“They’re talking about you,” he told her.
“Who?”
“Well, a lot of people, I assume, but I’m referring to Amy and her friend.”
She smiled, lowering her head. “No, I’m old news. They’re talking about you.”
“And speculating, I imagine.”
“Probably.”
They looked forward; Amy was speaking with the priest, and it seemed the service was about to start.
But it didn’t.
As Amy spoke to the priest, she started to cry, and then she glanced back at Kristi, and pointed at her.
The priest nodded, and Amy excused herself to others as she made her way through them to reach Kristi.
“Kristi, will you say something about Lachlan?” she asked.
“Me?” Kristi asked. “Amy, I called him a friend, but he was much closer to you and Boyd and others at the gym.”
“I can’t do it. I’ll cry. You can just say something short and nice. Please, Kristi, Boyd said he wouldn’t get two words out, and the rest of us...well, we can’t.”
“I—of course,” Kristi murmured.
Amy gave off a sigh of such relief that Kristi almost felt guilty for even contemplating refusal. And while the priest rose and started the service, she thought about the young man, Lachlan Plant.
The priest—Father Davies—asked her to come up and she did.
“Lachlan was new to Savannah, and, as we all know, we can be the warmest people in the world, and insular at the same time. But he was just a fine and nice human being, and he endeared all of us to him with his simple love for life and, especially, his love for our city. He was always kind and patient; he was an excellent trainer, but far more important, a friend to those close to him, and a friend to strangers as well. He was a listener—and he loved to hear whatever tales anyone had. We’ll never know why things happen the way they do. He was beautiful, he was kind and far too young to be lost. All who knew him will miss him dearly, and pray that indeed there is a greater plan, for such a young man to have lost his life when he was in his prime. He would be happy to see us all here today—he would thank Amy and Boyd and all who helped him. And, of course, he loved Bonaventure—as he loved Savannah. It will now be his forever home. Thank you.”
She hoped she had done him justice; the priest thanked her for her words, and asked those present to join him in another prayer.
She fled back to her seat.
Dallas caught her hand and squeezed it.
She lowered her head and breathed deeply, and then it was over, and it was time to head out to the cemetery.
“That was excellent,” Dallas told her, smiling, when they were in the car. “No wonder they asked you to speak.”
“It should have been one of them, but... Dallas, I don’t understand. This whole ghost thing. Justin and Monty—they appear to me just like flesh and blood, and the way they sit out in the courtyard...they’re so real. Then there’s Eliza Malone, and she’s breaking my heart, but you’d think she’d just up and tell us who took her!”
Dallas was driving, and spoke slowly as he looked ahead, following Amy’s car in the procession. “I don’t think we’ll ever fully understand. But this is what I think—the human soul is amazing. I like to believe that when we die, there is a second place we have...and we have different paths to get to it—through whatever our faith may be, but also, through a real path—the path the soul takes. Some stay behind because their will to have something known, to see that someone is protected...whatever, a dozen reasons. And some of us can ride bicycles, or ice skate, or even become contortionists or trapeze artists—and some of us just can’t. Eliza has the will to see justice done. She is learning to make herself seen—to you, at any rate, Kristi. And she may know what happened to her—which would make it all very easy—and she may not. The dead do not become omniscient—they can only see in the same manner that we can. One place at a time.”
“I really want to help her!” Kristi said.
“Then you will,” Dallas told her.
They’d reached the cemetery and followed the other cars through as far as they could to reach the gravesite.
Bonaventure Cemetery was, in Kristi’s view, a beautiful place—even if its purpose was to be the final resting place of those who had departed all earthly concerns and cares. It was high on a bluff just east of the city on the Wilmington River.
Many members of her family rested here, including Jedidiah. Ian Murphy, too, was here, interred in his family plot.
She particularly loved something that frequently happened in the newer areas of the cemetery. Mourners brought flowers to their loved ones, but more, too: beautiful fall leaves and other decorations adorned graves in November; Easter brought lilies—and little toy bunnies. The items seemed to Kristi to speak of something quite beautiful—a way to keep those loved and cherished still within reach, and not dead and buried and forgotten, but remembered still in everyday life.
On the site of Bonaventure Plantation, the property was purchased as a private cemetery in 1846 and became public in 1907. Beautiful roads and alleys beneath majestic oaks, moss swaying in the breeze, extended over the acreage, and all manner of artful memorial creations stood in memory of those who had gone. There were contemplative thinkers and angels with and without spread wings. But Kristi thought it was truly the natural beauty of the place that created the Victorian ideal—a place to remember those who had been loved and cherished in life.
“The ‘Little Gracie’ statue is there,” Kristi said, pointing to the sculpture created by John Walz, commissioned by Gracie Watson’s father. “I can’t imagine her family’s pain. She was supposed to be the sweetest child, charming guests when her father worked at the Pulaski Hotel. They say she is now a darling little ghost—you can hear her laughter when she still roams the hall.”
“Some ghosts just haunt the minds of us all, because tragedy touches us all as human beings,” Dallas said. He smiled grimly at her. “Some come to try very hard to reach us, dedicated to finding the one who can help them.”
Kristi nodded and pointed across the vast expanse of the cemetery again. “We have a family plot, beneath that angel over there, the one with the massively spread wings.”
“It’s a beautiful sculpture,” he told her.
She nodded and said, “Ian Murphy is not far—the Murphy family plot is here, too. In death, Jedidiah and Ian are still, in a way, just down the street from one another. I never thought that mattered so much before. I always believed the body was a shell, and death took us out of that shell, and so, what befell the body wasn’t of much importance.”
“The body remains just a shell,” he told her. “Or so I believe, myself.” He smiled at her and reached for her hand. “The soul is the essence of what we were, what we are...and all the love we shared. But that said, a beautiful cemetery is a wonderful place to remember someone and keep that person close in our hearts.”
They joined others at the gravesite.
They stood while the priest said his last words.
Kristi’s head was bowed, but while she listened to the prayers, she looked up and around.
And then, across the coffin, standing with a group of mourners from his work, she could have sworn she saw Lachlan. He was wearing the suit Amy had chosen for his funeral. His hands were folded before him.
And he looked across at her, and she was certain he saw her, and recognized her.
To her amazement, he seemed to smile.
And then he began to disappear, until his image had faded completely.
She gripped Dallas’s hand tightly. “Yes, I saw him, too,” Dallas whispered softly.
The services ended. Amy invited all in attendance to a little get-together at what had been Lachlan’s favorite brewery on the riverfront.
“Let’s wait,” Kristi said to Dallas. “I want to... I
want to see if...”
“If Lachlan will reappear?” he asked her, and he was slightly smiling, making her realize he had intended to be the last out already.
And so they waited. Kristi briefly greeted more friends and acquaintances as they made their way out through the cemetery.
There were just a few people left; a representative from the cemetery, the priest and an older woman with whom he seemed to be friends.
Smiling politely, Dallas and Kristi lingered by the grave.
But though they let time pass—with the priest frowning at them as if he was sincerely worried about them—Lachlan Plant did not make another spectral appearance.
“Let’s head to the reception,” Dallas said finally.
As they drove, he glanced over at her. “Will you call or text your friend Jamie? Would you ask him if it would be all right for a couple of your good friends to stay at his house for a few days? Just tell him you’re full up—which you are. I was thinking, at first, of course, and with your permission, we could have doubled up a bit at your house.” His smile, as he glanced her way, was sly. “But seriously, if Jackson and Angela stayed at the Murphy house...well, they are two of the original members of Adam Harrison’s team, and Jackson still leads us all. They’re good. If there is something to find...they’ll get it.”
“For sure,” she said, and added a little awkwardly, “I look forward to meeting them.”
“I know they’re anxious to meet you. They’re driving down, and bringing equipment.”
“Oh?”
“You said you want to know what’s beneath the ground.”
“Yes, yes, I did,” she said. She was quiet for a bit, and the silence in the car was heavy. “What am I going to do when you leave?” she whispered.
He glanced her way. “Well, you could come with me.”
“That’s rather absurd. We barely know each other, I have work here, I own McLane House—and you know, it’s going to be booked after that séance! Of course, you could stay here.”
He didn’t answer; she felt a little heartsick.
No, of course he couldn’t stay. She didn’t know that much about him, but if he was in a special and elite unit, he was dedicated to his work. And it would mean more to him than a woman he barely knew, just getting over desperate panic at the sight of a ghost...
She gave herself a serious mental shake.
“You’ll want to park here—there’s nothing closer,” she told him.
They got out of the car. A breeze drifted off the river, boats were out and the afternoon was nice and warm. Tourists and locals alike moved down the street, laughing and chatting, some hurrying, some obviously in no hurry at all.
“Sometimes, it used to smell terrible here. There was a paper plant nearby.”
“Ah, that smell—but without it, maybe everyone would have moved to Savannah,” he teased.
She smiled weakly. “The brewery is just over there.”
Amy had set herself up as hostess, greeting everyone at the front door.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to make it!” she told Kristi.
“Oh, no. We’re here.”
They went in and joined the other mourners. People were opting for the brewery’s classic ale—or for their famous root beer. Kristi decided an ale was in order.
As they passed people now, Kristi introduced Dallas, and they wound up at a table where a few of Jedidiah’s old friends were seated. One, Henry Finley, a retired social sciences teacher, seemed especially intrigued by Dallas.
“I hear you’re a private investigator—and that you were here for a close friend of Lachlan’s,” he told Dallas.
“Yes, sir,” Dallas said. “For many, it’s just hard to accept that an exceptionally fit young man should meet his end by tripping and striking his head on a curb.”
“I thought that myself,” Finley said, shaking his head. “And, mind you, I found it damned strange as well that Ian Murphy should jump to his death. Sure, the old geezer said he’d call it quits when it got too bad, but... I have a damned hard time seeing that fellow jumping.” He stared at Kristi. “Don’t you, Kristi? You knew him! That just wasn’t like Ian. He was bright as all hell. He’d know he might not kill himself—that he might end up crippled and in worse shape than ever!”
“I thought it was odd, yes,” Kristi said.
“What have you found out about Lachlan?” Finley asked Dallas.
“Frankly? Not much. No one—that the police or anyone else has been able to find—was there when Lachlan died. Of course, the police were quickly there, but there are no eyewitnesses to what actually happened. It’s very tragic.”
“You had to know Ian—he was smart as a whip, all his life. Why, he—and Jedidiah—and I were all in one company that worked just about every reenactment, Revolutionary and Civil War, that came around. He could talk on just about any subject having to do with the fact the Civil War made embalming popular. Had to get those boys home from the field, you know. He knew about medicine, from the Civil War, and even what little they had during the revolution. Oh, and did I forget the War of 1912 or the Mexican-American War, World War I—”
“Excuse me, I think I’m going to get myself a root beer now,” Kristi said, jumping up.
While she enjoyed Jedidiah’s friends, she didn’t feel like indulging in their arguments and recollections today. She made her way to the bar, but kept running into people she knew. Managing to snag her root beer, she headed toward the rear of the establishment and the little patio they had in back. There was no one out there. The night trade hadn’t come in yet, and the mourners were grouping inside.
She leaned against the wall, just breathing.
Lachlan, were you really there? she wondered.
She had almost spoken aloud—she was glad she hadn’t.
Someone was nearby, behind an ivy trellis that bordered the patio area.
Whispering to someone else.
“Where the hell is the damned letter? All this, and we still don’t have the damned letter.”
Kristi stood very still, shivers hitting her spine, and yet, at the same time, wondering why she would immediately believe that someone whispering about a letter would have anything to do with the situation, or with her.
Because it was Lachlan’s funeral.
She pushed away from the wall; one way or the other, she needed to know who had spoken. If she didn’t, she’d go crazy with the wondering.
She hurried toward the trellis and then around it, ready to either accost whoever was there, or smile apologetically and say she had been looking for a friend.
But there was no one there.
Frustrated, she looked around, and saw that a kitchen entrance that still led into the main bar and dining hall of the brewery was wide-open.
Okay, so maybe the kitchen staff had been asking someone about a letter?
She hurried in, and then came to a dead stop, staring at a harried busboy.
“I—I was looking for a friend,” she said.
“Isn’t everybody?” he asked her.
“I think he—she—just ran in this way.”
“Sorry, miss, I didn’t see anyone—I’m running crazy.”
“Yes, yes, of course, I’m sorry!” she told him.
“This is the kitchen. It’s a delivery entrance.”
“I know—I’m sorry. I’ll go on through quickly.”
She hurried through the bustling kitchen, feeling incredibly awkward. She saw no one she recognized.
Back in the main room, Dallas was still at the table with Henry Finley.
He seemed to be listening very patiently, but he looked up, and saw her coming into the room. He smiled. She joined him. “There you are!” Henry said. “I was just about to tell Mr. Wicker about that time in Culpeper, Virginia, when everything was perfect: private lan
d, Sunday, like the real battle, forces strong, all of us in our wool and the temperature a million degrees—just as it had been, way back when! Guys pretending to be dead all over just because they were so damned hot.”
She smiled, and thought she should take a trip into the ladies’ room before they headed back—but Henry was still talking.
“Sorry, I’ll be right back. And, Henry, I am so sorry, but we’ll have to say goodbye soon. I’m needed at the house.”
She wasn’t needed—they all managed just fine without her.
But between the beer and root beer, nature really was calling.
She dashed into the back, said hi to an acquaintance who was leaving the restroom and walked in, finding a stall.
The minute she closed the door, the lights went out.
She stood still.`
And then she heard a whisper, eerie and rattling.
“Leave it alone, I’m warning you. Leave it alone. Or you’ll be next.”
There was silence, and still, the pitch darkness.
Scream! she told herself; now was the time to scream.
But the whisper...she didn’t know if...
If it had come from the living or the dead.
And if it had come from the living...
Was she now alone with a killer?
12
“He had some amazing things—really amazing things,” Henry Finley said, “like a letter written from a fellow who had just had a leg amputated. He was writing to his wife, wondering if she would still love him now that he wasn’t the man she had married. So sad—old Ian had a number of letters like that. He used to collect them back fifty years ago when you could buy items like that for less than a small fortune. Not to mention his buckles, rifles, pistols, magazines and placards. But the letters and the books—he wanted to keep them. After death, you know? He always thought slavery had been one of the worst crimes man had ever perpetuated on man—still is—and the war was god-awful, but he also thought it was incredibly important we not forget it. Hell, look at some of the situations we find ourselves in today—people ready to hop up and grab arms over every imaginable issue out there. His letters—he thought Jamie might want them some day. Or, if Jamie didn’t want the library and the letters, he was to give them to Kristi.”
The Summoning Page 20