Texas Gothic

18



outside the gate leading to the excavation was not, thank goodness, the circus I feared. Just a small sideshow: a handful of protesters with signs against digging up a sacred site, one news van from an Austin TV station, plus the one that had been at the farm. And the sheriff himself, keeping the peace and providing a sound bite.

But when I saw Deputy Kelly, my hands flexed tightly on the wheel. I recognized his stocky khaki form while we were still a ways down the road. “Do you think the deputy knows we were here last night?” I asked Phin.

She knew exactly who I meant. “Well, the officer at the site told Mark he wasn’t going to write it up. But he might have mentioned it over donuts.”

I guess it was unrealistic to think we could keep our nocturnal adventures a secret. Not once the gang from the dig got involved. “I hope Dwayne and Jennie don’t say anything about the ghost.”

“Oh, they won’t,” Phin said, unconcerned. “They promised three times.”

That rang a distant bell. “I thought that was only in Scotland for getting married. You call someone your spouse three times and you’re hitched.”

“Where do you think it came from? Three promises equals a vow.” She stared tactlessly at the protesters as I slowed to turn into the gate. They stared right back. When we passed the reporter with the big microphone, Phin waved. “Anyway, it’s not unbreakable, but close enough that it’ll prevent accidental slips.”

It occurred to me, as I braked in front of the closed gate, that I might not give Phin enough credit. I’d always thought the Phin Effect was accidental. But if she knew about it and used it on purpose, that made her leaving me to deal with the consequences even more infuriating.

A rap on the window startled a squeal out of me. I bet that just made Deputy Kelly’s day.

I rolled down the window. I was driving Aunt Hyacinth’s Trooper, so I had to manually roll it down, which gave me time to compose my we-haven’t-been-running-around-where-we-shouldn’t demeanor.

“We’re volunteers today,” I told him. “Mark Delgado okayed it.”

The deputy took his time about looking for our names on the list on his clipboard. Then he gave me, Phin, and the Trooper a long inspection. “Have you girls been staying out of trouble?”

“Absolutely.” I sounded fake, but he probably wouldn’t believe me regardless. Whatever he suspected, if he knew we’d been trespassing, he wouldn’t bother fishing.

The deputy set his jaw like he very much wished he could tear into us about something, but finally he opened the gate. “You two are on the professor’s list to go in. But you’re on my list, too, so keep your noses clean.”

I drove through, hands at two and ten on the wheel and going about zero-point-eight miles an hour. Unfortunately, Phin didn’t quite wait until the window was up before asking, “Why are you so nice to him? He gives me a pain.”

“I make it a policy not to antagonize the law.” I glanced at her as we headed down the packed dirt road. “What are you complaining about? Ninety percent of his interactions are with me.”

“You’re our self-appointed envoy. When he talks to you, he means us.”

I was pretty sure she was right about that. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the dark-haired reporter from the farm had left off interviewing protesters and gone to talk to Deputy Kelly. The way they both turned to glance at the Trooper … that couldn’t be good.

It was a long drive from the highway to the excavation site, and we passed it mostly in silence, punctuated by the occasional grunt as I hit a pothole. At the end of the road, I parked next to Mark’s Jeep. The university van was there, too, next to the work canopy, where I saw Jennie busy cataloging and packing. She waved but kept on working.

Mark stood on the side of the field, holding one end of a measuring tape. Emery held the other, checking distances for Dwayne and Lucas, who were resetting the stakes and surveyor’s twine that marked the field off in squares.

“What happened?” I asked, because I knew perfectly well that the grid had been in place the night before.

“Some cows came through, pulled up half the stakes.” He looked past me toward the Trooper. “Where’s Phin?”

“She moves slow in the morning.” I got back to the important question. “I thought they’d cleared all the cattle from this area.” That was why Ben had been rounding up that stray on the day we’d met. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”

He pointed to the ground, where there was fresh evidence of cattle trespass. “They think a fence must be down. Ben’s got some of his guys taking care of it.”

In the bathroom of the Hitchin’ Post, Jessica had blamed falling fences on the Mad Monk. That kind of prank seemed mischievous compared to the specter I’d seen. Was that a clue that the monk was separate from my apparition? Though today it had succeeded in delaying the dig.

And speaking of delays. “How is Dr. Douglas taking the media circus outside the gate?”

Mark glanced toward the tent, where the professor was talking to Jennie. “She’s seen worse. As long as the paparazzi and protesters stay outside the gate, there isn’t much she can do.”

Phin joined us just as the guys finished restoring the grid. While Mark reeled in the tape measure, Lucas got straight to business. “Did you tell them about the note?”

“Not yet,” said Mark.

“What note?” Phin and I spoke at the same time.

Lucas explained, “Dr. D found a note on the windshield of the van this morning, telling her not to disturb the dead. It was written in red marker.”

Phin chewed that over. “Red is a powerful color. And of course, the suggestion of blood implies a threat.”

“Very melodramatic,” said Mark, not quite successful at laughing it off.

“I don’t know, dude.” Lucas shook his head. “It should have been cheesy, but … it gave me the creeps.”

Anonymous warnings were creepy. The red ink was unsettling because it was meant to be scary. A malicious thing to contemplate on a summer morning.

Emery could be relied upon to break the mood. “You guys are getting worked up about a stupid prank.”

“You know,” I ventured, following the thread of an earlier thought, “if the stakes were ripped up by a person, could the note writer have done it? Thinking he’d delay things or scare you off?”

“Why would someone want to keep us from digging?” Emery asked. “Those remains are well over a hundred years old.”

“Maybe it’s an old family scandal,” Lucas suggested.

Dwayne, who’d been listening with enthusiasm, seized on that idea. “A hundred-year-old murder! Or a new body, buried with the old.”

“Television!” said Emery. “This is exactly what I was talking about. Without dental records, without a cause of death, what could we prove? Nothing. Just that John Doe met his end next to the river.”

I entered the argument, because this was how I planned to find the identity of the ghost, and I had to give myself hope. “What if the circumstances match up with a mysterious disappearance in the right time frame?”

“It’s still just circumstantial evidence,” said Emery. “And the murderer would be long gone, too.”

“This is a small community,” I said. “Even circumstance is enough to condemn someone in public opinion, and even if they’re dead, it’s a black mark on the family honor.”

Mark nodded. “ ‘The sins of the father’ and all that.”

I thought about Joe Kelly, carrying a grudge for three generations. “Exactly.”

“Do you still have the note?” Phin asked.

Mark seemed surprised at the question. “I suppose Dr. D might have kept it. Why?”

“You could examine it for trace evidence.” She nodded toward the tent. “Jennie’s a criminology major. She could check for fingerprints or whatever. And I’d definitely like to see—”

Emery cut in impatiently, “For crying out loud. Who do you think you are? Nancy Drew?”

“Hey,” I snapped, because no one sniped at my sister but me, and Mark echoed with a stern “Chill, dude.”

Phin was unperturbed. “Those books were highly unrealistic. Do you have any idea how much brain damage a person would have if she were hit on the head and drugged with chloroform that often?”

“Brain damage?” Dr. Douglas’s question made us jump. The guys looked at her with shamed-puppy-dog faces as she continued, “That’s the only reason I can think that you’d be standing here flapping your jaws when there’s a skeleton to be excavated. It’s not going to dig itself up.”

Emery, Lucas, and Dwayne hurried off, and Dr. Douglas turned her disapproving gaze on Phin and me. “If I let you two work on this dig, are you going to be helpful? No more keeping my students from their work?”

I shook my head emphatically. Phin, standing slightly behind me, must have made some kind of satisfactory response, because after a long, steely-eyed stare, Dr. Douglas gave a curt nod and said to Mark, “Show them what to do and get them set up.”

I didn’t let my breath out until she turned and walked downhill, pulling her BlackBerry from her pocket as she went.

“She doesn’t like me,” said Phin.

“Trust me,” said Mark, “if she didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be here.” He shepherded us uphill, near the uncovered hole that Lila had dug yesterday, where a six-by-six-foot square had been staked off, just like the first excavation closer to the river. “Pick your spot. Any square in this marked-off grid. We want to try and find more of this skeleton to make a case for excavating the whole area.”

Phin pointed to his clipboard. “Is that a diagram of this section?”

“Yeah. I’ll keep track of who digs where, and in which square we find any artifacts.” At her gesture, he handed it over, looking confused as to why she wanted it. “It’s just an empty grid right now.”

“It’s all I need,” she assured him, and pulled a pendant of pale stone from her jeans pocket. Mark watched her with indulgent curiosity. I wanted to crawl in the excavation hole and pull the tarp over my head.

Hell, Phin. Could you possibly be more conspicuous?

Okay, to be fair, she probably could. With no fuss, hand waving, or incantation, she let the pendant hang freely over the hand-drawn map. As it swung, she judged its changes in pattern, moving her hand until the stone made a tight circle over a small area.

“What is she doing?” Mark asked in a fascinated whisper, as if he didn’t want to break her concentration.

“Picking a spot.” I shrugged, as if this weren’t weird, as if I weren’t seething at Phin for flying her freak flag at every opportunity.

The simple divination took seconds, and I hoped it would pass as a theatrical equivalent of eeny-meeny-miny-mo. Mark was the only one nearby, and he had already made up his mind about us, but I was very aware of the other students peering over curiously.

“G-three,” said Phin, and handed the clipboard back to Mark. “Bingo.”

Mark chuckled, and when I said, “Please don’t encourage her,” he laughed again, and motioned for us to follow him.

“Come on. I’ll show you what to do. After yesterday, I’m not going to question how you two decide where to dig.”

He set us up with a screen box, trowels, and brushes. The idea was to dig shallow layers of dirt out of our squares, and put it through the sieve to catch any small objects. If we came across anything that looked like it might be a bone, we could clear off the dirt with the brushes, being careful to avoid scraping the artifacts with the hard edge of the tools.

As soon as he left us to our work, I sat back on my heels and glared at Phin. I’d taken the square next to her, and we weren’t terribly far from the others, so I kept my voice down. “That was your experiment? The one you mentioned last night?”

“Yes, but ‘experiment’ was a bit of a lie.” She made the first divot in her section with her trowel. “It was a basic locating spell. Though I am curious about what it turns up.”

“What did you use?” She tossed the pendant to me, and I caught it automatically. It was white and weighed less than I expected. “Is this bone?”

“Not human, of course.” She held out her hand and I tossed it back. “But it should still work. Alchemy 101. Like attracts like.”

“Jeez Louise, Phin.” The others’ heads popped up like prairie dogs, and I lowered my voice again. “We’ve already got reporters at our door and half the town thinking I’m the ghost whisperer.”

“Then what does it matter?” she asked. “Do you want to find something helpful or not?”

I did. My hands seemed to tingle with the memory of yesterday’s dig, the thrill of dirt and discovery. I didn’t trust how much of that was my own reaction, and how much was this … whatever was happening to me.

But Phin was right. I had to find out what was haunting me, or nothing else would matter.