Grave Errors

by Carol J. Perry

  “I’m going to find out what kind of businesses were operating there,” my aunt announced. “I know there are still several buildings standing on the property but those will be gone by Monday if Happy Shores has his way.”

  “You think maybe one of them was producing something toxic before they closed?”

  “Could very well be. They’ve been there for years. Long before there were environmental impact studies going on every two minutes. I remember the diaper service was there. Wypee-Dypee. Your mother used them for you. And there was a restaurant supply place. I forget what the others were. Most of the buildings there were torn down years ago when the big malls came, and then the woods took over.” She grinned at me. “Remember when I took you for a nature walk in there once?”

  “I remember the bee sting and the poison oak, thank you.”

  “You itched for weeks.”

  “I remember it well. But aren’t we supposed to stop asking questions about this? Stop snooping? We said we would.”

  “I said I’d keep my snooping within the library walls. I can do that.”

  “My main problem is going to be keeping Dorothy from getting into trouble over this. And getting me into trouble along with her.”

  “You have to stay out of it. At least until Pete finds that Dowgin person. I don’t like the sound of that note one bit.”

  “I don’t either. But I’ll be careful. I’ll just be going back and forth to the Tabby during the daytime and I sure won’t go out alone after dark.” I remembered our class arrangement for Monday morning. “Of course, I’ll be hanging around in the cemetery before sunup on Monday for a photo shoot if our plans work out—but the whole class will be there, including the twins—who seem to have appointed themselves my personal bodyguards.”

  “Have they? That’s good. But be sure you tell Pete your plans.”

  It was the advice I expected to hear and I had every intention of taking it seriously. When Pete arrived at my back door later that evening, he’d hardly taken off his jacket and secured his gun in the bureau before I began to rattle off the details of the happenings since I’d last seen him. Even to my own ears, most of seemed pretty mundane. He frowned when I told him about the proposed early morning trip to the cemetery, and absolutely snapped to attention when I repeated Aunt Ibby’s theory about James Dowgin’s and Emily’s soil samples.

  “I gave the chief those library books your aunt loaned us,” he said. “He knows a lot about dirt and plants and growing things in different kinds of soil and all that.”

  I’m sure I looked surprised. I couldn’t quite picture hard-as-nails, tough cop Chief Whaley planting seeds or trimming hedges. “Really? The chief?”

  “Sure. You didn’t know that? His rose garden is always featured when the garden club does its spring tour of homes.”

  “That’s just amazing,” I said, sitting down on a stool at the kitchen counter. “What does he think about all this?”

  Pete started a pot of coffee then sat beside me. “To tell you the truth, up until today he’s being kind of old-school about this one. He’s been standing by the M.E. and coroner’s reports about Emily’s death being a simple OD, and so far he’s been content to let Miami-Dade handle the missing guy in the Everglades.”

  “Didn’t you tell him about the note? About me? About the prints on the envelope?”

  “Sure did.”

  “Well? What did he say?”

  Pete kind of half-smiled. “He said, ‘What’s that woman of yours got herself mixed up in now?’”

  “So now he believes maybe Emily was murdered? Maybe this Dowgin guy had something to do with it? And that maybe—just maybe I’ve got a little problem?”

  “A complete turnaround. You know how the chief is. He has to be convinced, then it’s full steam ahead. He’s got an APB out on the Dowgin character, who—by the way—has started using his credit cards again. Must have run out of cash. His cell phone hasn’t shown up yet though. Too bad. We could track him with that.” Pete poured our coffees. “He must have fed it to the alligators.”

  “Speaking of phones, did Dorothy tell you that her stepmom found Emily’s?”

  He nodded. “She did. She’ll call me just as soon as she gets it. She says her mom never tried to see what was on it.”

  “I know. It was too painful for her I guess, to hear Emily’s voice or maybe to see pictures of her. It must be awful. Losing a child I mean.”

  “I’m thinking that phone could turn out to be an important piece of evidence,” he said. “And there may be things on it a mother might not want to see or hear.”

  “That’s probably true of most everybody’s phones,” I said. “Want to go out to eat? I don’t feel like cooking.”

  He didn’t feel like cooking either, so we finished our coffee and went to our favorite Italian restaurant—chicken Parmiagiana for me, the classic spaghetti dinner for him. Cheesecake for both of us. I noticed that on the way home, Pete kept a close eye on his rearview mirror. It was both comforting and scary.

  He parked on Winter Street, and walked me up to the front door. “Be sure to use the dead bolt,” he said, “and set the alarm.” As if I didn’t always do both! But I knew he was worried about me and I told him I’d be extra careful. We shared a long, lovely good night kiss, I closed the door, put the dead bolt in place, tapped the code into the alarm keyboard, and with O’Ryan scooting ahead of me, climbed the two flights to my apartment. I let myself in and was extra careful about locking and bolting that door too.

  Still a little skittish about even looking at the window where the white cat had taken to showing up, I made sure that it was locked, then took a long look outside. No cats in sight, gray, white or otherwise. O’Ryan sprawled across the windowsill and closed his eyes.

  “Good boy,” I told him, patting his big fuzzy head. “No cats will get past you, either real or imaginary ones.” I made the usual preparations for bed—no school on Saturday so didn’t have to set the alarm. Surprisingly, considering the day’s happenings, I went to sleep almost immediately and slept like the proverbial baby.

  I awoke to one of those Saturday mornings when you wish you could just snuggle up on the couch with your favorite blanky, have a bowl of Captain Crunch, watch cartoons and make the grown-up world go away. But of course, that’s not the way life works. O’Ryan had left his post on the windowsill and cried piteously for his breakfast. I pulled a pillow over my head. “Go downstairs and bother your aunt,” I told him. It didn’t work. More crying. Grumbling, I got out of bed, pulled a bag of kitty kibble from the cabinet and dumped some into his red bowl. I reheated the leftover coffee from the night before and clicked on the TV, debating whether I should watch the WICH-TV morning news or Spongebob. The grown-up me won.

  Wanda appeared on the screen, bright eyed and as perky as ever.

  Does the woman never sleep?

  The day promised to be overcast with a twenty percent chance of rain. Drivers were warned to be cautious of ground fog which would likely burn off before nine A.M. That tropical depression down south had grown into a tropical storm and was named Penelope.

  “Okay. So much for the weather.” I said to the cat who’d by then already finished his food. He began his brisk A.M. face-washing, whisker-grooming ritual, while I, barefoot, unwashed, messy-haired and still grumpy, sipped yesterday’s coffee and tried to focus on today’s news. A new TV morning duo tossed topics back and forth, tag team fashion, mostly local news with a smattering of statewide items. The same shot of the wild woods I’d seen yesterday appeared, followed by a series of still shots of the few buildings remaining on the street-facing edge of the property. Other than being closed up, with plywood over some of the windows and faded paint and a minimum of graff iti, they didn’t look all that bad. The Wypee-Dypee sign was still legible on the front of a pale blue–clapboard structure, and a nearby storefront with boarded windows had brass letters spelling out what must have once read HARDWARE but now said simply DWAR. The third place had no vi
sible signage at all. “Kind of sad looking, isn’t it?” I addressed the cat who by then had one leg over his head, continuing his morning ablutions. No response. “Do you think Aunt Ibby’s right? About the dirt?”

  The cat stopped licking the end of his tail for a moment and looked straight at me. “Mmmyyup,” he said.

  The two on screen discussed the upcoming mall—he with some construction details, she with a wish list of stores being discussed around town. I finished off the old coffee and made new, wondering if the photo of H. James Dowgin would be part of the newscast. It wasn’t.

  “Guess the chief isn’t ready to publicly call James a person of interest yet,” I told the cat, who licked one paw and put it behind his ear. “Just a missing person, I suppose. And he’s probably right.” I opened the refrigerator, poured a glass of orange juice and started back to the stool on the other side of the counter.

  “Ouch!” I grabbed my right foot and did a little hopping dance, then sat quickly. With a motion—not nearly as graceful as the cat’s—I inspected the bottom of my foot, where a tiny sliver of glass protruded from the flesh. I grabbed a dishtowel and wiped away some blood, then with thumb and forefinger, dislodged the offending shard. “Guess we didn’t sweep up all of that wineglass,” I said, limping toward the bathroom in search of disinfectant and an adhesive bandage.

  This day was not starting well at all.

  I looked into the bathroom mirror. The face looking back at me was not a happy one. “A hot bath would feel good,” I told my bedraggled self. I even hummed a little as I filled the tub with hot water and dumped some Peach Bellini bubble bath in too. Within moments, I eased myself into the steaming, hot, bubbly, wonderful relaxing water and closed my eyes.

  Just what the doctor ordered.

  The lovely feeling didn’t last long. My eyes flew open.

  The doctor.

  The broken wineglass.

  The bubble bath.

  My foot was still bleeding. The bubbles were stained a pretty pink.

  CHAPTER 23

  Had Emily stepped on the wineglass I’d seen in my vision? Had the doctor found any cuts on her body? Had her blood made the bubble bath pink the way mine just had? I wanted to ask Pete, but I knew he’d probably already be at work. No bubble baths or Saturday morning cartoons for him. Anyway, even if I called and asked him, he’d know I hadn’t stopped meddling.

  But a person can’t stop thinking, can she? Thinking isn’t meddling. Is it?

  I closed my eyes again, leaned back and tried to find my way back to that happy place where I’d been just a few minutes earlier. Didn’t happen. I climbed out of the tub, drained the pink water and started over with nice clean bubbles. Then I soaked for a while, used a nailbrush on toes and fingers, shampooed and cream rinsed, then towel dried and stuck a small adhesive bandage on the by then hardly visible cut on my foot.

  I felt better and probably looked better too. I dressed in black capris, white silk shirt and black Capezio flats.

  Now what? All dressed up and no place to go.

  It was too early to call River. She had weekends off, slept in on Saturday morning and usually had witch stuff going on in the afternoon, and it was Aunt Ibby’s day to volunteer on the Bookmobile.

  “Guess that leaves you and me, O’Ryan,” I said to the cat, who was once again on the windowsill, but this time, facing the room. “Want to go for a walk?”

  His ears perked up and he hopped down onto the floor. I took that as a “yes,” and went to get a leash from my closet. Yes, O’Ryan is one of those rare cats who’ll tolerate a leash. We knew he didn’t mind wearing a collar. The witch Ariel Constellation, his previous owner—if anyone can own a cat—had dressed him up in all sorts of fancy ones. It was Aunt Ibby’s idea to try the leash after an unpleasant experience made him wary of the cat carrier. To our surprise he took to it immediately. Perhaps one of his previous owners taught him to do it—or, less likely—maybe he was a show cat once. Nobody knows much about O’Ryan’s background. At any rate, I occasionally took him for a walk on the Salem Common and he seemed to enjoy the attention he attracted and the friends he’d made there. Aunt Ibby had gifted him with an assortment of fashionable leashes. I picked out a bright red leather number with silver conchos for him, chose a red jacket for myself so we’d coordinate and we headed down the front stairs to Winter Street. Per Pete’s instructions I remembered to lock my door, lock the downstairs door, reset the alarm and put my cell in my pocket.

  We walked toward Bridge Street for a change, instead of to the Common, with O’Ryan attracting stares all the way. Cars slowed down to get a better look or even to shoot the occasional drive-by photo of the unusual sight. I hadn’t planned to go to the Howard Street Cemetery, at least not consciously—but in a short time, there we were, standing in front of the graveyard as cars whizzed by on Bridge Street. O’Ryan put his paws up on the low stone wall and sniffed.

  “What do you think, big boy?” I asked, but he strained at the leash, pulling me toward the east gate. I followed his lead and we joined the few tourists who were already inside the cemetery, strolling among the headstones. The cat, ignoring the pointing people and the flattering remarks about such a smart, obedient animal, headed straight for the man with the easel making a copy of a headstone. It seemed that we were about to meet the elusive Dakota Berman.

  He didn’t look up from his work when we approached. But when O’Ryan peered around the edge of the tall tombstone, the artist, startled, sat up straight and those amazing blue eyes met mine.

  “Hello,” I said. “You must be Dorothy Alden’s friend.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Lee Barrett, Dorothy’s teacher at the Tabby.”

  The smile was just as arresting as the astonishing eyes. His handshake was firm. “How do you do. Dorothy’s told me about you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat on a leash before. I mean one that seems to like it.”

  “His name is O’Ryan. He’s quite . . . unusual.” I turned to look at the drawing on the easel. The artist’s rendering was almost identical to the original, except that Dakota had “repaired” a broken corner and a chipped edge on the monument, and had “erased” a muddy smear across some of the letters. “You’ve fixed the broken parts,” I said. “That’s nice.”

  “I wish I could really fix them. All of them.” The smile faded and he gazed across the rows of stones.

  “Has Dorothy told you about our plans for Dia de los Muertos?” I asked. “Maybe we could raise some interest somehow in getting some restoration done around here.”

  “I’d like to help with that if I could,” he said. “I love this place.”

  He loves a cemetery?

  “Uh-huh. It’s . . . um . . . interesting,” I said. “Well, you’re busy, so O’Ryan and I will get on with our walk now. It was nice meeting you. I’ll ask Dorothy to keep you up to speed on our celebration.” I gave the leash a tug and without a backward glance the cat trotted obediently up the hill toward the resting place of the Hawthorne siblings and the maybe sort of haunted tree.

  Strange guy. I wonder how well he knew Emily.

  I gave myself a mental slap on the wrist. I was thinking like a girl detective. Or at least like an investigative reporter. Also, I was just dying to do a little meddling. Keeping my word to Pete was not going to be easy.

  O’Ryan displayed quite a lot of interest in the Giles Corey tree, sniffing all around the base, digging a little beneath it and looking up through the tangled branches as though he’d like to climb it. Was this plain old cat curiosity, the scent of other animals, or did he sense something else about it? He suddenly stopped digging, sniffing, gazing and sat down on his haunches, his eyes fixed on something just to the left of the tree. I followed the green eyes. There was nothing there. O’Ryan growled, deep in his throat and kept right on gazing at the nothing.

  I let him sit there, staring, until I began to feel strangely uncomfortable. I gave the leash a tug. “Come on. Let’s look around the rest of the place, then I’ll take
you to the Common.” He backed away a little, then obediently trotted ahead of me toward the Howard Street gate.

  Dakota Berman was right about the state of repair of the ancient stones. Some of them lay on the grass in pieces, others so eroded by time and climate, the names were no longer legible. Maybe our video, in addition to showing a happy, colorful celebration, could call the community’s attention to the sad and downright disrespectful condition of some of the old monuments. Maybe we could start an “adopt-a-gravesite” movement! In a place like Salem it just might work.

  We exited onto Howard Street. From there it was a straight shot uphill to the Common. I congratulated myself on steering my thoughts away from forbidden subjects and back to the classroom where my head belonged.

  The big yellow cat on the leash had become a familiar sight on the Common, and no longer attracted quite as much attention as he used to. We visited the hot dog man and the pigeon lady, and O’Ryan watched, but did not attempt to chase, the squirrels. We stopped for a moment and saw some gardeners planting marigolds around the bandstand. Of course, they all used trowels which sent my thoughts whizzing back to Emily and broken glass and dirt samples and the threatening note and murder.

  I stopped at the popcorn cart and bought a bucket of the warm, white, buttery stuff for a delicious and reasonably nutritious—if somewhat decadent—breakfast. Crossing Washington Square we headed home to Winter Street, forbidden thoughts still churning in my brain. What if Aunt Ibby was right? If H. James Dowgin was in fact not just a missing person but a killer, or at least a threatening note writer, I could be in danger.

  He might be watching me right now. Was he one of the drive-by cat photographers?

  I’d managed to creep myself out. Looking over my shoulder, just like they do in the movies, I walked faster. I wished I’d worn sunglasses so I could really study faces of people on the Common, or the drivers of passing cars. O’Ryan grew annoyed when I yanked on his leash just as he was greeting a poodle friend of long acquaintance.