In the Dead of Night (55 page)

I can’t even express how proud I was of her right then, since in effect, she had drawn the line between the Dobbins’ clan and any future invitations for us to come back to this place. That confirmed something else for me, too. Whatever created the negative aura engulfing the property was something on a scale worse than I originally imagined. Perhaps even worse than the angry Native American spirits we encountered in Adams the night before.

“Well, I’m really sorry, Fiona, Jimmy, and Justin,” said Jerry. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

He came over to us, and it looked as if he might cry. The anger was still there, and to be honest I was starting to feel a tad guilty about letting a crazed old man run us off…until I looked back up at General Forest’s pompous gaze above the fireplace and the terrified share cropper pinned beneath the horse’s hoof.

“Please forgive us bringing you into this shit, Justin,” he said, and extended his hand for Justin to shake. I was ambivalent, but felt better once Justin accepted his handshake.

“It’s all right, man,” said Justin, smiling weakly. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Surprisingly, Detective Silver needed no coaxing and seemed just as happy as me to leave. Granted, he hadn’t interacted at all with anyone, but maybe the skills the man has honed over the years told him that it would be better to keep his distance. He won’t be invited back either, I’m sure.

Not wanting to press my luck, since I could feel more than a handful of angry stares upon my back as we prepared to exit the farmhouse, I nodded my ‘okay’ for Fiona to ride with Mr. Ed back to Nashville, and for Justin to ride with me. It was better this way, since our resident detective has never taken a liking of any kind to Justin, and that feeling is verifiably mutual. Fiona would accompany me home from Justin’s place.

“Hey, Jimmy!...What in the hell happened back in there?” said Tony, after he ran over to where we were parked. He was out of breath by the time Justin and I reached the Camaro. I signaled for Ed and Fiona to go on ahead after Ed tapped his horn, knowing my wife knew how to get to Justin’s place better than I did. “Everybody’s freaking out in there, saying shit like you were a supreme asshole.”

“I was,” I said, shooting him the sly smile he loathes the most from me as I slid into the driver’s seat. “And, now we’re going home.”

“Can you fit one more in there?” asked Ricky, who had just caught up with Tony. The big guy must’ve given Tony a significant head start. “I’m ready to blow this place, too.”

“I thought we were about to start the investigation?”

Now Tony’s ire was directed at Ricky instead. A lesser version of me would’ve seen this as the perfect moment to escape. That’s not how I roll these days…but I at least started up the engine.

“This place is frigging insane, man, and whatever is in that barn back there…well, it gives me the frigging willies!”

Just then a stiff breeze blew across the parking area, aiding the wind chill that was already subzero. The resident demon had just added a hearty amen, perhaps?

“Come on, man…I’ll hop in back since there ain’t a lot of leg room behind the front seats,” said Justin. He released his seatbelt.

“So, you’re going to leave me here alone…all of you assholes?”

“Yep!”

Tony shook his head upon hearing our unanimous decision, but stopped Ricky from moving around to the passenger side of my car.

“All right, man…we’ll leave, too,” he said, still shaking his head. “You realize, Jimmy, that you’ve probably blown a great opportunity to find out more about the bad ass spirit that ‘rules the roost’ as Jerry said earlier tonight. Because of you, we’ll likely never get this close to it again.”

“One can only hope,” I said, and then turned my attention to Ricky. “Make sure he leaves, will ya? I suggest you start packing right away to ensure Tony here doesn’t force you to deal with this mess any longer than necessary.”

Tough love. At least that’s the way I saw it. But as it turned out, those were the last words spoken between Tony, Ricky and me for the next two days.

Chapter Thirteen

“It does seem like you’ve become as popular as Sarah Palin at a gay pride rally.”

Saturday afternoon. What a frigging difference a week can make. At this time last weekend, we were on our way to Stones River on a cold but sunny day.

Not so on this Saturday. It had been spitting snow since the morning, and normally these are the worst conditions to even consider doing an investigation in. Moisture—even the frozen kind—can discredit any orb formations that might show up in our photographs and video frames.

Worse yet, the temperature wasn’t much warmer than it was last night in McMinnville. And the wind gusts were just as frigid.

This sucked. Let alone, Justin was right about the lack of love shown to me by my NVP brethren and sisters. Everyone except for him and my dear wife had treated me like a frigging leper. I’ve been thoroughly ignored since our arrival at Nashville’s Fort Negley about an hour ago. Hell, I might as well be a ghost. No doubt, the folks who thought of me as their friend before last night’s unpleasant incident would treat the Union soldier specters rumored to haunt Fort Negley with far more compassion and respect.

Most of the station’s camera crew avoided me, too. Brandon Jones wore the beleaguered look of a guy who lost the rock, paper, and scissors contest to decide who got relegated to film life in my colony. If not for the producers’ hopes for playful banter between Justin and me, I might’ve been banished to my own personal Elba.

Surprisingly, the Thomas brothers sought me out to apologize again before rejoining the others. It felt genuine, which made me wonder if that strange negativity that engulfed their sister’s place had been responsible for all of my earlier misgivings. Fiona is dealing with similar confusion.

But the hard feelings from almost everyone else seemed pretty sincere, too. I can deal with it all…well, sort of. I followed my heart and gut last night, and would do so again if someone I cared about was threatened.

“Hey, Jimmy, I know this really sucks,” said Justin, patting me on the back. It snapped me out of the daydream picturing the backlash still to come, along with the possible ruin of our Civil War ghost tour’s culmination. “You promised to have my back, and last night you came through big time. I’ll never forget it, man.” He offered a pained smile that was surely in response to my wounded grimace.

“Well…I guess it’s your turn to have mine again, huh?”

I said this with more impishness than sorrow. And, wouldn’t you know that Brandon’s camera was a-rollin’ as I said it. He probably caught my faraway look and Justin’s comments, as well. I suddenly pictured the commercial advertisement for January’s presumed re-airing of our shows.

So, it was just the three of us outcasts in our little exploratory group, while everyone else split into four groups that included the munchkins from Murfreesboro and McMinnville—who all gave me the stink eye when they arrived, and some normal-sized ghost hunters from Nashville. These latter investigators numbered an even dozen, and came from two groups: Madison Wraith Hunter Society, or MWHS, and Eighth Street Ghosts, who prefer no acronyms. I heard this last tidbit right before they showed up, and immediately liked the Eighth Street foursome. When I’m paroled from my exile, I look forward to getting to know these upstarts in the ghost hunting biz.

As for the Madison ghost hunters, this is basically a biker gang that has a thing for paranormal research. One would think that a longhaired rocker like myself would fit in nicely with this sort of folk—especially given my longstanding affection for Harley Davidson motorcycles. But, after hanging out with these seven guys and lone gal back at a Memorial Day bash last May, none of us thought we could deal with the group’s leader, Stanley ‘Ace’ James, ever again. Yet, here we are…and the guy that was opposed to having this reunion the most—Tom—has been hobnobbing quite cordially with Mr. James since our one o’clock arrival.

“Fiona told me to tell you that she and your favorite cop will rejoin us once she finishes her tour of the northern section of the fort with Jackie and their group,” Justin advised, nudging me toward our designated area.

“So, who’s accompanying Tony and Ricky on the southern edge?”

“Tom, and your good buddy, Ace.”

I shot him a look advising him to tread with care, despite my smirk.

“Look at it this way, man,” he said, wearing his own knowing grin. “There won’t be much to see here anyway. Not in the daytime. And we have no disinterested police puppy dogs to further distract us.”

True on both accounts. It was completely asinine to move back our visit from the original 5:00 p.m. start time, but after the latest murder had been confirmed as linked to the previous crimes, our station’s sponsorship and camera crew wanted no part of the original nighttime event. It meant a mad scramble on Friday to get everyone involved updated about the new start time. But the event’s luster had been seriously dimmed, and as I scanned the four separate teams moving above us, I saw plenty of unhappy faces.

It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be here. After the incredible imagery we had collected during the previous two weekends, this surely would be a dismal finale.

“Well, at least we’ll get some nice pictures of the old ramparts and stone walls from down here,” I said, pausing to snap a few photographs as we moved through a grove of barren trees. “That’s where the best ghost images have shown up before, but we probably won’t catch squat.”

In summer, the fort and the surrounding grounds are hardly creepy at all, unless you’re here in the dead of night. But, on a drearily cold day in December? Seeing the fort ruins on a day like this made me think of the men who fought bravely here almost one hundred and fifty years ago. Both sides were down to tattered clothing and torn shoes—if any at all. Some didn’t have coats. Temperatures back then, during the Battle of Nashville, which lasted for two days, December 15
th
and 16
th
, 1864, wouldn’t have been much better than the weather this past week.

It was a devastating blow to the Confederate effort, especially following the Battle of Franklin just two weeks earlier. This time, the southern forces suffered six thousand casualties, and General John Bell Hood was unable to unseat General George H. Thomas and his Union Army.

“I wonder why it’s mainly Union soldiers that show up in photographs from around here?” Justin turned to Brandon as he posed this question, and I sensed a smart-ass response for an answer was forthcoming. “You got any idea as to why that is, man?”

“Blue photographs better than gray?”

I must say the serious look on my face held true longer than I expected.

“Are you frigging serious, Jimmy?” Justin shot me a scowl before turning back to Brandon and his camera that was trained on Justin’s face. “That’s the best answer you’ve got?”

“Don’t I look serious enough?”

“Shit, Jimmy, you look like somebody slipped a bag of prunes into your Cheerios this morning.”

“Oh, yeah? And how in the hell would you know what I had for breakfast, unless you had a camera at our breakfast table. That’s a jacked up fetish—even by your standards, bro.”

He chuckled.

“Okay…I can roll with this,” he said, while snapping a few quick photographs into an overgrown ravine to our left. He then smiled into Brandon’s camera again. “But…since when does wearing blue photograph better than gray?”

“You don’t remember getting a note telling your parents how to dress you the day before ‘picture day’ in grade school?” I said, feigning indignation. “White or gray shirts would wash out from the flash, so you had to wear a dark color—preferably navy blue.”

“Are you hearing this?” Justin asked, incredulously, stepping closer to Brandon’s camera, to where I’m sure Brandon was about to get an enlarged view of Justin’s pearly whites. “You better be getting’ all of this, Mr. Brandon. Do you know why? Because there’s some serious bigotry goin’ down in front of you, man! Serious as
shit!!”

“What?!”

Good thing I know this guy well, as I had a pretty good idea where this was going. Still, I made sure my indignation sounded genuine with just the right amount of exasperation.

As for our cameraman, Brandon’s already pale complexion turned even lighter. He obviously thought this charade was real, and didn’t know if he should continue filming or prepare for a potential knockdown, drag-out fight between Justin and me.

“Have you ever seen a black kid wearing something dark blue for a school picture? Hmmm??” Justin drew even closer to our cameraman, adding a street gang pose. “We gotta have some white in there some place, man, or otherwise we’d disappear from the picture!”

Brandon almost lost his footing—his eyes and mouth open wide as if in shock—but he managed to hang in there in his efforts to catch every bit of this fiery dialogue.

“Not always,” I countered. “Even for me—part Latino—when I came back to school with my usual sun tan from mowing lawns all summer. I was almost as dark as you are right now quite a few times, bro.”

“Yes…always,” Justin insisted, casting a disdainful glance at me. I could tell he was about to crack up. “And about the other? You don’t have a frigging clue what picture day was like for me.”