Here Lies Linc (18 page)

The woman turned to look over her shoulder in confusion. “You mean Papa’s grave?” She pressed her palm to her chest. “My papa? Robert Raintree?”

Delaney’s head was bobbing up and down. “Yes, yes. That’s the one.”

The woman took another careful step closer. She was wearing old-fashioned black galoshes with buckles over her shoes. “But why? How did you come to choose my father’s grave?” Her voice was high and clear, and sort of formal like her walk.

“Well, I was just curious,” Delaney tried to explain. “It’s such a pretty spot under that big tree … and the flowers you leave every week are so beautiful.”

The lady glanced fondly at the bouquet in her arm. “Yes, these were his favorite. Mother would never tolerate fresh-cut flowers in the house, even though Papa loved them so. She said sunflowers belonged in a field.”

“Your mother,” Delaney said gently. “She’s not buried there, is she?”

Delaney was good at this.

The woman pursed her lips. “Oh, no. Mother didn’t want to be buried here. She wanted to go back to her people in New York when she died. But Papa was always content to stay in the Midwest.” She swept her arm out at the graveyard.
“He wanted his final resting place to be among his students and his colleagues, his neighbors and friends.”

“I read about your father online,” Delaney said quickly. “He was a famous professor at the university, wasn’t he? Like my friend Linc’s mother.” She turned and motioned for me to come closer. I bounded forward, glad for the chance to finally join in.

“Hello. I’m Linc,” I said, reaching out to shake the woman’s hand. I thought she might be the type to expect a young man to shake hands.

I must have been wrong. The woman stiffened. I let my hand fall to my side.

“Lincoln,” she breathed.

I nodded, trying to smile. “That’s right. But most people just call me Linc.”

She cocked her head to one side in astonishment. “Is that … is that you?” she whispered.

I faltered for a second, feeling disoriented. Why was she acting like she knew me? I’d never seen her before in my life. But before I could say anything else, she took a tottering step backward.

“Excuse me,” I said carefully. “Are you all right?” Her face was trembling. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. The next thing I knew, her old flowers were lying at my feet in the slick grass and she was rushing to her car with the tails of her raincoat flying.

“Ma’am?” Delaney called, trotting after her. “Ma’am?” she called louder.

But the woman wouldn’t stop. She was already clambering into her car, gunning the engine. Delaney flopped her arms at her sides as she stood on the curb watching the car drive away. Then she turned back to me with an accusing look. “What did you do?” she cried.

“Nothing!” I yelped.
“I swear.”

B
ACK IN THE GAZEBO
we were still trying to figure things out. “She acted like she knew you,” Delaney kept insisting.

“I know,” I said. “But really, I’ve never seen that lady before in my life.”

Delaney shook her head stubbornly. “Then how’d she know your name? She called you Lincoln.”

“She only called me Lincoln after I introduced myself as Linc,” I reminded her. “Maybe she had me mixed up with somebody else. Or … maybe she’s a little crazy. That’s what she looked like to me, anyway. Remember how Jeeter said he sees her talking to herself sometimes?”

Delaney’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, I guess it’s no use getting worked up about why she ran off.” She began gathering up the foil wrappers and chicken bones and leftovers from lunch and stuffing them in her backpack. “She’s gone now, and I lost my big chance for an interview.”

“We could skip school next Monday and try again,” I offered.

“Are you kidding? Mama would have a conniption.” Delaney hoisted her backpack to her shoulder. “Speaking of Mama, I better get going.”

Delaney was supposed to meet her mother in the parking lot at three. Even though I knew it would take longer, I decided we should use a side route through the cemetery instead of following the driveway, where we’d be more likely to run into Kilgore.

“What about
your
project?” Delaney asked as we threaded through the rows of tombstones. “How’s it coming?”

I groaned. “Don’t ask.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s kind of creepy. I started out trying to prove there’s no such thing as the Curse. And now I’m actually starting to believe in it myself.” Then I gave Delaney my Black Angel update, rattling off the growing list I was collecting of the Widow Feldevert’s misfortunes. I told Mr. Krasny’s story about his spooky sighting of the widow in Oakland years ago. But Delaney didn’t seem too impressed, even when I dropped the zingers about the rattlesnake bite and leg amputation.

“Some folks just run into a streak of bad luck,” she replied quietly. “That doesn’t mean they’re doomed for life.”

I nodded. I knew she was probably thinking about her baby brother, Will, and trying to believe that better times were ahead for her family. Suddenly it didn’t seem right to tell her about the evil prediction Mr. Krasny had uncovered in the Black Angel’s epitaph: “Suffering awaits you.”

Delaney slowed down beside me. “Hey,” she said, pointing to an old stone tomb that rose over the sprawl of graves in the distance. “Is that the one that Mellecker picked?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” My heart hiccuped against my ribs. I hadn’t ventured anywhere near the Ransom vault since stealing the key.

“Can we go see?” Delaney asked. She didn’t wait for my answer. She was already hurrying across the lawn. I caught up and watched while she walked around the tomb. Except for the layer of moss and mildew staining its walls, the building looked like a miniature version of one of those temples in Athens. There were fluted stone columns and carved urns on either side of the entrance. And the name
RANSOM
was etched in imposing letters over the heavy iron door.

“Now that’s what I call a proper burial,” Delaney said with her hands on her hips.

I nodded uneasily and let my eyes stray down to the worn knob and the large keyhole in the lock underneath. Delaney must have followed my gaze. “You know, Linc,” she confessed, “I didn’t think it was right when I first heard y’all talking about getting the key and breaking inside. It doesn’t seem respectful somehow. But I have to admit,” she added a little guiltily, “now that I’m here, I sure would love to see what it looks like in there.”

“I’ve got the key,” I said before I could stop myself.

Delaney’s mouth opened. “But—but the other day in the library, I heard you telling Mellecker—”

“I know.” I sighed. “But the truth is … I have it.”

“Where? Here?”

“No. It’s at home in my sock drawer. But you can’t tell anybody. I have to put it back the first chance I get.”

Then I spilled the beans on everything—how hard I had been trying to fit in at Plainview and how bad I felt for stealing the key right under Jeeter’s nose and how I wished I had never thought of the idea in the first place. At some point we had started walking again. Delaney let me babble, never interrupting once as we moved along a row of dripping cedar trees. But when I was done, she fired out her opinion just like a judge. “You have to tell Jeeter the truth,” she said firmly.

I stopped next to a headstone shaped like a giant tree stump, trying to comprehend. “You mean you think I should come right out with it?” I asked. My voice skipped an octave or two. “Admit to stealing the key?”

“Uh-huh.” Her face softened as she turned back to me. “Listen, Linc. There’s a good chance you’ll get caught if you try to sneak it back into that closet. And Jeeter’s your really good friend, isn’t he? Tell him what you just told me, and he’ll understand.”

I sagged against the tree stump for a second, gloomily examining the carved bark and knotholes. She was right, of course. I had to tell Jeeter what I’d done.

Delaney laughed at my dreary expression. “Come on.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. “You can think about that later. Right now you need to come meet Mama. She says if I don’t introduce you two soon, she’s gonna invite herself over to your house for dinner.”

“Uh-oh,” I grumbled as I fell into step beside her. “I hope she likes Rice Krispies.”

Delaney’s mother was waiting with the engine running. She rolled the car window down when she saw us coming. I did a quick check of the parking lot. The only other vehicle was Jeeter’s old truck, so at least I knew Kilgore was out of the way for now.

Mrs. Baldwin’s eyes were the same light green as Delaney’s, and she had an accent too, but with twice the twang. “I’ve heard of a lot of meeting places, y’all,” she said as we stood at her window. “The movies. The mall. But never a cemetery. In the rain.”

Delaney looked embarrassed. “This isn’t a date, Mama,” she scolded. “I told you, we’re just working on our projects for school.”

“I know, honey. I’m only teasing,” Mrs. Baldwin said, reaching out to squeeze her daughter’s hand. “Get in the car now. You’re cold.

“And, Linc,” she added, giving the front of her coat a pat where it touched the steering wheel, “once this baby arrives, you’ll have to come to our house to eat my applesauce cake. Like I told Del, something’s not right about serving dessert in a graveyard.”

I smiled and promised to visit whenever she was ready. Mrs. Baldwin must have had her heater running on full blast, because her cheeks were flushed and a cloud of warmth was radiating around her. As she rolled up the window and I watched their car pull away, I could feel the spell break over
my long afternoon with Delaney. I stood in the gray light of the parking lot, wishing I was riding off in that snug car too, heading far away from the graveyard and my lonely house on Claiborne Street.

When I came through the door of the cemetery office, Jeeter was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. Something about a backhoe part he’d ordered that had never arrived. He held up one finger, signaling me that he was almost done. I decided it would be best to break the ice first before dropping my bombshell about the key. So when Jeeter hung up the phone, I began by giving an account of my strange encounter with the sunflower lady. I described it all—how scared she had looked and how she had roared off in her station wagon. I didn’t notice Jeeter had barely said a word until I was done. “So what do you think?” I prompted him after a few seconds of quiet had passed. “Why’d she run off like that?”

He gave an uncomfortable little shrug, and I tried to make a joke to get him going. “Maybe she saw Captain Kilgore hiding in the bushes with his musket.” But Jeeter didn’t laugh. He stared back at me with his eyes as big as bottle caps. Then he blinked a few times and made a weird face.

“What is it, Jeeter? What’s wrong?”

Something moved behind me. The sound was barely a rustle. Soft and sneaky. I slowly turned and there was Kilgore, leaning against the doorway of the key closet, where he must have been hiding and listening all along.

K
ILGORE WAS HOLDING A SCREWDRIVER
. For a long time he didn’t say anything. He just kept smirking at me and whapping the steel blade against his palm, over and over.

“Captain Kilgore, huh?” he said at last. His smirk crept into an ugly little smile. “So you and Gene over there must have been having yourselves a real good time making jokes about the old boss behind his back. That right?”

Gene?
I had never heard anyone use that name before. When I had asked Jeeter about his real name once, he told me he had been Jeeter ever since his grandmother had come up with the nickname when he was a little boy and it had stuck. Kilgore must have known it would rub Jeeter the wrong way. But of course he needed to show he had complete control, even over his employee’s name.

Jeeter wasn’t reacting, though. He seemed to have turned to stone in his swivel chair.

“What’s wrong?” Kilgore said to me. “Aren’t you gonna answer? You were chatting up a storm a minute ago. And what about you, Gene?” he wheedled. “You’re awful quiet over there. What happened? You’re not gonna speak up for your little buddy Lincoln this time?”