.
“They say this cemetery full, but I’d gladly help free up a spot fo’ that one,” Jilo said, her expression as sunny as ever I’d seen it. Something about imagining the death of those who annoyed her brought out her best qualities.
“Why are you doing any kind of business for him anyway?”
“Like I done say, his money good even if he worthless hisself.”
“But what,” I emphasized the word, “are you doing for him?”
“Don’t you pay that no nevermind. Ain’t nothin’ to do with you.”
I kept my eyes glued on Tucker as he meandered out of the cemetery. “I don’t like it. I don’t like that you’re doing spells for him. I don’t like that Peter’s doing business with him. Don’t pretend you didn’t already know that,” I said, pointing at her.
“Jilo ain’t pretending nothing,” she said, “so you better get that there finger out of her face.”
“I’d hoped to have seen the last of him when Ellen cut him out of her life.”
Jilo looked at me, her expression inscrutable. “So you think Ellen has kicked him out of her bed?”
“Yes, she’s done with him,” I replied.
“Well they is done, and then they is done,” Jilo said. “And you can take what you like and don’t like and put it in yo’ hope chest, ’cause Jilo, she don’t care. She do business with who the hell ever she like.” Right on cue, Tucker circled by in his convertible, honking his horn and waving. Ellen sat by his side. She raised a hand too, but her greeting was halfhearted at best. She lowered her head and turned toward Tucker, probably reading him the riot act. She hadn’t wanted me to know she was spending time with him. Jilo let out one more cackle. “Now ain’t you sorry you made Jilo promise not to kill anyone?”