Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [116]
“In spite of Pops trying to restrain me I followed the sheriff all the way to his car, hammering on him about those two bodies: ‘You’ve got to check and see who’s missing! I’m telling you, I saw it. Two bodies, just dumped out there. You’ve got to search.’
“ ‘One thing at a time,’ Pops said finally. ‘Let them check out the house. And then if you think you can pinpoint the place where this stranger dumped the bodies, then we’ll insist on a search.’
“Finally the sheriff and his snickering deputy were gone from the property, and Aunt Queen and Pops had ahold of me and told everybody else to leave the kitchen so we could be alone.
“Patsy was pretty ticked off that she couldn’t stay, but Pops gave her one of the worst glowering looks I’ve ever seen on his face, and she finally retreated, in a sulk, to her apartment over the shed.
“A bitter lecture came from Pops as to my having disobeyed Aunt Queen by going out there by myself, about my having ‘stolen’ his pistol, and some strong statements about how I was in real danger from myself now, and it was time for me to leave Blackwood Farm and go out into the world.
“ ‘What do you mean “out into the world”?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you see these pictures! There’s this gold tomb out there, Pops, I’ve got to find out what’s in it, and then there’s the house itself. I’m not going anywhere. Pops, you know what I want to do,’ I went on, full throttle. ‘I want to run electricity out there to that house, you know, run the cables right through the swamp. I want to clean it up and make it livable again, a real Hermitage, but I can’t do that until they collect and analyze Rebecca’s remains. I can’t do that until I’ve done right by Rebecca, even though if truth be told Rebecca doesn’t always do right by me.’
“He looked sad and tired, moving slowly to exasperation.
“But I kept at him.
“ ‘And they have to catch this stranger,’ I said, ‘this murderer, this miscreant who is dumping bodies in our swamp.’
“There came a final change in Pops, a change I’d seen many times in the past. He became angry, angry with me, the way I’d seen him with Patsy.
“ ‘You’re getting titched in the head, son,’ he said. ‘You need to get clear of here. You can enroll at LSU in Baton Rouge if you want to stay close to home, but I’m for you going up East to Harvard. Aunt Queen’s looked over all the material given her by Lynelle on your schooling and your examinations, and you could easily get into an Ivy League school right now. You’re going out of here.’
“ ‘My darling,’ Aunt Queen said, ‘Pops is absolutely right. You have to think now of your future in the world and not the mysteries and histories of those who once lived in this house. This house will be here for you all your life. But you are at an age now when impressions mean everything, and it’s time for you to get away.’
“I went silent. I had met with total resistance. I wondered if the gators could eat those bodies so quickly that there would be nothing left. I wondered if I could pinpoint the place on the island where I’d been standing when I saw the dastardly deed.
“ ‘You go to bed, Quinn,’ said Aunt Queen gently. ‘I know you saw something out there. I don’t doubt you. And clearly the Hermitage exists. You’ve brought back proof of it. But it’s late, and nothing can be done until morning.’
“Upstairs, I found Big Ramona in my wing chair by the cold fireplace with her rosary beads in her hand. Her full white hair was already braided. She was in her best rose-flowered flannel nightgown. She gave me a big hug and I went in to shower and change.
“After we said our night prayers and I let it be known I was too damned tired for a whole Rosary, we were soon snuggling spoon fashion and I was remembering that mysterious stranger in the weak light of the broken moon.
“Then I heard the computer switched on. A low green light emanated from the monitor.
“What a nuisance, I thought. ‘Goblin, why do you do these things?’ I murmured, but then I heard a strange sound. It was the clicking of the computer keys.
“I shot up out of bed and came into this parlor and stared at the