“That you’re full of shit,” Birdy said.
“Exactly, but it’s true. His name’s Tyrone. The RV park, carnival people, they’ve wintered there for years. He takes walks at night because of the way his face looks. I’m not making this up. That’s how he bills himself, Roswell Man, the place in New Mexico where his mother was probed-you know, screwed-by an alien.”
Birdy said, “Oh, please.”
“That’s Tyrone’s act, for christ’s sake. Or sometimes he’s a chuman-half chimp, half man. That’s the scientific term, by the way. He’s got posters on his walls.”
“Chimp-man?”
“CHU-man. He has some kind of skin condition, like scales instead of skin, but it sort of looks like fur. There are country hicks willing to believe anything, apparently.” After a beat, Theo added, “Maybe Hannah’s heard of him.”
I held my temper but countered, “I didn’t say he was hunchbacked,” while Birdy staggered beneath Theo’s weight, laughing, no longer annoyed.
The good-looking archaeologist hooted into her ear, “Well, now!” and flashed me a look to sharpen what came next. “I love proving amateurs wrong.”
WHEN THEO WENT inside his pop-up camper, Birdy whispered, “The guy’s a total prick.”
It had taken him a while to get the door open. And when I’d asked, “Where’s your car?” he had snapped at me, “A friend’s using it-is that okay?”
No, it wasn’t. The camper sat alone in a clearing, the trailer tongue on a cement block. It caused me to wonder Is the place really his?
Birdy was suspicious, too. “His girlfriend probably has the car. Or wife. Let’s play along and see who we meet at the RV park. Are you okay with that?”
So far, but I feared she was rationalizing a way to spend more time with Theo and enjoy the strong Rum and Cokes, which his long arm now presented us from the door. The door closed, Theo saying, “Gotta find some stuff and powder my nose, ladies. Make yourselves at home.”
I took a sip. “I can’t imagine the sort of life a person has calling himself Roswell Man. Makes me sad even to think about. In grade school, there was a boy who had skin so scaly, he finally stopped coming. Real scales-a medical condition that was incurable.”
Birdy made a cooing noise to empathize, but her mind was on the night sky. “You know… camping might be the way to go out here. Even with this moon, the stars are bright.”
I said, “Supposedly, the condition gets worse with age. Ichthy… I can’t quite recall the name, but it’s ichthy-something. An ichthyologist studies fish, which has to do with scales, that’s why I remember. It’s a terrible disease for a child. I had a problem with acne in my teens and thought it was the end of the world. I always went out of my way to be nice to that boy.”
“Pimples?” Birdy acted as if that was funny until she noticed me glaring. “Sorry, forgot about your temper,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Somehow Theo guessed you’re here to prove the ghost stories are bullshit. That’s why he’s passive-aggressive. He doesn’t want the property developed, so he sees you as one of the bad guys. Not in those words, he’s too smooth. Or thinks he is.”
Theo and Birdy had done some whispering while they walked ahead of me through the trees, through the gate, down a one-lane asphalt road to the Telegraph River, which didn’t look like a river because it was so narrow, cloaked by moss and shadows.
I took another sip: Coca-Cola on ice, but mostly rum. “Your aunt is more interested in legalities than the truth. You could have told him that. She doesn’t care about ghosts any more than she does asbestos or mold.”
“Hell with him. Always keep men and crime suspects guessing. He’s pompous, that’s all. When I told him Dame Bunny has a million bucks invested in this project, he shrugged it off like it was no big deal. But he is kind of amusing.”
Replying to Birdy’s tone, not her words, I said gently, “If you want him to take you out for a drink, that’s okay. I’ve got work to do.” I had left Capt. Summerlin’s journal on the mantel, hoping the hot, dry air would loosen some pages.
Birdy exhaled a derisive “Hah! What, he’s been here only three weeks? Like he owns the place already. He’s not even the lead archaeologist on this project. Notice how he glazed over that?” A moment later, she added, “But he is young. And he does have an interesting face.”
I thought, Uh-oh.
A small generator, quiet as a sewing machine, surged, brightening the lights, while we waited, including a yellow bug light hanging from a limb near a charcoal grill and a fire pit and a hammock strung between trees, but the kind made in Mexico, not a jungle hammock with netting like mine.
Birdy considered the outdoor orderliness of the place, the little pit and potted plants, before observing, “He’s made a comfy little nest for himself, hasn’t he?”
I said, “If it’s actually his.”
When Birdy replied, “Oh, please,” I again thought, Uh-oh.
Theo ducked out the door, carrying a sack and an oversized light with a battery pack. “Let’s deal with your bug problem first,” he said.
We returned to the house.
I WASN’T ENCOURAGED by the man’s spider-killing technique. Inside the house, Theo built the fire higher and closed the fireplace flue. I had already lugged Birdy’s suitcase, air mattress, sheets, and a pillow into the room, pausing to smash a few scorpions en route.
Birdy was behaving unusually girlish, even with a 9mm pistol in her purse, a Glock loaded with hollow-points. She stayed on the porch until Theo called her in.
“Chrysanthemum resin,” he announced, opening the bag. “It’s a trick I learned from one of the campground regulars. Mosquitoes and chiggers were driving me nuts until I used this. She’s an amazing woman-studied with some tribe in the Amazon. A regular witch.”
He sifted a handful of powder into the fire, the flames blue-edged when they flared, but then were smothered by more powder.
“You’re studying witchcraft, too? You could be a psycho, for all we know.” Birdy was flirting again-or was she?
Theo enjoyed the humor. “Half the women in the RV park claim to be witches. And not just the carnie women. I don’t care what they are as long as there’s something they can teach me. Natural remedies are a hobby. Early battlefield surgeons, that’s all they had. One of my favorite professors used to say that alchemy is chemistry’s Dutch uncle. But it’s medicine’s grandfather.”
He emptied the bag. Smoke boiled into the room. A pleasant incense odor at first, like a burning mosquito coil that was soon overpowering.
“Hurry up, I want to check something,” he said. “Where were you sleeping when you got stung?”
Birdy had covered her nose and mouth. “You can burn the place down, I wouldn’t go back in that room.”
“You’ll get a kick out of this, promise.” He appealed to me. “Hannah?”
I said, “If we don’t suffocate first,” and walked toward the hall, Theo behind me carrying the light, which looked high-tech, a rectangle of LEDs with a battery pack.
When he turned it on inside the room, the darkness became eerie blue velvet with a glowing fringe. “Ultraviolet light,” he explained. He held the thing like a shield and entered, panning it across the ceiling.