Grave Errors

by Carol J. Perry

  Shannon raised her hand. “Me, if that’s all right with you. Kelsey’s already left and Dakota’s going to walk home. Pete said it was okay.”

  Pete nodded his agreement and I pulled the keys from my pocket and handed them to her. “Here. Let yourself in. I won’t be long.”

  I watched as the group trudged across the grass, passing orderly rows of tombstones, once again single file behind Kelsey, who—I could tell by her gestures—continued to deliver her ghost tour information.

  Pete put both hands on my shoulders. “God, Lee. Are you all right? The twins are worried about you. So am I.” He pulled me close for a moment and whispered, “I wish I could be with you every minute,” then stepped back and looked into my eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you before you leave. Roger and Ray already know about it, so they may have told the others by now.”

  I frowned. “What is it?”

  “The body. It’s James Dowgin. No doubt about it.”

  “Oh dear. Pete, was he . . . was he murdered?”

  “I don’t know. The doc says no visible sign of trauma from his cursory exam. We’ll know better when we get him to the morgue. Are you sure you’re all right to drive?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I promise. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

  “Okay. I’ll be along just as soon as I finish up here.”

  “They’re not going to close the whole cemetery are they?”

  “No. We’re only taping the area where he was found and the west gate. Probably the parking lot outside the gate too. We’ve informed the city to keep the riding mowers out for a while.”

  I headed for the parking lot where Shannon waited. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I speed dialed Aunt Ibby. Between the various media outlets and Salem’s efficient gossip grapevine, I knew that news of a fresh body in an old cemetery would travel fast. I wanted her to hear it from me first.

  I wasn’t first.

  “Maralee, dear! I was just about to call you. Is it true? Someone found a dead man in the same cemetery where you went to take pictures?”

  “It’s true.” I kept my voice calm and steady. “I’m just leaving to go back to the school right now. The police have everything under control and Pete’s going to meet us all at the Tabby. It was pretty frightening, but everyone is okay. I’ll call you as soon as I can and tell you all about it.”

  “Well then dear, if you’re sure you’re all right.” She paused. “You didn’t actually have to see the poor dead man, did you?”

  I hesitated for about a second, then answered truthfully. “No. I didn’t see him.”

  But I did actually put my hand directly onto poor James Dowgin’s dead mouth.

  CHAPTER 31

  Shannon was in the passenger seat of the ’vette waiting for me. She’d locked the car. Smart girl. I tapped on the window and after a moment of studying the instrument panel, she opened the doors and I slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Well, this morning didn’t go exactly as planned, did it?” I said, stating the obvious as I pulled out onto Bridge Street.

  “Sure didn’t. That was awful—about you tripping over that body—the Dowgin guy everybody’s been looking for. The twins told us. Makes me shiver just thinking about it.”

  “I’m guessing there’ll be a few nightmares about it in my future.”

  “In Dakota’s future too I guess. Did you hear what Dot said about him finding her sister’s body?”

  “I did,” I said. “She hadn’t told me about that before. I guess Dakota hadn’t mentioned it to you either?”

  “No. But then, I haven’t known him very long and he’s so darn quiet. He’s told me hardly anything about himself.”

  “Strong silent type, huh?”

  She smiled at that. “Yeah, but he sure is cute. And those eyes really get me!”

  The thought of the cat face with Dakota’s eyes gave me a chill. I was glad to pull up to the Tabby where there might be some sort of normalcy. “Here we are,” I said, a little too heartily. “I hope we got some good shots for the brochure.”

  “Did you get your camera back?” Shannon asked. “I heard you say you dropped it when—you know.”

  I’d forgotten to ask Pete about my camera. “I didn’t,” I told her as I eased the ’vette into my accustomed parking space. “But I hadn’t taken any shots yet anyway. I hope they found it. It’s a good one. Takes better pictures than my phone does.”

  “I hope you get it back. Dot says that her mother is sending her sister’s phone to her.” Shannon stepped out of the car and faced me across the convertible top. “That’s a little creepy, if you ask me. I mean hearing a dead person’s last messages or seeing their last pictures.”

  “I hadn’t given that much thought,” I told her as I scanned the lot, noting that the other two cars were already there. “But yeah, it would be kind of creepy.” I thought about my dead parents. If smart phones had been invented back then, would I have wanted to see and hear those things? I still don’t know the answer to that.

  I locked the car and we entered through the diner, thinking that some of the class might have stopped to warm up with some coffee, which sounded like a good idea to me. I was right. All of them were seated at the usual table even though it was a little early for lunch.

  Shannon and I joined them. It was, as one might expect under the circumstances, a more subdued group than usual. Even our regular waitress who liked to kid around with us spoke in a hushed tone, asking quietly, “Coffee, Ms. Barrett?”

  “Yes, thanks,”

  I knew it was my job to get the students out of this pervasive gloom and back into learning mode, but from the looks of the faces around the table, it wasn’t going to be easy. I decided to plunge right in.

  “This morning was bad,” I said, “and until the police get things straightened out I’m afraid we could be in for more unpleasant surprises. I want all of you to remember that you are pursuing careers in television, which may often involve the seamy side of life. You’re all familiar I’m sure with the old media adage—‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ Well, you had a firsthand experience this morning. Did any of you come away with useful video of the happenings at the cemetery? Video that might interest WICH-TV?” I looked around. Some of the faces had brightened already. “What are you doing sitting around drinking coffee? Call the station.” I rattled off the station’s number from memory. Bruce Doan would want those images right away. “This could mean your first TV credit. Go for it.”

  Both twins, Therese and Hilda grabbed their phones. Ray stood and headed for the door, phone to his ear, with Roger close behind. I hadn’t had a chance to film anything at all and Dorothy and Shannon apparently felt that they’d not captured any images of importance either.

  With the beginning of the school day still a good hour away, I suggested that those of us who didn’t have videos to share might begin to write down our impressions of exactly what had happened at Howard Street. “Pete will be along soon to interview each of us, and having written notes to consult will be helpful, I’m sure. Shall we go up to the classroom?”

  That’s what we did. The room was quiet with only the sounds of pens scribbling on paper and the muted tap of laptops. The twins were first to rejoin us, both smiling. They were followed by Therese and Hilda who looked pleased with themselves too.

  “How’d it go?” I asked. “Was the station interested?”

  “You bet,” Ray said. “They told us all to send what we had. They’re going to do a fast edit on it. Can we turn on the TV?”

  “Sure.”

  Therese had already turned on WICH-TV’s morning programming. Scott Palmer, speaking with what I perceived to be his “respect for the dead” voice, stood on the Howard Street side of the cemetery, with a good shot of some of the oldest gravestones in the background. I guessed that the police must still be working on the opposite side of the place or else Scott would have been smack in front of that west gate.

  “An early morning 911 call brought Salem
police to this historic cemetery—the second oldest in Salem. A group of students from the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts, Salem’s newest school, were here for a predawn photo shoot, when one of them made a frightening discovery. A dead body was found at the edge of this graveyard, adjacent to the old Salem Jail and, legend tells us, near the site of the Salem Witch jail, where, in 1620, those accused of witchcraft were imprisoned. The identity of the deceased man found here at approximately six A.M. is being withheld pending notification of his family. WICH-TV has exclusive video of police activity at the site this morning, courtesy of the TV Production class at the Trumbull Academy.” (This last pronouncement was met with smiles, thumbs-up signs and fist bumps from the assembled classmates.)

  The video began in relative darkness with the camera panning across a long row of tombstones. Then, with the sky brightening, we saw red, white and blue lights of the approaching police cars and ambulance. The actual removal of the blanket-covered body had been captured with startling clarity. Then a zoom lens played across the faces of a crowd of onlookers as the body was placed on a gurney and trundled to a waiting police van.

  I didn’t really hear Scott Palmer’s narration after that. I was busy trying to process one particular image which had flashed too quickly across the huge screen.

  I’d seen the man’s face for what seemed like only a nano-second, yet it was engraved on my consciousness. Recognition was immediate and terrifying. The idea that he’d been there on this day, at that moment, perhaps just a few feet away from where I’d fallen, froze me with fear. A plain black ball cap partially covered his face, but I knew immediately who he was, even though he wasn’t wearing the Steelers shirt.

  CHAPTER 32

  Had any of the others seen him? Within seconds that question was answered. Hilda waved in the direction of the screen. “Therese, can you back that thing up? Take it back to the crowd scene. I think I saw . . .”

  Ray interrupted. “I saw him too. It was that guy we talked to at the game last night, right Roger?”

  Roger agreed with his brother. Therese tapped a few buttons on the console and focused on the frame showing Billy Dowgin. He was in the row of people closest to the west gate.

  “Hey, I think that was from one of yours, Roger,” Ray said. “You were standing near the gate.”

  “Could be mine. I didn’t notice him while I was shooting though. They did a good job splicing our stuff together. Looks like one of those big network multicamera jobs, doesn’t it Lee?”

  I found my voice. “Darn near. They did a good job all right, especially on such short notice, but you all did a great job. You kept filming in spite of all that was going on.” My heart was pounding and I tried to keep the fear from sounding in my words. “That man, Billy Dowgin, was pretty close to us. Makes me wonder if the police noticed him there too.”

  “He must have known his own brother was laying there in the dirt.” Therese sounded matter-of-fact. “Why else would he be hanging around?”

  Ray’s answer was ominous. “Maybe he didn’t know. He could have been there just to watch us.”

  To watch me. At the cemetery and at the fair and who knows where else?

  The paused frame showing Billy Dowgin still loomed on the TV when Pete, with two uniformed officers, strode into the room. “See you spotted him too,” Pete said with a tilt of his head toward the screen. “Good work. We’ve already picked him up.”

  Relief replaced fear in an instant. I resisted a strong temptation to run across the room and into his arms, like the woman in those slow motion shampoo commercials. Instead I composed myself and said quite calmly, “That’s welcome news, Pete. We’ve all made some notes on what went on this morning. Hope that’ll be helpful.”

  A quick half-smile from Pete before he shifted into full cop mode and addressed the class. “Thank you. Officer Marr, Officer Costa and I will take your statements. I hope we won’t take up too much class time and we appreciate your cooperation. Mr. Pennington has arranged for us to use three of the small study areas on the main floor.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and read from it. “Ms. Mendez, if you’ll follow Officer Marr downstairs, Ms. Alden please follow Officer Costa, and Ray Temple, you’ll come along with me. This shouldn’t take too long.” A brief nod from Pete in my direction, and the three designated students, notes and laptops in hand, fell into step behind the three men and started down the stairs.

  With half my class missing I went back to my standard “Plan B”—the textbooks. “Let’s look at chapter fifteen in the advertising and promotion books. It’s on using the Internet as a powerful advertising tool. We’ll be working on promoting Dia de los Muertos as economically as we can. Let’s see what ideas we can come up with.”

  “What do you think they’re talking about down there?” Shannon asked, opening her book and flipping through the pages.

  “It’s likely the standard stuff that they always ask witnesses,” Roger said, opening his own book to the proper page. “Where were you standing? Did you have a clear view of whatever? Did you see whoever? That kind of stuff.”

  “I think it might be better if we don’t discuss this among ourselves until after the interviews,” I suggested. “Is that right, Roger?”

  “Yes, Ms. Barrett, um—Lee. You’re right.”

  “Well,” Dorothy said, ignoring both of us. “We didn’t have a clear view of anything. We were in a pea-soup fog.”

  “True,” Roger agreed. “That was the point of our being there. But Ray and I saw something.”

  This was getting out of hand. “Okay,” I said, using my Aunt Ibby librarian voice. “Hit the books.”

  That worked. The room grew quiet except for the usual Tabby sounds of student traffic and random loudspeaker announcements from Mr. Pennington. I’d already studied the chapter in question, both for class prep and—in a prior edition—at Emerson College in my student days, so I pulled out my own notes on the morning’s happenings.

  I’d noted all of us who were present. I gave the approximate time I’d arrived there. Weather conditions. Cars in the parking lot. Directions in the cemetery (as far as I could recall) that each of us had taken. My position when I’d slipped into the gully. How I’d tripped and touched the body. The wet body. I added that to my notes. I remembered that the clothing on the person was so saturated it had “squished” under my hands when I’d fallen forward against it. Was that important? I didn’t know.

  The interviews took longer than I’d expected. More than half an hour had passed and all three had finished reading the chapter before Pete and the two officers returned with the rest of my class.

  Everybody looked normal. No signs of anxiety among them as they resumed their seats. Hilda even looked somewhat pleased, but that may have been because her interviewer, Officer Marr, was quite handsome. The second shift, Roger, Therese and Shannon, trooped out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me as the lone witness yet to be questioned. I guessed that was because Pete would do it later.

  I repeated the textbook chapter number, but the three clearly wanted to talk about their respective interviews. I wanted to hear what they had to say too, so I didn’t pull the librarian thing on them.

  “I didn’t have much to tell him,” Dorothy said, “I mean about what went on in the fog. I was in the wrong place to see anything anyway. I told him what I knew about James Dowgin—him being a friend of Emily’s and all. They asked me about Dakota Berman too, like where did he live before he came to Salem. I don’t know. I told the cop he should go ask Dakota that stuff.”

  “What did he say?”

  She shrugged. “Said somebody else was interviewing Dakota.”

  “Maybe Shannon can answer some of that,” I said. “She seems to know him better than the rest of us do. How was your interview, Ray?”

  “I can’t tell you too much. I’m a deputy now, you know.” Did he puff out his chest a little when he said that? “But Pete was mostly interested in the part about us, me and Roger, finding
the body.”

  “That was the awful part, wasn’t it? Did you know right off who it was?”

  “Yep. Right away. Looked just like his picture. Even had a peaceful look on his face.” He held up one hand. “But hey, I shouldn’t be talking so much. I know better. Deputy, you know.”

  “Has anyone talked to you yet, Lee?” Dorothy asked. “After all, you were the first one to know that the poor guy was dead.”

  “No. I haven’t been called yet,” I said. “I didn’t know who it was but I was pretty sure that he—or she—was really dead.”

  “‘Was really, most sincerely dead,’” Hilda sang the old tune from The Wizard of Oz softly, then looked around. “Ooops. Sorry. That was inappropriate. Couldn’t help it. Everyone is so gloomy around here.”

  “You’re right” I said. “Enough gloom. Back to work. While you were being interviewed we read about using the Internet as an advertising tool. We’re going to need all the promotion we can get—as inexpensively as we can get it—for our video project.”

  “I was thinking some of the fog footage we got this morning. . . .” Hilda paused mid-thought. “Can it only have been this morning . . . what a long day.”

  “What about the footage?” I prompted.

  “Oh, yeah. A picture of a tombstone might make a really good opening shot, with information, time, date and all that played across the part of the thing sticking up above the fog.”

  “Sounds good,” Ray agreed.

  “I like it,” I said. “Let’s read the chapter, then maybe we’ll run through the footage we shot again. See what might fit where.”

  With a minimum of grumbling, the three resumed their usual seats. I pulled out my Happy Shores notebook, turning to a fresh page and, once again, noted the happenings of that bizarre morning. This time I included several personal notations which, while not appropriate for a police report, might help me to make some sense of the situation.

  Billy Dowgin—brother of James Dowgin—must have followed me to the fair. He may have been driving the truck I saw on Oliver Street. He was outside the cemetery this morning. Why is he watching me? Following me? Should I be afraid of him?