FOUR

I didn’t scream.

But then, I didn’t have a whole lot of time.

In the one split second I had to decide what to do and hope I made the right choice, I ducked behind the Ness monument, then realized that wasn’t going to do me much good. If the car hit it square on, the monument would get flattened.

And so would I.

I sucked in a breath for courage and darted out from behind the granite marker long enough to watch the front end of Ella’s three-year old Camry get closer and closer and, with a whispered prayer that my timing was just right and my legs were strong enough, I jumped to my left just as the car careened off the road and onto the grass. It veered to my right. I hit the ground, rolled, caught my breath and—

I could now officially take the time to scream.

But not because I was in more danger; just behind the Ness monument was a small pond similar to the one behind the chapel.

And when Ella veered around the marker, she headed right for it.

I scrambled to my feet, shouting her name, and took off running, my lungs filled with fire and my heart slamming my ribs. The turf had slowed the car down, thank goodness, and I came up behind it and somehow managed to get to the driver’s side door just feet from where the grass met the pond.

‘Ella! Ella!’ I pounded on her window and, for a couple frantic seconds, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to do any good. Ella never even looked my way. In fact she stared at the murky green pond water, glassy-eyed and with a blank expression, both her hands wrapped so tight around the steering wheel, her fingers looked like they belonged to a skeleton.

‘Ella!’

When she twitched, I let go a shaky breath and pounded for all I was worth, scrambling to keep up with the car. ‘Step on the brake. The brake.’ I poked my finger against the window, pointing down at her right foot. ‘Step on the brake!’

The car slammed to a stop. I, however, kept going. I skidded and windmilled my arms, fighting to stop myself, but before I knew it, I was knee-deep in water, mud, and pond scum.

We were both safe.

For a few minutes, all I could do was stand there with water soaking into my pants and mud oozing into my shoes, considering what had nearly happened and how amazing it all was now that it was over. I did my best to breathe, but dang it hurt, and I pressed a hand to my chest and bent at the waist, fighting to regain control. When my heartbeat finally slowed from speed of light to faster-than-a-speeding-bullet, I wrenched first one foot then the other out of the muck and mud and dragged myself onto shore. My lungs burned and my legs ached, but then, exercise is not my thing. Luck, apparently, is, because I knew beyond a doubt that it was luck and luck alone that had kept me – and Ella – from sleeping with the fishes that day.

My hands shaking, I braced myself against the car, dragged myself to Ella’s door, and wrenched it open.

‘Ella, are you all right?’

Both her hands were still glued to the steering wheel, and there was not a speck of color in her face except for the spots of flaming red in her cheeks.

‘Ella!’ I put a hand on her shoulder and felt her shiver at my touch. She still didn’t look at me, though, and I gave her a shake. ‘Ella, here, sit back, relax.’ I turned off the car, then, one finger at a time, I pried her hands off the steering wheel and spun her around so that her legs were out the door and her feet touched the ground, and I leaned over so I could look her in the eye.

She was in shock.

That would explain the emptiness in her eyes, the icy feel of her hands.

I rubbed them in mine. ‘You just sit here,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to call 911 and—’

‘No!’ Her hand closed around mine. ‘I’m fine. I’ll … be … fine.’

‘You don’t look fine.’

Ella blinked as if she’d just woken up from a long sleep and a bad dream. ‘I’m …’ She blinked again and studied my face as if she’d never seen me before. ‘What are you doing here, Pepper? Why am I …’ Ever so slowly, as if she wasn’t sure what she’d see, she glanced around at our surroundings. ‘Section six. What are we doing in section six?’

Once a cemetery geek, always a cemetery geek.

Just realizing she had that much of her act together made me more grateful than I could have thought possible. I sunk to my knees in one of the ruts that sliced through the grass, created by her tires when she’d slammed on the brakes.

Trembling, Ella scraped a hand through her hair. ‘I must have …’ She squinched up her nose and narrowed her eyes. ‘I left the office to run out and pick up something for lunch. Salad. I was going to get a salad for lunch. I told Jennine I’d see her in a little while and then—’ When Ella looked at me, there were tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t remember another thing,’ she said. ‘Not until right now. But Pepper …’ Again, she glanced all around, confirming that she was where she thought she was. ‘The office isn’t all that far from here. It can’t be more than a couple minutes since I left there. How could I … I mean, how is it possible that I …’ She sniffled. ‘What happened, Pepper? What’s wrong with me?’

I was hardly the person to ask. ‘You must have blacked out or something.’

‘Maybe I did. But it’s never happened before. Do you think …’ She folded her hand over mine. ‘Do you think something’s wrong … with my brain?’

What I thought was that maybe a woman of Ella’s age – who had to be sixty if she was a day – shouldn’t work as hard as she did, shouldn’t worry as much about her daughters as she did, shouldn’t think that every little thing that happened at Garden View was her responsibility.

‘You’re probably just stressed out and tired,’ I said. ‘Maybe you nodded off. Or you were so busy thinking about something else you weren’t concentrating on the road. Maybe you were thinking about the Eliot Ness tour. Could that have been it?’ Yes, this was a blatant attempt to get her mind on something other than the near-death experience we’d both had and, while I was at it, I was hoping to stop the flow of tears that trickled down Ella’s cheeks. ‘You know how excited you are about the Ness tour. I bet that’s exactly what you were thinking about.’

‘The Ness tour.’ She nodded. ‘That might have been it. Yes, I remember! I remember now that I was thinking about Eliot Ness. When I left the office, I was thinking about the tour. About how proud I was of you for stepping forward and agreeing to do the extra work. Only Pepper …’ When she looked at me, her eyes were pleading. ‘You’re sure that’s all you’re going to do, right?’

‘You mean about—’

‘About Eliot Ness. You’re planning a tour that focuses on his life, I know that. But you have to promise me, Pepper …’ She put a hand on my arm, and her fingers closed around it hard and tight. ‘You have to promise me that’s all you’re going to do. Promise me, Pepper, promise me you won’t have anything else to do with Eliot Ness.’

What else could I do? Of course I promised. Then, my shoes squishing out little splurts of mud with every step and my pants dripping a trail of pond water behind me, I helped Ella into my car and I drove her home, all the while assuring her that she’d feel a lot better once she had a cup of the Indian gooseberry tea she loved so much. Once we were at her house and my muddy shoes were left at the door, I called Jennine and told her Ella wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be back in that day, then I called Chuck in the landscaping department so he could take care of Ella’s car as well as all that turf that had been chewed up when she’d plowed off the road and nearly smooshed me. Chuck was a good guy and he adored Ella, as most of our employees did, so I made up some half-assed story about how Ella had been driving along minding her own business when one of the cemetery’s resident foxes had darted out onto the road. ‘She lost control of her car, Chuck,’ I said, my voice appropriately serious. ‘But Ella, she saved that fox’s life.’

Chuck was a sucker for the wildlife in the cemetery; Ella rose a couple points on his admiration meter.

All that taken care of, I sat Ella down in her living room, threw a knitted blanket over her, and left her there, that cup of stinky herbal tea in her hands and classical music playing softly on the radio. Back in the kitchen, I rummaged through the cupboards and found a can of chicken noodle soup and, while it was heating up, I ducked into the girls’ rooms. I found green and red flannel sleep pants that fit (even if they were a couple inches too short) in Rachel’s room and a T-shirt with a picture of Bugs Bunny on it in Sarah’s. Ariel is Ella’s youngest and she wants to be a librarian when she’s finished with school. Go figure. Still, I knew she wore the same size shoes that I did, and a search of her closet uncovered a pair of tennis shoes that fit. They weren’t exactly fashionable, but they weren’t filled with mud, either, and I scooped up a pair of socks from Ariel’s dresser drawer, then took a quick shower. Once I was dry and un-muddied, I called Quinn and left him a message, telling him that Ella wasn’t feeling well and cancelling our date for the evening.

‘Thank you.’ When I delivered the soup on a tray I found in the kitchen, Ella’s smile was weak, but I knew it was sincere.

I sat down in a chair across from hers. ‘I’ll stick around until Rachel gets home.’

‘Oh, no!’ She had the spoon halfway to her mouth, and soup dripped back into the bowl when she shook her head. ‘You can’t sit here with me all afternoon, that’s—’

‘I’ll stick around until Rachel gets home,’ I repeated, louder this time so she didn’t fail to get the message.

Ella looked at me through her shaggy fringe of bangs. ‘She’s got a late class tonight.’

‘And I’ve got nothing better to do.’ I was a crackerjack liar and satisfied she actually believed me, I watched Ella polish off her soup, then tip her head back and close her eyes. She fell asleep almost instantly.

I let go a long, slow breath and sank back in my chair, too, reminding myself that the crisis was over and, for now, all was well. It was good. It was all good.

Well, except for the part about how I wouldn’t be seeing Quinn that evening. And the part about Eliot Ness. Because no matter how hard I tried to make sense of it, I couldn’t help but wonder why Ella was so dead set on me making that promise to her.

The tour was OK.

But don’t have anything else to do with Eliot Ness.

Thinking about it, I watched Ella stir in her sleep. Her lips moved, and she exhaled a long, soft breath and mumbled something. Curious, I leaned forward.

Ella spoke again. Just two little words. And for some crazy reason, I was suddenly chilled to the bone.

She moaned and twitched, and Ella’s words, even though her voice was drunk with sleep were unmistakable.

‘My sweet.’

As it turned out, Rachel’s biomedical engineering class was cancelled that night and she showed up at home just a little after six. Ella was still snoozing and I gave Rachel the same song and dance I’d given Chuck: car, fox, Ella nobly sacrificing herself for the sake of the critter, nobody hurt. I also told her to call me if she needed anything.

By the time I got back out to my car, I wondered if there just might be enough time to get home, get out of my borrowed clothes and into something slinkier, and make it to Quinn’s for dinner. I was just about to call him when a voice from my passenger seat interrupted me.

‘You’ll probably want to wait until the sun goes down.’

It’s not that I’d forgotten about Eliot Ness, I just wasn’t expecting him to start yapping as I pulled out of Ella’s driveway. I clapped a hand to my heart. ‘Do you suppose you could let me know when you’re around? I mean, in some way other than just talking and scaring the bejabbers out of me?’ I thought about what he said. ‘And what does the sun going down have to do with me going to Quinn’s, anyway?’

‘Who’s Quinn?’ I could tell Ness was irritated; his voice was sharp. ‘I’m talking about going to Dean McClure’s.’

It was my turn to ask, ‘Who’s Dean McClure?’

Ness clicked his tongue. Or at least that’s how it sounded. ‘Dean McClure, the collector. The man who has—’

‘Your ashes.’ By now I was out on the road and headed in the direction of my apartment. I slid Ness a look. ‘You want me to get them? Tonight?’

‘Why not tonight? I’ve waited long enough. There doesn’t seem to be any point in waiting any longer. Tonight’s as good a time as any.’

‘Maybe in your book, but I had something of a busy day. I met you, and that weird bottle showed up at the office, and I had to cancel a date I was really looking forward to, and oh yes, Ella almost killed me. Seems to me that’s enough for one Monday.’

‘I’ve had endless Mondays.’ A sigh rippled the little cloud of ashes. ‘Dozens and dozens of endless Mondays.’

‘So another day wouldn’t exactly make a big difference.’

‘Darnation!’ Ness grumbled. ‘I should have believed Gus Scarpetti. He told me you can be difficult.’

For reasons I couldn’t explain, this cheered me right up. ‘Then you know there’s really no use arguing about it. I’m going to get my own way.’

‘And you know there’s no use arguing with a ghost!’ With a whoosh like a winter wind, Ness cannonballed from the passenger seat over to my side of the car. Those dusty bits of ash gritted in my eyes and fogged the windshield. I waved a hand to scatter them, and bits and pieces of them clung to my skin, freezing every spot where they landed.

‘Not fair!’ I yelled and I waved and I rubbed my eyes. It didn’t do any good. I had no choice but to pull over by the side of the road because there was no way I could see. ‘That’s cheating!’

‘I’m making a point and doing what I have to do. You’re avoiding what you said you would do.’

My shoulders drooped. ‘I’m not avoiding it, I’m just putting it off. You know, until I feel a little less tired and a lot more capable of breaking into some stranger’s home.’

‘There’s no time like the present.’ Ness sounded so perky, I gritted my teeth and, cold be damned, I slapped away another blast of the dust motes. ‘The sun will be down soon,’ he said. ‘And that will provide us with the perfect cover. You do the driving, I’ll give you directions. We’ll get there and get the ashes and you’ll be home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

I wasn’t at all sure about that whole lamb’s tail thing, but I did know that we arrived at our destination in less than thirty minutes. Dean McClure, the man Eliot Ness said had his ashes, lived in a trying-hard-to-be-trendy part of town known as Gordon Square. It was just a bit west of Cleveland’s downtown, and there were a few nice restaurants around, some hopping bars, a really good ice cream parlor, and an old movie theater that had been restored and was now the center of a lot of the neighborhood’s activity. From what I’d been told by those in the know about these things (people like Ella who care about all things oldy and moldy), Gordon Square had once been a vibrant commercial district that served its working class neighborhood. When we turned off Detroit, the main street that cut through the area, and on to a side street, we passed small, weathered houses that stood close together on the other side of minuscule front lawns and slate sidewalks.

‘This is the place,’ Ness said when we rolled by a skinny two-story house with a tiny front porch and zero curb appeal. By this time it was dark, and the house looked to be tan with dark shutters that were maybe red, maybe green. There was a waist-high chain-link fence around the yard and a couple straggly bushes on the other side of it that, in a few weeks, might bloom into lilacs.

I slowed the car.

‘Not here! Don’t you know anything about an operation like this? Up the street! Drive farther up the street!’ Ness snapped out the command and I obeyed, not because I’m especially compliant (or compliant at all, as anyone who knows me will gladly testify), but because I was honestly just too tired to care. I parked the car along the curb five houses up from Dean McClure’s.

‘That’s better,’ Ness purred. ‘You can’t afford to make any mistakes, and parking right in front of the house …’ I had a feeling he shivered. Or at least his words did. ‘Someone could easily see you and write down your license plate number.’

‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll remember it if I ever decide to rob another house.’

‘It’s not a robbery, it’s a burglary. Burglary is when you enter a building illegally with intent to commit a crime, especially theft. Robbery, on the other hand, is the action of robbing a person.’

This was something I hadn’t thought of, and my blood ran cold. ‘You mean this McClure guy might actually be home, and I’d have to like yell, “stick ’em up,” and rob him? Oh, no!’ By this time it was dark and the streetlight next to where we were parked was out; I couldn’t see Ness at all, but that didn’t keep me from turning slightly in my seat and pressing my back against the door of the car in an effort to put some distance between myself and what he said. ‘What, you expect me to conk him on the head so I can get in and out of there with your ashes? There’s no way I’m going in there if McClure’s home.’

‘He’s not home.’ Ness had been in my passenger seat, but now the voice came from right outside my door. I looked out the window and saw a quick flurry of sparks. ‘He’s gone tonight. He’s gone every Monday evening. That’s when his collectors’ group meets.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Come on, let’s get going.’

The sparkle of ashes moved far enough away to allow me to get out of the car without making contact, and when I did, I scampered onto the sidewalk, the better to keep out of the glow of the light that spilled out of the window of the house across the street.

‘Now here’s what you’re going to do,’ Ness said from beside me. ‘Walk along the street and keep on walking, all the way to the corner there. When you pass McClure’s house, don’t look at it, just keep going. You’ll walk all the way around the block, turn around, and come back from the other direction.’

‘Is there some part of “it’s been a long day” you don’t understand?’ I asked him, but honestly, I didn’t expect an answer. Apparently though he was dead, Eliot Ness had more energy than a cemetery community relations manager who’d had one heck of a nasty Monday.

Following his directions, I dragged myself around the block, and if I hadn’t been so darned worried about what he wanted me to do and how I was going to do it without ending up in the hoosegow, I might have actually enjoyed the stroll. The evening was crisp, but not cold, and from somewhere over on the next block, the strains of a jazz combo floated through the air.

The sound of a police siren came from the other direction and, hearing it, I froze.

‘Relax.’ His voice purred in my ear. ‘They’re not looking for you. You haven’t done anything illegal. Not yet, anyway.’

Oh yeah, that cheered me right up.

I shot a look toward where I figured he was standing. ‘If you’re a cop, how do you know so much about doing things that are illegal?’

‘That’s exactly how I know about them!’ He chuckled. ‘Now, let’s get down to business. There’s McClure’s.’ We were back in front of the tan house with the indeterminate-colored shutters, and I pictured him pointing. ‘Go on up to the front door and ring the bell.’

‘I thought I was being sneaky.’

‘You are being sneaky, but you have to be sure no one is home.’

‘You said he couldn’t possibly be home. You told me—’

‘I told you tonight is his collectors’ club meeting. McClure isn’t home. He’d never miss a meeting. But we have to make sure his wife isn’t home.’

‘Wife?’ My voice rose a couple octaves. ‘You didn’t tell me he had a wife.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

Oh yeah, I knew these were famous last words. I also knew I didn’t have much of a choice. I opened the chain-link gate, went up to the front porch, and rang the bell. ‘And what am I supposed to say if she answers?’ I asked Ness.

‘You’ll think of something. Tell her your car broke down and you need to use her phone.’

‘Maybe back in the thirties I’d need to use her phone. I have a phone with me now. She’d never believe me.’

‘Ring the bell again.’

I did. There was no answer.

‘All right. So far so good.’ In an anemic stream of light from a streetlamp, I saw Ness’s ashes move off the porch. ‘Nobody’s here. We know that now. Let’s get inside.’

I tried the door handle.

‘Don’t do that. You don’t want to leave any fingerprints!’

This, I should have known. I’d watched enough cop shows on TV in my day. I used the hem of the Bugs Bunny t-shirt to wipe down the doorknob and while I was at it, I wiped down the doorbell, too. ‘So how am I supposed to get in?’ I whispered.

‘Come on.’ The dusty cloud crossed the front yard. ‘We’ll go around to the back.’

In total darkness, I maneuvered along the side of McClure’s house. The perimeter of his neighbor’s yard was planted with tall bushes with thin, pointy branches and, like I said, the properties were small. Those branches caught my clothing and scratched my arms and tangled in my hair. By the time we rounded the house and stepped onto a tiny back porch, I was not a happy camper.

‘Now what?’ I asked Ness.

I had a feeling he was looking around. ‘You could probably get in that window,’ he said, and I guessed he was looking over on our left. The window there was at least four feet up from a flowerbed.

‘I don’t think so,’ I told him and I figured, what the heck, I tugged the T-shirt over my hand and tried the back door.

It opened right up.

‘Well, I might be entering,’ I mumbled when I stepped into Dean McClure’s house, ‘but at least I’m not breaking. Come on, Ness, let’s get this done so we can get out of here.’

I didn’t dare turn on a light, so I hit the flashlight app on my phone and tried not to notice the way the light shimmied in my trembling hand. That bouncing light guided me through a small kitchen and into a dining room that was lined with glass-fronted bookcases that contained an assortment of things. I saw a man’s fedora, a pocket watch, a few books.

‘So where are they?’ I whispered. ‘Where are your ashes?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What?’ The single word came out too loud, and I clapped a hand over my mouth. ‘What do you mean you don’t know where they are?’ I demanded in a harsh whisper. ‘You told me you knew exactly where your ashes were.’

‘I do know where they are. They’re here in McClure’s house. Somewhere in McClure’s house.’

‘Great.’ The way I bit through the word should have told him that sarcasm was in play. ‘How am I supposed to find them?’

‘I’ll look around here in the kitchen. You start in there. In the living room.’ I had a feeling he would have given me a little nudge if he didn’t have the whole incorporeal thing going on. ‘That’s where McClure displays the best pieces in his collection. No doubt that’s exactly where he’d have the ashes.’

I was in no mood to dispute this. I snaked my light into the living room and stopped cold when it glanced against something lying on the worn beige carpet. It was one of those old-fashioned pen holders people used to keep on their desks, a thick marble base with a little cup on top of it where the pen – now missing – was meant to go. There was a statue of a brass elephant next to that empty cup, its trunk raised as if in greeting.

And it’s not like I’m into pen holders. Or elephants, either, for that matter. Still, I couldn’t help but stare. But then, there was something dark and wet and sticky looking smeared all over one side of the marble base.

Dean McClure wasn’t far away, on his back in the middle of the floor, with his arms thrown out at his sides, his eyes wide open, and his head resting in a big ol’ pool of blood.