Brooklyn Graves

by Triss Stein

  “Maude,” I said out loud, “I am learning your secrets. They don’t seem very dreadful, but maybe then it was different. What happened to you after? Were you happy?”

  I saw ahead days of slogging through public archives, trying to find the little bits and pieces that would fill in the details. Even in this day and age, only some of it is online. More census records. The city register which might tell me more about where they lived. That marriage license. Death certificates. I would learn everything I could about the once-important Konicks and I would enjoy it. Had they died out, even with that large Victorian family? I hoped that somewhere there was a hint of gossip about the younger Gerard’s presumably shocking love affair. Some avid letter-writer or diarist must have mentioned it, or talked about what this prominent young man did later in life.

  Or would they be part of the vanished past, one of the many self-important families that had now disappeared utterly? A century later, were the Konicks less real than the characters in an Edith Wharton novel? No one knew about them or cared about what they had done. Except me.

  Digging up that particular past was my immediate future. Yes, I needed to impress my bosses with my brilliant historical sleuthing, but of course there was more to it than that. I was making a promise to remember Maude.

  I told myself to stop daydreaming and get to work. The place to start was right here, with any cemetery records relating to this building. I looked around for the workmen who had let me in and instead found Bright Skye, sitting cross-legged on the ground right in front of the door, playing a kind of flute, her eyes closed in trance-like absorption.

  She sat in front of a jar of lit incense sticks. The stifling scented smoke mixed with the autumn smell of wet leaves made me want to choke.

  Other than that, the scene made me want to burst out laughing. I stopped my coughing just in time, and said her name softly. I could not leave without either stepping over her or knocking her to the ground.

  “Bright? Uh, excuse me?”

  Her eyes snapped open but her gaze was completely unfocused for a moment. Whatever she was seeing, it was not me.

  Then she blinked, flushed, put her flute down, and stood up clumsily, knocking the incense over herself. She stepped backwards, away from me.

  “I’m not doing any harm! There is no problem here.”

  “All right,” I hypocritically agreed, “but do you have permission? I’m sure there are issues about using matches here, at least.”

  She continued to look both nervous and defiant. Her head lifted. “It’s my right to be here. I consulted with my shaman and my spirit guides and they said, right here there is a ley line for me. This whole place is throbbing with psychic energy. Can’t you feel it? But this place is my most connected. I found out I am related to the Konicks. It was in a book I found in my attic.”

  “Yes. Yes! I think I know how you are connected to them.”

  “It doesn’t matter how. I know it here.” She tapped her heart. “But why in the goddess’ name didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because I just found out myself. But what are you trying to do here? You said you are not interested in your family history.”

  “I’m not. Screw that. I found my missing papers so I am trying to say thank you. I put the right energy out into the universe and the right energy came back to me.” Her eyes glowed. “My shaman back home told me just how to do it. You must know Sedona is a major, major power center and he is greatly respected.” She looked up at the sky and back to me. “In fact, you just interrupted me. Now I have to begin all over.” Her eyes started to have that faraway look again.

  She turned away, and began rearranging the incense, but I was not about to let her get away with that

  “You got the letters back? How is that possible? I’m sorry but this is just as important to me and to Ryan’s family as it is to you.”

  “They were gone and then they were there, back in my attic. That is all.” She smiled. “Now I am at peace and I can sell them and have something useful from my useless family. It’s a gift from the universe.”

  I thought fast. “Let me help you. I could work with you on getting fair value for those documents. A museum exhibit would certainly increase the price. And I know experts. If I could only take another look at them.”

  “Help? You? Not a chance.”

  The light went out of her eyes. She turned even further away, carefully rebuilding a pattern with the incense sticks. She pulled out some matches, and a sheet of music.

  “Did you ever read them?” I plowed ahead anyway. “They are just fascinating, charming, really. I feel like I know her. It’s a wonderful picture of the life of an early career woman. And I’ve learned some new and important things just today. Does it mean anything to you that…”

  “I already told you.” She stared at me like a stubborn child. “I told you. None of it means anything to me. Not. One. Thing. I grew up in that falling-down old house, full of dust and mold and gloom. My mother and my grandmother just loved it—loved it!—and put every penny they could scrape up into it. ‘No, dear, no going away to camp, we need a furnace.’ ‘No, dear, no car, we need a new roof.’ I was out of there the day I turned eighteen.” She took a deep, shaky breath.

  “I finally—finally!—ended up in Arizona and when I saw all that sunlight and empty space, I knew I was home for good.” Her whispery voice had grown louder with each sentence. “That is why Amanda is helping me go through all that—that junk!—so I can sell it all. I only want the money and I definitely don’t want any of the damn memories.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” I had no idea what I was saying. Her only response was to turn her back to me, and begin playing her flute. The more I talked, the faster and louder she played.

  “Is Amanda Mrs. Mercer? Is she here today, with you?”

  She finally stopped playing to take a breath. She waved her fingers.

  “Off wandering. She does that a lot. She’s been working here forever and she knows this place backwards and forwards and upside down, too.”

  She went back to playing and I thought I’d keep an eye out for Mercer while I walked down the hill, the breathy flute music following me. Maybe Mrs. Mercer could be persuaded to answer a few questions.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to look very long. She was right around the next bend and we almost collided.

  “Why, Ms. Donato! What brings you here?”

  “I’m still researching the Konicks and their mausoleum. In fact, I just met Bright Skye there.” Deep breath. “In fact, she mentioned that you know everything about Green-Wood. I hadn’t realized that before.”

  “Oh, she flatters me, but, yes, I do know a great deal. Perhaps I can help you in some way?”

  Her friendly offer took me by surprise but of course I jumped at the chance. “I have been taking a good look at the Konick mausoleum, now that it is finally open again. There are a few mysteries there.”

  “Oh?” She looked at me with curiosity. Or maybe the sun was in her eyes.

  “What do you think? Is there any chance the archives here might have an old photo or sketch?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, they might have one. Chances that they know where it is? About zero.” She paused and then started over. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. They are making huge efforts to get all the backlog catalogued but the neglect went on for years. What were you looking for? If you could be more specific?”

  “I’m almost sure that a name was removed from the wall where there is that carved scroll and the family names.”

  She nodded. “The east wall. What makes you think that? It would be a very odd kind of vandalism.”

  “Ah, I didn’t mean vandalism. I have some information that suggests that it happened. And I took a good look. Of course it’s so dirty and neglected, I hope what I think I saw wasn’t just
a century’s worth of grime!” I smiled, trying to say it was a kind of joke, that I wasn’t being critical.

  She did not smile back. “People certainly don’t desecrate their own memorial chapels. That crosses so many lines, I can’t even imagine such a thing.”

  She didn’t look as if she was trying to imagine it. Her expression was skeptical and disapproving.

  “You said mysteries, in the plural. What else is there?” She didn’t say it in words but I was pretty sure she was thinking, “What other insane ideas do you have?”

  I had nothing to lose. “If you know this place so well, what have you heard about the window that was stolen?”

  She looked shocked. Good. So I went on. “Yes, I know about it. Dr. Flint does, too. The Konick chapel wasn’t closed because of an accident. It was closed because of a robbery. And I thought maybe you had heard something? Anything at all about what happened here that night? Even gossip?”

  “I never gossip.” Frost dripped from her words.” And I don’t know anything, except that someone criminally desecrated a place of peace and respect. Hard to understand, isn’t it?” She wasn’t looking at me as she spoke, and not at our surroundings, either, but off somewhere else. “These islands of serenity deserve to be protected, don’t they? Cared for and cherished? Probably those thugs chose to pick on this memorial because it is so neglected. That is the crime, isn’t it, as much as the theft?” She turned back to me, her face infinitely sad. “Maybe they thought there was no one to notice.”

  She turned and walked away. Our conversation seemed to be over.

  I had things to do, too. I went to the records department and learned the boxes I would need to see were in deep storage. They would be ready if I wanted to come back in a few days. I didn’t want to wait, but that was the best they could do.

  ***

  Later, at home, puttering around, the phone rang. It was Darcy. “I’m on my way over. I have dinner—two shopping bags full. And Washington Pinot, as promised. Or sparkling—I had a good trip, we can celebrate.”

  Oh my stars. I’d completely forgotten about her promise to come over and bring a meal. I could barely stammer out that I didn’t care which wine.

  “What’s the matter? Did you start drinking without me? You sound strange.”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll overwhelm you over dinner. “

  “I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be there in ten.”

  She was ringing my bell in eight, laden with shopping bags. She claims to be tired of cooking, after raising four children, but she sure knows how to buy a banquet.

  I had to force the rusty bolt on my door, with a lot of noise, so she came in saying, “What the hell was that? And this?” She pointed at the hammer in my hand. “And you look like hell, too. What is going on?” She held up a hand, palm open, the universal “stop” gesture. “Let’s wait, I don’t want food leaking though these bags. “

  I cleared space on my overloaded dining table, and we set up the dinner—fancy crackers and cheeses so exotic I did not know their names, lemon-roasted chicken, three containers of salads made with rice and chickpeas and herbs and dried fruit, with not a leaf of iceberg lettuce in sight. Two bottles of wine. A plate of tiny cupcakes in many colors.

  She shook her head when she had it all spread out and said, “I still think I’m shopping for a family. Good, you’ll have a couple of decent meals this week. Have you eaten anything lately?”

  “Uh, no. I guess not.” I think I whispered it.

  “I believe it. You look like hell. Dig in and no heart-to-heart until you have fueled up. I will do the conversing for now.” She was heaping up a plate for me as she spoke.

  She chatted away about her successful appearance at an industry convention, the weirdness of Las Vegas, the beauty of Seattle, the likelihood that she had brought in a big new client for her firm, and how she liked business travel less now that it no longer meant escape from a house of teenagers.

  She is a vice-president for a company that sells advertising time. I don’t exactly understand what she does—our friendship began at a PTA cupcake sale—but it seems somewhat glamorous. She often assures me that it isn’t. As she spoke, she refilled my wine glass and added food to my plate.

  “Now,” she said at last. “Now tell me what is going on with you. I got a message about Chris. Do you want to start there?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. So many things are going on I don’t know what I want to say first.”

  “I have all night. Start anywhere. Start with why in the world you are banging your door lock with a hammer.”

  “Oh.” I rubbed my forehead, where the headache was not leaving even after a good meal. I reached for a second cupcake, and told her the whole story.

  She was appropriately shocked and sympathetic. She argued with me about reporting this to the cops immediately. Funny, I did not resent it from her as I would have from my father. I admitted, with unusual meekness, that maybe it could have been handled more wisely.

  “So, you see,” I concluded, “that’s why I feel safer with the old rusty bolt locked, but I can’t budge it with just my hands.”

  She looked at me as if I had suddenly become mentally defective. “You know there are these guys. They are called locksmiths. They will come and…”

  “Charge me a lot of money.”

  She reached for her phone, punched in just one button and started with, “Hey, Ernie. This is Darcy. No, no, everything is fine but I have someone, a very dear friend, very dear, who has an emergency need for better locks. Probably change a cylinder in one, and add another? Yes, what she has is pathetic. And I know you can manage a good price for her right? A very, very good price? Yes, she’s right in the neighborhood.” She gave him my address. “Yes, yes. Of course, yes. You’re a hero, as always.”

  She turned back to me with a smug smile. “All fixed.”

  “You have a locksmith on speed dial?” I was flabbergasted.

  “Helps if your husband owns a few office buildings. I’m sure we put Ernie’s oldest through dental school. He’ll have someone here crack of dawn tomorrow. What’s next? Chris?”

  So that was another monologue, embellished with a few tears and one or two expressions of fury, complete with inappropriate language.

  Darcy sort of laughed, even while she was giving me a hug.

  “Listen up. Lily spent her preschool years threatening to move in with Grandma. Sally did move in with her college student cousin for a while when she was in high school. Tommy went to college and didn’t come home for three years. Only Katy never pulled that. Guess what? They all survived and we are all even on speaking terms now.”

  I knew that. I had been at her home for holidays. She had four normal, affectionate, successful, grown children.

  I put my head on the dining room table. I might have thumped it a couple of times.

  “The key is not to take it so much to heart.”

  “I don’t know how to do that!”

  “I’m not saying it was easy. Hell, no. I really thought we had lost Tom for a while there. But your Chris? Did she hitchhike across country? Run away with a biker gang? Disappear into some cult? No. She hopped right into Grandpa’s arms. On a rebellion scale of one to ten, that would be maybe a two.”

  She just looked at me, steadily, with, I suspected, a smile lurking underneath.

  “Just remember, they do grow up eventually. If you don’t kill them first, of course. Right?”

  Then we did laugh. Just a little.

  She said, “Does that cover it? Should I open the second bottle?

  “I’m also in a mess at work.”

  “Hand me the corkscrew.”

  She filled our glasses again. “I’m even better at office crap than parenting. Are you in school now, too?”

  I shook my head. “I’m on independent study this term. That�
��s why this has to work out. The job is my project and I have to make it work or I lose a whole semester. I just can’t, can’t afford that. “

  “Tell all.”

  It took me a long time.

  “Good God, why didn’t you call me? You found that poor boy dead!“

  “You were away. It was a business trip.”

  “Oh, yes, and you no longer have my cell phone number?”

  She saw my eyes fill with whatever it was—exhaustion, wine, stress—and quickly said, “Oh, honey, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m really trying to give you some support.” She gripped my hand for a second. “My kids are good for the moment, Kevin and I are okay, job is okay. So turn to me if you need me and stop being Wonder Woman! Honestly, though, it does sound like you are working your way through this work crisis. Apart from these deaths, which is not your job, anyway.”

  She stood and began clearing the table. “Your eyes are going to close in about a minute. I’ll clean up and head home, while you, my friend, head upstairs to bed.”

  “Leave the dishes. You’ve done enough—way, way more than enough—and you’re right, I’m crashing, too. Tomorrow.”

  She was already stacking leftovers in the refrigerator and loading the dishwasher. As I let her out, struggling again with the extra lock, she stopped.

  “I just thought of something that may actually be helpful. Do you want to meet a charming old man named Konick?”

  “What? Are you kidding me? Of course I would. “

  “I don’t know him very well, but we occasionally play bridge with him at the club. I can call him. Maybe he can fill in some pieces for you. Would that be useful for impressing your bosses?”

  “Yes. A hundred times yes.” I shook my head, trying to take it in. “Do you know everyone? You’ve found me a pediatric eye doctor and a seamstress and I always thought you could find a performing seal if I needed one.”

  “Of course I could. And yes, I know everyone. Including the crazy boyfriend I introduced you to. I’m still trying to make up for that.”