Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

“Then we’re right back where we started.” I threw my hands in the air. “Who did it?”

“A warden makes a lot of enemies.”

“Yeah. Right.” Too restless to sit still, I got up and walked over to his grave. It was the first time I was able to take a closer look. The headstone was gray granite. LAMAR was prominently carved at the top with JEFFERSON in smaller letters below it and to the left, as well as the dates 1933-1985. To the right, it said HELEN, along with the birth date of 1936. There was no death date listed.

“Helen? She’s your wife?”

Lamar nodded.

“And she’s not-”

“No, she hasn’t passed.”

“And does she think you’re guilty?”

He flinched as if he’d been slapped.

“All right then.” My mind made up, I brushed my hands together and headed out for lunch. “A warden makes a lot of enemies, huh? Then we won’t waste our time going down that road. Not yet. We’ll start with the one person who wasn’t your enemy.”

My restoration plan (such as it was) called for us to spend the rest of that week documenting who was buried where in our section. Yes, I know that sounds easy, but believe me, this was one plan that looked better on paper than it did in real life.

For one thing, there were massive problems with Monroe Street itself. (I mean, in addition to the fact that it was a cemetery and that in the best of all possible worlds, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near there in the first place.) Headstones were toppled, names were misspelled in the cemetery records, and while the old, hand-drawn maps we’d been given showed graves where none existed, they didn’t show a bunch of the gravesites we found.

And then there was the garbage.

Through it all, I did my best to rally my troops. It didn’t work, and by the time Friday rolled around, all the weeds that had been pulled, chopped, and hacked down had been pulled and chopped and hacked down by little ol’ me. By that time, I was sunburned, and that meant the freckles on my nose and cheeks were more visible than ever. Three of my fingernails were broken, and I hadn’t had the time-much less the energy-to file them. I had blisters on my hands and a couple dozen scratches on my arms and legs. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, thanks to a wallop of summer heat and the humidity that descended like a wet blanket over Cleveland, my hair was frizzy.

Good thing we were done filming for the week. Even public television viewers shouldn’t have to see me like that. It was even better that Quinn had been assigned to a new high-profile case. (A city councilman, a dead stripper… need I say more?) He was going to be plenty busy for a while, and that meant we wouldn’t be seeing each other any time soon. I was too exhausted for seduction.

Which didn’t mean I was going to sit back and do nothing. I promised myself a deep conditioning when I got home, and on Saturday afternoon, I headed out to talk to Helen Lamar.

Within twenty minutes of leaving my apartment, I was in the city’s Tremont neighborhood. It was the area I’d mentioned to Sammi earlier that week, and as I cruised around looking for the address listed in the phone book, I saw some of the boutiques I’d talked about and she’d ignored. Not that I was taking that personally or anything. If the girl wanted to turn her back on a career in fashion and be a batterer on house arrest for the rest of her life, that was her business.

Mine was getting to the bottom of Jefferson Lamar’s mystery, and with that in mind, I concentrated on my driving. Tremont is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, and every once in a while, somebody gets it into their head to revitalize it. This was one of those times. Great boutiques stood side by side with trendy restaurants and bars, abandoned buildings, brand-spanking-new condos, and hundred-year-old homes that ranged from Victorian mansions to workers’ cottages.

Helen Lamar lived not far from Lincoln Park, the couple blocks’ worth of greenery that is the center of the neighborhood. Her house was one of those blue-collar cottages, small and neat, with steps that led up to a porch that ran along the side of the house. The yard was tiny and immaculate. It was surrounded by a cyclone fence that had been recently painted. The shiny silver made my eyes hurt. Squinting, I pushed open the gate and stepped onto a slate walk bordered by red roses and white petunias.

I’d already decided what I was going to say to Helen, so when a tiny woman with cropped gray hair and wearing white shorts, an orange T-shirt, and yellow flip flops opened the door, I was ready for her. I’d brought along one of the five hundred business cards Ella had made for me when I started my job at Garden View. Since I didn’t usually want anyone to know where I worked, I had plenty, so I didn’t mind giving one away. Besides, I was hoping the card made me look official. I handed one to Helen. Her eyes were a soft blue, and she looked from the card to me a little uncertainly. “I’m not interested in a burial plot, if that’s what you’re selling. I’ve already got my plot. At-”

“Monroe Street. Yes, I know.”

The uncertainty in her eyes shifted to wariness. As if she thought I’d brought along an army of thugs and was planning a home invasion, she looked beyond me.

“I work at Garden View. As a tour guide.” I brought her attention back to the matter at hand by tapping one broken fingernail to the words printed on my card. “This summer, we’re participating in a restoration project at Monroe Street. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m doing research, see, and the section I’m working in-”

“Is where Jeff is buried.” She might be elderly, but Helen was obviously as sharp as a tack. She followed my long-winded explanation to its logical conclusion, weighing the card in one hand while she gave me another once-over. “If you’re looking for information so you can sensationalize the whole thing-” “It’s nothing like that.”

She thought about it for a moment before she gestured toward the white wicker couch and rocker on the porch. “Then have a seat. I’ll get iced tea.”

While she was gone, I settled myself and got out the legal pad I’d brought along for notes. By the time she was back, I was ready for her. She, it seemed, was ready for me, too.

“If you want someone to tell you the police knew what they were doing and that they did the right thing, you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said. She poured iced tea, her voice as old-lady pleasant as ever. But hey, I’m no dummy. I didn’t fail to catch the iron undertone in her words. “Jeff was innocent.”

“That’s what he-” I drowned my impulsive comment with a gulp of iced tea. It was made from powered mix and too sweet, and I choked, gagged, and swallowed. “I thought if I talked to you, I’d get the other side of the story,” I said. “I thought-”

“Why?”

There was the whole thing about the competition, of course, so I could have started my explanation there. I would have, if Helen hadn’t put down the iced tea pitcher and leaned forward in the rocker, her elbows on her thighs, her fingers steepled beneath her chin. Those blue eyes of hers just about flashed a challenge at me.

In real life, I am not a dishonest person. But more often than not when it comes to ghosts, I find myself not just stretching the truth, but ignoring it altogether. I mean, can anyone blame me? That doesn’t explain why, this time, I opted for honesty. Mostly.

“There’s a note in the cemetery records. I don’t know who left it. It says there was some doubt about Mr. Lamar’s guilt.” “Really?” Her laugh was cynical in a way that made me realize that if I wasn’t careful, she’d see right through me. “No one ever asked me to make a note in Jeff’s cemetery file. And I can’t imagine anyone else took the time. As far as I remember-and just so you know, young lady, my memory is very good-I was the only one in Cleveland who believed Jeff was innocent.”