Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [98]
“ ‘What is this about the sheriff?’ Aunt Queen asked. ‘Why do you want the sheriff?’
“I laid out the earrings and the brooch, and I told them all about everything I had seen. I told them about the skull just disintegrating, but that I knew the sheriff could get the DNA from the white powder left of it to prove it was Rebecca’s, and that for a DNA match there was hair in the brush that Rebecca had used, upstairs in the trunk that bore her name. There was hair in her comb too.
“Aunt Queen looked at Jasmine and Jasmine shook her head.
“ ‘You think the sheriff of Ruby River Parish is going to run DNA tests on a pile of white powder!’ Jasmine declared. ‘You’re going to tell this cockamamy story to the sheriff of Ruby River Parish? You, Tarquin Blackwood, dedicated buddy of Goblin, your spirit duplicate? You’re going to call the sheriff? I don’t want to be in this kitchen when that conversation takes place.’
“ ‘Listen to me,’ I insisted. ‘This woman was murdered. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, and—’
“When Aunt Queen spoke, she was very soft and reasonable-sounding. ‘Quinn, my darling, I don’t think the sheriff will believe this story. And I don’t think he will send anyone into the thick of the swamp.’
“ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I see. No one cares about this. No one believes it.’
“ ‘It isn’t that I don’t believe it,’ said Aunt Queen, ‘it’s that I don’t think the outside world will believe it.’
“ ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ chimed in Patsy. ‘The outside world is going to think you’re a crackpot, Tarquin, if they don’t already from all these years of your talking about that damned spook. Tarquin, the more you carry on about this, the crazier everybody thinks you are.’
“At some point while all this was going on—my valiant struggle to get them to believe and investigate and their pleading with me not to make a fool of myself—Pops walked in and I reiterated the whole story for him.
“He sat at the corner of the table listening with his dull eyes, and then said under his breath that he’d go back there to this island with me if I wanted, and when I said I did want this, that it was exactly what I wanted, he seemed surprised.
“All the while, Goblin stood over by the sink listening to this conversation and looking from one to another of the crowd at the table as this or that one spoke. Then he came over and started pulling on my right shoulder.
“I said, ‘Goblin, get away, I’ve got no time for you now.’ And with a profound will I pushed at him mentally, and to my amazement he was gone.
“Then Patsy imitated my voice and what I’d just said, making fun of me, and gave a low sneering laugh. ‘Goblin, get away,’ she repeated, ‘and now you’re telling us there’s a marble table out there and a gold chair.’
“I fired back at her that those details were of the least importance and then I positively demanded to see the sheriff and tell him what I had seen.
“Pops said No, not until he’d gone out there with me, and that if this woman had been rotting for over a hundred years a day or two wouldn’t matter now.
“ ‘But somebody’s living there, Pops,’ I said. ‘Somebody who must know these chains are up there and must have seen the skull! We have a dangerous situation here.’
“Patsy snickered. ‘It’s a damned good thing that you believe yourself, Quinn, because nobody else does. You’ve been crazy since you were born.’
“Aunt Queen did not look at her. It struck me for the first time in my life that Aunt Queen didn’t like Patsy any more than Pops did.
“ ‘So what was your dream, Patsy?’ I asked, trying not to bristle at her insults. ‘Jasmine told me you came home today because you had a dream.’
“ ‘Oh, it can’t compare to your story,’ she said ironically and coldly, her blue eyes hard as glass. ‘I just woke up all scared for you. There was somebody who was going to hurt you, and Blackwood Manor was burning, and this group of people—they had you and they were going to hurt you, and Virginia Lee was in the dream and she told me, “Patsy, get him away.” She was real clear,