Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

I would never know, of course, but it was an intriguing possibility, and though I don’t know any other private investigators, so I can’t really speak for them, my guess was that there wasn’t a PI anywhere who wouldn’t have been at least a little curious.

If only I had the time to worry about it!

The next week was a whirr of cemetery work, and we tried to keep our chins up and get ready for our team’s fundraiser in spite of the sobering news that Team One had been awarded twenty points for its tea and we were lagging thirty points behind. We worked like dogs, and if it wasn’t for Ella, we would have probably ended up looking like idiots.

I would have been grateful if she just kept to her cheerleader role and didn’t decide to deliver bad news just an hour before our fundraiser was scheduled to start.

“Five thousand dollars? Team One raised more than five thousand dollars?” I paced the wide flagstone veranda outside the Garfield Memorial, stunned by the news Ella had just delivered. “That means they had…” Math is not one of my strong points. I tried to do some quick calculations, but fortunately, I didn’t need to overtax my brain. Ella had the numbers at her fingertips.

She peeked at the papers in the file folder she was carrying. “Two hundred and fifty-six,” she said. “They sold two hundred and fifty-six tickets to the tea.”

“And we’ve sold, like, what?” I tried to remember, and again, the numbers failed me.

But not Ella. “You’ve got one hundred and thirty-five sold as of right now,” she said. “But don’t worry. It doesn’t mean a thing. You know Team One sold tickets to people who never even showed. Like the mayor and a bunch of state senators and-”

I groaned. “It doesn’t matter if they showed or not. They still got the money. And that means if we don’t have a whole bunch of last-minute ticket buyers, they’re going to get that bonus twenty-five points.”

To me, this was something akin to a tragedy. Which didn’t explain why Ella had a wide smile on her face.

“What?” It was the only logical question.

She kept right on smiling. “You care,” she said.

This stopped me. “I care? About-”

“About the restoration. About your team. About Monroe Street. About cemeteries. Oh, Pepper!” Where this idea came from, I wasn’t sure, but she was so jazzed about it, she couldn’t keep from bobbing around like a buoy on a choppy lake. Come to think of it, that night, she looked a little like a buoy, too, in a clingy red pantsuit that showed off her substantial curves and crystal jewelry that glittered in the evening sun.

“I knew this was going to happen,” Ella said, in that motherly voice I’d heard her use on her three daughters. “I knew you were going to be a real mover and shaker in the cemetery business. This proves it. That’s why you want to win. You’re striving for excellence.”

“I want to win,” I told her, “because except for Bianca, who sort of keeps to herself…” And who I wouldn’t dream of insulting, even though she was nowhere near. “The ladies of Team One…” There was no other way to put it without explaining about the stolen coin or about the snarly looks I’d been getting from Team One since they realized I stole it back. I sighed. “The ladies of Team One are royal pains in the butt.”

“You don’t mean that.” She said that in the way people always do when they know you do mean what you say, they just can’t believe you had the nerve to say it. “Admit it, you’re feeling proprietary about your team. You’re feeling good about Cemetery Survivor . You’re taking real pride in your work. It’s because-finally!-you’ve developed a real love for what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid to admit it. You know you can always tell me the truth.”

“OK, I admit it.” It wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t have time to worry about it, and if it made Ella happy to think I’d morphed into a cemetery geek, that was all that mattered. “I’m glad things are going well with the restoration. But if we don’t get a few more people in here tonight…” Automatically, my gaze traveled to the teal blue doors of the Memorial. They were closed at the moment, and we were waiting for one of the maintenance crew, who said he’d be there any minute, to unlock the building and let us in.

“Not to worry.” Ella patted my arm. “We were here… how late last night? You and your team were a great help. Everyone worked so hard! You know your displays look gorgeous. Everything is going to be just perfect.”

I guess in a weird kind of way, she was right. We’d worked like dogs on making sure the art show looked good, and now, it was time to just sit back (figuratively speaking, of course) and enjoy.

I pulled in a calming breath, picturing it all. As guests walked into the rotunda of the memorial, the first display on the right was Absalom’s. He’d made a bunch of new voodoo dolls specially for the show, and the wild colors of their outfits along with their crazy hairstyles and the flashes of beading and jewelry on them set just the right mood, especially since his display was across from the imposing statue of the president at the center of the memorial.

The next display was Jake’s, a mishmash of photos-some black and white, some in color-of everything from our team working at Monroe Street to the bus Jake took to the cemetery each day. Delmar’s drawings were next, and though I hadn’t said a word to anyone, I thought they were going to get the most attention. The kid had talent, that was for sure. His renderings of what he thought Monroe Street could look like with a lot more work and some big donor contributions were sure to inspire folks to pitch in and join the cause.

Sammi (who was considerably mellower since her last close encounter of the physical kind with Virgil) had insisted on having her stuff in the last display area. She’d made a couple purses for the show (one out of a coffee can and another out of red velvet and gold braid that looked as if it had come from either a church or a bordello). She’d also chosen to display her white vinyl shorts and top outfit, a bikini crocheted from dental floss, and a pair of sneakers that she’d studded with rhinestones and embroidered with Christmas tree tinsel. There was some talk of including the Wonder Bread dress until Sammi discovered that in his eagerness to get it off her, Virgil had left a nasty hole in it. But remember, this was a kinder, gentler Sammi. She actually didn’t seem to mind all that much.

“I know it all looks pretty good,” I said, talking to myself as much as to Ella.

“Considering how creative it all is, I think it’s going to cause quite a sensation.” Ella grinned. “I talked to the art critic from the Plain Dealer this morning. They’re planning to run a whole photo spread.”

“That’s good. It’s all good.” It was. I knew it. That didn’t stop the familiar rat-a-tat of jitters from starting up inside me again. “But now we need more people. Maybe our groupies don’t love us anymore.”

“Maybe your groupies just aren’t people who do things like buy tickets ahead of time. They’ll show up. You know they will. I think they’d pay money just to see Delmar and Reggie. I’ve got to say, that Reggie…” Ella’s face turned a shade of red that matched her pantsuit. “Obviously, he’s not my type. I mean, he’s a criminal after all, and he’s so rough around the edges and so-”

I cut her off with a laugh. “No apologies necessary,” I told her. “Reggie’s a tough guy, and a lot of women are attracted to that type.”

She cringed. “A lot of women, yes. But I’m usually not one of them. I’m level-headed, remember. My goodness! What would my girls say if they knew that when I was watching last week’s episode and saw Reggie stripped down to his denim shorts digging that hole where the new fountain is going to go… and he was all hot, and the sweat outlined every muscle in his body… I felt this rush of heat, you know, and one of the girls-I don’t remember which one-one of the girls asked if I was having hot flashes, and I didn’t want to tell her what it really was, and-”