by K A Goodsell
I took John Doe out of my saddlebag, placing him on top of Sarah’s gravestone once again. It had become a natural place for him to rest while I’m doing research here or just visiting. He looked at home—which he kind of is, since he’s dead and all.
“It must not be all that bad being a skeleton,” Gage said, plopping his bags onto the ground in front of Daniel Hughes’s gravestone and unzipping one. “I mean, let’s list the pros and cons.”
“Okay, I’ll play along.”
“Pros—” He pulled out the drone from the larger bag. It didn’t seem safe, having it loose in there like that, but he built it, so it was his toy. He continued: “—no acne.”
“You can scare kids easily on Halloween,” I added.
“No shaving.”
“It’s hard to murder you since you’re already dead.”
“No awkward chin flab.”
I looked up and saw him pushing his chin into his neck as much as he could. He created the smallest double chin I had ever seen. Even mine is more than that when I just look downward. “Your list was all about vanity.”
“A guy has to look and feel good, you know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, cons?”
“Clothes may be too big.”
I nodded. That was a good one. “Maybe you’ll smell bad? Since, you know, your flesh just rotted off you and all.”
Gage stopped pulling out equipment and stared intently at me. “This is why people call you Reaper, you know? It’s talk like that.”
“Good, it lets them know I probably don’t want to talk to them if they can’t handle the reality of mortality.”
For several minutes, we puttered around the cemetery quietly. Full, dark clouds rolled in overhead, the perfect backdrop to our endeavor.
“So how come you’re at the cemetery? I thought after the funeral you may want to crash out for a bit?” Gage looked up at me as he let the drone warm up.
I had no answer. I just wanted to be somewhere quiet, somewhere I felt comfortable. That was here. At the cemetery.
“Sorry, I figured this was your spot, but I can leave if you want me to. If you want quiet.” He stumbled, powering down the drone.
“That’d be great, thanks,” I told him, pulling my jacket in closer. I was totally messing with him, and I wondered how long it would take for him to notice.
He scrambled. “Oh, okay. Didn’t think you’d say that. No problem.”
I turned around and winked at him. “It’s fine, I was just kidding.”
“Oh.” He laughed awkwardly. “Sorry, I’m not good with death. I don’t know how people will process.”
“I’m fine,” I told him, nodding assuringly. “I promise. Really, I am.”
I turned around again, looking out over the gravestones, and saw John.
I wondered if John Doe had been part of the war. The Civil War marched through Pine Grove before heading upstate, so maybe he was a solider?
I leaned down to my saddlebag and opened it to see if I had my notebook inside.
It wasn’t there.
Oh, no no. Did I leave it at the cemetery?
I rustle through my bag, searching until I hit the bottom, but continue going just in case my bag was magically Mary Poppins-worthy.
“This is not good,” I murmured. “I need to go back to the Hale Cemetery.”
“What, why? I just got the drone ready to go again.”
“I think I must have dropped my notebook.” I stopped flailing through my bag. It’s not in there, what’s the use? “It has everything in it.”
“You can use my notebook if you want. It’s on that gravestone over there.”
He pointed towards the front of the cemetery, and I realized right away he was pointing towards my good friend Sarah.
“Oh, okay. Will you drive me over to the cemetery? I still don’t have my car back from the sheriff’s office,” I mumbled, more disappointed in myself than anything for not bringing my own tools and maybe losing the notebook. It would be awful. Everything was in it, all the research I’ve done on the residents of Pine Grove historic cemeteries.
Gage nodded. I peered back over to where his notebook rested. “I guess Sarah is keeping it safe for you.”
“What was that?” Gage said over his shoulder, fiddling with one blade on the drone.
I reached up toward the top of Sarah’s gravestone and picked up the small, black book, standing the process. It was heavy and looked to be made of real leather. Embossed into the front cover was a golden feather. I felt the ridges with my fingertips before unclasping the elastic strap that kept it together. “I said that Sarah was keeping your book safe. You put it on top of her stone.” As I opened the small book, a folded piece of paper fell out onto the grass below.
“What?” Gage shouted over his shoulder again, this time louder.
I was too focused on picking up the piece of paper to answer, not wanting him to know I had dropped something out of his notebook. What if I got it dirty or something? I’d be livid if it were mine. Then again, I’m anal-retentive and have OCD when it comes to my office supplies. My bullet journal has to be perfect. Let me please not make a mistake, or I’d have to start over again.
Yes, I know it’s a waste.
No, I don’t care.
Bending back up, I unfolded the paper. Blank.
Damn it, I thought it’d be something good.
Gage was looking at me with suspicious eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I wasn’t just snooping through your stuff.
He didn’t believe me, I could tell.
“Just be careful.” He said it in a patronizing friend kind of way that made me want to scream. “I don’t want to see you hurt by that guy.”
That guy meaning Elgort?
I didn’t know what to say to that. He was worried about my well-being? Weird. “Who?”
“He’s a douche. I’m sorry, but he is. All the guys on the football team are. Guys like O’Moore; they only care about one thing. As soon as they get what they want, they’re bored.”
“I don’t think that’s right, but I’m just going to leave that there and let you fester in it.”
We both frantically searched for a way to make conversation, but every topic thrown out there by either one of us was closed up in less than five sentences.
The cemetery had grown quiet. The breeze had settled, leaving us feeling chilled. The mourning doves had silenced their song. Our only company was the sun, which had risen to its highest point in the sky, warming my shoulders as I dragged a pen across Gage’s notebook, documenting the inscription on the gravestone one section at a time. It was a hard way of documenting all the gravestones, and I had only kept my own records over the year, but never this detailed. I liked it. The past had to be remembered. Otherwise, all we had was the present. And the present largely sucked.
“I don’t think he was buried here.” I blurted.
“What?”
“I don’t think Daniel Lockwood was buried here.” I looked around the cemetery. “I would know if he was. Most of the people buried here are related to me in some shape or form, and for the ones that aren’t, I have documentation of when and why they were buried here. I documented some people who worked on the farm.”
Gage nodded. “Okay. Do you think he was buried at another cemetery?”
“I looked through all of my family’s notes, including any ancestry notes for the town’s residents and he would have been buried with family or somewhere prestigious. I mean, come on, he helped found the town, right?” I looked around and thought about whether his grave could be over at Hale Cemetery. But it hadn’t even been around. What about the cemetery near the cottages? That was the oldest cemetery in town. It’s possible he was there. “What about Old World Cemetery? Right by your place?”
“It’s possible,” Gage responded, considering it. “We have some really old gravestones. It’s possible it wore down, and we lost the record.”
; “But the town clerk kept record of all burials and there wasn’t one.”
“Maybe he did something we didn’t know about and he was buried without a gravestone.”
I turned on my heels towards him. That was possible. “That would be awful, though.”
“True, but it could have happened.”
I nod in agreement. “Still doesn’t tell us why someone wrote to avenge the death of their family member, Daniel Lockwood, when we literally have no one in town related to him.”
“What about related by marriage?”
“There’s no record he married anyone.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t.”
I’d never thought of that. It would be considered awful if you married someone without telling the town, let alone had a family outside of wedlock. But maybe that was the case, and that was why there’s no record?
Gage brought the drone softly to the ground in between two gravestones a few feet away. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything else today. I don’t know about you, but I’m wiped out mentally, and when that happens its time to check out. Also, I’m a hungry hungry hippo.”
“Hippo suits you. Can you still drop me at Hale Cemetery so I can look for my notebook?”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help you look for your notebook and then you owe me lunch at the diner. I’m starving. Have any marbles?”
Even though Hale Cemetery was a mere two minutes away from Center, the drive there felt like an eternity. All I wanted to do was find my notebook, and the music playing out of the speakers was muddling my thoughts.
The gray in the sky was becoming more prominent and resembled an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
“Okay, so we’ve got about three more areas we can check that are logical places.” Gage’s words dragged me out of my thoughts. I looked at him, grateful for the distraction yet amazed that he was going along with this. “If we don’t find him there, I’m out of ideas.”
“Old World still seems like the most logical place he would have been buried.” I looked around the graveyard. “Center Cemetery I think is out.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Maybe there was another, closer community graveyard we don’t know about.”
Gage nodded. “I don’t disagree that it’s a possibility.” As we got deeper into the graveyard, it was possible to see stones so old they had nothing on them. “One thing I thought of was that he might have wanted to be buried near his family home, but if that did happen then I don’t know that we will ever find it,” he said.
“I checked into that when I was first researching, but it doesn’t seem likely. I looked into his ledger he kept when the town was first established, you know, tracking how much it cost to purchase certain items, and there is a page talking about the Center Cemetery, which was closer to his home, and how he wanted to be buried somewhere he would be away from them. Some of what he wrote makes me think he believed in supernatural creatures and maybe thought it would be safer for his family if he was far away should he rise unexpectedly.”
“Wow, I feel that, buddy. Zombies. It can happen.”
“No, he was hanging out with my ancestor. That’s why there are hair samples from everyone who died in town. He had his own idea of some things, and apparently one of his greatest fears was his body rising. I don’t know that they had stories about vampires, or zombies, or anything like that, but he definitely got it into his head that there was a possibility a body could become reanimated.” I shook my head. “Maybe it was just one of those things that getting close to death did. I don’t know.”
Unexpected rain came down as we drove. I groaned.
Being out in the cold was inevitable as the cold front blew into Pine Grove. I glanced at my watch, yawning. It was getting late, and I knew we were doing oysters and cake tonight. My family had a weird tradition of having cake before dinner and then dinner a little later into the evening. As per my father, “Always have dessert first; life is short”.
Gage pulled into Hale Cemetery, and his hand reached out to brush mine as I turned on the radio. I glanced at him, our eyes meeting for a moment before he turned his attention back to the dirt path and parked. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do when this is over?”
“The investigation?”
“Yeah. It’s taken up so much of my time I have no idea what I will do with it when it’s finally done.” Gage smiled.
I laughed. “Well, for now I’m going to continue to focus on this and then celebrate tonight and tomorrow. Who knows, maybe we’ll solve it on my birthday.”
“Birthday?” Gage turned the car off. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Tonight, we’re celebrating with oysters and cake. It’s a tradition we do every year. We celebrate with a feast going into a birthday to kind of start off in the best way possible.”
“A full stomach and a happy heart.” Gage nodded in appreciation as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
I sat back in my seat and smiled at him. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, I like it.”
“Thanks. So do I.” We looked out into the rain. “I didn’t bring a jacket or an umbrella.”
“I’m not one of those guys that just has an extra, I’m sorry,” he apologized. It was an actual apology.
“Oh, no,” I blurted. “I didn’t think you would have something for me. I was just moping because I’m going to get soaked. We’re both going to get soaked, but you don’t have to come look with me if you don’t want to.”
“Too late.” He opened his door and jumped out.
I stepped out of the Jeep and walked over to the side where Andre had chased down Tag. “If anywhere, I’m guessing its over here.” I waved toward the area of the cemetery near the lone pine tree and picked back up our conversation from the car. “I used to be embarrassed of the way we celebrated my birthday. Primarily when I was a kid. I always wanted to have a birthday party on my actual birthday. Until I was like ten, I thought my birthday was the day after.”
“That’s rough,” he said and laughed. “I kind of know the feeling in a way. My parents always celebrated Raimy and me together when all we wanted was our own party.”
“Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about all the split parties. Dinosaurs and dolls or aliens and horses.” I laughed as we walked up the small hill to the flat portion of land. “Always the weirdest themes.”
The rain came down harder, and I could already feel my skin sticking to my clothes. I needed to find my notebook soon if was out here, or it would be ruined.
“Well, that’s what happens when you have twins and they like total polar opposites. But, I mean, come on, tell me that aliens vs horses wouldn’t be an epic tale?”
“Oh, epic is so not the word.” I laughed harder. “Disturbing, that’s the one.” I stopped at the pine tree and caught my breath. “So, the reason we’re looking around here is that you missed a showdown earlier. After Teddy’s funeral, your brother, Tag, decided he was going to attack Andre.”
“What?” Gage had stopped walking and was looking around at the ground for my notebook. “Why?”
“Apparently Andre said something about Rebecca and how she needs to stay away from him. But he did it in a rude way at the funeral.” I looked around the ground for my notebook, as well. It should have been somewhat easy to spot. “In other words, your brother didn’t like whatever he said. I guess he accused Andre of having a weapon, and Andre chased Tag all the way from the funeral to this tree.” I noticed a dark shape in the grass. My notebook! “Yes, found my notebook! It’s a little soggy, but it’s my notebook!” I called out to Gage as I picked it up, scanning through it to make sure all was still there—which it was.
“How tall is Andre?”
“Maybe like six-foot-three?” I walked over to where Gage was on the other side of the tree. “Why?”
Gage pointed upwards.
Above us was a deputy body camera and holster hanging from a tree branch about that high up.
&nb
sp; We sat in silence for the next few minutes before pulling the Jeep into the driveway of the cottages. The cool wind flapped my jacket open and closed as I shut the door behind me. We walked up to the first cottage in the row of five. “The first one is mine. The next one back is Raimy and then goes on from there with everyone else.”
He picked up a rock from beside the door. It was a fake rock with a key in the bottom.
“That’s clever.”
He smiled. “Right? Who would think?”
“Well, now I know how to rob you.”
Gage unlocked the door and held it open for me.
That was nice of him.
“That would be a sight to see. Mi casa su casa, come on in.”
I glanced around the opening of the small living and dining areas and kitchen. All wood interiors gave it the “log cabin” feel, and boy was it warmer than outside. I spotted a fireplace. “Can we start a fire? We never start ours at the house because my mom thinks it’s dangerous.”
“You read my mind.”
It felt weird knowing that Gage has his own cabin and I was standing in it. No parents, no rules except his.
Huh, I wonder what his rules are.
“Do you have rules for your cabin?” I asked as I pushed my Converse onto the rubber mat near the door.
“Rules?”
“Like, leave your shoes at the door, put the plates in the dishwasher right after you eat, use the towels multiple times to help the Earth?”
“I do love polar bears and being ecofriendly is important.”
“Oh?”
“But you probably don’t want to know how many times I use my towel.”
I laughed, almost snorting but stopping myself. “You’re probably right.”
“I’ll give you a tour.” We walked from the small entryway with enough space to throw shoes and a couple of coats to a great room with the fireplace. “This is my living room, where I play all of my video games. As you can see, I left the TV on, as I am a responsible adult with a capital A. You can see I’ve got Grand Theft Auto V all ready to be played.” He walked up to the television and pointed at the screen. “Right under that is Alien Isolation because I like to get scared and I like to get rambunctious.”