“Yes, of course you do. Like working on this commemoration.” Ella got up and bustled to the door. Something told me she figured if she stopped listening and just kept on talking, things would work out fine in the end. She should have known by now: they never do. “That’s one of the things I admire so much about you, Pepper. I know you’re not fond of Marjorie. But you’re still willing to work with her. That’s really wonderful. It’s so refreshing. And it’s exactly why you’re going to go over to the Garfield Memorial right now. That way you and Marjorie can talk, and you can get to know each other a little better.”
“But I don’t want to get to know her better.” Was that me whining? Absolutely! And I didn’t regret it one bit. The more Ella sounded so sure of herself, the more sure I was that I wanted nothing to do with her plan. “I just want to—”
“Be a team player! Of course you do. I knew that’s what you’d say. Because that’s one of the things you do best, Pepper. You help out when I need it. You step up to the plate. You pitch in and give everything you do your best shot.” She emphasized this last point by poking a fist into the air.
And I knew a losing cause when I saw one. I fished my purse out of my desk drawer, flung it over my shoulder, and headed for the door.
“That’s my girl.” Beaming, Ella opened my office door and led the way out into the corridor. We were nearly in the reception area when we heard the most awful noise. It sounded like a cat with its tail in the spokes of a twelve-speed mountain bike.
Ella and I exchanged dumbfounded looks. Side by side, we hurried into the reception area.
We found Jennine, the woman who welcomed clients and answered the phones, standing over a tiny woman in khaki pants and one of those tastefully embroidered polo shirts I mentioned earlier, only hers said VOLUNTEER on it. The woman’s head was in her hands and she was sobbing so violently, her shoulders were shaking.
Things got even stranger when the bawler had to come up for air and we saw that it was—
“Doris!” Ella beat me to the exclamation. She also beat me to Doris, but then, squatty Earth Shoes get better traction than four-and-a-half-inch heels. Even before I got over to the couch where Doris was sitting, Ella was kneeling on the floor in front of her. She took Doris’s hands in hers. “What happened?” Ella asked. “Doris, are you OK?”
Doris’s silvery hair was cut in a stylish bob that bounced when she nodded. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a lace-edged handkerchief, and dabbed it to her blue eyes. She sniffed. “I’m fine,” Doris warbled.
“You don’t look fine.” Since no one else was going to say it, I figured I had to. I went to stand in front of Doris and gave her a careful once-over. No cuts, no bruises, no smudges of dirt. She hadn’t fallen and nothing looked broken. I reached behind Jennine’s desk, rolled her chair over, and sat down, the better to be eye to eye with Doris when I tried to get her to tell us what happened.
Why did I care?
Truth be told, in the world of cemetery volunteers, Doris Oswald is the exact opposite of Marjorie Klinker.
Marjorie is a pushy pain in the butt.
Doris is everybody’s grandmother.
Marjorie likes nothing better than acting superior to everyone. About everything. All the time.
Doris is sweet and kind, and every time she shows up at Garden View to do one volunteer job or another, she brings stuff like homemade brownies or bunches of flowers from her garden or these really cheesy crocheted bookmarks she makes for everybody and I always make fun of and then keep because, really, they might come in handy if I ever decide to read a book and, besides, Doris is nice enough to make them.
Doris is about as big as a minute, and for a woman in her seventies, she’s got a sense of style, too. I admire that, and I like Doris. Honest. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have cared why she was crying.
“Doris?” I tried to get through to her again because, softie that she was, Ella was crying, too, and I knew she wasn’t going to be any help. “Take it slow and easy. Tell us what happened.”
Doris sniffled. “The ladies from my bridge club came to see the cemetery bright and early this morning.” This did not seem an especially sad incident, but Doris’s voice wobbled over the words. “I showed them the chapel and then we were over in the Garfield Memorial . . .” Her bottom lip quivered like an electric toothbrush. “We’d just walked in and . . . and I was just telling the ladies about James A. Garfield . . . you know, how he was only president for six months and how . . . how he was assassinated and . . .”
“And let me guess, Marjorie showed up and told them everything you said was wrong.”
Doris’s watery eyes lit. “How did you know?”
I shot an I-told-you-so look at Ella, who managed to ignore me so completely, I had no choice but to shift my attention back to Doris. “Then what happened?” I asked her.
“Well, she just . . . she just took over! She acted like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t exist. Like she’s the only person in the whole wide world who knows anything about President Garfield, and like she’s the only one allowed to tell anyone about it. I know it’s no big deal . . .” Even though she said it, Doris didn’t look like she believed it. To Doris, this was a very big deal; a fresh cascade of tears began to fall. “These ladies are my friends and . . . Mar . . . jor . . . ie . . . she . . . she embarrassed me in front of them. She made me look like a fool.”
“Don’t be silly.” This comment came from Ella, of course. She’s the only one who would tell a weeping, wailing person not to be silly when silly was exactly what she was being. Me? I would have advised Doris to go back over to the memorial and kick Marjorie in the shins. Ella is a kinder, gentler person. “It’s OK.” Ella patted Doris’s back. “I’ll have a talk with Marjorie. I’ll tell her that next time—”
Moving pretty fast for a woman her age, Doris bounded off the couch. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” She sniffed, touched the hanky to her eyes, and threw back her slim shoulders. “I’ve made up my mind. There isn’t going to be a next time. I’m . . .” Her voice wavered, but her determination never did. “I’m quitting as a Garden View volunteer. I’m never coming back here again!”
Ella’s jaw dropped and her eyes got wide. No big surprise there. For one thing, part of Ella’s job is making sure the volunteers are kept busy—and happy. For another, Ella just happens to be a nice person. She doesn’t like conflict. She doesn’t like to see other people unhappy. Every motherly instinct she possessed (and I can say with some authority that she has a lot of them) kicked in. She got to her feet, wrapped an arm around Doris’s shoulder, and gave her a hug.
Over Doris’s trembling shoulders, she shot me a look that said I shouldn’t worry, she’d get things under control. I had no doubt of it. No way Ella was going to let Doris quit. Not like this, anyway.
“I can understand why you feel that way,” Ella said at the same time she smoothly turned Doris toward her office, and away from the door that led to the parking lot. “Let’s have a cup of tea and talk about it.”
“I don’t know.” Doris wrung the hanky. “I’ve made up my mind. That Marjorie Klinker is the nastiest person in the universe. I’m not going to take her guff anymore.”
“Of course you’re not.” Ella piloted Doris back toward her office, where I knew there was a hot pot and an assortment of herbal teas. “But you can’t leave while you’re upset,” she said, her voice as soothing as the steam off one of those cups of tea. “So we’ll just sit down and talk. And Pepper . . .” She gave me one final glance over her shoulder. “Pepper’s going over to the memorial right now. She’ll take care of everything. Right, Pepper?”
Like I could do anything but agree?
One more sigh and I headed out to where my Mustang was parked so I could drive over to the memorial on the other side of the three-hundred-plus-acre cemetery. If only my mood was as purposeful as my steps. Not only did I now have this commemoration thing to not look forward to, I had to face the woman who had made sweet Doris Oswald cry.
2
I
climbed the steps to the imposing turquoise-colored front doors of the one-hundred-and-eighty-foot-tall sandstone memorial building with trepidation in my heart. Believe me, it wasn’t just because I knew Marjorie was lurking inside, waiting to pounce on me and rip me to pieces like she had poor Doris. Sure, Marjorie was a royal pain, and crazy to boot, but heck, in my time as a private investigator I’d handled hit men, nasty ghosts, and all sorts of bad guys. Crazy and annoying was a piece of cake. I didn’t want to deal with it, but if I had to, I could.
No, the reason a cold shiver raced up my spine and goose bumps popped up along my arms was the same reason I’d been avoiding the memorial in the weeks since I’d finished the cemetery restoration project.
Here’s the scoop: While I was involved with that project, I had reason to be in the memorial, and one of the people I was working with took my picture. Little did he know (being more than a little crazy himself) that when that photo was developed, it would show exactly what he saw through his viewfinder—me next to the statue of James A. Garfield—as well as something he didn’t—the ghostly shape of the president standing on the other side of me.
I suppose I should have been impressed. I mean, what with this new ghost having been president and all. But honestly, I wanted nothing to do with the old guy.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m not used to ghosts by now, and I’m sure not afraid of them. After all, they’ve been bugging me ever since the day I hit my head on one of the mausoleums at the cemetery. And I’ve been a good sport about it, if I do say so myself. I solve their murders. I help clear their names and their reputations. Sure, I’ve considered bailing on this goofy Gift of mine plenty of times, but in the end, I’ve never shirked my responsibilities toward those pesky spooks. They want closure, I give them closure, even if it means risking my own life.
What do I get in return?
I get walked out on by the man I loved.
It’s wrong, not to mention unfair, and after three weeks of soul searching, I had decided what I was going to do about it—I was officially out of the private investigation business for the dead.
Commander in chief or not.
My mind made up, even if my hands were trembling just a little, I inched open the door that led into the entryway of the memorial. Even I wasn’t sure who I was more reluctant to see, Marjorie or the president. “Anybody here?” I called.
Nobody answered.
Relieved, I stepped forward, and the door clicked closed behind me. Aside from the fact that I knew a ghost hung out there, I had to admit that the memorial was really a pretty impressive building. It was built way back when and featured a round tower on top of a hulking, square building. Outside, there were carvings along the walls that depicted the life of James A. Garfield. Inside . . .
I looked around at all the marble and the mosaics, at the tiny office and gift shop to my right and the steep, spiral staircase to my left that led downstairs to the crypt and upstairs to a balcony, where visitors could look down on the rotunda where the president’s statue was displayed. There was an observation deck up there, too, and even a ballroom, though it was closed to the public and hadn’t been used since like forever. Ahead of me and up two shallow steps was the rotunda where that picture of me had been taken, the one with the ghost in it.
Fortunately, there was no sign of the presidential poltergeist—or anyone else. Relieved, I ducked into the office, saw that no one was in there, either, and thanked my lucky stars. If Marjorie was nowhere to be found, I could head back to the administration building with a clear conscience.
My hopes were dashed the moment I heard footsteps pounding on the marble staircase. I turned just in time to see Marjorie come huffing and puffing down the steps.
It is important to point out that even on the best of days, Marjorie was not an attractive woman. She was a retired librarian, after all, and while I don’t think that automatically meant she had to be frumpy, she’d apparently led a life so lost in stacks of books, she’d forgotten that, once in a while, she needed to make human contact, and that when she did, it never hurt to put her best foot forward.
Marjorie was nearly as tall as I am, and as thin as a rail, but not in model-gorgeous mode, more in a yikes-is-that-woman-bony sort of way. She teased her poorly dyed maroon-colored hair into a sixties beehive and always— summer or winter, indoors or out—topped off the do with a filmy head scarf tied into a boa constrictor knot under her chin.
The rest of her wardrobe was volunteer standard issue—khaki pants and a Garden View polo shirt that was slightly yellowed under the armpits. In fact, the only thing that stood out about Marjorie at all—and I do not mean in a good way—were her pointed, rhinestone-encrusted glasses, the red lipstick she applied with more enthusiasm than skill, and the perfume she must have put on with a ladle. It was sweet and cloying, like gardenias, and like gardenias, it always made my nose itch.
Marjorie’s skin was usually pale, like she didn’t get out in the daylight enough. That morning, though, there were two bright spots of color in her cheeks that matched the red geraniums on her head scarf.
She saw me standing in the office, came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the steps, and fought to catch her breath. Behind the pointy glasses, she blinked like a startled owl, and she tapped nervous fingers against one hip. “I thought I heard someone. I thought . . .” Marjorie was no spring chicken. If I had liked her more (or even a little), I would have pulled out a chair and told her to sit down and take it easy. The way it was, I counted on her figuring that out for herself.
Instead, she pulled back her shoulders and raised her chin before she walked into the office. I always had the sneaking suspicion that Marjorie didn’t like it that I was taller than her.
“I wouldn’t have bothered to hurry if I knew it was just you,” she said, then smiled the way people do when they say something rude and expect you not to be offended. “What I mean, of course, is that I thought you were a visitor. Obviously, the people in charge here . . .” She said this in a way that made it clear I was not one of those people. “They rightly expect me to show a great deal more enthusiasm with our visitors than with employees. Employees, of course, can wait.”