Texas Gothic - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,92
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.