11
Over the next week, a
couple weird things happened. For one thing, the next episode of
Cemetery Survivor aired, and when it did,
we found out that in spite of the couple Sammi vs. Virgil
knockdowns, our team and Team One were tied, points-wise. After the
show aired, something even more surprising happened. We had more
fans than ever. Go figure. Apparently, a lot of people were
watching the show, and the more calls the station got and the more
people who showed up outside the gates of Monroe Street, the more
the whole superstardom thing went to everyone’s heads. Greer was
sure her next stop was network news. Mae and her bunch (doesn’t it
figure?) said they were humbled, and just grateful they could
promote their good deeds to a wider audience. And my team? My team
loved feeling like rock stars.
I was on the fence. From what I’d heard, the last
episode opened with a shot of Sammi choking the life out of
Honestly, I’d be happy when this restoration gig
was over. If I didn’t have to worry about TV and landscaping and
headstones and the like, I could get back to Garden View, where my
biggest worry was how to avoid Ella so I could get some ghostly
investigating done.
As if all that wasn’t enough, on the Thursday after
the show aired, I got another bouquet of flowers, this time at
Monroe Street. Like the last bouquet, this one included a card, but
just like with the last bouquet, the card wasn’t signed. In fact,
all it said was, “I watched you.” Unlike the last bouquet, I was
smart enough not to call Quinn to ask if he had anything to do with
the flowers. I hadn’t heard a word from him since that day he
walked out of my apartment, and I sure hadn’t called him. I wasn’t
going to be the first one to cave. Besides, I knew Quinn well
enough to know he knew me well enough to know that he couldn’t buy
me off with a mere bunch of daisies and a couple sprigs of
greenery. His offense called for roses. Red roses. I knew he knew
it, too.
As for these flowers . . .
I tossed the card and the problem aside. I had
bigger fish to fry and more pressing things to think about. Like
the appointment I had that evening with the notorious Reno Bob
Oates. If he was still as nasty as Darcy Coleman said he was, he
sure hadn’t sounded like it when I talked to him on the phone the
night before. But then, I
“Looks like you’re all set for the day.” I’d seen
Bianca’s silver Jag roll into the cemetery, so I wasn’t surprised
when she walked over to the tent/office where I was gathering what
we’d need for the day. She looked me over and nodded her approval.
We were scheduled to do some digging and hauling, so I’d worn jeans
and a T-shirt, but they were clean and stylish and I was (it goes
without saying) meticulously put together. “Do you like working at
a cemetery?” Bianca asked.
Suddenly face-to-face with my idol asking the
question I dreamed she’s someday ask me, I found myself at a loss
for words. I laughed away my uneasiness. “I can think of a thousand
places I’d rather work,” I said.
“Like La Mode?”
My heart shot into my throat. “Are you
asking—”
“Oh, just putting out some feelers.” She laughed,
too, in a noncommittal sort of way. “I like to keep an eye out for
promising young talent. I think you could really make an impact on
the local fashion scene. You’ve got a sense of style, and
obviously, the good taste to go with it, and I’ll tell you what,
you’d look fabulous in our clothing. You’d show it off to
perfection and sell a bundle in the process. If there’s ever an
opening for what we call a wardrobe consultant at the shop—”
“You’ll call me?” I blurted out, then scrambled to
save face. “Nothing like looking too eager,” I said,
cringing.
Bianca didn’t hold it against me. “There’s nothing
wrong with being eager,” she said. “In fact, I admire enthusiasm.
It shows you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get what you
want.”
“I am. I do.” My smile was perky enough to suit a
La Mode wardrobe consultant. “I
will.”
“Good. Then we’ll talk.” And with that, Bianca went
back to her car, got out a picnic basket, and headed over to the
section where Team One was working.
Digging and hauling aside, I was still walking
around with my head in the clouds that afternoon when Greer called
us together. She’d been lurking around all week, of course,
following us with that damned camera and the cameraman who did as
he was told without ever saying a word. This was the first meeting
she’d called since the last episode aired, and like my team, I’d
heard local PBS ratings were up and donations to the station were,
too. All thanks to us. Like them, I was hoping for a little rah-rah
and some congratulations to go along with it.
What we got instead was Greer, in a gray and dumpy
suit. “Now that we’ve got people watching,” she said without
preamble, “it’s time to start educating them. This is our
opportunity to add a little culture to their lives.”
“They don’t watch for no culture.” We were in Team
One’s section, and Absalom pushed off from a headstone with an
angel atop it. “They watch to see Reggie and Delmar.”
“Yeah.” Delmar grinned. “And they watch to see
Sammi kick Pepper’s butt.”
If he wasn’t smiling when he said it, I would have
held it against him. The way it was, the red abrasions on my neck
were just starting to fade, so I was feeling magnanimous.
“This week, they’ll watch because we’re going to
invite people to our tea.” Mae beamed a smile all around. It was
stiff around the edges. “Of course, you’re all invited, too.”
“Don’t need your stupid tea.” Sammi tossed her
head. “We’re gonna knock your socks off with our—”
I shushed her fast. So far, the art show was our
secret. I didn’t need her leaking it, especially before Team
One
“That was good.” I should have known Greer was
filming, but honestly, by this time, I was so used to her and that
camera, I hadn’t even been paying attention. “The way you cut Sammi
off like that, Pepper, that provided a great dynamic.” She glanced
at Sammi. “You want to take a swing at Pepper?”
Sammi rolled her eyes and walked away.
“Anyway . . .” Greer got back down to business.
“We’re going to get some nice shots this afternoon. I was thinking
of something to really set the mood for the announcement about the
tea. Maybe a shot of Team One working and their picnic baskets
stacked in the foreground?” It was obviously never meant to be a
question, so she signaled to her cameraman and he got to work
arranging the baskets artfully.
He’d already put a couple in place when he hefted
the one he was holding. “This one’s heavy. What can little old
ladies have in their picnic baskets?”
It was the first thing I’d ever heard Charlie the
cameraman say, but that wasn’t why his comment interested me
so.
I thought about the box we’d found at Jefferson
Lamar’s gravesite and if the camera wasn’t rolling, I would have
slapped myself smack on the forehead.
I’d been so busy suspecting my own teammates of
walking off with the coin, I hadn’t bothered to think it might be
someone else.
What could little old ladies have in their picnic
baskets?
I wasn’t sure, but as soon as I had the chance, I
intended to find out.
“
Whatdoyoumean,youthought one of us took ”that coin?” Absalom
was the spokesman for the team, so he was the one up in my face
making me regret I’d ever mentioned my theory about Team One having
the coin, or my suspicions about what had happened to it in the
first place. Outraged, he sputtered, “You think one of us would
actually steal something?”
I saw the irony of that question, even if he
didn’t. The way I rolled my eyes was designed to point that out.
“What do you mean you wouldn’t steal anything? Some of you have.” I
made sure I looked at everyone, just so Absalom didn’t feel singled
out. “You’ve stolen plenty.”
He opened his mouth, all set to keep arguing.
Until the sense of what I said hit.
Absalom snapped his mouth shut, backed up a step,
and roared with laughter.
“You got me there!” What was supposed to be a
friendly slap on the shoulder was more like a thud coming from him.
I staggered and started laughing, too.
Delmar had a wide smile on his face. “We wouldn’t
steal from family,” he said, then blushed. “I mean, it’s hokey and
all, but we’re sort of like a family, aren’t we? And none of us
would ever—”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I caught my breath and
apologized, grateful I didn’t have a full-scale mutiny on my hands.
Theoretically, I suppose I deserved one. “I never should have
suspected you. Not any of you. I never would have. But back when we
found the coin, I didn’t know you as well. I’m sorry.”
“You think one of them rich ladies did it?”
Reggie’s eyes glowed at the prospect.
“I think it’s a possibility. If they caught wind of
the
“And they wouldn’t want us to look too smart,
neither.” Sammi crossed her arms over her chest and puffed out a
breath of annoyance. “They got a lot of damned nerve.”
“Well, we don’t know if they’re the ones who did
it,” I cautioned. “We won’t know. Not until we can get a look in
those picnic baskets. They bring them every day, and it’s logical
that the coin might still be in the basket. It’s not like they
would have taken it anywhere or sold it or anything. They just want
to keep it away from us.”
Absalom rubbed his beefy hands together. “So what
are we going to do?”
“Create a diversion, I suppose.” It was as much of
a plan as I had. “If we can get them out of their section, somebody
can sneak over there and take a look in those baskets.”
“And I got just the diversion.” Sammi stalked over
to where I stood and raised her voice. It was as shrill as a train
whistle and in the quiet of the afternoon, it carried plenty far.
She propped her fists on her hips. “Say what? Say what? You know
what you can do with these frickin’ maps of yours . . .” There was
a stack of cemetery maps on a nearby headstone, and she picked them
up and waited for her opportunity. The moment Greer, her cameraman,
and all the members of Team One came running to see what the
commotion was all about, she side-handed those maps across the
section.
It was perfect, and I joined right in. What did we
fight about?
I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter,
anyway.
Sammi yelled, and I yelled right back. She
screamed,
And it wasn’t until they were gone and I was going
around picking up those maps Sammi tossed that I realized just how
good all that yelling and screaming felt.
I guess I’d been pissed for a long time and I never
even knew it.
Why?
Let me count the ways.
I was pissed at Sammi for being a royal pain, and
specifically for ruining that new gold cotton tunic of mine and
bruising my neck.
I was pissed at Quinn for not calling, and pissed at my parents for calling, especially my dad, who, as long as he
was at it, left one message asking if everything was OK and another
saying he really would like to see me one of these days.
I was pissed about being stuck restoring a cemetery
when I should have been working on proving that an upstanding guy
like Jefferson Lamar shouldn’t have had to die in prison while
whoever framed him sat back to laugh about it.
While I was at it, I might as well admit that I was
plenty pissed at the universe in general, too, for allowing a kid
like Vera Blaine to get murdered in a dumpy motel while she was
wearing jelly bracelets.
When he was young, Robert
Oates was a tough-talking punk who made a name for himself on the
Cleveland streets by stealing cars and overseeing a couple
small-time heists. He spent the better part of his formative years
in and out of a variety of boys’ homes, reform schools, and jails,
and by the time he was twenty-four, he graduated to bigger and
better things. He went out to Nevada, where he earned the Reno
nickname, and worked as an enforcer for a variety of crime bosses.
By all accounts, he had a vicious streak, and he added hard
drinking, heavy gambling, and high living to his resume. It’s no
surprise that he made plenty of enemies, or that he was forced to
come back to the city of his birth when things got a little too hot
for him out west.
By the time he masterminded the bank job that got
him sent to Central State, he was middle-aged and desperate for a
big score. The bomb he said he had when he stuck up that bank was
his idea of a joke. Nobody was laughing.
All this information I’d found online about Reno
Bob went through my head as I drove through the suburbs west of
Cleveland, looking for the address he had given me when we talked
on the phone. I found it, finally, down a quiet side street in
Parma, a blue-collar sort of place filled with mom-and-pop stores,
churches, bars, and tiny homes.
Reno’s house was a small, neat bungalow with white
aluminum siding, blue shutters, and a shade tree on the front lawn.
He told me that if I rang the bell—I did—and he didn’t answer—he
didn’t—he’d be over at the park across the street, so I moved my
car over there, parked in a newly blacktopped lot, and walked past
a wooden swing set and a sandbox where someone had left a flattened
spare tire.
I’d like to say I wasn’t nervous, but let’s be
frank: I’d heard so many bad things about Reno and his temper, my
knees were knocking together. They kept it up, too, right until I
saw that the only other person in the park was a tiny old man
wearing baggy denim shorts, a green and yellow Hawaiian print
shirt, and enormous tortoise-shell glasses. Temper or not, if this
was Reno Bob, I knew I could take him.
He didn’t look at me when I walked up to him. He
was busy working on the canvas he had set up on an easel in front
of him.
He was painting a picture of the maple tree about
thirty feet from where we stood. The painting included the small
lake beyond and the couple ducks and Canada geese that floated by.
Art history degree aside, I’m not an expert, but I knew the
painting was better than just good, even though the old guy’s hands
shook with every stroke.
I waited until he finished adding the last bits of
green to the leaves on the tree. “Reno? I’m Pepper.”
“Nobody’s called me Reno in a long time.” When he
finally turned to look at me, I saw that his face was as lined as
an old blanket. Reno’s arms were stick-skinny and his knees were
knobby. He was wearing a brand-spanking-new pair of Nikes that were
so clean and white, they made my eyes hurt. “You said you wanted to
see me. You didn’t say what you wanted.”
Of course, I expected him to ask—that was the whole
point—but I shrugged like I wasn’t sure. “I’ll bet plenty of people
want to meet you and talk to you.”
“About the old days?” Reno wiped his hands on a rag
he pulled out of his pocket and got to work cleaning up his
painting supplies. “Not so much anymore. I used to have a
following, you know.”
I saw my opportunity and jumped on it. “Back
when
Behind his glasses, Reno’s eyes glittered. “They
all wanted to interview me, Dan Rather and Mike Wallace and even
that other guy, that Geraldo. Oh yeah!” He lifted the canvas off
the easel. It was almost as big as him, but he didn’t have any
trouble slipping it into a wooden carrier. “I was something, all
right. They all came down to Central State to talk to me. Even got
a couple fellows visiting from Hollywood. They wanted to make a
movie about me, you know.”
“Until Jefferson Lamar made sure your visitors were
cut off and you were treated just like any other prisoner.”
His hands stilled over his art supplies, and Reno
shot a look over his shoulder at me. “You’re too young to know
about all that.”
“But not too young to know you must have been
plenty mad.”
“You think?” He got back to work, stowing his
brushes and his tubes of paint in a plastic carryall. “That was a
long time ago.”
“And you don’t hold any of it against Warden
Lamar?”
Reno scratched a finger behind his ear. “Warden’s
been dead for a lot of years. What happened to him, that doesn’t
matter anymore.”
“It might. Maybe to his wife. She thinks he was
innocent.”
“What else is a wife going to say? She heard the
evidence. Same as we all did. She knows he’s guilty, she just won’t
admit it to herself.”
“And if the warden was framed?”
He was done packing his supplies, so Reno turned
and gave me his full attention. “Is that what the widow
“Actually, it’s something I know.”
“Really?” He laughed, then coughed. There was a
pack of Camels in his pocket, and he thumped one out, lit it, and
took a drag. “Back at Central State, that was back in the day when
I hated a lot of people.” The words hissed out of him along with a
long stream of nasty smoke that I stepped aside to avoid. “I was
angry all the time, you know? I’ve learned to channel my energy.
Now, I paint. And I stop and smell the flowers.”
“But back in the day . . .”
“Back in the day . . .” He coughed again and spat
on the ground. “I didn’t hate nobody as much as I hated Lamar. He
thought he could turn Central State into some kind of boot camp.
You know, reform everybody. Guess he learned his lesson,
huh?”
“Because somebody framed him and he got a taste of
his own prison medicine?”
“If that’s what you think.” Reno picked up the
crate he’d put his canvas in and hauled it to the blue Prism parked
three spaces from my Mustang. I could have been a sport and helped
him with the rest of his supplies, but I was afraid if I did, it
would give him an excuse to leave. So instead, I waited for him to
stow the canvas, then come all the way back.
By the time he did, he was breathing hard.
And I was ready for him.
“If Lamar was framed for Vera Blaine’s murder, who
do you think did it?” I asked.
He lit another cigarette. He blew out another
stream of smoke. “You think I had something to do with it.”
“I’m talking to everyone I can. You’re one of the
people who might have done it.”
“You’re right. I might have.” Reno Bob hoisted
the
Was that a nice, friendly warning?
Or a threat?
Since it was the last thing Reno Bob said to me
before he got in his car and drove away, I thought about it all the
way home. Even then, I still wasn’t certain, not when I got out of
the car, slung my purse over my shoulder, and headed for my
apartment.
I was still thinking about it when a man jumped out
of the alley behind my building, grabbed me, and put a knife to my
throat.