“Work. Exactly.” Again, the cigar came out of his mouth. This time, he used it to point at that paper on my desk. Gray ash floated down like snow and vanished into nothingness before it landed. “I been lookin’ at your work. Don’t they teach you kids nothin’ these days?”
I’m not very good at guessing games, so I leaned forward to see what he was looking at. It was the latest edition of my newsletter, the one I’d taken to the cocktail party the night before. There was only one question appropriate to the occasion. “So?”
“That’s all you got to say for yourself?” The ghost hauled himself out of my chair, and I saw that he was just about as round as he was tall. “You need some passion in your writin’, kid. Some oomph. You know what I mean? How you gonna get anybody to read this rag of yours if alls you talk about is humdrum, ho-hum hooey? What’s sensational is what sells newspapers!”
Far be it from me to take my work personally. At least my work at Garden View. But hey, I’d spent a lot of time on that newsletter. And a lot of effort, too, to get it written and printed in time for the cocktail party. I couldn’t help but feel the teensiest bit defensive.
“First of all, it’s not a newspaper, it’s a newsletter,” I pointed out. “And second, I’m not selling it, I’m giving it away. To anyone who visits the cemetery and wants one. Or anybody who calls and asks for one. Those people aren’t looking for sensational. They just want information. You know, about when we’re open and what there is to see here and—”
“You’ve sure got a thing or two to learn.” The ghost stalked around to the front of the desk. He smelled like stale cigars. My nose twitching, I leaned back in my chair.
“People always wants what’s sensational,” he said. “Murders. Robberies. Colorful characters. Affairs of the heart.” His bushy eyebrows twitched. “They want the nitty-gritty, you know, the lowdown. The scoop! And you…” He pointed at me with that fat cigar and thank goodness those ashes disappeared right before they landed, otherwise they would have polka dotted my black pants and I would have been even unhappier than I already was. “You, sister, are the one that’s gonna give it to ’em.”
“But I don’t want to give it to them. Don’t you get it? I don’t care.”
“Not care? About gettin’ the story?” His face went as white as a…well, I don’t have to say it. “The news is the only thing there is worth caring about,” he said. “Gettin’ the story. Knowin’ the facts. Diggin’ deeper than anybody else for all the dirt.”
“There is no dirt. Not in cemeteries.” All right, even I realized how dumb that sounded. But not until I’d already said it. Rather than have this ghost point it out, I barreled right on. “In case you haven’t noticed, the facts around here aren’t all that interesting, anyway. Nothing ever happens at Garden View that anybody would go out of their way to read about.” Not technically true since once upon a time, one of our volunteers had been murdered, a photographer had once been mugged, I’d body-snatched a famous Native American, and there had been any number of attempts on my life within the cemetery walls. I edited my last statement.
“Well, nothing happens around here that the cemetery would actually want anybody to find out about,” I said. “I’m the community relations manager, remember. That means I have to make people think this is a great place to visit. That’s why I…” I leaned over and poked a finger at my newsletter. “I have to stick to the facts.”
“That’s because there are facts”—another twitch of those so-needing-a-good-tweezing brows—“and there are facts. If you get my meaning.”
I didn’t.
With his cigar, the ghost waved away what was, apparently, my complete stupidity. “What I’m tellin’ you, sister, is sometimes those facts are out in the open for you to see right away. And sometimes, they’re a little more slippery. You gotta run and catch ’em. And then there’s the times when you gotta make ’em up. But that’s only when you got no other choice, you understand. Or when addin’ a little…you know…color…when addin’ a little color gives you better headlines than them other newspapers have. Headlines grab attention, kid, and attention grabs readers, and readers—”
“Grab advertising dollars.” I wasn’t jaded, just practical.
“Quit talkin’ like a nincompoop! Advertisin’, that’s a problem for the boys upstairs. Down in the newsroom, alls we care about is readership. There’s nothin’ like the thought of people sittin’ around their kitchen tables, readin’ your story. Or picturin’ ’em listenin’ to some dope on the radio talk about the news and them thinkin’, ‘That’s not the way it happened. That ain’t the way Chet Houston wrote about it.’”
“Houston.” The name was vaguely familiar and I shuffled through my mental Rolodex of Garden View’s permanent residents to place it. “Chet Houston, as in the old-time Cleveland newspaper reporter?”
“Ain’t you a perceptible one?” Chet laughed. He had a gap a mile wide between his two front teeth.
“I’ve taken people to your grave,” I told him and watched him puff with pride. “I remember the story. You were alive back in the thirties.”
“Pretty and smart.” He flicked ashes on the floor and one by one, they morphed into sparkly clouds, then burst like tiny fireworks. “Maybe you ain’t a lost cause after all.”
“I’m not a cause at all. I’m just trying to get to work. So why don’t you…” I shooed him out of my way and went to sit down behind my desk. “If you could just go back to wherever it is you came from…”
“Well, that’s just the problem, ain’t it, sister?”
Here it comes.
The words echoed through my head and I knew what they meant.
I plunked my elbows on my desk, cradled my chin in my hands, and said, “All right. Get it over with. This is the part where you tell me what I have to do to help you move to the Other Side. Then I tell you I don’t want to get involved. Then you tell me I have no choice because you need to right some wrong or whatever, and then I finally give in and take your case.”
Chet had a pencil behind one ear and he grabbed it, scratched the side of his bulbous nose, then put it back. “You got me all wrong,” he said. “I ain’t askin’ nothin’ from you. Well, hardly nothin’. But I am offerin’ to do you a big favor.”
This was a new wrinkle on the ghostly visitor game, and I sat up and, yes, my look was a little dubious. Like anyone could blame me? “What do you have in mind?” I asked him.
“Well, that newsletter of yours for one thing.” Chet looked to where the newsletter sat on my desk and shook his head slowly. “It could be really good. You know what I mean? It could grab readers by the throat and drag them in. If…” He hauled in a mouthful of smoke, then let out a perfectly formed ring. “If you’d let me write it for you.”
Did I say new? This wasn’t just new, it was monumental.
Which is exactly why every skeptical cell in my body started to tingle.
“You’re willing to do my work for me? And write the newsletter?” That little warm curl I felt around my heart was something very much like hope, and I dared not get too attached to it. No doubt, there was a catch. I’d bet anything I wasn’t going to like it.
Chet crossed one stubby finger over his nonfunctioning heart. “Every issue,” he said. “And I guarantee each and every one will be jam-packed with stories that will knock your readers dead.”
“I think we’ve already got enough dead here to go around,” I said, and when that didn’t get a laugh out of him, I bagged the humor and went straight for the details. “Why?” I asked, leveling him with a look. “Why would you do that for me?”
His answer was simple enough. “Well, for one thing, your newsletter stinks. And for another…well…” Chet took off his hat. His head was as round as a tennis ball and he scraped one hand through the few strands of mousy brown hair he had left. “It’s kind of boring. I mean, this being dead and all. If I could just get back into the game—”
“And write my newsletter for me?” I
thought about the dreary hours I’d spent cobbling together the latest issue of the newsletter and about all the others I’d have to write in the future. It took more self-control than I knew I had to harness the smile that threatened to erupt, but I did it. See, if I’d learned anything in my years as the world’s only PI to the dead, it was that ghosts are a cagey bunch. Oh, they might be willing to help, all right. But they always want something in return. I slid my gaze to Chet. “Why?” I asked him. “What do you want?”
He shrugged. “Not much. Hardly nothin’ at all. It wouldn’t take a dame with your smarts more than a few minutes to arrange the whole thing.”
“Which is…?”
He pulled at the loose skin under his chin. “Just a new headstone.”
I guess my astonishment showed, because he rushed in to explain.
“The one they gave me after I kicked the bucket…it’s just about the darned ugliest thing I ever seen. Angels. Imagine puttin’ angels on the headstone of a guy like me. And flowers. Makes me want to puke every time I look at it. My sister done it. I guess she was just tryin’ to pick out somethin’ nice and respectful. You know, on account of how people get all mushy when somebody dies.”
“And you’d like something a little more appropriate.”
Chet grinned and gave me a wink. “Like I said, smart and pretty.”
I looked from him to the newsletter, and oh boy, I was tempted. But before I could agree to his plan, the door to my office popped open and Ella breezed in.
“Oh my!” She waved one hand in front of her face. “It smells like old cigars in here. Pepper, you haven’t been smoking, have you?” She thought this was pretty funny so she laughed. “Ugh! You really need to open a window.”
Ella marched across the office and she would have walked right through Chet Houston if he hadn’t stepped aside. Apparently, he’d watched Ella at work before. He knew exactly what I knew: with Ella, there was no such thing as a quick conversation. When Ella threw open a window, Chet puffed away in a cloud of cigar smoke that whooshed out the open window and vanished.
“That’s better.” Still fanning for all she was worth, Ella plunked down in the guest chair I’d recently vacated. “You did a great job last night, Pepper.”
Sure, Ella was cemetery geek number one, but she was also my boss and my friend. Her praise meant a lot to me, and I smiled.
“You are…” Ella’s little cough had a nervous edge. “You are going to continue, aren’t you?”
“With my job? I just got it back, Ella. I’m not going to—”
“Oh, that’s not what I meant.” Ella’s apple cheeks were rosy. “I meant…well, you know. Milo Blackburne. You are going to keep that date with him next week, aren’t you?”
So much for that smile. “It’s not a date, it’s lunch,” I reminded her. “And it’s not a friendly type lunch, it’s a lunch to talk about his donation to the cemetery.”
“Yes, of course.” Ella smoothed a hand over her ankle-length black skirt and tugged at the lace-edged sleeves of her white blouse. “I completely understand. Of course I do, Pepper. It’s just that—”
Just that, nothing, and I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to it. I pinned her with a look. “Maybe you’d like to come along. You’re the cemetery administrator. That would impress the hell out of Blackburne.”
“No, I don’t think so.” That day, only Ella’s earrings hinted at her sparkly side. They were pink rhinestones, and when she stood, they twitched and caught the light. “I wouldn’t want to intrude and to…you know…distract Mr. Blackburne.”
My sigh should have said it all. Just in case it didn’t, I pointed out, “It’s business, Ella.”
“Yes, of course it is.” Too bad she didn’t look like she believed it. “But he’s not a bad-looking man, and he’s just about the right age for you. And you know, he’s got money out the wazoo. Old Cleveland family. Very well respected. I hear he’s got a huge house on the lake and—”
“Earth to Ella.” I waved my hands to stop her before she could get carried away. Or maybe I should say more carried away. “I’m not interested in Blackburne. Not in that way, anyway.”
“Of course not.” Her smile was swift and sweet. “But I could tell he was interested in you. You know, that way.”
I wanted to say no duh, but bit my tongue. When she gets like this, there’s no use encouraging Ella.
“I know you’re smart and professional, Pepper, and I’d never suggest that you would actually throw yourself at any man.”
“But…?”
“But…” Ella’s smile dissolved into a grimace and she flopped back down in my guest chair. “Getting Milo Blackburne on our patron list would be…well, I won’t mince words. It would be something of a feather in my cap, and you see, I sort of need that. After that whole austerity program we worked under earlier in the year, then finding out that our revenues would have been just fine if our last administrator wasn’t cooking the books…well, you can understand, a lot of our long-time donors are nervous. The board is a little antsy, too. And it’s not that I blame them or anything.” Ella held up one hand as a way of signaling that really, she understood where they were coming from. “Of course, they’re gun-shy. Of course, they want proof that things here can run smoothly.”
It made sense, I just hadn’t thought about it before, but…
I narrowed my eyes and gave Ella a careful look. No easy thing since I was suddenly trembling. “Are you telling me…You mean to say…Those idiots on the board are actually making you go through some sort of test run? Like you’re in a probationary period or something? They’re questioning whether or not you can do the job?”
“Now, Pepper…” Ella slipped into motherly mode. Raised eyebrows. Soft voice. That little flicker of sympathy in her eyes that warmed my heart at the same time it brought home the fact that she was way too kind and understanding for her own good. “Of course the board wants proof.”
“From you?” I slapped a hand on my desk. “You’ve worked here practically forever. Nobody knows Garden View like you do. Every headstone, and every tree, and every statue and—”
“That doesn’t mean I can run the place.” Ella, the voice of reason.
“Yeah? Is that what those fools think? Then they’ve got their heads up their butts. They’re missing out on the fact that you’re also smart and organized and that everybody who works here loves you so you know they’re going to work harder for you than they ever did for Jim. And the board should know that, too, and—”
“Thank you, Pepper.” When she reached across the desk to pat my hand, Ella’s eyes were misty. “I knew you’d understand.” She lowered her voice. “Nobody else knows. About the ninety-day trial period, I mean. I didn’t want anyone to worry, or to question my competence. Not that I care what they think of me personally!” The color in her cheeks got a little brighter. “But I don’t want anyone to think less of Garden View or of our trustees and board members.”
No, Ella wouldn’t. That was the one thing about Ella. She was a geek, all right, a bighearted, dedicated, sincere, loyal geek.
A geek who kept her gaze on her round-toed black flats when she added, “So if there was any way you could actually work your magic and bring us Milo Blackburne as a patron and if you could make it happen within the next couple months…”
Bighearted, dedicated, sincere, and loyal, huh?
It looked like Ella could also be sneaky.
I sat back, my head cocked, the better to give her a look that told her I was onto her. “So you’re willing to dangle me in front of Milo Blackburne like a fat worm on a hook. All so you can get him to donate to the cemetery.”
Ella looked up at the ceiling. “I could never think of you as a fat worm,” she said.
“You know there’s a name for what you’re doing,” I reminded her.
She didn’t dispute it.
In fact, all she did was stand up. “You’ll do it?”
“I was going to even before I kne
w how stupid the board is.”
Her smile blossomed.
“It’s just lunch,” I reminded her before her imagination could run away and take her common sense along with it. “A business lunch with a man I hardly know and who I am not in any way, shape, or form interested in.”
“Yes, of course.” Ella bustled over to that table where I’d had the newsletters stacked the night before. Some of the things she’d always kept in the office and had yet had time to move were stacked there, too. “I just came for my pictures,” she said, gathering the framed photos of her three girls. She already had her hand on an arrangement of silk flowers that featured giant white daisies, pink carnations, and very bright blue snapdragons. “These flowers have always added just that right touch of color in here. If you wanted to keep them…”
I looked at the two giant vases of fresh flowers on my desk as a way to tell her I didn’t.
“You might not always have handsome men sending you flowers. Then you’ll be sorry.” Ella’s warning came along with a smile. She added the silk flowers to the pile she was carrying and headed for the door.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” She turned back to me. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, what with all of us being so busy getting ready for the sponsorship party and all. But we’ll be meeting next week. You know, about department budgets for next year.”
“Budgets?” The word was not in my vocabulary so it was no wonder it felt too big for my throat.
“Not to worry.” She hugged the framed photos closer to her chest. “It’s all a part of the community relations manager’s responsibilities. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
“Get the hang of it? Like actually do the budget?”
She let out a silvery laugh, but even that wasn’t enough to convince me. I needed clarity. Especially when it came to the b word.
“You don’t actually expect me to play with numbers, do you?” I asked her.
“Oh, Pepper, you’re so funny.” Apparently I was, because she laughed again. “It’s all a matter of looking at what your department spent last year, comparing it to what you anticipate spending next year, doing some tweaking, and…voila!”
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