The Chick and the Dead (2 page)

Breathing a sigh of relief, and hoping it was the last I ever saw of Didi, I turned my attention back to Ella and wondered what I could possibly say to explain myself.

It was only then that I realized I didn't have to.

Explain myself, that is.

Something told me Ella hadn't even noticed that I'd been carrying on a conversation with thin air. Ella's eyes were bright and her pupils were huge. Her cheeks were as red as the ankle-skimming skirt she was wearing along with a white peasant blouse embroidered with colorful flowers. If that wasn't enough…

Well, it didn't take a detective to see that Ella couldn't stand still. She just about line-danced across my office, each step making her red and blue bead earrings twitch and sway as if they were alive.

"Ella?" Automatically I stepped toward her, wondering what was wrong at the same time I told myself that
wrong
didn't usually make people act like they'd just won the lottery. "Ella, are you all right?"

"Oh, Pepper!" Ella's eyes twinkled in the light of the buzzing fluorescents on the ceiling. "I hope you don't mind me coming in at this time of day. After all, you should be leaving for home right about now." I checked the clock that hung on the wall opposite my desk. She was right. Sometime while I was busy dealing with Didi's annoying ectoplasm, the big hand had ticked its way past the twelve. It was officially after five and I was officially free to leave.

Which didn't explain why I stayed right where I was.

What did explain it was that I knew that aside from being my boss, Ella was a real trouper. She'd even shown up at Garden View with clean clothes for me the night I was a hit man's intended target. He'd missed me, but he didn't miss the thug standing just a couple of feet away from me. I had no idea how much blood could spurt from a bullet wound.

Hence the need for a change of clothes.

Cleanliness aside, Ella was a nice woman. A nice, normal, middle-aged woman who took her job as community relations manager here at the cemetery as seriously as she took her responsibility to her three teenaged daughters. She was levelheaded and professional, which didn't mean she didn't have a fun side, too. She could tell jokes with the best of them. Sometimes they were even funny. And I'd heard from other members of the staff who had worked here longer than me that she threw one hell of a Hanukkah-Christmas-Kwan-zaa party.

But she usually didn't hyperventilate.

"Something's up." Didn't take a detective to see that, either, but since Ella didn't know I was a detective, I figured I didn't have anything to be ashamed of. "Ella, what's wrong with you? You look like you're about to shoot into the air like a rocket."

"Do I?" Ella laid a hand on her cheek. "I'm burning up!" She didn't sound upset by the realization. She didn't look worried, either, the way you'd expect someone to who'd just discovered that her temperature was up in the stratosphere somewhere. She paced to the far side of my office (it didn't take long) and came back again, grinning from ear to ear and fingering a button pinned to the front of her blouse. It was the first I'd seen the button, and I took a closer look. It was the size of a quarter, with a turquoise background and the letters SFTD written on it in bright yellow, showy script.

"Pepper, I have such exciting news!"

The announcement drew my attention away from the button and back to the woman wearing it. She shuffled in a little dance pattern across my office.

All this back-and-forthing was starting to make me nervous. I waved her toward my guest chair. "You want to sit and tell me?"

"I couldn't. Sit, that is. It's just…" She clutched her hands at her midriff, right below a swath of embroidered flowers. "Well, I hardly know where to begin. I suppose at the beginning, right?" Ella giggled. It was something she didn't do often, and it was that more than anything that worried me.

"Do you need water?" I asked her. "A cup of tea? Maybe I should see if Jim is in his office and—"

"Jim's meeting with the cemetery trustees," she said. "And I don't think he'd appreciate this anyway. I mean, he knows about it, of course. Since he's the chief administrator here at Garden View, I had to clue him in. But he doesn't understand. Not the way I know you will. That's why I wanted to share my news with you. And while I'm at it…" Ella pulled in a deep breath and let it out again slowly. "Well, I have some good news," she said. She looked away. "And I'm afraid I have some bad news, too." Bad news as in I just found out I had the Gift and could be eternally bugged by the eternally undead?

I thought not.

"Whatever it is, I suppose you should tell me," I said to Ella because I knew that no matter what she had to say, it couldn't be as bad as everything I'd heard from Didi. "Start with the bad news. Get it over with."

"But it won't make any sense. Not until you hear the good news."

"Then start with the good news."

"Which isn't really fair because then you'll think I'm insensitive and you know I'm really not, Pepper. I think of you the way I think about my girls. I mean, you're a good worker and a fine young woman and I—"

"Ella!" I screeched. It was the only way I could get her attention. "Spit it out, will you! Not knowing is way worse than any news you could ever tell me."

"Yes. Of course. You're right." Ella pressed one hand to her heart. She forced herself to stand still, and I could tell the effort cost her dearly. All that nervous energy, and Ella looked like she was going to burst at the seams.

"The good news." She cleared her throat and raised her chin. When she spoke, her face was transcendent. Like she really had just won the lottery. Or gotten her lousy ex, Jeffrey, to finally pay all the back child support he owed. "The good news… are you ready for this? The good news is that Merilee Bowman is coming. ToCleveland !"

I would have lied if I had the energy.

If I hadn't spent the day exposing a killer, saying goodbye to Gus, and getting up close and personal with another ghost—and the realization that this Gift thing just might plague me until I was a ghost myself—I might have managed some bit of bullshit that would have made Ella believe I shared in her excitement. The way it was, the only thing I could do was chirp out a confused "Who?" Ella's expression dissolved like my social contacts had once my plastic surgeon dad had been convicted of Medicare fraud. She blinked at me in stunned disbelief.

"What do you mean, who? Merilee Bowman." Ella pronounced the name very carefully, as if she was sure I simply hadn't heard her correctly. She touched a hand to the button pinned to her blouse. "
The
Merilee Bowman," she said. "You know.
So Far the Dawn
?" I looked at the yellow, flowing script, and suddenly the button on Ella's blouse made sense. Even if all the pieces still didn't connect. "SFTD.
So Far the Dawn
. That's a movie, right?" Big points for Ella. When she sighed with exasperation, at least she didn't do it too loudly. She couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes, though. "Pepper, Pepper, Pepper." She shook her head. Clearly, I'd gone from fine young woman and model employee to world's biggest disappointment in no time flat. "I can't believe you young people these days. Yes,
So Far the Dawn
is a movie. But it was a book before that. Don't tell me you've never read it?"

The way she asked the question, I knew she was convinced there wasn't a soul on earth who hadn't read the book. Who was I to burst her literary bubble? "I saw the movie," I said instead, deflecting the whole question of book reading before I was forced to confess that the only thing I'd read in as long as I could remember were the sex quizzes in
Cosmo
.

"At least I think I saw the movie. Once. A long time ago. It had something to do with women in gowns and guys in uniforms and… " I knew this was important to Ella, so I thought really hard. "Horses?" This time, she didn't even try to muffle her sigh. Her excitement smothered beneath what was apparently my suffocating cultural deprivation, she went over to my guest chair and plunked right down. "Maybe we should start at the very beginning," she said.

I wasn't convinced it was the best idea. Especially since it was after five o'clock. But since I'd already taken Ella's excitement and ground it under the soles of the adorable silk and lizard T-strap pumps I'd bought with some of the money I earned from Gus's investigation, I didn't want to do any more damage. Dutifully, I took a seat behind my desk.

"I'm right, right?" I asked her. "
So Far the Dawn
is a movie, isn't it?" I could just about see Ella fight to retain her composure. She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, let it out slowly. "It's not just a movie," she said, giving me a look that told me she was about to set me straight, whether I wanted it or not. "It's
the
movie.
The
single most romantic and wonderful movie ever made. Based on
the
single most romantic and wonderful book ever written."

"And this Bowman woman?"

"Is the author of the book." There was only so long Ella's nervous energy could be contained. She hopped to her feet. "She's coming here, Pepper. ToCleveland . Because this is where she lived when she wrote the book. This is where the book is set. It's a classic, the story of a Union family's lives and loves during the Civil War. Now do you remember it?"

I did. Or at least I remembered what I'd remembered before: women in gowns, guys in uniforms. Horses.

"So what's the big deal?" I asked, because I figured she didn't want to hear me say that, try as I might, there wasn't another thing about the movie that I could recall. "So the author's coming to town. Authors come to town all the time."

"Merilee Bowman is not just an author. She's a superstar, Pepper. A supernova in the literary world. No one's ever written a book like
So Far the Dawn
. Not before and not since. It's sold millions and millions of copies and it's been translated into every language in the world. There are
So Far the Dawn
conventions and study groups. There are reenacting weekends and groups that come to town to tour every location she mentions in the book. There are collectors who specialize in dolls modeled after Opal and Palmer, the heroine and hero of the story. And some who collect out-of-print editions of the book. And some who like—"

"Those creepy porcelain figurines of the characters." Another memory sparked and I thought of my aunt Carolyn, my mother's sister, and her affinity for what my mother kindly called "collectibles." "You don't do stuff like that, do you?"

Ella's shoulders shot back, and she arched an eyebrow at me. "Stuff like what? You mean collect? You bet I do! It's how I got involved in the fan club."

I didn't bother to point out that Ella wasn't the groupie type. Apparently there were depths to Ella that I had never even guessed existed. "That's what the button is all about, right?" I asked with another look at the lurid yellow letters pinned to Ella's chest. "That's a fan club thing."

"My idea." She beamed. "It's a way for us to identify each other. I started the button campaign right after I took office as president of ISFTDS."

The alphabet soup of letters floated through my brain.

Ella must have realized my attention span was drifting away with them. "The International So Far the Dawn Society," she explained. "I've served as local chapter representative, national secretary, and now I'm president of the international group for the next two years. I'm proud to say that I was instrumental in arranging Merilee Bowman's visit. I didn't want to announce it. Not to anyone. Not until it was official. But I just got word and…" She dropped back into my guest chair. "I'm so happy, Pepper, I could just cry."

She looked like she was going to, too, and I was so not in the mood. Not after the day I'd had. I decided to humor her and tried for a smile that looked at least a little bit genuine. "So this author is coming toCleveland . That's great."

"Not just toCleveland ." So much for humoring. Tears splashed onto Ella's round-as-apple cheeks. "To Garden View!"

Suddenly Ella's mood made a lot more sense. "You're going to get to meet her?" This I did understand. I imagined myself one-on-one with the genius who had combined silk and lizard into T-strap pumps, and suddenly it all made sense. I grinned and gave Ella the thumbs-up. "That's so cool." Ella was too overwhelmed to speak. She took a moment to compose herself, and when she finally did, she hiccupped over her words. "Merilee is something of a recluse. She moved to California right after the book was published so she could act as a consultant when they were making the movie, and she's stayed there ever since. These days, she lives on a two-hundred-acre compound surrounded by a wall and plenty of security. No one ever sees her. The fact that she's agreed to come toCleveland is a major breakthrough." Another round of tears put an end to Ella's explanation, and I was forced to fill in the blanks.

"She's got family buried here at Garden View?"

Ella nodded.

"And she's going to visit them while she's in town?"

Another nod. It was all she could bring herself to do.

"And she's coming to town because… " This was something I couldn't figure out for myself. I had to wait until Ella was calm enough to continue.

"The movie has been digitally remastered, of course," she said, sniffing. "Surely you must have read about it."

I didn't bother to point out that I'd been too busy trying to stay alive.

"The premiere is scheduled to coincide with the original publication of the book. That was back on July 12, 1959. Between now and July 12, the society has all sorts of things planned. Miss Bowman has agreed to a television interview. Her first since the original movie premiere. There's going to be a big gala, too. You know, with everyone in Civil War-era costumes. It's going to be fabulous." I dunno. Hoop skirts and pantaloons? That wasn't sounding fabulous to me.

"Oh, and the museum, of course."

The P.S. from Ella jarred me out of my thoughts, which was just as well. I had this frightening vision of myself captive inside the confining clothing women wore back in the way-back-when. I skimmed a finger under one strap of myVictoria 's Secret IPEX demi to get rid of the thought and turned my attention back to Ella.