Good. A side-step.
I pulled the recorder out. “It’s about Nellie Blake. You ever heard of her?”
Mr. Macon took a cigarette out of his chest pocket and tapped the filter end on the table. “Sure. My old man liked to talk. Nellie getting killed ripped the town apart. But that was lifetimes ago.”
“Ripped apart how?” I asked.
He twirled the cigarette in his fingers. “Lacy Thornton’s people claimed her death was an accident. But most folks blamed Truman Baker.”
“Red’s father? Why blame him?” Harm asked.
“Truman rigged the brakes.” He said it flat and simple. The earth is round, the sky is blue, Truman rigged the brakes.
Harm flushed. I guess it’s hard hearing you carry murder in your genes.
Mr. Macon smiled. “Don’t take it so hard, kid. There’s degrees of murder. First-degree, second-degree, manslaughter.”
“Right,” Harm said. “But there’s only one degree of dead.”
“Why would Truman Baker want to hurt Nellie or her father?” I asked as the guard started toward us.
“Ask Red Baker,” he said as the guard stopped beside us. “He saw what happened. That’s the way I hear it, anyway.”
Red Baker? An eyewitness to murder?
“You got another visitor, Macon,” the guard said, nodding toward the door. A slight man in a shiny suit stood tapping his foot. “Says he’s your attorney.”
“Send him away. I’m busy.”
That’s Mr. Macon for you. He bosses people around even when he’s the one wearing orange. He stood up and slipped the cigarette back in his pocket. “I got to get back inside,” he told us.
He reached over to tousle Dale’s hair. Dale ducked. “See you, Daddy,” Dale said, a blush creeping up his neck.
I hate Mr. Macon.
“Tell your mama . . .”
“Tell her yourself,” I said standing up. “Dale and me are busy.”
“Hey Mo,” Mr. Macon called as we reached the door, “tell the Colonel I’m grateful.” I turned. He looked smaller standing there in Prison Issue, like a pocketknife folded to hide the cutting edge.
“Grateful for what?”
“He’ll know,” Mr. Macon said, and nodded at the guard, who led him away.
Chapter 34
A Perfect Match
The next day, Monday, I thumb-tacked a flyer to the school bulletin board:
Dale and I stepped back to admire my work. He’d been quiet since our jailhouse interview, but he was starting to come back around.
Hannah Greene skidded around the corner, her arms spilling over with library books. Hannah never studies. She doesn’t need to. “Hey, where you been?” I asked.
“Dentist,” she said. She tugged a note from her Ray Bradbury. “Mama and I stopped at the café. The Colonel sent this.” I unfolded the note as she sped off.
Soldier. You have a UPS package from that weirdo Cousin Gideon. It’s by the jukebox. I’m going to Winston-Salem for a few days to pick up records from my old office. I’ll call tonight, and I’ll see you when I get back. Keep a low profile: Lana’s plotting costumes. Love, the Colonel.
“Cool,” Dale said. “UPS.”
• •
After school, we ripped into the box. “Wow,” Dale exclaimed, pushing the packing away. “It’s . . . one of those.”
“Right.” I lifted the black box onto a table. Dale squinted at its white gauge. I placed the electronic wand beside it. “A Geiger counter?” he guessed.
A letter fluttered to the floor.
Dearest Mo,
I borrowed this vintage do-flop from my ghost-hunting friend. It measures electromagnetic charge in the air. She says ghosts are made of it. Just place the wand in ghostly spots and the energy registers on the dial. Happy hunting!
Cousin Gideon
PS: Hope this gets you a footnote.
“This could get us more than a footnote,” I told Dale. “This could get us hard evidence versus what we got so far—circumstantial and hearsay.”
“We are pretty much eyewitnesses,” Dale said. “Won’t that count?”
I shook my head. “Miss Retzyl’s sweet, but she’ll believe we saw a ghost like she’d believe we rowed George Washington across the Delaware,” I told him. “We need proof.”
“What on earth?” Miss Lana asked, rushing in from the kitchen in her parrot-colored fiesta outfit and Cher wig.
“Ghostometer,” Dale replied. “From Cousin Gideon.”
She smiled like a ghostometer’s normal as a slipcover—one of the things I like about her. “Mo, could you set out the chili bowls, please? And Dale, if you’d move the cactus out of the kitchen and string the lights?”
“Sí, ma’am,” Dale replied.
“Gracias, honey,” she said. “Oh, and Mo. You’ll be glad to know I’ve found a gorgeous 1938 party dress on Skeeter-Bay—just my color and size.”
Costuming? My heart sped up like Lavender’s foot had hit the accelerator. “That’s great, Miss Lana. I wanted to talk to you about clothes. For The Bash.”
“Oh no,” Dale said, veering toward the cactus.
“Costuming’s the chili powder of life, sugar,” she said. “Wait ’til you see what else I found. I had to guess the Colonel’s size, of course, but I think he’ll be pleased. And you’re going to love what I found for you.” The skin on my back tingled. “Don’t thank me,” she said as Dale dragged a potted cactus across the floor.
“Miss Lana, I think I might go regular,” I said. “You know. As a sixth grader.”
She put her hands on her hips, her bracelets clanking. She studied me, her gray eyes puzzled. “Regular? But why?” She sighed. “Perhaps you’re rebelling.”
“Yes,” Dale said, squinting at me. “I think that could be it.”
She shrugged and gave me a smile. “Well, we all know what Bill says.”
Crud.
Miss Lana’s on a pet-name basis with William Shakespeare.
I didn’t have to ask what she meant. She’s said it so often, I hear it in my sleep: “All the world’s a stage, sugar, so hop on up there.”
I tried not to imagine what she’d ordered for me. “Yes ma’am. I’ll take the ghostometer to my flat.”
• •
The next day—Tuesday, a so-called teachers’ workday—dawned bright and cool. I met Dale in the inn’s polished parlor, after breakfast. “Harm says he has an errand,” he reported.
“I hope that means he’s putting the blueprints back,” I said.
Dale shook his head. “He can’t spring them from the garage. Lavender and Sam are working in there around the clock.”
“Hey Desperados, what’s that?” Lavender asked, elbowing his way through the inn’s front door with an armload of boxes.
“Ghostometer,” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d moved in with the Duesenberg.”
His eyes sparkled like Dale’s when Queen Elizabeth learns a trick. “You know me going and coming,” he said. “That car’s a thing of absolute beauty. But I promised Miss Lana I’d work on the pavilion today. With The Bash just around the corner, she’s on edge. So Sam’s working on the car and I’m over here, trying not to be jealous.”
Dale eyed Lavender’s boxes. “You need help?”
Lavender tied a nail apron around his waist. “Now that you mention it, I could use some muscle and a woman’s eye down at the pavilion for a few minutes.”
A WOMAN’S EYE? MINE?
I grabbed my camera. “Mo LoBeau, at your service.”
“I’ll help,” Dale said, and peered into a box. “Nice . . . plain old lightbulbs.”
Lavender grinned. “Like me, they dress up good. Miss Lana splurged on paper lanterns for them. You two grab the boxes, and I’ll get the ladder.
How long since you’ve seen the pavilion?”
“A couple weeks, maybe.”
“You’re in for a surprise.”
Surprise didn’t come close. The trail sloped to the springhouse, turned, and headed down to the pavilion as always. But the weeds and washouts were gone, replaced by neat timbers and crunchy white gravel. Lavender stopped at the bottom of the trail. “We’ll add a fancy archway here for folks to walk through. Miss Lana’s idea.”
Miss Lana loves to make an entrance.
“But for now, feast your eyes on Tupelo Landing’s newest night spot,” he said, with the flourish of a circus acrobat. “The Tupelo Pavilion—an outdoor paradise.”
“It looks more like a huge platform with rails around the edges so we don’t fall off,” Dale said, worry skating across his face.
“You’re a natural poet,” Lavender teased. “It’ll look better with the finishing touches. Note the stage for the talent,” he said, setting his ladder by a tall corner post. “That would be you and Harm.”
“I’m their manager,” I said, like he didn’t know. I picked up my camera and framed the small stage at the far end of the pavilion. Click.
Lavender scampered up the ladder. “Who are you guys coming with?”
Dale looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a social occasion,” he said as I unraveled a string of lights. “You can come with somebody if you want to.” He looked at Dale. “Like, a girl?”
“He’s coming with Sal,” I said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Dale popped open a box of bulbs. “I am?”
Lavender shot his brother a grin. “Sal’s sweet. Hand me that hammer, would you? How about you, Mo?”
“I’m available, if you’re asking.”
“Me? Go out with you?” He grinned like he always does when I ask him, which I’ve been asking ever since I turned six. He said what he always says: “You’re a baby. Besides, I’ve already got a date.”
I passed him the hammer. “Not the big-haired twins again. They’re an environmental hazard,” I said. “They use enough hairspray to shellac a lizard in its tracks. You need somebody ecological. Somebody like me.”
He moved his ladder down. “How do these lights look, Mo?” he asked, holding the string of lights against the next post. “Does that seem about right?”
Everything seems about right when I’m talking to Lavender, but I backed up and unfocused my eyes, trying to get the feel of the lights against the river’s soft lines. “They need to be looser,” I said, and he let the line dip. “Like that. Miss Lana says everything about a party’s got to flow.”
An hour or so later I dusted my hands. “I’d love to stay and enchant you further,” I said. “But Dale and me got to wind up our investigation. We got rough drafts due Friday, with the possibility of oral reports hanging over us like guillotines.”
“Oral reports. Ouch.”
Dale gave Lavender a careful look. “I went to see Daddy,” he said, very casual. “I didn’t ask you because I knew you wouldn’t want to go.”
There’s no love between Lavender and Mr. Macon. Not for a long time.
Lavender laid his hammer on top of the ladder. “How’s he doing?”
Dale shrugged. “Same dog, same spots.” Lavender’s face went soft as Miss Rose’s when she thinks I’m not looking.
“He means leopard,” I explained. “A leopard doesn’t . . .”
“I know what he means,” Lavender said. “I’m sorry, Dale.” He looked at Dale the way he looks at an engine when he’s trying to figure out why it’s running ragged. “Macon’s broke inside. It’s not our fault. It’s just the way it is.”
Dale nodded.
Lavender picked up his hammer. “If I thought you were the one that landed him in jail, little brother, I’d thank you for it,” he said.
Dale jumped like he’d stepped on a live wire. “Thank me?”
“Sure. Mama’s safe, you’re safe. Macon’s looking at hard time—which means he might find time to take a hard look at himself. It’s tough knowing what’s good and what’s bad the first time you see things.”
The river lapped against the pavilion, and the wind sent a shower of scarlet maple leaves cartwheeling to the water. Dale squared his shoulders. “That’s what I was thinking too,” he said. “More or less. Come on, Mo. Nellie’s waiting.”
• •
Moments later, as we scampered up the inn’s steps, I caught the glint of sun-on-chrome behind the cedars. I squinted. Detective Joe Starr’s Impala! “What’s Starr doing here?” I asked. Queen Elizabeth II, who’d been napping in the sun, lifted her head.
“Stalking Mr. Red’s still, most likely,” Dale said. “Which I wonder if he even has a still. Because if he’s not out digging up money, seems like he’s hanging around the house. Maybe he’s retired,” he said, reaching down to smooth Queen Elizabeth’s ears.
I pushed the front door open. “Nellie? You home?”
Silence.
“Let’s ghostometer the desk and piano,” I said, veering to our equipment. I found a note stuck to the dial:
“He’s moving Mr. Red’s blueprints,” I said. “Finally.” I peeked at my Elvis watch. 11:25. “But that doesn’t give us much time.”
I clicked on the ghostometer. The needle on the dial quivered, and lay still. Dale ran the wand along the desk. Nothing.
I held the wand while Dale played a few chords on the piano and hummed.
Still nothing.
“I hope she’s not depressed about her daddy’s letter,” Dale said, looking worried. “Depression kills. Of course, Nellie’s already . . . you know.”
“Maybe she’s in the library,” I said, turning the ghostometer off.
We trudged up the stairs, Queen Elizabeth bobbing behind. Dale eased the door open. “Nellie?”
I set up on the library table. “Maybe she’s scared of the ghostometer,” I said as Dale ran the wand along a shelf of books. “It is ugly,” I added as his wand snagged on a book, toppling it to the floor. “I got it, Dale. You keep scanning.”
The book, with its faded green cover, fit my hands. “A Girl’s Book of Poems,” I read, and opened it. “It’s Nellie’s!” I ran my finger across a signature written in faded brown ink. “Look, she smudged this one too,” I said. “Just like her geometry book. I guess clumsy is forever.”
The room went ice cold and the ghostometer’s needle shot across the dial. “She’s here!” I cried. Queen Elizabeth sneezed.
Dale spun in a circle. “But where . . . She’s gone,” he said. “What happened?” Queen Elizabeth snuffled and he scratched her ears. “I think Liz is allergic to her.”
“Liz is allergic to rosemary,” I said, tapping the ghostometer to see if that might help. Nothing. I tapped it harder. Still nothing.
“What rosemary?” he asked.
What rosemary?
“Don’t you smell it? It always smells like rosemary when Nellie’s around.”
Dale narrowed his eyes. “I never smell rosemary. You two got ghost noses,” he said. “Like ghost eyes, only with nostrils.” While I took that in, he ran the wand along the other bookshelves.
“She’s gone,” I said, slap-tuning the ghostometer. The needle didn’t flinch. “Why was she even here?” I asked, trying not to picture Attila’s sneer if we had to give an oral report without hard evidence.
“Maybe she liked your joke: ‘Clumsy is forever,’” Dale said.
The needle jumped.
“Why? It’s not that funny,” I said, staring at the dial. “Clumsy is forever.”
Again, the needle jumped.
“What on earth?” Dale asked, padding to me.
“Or not on earth,” I said. “Let’s restage the scene. You knocked this book down, I picked it up . . .” I opened A Girl’s Bo
ok of Poems with its ink smudge across the title page. I stared at the ink, every cell in my body tingling.
Of course. The ink.
“Dale, get Starr.”
Dale let the wand swing to his side. “Why?”
“Because I know what Nellie wants. Are you ready to make an A in history and go Paranormal Famous? Because we got scientific ghost proof that will hold up in a court of law,” I said, heading for the door.
“What scientific proof?” he demanded. “What court of law?”
“Give me time to go to the café and back. Find Starr and keep him here,” I shouted, sprinting down the stairs. “You’re practically Honor Roll!”
“I am? Why?” he shouted from the top of the stairs. “How did I do it?”
I jumped on my bike and sped away.
• •
“Fingerprints?” Detective Joe Starr said fifteen minutes later, staring at me like I’d sprouted wings—which, if I’d biked any faster, I would have. “You can’t fingerprint a ghost.”
“We can,” I said. “This is foolproof, isn’t it Dale?”
“I hope so,” he said.
“We’d do it ourselves if our fingerprint kit had come in,” I said.
Dale nodded. “It’s been delayed by we didn’t order it,” he explained.
Joe Starr looked at his watch—a gift from Miss Retzyl. “I know you got a kit in your car,” I said. “Normally I wouldn’t ask, but this is a 911 history situation. It’s for Miss Retzyl.”
Starr tapped his foot. He keeps his shoes polished to a high sheen.
“Girls like guys who help kids,” Dale added. “Miss Retzyl is a girl. Sort of.”
Starr sighed. “She already likes me,” he said, “but let’s see what you got.”
As Starr crossed the porch, Dale lunged and pinched my arm like an anxious crab. “Fingerprinting a ghost?” he said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Trust me,” I replied.
“Those words again,” he muttered, but he followed me to the window overlooking the river as Starr bustled back in with his kit.
“All right,” Starr said. “Where’s your print?”
I breathed heavy on the windowpane. Starr squinted.
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing Page 19