Grave Errors

by Carol J. Perry

  “Haunted?” Hilda wanted to know.

  Therese shrugged. “Could be. Even if they aren’t haunted, with a cemetery view and right next door to where they squooshed old Giles Corey to death, people will say there are ghosts in there anyway.”

  Dorothy smiled. “In Salem that’s probably a good selling point.”

  “Sure. The place will be on all the ghost tours.” Hilda moved closer to the fence separating us from the old jail property. “You believe in ghosts, Ms. Barrett?”

  It wasn’t a question I’d expected and I wasn’t quite sure how I should answer it. Actually, I have good reason to believe in ghosts, but it wasn’t anything I cared to discuss with my students. I decided to treat it lightly. “I guess I have to,” I said. “Didn’t you know the top floor of the Tabby is supposed to be haunted by Tabitha Trumbull?”

  Dorothy interrupted, saving me from any further conjecture about Salem’s ghost population. “Is this really the place where they crushed that old man to death? Right here?”

  “It wasn’t a cemetery back then,” Therese said. “Just a big open field next to the dungeon where they kept the witches before the trials.” She adjusted the Panasonic on her shoulder and started down the hill. “I’m going back to check out the front row grave stones. Those look like the oldest ones. Need to get close-ups of the creepy inscriptions.”

  Dorothy pointed to an obelisk-shaped stone. “They all look pretty old. They don’t still bury people in here, do they?”

  “Nope.” Hilda held up her phone. “Not since the 1930s. I looked it up.”

  Dorothy fell into step beside me, facing the back rows of markers while Hilda gave us a brief wave and—alone— followed the path beside the wrought iron fence surrounding the old cemetery.

  Dorothy pulled her phone from a vest pocket, knelt on the grass and took several shots of a tall headstone with a carved weeping willow at the top. “Look. Poor Dorcas Sims. Only thirty-six years old. Bummer.”

  “It’s a sad place,” I agreed. “The children’s headstones get to me. People died way too young in those days.”

  “People die too young these days too,” she pointed out. “Your Johnny. My sister. Poor Emily—she was only twenty-five.”

  I watched her face. Her expression hadn’t changed. She adjusted the zoom on her camera, focused on another headstone. The rhythmic sound of a jackhammer echoed from the condo construction site next door, a jarring sound. “You said she was murdered. Is it . . . can you . . . do you want to talk about it? I understand if you don’t.”

  “I can talk about it.” She’d dropped her voice again. I leaned close to catch her words. “You probably won’t believe me though. Nobody does.”

  “Try me.” We continued walking, moving carefully among the headstones—large and small—pausing to photograph an epitaph here, a winged head there, an occasional long shot of orderly rows of aged, sun-bleached monuments.

  “Her name was Emily Alden and she was murdered,” Dorothy said, her voice growing stronger. “Right here in Salem.”

  I frowned. “When did it happen?” Not that Salem is crime-free, but murder still makes the front pages around here and the name Emily Alden didn’t ring any bells for me.

  “Two months ago. I wasn’t even here, you know. It took a while for word to reach me. I live far away from everything.” She shook her head. “My stepmother, Paula, tried to contact me. Emily’s boss says he did too.” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “There’s a price to pay for choosing to live the way I do, far away from everything . . . and everybody.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Were you and Emily close?”

  “Very. We were raised together. My own mother ran off when I was little. I don’t even remember her. Dad married Paula and when I was around four they had Emily. She’s always been my baby sister.” Her voice broke. She paused for a moment, then, cupping her ear, looked toward the jail. “Listen. The construction noise has stopped.”

  I nodded. “Probably lunch time.” We stood there among the headstones in relative silence as I waited for her to go on with her story. The muffled hum of traffic drifted up from Bridge Street, and a brief whistle-toot signaled an MBTA train coming or going from Salem’s nearby new commuter station.

  Another sound. I reached into my pocket for my phone. “Oops, sorry,” I said. “Meant to turn this off.” Pete’s name showed on the screen. “I’ll just tell him to call back later.”

  “No, please,” Dorothy held up one hand in protest. “Take your call. I’m going to catch up with Hilda.” Before I could reply, she’d sprinted off toward the path Hilda had taken.

  “Hi Pete,” I said, watching Dorothy’s retreating back. “Guess where I am.”

  “I know you’re not in your classroom at the Tabby.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s where I am. Came to take you to lunch.”

  “Oh. Pete. I’m sorry.” I really was sorry too. Pete’s schedule as a police detective is so erratic, lunches together are rare. “I should be back to the school pretty soon. Can you wait?”

  “Can’t do it, babe. Just happened to be in the area. But you have me wondering, where are you anyway?”

  “Howard Street Cemetery.”

  “Charming place. Um . . . do I dare to ask why?”

  I could understand Pete’s questioning tone. When it comes to topics on the spooky side—like ghosts, witches, spirits and, yes, cemeteries—I’ve given him good reason to wonder about me. I learned fairly recently that I’m a scryer. My best friend River North calls me a “gazer.” (She’s a Tarot card reader, a late-night TV show host and a practicing Salem witch. River knows a lot about things paranormal.) Somehow I’ve acquired the not-altogether-welcome ability to see things in reflective surfaces that other people can’t see. Unfortunately, this “gift” often shows me visions I wish I couldn’t see either, and it’s not something Pete and I talk about very often.

  I was quick to let him know that there was nothing at all vision related about the cemetery visit, invited him to share a pizza at my apartment when his shift was over, then asked the question that was nagging me. “Pete,” I said. “Do you know anything about the death of a young woman named Emily Alden?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sad case. Accidentally OD’d on pills. Gotta go. See you tonight.”

  Pete hung up and Dorothy disappeared behind rows of tombstones. A cool breeze came up and it felt as though the temperature had suddenly dropped about ten degrees. It was broad daylight—high noon—in the heart of a busy city but at that moment I felt quite alone. I headed downhill and, sliding on the damp grass, I careened into a tilted tombstone, its shattered edge raking my thigh.

  “Damn,” I looked down at the jagged tear in almost-new Michael Kors jeans and wanted nothing more than to round up my group and get out of this place.

  CHAPTER 3

  Back at the Tabby, Therese got to work editing her video while the rest of us compared photos, selecting thirty of the best for a slide show. Incorporating Hilda’s information on Dia de los Muertos along with some Googled photos of sugar skulls and festively decorated gravesides, we collaborated on a script for a voice-over and by five o’clock had our pitch ready to present to Rupert Pennington the following morning. I dismissed my class with sincere praise for a job well done, and headed for the school parking lot.

  Still wondering about Dorothy’s insistence that her sister had been murdered, and about Pete’s statement that Emily Alden’s death had been accidental, I offered her a ride home, hoping to learn more.

  “Thanks anyway. I can walk. I live just over there.” Waving in the general direction of Washington Street, she hurried away. I shrugged and aimed the Corvette toward home with a vague feeling of relief that this day was almost over.

  With my car safely garaged behind our house, I cut through Aunt Ibby’s garden where a few hardy sunflowers still nodded among late-blooming orange marigolds. I climbed the granite steps to our back door which opens into the downstairs hall lead
ing to my aunt’s kitchen, our shared laundry room and a narrow stairway to my third-floor apartment. I knew that our cat, O’Ryan, would be waiting inside to greet me.

  I turned my key, pushing the door open, and was welcomed with purrs and “mrrows” and much joyous ankle-rubbing. I lifted the big yellow cat in my arms, and with a free hand knocked on the kitchen door. “You home, Aunt Ibby?”

  “Come in, come in. It’s open.”

  The bright kitchen smelled wonderful. I put the cat down and sniffed fragrant air. “Apples?”

  “Apple pie. The Macintoshes are gorgeous this fall. Perfect for pie. I made two. Thought you and Pete might like one.”

  Aunt Ibby is, among many other things, a fabulous cook. She’s also a semiretired reference librarian, computer genius and whiz at all things technical. A slim and attractive sixty-something, her hair is almost as red as mine. (She admits to the “occasional touch-up.”)

  “Fabulous. Thanks. Pete’ll be coming by later. You know how he loves your pies.”

  She hung her red-and-white striped apron on a hook beside the pantry door and gestured toward the round oak table. “Do you have time for coffee before you go upstairs? Sit down. Tell me about your day.” Not waiting for an answer, she poured that life-giving fluid into my favorite mug—a souvenir of my first trip to Walt Disney World when I was eight. (Yes, I was allowed to drink coffee, heavily milk-diluted, even at that early age.)

  O’Ryan had already hopped up onto one of the captain’s chairs. I took the one opposite his. “It’s been quite a day. This may take a while.”

  “Good. I have plenty of time.” She put the cream pitcher and sugar bowl on the table along with a plateful of the round little cinnamon rolls she always makes from leftover pie crust. Smiling, she sat down beside O’Ryan. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  I began with Hilda’s idea about a Salem celebration of Day of the Dead. “She thinks it will cover our history project and appeal to tourists at the same time.”

  “A grand idea,” my aunt said. “We have such wonderful cemeteries. Old Burying Point on Charter Street and the Howard Street Cemetery.” She clapped her hands together. “I can just see it now! Those dear old tombstones decorated for Dia de los Muertos. Rupert must be pleased.”

  “I took the whole class on a field trip to Howard Street today. We put together a presentation for Mr. Pennington. We plan to show it to him tomorrow.” I described the slide show and video and recited some of the planned narration. “You think he’ll approve?”

  “I’m sure of it.” She tilted her head to one side. “You said you’d had quite a day, but you frowned just a bit when you said it. What are you leaving out?”

  “I’m getting to it,” I said. “I really want your thoughts on something one of my students told me.” I paused, thinking about Dorothy’s words. “Her name was Emily Alden and she was murdered.”

  I repeated as closely as I could the brief, interrupted conversations I’d had with Dorothy. “She seems to be convinced that her sister Emily was murdered here in Salem just a couple of months ago. I don’t remember hearing anything about a woman’s murder. Do you?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t say I do. Did you ask Pete about it?”

  “I did. He says that Emily Alden died from an accidental overdose of pills.”

  She picked up her cup and stood. “Come on.” She motioned for me to follow and we headed for her office. The furnishings in most of the rooms in the house on Winter Street are on the traditional side with a judicious sprinkling of antiques, but Aunt Ibby’s office is something else. An MIT professor or a NASA official would undoubtedly be at home with the state-of-the-art computer, copier, printer, fax machine, laminator and wall full of other gadgets whose functions I can only guess at. My aunt sat at her desk and turned on the Mac. I pulled up a chair beside her.

  “Emily Alden, you said? Good old New England name.” She tapped in the information at her usual blinding speed—attributable, she claims, to a summer course at Katie Gibbs when she was in high school. The name popped up immediately in a Salem News obituary.

  ALDEN, Emily J., 25, passed away suddenly at her home in Salem.

  She is survived by her mother, Paula Alden of Gainesville, Georgia, and a sister, Dorothy Alden of False Pass, Alaska. A memorial service will be held at the Murphy Funeral Home on Federal Street on Saturday from six to eight P.M. For those who wish to make a contribution in her memory, a donation can be made to the Massachusetts Earth Day Foundation.

  “That’s it?” I said, surprised by the brevity of the piece.

  “Apparently.” Aunt Ibby scrolled up and down the page. “That’s it. Pete said she died from an accidental overdose?”

  “Yes. That’s all he had time to tell me. I’ll ask him about it tonight though.”

  “In a sad case like that, I’m sure they usually omit the details out of courtesy to the family.”

  “I imagine they do. Well, I have to get changed and order that pizza. Look. My new jeans got torn at the cemetery.” I stood and pointed to the damaged fabric.

  “That’s a shame. What happened?”

  “Tripped over a broken headstone.” I winked. “Or maybe old Giles Corey pushed me.”

  We returned to the kitchen where I picked up my still-warm apple pie and a couple of the cinnamon treats, kissed my aunt’s cheek, then passed through her dining room and living room to the front hall foyer. With the cat scampering ahead of me, I climbed the curving mahogany staircase to my apartment.

  O’Ryan had scooted through the cat door and was already perched on the windowsill when I entered my kitchen. Aunt Ibby had surprised me with the thoroughly renovated space after a fire destroyed much of the two upper stories of our house. Shiny stainless steel appliances—which I’m sure had been meant to encourage my meager cooking skills—blended nicely with my 1970s Lucite table and chairs, the open cabinet display of Russel Wright pastel china and green Jadeite bowls, and the vintage google-eyed Kit Kat clock on the wall.

  I hurried to my bedroom and surveyed the damage to my jeans in the antique oval mirror. Within seconds, the twinkling lights and swirling colors that always precede a vision appeared on the glass.

  I tried to look away.

  Too late.

  The woman, sightless brown eyes staring straight up, lay surrounded by pink-streaked bubbles in an old-fashioned, claw-footed bathtub. A wineglass, broken at the stem, lay on the tile floor.

  CHAPTER 4

  Once again my so called “gift” offered a scene of death. I didn’t recognize the woman or her surroundings. Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the picture in the mirror to go away. After a moment I dared to look at the glass again. She was still there. Still in the bathtub. Still, I supposed, dead.

  By then O’Ryan had joined me in the bedroom. Hopping up onto the foot of the bed he crept as close as he could get to the mirror. Could the cat see what I was seeing? By his rapt attention and tense muscled position, I had to believe that he could.

  “What is it, boy? Who is it?” I whispered. I didn’t expect an answer of course. At least not a verbal one. He is, after all, a cat. But O’Ryan seems to know things, understand things, even do things your ordinary housecat cannot. His previous owner was a witch called Ariel Constellation and some say O’Ryan was her “familiar.” According to my friend River North, also a witch, but a much nicer one than Ariel was—a familiar can be a powerful ally—or enemy.

  The image began to fade and once again my own reflection—a tall redhead with a puzzled expression and ripped jeans—looked back at me. The cat, apparently no longer interested in me or the woman in the bathtub, headed back to his windowsill bird-watching position.

  The only dead woman I’d heard about lately was, of course, Dorothy Alden’s recently deceased sister Emily. But no one—including Dorothy, Pete and the Salem News—had said anything about a bathtub. I tried to shake away the unpleasant image and began to carefully peel off my poor ruined pants, wondering if they could be mended some
how.

  “Ouch,” I said aloud, realizing for the first time that there’d been a little blood involved in the cemetery mishap. Mine. The edges of the denim threads had stuck to a thin red streak issuing from a long scrape along my thigh. It wasn’t much of a wound—barely a scratch, really. But when I thought about where it had come from—a crumbling, maybe moldy, old chunk of somebody’s gravestone—I lost no time in heading for the bathroom medicine cabinet. I used about half a bottle of peroxide in the wound-cleaning process, took a longer than necessary shower and changed into comfy old faded jeans and a 2013 World Series T-shirt.

  A glance at the Kit Kat clock told me that I’d better get my order for pizza in pretty soon if Pete and I were to eat something besides apple pie—not that there’d be anything wrong with that. I speed dialed the Pizza Pirate, arranging for the seven-thirty delivery of our extra large pepperoni with extra cheese and two liters of Pepsi. I looked around the kitchen, realizing that I was searching for something to do—something to keep me busy—something to make the image of the dead woman in the bathtub go away.

  I sat in the Lucite chair closest to the window where O’Ryan crouched, facing the glass, his long whiskers twitching. Sundown had passed and the neighborhood birds should have been asleep in their nests, so what was the big yellow cat seeing out there? I moved a little closer. The windowpane showed a reflection of . . . a fuzzy cat-face.

  I laughed. “Admiring your handsome self, cat? I don’t blame you. You are a gorgeous animal, no doubt about it.” I stood up and looked away, then turned back toward the still immobile cat. Was it possible that—like me—O’Ryan could see things in reflective surfaces? Things that others might not see?

  The thought was disturbing.

  The buzzing of my phone was a welcome interruption. Caller ID showed River North.

  “Hi River. I’m glad you called.”