Grave Errors

by Carol J. Perry

  “And his name is Dowgin. Billy Dowgin.” This conversation had started to take on an eerie, almost nightmarish quality.

  “The same name as the note messenger. Right?”

  “So it seems. Tell me, did he give you guys any more information?”

  “We have no authority to ask him any questions. We’re just security. But it’s a bit of a hike to that parking lot you know, so we talked back and forth about different things. We told him we were retired police officers. He said he was a department store manager in Philly. Here on vacation.”

  Roger spoke again. “We told him about the Tabby being an old time department store. He said he’d like to see it. So who knows? He might walk right in some day.”

  “I guess he might. Good job, you two. I’ll tell Pete what you found out.” The thought of Billy Dowgin wandering into my classroom was too crazy to believe. I hoped Pete could make some sense of it. “Will you be joining us at Howard Street in the morning? Six o’clock?”

  “We’ll be there.” That was Ray. “I can hardly wait to tell the girls. They’ll never believe it. Good night. See you in the morning.”

  It was too crazy to believe. I began to wonder who was stalking who. I punched in Pete’s number.

  CHAPTER 29

  I was glad I’d already told Pete what the twins had planned for their football game surveillance. Otherwise this latest bombshell would have been pretty difficult to explain. I began as soon as he answered.

  “I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but here goes. The twins actually did find the Steeler guy at the game. Or maybe he found them. I’m not sure at all what’s going on.”

  I repeated the whole story, just as Ray and Roger had relayed it to me. Pete didn’t interrupt even once. His silence bothered me, but I kept going right up to the part where it was possible that Billy Dowgin might walk into my classroom. “What if he does?” I asked. “What do I do then?”

  He sounded calm, composed, not coplike. “Take it easy, babe. The parking lot meeting may have been a coincidence, that’s true. But you know how I feel about coincidences.”

  I knew.

  “If it isn’t a coincidence, this Dowgin was following us in Topsfield and is interested in you. We know his brother delivered the note to Pennington. The chief’s been analyzing it. Was it actually a threat, or is somebody trying to warn you about something?” Concern had crept into his voice by then. “I’m going to wake up a sheriff and deputize the twins. They’ll be with you during the day and I’ll be with you as much of the rest of the time as I can. It won’t take long for us to pick up one or both of the Dowgins.”

  “What should I do? Do I just go about business as usual?”

  “Yes. But be aware of who’s around you. Don’t go anywhere alone. If you feel nervous about anything at all, call the station. I’ll leave word to send a cruiser, wherever you are, no matter where, no matter what time. You understand?”

  “I do. I feel better, talking to you. I don’t like this—whatever it is. And I’m worried about Dorothy. She’s at the center of it all. To tell you the truth, I’m worried about all of them—all my students. They seem to think it’s an adventure, a class project, a mystery for them to solve.”

  “Keep the classwork academic. Concentrate on the cemetery stuff. Get away from the note and the Dowgin brothers as much as you can. We’re keeping an eye on Dorothy, and we’re taking another look at the circumstances of her sister’s death. That seems to have been the beginning of all this. As a matter of fact, I’m planning a trip into Boston to talk to her doctor again about those sleeping pills.”

  “I hope this will all be over with soon,” I said.

  “Want me to come over?”

  “No. It’s late and I’m all safely locked in with my guard cat. I just needed to talk to you. To tell you what the twins had done.”

  “It was probably a good thing, even if it would have given the chief fits if he’d known about it. At least we have a name now.”

  “Right. I hope there are no more Dowgin brothers though.”

  “Hope not. Good night. I love you. Talk to you tomorrow. You still planning the soggy creepy cemetery visit in the morning?”

  “Yes. You said it would be okay.”

  “That’s right. It is. But I may have a cruiser do an extra drive-by.”

  “Thanks. Good night. I love you.”

  I put the phone down on the table and leaned back in my chair and reached out to pat O’Ryan who’d jumped up onto the windowsill while I was talking to Pete. He leaned his head into my stroking hand and gave my palm a lick. “I love you too, O’Ryan,” I told him, meaning it sincerely. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

  “Mmmrow,” he said, and turned his big head toward the window. I twisted in my chair and followed his gaze. The white cat, looking gray in the dimness, was on the side yard fence.

  “There’s Frankie,” I told him. “That’s what I’ve named her. Okay with you?”

  “Meh,” he said, which I took to mean he had no objection. I set the alarm for five o’clock, laid out my clothes for the next day, prepared the coffeemaker for fast morning duty, checked the weather channel for the latest forecast and fell into bed.

  O’Ryan was already up when the alarm sounded, and waiting for his breakfast when I stumbled out of the bedroom and headed down the hall to the bathroom. A look out the window told me we’d picked the right day: Winter Street was already socked in with fog, so Howard Street was sure to be perfect for our photos.

  By five-thirty, dressed in jeans, sweater, jacket, boots and with an old knit cap pulled over my hair, I filled a to-go cup with coffee and said good-bye to the cat who was hunched over his red bowl of kitty kibble.

  I tiptoed down the stairs—this hour was early even for Aunt Ibby to be awake—and hurried to the garage. I sneaked a look toward the neighbor’s fence, but if Frankie was there, she blended in with fog so well she was invisible.

  I thought I’d be the first one to arrive, but Hilda and Dorothy were waiting in Hilda’s car with the heater running. Kelsey Roehl stood inside the gate, back to us with arms outstretched, which I presumed might be some sort of ghost-repellant ritual. By the time I’d climbed out of the ’vette the twins had arrived followed by Therese, Shannon and Dakota Berman—who’d apparently shared an Uber ride. I was both surprised and gratified by the interest they’d all shown, especially on a dreary, foggy, early morning at such an unlovely destination.

  By the time everyone had gathered at the entrance, Kelsey had finished her whatever it was, and greeted us with a welcoming smile. “Welcome to my world,” she said, “of ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night.”

  Hilda looked up from her smart phone. “Old Scottish prayer, right?”

  “Right!” Kelsey sounded surprised. “Are you Scottish?”

  “No,” Hilda said. “Googleish.”

  Our laughter broke the tension of the moment. Shannon introduced Dakota to those who hadn’t yet met him. Polite remarks were exchanged and, single file, we followed Kelsey up the hill on the right side of the cemetery. Fog is known to muffle sound and the sounds of passing cars sounded very far away. Workmen had not yet arrived at the construction site next door, so all was silent.

  “Want to separate and head in different directions for a variety of angles before this fog lifts and we lose the magic?” Therese called from just behind Kelsey. “Cameras ready everybody?”

  I could see the top of the tall Richard Manning monument just ahead, poking up through the cloudy mist. Roger (or Ray) answered from behind me. “We’ll go up near the ghost tree, okay?”

  Ray (or Roger) responded, “No such thing as ghosts.”

  “Dorothy and I are following Therese and Kelsey,” Hilda announced. “We don’t want to get lost in this place. Shannon and Dakota already went down front where Dakota likes to make those fake rubbing things.”

  That left me standing alone beside—or abo
ve—the Manning/Hawthorne remains, vaguely wondering what the connection between those families might be. “Okay,” I called in a general answer to all of their fog-shrouded pronouncements. “Everybody meet me back at the same gate we came in through when you finish shooting.”

  There was no response, but I assumed everyone knew enough to do that anyway. The sun had started to come up which made the fog shimmer. It was quite beautiful, in a weird sort of way, and I stepped ahead into that glistening grayness.

  Not a good move.

  One booted foot hit a muddy patch of loose earth and I felt myself sliding sideways down a little incline. It was a short drop and I felt the low wrought-iron fence that borders the place with my right hand, so I knew approximately where I was. I wasn’t hurt, but the feeling of falling, of being out of control, is unpleasant under the best of circumstances. In near darkness, with limited vision, in a graveyard, it’s truly distasteful—and in this case, quite damp.

  I scrambled to my feet, still holding onto the fence, and moved ahead slowly and carefully, wishing every second that the damned fog we’d spent two days hoping for would go away.

  My left foot hit something soft. I shuffled my right foot ahead and it touched the same thing. Leaning forward, I gingerly reached down with my left hand. There was something in my path, something large and wet and made of cloth. Moving my hand gently upward on the thing, the texture beneath my fingers changed. Still wet, and cold, but not cloth. It wasn’t until I touched its mouth that I knew what I’d found.

  If it wasn’t so terribly cliché under the circumstances, I’d say my scream that foggy morning would have wakened the dead.

  CHAPTER 30

  I clawed and climbed my way up that little embankment, yelling at the top of my lungs. The twins were the first to reach me. The ghost tree they’d chosen to photograph was just past the Manning tomb and the two of them came hurtling out of the fog to where I’d landed, half standing, half crawling on the straggly grass.

  “Jesus, Lee. What happened? Are you hurt?” That was Ray.

  “There’s somebody . . . something . . . a face. . . .” I struggled for words as Roger, with an arm around my shoulders, gently lifted me to my feet.

  “Can you walk? Are you okay?”

  By that time the others had begun to appear and the fog had begun to lift. Dorothy stood silent and Kelsey peered at me, eyes wide. “You saw a face? Was it an old man?”

  “I didn’t see anything. I touched it. It’s down there.” I pointed in the direction of the gulley next to the fence, but turned my head away, not daring to look.

  “Come on, Lee. It’s okay. There’s nothing there.” Hilda was on one side of me and Therese on the other, with the twins following behind. “There’s a bench over here. Come and sit down.” I allowed myself to be led away from the Manning tomb—from the fence—from that thing below, to the comparative comfort of a cement bench, positioned on one of the highest points in the cemetery. I sat obediently, trying to force my brain into gear, to make sense of what was happening there in the fast-dissipating fog.

  Shannon and Dakota were the last of the group to respond to the commotion and I overheard their worried, whispered questions to Kelsey. “Did she really see a ghost? Do you think it was old Giles Corey?”

  The guide’s answer was guarded. “I hope not. I mean if she did I hope it wasn’t him. If it was, something really bad will happen in Salem. It always does.”

  “I didn’t see a ghost,” I insisted, surprising myself with the strength of my voice. “Not a ghost. Something—somebody real. Somebody’s down there.” I stood, legs wobbly, and pointed again to the gully beside the fence. Then, irrelevantly, “And I dropped my camera down there too.”

  “I’ll get it for you, Ms. Barrett. Don’t worry.” Dakota Berman spoke softly. “I know my way around this place, fog or no fog.”

  “Wait a minute, kid,” Roger put a restraining hand on Dakota’s arm. “We’ll do it. Ms. Barrett—Lee—she saw something there that scared the bejesus out of her. We’ll check it out.” He pulled the collar of his jacket aside and I caught a flash of something shiny. “It’s okay. I’m a deputy. So’s Ray.”

  How did Pete do that so fast? He must have deputized them last night.

  The twins lowered themselves into the space next to the fence, feet first from a sitting position.

  They’re going to have wet bottoms.

  I could see both their heads and shoulders above the grass. They were each looking down. Ray was the first to speak. “Holy shit.”

  Roger held up both hands. “Stand back, everybody. We have a situation here. I’m calling 911. Try not to disturb anything.”

  The two men pulled themselves up over the bank, Roger with his phone to his ear. “Howard Street Cemetery, west gate,” he said. “That’s right. A male. Deceased.”

  Barely a minute had passed when we heard the scream of a siren and saw the flashing lights of a police car.

  “Must have been right in the neighborhood,” Roger said.

  Pete’s extra drive-by.

  The cruiser pulled up, quickly followed by two more. The twins, along with Kelsey, went out onto the sidewalk to meet the approaching police. Therese and Hilda leaned over the nearby fence watching the action below. The officer in the lead had his gun drawn. I retreated to the bench with Shannon and Dorothy following. None of us sat on it though, heeding the command not to disturb anything, and for a long moment, none of us spoke, just listened. There was the crackle of police radios and cross talk and another siren screaming as an ambulance approached.

  No need for an ambulance. Whoever I touched down there is dead. Very dead.

  By this time a crowd had started to gather. Word of trouble gets around fast in Salem. Police bands on home radios are pretty common here. The sun was well over the horizon by then and the fog was completely gone. The ambulance attendants approached the west gate just as I spotted the black car belonging to the medical examiner pulling in next to the construction site. I was acquainted with the M.E. We’d met before on a couple of unfortunate occasions.

  “So it wasn’t a ghost you saw, Lee.” Shannon was wide-eyed. “A body. Wow. No wonder you screamed. What’d it look like?”

  “I didn’t really see it,” I admitted, surprised that my voice sounded so normal. “I kind of tripped over it. I felt it.”

  “Eeew.” Hilda wrinkled her nose. “You actually felt it? I’ve never even seen a dead person, let alone touched one.”

  “You’ve never seen one?” Therese was incredulous. “Don’t you go to funerals?”

  “I’ve been to funerals,” Hilda said. “I just don’t look at the dead person.”

  “I saw my grandmother when she was dead,” Shannon said. “But that’s a lot different than what happened to Lee. What about you, Dakota? Ever see a dead person?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going over to see what the cops are doing.” Dakota hurried away from us, joining the twins next to the Manning tomb.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Therese asked.

  “He doesn’t want to talk about it because he’s the one who found my sister,” Dorothy said. “He told me.”

  That surprised me. Pete hadn’t told me that and it wasn’t in the newspaper report either. But of course, Dakota was the building super, with keys to all the apartments, so it made sense that he’d be the one who’d opened Emily’s door when her mother hadn’t been able to reach her by phone that day.

  “Oh, I’m sorry I asked him that, and I’ve made you sad too, Dorothy.” Shannon apologized. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” Dorothy said. “But who’s the poor guy they just found? That’s what I’d like to know. Look. They’re bringing him up on a stretcher.”

  We all turned to look. The body was wrapped with a dark blue blanket or maybe it was a body bag. Whatever it was, we could tell that it was wet. The clothing on whoever was under it must have soaked through. Another siren announced Pete’s arrival on the s
cene. He hardly ever uses it when he’s driving his Crown Vic, but he was clearly in a hurry.

  Pete stopped and spoke to the uniformed officers first, then to the M.E., who’d followed the stretcher to a waiting van. I watched as he moved the dark blue covering away from the top of the form on the stretcher. He nodded, replaced the fabric, then pulled out his notebook. The stretcher bearers continued to the van with their sad burden and the M.E. returned to his own car. With one of the cruisers leading the grim parade, all three vehicles moved away from the cemetery and proceeded down Bridge Street. Pete watched them depart, then turned and headed up the sidewalk to the west gate. I waved, a little fluttery wave, knowing he’d already seen me—and so very glad and grateful to see him.

  Pete hurried up the steep rise to where we’d all gathered behind the empty bench, the twins flanking us, Ray on the left of the group, Roger on the right. “You’ve all had quite a morning,” he said, “and you’ve handled a bad situation really well. Chief Whaley says you can all go back to the school now. I’ll follow you over there. Lee, you and the Temples actually saw the . . . um—body, so we’ll have some questions for you today. If we have questions for the rest of you, we’ll conduct those interviews at the school too. We’re yellow-taping the west side of the cemetery while we check out a few things, so we’ll ask you to exit on the other side.”

  The questions from the class came quickly.

  “Do you know who the man is?”

  “What happened to him?”

  “How did he get so wet?” Ray wanted to know. “It didn’t rain last night.”

  “That’s true,” Roger said. “Looked like his clothes were soaked through.”

  Pete held up both hands. “I can’t discuss it right now. You all know that. Does everybody have a ride back to the Tabby?”

  “We have three cars between us,” Hilda said. “We can fit everybody in okay.”

  “Good. Lee, I’d like to speak with you a minute before you leave.”

  “Of course.” I moved closer to him, then looked back at the group. “Who’s riding with me?”