The Guardians(76)

“You got it. It’s doubtful Kenny would take it home, because that could have endangered his family. Plus he was living in a rental house.”

“And his wife wasn’t too happy there. It was out on Secretary Road, east of Seabrook. Sybil wanted to move to some other place.”

“By the way, we found Sybil in Ocala and she will not talk to us. Not a word.”

“A nice lady, always had a smile for me, anyway. I haven’t seen Sybil in years, don’t suppose I ever will. So, Mr. Tatum—”

“Please, Frankie.”

“So, Frankie, you’re thinking Kenny might have brought the stuff back to the home place, just down the road, and hid it there, right?”

“The list of possible hiding places is short, Riley. If Kenny had something to hide, something valuable, he would have wanted to keep it somewhere safe and accessible. Makes sense, right? Does the old house have an attic or a basement?”

Riley shakes his head. “There’s no basement. I’m not sure but I think there’s an attic. Never seen it, never been up there.” He takes a sip and says, “This seems like a real goose chase to me, Frankie.”

Frankie laughs and says, “Oh, we specialize in goose chases. We waste tons of time digging through haystacks. But, occasionally, we find something.”

Riley finishes his lemonade, slowly gets to his feet, and begins pacing around the room as if suddenly burdened. He stops and looks down at Frankie and says, “You can’t go into that house. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s been abandoned for years.”

“By real people, but there are plenty of folk moving around. Spirits, ghosts, the place is haunted, Frankie. I’ve seen it for myself. I’m a poor man with a few bucks in the bank, but I wouldn’t walk into that house at high noon with a gun in my hand for a thousand dollars cash. Nobody in our family will either.”

Riley’s eyes are wide with fear and his finger shakes as he points it at Frankie, who is momentarily dumbstruck. Riley walks to the fridge, pulls out two more bottles, hands one to Frankie and sits down. He breathes deeply as he closes his eyes, as if gathering strength for a long-winded tale. Finally, he begins, “Vida, my grandmother, was raised by her grandmother in a Negro settlement ten miles from here. It’s gone now. Vida was born in 1925. Her grandmother was born back in the 1870s when a lot of folk still had kin who were born in slavery. Her grandmother practiced witchcraft and African voodoo, which was common back then. Her religion was a mix of Christian gospel and old-world spiritualism. She was a midwife and the local nurse who could whip up salves and ointments and herbal teas to cure just about anything. Vida was profoundly influenced by this woman and throughout her life she, too, considered herself to be a spiritual master, though she knew better than to use the word ‘witch.’ Are you with me, Frankie?”

He was, but they were wasting time now. Frankie nodded earnestly and said, “Sure. Fascinating.”

“I’m giving you the quick version, but there’s a big thick book about Vida. She was a frightening woman. She loved her kids and grandkids and ruled the family, but she had a dark, mysterious side too. I’ll give you one story. Her daughter, Ramona, my aunt, died at thirty-six, you saw her tombstone. When Ramona was young, about fourteen or so, she was raped by a boy from Dillon, a bad kid. Everybody knew him. The family was upset as you might guess, but didn’t want to go to the sheriff. Vida didn’t trust the white man’s justice. She said she would handle things herself. Kenny found her one night, at midnight under a full moon, in the backyard going through some voodoo ritual. She was tapping a small drum, with gourds around her neck and snakeskins around her bare feet, and chanting in an unknown tongue. Later, she told Kenny that she put a hex on the boy who raped Ramona. Word got out and everybody, well at least all the black folk, in Dillon knew the boy was cursed. A few months later he got burned alive in a car wreck, and from then on people ran from Vida. She was much feared.”

Frankie absorbs this without a word.

“Over the years she got crazier, and we finally had no choice. We hired a lawyer in Seabrook to get her committed. She was furious with the family and threatened us. Threatened the lawyer and the judge. We were terrified. They couldn’t do anything with her at the asylum and she talked her way out. She told us to stay away from her and the house, and we did.”

Frankie manages to say, “She died in 1998, according to the obituary.”

“That was the year, no one knows the day. My cousin Wendell got concerned and went to the house, found her lying peacefully in the middle of her bed, sheets pulled up to her chin. Dead for days. She left a note with instructions to bury her next to her children, with no funeral or ceremony. She also wrote that her last act on this earth was to put a curse on the house. Sad to say, but we were relieved when she died. We buried her in a hurry, in a thunderstorm, a quick service with just the family, and the moment we lowered her into the ground lightning hit a tree in the cemetery and we jumped out of our skin. I’ve never been so scared in my life, and never so happy to see a casket get covered with dirt.”

Riley takes a long drink and wipes his mouth with the back of a hand. “That was my grandmother, Vida. We called her Granny, but most of the kids around here called her Voodoo behind her back.”

In a voice as firm as possible, Frankie says, “We need to see the attic.”