Nobody Can Say It’s You: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery (13 page)

The figure was holding a plate with a carved loaf of partially eaten bread. His other cloaked arm held a big book with the letters BIBLE carved on its front.

Beanie gasped.

“It’s okay, Bean, it’s just a statue. It won’t hurt you,” Hadley said reassuringly. Hadley inspected the carving closer. “You know, this thing kind of looks like the thing that ran into me at the Halloween festival.

“I wonder if it is supposed to represent a sin-eater. Maybe this guy, whoever he was, did some evil things during his lifetime. Must to have really feared for his soul to fork out the money to have this life-sized piece made. Even back then, I expect this would have cost a pretty penny.”

“Yeah,” Beanie said. “It looks like something I remember my grandma telling stories about one Halloween when I was a little boy. We visited her cabin. She was rockin’ in her rockin’ chair. I was sitting near the fireplace roasting a couple of ears of corn in the ashes. I had nightmares for a week after she told me those stories.”

A coffin sat to the left of the hooded figure. An old oil lamp sat on the floor at the head of the coffin. An intricate stone mourner’s bench took up the right side of the room. On the north and south walls of the mausoleum were beautiful, old, leaded-glass windows. The light filtered through them, muted and dim.

“Look, Hadley, there in the dust, it looks like somebody’s been walking around.”

“I see, Beanie,” Hadley said, looking at the small footprints on the floor. “Look at that bench. Somebody’s bottom made that mark, like they were sitting here visiting. It’s very small. Almost like a child. Have you seen anyone around this part of the cemetery lately?”

“No, I think Harvey told me this is one of the oldest things in the cemetery. Ain’t nuthin’ but old stones on this end. Lots of ’em have had their letters plum erased.”

“The rain and elements do that to the really old markers, Bean.”

“It certainly is a mighty fancy grave house. Harvey said Mr. Wardlawwas a crazy old rich guy. His father owned some coal mines in West Virginia and Kentucky. Harvey said the man who ran the cemetery told him this guy liked to play act like he was poor and real religious. He used to ride all over the mountains on this big old white mule and pretend to be a circuit preacher.

“Harvey said he called himself ‘Preacher Law.’ Split up his last name and used ‘Ward’ as his first name. Harvey said he never knew his real name. The man who ran the cemetery said they found him hanging from a beam in the little church in town with a sack of gold coins hanging around his neck and a paper with instructions on how he wanted to be buried. Said he specified the name WARDLAW be carved over the door. No other words were on the instructions, no birth or death dates, just that one word.

“Harvey said it was the durndest thing he ever heard. Harvey told me he had this stone grave house built like the man wanted it and put his coffin in it. I never looked inside the stone grave house before.

“Ain’t none a my beeswax what was inside. I only know about the outside of the building.If you go around the backside, which I have to do sometimes to clear out weeds ’n’ such, there are these little angel statues lined up along the back of the grave house. They’re a sight, Hadley. They really are. For some reason, they all have their faces turned to the wall. All you see are wings and backsides. I never have figured out what all that was about. I guess I am going to have another my-brain if I don’t stop figuring so much.”

Hadley took out her flip phone and took a picture of the hooded statue with the black hole face. She took a picture of the footprints in the dust and one of the mourning bench with the impression of where it looked like someone had been sitting.

All this is enough to give me a my-brain,
she thought.

“Such a strange story,” said Hadley. “I can’t imagine.”

“Go ’round the back and take a look, Hadley,” Beanie said.

“We will check out the back of the building in a minute, Beanie.

“It doesn’t look like the coffin has been disturbed. That layer of dust is in pristine condition. No smudges or prints that I can see.”

On top of the coffin lay an old-fashioned, large-brim black hat, at least Hadley thought it originally started out its life as black. It too was covered in a thick coating of dust and numerous cobwebs to look anything but gray. They shrouded the old hat like a glove.

“Anyway, I don’t think it is a crime to visit with the dead, do you? Come on, Bean, let’s go around back and look at those angels.”

H
adley and Beanie
stepped out of the mausoleum and walked around the building. Just as Beanie had described, there stood five child-sized white marble statues of angels, wings outspread and all of them facing the wall.

“Look, Bean,” she said, “they each look different. It’s not like there are five cookie-cutter angels back here. They could be five different little kids with wings.”

She moved around each statue trying to get a closer look.

“Wait here a minute,” Hadley said. “I am going back to the car and get something from my purse.”

“Okay.” Beanie said.

Hadley opened the trunk. She rummaged around for minute. Beanie saw her return to the mausoleum. She was holding something in her hand.

“Here, Beanie, let’s use this makeup mirror and see if we can figure out what these angels are doing. Those big wings are blocking our view.”

Holding the mirror in front of the first angel, Hadley could see a young girl who was bending down on one knee holding a bird in her little hand. The second angel was also a young girl. She appeared to be holding a wreath of flowers in her small hand. The third young girl seemed to be wiping a tear from her eye with her hand. The fourth angel was hugging a rag doll. Hadley made her way down to the fifth angel. She was a young girl who appeared to have a small pail in her hand. Something was carved in the bucket. Hadley moved the mirror around until she finally could make it out.

In the last little angel’s bucket was a heaping mound of ripe blackberries.

* * *

A
urora stood
in the dimness of the forest watching Hadley and Beanie investigate the back of the WARDLAW tomb. She had left the mausoleum a few minutes before the two strangers arrived.

It was all right. The woods were hiding her. They would never see her.

She had come at the bidding of Button Dudley, who had visited her at her isolated cabin in the woods. He had wanted her to witness his burial. She felt privileged to have been in the presence of the Ancients as they had gathered to send Button’s soul to the safety of the hereafter.

The trip down the mountain had been a long and arduous one for Aurora. With only her walking stick for support, she started the journey. Arriving shortly before the midnight ceremony, she positioned herself in the shadows near a headstone that hid her from the view of the others who had gathered around the black, gaping hole.

As she watched, Aurora knew Button’s soul was at peace. He had successfully made the journey to the afterlife. She watched him ascend to the light and disappear. Button left with a smile on his face.

But after the graveside ceremony, Aurora discovered she was too tired to make the return journey back up the mountain. She had packed a meager amount of food that she has stored in the cloth thrown over her back. She had gotten water from the springs that dotted the mountainsides.

She could have slept out under the stars, like she had so many nights as a young girl, but Aurora knew a storm was coming. All the signs were right for lightening, wind, and rain. She had to find someplace to hunker down and stay until the storm had passed.

After the man shoveled in the last of the dirt, he and the lady waiting for him had left in a car. Aurora found herself alone in the cemetery with the approaching storm and only the dead to keep her company. But she didn’t mind. As long as she had a dry place to lay her head and rest for a spell, she thought, things would be all right.

She looked about for a good place to bed down for the night.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw movement. The dim glow shimmered and sputtered before her. It grew larger and brighter. A little girl with golden plaited hair like a halo began to appear before Aurora’s eyes. Her white flour sack dress gleamed in the black of the night.

When Aurora saw the little pail of blackberries in the little girl’s hand, she knew Ocey Sodder had come to visit her.

“Follow me,” Ocey said. “I know where there’s a save place for you. It’s dry. The winds can’t beat you there. This way. Come. I will show you. It’s this way. It’s not far.”

Aurora gathered up the material of her long flowing skirt and obediently followed the little girl. She led the old woman to a far corner of the cemetery.

A streak of lightening lit up the night sky. Aurora saw that she was standing in front of a large stone building. Ocey pointed to a spot in the wall with a decorative carving of a nesting raven in the stone.

Aurora placed her hand over the omen of death, and it turned in her hand. A small door slid open, revealing a skeleton key. Aurora took the key. Placing the key in the keyhole, she turned it.

She heard the echo of the tumblers turning in the lock. To the tired old woman, it felt as if the door magically opened when she pressed her hand on it. Putting the key back in its little hidden area, she turned the raven in the opposite direction, and the little door slid back into position, concealing the skeleton key from view.

Lightning flashed, and the wind began to whip the branches of the cemetery trees. Storms in the hills can be angry things. Thunder boomed overhead, and the clouds burst open. Heavy torrents of rain began falling. Aurora spent the night in the lonely graveyard with only the headstones for company. In the morning, she would go home. But for the rest of the night, she would remain here – dry under the ornate roof in this house of stone carved to house a dead man.

* * *

B
eanie was looking
for something to occupy himself until quitting time. He had oiled his shovels and other tools. He’d made sure everything was stored nicely on its hook or shelf. He had restrung his weed-eater, made sure the gas had been run out of the mowers so condensation wouldn’t foul up the motors over the winter.

It had been a long day, and Beanie was ready to go home. He could taste the canned chili he had waiting for him in his cabinet over the sink. He had finished clearing all of the broken branches and limbs off of the graves.

He decided to walk the grounds one more time to make sure he had removed all the debris from the storm. He grabbed his thick coat and pulled an old stocking hat down over his ears. He wondered if winter was going to hang around this year. He shivered and zipped his coat up. That old cedar sometimes threw off limbs when the winds whipped up strongly.

Nope.

Nothing on the ground there.

He moved on toward the Heath plot. Its wrought iron fencing kept out most of the blowing debris during a storm, but occasionally, things got stuck in the fence. He checked out all four sides. He saw nothing.

On to the tree-lined section near the Field family and the Dula clan, Beanie saw something. It lay on the ground near the Deel stone. It looked like some kind of nest had blown out of the trees and had landed near the trunk of an old oak standing guard over the families for decades.

He picked it up, cradling it carefully. It was brittle. Old. A few downy feathers still clung to the inside of the nest. It looked as fragile as a snowflake in his hand, and Beanie was afraid it would crumble between his fingers.

He was reminded of last summer when he’d found another nest.