Tombs of Endearments

“That’s one of the really wonderful things about
working in a cemetery. You get to do things that are not only interesting and educational, but fun. Imagine, spending an entire day researching the immigration records at the County Archives! Could anything be more exciting than that?”

Needless to say, I am not the one who spoke these words. They came from Ella Silverman, the community relations manager at Garden View Cemetery and—not incidentally—my boss. Nobody but Ella could possibly get so hopped up about the prospect of spending the day poking through dusty old books full of equally dry information.

When I didn’t respond with the enthusiasm Ella expected, she tried to manufacture some. She beamed a smile at me across my desk and patted the notepad she’d brought with her into my office. It contained a list—a long list—of the Garden View residents (Ella’s word for the folks buried there) whose files she wanted to beef up with a little more information. “Well, Pepper, really! You should be excited. Think of all you’ll learn!”

I was thinking about it. And it practically put me to sleep. But hey, if the months I’d worked as Garden View’s only tour guide had taught me anything, it was to prevaricate like a pro.

Then again, in addition to my gig at the cemetery, I was also the world’s one and only private investigator to the dead, and—at least as far as I knew—the only person around unlucky enough to not only see dead people, but talk to them, too. They always wanted something from me, those dead folks, and whatever it was (and take my word for it when I say it usually involved getting threatened, beaten up, and/or shot at), it always conflicted with what I was supposed to be doing in my real life. Was it any wonder I could tell a lie with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart?

“Of course I’m excited.” To prove my statement to Ella and maybe convince myself, too, I sat up straight in an eager-beaver sort of way. “But are you sure you can spare me for the whole day? I mean, you said it yourself in the staff meeting yesterday. With the holidays right around the corner—”

Ella nodded sagely. “You mean because of the ghost hunters. The ones who show up every year at this time, right before Halloween.”

Halloween wasn’t the holiday I’d been referring to. It wasn’t even something I wanted to think about. Believe me, when it came to things that went bump in the night, I’d had my fill. As far as I was concerned, the dearly departed could stay right where they belonged. Which was, in case there’s any question, as far away from me as it was possible to get.

I’d done my part. Hand in hand (figuratively
speaking, of course) with the dead but regretfully not departed, I’d solved two murders with a paranormal twist, one the past spring and another right after. So far—knock on wood—I’d managed to get through the balance of the summer and most of the fall without another close encounter of the woo-woo kind.

It was my goal in life to keep it that way.

“Actually, I meant the Christmas choral concert you mentioned yesterday,” I told Ella. Better to show her I’d been paying attention at the meeting than to entertain even a smidgen of a thought about how working for the dead had a way of always putting me in danger of becoming one of them. “And the tree-trimming ceremony, the Hanukkah festivities, and the community Kwanzaa celebration the cemetery hosts. That’s going to take a lot of planning.”

“It does. But we do it every year. Honestly, I could do the groundwork in my sleep. The ghost hunters…well, of course, that’s another story.”

As the saying goes, any port in a storm. Right about then, the impending storm was research, and if talking about ghosts (in a purely theoretical way, of course) was going to change the direction of the conversation and keep me away from the County Archives, I was game. Reluctant, but game.

In a gesture designed to assure her we were two bodies but one mind, my nod mirrored Ella’s. “Ghost hunters. Exactly. Obviously, I should stick around. In case you need any help. They’re practically overrunning the place.”

“Happens every year.” She didn’t look happy about it.

“And we can’t keep them out?”

Ella’s shrug said it all. “It’s a public place. There’s nothing we can do to make people stay away. As long as they’re not doing any damage or causing any disruption and they’re not getting in anyone’s way doing what they do.”

“And they do…what?”

“Look for ghosts, of course.” Her smile was sympathetic.

It didn’t fool me. “You think they’re wasting their time.”

“I think if there were really such things as ghosts, one of us would have seen them by now, don’t you?”

Little white lies were one thing. Whoppers were another. I sidestepped the question and got back to the matter at hand. Which was, as far as I could remember, how to keep myself from being condemned to a day in research hell.

“No way you can keep those ghostbusters in line by yourself,” I told Ella. “You’ll need me to stay here and help.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” She sloughed off my concerns. “They’re an odd bunch, but they’re really harmless.”

“I’m sure they are, but if we’ve got funerals scheduled—”

“That’s what Security is for.”

“And visitors coming through—”

“There isn’t another tour scheduled until the end of the week. You remember, the one you’re leading for that fourth grade class that’s doing a project on the freed slaves who are buried here.”

I remembered, all right, and remembering, I shivered in my Jimmy Choo kidskin ankle boots. Not that I didn’t think the lives of freed slaves were fascinating. But, honestly, fourth graders? It was almost enough to make the County Archives sound like a walk in the park.

Almost.

I thought about the last time I’d ventured into the cemetery’s own archives and how I’d needed not one, but two deep pore cleansings and an aromatherapy bath to get rid of the grime that ground its way into my skin. The county facility was bound to be eons bigger. I did the math (sort of) and convinced myself that by the time I was done, I’d need to add a hot oil hair treatment and a manicure to my clean-up-after-research routine.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as much into pampering as any other twenty-five-year-old woman. But I’m not a daredevil. I knew better than to tempt the cosmetic fates. In my book, cleanliness was right up there next to keeping myself from getting embroiled in any more murders.

I couldn’t explain the bit about homicide to Ella. Not without confessing the whole PI-to-the-dead-but-not-departed thing.

And something told me she wouldn’t get my aversion to boring research, either. When it came to doing anything to advance Garden View’s image, Ella was as tenacious as a bulldog.

Come to think of it, with her short, stocky body and in the brown suit she was wearing that day along with a white blouse, she looked a little like a bulldog, too, albeit a warm and fuzzy one. Maybe that was because of the multistrand yellow and
blue beads around her neck that added a touch of unbulldoglike color. And the two dozen or so colorful beaded bracelets that shared space on her wrists.

Thinking of dogs made me think of kids. And thinking of kids, I just naturally glommed onto the subject of the fourth graders.

I hopped out of my desk chair. Even without the previously mentioned ankle boots and their two-and-a-half-inch heels, I was a whole head taller than Ella. I hoped the height advantage would make me look authoritative and thus help my cause. “The fourth grade, huh? Is that tour this week? Boy, I should go through my notes again. And visit each of the grave sites just so I’m sure where they are. And—”

“Pepper, Pepper, Pepper.” Ella had gone from nodding her head to shaking it, and the writing was on the wall: I was in for the kind of motherly lecture I’d heard her deliver to her three teenaged daughters. She tugged at the hoop earring that dangled from her right lobe. “I think we know each other well enough to be honest, don’t you? Stop beating around the bush and just tell me the truth. Do you not want to go to the archives and do this research for me?”

It was my big opportunity to come clean.

“Of course I want to do your research,” I said.

I know, I know, lying through my teeth doesn’t exactly qualify as coming clean. Call me a softie, but I didn’t have the heart to burst Ella’s working-here-is-the-best-thing-in-the-world bubble. See, in addition to being my boss, Ella is my friend.

Of course, she was also the one who, just a few
short months earlier, had sold me into indentured servitude to the meanest author in the history of the
New York Times
best-seller list.

For that, I owed her paybacks. And in a weird way, I suppose, my thanks.

If it hadn’t been for my stint as secretary to über-author Merilee Bowman, I wouldn’t have solved her sister, Didi’s, murder.

Or ended up with an extra thousand a month from Didi’s granddaughter who was grateful for my help and not reluctant to spread around some of her newfound wealth.

I kept all this firmly in mind. Which was the only thing that enabled me to speak with a straight face. “You know I love doing research. It just doesn’t seem fair for me to spend the whole day having fun while you’re back here doing something mundane and boring like—”

“Oh, don’t worry about me!” Ella grinned and headed for the door. “I won’t be bored today. Not for a moment. I’m writing an article for the next edition of the Garden View newsletter. About Albion Cade Mitford. He’s buried here, you know. Talk about fascinating! He’s the man who invented the bottle opener.”

There wasn’t anything I could say to counter that. And nothing I could do but gird my loins (figuratively speaking, of course) and head out to the County Archives building on the other side of Cleveland.

As soon as I stepped outside, climbed into my Mustang, and started toward the main gate, I decided that maybe it wasn’t such a bad assignment after all. The sun was shining and the air was crisp
with the tang of fall. One of the things Garden View prides itself on is its landscaping, and I glanced at the trees that dotted the cemetery lawns and lined the streets that wound their way through nearly three hundred acres of headstones, mausoleums, and tombs. The leaves were just starting to change color, and all around me, the air was bright with tinges of gold and the beginnings of red and orange that, in just a few weeks, would be our last hurrah before another long, bleak winter on Lake Erie’s shores.

I guess I was so busy admiring the trees, I wasn’t watching where I was going. When I looked back at my windshield, there was a group of people on the road directly in front of me.

I slammed on my brakes just short of slamming into them.

I don’t think they noticed. There were four men and one woman in the group. Each of them was carrying some sort of weird-looking piece of equipment, and every single one of them was so busy concentrating on their instruments and sharing their readings with each other, they never even looked up at the sound of my squealing brakes.

I stuck my head out of the window and said, “Sorry!” anyway because, let’s face it, I would have been sorry if I smashed them to smithereens. I waited until they were safely on the other side of the road before I continued on my way.

“Ghost hunters,” I said to myself. When I stopped at the main gate that led out onto the city streets, I glanced in my rearview mirror. The ghost hunters were walking around a particularly gaudy mausoleum, their gazes trained on their instru
ments, their expressions so serious, I had no doubt they considered what they did Science with a capital S.

The irony of the situation struck, and for the first time since I found out I would be spending the day getting up close and personal with a whole building full of immigration records, I smiled. I knew the ghost hunters couldn’t hear me, but I couldn’t resist. “I know something you don’t know,” I said in a singsong voice. Still grinning, I rolled out onto Mayfield Road and flicked on my radio.

Though I never listened to it, my radio was tuned to an oldies station, and a baritone voice washed over me. Appealing. Exciting.

And all too familiar.

It was Damon Curtis, the bad boy/poet/legend of hippies-vintage rock and roll, along with his band, Mind at Large, and when I heard his voice, my fall-foliage good mood suddenly soured. With a grunt, I turned off the music.

“I know something the ghost hunters don’t know, all right,” I grumbled. See, a few months earlier I walked passed Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum one night and saw Damon Curtis standing outside watching me. Since then, I hadn’t had a moment’s peace.

These days, every time I turned on the radio, or stopped at a store, or walked through a mall, they were always playing a Mind at Large song.

Coincidence?

I think not, and here’s why.

Damon Curtis is dead. He has been since 1971.

Yep, that’s right. Dead, but not gone. Not by a long shot.

As a matter of fact, I’d spent my entire summer trying to avoid him.

I know it sounds impossible. I mean, how can I avoid a ghost when a ghost wants to find me?

Honestly, I don’t have the answer. All I know is that even though Damon Curtis is buried at Garden View (he died during a trip—and I do not use that word lightly—to Cleveland for a concert), he had yet to show hide nor ghostly hair of himself around the cemetery.

For this I was grateful.

But I’m not dumb. I’d seen Damon outside the Rock Hall and nowhere else, and since that night, I’d made sure I didn’t go anywhere near the place.

So far, so good. Except for Damon’s music always popping up—impossible to dance to and so full of what I could only imagine was symbolism, I was never sure what any song was about—I’d managed to keep myself from getting embroiled in any more adventures with anyone from the Other Side.

I actually might have been cheered by this thought if I wasn’t so busy being frustrated by the traffic that jammed Euclid Avenue, the main artery between the cemetery and the County Archives. Too impatient to wait out the bumper-to-bumper nightmare, I inched close enough to the nearest viable-looking cross street, turned—and found a utility crew had the street dug up directly in front of me.