Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

  He had a good point, but we had so much to do, and I could not chase literally after voices and phantoms. I had to have faith that whatever awaited me, I would greet face to face, with honor.

  “I want to live, have reasons to live as much as any man. But chasing after specters and voices isn’t going to end the war, or stop my sister from getting hurt. I need to get home. More importantly, I need to bring my son here.” I continued to wipe my cheek.

  Shaw-Jones frowned at me, but curiously enough did not press it. “Promise me you will spend another night out here trying to contact whoever knows your fate.”

  I nodded my assent. “If you find out before me–” Here I stopped. “If you find out before I get a chance to come out here again.” Shaw-Jones extended his hand.

  “Rest assured I will take action. I cannot do anything else.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be returning to San Francisco on a steamer.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Shaw-Jones answered.

  “They will be safe under Virofsky. Hidden as well.”

  “Deep in earth my love is lying–” Shaw-Jones began Edgar Poe’s grisly poem. “You do realize your Marshal’s star must remain buried as well. That is, until you make your arrest.”

  “I’m not ready to arise from that coffin.”

  “Excuse me, but am I correct in understanding that you are saying that we participants of covert activities flirt with death?”

  “None of us can come into the light just yet.”

  Shaw-Jones was silent as if pondering the merits or flaws in my plan. I did know this. If I were to complete my mission with the thieves, reign them in and shut down what was going on here, I needed to have all I cared about in one place, knowing that I could return to them easily. No longer would I put distance between my family and my heart.

  But it was what was to come that worried me. There was one year and two months before the prediction of my death came to be. I could change a lot between now, December 11th, 1863, and that terrible date of February 11th,1865. I had help; I had skills. I would change my fate.

  “Well, the ghosts in this gulch and I will help you.”

  Nodding my gratitude, I climbed up onto my saddle, going slowly up the Soquel Road. I thought about the American Flag on the man’s jacket. Then, as I approached the wagon road up to the estate and the summit, I figured out why the flag’s image was bothering me.

  It had too many stars on its field. My mind took in the rest.

  In 2013, the United States would have Fifty States. We would win the Civil War as Union, and we would grow. I had to survive. This was the future I wanted.

  EPILOGUE

  “If it takes the ghosts of past time to retain the glamor [sic] of present places – then let us cherish the ghosts!”

  -Chester Dowell, Santa Cruz News, 1923

  Present Day

  Love is Evergreen

  11:30 p.m., Arana Gulch

  “Andrew Jackson Sloan, are you there? Can you speak to us?” I called out into the gulch. “We need to know why you are haunting this place. Talk to us. We want to help.”

  Everyone turned towards the gulch. The Ghost Hunters had come to my backyard.

  “Please come back to me!” I whispered to myself. But it was Randall Ikebara who was on my mind. What would he think of all this?

  “Remember,” Genoa, the Head Ghost Hunter (or Paranormal Investigator as they preferred to be called) whispered. “Never invite an entity to be with you. You don’t know what kind of entity it is. We are here to help the person move on, not stay on.”

  Oops.

  Genoa quickly called out that the murderer had been caught, and that A.J. had been avenged. But she was going off the popular historical context. “You’re buried at Evergreen Cemetery. They say you were ambushed by Faustino Lorenzana and Jose Rodriguez. They say you were drunk.”

  Faustino, I knew, did not murder A.J. But I had no evidence, just a gut feeling. I felt like the whole history was simply bent to support the current events, rather than reflect the actual history. Today, gang terror was on everyone’s minds, especially in Santa Cruz.

  “How do we know if he heard us?” I whispered back. Genoa held up an iPad with a green backlit screen. It pulsed with a scan bar every ten seconds.

  “We’ve got this real time EVP software that will pick up any spirit voices in the area. We’ll make a video for you when we are done. With your permission, we’ll also post our findings on our website and on YouTube.” Genoa touched my arm. “Sharing your experience helps others understand theirs,” she reminded me again. My reservations about all this could not be hidden.

  Some words came up on the screen:

  I’M…WHO…SHOT…NOT…DEAD… Well, hmm, I thought. It almost sounded like a bad cell phone call. I had this humorous image of a tinkerer in 1865 leaning towards a large, tuba-like machine extended towards our gulch, thinking they were haunted by voices, listening for them, and trying to decipher our words from the gulch.

  What would A.J. think? Hell, what would Randall think?? Especially about the internet sharing. Randall, after all, was a lawman.

  The only thing I could reassure myself with was the most recent sighting. What would I say to this group? Nothing at all. If A.J. really were here, tonight was the night to find out and move on with my life. Why the two were connected bothered me quite a lot.

  “What about all the neighbors, homeless, and human activity nearby?”

  Genoa whispered: “We can screen out local ‘noise’.”

  Why did we care so much, here in present time? Seemed more than just getting history more accurate. I’d figure that all out soon. The big question for me was why had Olivia seen A.J.? Was it because Randall had taken a bullet?

  My thoughts went back to meeting her brother Randall, the father of my son’s girlfriend. Tall, cowboy hat-wearing, retired law officer, bearded, longhaired Randall. Green-eyed, soft spoken, chocolate cake-making Randall. Oh, what would my son think?

  “The owner of this property,” here Genoa pointed to Peter and Olivia’s house next door, “–said the night she saw Jack Sloan, the next day she found out her brother had been shot.” There were murmurs of acknowledgement. I guessed that was a normal thing?

  “What kind of wound?” Kent, the amulet-wearing “protector” of the crew, asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I stammered. “I think Randall said it was a groin shot.”

  “How was Jack Sloan killed?”

  This was something I did know, because the coroner’s jury report was in the newspaper of the time. “He was shot three times, but the kill shot was in the groin.” I choked on the words. So that was why Olivia had seen him.

  “Sometimes ghosts appear to warn others of impending death or danger to one’s family.” It was too dark to see who spoke, but it sounded like the handsome Hispanic guy, Jesus, they had on the team.

  That truly did make sense. I suddenly got the chills. I glanced over at the tablet but didn’t know what to look for.

  “Words will pop up if he answers our questions,” Genoa answered with a grin as if reading my mind. “I’m really curious about what he has to say.” She looked at me too keenly, as if I had something more to do with this than I was admitting.

  My thoughts went back to wondering if Randall would show up this evening. The kids and Peter and Olivia had all gone to Peter’s father’s house in San Juan Bautista. My son told me that they’d stay overnight, maybe two. But Randall wasn’t mentioned. It was late, and I hadn’t seen him come home yet. Part of me fretted about Randall calling the cops or showing up himself demanding to know what the hell we were doing. Part of me thought he just felt awkward after this afternoon. The sadness I felt at that notion was horrible.

  On the flip side, I really wanted A.J., the Ghost of Arana Gulch, to show up. I really did. This whole ghost haunting business needed more of a reason than just revenge, or lost love. What do you really want, A.J.? I thought. That I needed to know more than anything,
except for, well, why me?

  The crew was setting up a video camera and a flashlight set of three independent lights for a question and answer session they hoped would happen. I found myself going back over this morning’s conversation I had with Randall as we accidentally ran into each other while jogging up the trails at the top of Paul Sweet Road.

  The log and dirt stairwell that climbed from the gulch up the backside of the resort to its running trail was easier to do today. I made it to the top, then ran down the remainder of the loop that entered a gully filled with forget-me-nots. I stopped my run to check on my shoe laces when I swear I thought I saw someone in a long brown coat, but the image faded as I looked right at it.

  “You shouldn’t run out here alone. You never know who you might run into.”

  Randall was walking towards me, the other direction of this four mile loop. He looked different in a baseball cap. The cap said Quantico. For a moment I was speechless. Then the words came out.

  “Hi! I’m surprised to see you. This is not an easy trail.” Why did I say stupid shit like that?

  Randall smiled and looked down. “Thought I’d push it a bit. Did the kids tell you they won’t be home tonight? They’re all going down to Bart’s.”

  “Oh wow. He has an old hacienda, I hear.”

  “Ex-commune. But historic, if you mean.”

  “You’re not going?”

  Randall shook his head.

  “What are you doing this evening?” he asked me.

  “I have a boatload of Paranormal Investigators doing a ghost hunt at my house tonight.” What the fuck? That sounded so stupid. I simply didn’t know why I sounded so breathless. Randall started at the explanation.

  “Really? I’d like to see that.”

  I laughed at the idea. “Well, you should just sneak up on them wearing your hat and the evening will be complete!” I joked but caught myself.

  “Okay,” he said lightly. “Maybe I will.” Just as we said goodbye, I stepped onto a root and fell towards him. He caught me. I swear I was pushed.

  My mind couldn’t stop thinking about this morning, so this afternoon I spent at the grocery store, then I came home and cooked chili verde, refried beans with chili, and grilled pineapple. The day wasn’t getting warmer. When I went to turn on my heater, I could hear the familiar click of the gas igniter but no flame inside the wall furnace.

  I bent down to see that yes, the stupid pilot light had blown out. I went prone on my back with my wand lighter trying to look underneath the burners to find that awful tiny pilot stem I was supposed to relight.

  Naturally twisting to the side I lay back for a minute, trying to avoid a neck cramp. Someone knocked on the glass sliding door. As it was Sunday morning, I really didn’t feel like opening the door at this given moment so ignored it.

  Suddenly someone opened my front door. It was Randall who in a few seconds was hovering over me looking very concerned.

  “Are you okay? I just saw your legs, through your front window, on the floor,” he said, his face slightly pink.

  “I was trying to re-light my pilot light inside the furnace. My neck cramped.”

  *****

  Randall couldn’t concentrate on the task of cutting board. It was a simple task, but he found himself trying to understand why he couldn’t stop thinking about Selene.

  The kids were at the store. Peter was at work getting a few things done before they left for his father’s farm and Olivia was teaching a class. Olive was at Mikhail and Dulcet’s learning how to make jam.

  Randall threw down his pencil and looked across the way at Selene’s house. He could smell cooking. Burned chilis, actually, and baking bread. He went down the stairs, across her patio, up the back steps to the side door and knocked on the glass door.

  No answer.

  Randall peered into the house through the glass and to his alarm, saw something he would never forget for the rest of his life: Selene was collapsed on her floor.

  Randall quickly checked the sliding glass door, but it was in the locked position. He ran around to the front door, found it unlocked and ran inside to her prone body. Carefully, feeling a coldness at perhaps finding Selene dead, or in a stroke-induced fugue, or perhaps an attempted suicide, he knelt over her form.

  She gasped and grabbed his bicep just as he grabbed hers.

  *****

  He hugged me, Randall. I hugged back. He was obviously upset at me and relieved to find me just lying on the floor of my own free will. I hugged him deeply, enjoying the feel of his body against mine and yearning for that feeling way too much. It had been a very long time since I’d been in a man’s arms. I didn’t want to let go and he didn’t seem to mind. For some reason, I gave him a kiss near the top of his cheek, just before the goatee. He smelled like pine.

  Randall was a lot stronger than I thought and tightened his embrace, rolled on top of me (which felt natural, wonderful, and completely fine), and kissed me, tongue and all. I pulled off his hat, touched the side of his face and his hands went under my shirt, in the back, his fingers following the indentation of my spine down underneath the waist band of my yoga pants, down, down–

  “Mom?” Mick’s voice cracked.

  We both popped apart like a champagne cork from a bottle. Mick and Ellen were standing there with groceries in their arms.

  Randall got up and took the groceries from Ellen’s arms. They stepped outside for a moment. I knew things were tense between them. Ellen told him something which sent Randall running down towards Peter and Olivia’s. I couldn’t meet my son’s eyes. Ellen came back in and told me her father had to go up to the City unexpectedly but he’d be back late this evening.

  She and Mick exchanged strange looks with each other. I started to put away groceries. That was nine hours ago.

  My eyes kept searching the pathway along my side yard that led to the street road. Please, Randall, come through my gate. Let’s talk about what happened between us.

  Could he answer on A.J.’s behalf? Fake an EVP, as they called them, or fake words by whispering really low, low enough to make that tablet thingy go off?

  “It won’t pick up someone whispering next door, the tablet,” Genoa said to me, watching me jump at her statement. She patted my shoulder. “Patience. They don’t show up on cue. We may see nothing tonight. Sometimes it takes more than one investigation to get things going.”

  I nodded and tried to focus on this mystery. A.J.’s death set a course of action that changed the very face of this community. But he was seldom mentioned. His death story was questioned a decade later by the press, only to be met with silence. Other murders occurred, and money from the local county coffers began to disappear.

  Could A.J.’s death have simply gotten lost in the news of the Civil War? And what happened to all the banditry? That seemed to lessen or change. Faustino’s fate was heroic. Could these reports be trusted? Could Randall, with his law enforcement background, make sense of it?

  Was I wrong to kiss him this afternoon? My mood darkened. Something, anything, would help gain some insight on this mystery. Why didn’t I get Randall’s cell number? Why was I thinking so much about him and A.J. as if they were the same person?

  Suddenly a dark shape appeared near the gate. It came right through to my side yard. My heart froze. The shape turned into a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and long coat, A.J.’s signature apparel. He floated down the walk. Oh God…

  Seeing A.J. again brought tears to me. Genoa saw that I wanted to speak so I did, right out into the gulch. My mind’s eye saw them listening to the gulch at the same time with an 1860’s version of a digital recorder. I imagined anything to keep from losing my nerve.

  “My name is Selene. I work at Evergreen Cemetery…” I called out. Here I paused, but I had to know, so I asked my research question, hoping that I was on the right path, that I was following the correct hunch. “Was it Towne who tried to shoot you? Did you survive?”

  Genoa’s tablet blazed forth with a few words
at a time. The first one illuminated in bright green letters. He…The next word said: Survive.

  I felt like fainting. Squinting into the dark behind me, where I thought I had seen A.J. come through my back gate, I searched for that same apparition of the emaciated, sad, lonely man. I squinted at this apparition but it felt different. Dark, undefined, unclear, dangerous. He hovered there, watchful. The tears fell down from my eyes.

  All I kept thinking was, at least I have you. You are still here. You are real. But something was off. I looked again at the apparition and saw ice-reflected eyes gleam underneath the brim of the hat.

  My face felt really hot, but I and the others around me exclaimed on the temperature. One investigator held out a gun-shaped device with a metal tip at its end.

  “The temp has dropped ten degrees in the last ten minutes. Aup, it’s going back up again.” She sounded excited.

  Kent was holding a video camera following me, Genoa, and the other investigators as they watched tablets.

  “Is there anyone here with us tonight?” Genoa asked. The flashlights Genoa had set up earlier on the brick wall, all three blazed.

  Something in me turned back to the walkway. Suddenly I saw Randall walk straight over towards the stairwell to the upper deck, careful not to be seen by anyone else. In the darkness he gave off the peculiar glow live people do when they’ve been in a warm house. He’d come home. I was relieved. He was watching us.

  He had a half smile on his face, and seeing me, he put a finger to his lips. Oh my God, he doesn’t want me to let them know he’s here. What’s he doing? Randall made a rolling motion with his hand, as if to say, keep going, stay quiet, I want to watch… This should be interesting. Rolling my eyes, I turned away, biting my lower lip.

  “Jack Sloan, are you here with us? Please tell us what you are doing here.” The flashlights turned off.

  “Okay – the EVP monitor just said: Watching…” The group took a single inhale. There was some chuckling.

  “Jack, we want to know why you came here. Did you need to speak to someone?” The lights came on again.