by Delia Ray
“The goods!” he said louder, getting more excited by the second. “Cash. Jewels. Whatever! You say there’s something funny going on, right? The Ransoms sound just like one of those families in the Mob. And they’ve got the perfect place to hide all their money. A cemetery vault! Who would ever think of snooping there? Right, Mellecker?”
Mellecker’s mouth had spread into a slow smile. All at once I could see it. He was too smart to really believe any of this stuff. But he was having fun playing along. “Yeah, but what if the vault’s where they hide all the people they knock off?” he asked.
I bobbed my head up and down. “Yeah.”
Beez grimaced. “Oh, man. That’d be foul. But still … this project could definitely use some spicing up. You gotta get us that key, Crenshaw. We gotta see what’s inside.” A wicked look flashed across his wide face. “Hey, maybe we can even snag a little cash or a diamond or two.”
I felt my mouth opening and closing like I was some kind of beached fish gulping for air. My plan had backfired in a major way. But before I could confess or interrupt with something sensible, the bell rang, and everyone was grabbing their trays, bolting for the door.
Beez pointed his stubby finger at me as he stood up to go. “Do this, Crenshaw,” he said. “Get … that … key!”
NO WONDER JEETER WAS SURPRISED to see me stroll into the cemetery office a couple days later. Even though Mr. Oliver’s graveyard project had brought us back together, I hadn’t set foot in the office for weeks. Jeeter was halfway asleep when I walked in, with his work boots propped up on the old oak desk in the corner and the soft buzz of a baseball game droning on the radio. He almost tipped backward in his swivel chair when he heard the office door creak open.
“Dang it, Linc,” he said, his dazed face filling with relief. He clomped his boots to the floor. “I thought you were Kilgore.”
“Kilgore?” I asked with a start. “Aren’t you the only one here on Saturdays? Mr. Nicknish never used to work on the weekends.”
“Well, times have changed,” Jeeter said with a forlorn smile. He reached up to scrub one hand across his goatee and then his sleepy eyes. “Kilgore’s been known to show up on one or two Saturdays. Thinks he needs to keep tabs on me, I guess.”
He craned his neck to check the clock on the wall behind him. “The good news is if he were comin’, he would have already made an appearance by now. He likes to keep his Saturday afternoons open for …” Jeeter paused, unable to hide a smirk as he filled in the blank. “For his reenactment club.”
“What?” I dropped my backpack and plopped into the nearest chair. “What’s a reenactment club?”
“Oh, you know. A bunch of guys dress up in uniforms and pretend they’re living back in Civil War times.” A grin crept across Jeeter’s face and kept widening until it was ready to burst at the seams. “They march and fight battles. Camp out. Eat salt pork. Drink out of canteens.”
“No way,” I gasped. “Kilgore pretends he’s a soldier?”
“Not just any soldier,” Jeeter said. He poked out his chest like a rooster. “Word has it he’s worked his way up to field commander.”
I let out an amazed laugh. But actually, it wasn’t too hard to imagine—Kilgore with a musket slung over his shoulder, snarling orders with his uniform buttoned up tight around that bony Adam’s apple of his.
Jeeter leaned forward with his elbows on his desk, observing me. “Hey, I’ve been getting to see a lot of you lately. What are you up to? More research on that project of yours?”
I shrugged and tried to avoid Jeeter’s gaze. “Yep. I just thought I’d stop by before I head over to the Black Angel. I need to copy down all the words in the epitaph.”
If Jeeter noticed me acting funny, he didn’t let on. He scrunched his eyebrows together. “Isn’t that epitaph written in some kind of foreign language?”
I told him the words were written in Czech. “And guess what. You know Mr. Krasny from down the street? He actually speaks Czech, and he said he’ll help me translate the inscription.”
Jeeter wiggled his shoulders up and down. “Oh, Lord, Linc. You just gave me the heebie-jeebies. You sure you wanna know what that epitaph says?”
“Of course I do. Those words might be the clue I’ve been looking for.” I decided Jeeter didn’t need to know about Theresa’s two dead sons. Or her two dead husbands. Or the rattlesnake bite. Or her amputation.
“I’d have a hard time closing my eyes at night if I was you,” Jeeter teased. He gave himself a little shake and rose to his feet. “Well, I guess I better be heading down to the workshop. We got a leaf blower on the fritz, and I promised Captain Kilgore I’d get it fixed this weekend.”
I stayed rooted in my chair a beat longer. I had stopped by that day intending to take a quick look around the office and convince myself, once and for all, that it would be impossible to swipe the key. But now I could see there wasn’t a padlock on the closet door, like I expected, and no security camera hanging in the corner. And here was Jeeter, ready to wander off and leave the office unattended.
I stood up. “Hey, you mind if I use your bathroom before I go?” I asked, trying to keep the false edge out of my voice. I hated the whole idea of tricking Jeeter, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
Jeeter had his hand on the doorknob. “No problem. But make sure to twist the lock on the front door on your way out, okay? I’ll be down in the shop.”
My heart started to clunk in my chest as soon as Jeeter was gone. I stared at the key closet, barely five steps away. The door stood ajar, almost begging me to investigate. Just a quick look, I told myself. Then I’m out of here.
With one more glance over my shoulder, I darted toward the closet and slipped inside. The light came on with a pop when I pulled the string hanging next to a bare bulb in the ceiling, and I stood blinking at the nail holes and the blank spot on the wall where the key cabinet used to be. I let out a small sigh of resigned relief. So that’s that, I thought. The keys had been moved. Kilgore had probably decided to lock them up in the safe, where they should have been kept all along.
I was ready to go. I even had my hand on the string to the light switch when I spotted it—the old wooden key case. It was on the floor in the corner, propped against a dented set of metal file drawers. The cabinet must have come loose from the wall, and no one had bothered remounting it.
I stood wavering, imagining myself plunking the key down in front of Mellecker at the lunch table. Beez’s jaw would drop open, and Amy would realize I wasn’t just some dork who could thread microfilm and … before I knew it, I had knelt down, lifted the metal latch, and pulled the door back on its squeaky hinges. Inside were several rows of keys on hooks, all different shapes and sizes, each labeled with a small cardboard tag. I leaned forward and squinted at the words. Fuel Pump … Lee Street Gate … Equipment Shed. Obviously not what I needed.
I figured I had already spent about five minutes on my “bathroom break.” If I stayed much longer, Jeeter might notice and get suspicious. I reached out and flicked through more of the tags. There! I started to see keys labeled with names of families and the sections where their vaults were located.
Mulholland/Rose Hill … Yoder/Forest Lawn.
But the names weren’t in any kind of order. A rumble of sound exploded somewhere below. I jerked back in surprise, then realized it was only Jeeter in the workshop next door, trying to coax his machinery back to life.… Whittington/Cedar Lane … Abernathy/Sunny Slope … It was stuffy in the closet. My skin started to prickle with sweat as I listened to the leaf blower growl and sputter, vibrating the floorboards under my knees.
I had fumbled through all the tags and almost decided to give up for good when I noticed one last key resting at the bottom of the cabinet. It was probably four inches long—an old-fashioned key, too big to fit on any of the hooks. I picked it up, and my palm tingled with the heavy weight of the rust-colored metal. A worn paper tag dangled from a string tied to the curlicued top. The cursive was in pe
ncil and fuzzy with age, but I could still make out the name.
My fist closed around the key. The key to my new life in junior high.
THE KEY FELT LIKE SOMETHING alive in the front pocket of my sweatshirt, waiting for its chance to crawl out of hiding. As I hurried through the graveyard, I scanned the distant tombstones for anyone watching and then switched the key to a safer spot, deep in the front pocket of my jeans.
But it wasn’t long before the sound of Winslow’s cranky voice came drifting toward me from across the cemetery. Can you believe he just did that, Dobbins? Snatched that key? And now he actually might do it! Trespass on sacred ground!
I know, I know. It’s enough to make you turn over in your grave. Right, York?
Yeah. I’ve turned over so many times in the last ten minutes, I’m getting dizzy. But you don’t think he’ll really go through with it, do you, McNutt?
Over my dead body!
You forgettin’ something, Nutty? You are dead.
Oh, yeah.
I glared into the distance and started walking faster toward the Black Angel. I was grateful to have a mission. It would help take my mind off the key for a while. When I reached the foot of the monument, I went right to work. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my secret weapon for reading faded epitaphs—a plastic bag full of flour. Lottie had taught me that trick a long time ago. I walked around to the back side of the monument, and with my hand full of flour I reached out and dusted my palm back and forth across the carved words in the inscription. It took a few more scoops from my Ziploc bag, but soon the white flour began to fill in the crevices of the weathered letters as if they had been painted.
I wiped my hands on my sweatshirt and dug in my backpack for my notebook and a pen. The flour had worked like a charm on the first two lines of the epitaph. I could copy down the strange words from several feet away.
PRO MNE SLUNCE MRAKY KRYLY CESTA BYLA TRNITA
BEZ UTECHY UBIHALY DNOVE MEHO ZIVOTA
But the next part was a struggle. I scooped up more flour and dusted and tried reading from different angles. But even after several tries, only a few words in the last line came out completely clear.
STRASTTEBE OCEKAVA
I couldn’t wait to show the mysterious phrases to Mr. Krasny. Hopefully, he’d be able to make some sense of it all. I reached into my backpack again for the spray bottle full of water. I had almost left the water at home, but Lottie’s lessons, even from a long time ago, had a way of branding themselves on my brain like tattoos. As I sprayed the last traces of flour from the epitaph, I could hear her softly reminding me, “Always leave a stone exactly how you found it.”
But suddenly my mother’s words were swallowed up by the sound of tires skidding on gravel. I froze with my finger on the trigger of the spray bottle.
It was Kilgore, slamming on the brakes of Jeeter’s golf cart. He had come zipping over the ridge, along a little service road that dead-ended at the cemetery driveway. What was he doing here? Apparently he had run out of battles to fight with his Civil War club and decided to come pick a fight at the graveyard instead.
I felt like a small animal in the sights of a rifle as he climbed out of the cart and stalked toward me. “You again,” he said. “Well, I’ll be. What you got there?”
My heart lurched in my chest. The key! Without thinking, I moved my hand toward my pocket.
“Is that spray paint?” he demanded.
“What …?” My voice trailed off. Then I followed his gaze down to the spray bottle still gripped in my other hand. I started to smile with relief. “Oh! You mean this? This is just water. See, our teacher assigned this class project, and …”
I stopped. Kilgore was standing over me now, staring at me like I was some kind of juvenile delinquent.
“Oh, yeah? If that’s true, why didn’t I hear anything about it?”
“I’m not sure. I—”
Kilgore grabbed my spray bottle, squirted some liquid into his hand, and lifted his palm up to his nose. His eyes narrowed as he sniffed and sniffed again. Then he walked over and inspected the cloudy drips of water still running down the Black Angel’s pedestal.
Kilgore slowly turned back to me. “What’s your name again, kid? I should know it, seeing as how we keep running into each other.”
“It’s Linc,” I said in a small voice. “Linc Crenshaw.”
“Linc,” he repeated to himself, testing the word on his tongue. “That’s short for Lincoln, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, tell me, Lincoln. Did you know defacing a monument like this goes against every cemetery rule in the book?” He shook the spray bottle. “And not only that. Desecrating historical markers is a criminal offense. You can’t just waltz in here and start spraying crud wherever you feel like it. We don’t even allow people to do gravestone rubbings in here—”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said in a rush. “I only used a little flour so I could see the inscription better. And I brought that water along to clean it off. Some people use shaving cream to make the epitaphs more clear. But I’d never do that. Shaving cream has acids that can eat away at the stone.”
Kilgore had crossed his arms over his chest. After I had finished my explanation, he stood quiet for a few seconds, looking me up and down. “You’re not a normal sort of kid, are you, Lincoln?”
I shrugged. “What do you mean?”
He had stepped toward me, so close that I could smell the thick cigarette smoke that hung on his clothes. I felt myself edging backward. “I mean, how old are you?” he went on. “Eleven? Twelve? What’s a boy your age doing hanging around a graveyard on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Why aren’t you out throwing the football or doing stuff with your friends?”
“I told you. I’m here for a school proj—”
“You don’t play sports, do you, Lincoln?”
I licked my lips and swallowed. He had hit a sore spot. No, I didn’t play sports. Because I was a klutz. But I was trying. My running times were getting better and better. Plus, I had bigger dreams than just playing on some dumb team in high school. But knowing Kilgore, he had probably never even heard of the Seven Summits.
“No sports?” Kilgore’s lips slid into a knowing smile. “What about friends? Have you got any friends?”
I felt my face flush hot as I stared back at him. “Of course I’ve got—”
He cut me off again. “My hired hand tells me your pop’s buried right here in Oakland Cemetery. You think if your father was still around, he’d approve of you hanging out here all by yourself day after day? No friends. Nothing to do but make trouble in a graveyard?”
I jerked away and rushed over to collect my things.
“Wait a minute,” he said as I stuffed my notebook and the bag of flour into my backpack. “We’re not done here.”
Oh yes we are, I started to say. But I was interrupted by a roar of noise, and we both looked up to see Jeeter ambling along the driveway, aiming his freshly repaired leaf blower at a swirl of oak leaves. I could tell he was only pretending to be surprised when he glanced over. He cut the motor on the blower. “Well, hey there!” he called out. “How goes it?”
Kilgore looked irritated as he rubbed at the back of his skinny neck. “Just fine,” he answered, shooting me a dark look. “Me and your old friend Lincoln here are getting reacquainted. Turns out he’s got a real knack for breaking cemetery rules. First it’s the dogs, and then I catch him right in the middle of defiling a monument.”
“Why, that doesn’t sound right,” Jeeter drawled as he sauntered over to join us beside the Black Angel. “Lincoln’s always been a great kid. One of Oakland’s best neighbors.” He reached out and set his free hand on my shoulder. For a second I was tempted to sink against him, hide my grateful face in his faded blue work shirt.
“Well, maybe you don’t know this kid as good as you think,” Kilgore said. He lifted the spray bottle and gave it another hard shake, so we could hear the liquid sloshing around inside.
Jeeter didn’t even glance at the bottle. He held Kilgore’s stare. I could see the muscle in his jaw tighten as he answered, “Oh, I think I know him pretty darn well. How ’bout you let me be responsible for this one?”
Kilgore’s nostrils flared as if he had smelled something rotten.
Jeeter paused, carefully calculating his next move. “Okay, boss?” he added.
“Boss” must have been the magic word. The hard light in Kilgore’s gaze flickered off, and his whole body loosened as he shoved the spray bottle into Jeeter’s hands. “Fine,” he snapped. “But you make it clear to your little buddy here, if I catch him breaking one more cemetery rule, he’s out. For good.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeeter said. We studied the ground while Kilgore marched back to the golf cart and climbed in. Once the buzz of the motor had faded into the distance, Jeeter finally looked up at me with his sad Scarecrow grin. “You see what we’re dealing with here, right?”
I nodded.
Jeeter handed me the spray bottle. “I don’t mind you coming around here anytime you want, Linc,” he said. “Heck, it’s nice having you back. But you gotta watch your step, okay? It’d be an awful shame if you couldn’t stop by whenever you felt like it.” He stared meaningfully over my shoulder, toward the direction of Dad’s wall.
“Okay, Jeeter,” I said quietly. “Thanks.” I turned to go.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Jeeter called after me.
A stab of guilt cut through me as I started across the graveyard and felt the key, heavy in my pocket, thumping against my leg. What was it Kilgore had said to Jeeter? Maybe you don’t know this kid as good as you think.
Jeeter was my oldest friend. Even after all of those weeks when I hadn’t bothered to stop by the office and say hello, he had welcomed me back like I’d never left. He had fended off Kilgore. And this is the kind of thanks I gave him? All this sneaking around and stealing cemetery property right under his nose?
I reached into my pocket and squeezed my fingers tightly around the key. First chance I got, I’d put it back. Jeeter would never know it had been gone.