I can’t see the cars anymore because the garages are in the way, and I also don’t see the Vampire anywhere. So I head out, moving toward Sassypants’ grave, but staying behind as many of the big monuments as I can.
Casey’s already at our spot. “Hey,” I pant as I dump my backpack and skateboard and give him a hug. “Sorry I’m late!”
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”
I kind of roll my eyes. “I was early, but then I got sidetracked.”
“Sidetrack Sammy,” he says with a grin.
“Yeah, that’s me.” So we sit down and I tell him about running into Elyssa and going back to the graveyard with Holly and getting dive-bombed by an owl and checking Dusty Mike’s mail and Officer Borsch hanging up on me and all of that. Then I take a deep breath and say, “But that wasn’t the sidetrack. The sidetrack was going into the cemetery office.”
“Why’d you go there?”
So I tell him about the personnel records and meeting Ruby Red and Teddy Bear’s dog-pack ringtone and Dusty Mike wanting to be left alone, and about having to cut up to the Sunset Crypt because of the Deli-Mustard Car.
“Wait. So the Vampire’s here? Now?”
“Somewhere! Or at least his car is. And since he saw you and me at the funeral home, I do not want him to see us.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and scoots me in close, and for some reason he’s grinning. “Copy that, Sidetrack.”
“I’m serious!”
He gives me a kiss. “I am, too.”
I shake my head and sigh. “This whole thing is so confusing. And I feel so … jumbled. Like I can’t tell right from wrong anymore. Or good from bad. Or something. It’s like what sounds and seems reasonable feels … off.” I look right at him. “Why would a man not take in his mail, not answer the door, and yet answer the phone?”
Casey shrugs. “Maybe he’s in lockdown? Depressed? Not getting out?” He eyes me. “Maybe he saw it was you?”
“What’s he got against me? Besides, there’s no peephole in the door, and the curtains were closed and didn’t move. I watched. Plus it was dark. No light anywhere.”
“Maybe he went out?”
“If he went out, he wasn’t locking himself in, right? If he went out, he would have taken his mail in when he got back, right?”
He gives a yeah-that-makes-sense shrug, and after we both look out over the graveyard a minute he says, “So maybe she didn’t really call.”
My head snaps to face him. “You mean she pretended to call? Why would she do that?”
He eyes me. “Why would she call? She’s the reason he got fired, right? Because he was stalking her or whatever?”
“They didn’t say that.”
“Well, lurking around, being a creeper … same thing.”
I blink at him. “But …”
“I wouldn’t make that call. Not if I got someone fired. I’d let the police do it.”
“But …”
“But she didn’t know you knew that about her, right? So she could pretend to make that call, no problem.”
“But …”
He waits, and when I don’t actually say anything, he grins and says, “You’re sure cute when you’re baffled.”
I laugh and punch him in the arm. “Shut up!” But right away my mind clicks back to Dusty Mike and Ruby Red. “I did ask to talk to him, but she turned it around.”
“Turned it around? How?”
“She said Mike wanted to know my name, so I told her, and after she relayed it she said he said he wanted to be left alone.”
He gives me a little smile. “Convenient. And now she knows your name.”
I just sit there, blinking.
It seems so out there.
So unbelievable.
But still.
Something about it feels right.
Casey and I did talk a little about school and Heather and his mom, but that got interrupted when I saw a silver van drive from over by the office toward the main cemetery gate. “There she goes,” I said, pointing down the rise. “Too bad there’s not a way to find out if she actually called Dusty Mike.” Then I throw in, “And where’s the Vampire? And what’s he doing here?”
“The Borschman said they’re friends, right? Him and Shovel Man?”
“Yeah, but what are they doing? Having a game of poker in the shed?”
A little while later we got our answer.
“Hey look!” Casey says, pointing at the golf cart that’s come out from behind the office. “You think that’s them?”
I stand up and squint, trying to see better. “Wish I had my binoculars.” But as the golf cart gets closer I can see that there are definitely two people in it and that the passenger has longish black hair. “I think you’re right!”
“You want to move closer?”
“Sure!”
So we gather our stuff and scurry down through the old section, going from one big monument to the next to avoid being seen. Ahead of us, the golf cart turns off the main road and onto a smaller one, then bumps up onto the grass. It zooms cross-country, right over the graves, and when it stops, we hide behind a big grave marker and watch as the passenger jumps off and grabs something from the back of the cart.
I nod. “That’s definitely the Vampire.”
“What’s he got? A flag?”
Sure enough, it’s a little black pennant flag on a tall skinny post, which he sticks in the ground. Then he hops back on the golf cart and they drive over a bunch more graves before stopping again.
Off hops the Vampire.
In goes another flag.
We watch them do this seven more times, and finally they stop for good. I have no idea what these black flags are for, but Casey grins at me and says, “Graveyard golfing.”
“What?”
“Nine flags? Nine holes?”
“So the holes are the built-in flower vases?”
“Seems like.”
Sure enough, Shovel Man and the Vampire both grab clubs, put down balls, and tee off.
“Unbelievable!”
Casey grins at me again. “But fun.”
A white truck appears from behind the office and cruises along the main road until it gets close to the graveyard golf course, where it stops and idles. “See you tomorrow!” a voice shouts.
“Later, Teddy!” Shovel Man hollers back.
“Enjoy the concert!”
“Will do! Thanks again!”
“No problemo!”
So Teddy Bear takes off and Shovel Man and the Vampire keep golfing, and after a few minutes I look at Casey and say, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That you can see how Dusty Mike did not fit in with the rest of the people working here?”
“That is not what I’m thinking.”
“But you can, right?”
“So you’re okay with people riding golf carts over graves and golfing in the graveyard? You don’t think it’s a little disrespectful?”
He shrugs. “Come on, Sammy. There’s no one else here. Besides, if you buried people for a living—if you embalmed them—you’d need to have a way to lighten things up.” He looks at me. “So what were you thinking that I wasn’t thinking?”
I eye him. “That everyone’s out of the office.”
It takes him a minute. “You’re kidding.”
I shake my head.
He hesitates. “Is this payback for infiltrating the funeral home?”
“Parlor,” I say with a grin, then grab his hand and pull.
“You’re serious.”
“It’s probably locked.”
“But why?”
I pull him along. “Check call history? Find the file on Dusty Mike?”
We keep one eye on the graveyard golfers as we hurry through the old side toward the office, taking a little detour to park our backpacks and skateboards behind the Sunset Crypt.
“Is this really that important?” Casey asks as we’re closing in on the garages.
“If I get busted for breaking and entering—and busted with you—I’m gonna be in a world of hurt.”
“We won’t break, okay? And it’s probably locked, so we won’t even be entering.” We take a second to check to make sure the coast is clear, then move along the parking area between the garages and the office. The garage doors are all still open, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. “Helloooo,” I call, “Anyone here?”
We pass by the Deli-Mustard Car and I kinda cringe when I see that the wiper is still bent.
“Is there a back door?” Casey whispers.
“Right there,” I tell him, and it’s actually wide open.
“Helloooo?” I call again, leaning in through the doorway, only it’s not the back door to the office—it’s a door to a break room, complete with a little TV, a microwave, a water cooler, and two beat-up couches.
Nobody’s taking a break in it, though, and straight across from me is what must be the back door to the office.
“I can’t believe they leave everything wide open like this,” Casey whispers.
I take one last look down the breezeway and tell Casey, “You stand guard and I’ll go in.”
“What’s our signal?”
“How about ‘Someone’s coming!’ ”
He laughs. “Sounds good.”
“And if you have to bail, I’ll meet you back up at the Sunset Crypt.”
“I won’t bail.”
I smile at him, then zip across the break room, grab the doorknob, and turn.
And just like that I’m inside the office.
I give Casey the thumbs-up, then leave the door open and go straight to the file cabinet. But after three minutes of pawing through it, I still haven’t found the file on Dusty Mike.
“Anything?” Casey calls.
“No!” So I look another minute, then give up and start checking out the phone. It’s an ancient desk console, though, with a lot of buttons and I can’t find anyplace that shows call history.
Plus the longer I’m in there the more amped I get and the less I seem able to think.
“How we doing?” Casey calls.
“Terrible! I can’t figure out this phone.”
A second later he gives me a heart attack, ’cause he’s standing right there. “Let me see.”
So I step aside and let him have at it. The desk calendar has phone numbers and notes and stuff written on it in pencil, so I scan it for anything that might have to do with Dusty Mike. But the red BURIALS keep distracting me. And then I notice that they’re in sort of an L-shape. Down two, over one. Down two, over one. Like the way a horse moves in chess. Which makes my mind flash through that dream I’d had about the Headless Horseman and the sidewalk sections popping up as tombstones.
“I can’t figure it out,” Casey is saying, which shakes me off my horse. And then I hear a motor running outside.
“They’re back!” I gasp.
We look at each other with bug eyes, then as quick as I can I pull the back office door closed and escape with Casey out the front.
We sneak around the buildings and over to the old section, where we hide out behind a big granite monument and catch our breath. “That was close!” Casey whispers. We wait another minute, and since no one seems to be looking for us, we make our way up to the Sunset Crypt.
“At least I didn’t drag you into a corpse cooler, right?” I ask when we’ve collected our stuff, but the truth is I’m feeling pretty stupid. I’d almost gotten us in huge trouble, and for what?
“Are you sure you were looking in the right file drawer?”
“Positive. There were a lot of folders, so maybe I missed it, but I don’t think so.”
“So maybe she was faking the whole thing. Maybe that was her way of getting you to stop worrying about a guy she thinks is a creeper.” And before I can say, Or maybe she just didn’t want me to call the police, he gives me a sweet smackeroo on the lips and says, “You are big trouble, you know that? If this keeps up, I’m going to be kicked out of the house by the end of the week!”
I look at my watch and gasp. “You’re late!”
“I know!”
So we run to the gate on Nightingale, and this time he doesn’t argue when I tell him to go first. “Meet me tomorrow?” he asks through the bars.
I laugh. “If you think your nerves can take it!”
“I’ll be there!”
I watch him go, and then, before I head home, I cross the street and check Dusty Mike’s mailbox.
The mail’s still there.
I also knock on his door.
Still no answer.
On my ride home I try to make sense of the noise in my brain, but I can’t seem to stop the static. There is one sound that chimes through, though, and that’s Teddy Bear’s ringtone. I was sure I’d heard it when we’d been racing across the graveyard on Halloween night. No one else had, though, so … had I just imagined it? Or maybe it had been a real pack of dogs like I’d thought on Halloween.
No, I told myself, it couldn’t have been real dogs. Where had they been? Where had they gone? What had shut them up?
And no, I told myself, I didn’t imagine it.
But if it had been Teddy Bear’s phone ringing, where had he been? He told Officer Borsch he wasn’t there on Halloween, so did someone else have his phone?
Did someone else have that same ringtone?
In the still night air, sounds could really carry, but … how far?
And from where?
“I’m so glad you’re home,” Grams says the instant I’ve slipped through the door. “I had a conversation with your mother today.”
“Uh-oh.”
She pats the couch, inviting me to sit beside her. “She thinks you meeting Casey in the graveyard is a bad idea.”
“You told her?”
“Well, she is your mother and she’s entitled to know.” Then she adds, “And I’m not so sure I like the idea, either. A graveyard is just not a healthy place for young people to spend so much time.”
I plop down on the couch. “Well, great. Just great. You think you might have talked to me first? ’Cause Mom’s for sure told Casey’s dad and he’s probably discussing it with Crazy Candi as we speak! Which means that Casey will get kicked out of the house!”
“That makes no sense. Why would Candi do that?”
“Because she’s forbidden Casey to see me, and if he does, he’s kicked out of the house.”
She blinks at me through her glasses. “So why is he seeing you?”
“Because his mother’s irrational, crazy, and jealous! Just like his sister! You know that!” I hold my head. “I can’t believe you told her!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but she is your mother. And a picnic is one thing. But every day after school?”
“It’s only been two days!”
“Do you have plans for tomorrow?”
I look down and let out a big puffy-cheeked sigh.
She nods. “We need to establish some guidelines. Some limits. And what about homework? How are you doing in school?”
“Wait—what happened to you thinking I was so responsible? So grown-up? Where did that go?”
It’s her turn to look down.
“Grams, she may think she can be a parent from Hollywood, but guess what? She can’t.” I put my hand on her knee. “What do you think?”
She sighs. “I think young people should not meet in a graveyard.”
Now, a week ago I would have said, I agree! It’s weird! But it didn’t seem weird to me anymore. It seemed … nice. So instead I tell her, “It’s not like we have some morbid obsession with death. We only meet there because Casey doesn’t think Heather will ever see us there.”
“I think you’re too young to be this serious about a boy.”
I take a deep breath. “You need to trust me, okay?”
She looks me right in the eye. “I need to set down some ground rules.”
“Fine. But I can’t call him and he can’t call me unles
s it’s from a pay phone because of his mother. And we don’t go to the same school. And his mother says he has to be home by five. And we can’t meet at the mall or the library or somewhere normal because Heather is out there roaming wild. So what does that leave?”
She puts a hand to her forehead and nods. “The graveyard, after school.”
“Exactly.”
“Can we at least choose some days?”
“You mean like Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. The whole thing just seems wrong. If he’s living under his mother’s roof, he should be abiding by his mother’s rules.”
“Even if she’s psycho?”
“If she’s truly psycho, he shouldn’t be living with her at all.”
“Bingo.”
“But in the meantime …”
“In the meantime what?”
“You need to abide by Candi’s rules.” She takes a deep breath. “Just like you need to abide by my rules while you’re living here.”
“So … are you saying your rule is Candi’s rule? That I’m not allowed to see him?”
“I don’t know! Yes!” She waves her hands frantically at the sides of her head. “I just don’t feel right undermining another parent’s authority.”
She didn’t want to discuss it anymore after that, and it put a huge damper on anything else we might have talked about during dinner. And after dishes she took a book and a glass of water and said, “I’m exhausted,” and pretty much locked herself in her room.
A book and bed sounded really good to me, too, but I was way behind on my homework, and my binder and papers were a mess.
So I emptied my backpack and all the rumpled papers and got things separated and organized. Then I started catching up my school calendar. I wrote the assigned homework in regular lead pencil, the projects in blue pencil, and the tests in red.
Now, normally when I catch up my calendar I have this big feeling of relief, because instead of my schoolwork being like a big stressball in my brain, it becomes a beast I can see.
Can tackle.
But this time writing the word test felt like the word burial on Courtney’s calendar. It wasn’t just that I was so far behind in my classes that facing tests felt a little like facing death. It was that it got me thinking about everything that had happened. And maybe my brain was just trying to avoid death by homework, I don’t know, but it kept picturing the word burial on Courtney’s calendar, and I found myself writing it on mine. Under the homework that was due tomorrow, under the test I had in language, there was now a red BURIAL.
Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls Page 20