Texas Gothic

28



i’d been a little worried about how we’d be received at the McCullochs’ barbecue. Hate mail will do that to you. But when I saw the size of the party, I relaxed a bit, hoping we’d be anonymous in the crowd.

Well, some of us would be. We’d see how long that lasted once Daisy arrived.

Mark parked in the makeshift lot behind the horse pens. I gawked at the view—we were in the highest part of the region, overlooking nothing but hills and river and cattle pasture for miles.

An enormous live oak tree—easily hundreds of years old—shaded a courtyard made by a long building with well-tended wood walls and a huge stable with training pens for the horses. The party, though, centered around a marquee tent, pitched for the day. Crowds ate at long folding tables, and a band played on a stage, raised in front of a dance floor.

There was also a large, fenced swimming pool, a sand volleyball court, and a horseshoe pit. And food. From the parking area, I could see the smokers and grills and the full-to-groaning buffet tables and beer kegs.

Mark glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I guess when you have a hundred years of practice …”

“No kidding.” I climbed out into the afternoon heat and the smell of dust, roasting meat, and a bit of chlorine from the pool. “Okay, here’s what we have to accomplish today,” I said as the others joined me. “Try and find out about the Mad Monk’s previous appearances. See if there’s any correlation of location, timing, and what’s going on nearby. I’m on the lookout for owners of diesel trucks—”

“Can we eat first, Nancy?” Mark interrupted, sounding amused. “Amateur detective work is hard on an empty stomach.”

“If you must.” I looked at my sister, who was eyeing the people with trepidation. Crowds were one of the few things that rattled her. “Remember, Phin,” I said, “don’t talk about magic or real ghosts if you can help it. At least, not with anyone you don’t know.”

She sighed. “All right. I’ll try.”

“Come on, then.” Pushing my sunglasses firmly onto my nose, I prodded her toward Mark, who took the hint—or the chance—to put an arm around her waist and keep her moving.

“Amy! Phin!” Jennie waved from the sand around the volleyball net, where she, Caitlin, and the guys were playing. Lucas waved, too, and I winced as Emery spiked a ball that hit him in the side of the head.

We waited while the dig team dusted off their sand. “Oh my gosh,” said Jennie when she reached us. “Mark told us about your car. I’m glad you’re all right.”

I made a no-big-deal noise. The only way I could not give in to my anxieties was to keep focused on my goal. I figured that was why Nancy Drew took being conked on the head and tied up in attics in stride. There wasn’t room for hysterics and clue hunting.

“Did you collect everything at the dig site?” I asked. That had been the plan, but Mark hadn’t said whether they’d finished. He’d been distracted teasing Phin for looking like Gidget, with her strawberry-blond ponytail, cuffed shorts, and puff-sleeved top. The reference was lost on Phin, who didn’t watch a lot of movies at all, let alone ones from the fifties. But I thought it was funny.

“We did,” Caitlin answered. “Those bastards …” The band covered up the rest of her comment, though I probably would have agreed with it. I was feeling free to like her since Ben said their “date” wasn’t “like that.”

“Do you think they got anything valuable?” I asked her.

“To quote Dr. D, ‘The real treasure lies in historical significance.’ ” She scowled. “But if they did find anything, I really hope they don’t profit from it.”

Lucas walked up with—what else?—a beer. “Helluva party, huh?”

“Where’s Dwayne?” I asked, realizing we were missing one.

“We set up a schedule for keeping an eye on the site, just in case the grave robbers come back.”

I looked at Mark. “You made him miss the party?”

“We’ll trade off,” he said. “I made a schedule.”

“Did you put us on it?” Phin asked. “We can keep an eye on paranormal occurrences, too.”

Some of the warmth went out of the day. I knew we’d have to go back, and possibly face the ghost again. But Phin’s words brought the distant duty into the moment, so I could dread it sooner rather than later.

“Done.” Mark’s agreement was chipper.

He seemed to believe in the ghost, but as far as I knew, Phin hadn’t explained that for me it was a lifetime commitment if I didn’t get this mystery sorted out. Somehow.

“You don’t really think the ‘Mad Monk’ could have been responsible for the vandalism, do you?” asked Emery. He really did put air quotes around the name.

“There’s absolutely no reason to think it was,” said Phin, without rising to the bait.

“Then who?” asked Jennie.

Lucas leaned forward to talk under the music. “It could be anyone. The whole town probably knows about the gold ore. We weren’t exactly discreet talking about it in the bar.”

An awkward silence dropped over our circle as we realized we were talking about it—again—in public. Then Mark laughed, breaking the tension. “We’d make lousy covert operatives.”

“And you know,” said Lucas, taking a drink of his beer, “we could sit down for the same amount of money.”

While Mark muttered something about food, I looked for a table, not too close to the stage. The music was good, sort of college-indie-country-crossover. Ray’s Garage, according to the front of the kick drum. The musicians were all male, all the same age as the guys on the dig crew, and all in need of haircuts, according to my dad’s voice in my head.

Except for the guy playing rhythm guitar.

Holy moly. I knew that guy. Or I thought I did. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his non-work clothes, and the sunlight caught the gold in his light brown hair.

“Is that Ben McCulloch up there?”

“Hey,” said Mark. “I didn’t know Ben was in a band.”

“He started this band with Ray,” said Caitlin, and I wondered if that was their mutual friend. “But he had to drop it when they began to get more gigs than he could make with his family situation.”

I watched him play, his fingers working over the frets, his other hand keeping the steady, driving beat. He hardly looked at his hands at all, but his eyelids were lowered as if he was concentrating, or maybe just enjoying the rhythm and the music and the synergy of joining his sound with the others to make something more than the sum of its parts.

This was the Ben I glimpsed sometimes, the one who kept me from just blowing him off. I liked the other Ben, too, if I let myself admit it. Uptight and cranky, yet responsible and trustworthy. But knowing that this was inside the other? I loved that.

And I was so pissed at him for keeping it hidden. Caitlin got to know about the band, his friends, his nice side. I wasn’t even allowed to ask about his “family situation.”

A situation that wasn’t going to get any better with ghosts—real and maybe not-so-real—lurking where he needed to build the bridge. Ben McCulloch might not want my help, but he was going to get it.

I realized I was wasting a perfect opportunity. Nancy Drew wouldn’t sit here obsessing over Ned Nickerson (who was at least good for kicking in doors sometimes). She would take advantage of the fact that her main obstacle was busy onstage and there was a field full of pickup trucks out there, and some of them had to be diesel.

I headed to the parking area, a little too pleased with my own brilliance. The people attending the party would know their way around the McCulloch property. Ranch hands, locals, contractors, neighbors, family friends. I pretended I was texting, and clicked pictures of the diesel trucks I came across. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d put a name with a truck. Probably through the magic of the Internet.

The problem with feeling clever is that it usually makes you stupid. I heard a door open down the row of cars and trucks, and then I smelled pot, and then the screen of my camera phone was filled with T-shirt.

Joe Kelly, spiller of beer, scion of cattle thieves, relative of the county law enforcement, and, oh yeah, pothead.

“Hey,” he said.

“Uh, hey,” I answered. Yesterday’s spell had completely slipped my mind. The paper and wax X was in the pocket of my guano-covered clothes. I had never broken the seal over our names.

“Listen, about last night,” he began. I raised my brows, waiting for him to explain how he had glaucoma or something. He seemed to realize the less said about that the better, and switched tacks. “You took off before I realized who you were. I wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have yelled at you for spilling my beer the other night. I’d really had too much already.”

His face reminded me of a boxer—a dog, not a pugilist—and his wheedling don’t-tell-my-dad-on-me grin intensified the resemblance. I had not spilled his beer, but thanks to his good friend Mary Jane, I suspected he was connected to the note on my window and possibly the knife in my tire, so I decided not to antagonize him.

The knife in my tire. My stomach dropped, and suddenly the crowd at the barbecue seemed terribly far away.

Don’t panic. Maybe it had just been his notepaper, not his vandalism. And he was not the only one in the world who loved weed.

I shrugged and said oh-so-casually, “It’s no big deal.”

Still wheedling, he said, “I know McCulloch probably gave you an earful about me. We don’t really get along.”

“Oh?” I feigned more ignorance than was strictly true. As long as I was courting trouble, I might as well try and get some information.

“I’m a Kelly. He’s a McCulloch.” On the surface, he seemed to shrug off the old feud. But there was an underlying venom that sent prickles of warning down the back of my neck. Then his tone lightened as he abruptly changed the subject. “And you’re a Goodnight. You’re the one, aren’t you? Who found the Mad Monk’s skeleton and the treasure?”

With an opening like that, I didn’t bother being subtle.

“What do you know about the Mad Monk?”

He didn’t seem surprised by the question. “My uncle saw that ghost. He’s here today. You should ask him about it. He saw his friend Russell Sparks get all busted up. Waited for the ambulance, scared on his life that the sumbitch was going to come back and finish them off.”

“Russell Sparks?” I asked, surprised at the name. “Related to Steve Sparks?”

“His brother.” Joe hooked his thumbs in his belt, looking just like his dad. “Ask Uncle Mike about it. Then you wouldn’t be so quick to go digging around out there.”

This was a pretty low-key threat, but I didn’t mistake it for anything else. I had just decided to listen to the knot of unease in my belly when his friends joined us.

I recognized the pair from outside the bar. Standard-issue country boys, despite their college T-shirts. Nothing about them looked intimidating, except there were three of them and one of me.

“Hey!” The one in the Longhorns shirt brightened when he saw me, like I was a celebrity or something. “Aren’t you the girl that found the treasure?”

“I …” Well, crap. How to word this? “My sister and I helped dig up several artifacts. It wasn’t really much of a treasure.”

“It was gold, though.” His friend in the burnt-orange cap studied me like an alien creature. “I heard you Goodnights are witches. Did you use magic to find it?”

Longhorns Shirt tagged that question with his own. “Could you use it to find more?”

“Dude,” said Orange Cap. “Let her answer.”

They stopped talking and stared at me with slightly red-rimmed eyes. This is your brain on drugs.

“Do you believe in magic?” I asked, feeling like I was on a tightrope made of words, over a dizzying cliff, and trying to look like I was strolling through the park.

Shirt jabbed Cap with a snicker, and Joe Kelly gave a snort. “No,” Cap said, in a five-year-old voice.

“Then doesn’t that answer your question?”

Dumb and Dumber stared at me until Joe slapped them on the back of the heads, one after the other. “She means no, morons.”

“Okay,” said Shirt. “But if there was such a thing, could you find the lost mine—”

“Guys!”

A new voice from behind me made me jump. I turned and found a man about my dad’s age scowling at the three stooges. He was compact and kind of bulldoggy under his ball cap. I’d bet money this was another Kelly.

“Are you bugging this young lady?”

“Just shooting the breeze, Uncle Mike.” Joe gave me a look like I’d better not contradict him. I thought about poor Stella’s tire and agreed.

“Well, go shoot it somewhere else,” said Mike Kelly. “She looks like she’d like to get back to the party.”

Joe hit Cap on the shoulder, who did the same to Shirt. “Let’s go,” Joe said, and they sauntered off, talking about something completely different.

I turned to the bulldog. Running into Joe Kelly had been worthwhile after all. It had brought me exactly the guy I needed to talk to.

“Thanks,” I said, indicating Larry, Joe, and Curly as they walked away.

“No prob.” He moved aside, clearing the path between cars, hinting I should go back to the barbecue. “Boys are just doing a little partying. But maybe you shouldn’t be wandering around.”

I took my time walking, hoping he would fall in beside me, and he did. “If you’re Joe’s uncle Mike,” I said, “then we were just talking about you.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.” His manner was hard to read, not unfriendly but far from warm. I needed info, though, so I forged ahead.

“People have been telling me a lot. With all this talk about the Mad Monk …” I trailed off, leading him to finish.

“Oh, that is true. Most horrible night of my life. Fifteen stitches. And poor Russell with a concussion, lying out there in the dark. No one had a cell phone back then, you know.”

“And this happened where they found the bones?”

“Somewhere around there.” He shrugged. “I always tell people, best to stay away.”

“So you were on McCulloch land?” I tactfully kept “joyriding” out of the question.

That got more of a reaction. “McCulloch land?” After a moment of surprise, he gave a humorless laugh. “I forgot. You’re not from here. That land, where the bridge is going, and north of there to the highway, used to be Kelly land. It was our place to ride ATVs on. Dan McCulloch used to hang out with me and my brothers. We were pals, not that Mac McCulloch liked it. Then they went and bought our land out from under my dad. And now it turns out there’s treasure on it. Convenient, huh?”

The undisguised venom in his voice made me very glad it wasn’t directed at me. I edged back, and, as if realizing his slip, he dialed it down a notch. “I just want you to know who you’re dealing with. The McCullochs act all neighborly, but they’re just like big corporations, buying up all the little guys. They’d buy up Goodnight Farm if they could. So … just know who your friends are.”

Mike Kelly left me cold in a way that had nothing to do with any ghost. It must have shown in my face, because he laughed and said, “I can see they’ve already gotten to you. ‘Never trust a Kelly,’ right?”

“Um …” I might as well admit it. “I might have heard something like that.”

“Well, don’t be so quick to trust a McCulloch, either.” He looked beyond me and said, “This must be your sister. Y’all run back to the party now, and make sure you eat and drink a whole lot. It’s on the McCulloch dime.”

He nodded to Phin as he left, and she frowned watching him go. “Who was that?”

The encounter had left a bad taste in my mouth. A clear case of be careful what you wish for. “Long story.”

“Save it, then. Mrs. McCulloch is looking for you. If you’re done sleuthing, Grandpa Mac wants to say hi.”