Every morning, if he got up early enough, he’d see her in the yard meditating: out there with her tiny dog Pokey, between the pair of Cuban petticoat palms she thought of as two women who’d been turned into trees-telling him that-though she had never heard or read of such a thing in any of her books. Christ, dozens of books on spirit communication, psychic enlightenment, aura reading, crystal healing, getting in touch with your chakras, channeling-which was what Leanne did to get hold of the little colored girl she called her discarnate entity, or sometimes her spirit guide. Ask Leanne how she did it, she’d tell you.

“Easy as pie. I raise my energy level to resonate with Wanda’s, see, then she’s able to use my energy channel to manifest herself through me.”

Oh.

“That’s her name, Wanda?”

“Wanda Grace.”

“How old is she?”

“Twelve.”

“That’s all? And she knows everything?”

“Age doesn’t matter.”

“But why her? Why not somebody more like yourself?”

“Wanda was killed by an alligator.”

Ask a simple question…

The time he did he saw Leanne get that scared look for a second, saw her eyes close, her eyelids flutter and now she was speaking in her little colored-girl voice.

“The gator drug me into the swamp and spun me round and round and round till I was drowned. Then what he did, he took me down to his house and lef’ me, didn’ eat me till I turn ripe. Tha’s the way they is, like you ripe.”

Leanne opened her eyes.

She said, “Wanda Grace’s little dog ran away. It was when she was down by the swamp looking for Pokey it happened. The same month, the same day and hour as my Experience, except Wanda passed over in the year 1855. She lived on a plantation in Clinch County, Georgia, as a slave.”

“Maybe,” the judge said, “you can get her to dust and do the windows.”

Oh, you didn’t kid about Wanda Grace. Leanne’s face would turn to stone and the judge would have to act innocent.

“Honey, I thought she wanted us to open our hearts and be happy, have some fun in life.”

Leanne said, “Your idea of fun is cruel. Sending people to prison, degrading those less fortunate. Wanda Grace was a slave. All her people died of the fever except she.”

What happened to the healthy girl who used to wiggle her tail and could smile underwater? Now she communicated with a spirit and played with crystals to improve her inner vision. Show you how much sense that made, she’d bury the crystals in the backyard every few days, in the dirt, she said to cleanse them and restore their energy. Get her in bed, she might just as well have her tail on. It was like doing it to a woman in a trance. Hey, where are you? He would never ask who are you, afraid she might answer in her little colored-girl voice. She never did it with the lights on or spoke while they were doing it.

When she did speak during the day, in her mild, airy tone, it was to pass on information.

“Big, Wanda says you need psychic counseling, maybe even alchemic hypnotherapy, have a specialist take a look at that negative ego.”

“I will if you’ll get your head examined.”

“Wanda says you need a good psychic cleansing, you won’t be so irritable.”

“Is that right? She ever take a look at the kitchen? The dishes piling up in the sink…”

“Some things, Big, are more important than others. I’m trying to help you.”

“Why don’t you go someplace else and do it? Like back to Ohio.”

“Wanda Grace says I have to keep trying, use my mediumistic gift to raise your vibration level and you’ll come to know your Higher Self.”

And on that note Bob Gibbs said, “Why don’t you tell that little nigger to mind her own business.”

So frustrated he was admitting her existence. Going on seven years of this because Leanne had been scared by an alligator.

He did get her a dog from the pound, a tiny brown-and-white hyperactive mutt that yipped and jumped up on your lap, a cute little pup Leanne named Pokey after Wanda Grace’s dog. (“I calls him Pokey ‘cause he like to poke his little nose where it don’t belong. I tells him he goin’ poke it in the wrong place sometime…”) He got her a car, too, a Ford Escort she drove to health food stores and now and then to Winn-Dixie when he hollered for meat and potatoes.

“Big, how can you eat the flesh of once-living things?”

“Easy, I chew each bite forty times.”

But he didn’t fence off the canal or put in a swimming pool or take her to any Palm Beach society functions where she might start talking like the help and embarrass him.

Was that the sign of a negative ego?

If it was, then maybe he’d better start thinking positive. Instead of not doing anything that would make her want to stay, work on an idea that would get her to leave. Of her own free will, without any hassle, legal complications.

And thought of a way to do it that made him smile it was so simple, sometimes wheeze out loud with delight as he entertained the idea and refined it. But then for months he continued playing with it, taking his time, not quite ready to commit himself…

Until this morning talking to the little-girl probation officer, Kathy Bacar, he realized she was the incentive he needed to get going. Kathy Baker.

He wasn’t sure why at first, but this little girl raised his vibration level, got him feeling energized for the first time in almost a year, since his girlfriend Stephanie moved to Orlando and for a while there he enjoyed a few casual encounters. But, man, it was work getting them from drinks and dinner into the sack the same evening. One-nighters could kill you. It was better to have a girl right there you could count on. Like Stephanie.

The minute she appeared in his courtroom charged with indecent exposure, jogging topless in John D. MacArthur State Park, he knew this big redheaded girl would fill the bill. She’d said to him in court, “Your Honor, I was doing nothing lewd or indecent.” No, but he’d bet she would if given the chance, a woman he decided then and there had to be full of fun. He fined her two hundred dollars-had to-waited a week, phoned her and said, “How about a couple of hundred-dollar dinners to make up for what I put you out?” Their first date he learned Stephanie loved to drink as well as expose herself. He said to her, “I know where you can jog topless through a garden to your heart’s content, while my semi-estranged wife is at a seminar in Ohio.” What a picture it turned out to be: this big redheaded nymph, his Nature Girl, ducking through the laurel oak and cabbage palms, not a stitch on, her buddy the judge waiting with a Jim Beam in each hand. Simple pleasures were the best kind. Fond memories to store away-while you work on a new set.

Kathy Baker was a different type of girl, more virginal even though she’d been married. He hadn’t really noticed her till she spoke up in court and he decided to chew her out. But then talking to her after changed his mind, seeing this was a good-looking girl up close with a cute figure. She had spunk too. If she was Cuban, so be it; there was a lot of it going around. She might not want to run naked through his garden; still, the garden could be used to soften her up, thinking this little girl would be squirmy and fun in bed. There he was wondering how to get to her and she says she’d worked in mental health. Bingo. All he had to do after that was tell about Leanne, ask the little girl her opinion and act interested. Maybe a benign form of schizophrenia, huh? Yeah, I’ve thought about a psychiatric evaluation, but the idea of it-I have that done to criminals. Nodding, saying yes, uh-huh, and I hope we can talk about this some more. “I’ll be in the bar at the Helen Wilkes Hotel, five o’clock, if you have time for a drink…”