Silence has a museum quality in a house vacated by death. The wooden floors amplified the sound of our shoes as we walked inside; the grandfather clock made its familiar metronome noise from the corner near the fireplace.
Similarities to a museum didn’t end there.
The man with the keys, John Dunn, told us, “Captain Gatrell wanted the house to stay just the way he left it. I think I mentioned that to you on the phone, Doctor Ford. Just after your uncle’s death? So that’s exactly what our owners’ association has made every effort to do. Keep the place in good repair without changing the look of it. We owe him a great debt of gratitude. Captain Gatrell changed our lives. We’ve tried to honor his wishes to the letter.”
They had succeeded. The place looked like Tuck had just walked down the street to buy chewing tobacco. In other words, the house was a mess. Clothes thrown on the floor, a couple of his prized cowboy hats hanging from the antlers of a mounted deer head. Dishes in the sink, books he’d been reading spread-eagle around the room, spit cups everywhere, but the big brass spittoon by his rocker, at least, had been cleaned. Bullet holes in the walls, too. Several. And a big, hand-painted sign nailed to a rafter: GLADES SPRING WATER
FEEL FLORIDA FRESH MANGO, FLORIDA
Dunn cleared his throat and chuckled to cover what might have been embarrassment. “Your uncle seemed to think… or have the belief that he had such a strong spirit that he… I mean, his ghost… no, his spirit, let’s say. That his spirit would return to this house once he’d passed, so he wanted it ready to use and just the way he liked it after he died. Particularly the spit cups. He said he’d never had enough spit cups.”
I had a vague recollection of John Dunn. Tuck had met him and several other men and women who lived in some gigantic trailer park off the Tamiami Trail. Somehow, Tuck had recruited them to move to Mango and help him fix it up, for which they received options to buy up some of Tucker’s properties.
Ransom seemed delighted with the prospect of Tuck’s ghost still hanging around. “That my daddy,” she said, touching the Santeria beads she wore. “He a good man, so he have a good spirit. Someone to watch over me if’n I decide to live here. What you think, Mister Tommy?”
Tomlinson was looking toward the ceiling, hands on hips, considering it. After a few moments, he said, “Definitely. He’s here. Tucker Gatrell is definitely here. He has not left the building. If you want, we can hold a seance some night, invite him back, and let the old gentleman speak through me. After all those shock treatments I had, I’m a hell of a good medium.”
I said, “Another time. When you’ve rounded up a couple of space aliens, too. Mister Dunn? Isn’t there something you’re supposed to give us?” Trying to hurry things along.
There was. It was another letter from Tuck, written on the familiar yellow paper, sealed in an envelope. Before he handed the envelope to me, though, he said, “Captain Gatrell’s personal letter to me was very clear on this point. I am supposed to confirm that your sister is with you.” He looked at Ransom, puzzled. “Your half-sister, I guess.”
“She’s my cousin, not my sister, but you can see from the photographs on the wall, she’s the one Tuck meant.”
There were lots of pictures, some framed, some just tacked to the rough wood walls. There were a couple of me, and several of Ransom. She never looked much older than in her teens. Another one I’d never seen was a photo of Tuck and Joseph Egret, a horse in the background. Tuck was wearing his favorite gray roper’s hat, Joe a blue wind ribbon to hold his long hair. Another element in the Gatrell Museum.
Dunn had stepped to the wall, looking through his bifocals from one of the photos then back to Ransom. He smiled. “Young lady, you are a very beautiful woman. Handsome, I think that describes you even more accurately, and in a very feminine way. One of the most handsome women I think I’ve ever seen. I mean that.”
Ransom did something similar to a curtsey. “And you a very nice-looking white gentleman. Got a nice little butt on you, Mister Dunn.”
The woman had a great gift for making male friends very quickly. Dunn had to be in his late seventies, but he was suddenly doing his best to look and sound younger. He made a waving motion with his hands. “What the hell, I think we can dispense with any more ridiculous red tape. I look in your face and I trust you-and it is a lovely face, so sweet and angelic-but there is one other thing your father-” He seemed to remember I was still there. “-that your uncle also wanted me to ask you. Is there any third party forcing you to come here? I have a feeling there could be that possibility.”
Did he mean Tomlinson?
I said, “This is a good friend of mine. In fact, I think you two met a few years back.”
“Actually, I was thinking of a couple of other people, no one that’s here. A few days ago, a couple of black men-” He glanced at Ransom. “Sorry. Two African -American men came here asking about Captain Gatrell, where he lived, did his relatives ever come to visit his old house. Captain Gatrell once told me personally to keep my eyes open for… well, for men matching that description.”
Ransom said quickly, “Did one of ’em got gold stars on his teeth, and the other was big as a cow?”
Dunn was nodding. “And accents. Accents very much like yours-not as lovely, of course.”
Ransom ignored him. She looked at me, her eyes fierce. Said, “It them two no-account Rasta niggers again. They not done fuckin’ with us, my brother. We see them come around again, what I’m gonna do is mix up the herbs and powders and drop a spell on them that’ll make their prissy cocks shrivel up like raisins.”
Tomlinson was suddenly very interested. “Really? I don’t suppose there’s some spell you know that does the reverse?”
Hers was a bawdy, lusty laugh. “Mister Thomas, somebody done already dropped a double whammy of that spell on you judging by that big ol’ thing you got swingin’ between your legs.” Then she turned back to Dunn, who had paled slightly, and she said, “Thank you very much for them kind words. Now can we see that letter?” Dear Duke, If that witch bastard and his goat-humpers have forced you to come looking for what I took from him, and they’re standing there holding a pistola on you, chew up this note and swallow before they can stop you. Unless you think they’re gonna kill you for it, then let them have it. No amount of what I stole is worth you or Ransom dying. If you get the feeling I am afraid of them people after what they did to me and to Rumer, you are right and I am man enough to admit that cold-blooded killers and filth such as them do scare me ’cause they ain’t got no morals or conscience, so will do anything and it don’t even cause them to blink. Which is why I’m making it not so easy to get what I left for you. Just in case, I am going to tell you something only you would know. Then I’m going to tell you something else that only you would know. The first thing is, remember where my old dog, Gator, used to sleep? He’s a good old dog though he has bit an asshole or two and he’s probably gone now, dead like me and I hope he went out with a smile on his face. Right over his head was a place I used to hide cash money and such, things I didn’t want some of the no-account people around Mango to steal from me. Go to that place and take a look. There’s a nice little surprise for you there. Plus another letter. If the goat-humpers are with you, run for it right now. Your Uncle, Tucker Gatrell
There was a postscript written in a different color of ink: I’d meant to leave you six thousand dollars cash but had to spend it ’cause Joe and me need some traveling money plus to pay some vet bills.
After I’d finished reading, I handed the letter to Ransom and walked to the fireplace. Tucker had owned a big, rawboned Chesapeake that he adored, and the dog usually slept in front of the stone fireplace.
I leaned my weight against the mantelpiece and knelt to look at the rock. The fireplace had been made by stacking uneven layers of fossilized pink coral-coquina rock, some people called it-that had been quarried from Key Largo nearly a century before. As a child, I’d found those blocks fascinating because every close inspection revealed something not seen before. Imprinted on the limestone were miniature brain corals, staghorns, and the fabricked impressions of sponges-all sorts of animals that had lived and died a thousand years or more before the first calendar was conceived. Something I also remembered about that fireplace was that a couple of the rocks slid out like heavy drawers and, behind them, Tuck would sometimes hide money or anything else he thought was valuable.