The girl shot an apologetic look at Morgan and her sisters, then held her hand out. “I’m Wendy, Mr. Finch’s personal health aide.”
They introduced themselves and then Wendy said, “Don’t mind me. I’ll just straighten up over here.” She turned and headed toward the bedside table, her thick, waist-length hair swishing and flying as if it had a mind of its own.
“Well, hello there!” Thaddeus said brightly as if he’d just noticed Morgan and her sisters. “What can I do for you lovely girls?”
“We have a favor to ask. About your farm,” Morgan said.
Finch smiled. “My farm. Yes. I love that place. Been in the family for generations, you know. Of course, lots of Noquitt homes have.” He stopped, then frowned at them again. “Who did you say you were?”
“We’re the Blackmoore girls,” Morgan said. “Morgan, Fiona, Jolene and Celeste.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d recognize you anywhere. I knew your grandma and you girls have the same eyes,” Finch said, referring to the sky-blue eyes, a Blackmoore trait the four girls were lucky enough to have inherited. Finch’s eyes clouded and he looked out the window, then back at the girls. “Are you here to give me a bath?”
“No,” Morgan said. “We’d like permission to look around your farm.”
“Oh, well I haven’t checked for eggs yet.”
“Excuse me?”
“The hen-house. I haven’t been out there yet. But if you girls want to look around go ahead.”
“Well, that’s okay. We were actually interested to see if there was a family graveyard.”
“Oh, yeah.” Finch rolled his eyes. “Scary thing to have in your back yard when you’re a kid growing up on a farm. Don’t make a grave mistake, my great-granddaddy used to say. He’s buried there, you know.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Jolene jerked her head toward the door in a signal to her sisters that it was time to go.
“Yep. My grandpa is in there, too, and my daddy. ‘Course I had to get special permission to bury them there.” Finch’s face turned sad. “I wonder if I will be buried with them. Probably not. No one left to get special permission.”
“What about your nephews?” Morgan asked.
Finch looked at her, confusion spreading across her face. “Nephews? I don’t have any nephews.”
Chapter Four
“I know he
said
he didn’t have any nephews, but he’s loony tunes. He probably doesn’t remember.” Jolene’s eyes were on her cell phone, her thumbs flying over the letters on the popup keyboard as they picked their way through the overgrown area surrounding the Finch farmhouse. “We can’t just assume his earlier visitors were Bly’s men. I mean, he thought we were there to give him a bath, so I don’t think he’s really in touch with reality.”
“True. I guess we need to check that out,” Celeste said. “Who are you texting?”
“Jake. I want to tell him to check out that boat you saw in the cove,” Jolene said, referring to Jake Cooper, ex-Noquitt cop and Jolene’s private investigator boss as well as Fiona’s boyfriend.
“Good idea.” Fiona’s ears had perked up at the sound of Jake’s name.
“Which way do we go?” Celeste turned in a slow circle, taking in the large area. The farmhouse with its peeling paint and hanging shutters was dirty from years of neglect. What had once been a front lawn was a mass of tall grass, turned brown for the winter. To the right was a field ringed by a fence dotted with broken boards. Next to it, a barn had fallen down decades ago and lay in a mass of boards and shingles. Beyond that sat another pile of debris, a few pieces of charred wood sticking out from the edges.
“If Finch does have nephews, it looks like they don’t take very good care of the place,” Morgan observed.
“I guess Finch didn’t, either. How long has he been in the nursing home?” Celeste asked.
“I’m not sure, but you know how old people get. They stop taking care of things. This place looks like it’s been going to ruin for thirty years.” Jolene held up her cell phone that showed an old picture of the farm from better days. “But it’s a prime piece of land. Twenty acres edged by the ocean to the east and the woods to the north.”
Fiona frowned. “If he had nephews, wouldn’t they be keeping it up? It was in his family all these years, it doesn’t make sense it would just be going to ruin.”
“Lots of young people can't be bothered with keeping a farm running. They probably plan to get rid of it, but can't sell until Thaddeus dies.”
“Speaking of dying,” Morgan said. “Let’s find this graveyard.”
They started off toward the back of the farmhouse. The noon sun had warmed the day to the mid-forties, and Celeste took off her gloves and shoved them in her pocket as she walked.
Beside her, Morgan slowed her pace, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the horizon. Celeste could see her homing in on a spot and the three sisters waited until Morgan pointed to a hill that backed up to a wooded area. “That seems like a likely place.”
They started toward it at a faster pace now, the shapes of gravestones becoming more visible as they approached.
The old graveyard sat in a rectangular area built up on the top of the hill. It had a great view of the ocean, which Celeste thought was ironic seeing none of its inhabitants would be able to enjoy it.
The family plot was large. Ringed by a black iron fence set in a footing of concrete, the area had been built up higher than ground level and the girls ascended three moss covered concrete steps to get inside.
“Now what?” Jolene asked.
Morgan shrugged. “I guess we look for a clue.”
The graveyard turned out to be bigger than it appeared at first. A lot of Finches had been buried there and it was as overgrown as the rest of the farm, which only added to its creepiness. A gigantic, thick old oak tree sat almost dead center, its bare branches spread out several feet in all directions, and Celeste imagined the dark canopy it would create in summer when it was full of leaves. Some of the older slate stones had cracked in half, their tops laying on the ground or leaning up against the remaining part of the stone.
The girls’ pace slowed as they inspected the stones. Morgan took the lead and when she slowed and put her hand out, the rest of them stopped.
“What is it?” Celeste’s neck tingled with awareness. Did Morgan sense someone watching them?
“I thought I saw someone.” Morgan nodded toward the woods.
Celeste squinted in that direction, but all she saw was tree trunks. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Maybe it’s his nephews,” Jolene added.
Morgan shrugged and turned away from the wooded area. “I’m probably just jittery. Let’s keep moving, but stay alert. We don’t want to get surprised in an attack.”
Celeste turned her attention toward the graves, scanning for anything that might be a clue. The stones themselves were mostly older. She guessed the ones in the back dated to the 1700s when family plots were more common. Two stones near the front were newer and she assumed those belonged to Finch’s father and grandfather.
The older stones were the most interesting. Some were plain, slate slabs, rounded at the top and chiseled with images of angels, weeping willows and doves. A few of them in white limestone had images in high relief. Celeste paused to run her fingertips over the gritty surface of an angel's wings on one of the stones.
“So, what exactly are we looking for?” Celeste asked as she studied the stone.
“Good question.” Jolene looked around. “Got any vibes, Morgan?”
But Morgan was busy staring at something behind them.
“Huh?” Morgan spun around to face them.
“Jeez, you’re making me nervous.” Fiona bent down and scooped up a handful of stones, closing her fist around them for a second then opening it up a little and peeking inside. Celeste could see disappointment on her face, but Fiona closed her fist and kept the stones inside.
“Do you have any sixth sense about where to look so we can narrow down our search?” Jolene asked.
“I don’t. I guess we should spread out and see if there is a clue on any of the graves.”
"What about the mausoleum?" Fiona angled her head toward a cement doorway that was lower than the main graveyard and set into a mound of earth on the East side. It was small and not terribly ornate. The giant, iron hinges that held the doors shut, and the fact that it was inside the earth, made entering it a less than appealing prospect.
Morgan shook her head. "I don't think the clue is in there. Besides, it's clearly locked … and it looks creepy inside."
"Yeah, let's stick to looking around out here first, then maybe we can look in there." Jolene glanced over at the structure. "That lock looks easy enough to pick."
“It would help if we knew what kind of clue we were looking for,” Fiona said as the girls started to spread out amongst the graves.
“No kidding.”
Celeste immersed herself in looking at the graves, searching for anything that stuck out. What would the clue be? One of the images engraved into the headstone? Some wording in one of the epitaphs? She tuned everything else out while she searched, moving deeper into the cemetery.
In the back of the cemetery, Celeste could see a couple of chest tombs, their rounded tops making them look like concrete coffins sitting above ground. The stones back here were more ornately carved, as were the tombs.
A wispy mass swirling from behind one of the stones caught her eye and she sucked in a breath. She recognized the swirling shape … it was a ghost.
“’Bout time you got here,” the ghost said.
She shouldn’t have been surprised to find a ghost in a graveyard and it didn’t startle her as much as it might have. Celeste was getting used to seeing ghosts—she’d been seeing them for a while now. Talking to the dead was her special gift.
“You knew I was coming?” she asked the wispy swirl that was now solidifying into the shape of a man.
“Of course. I been here a long time with Henry and Red.” The ghost nodded toward one of the ornate chest tombs. This one had a flat top and Celeste noticed two other ghosts sitting around it as if it was a table. They held something in their hands. Cards!
Her brows mashed together as she squinted at them. “Are they playing poker?”
“Yep. We got our regular poker game going so I don’t have much time, but you girls better take good care of that special item … I tried to keep it safe when I was alive.”
“Oh, right. And just what is this special item?”
The ghost looked at her slyly out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, come on. I know you girls know about it. Otherwise, why would you be looking?”
“We need to keep the relic away from the bad guys.”
“Yes, of course. That’s no secret. You’ll know it when you see it and know what to do with it.”
“Yes, but what,
exactly,
is it?”
“Why, it was one of my prized possessions. You do know who I am, don’t you?”
Celeste shook her head.
“Well, I might have been a bit before your time. I’m Ezra Finch. One of the very first pharmacists here in the state of Maine.” The ghost puffed up in a swell of pride. “People came from all over the country to get my medicines.” He leaned in close to Celeste and winked. “Some say they were magical.”
“Magical?” Celeste’s brows shot up.
Ezra laughed. “Sure. You know what I mean?”
“Sort of,” Celeste said. “So, where can we find this relic?”
Ezra’s thin, ghostly lips pressed together. “Well, I can’t say where it is now. I don’t leave the graveyard here, and I know there’s been some changes since my time. But be that as it may, I provided a clue before I left this world.”
“Okay.” Celeste was starting to feel impatient with the ghost’s vague talk and wondered if senility ran in the family. “What’s the clue?”
“Why, it’s in the center,” Ezra pointed toward the middle of the graveyard. “The most important part of the graveyard, of course.”
Celeste glanced in that direction. All she saw was rows of gravestones. “Could you be more specific?”
“Specific? You want me to spell it out?” Ezra glanced at his wrist. “I’d love to but I don’t have time. I gotta get to the poker game. The boys are waiting, though I do wish we had a fourth. Anyway, you girls should be smart enough to figure it out, and if you can’t, then maybe you aren’t the ones it should be entrusted to.”
And with that, he turned and walked off toward the now-empty chest tomb poker table, his ghost fading with each passing step. When he was almost invisible, he turned back and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Don’t make a grave mistake.”
Celeste could hear the echo of his laughter as he slowly faded into thin air.
“What is it?” Jolene asked. The others respected Celeste’s unusual gift of talking to ghosts and had learned that when it looked like she was talking to no one, it usually meant she was talking to the departed. They’d learned to be quiet and let her do her thing.
“I’m not sure. I might have just talked to a senile ghost, but he seemed like he knew we were looking for a relic and he pointed me this way.” Celeste pointed her finger in the direction Ezra had indicated.
Jolene and Celeste started in that direction with Morgan and Fiona following. The center of the graveyard was easy to find. It had stones back to back in a square with a large black obelisk in the middle, about fifteen feet from the trunk of the big, old oak.