“Close it!” Marissa whispers, but right before I do, I see the curve of a smooth black piece of metal on the floor between the front two seats. It looks vaguely familiar but I can’t place it until I lean forward and see the keys. “Look,” I gasp, grabbing it off the floor. “Dusty Mike’s keys!”
“Close the door!” Marissa whispers, and she’s sounding really frantic.
So I close the door, and now I’m mad because now I’ve got proof—Courtney is a liar.
And a killer.
I slip the key ring over my hand like a bracelet, pick up the hoe like a bat, and head for the break room door. Dusty Mike is dead because of these creeps, and it’s making me so mad I can barely think.
“Where are you going?” Marissa whispers, then she sees the look on my face and backs out of my way.
“She’s stormin’ the castle,” Casey says, “Let’s go.”
The break room door’s locked, but it kicks in easy.
The back door to the office does, too.
And then all of a sudden, there we are, face to bug-eyed face with Killer Courtney.
She makes a break for the front door, but she’s barely got it open when Casey slams it closed with a foot. And when she starts punching the buttons on her cell phone, I give it an up-cut with the hoe handle and send it flying. “Where is he?”
She backs away from us into the corner, and starts hurling random stuff at us. Books, boxes, work boots … anything she can get her hands on.
But the skateboards work great as blockers, and while Billy, Casey, and Holly are knocking things down I manage to get in and jab Courtney in the stomach with the hoe handle and shove her against a stack of boxes.
“Where is he!”
She grabs the hoe and tries to push it aside. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I lean in harder and jiggle the keys on my wrist. “Oh, really?”
She obviously hadn’t seen the keys before, because all of a sudden she goes completely quiet, and her face loses its color. Still, I’m in a bad spot and I know it, because without a body, what proof do I have?
A ring of keys?
I try not to let her see my doubt. “I know you’re going to bury him tonight,” I tell her. “I know Teddy Boy’s in the grave now, digging it a little deeper so you can slip Mike in before tomorrow’s burial.”
“You’re those brats from Halloween,” she gasps. “I’ll have you arrested!” Then she twists to the side and dives for the desk phone.
But Marissa’s all over that, bringing down the softball bat like an anvil.
Which totally smashes the phone.
We all look at Marissa like, Whoa! And she cringes back. “Sorry.”
“Find her cell phone,” I tell Billy. “And call the police.” Then I turn to Courtney and say, “This is your last chance. Where’s Mike?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she warbles.
“Fine. You saw what she did to the phone? I’m happy to do that to you with this.” I flip the hoe so the blade is now facing her. “Recognize this?” Her face twitches, so I say, “Yeah, I thought so. Mike was a good person. He looked out for the people here. And you”—I swing the hoe and send her flower vase smashing against the wall—“are nothing but a lowlife”—I swing the hoe again, sending her pencil jar flying—“killer.”
“I didn’t kill anybody!” she quivers.
“They why do you have his keys? Why were they—” And then, just like that, it hits me.
I’d walked right by Dusty Mike.
I’d been doing it for days.
“He’s in the crypt?” I gasp.
Her face says it all.
“Oh my God!” I blink at her. “You just shoved him in there and left him to die?”
“I had nothing to do with it!”
Billy’s found the phone and has dialed 911. “Yes, hello, right. We have a situation here? There’s crazy people burying people at the graveyard?”
“Billy!” we all snap.
“Sorry! Sorry!” He hands the phone to Holly. “You do it!”
So Holly takes the phone out to the break room while Courtney looks at me and whimpers, “Ted’s going to be back any minute.”
“Sit down!” I tell her and she actually does. Then while Casey goes to the front window and Billy goes out to the breezeway to stand guard, I yank the pull-ropes out of the window blinds and Marissa and I tie Courtney’s hands and feet to the chair. Then for good measure I take a dirty old sock that had fallen out of a work boot she’d thrown at us and stuff it into her mouth. “Suck on that, angel killer.”
“Nothing yet,” Casey says from behind his binoculars. “If we get over there quick, maybe we could trap him inside until the cops get here.”
“Like stand on the planks?” I ask.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Hey!” Billy calls through the break room. “There’s a golf cart with keys in the ignition.”
Casey and I look at each other. “Let’s go!”
Holly’s still trying to explain things to the emergency operator as the five of us pile onto the golf cart. And I guess I was distracted by what she was saying or else I would have said that somebody, anybody besides Billy should drive. But since I was distracted, and since Marissa called, “Shotgun!” somehow Billy got the wheel.
And he drove just like you’d expect Billy Pratt to drive. We about fell off to the left, about fell off to the right, got whiplashed and bounced around, and the whole time poor Holly’s pleading with the emergency operator to take her seriously.
Billy did get us there quick, though, and just in time, too, ’cause Ted’s half out of the grave when we roll up. And since none of us exactly wanted to touch him, Billy just guns it, driving the cart right at him.
“What the hell!” Ted shouts as he falls back in, and we all pile off quick and move the boards so they close off the grave.
“Hey!” he shouts through the planks. “What are you doing! Let me out!”
“That’s what Michael Poe’s been crying for the last three days!” I shout back at him.
One of the boards starts to move so we all jump on top, which makes him squeal like a stuck pig and threaten to kill us.
“Can you guys stand on the boards until the cops get here?” I ask them. “I need to go open the crypt.”
“I’ll go with you,” Casey says.
“I’ll stay and walk the plank!” Billy cries.
“We should probably stay, too,” Holly says to Marissa.
So we start to take off, but just then a cell phone rings.
It’s not the grrrrr-ruff-ruff-ruff, grrrrr-ruff-ruff-ruff ringtone. It’s musical bells.
Courtney’s phone.
Holly grins at the caller ID and slides it open. “Ted?”
“Those brats from Halloween have me trapped in the grave!”
“What do you want me to do?” Holly asks sweetly.
“Run them over! Get me out of here!”
“Not likely,” Holly singsongs. “See, I’m tied up in the office with a dirty sock in my mouth. Oh, and those brats have my phone. Which they used to call the police.”
He lights off some really ripe language, then beats the planks with his shovel. But there’s no way he’ll get out with the three of them standing on the boards.
“You guys got this?” Casey asks.
“Oh, yeah,” Billy says, “I’m a master at walking the plank!”
So Casey and I hop in the golf cart and go flying across the graveyard and get as close as we can to the Sunset Crypt. Then we race up the hill to the front of it and stand on the shiny black threshold.
DISTURB NOT THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
There’s a locked metal gate in front of a door that looks like it’s made out of black marble. I try each key in the gate lock and it’s the skeleton key that turns it.
The gate creaks open, and then I fumble through the keys again until I find the one that unlocks the door.
Casey holds me back. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”
“I know,” I tell him, and all of a sudden I’m a mess. I can’t breathe, my heart’s galloping around, and my eyes are stinging with tears. “I wish I’d figured it out earlier.”
“Maybe we should wait for the police?”
I shake my head and pull the flashlight out of my pocket, then we move inside and start down the marble steps.
The air goes from cool to cold pretty quickly, and as we make our way down I see that the walls are made up of rectangles.
And that the rectangles have beautiful brass plaques on them.
“So people are buried right in the walls?”
Casey nods. “I think those are the actual crypts.”
“Like coffins?”
He nods.
We keep going down, step by step, and discover that there are places to sit. Little alcoves. Little benches. And marble stands with statues. I also notice puddles of wax. Like candles burned completely down.
“Mike?” I call, even though I know it’s hopeless. No one could survive in here for three days. “Mike?”
We come to the floor of the crypt. I flash the light around and see that it’s just a little rectangular room with brass plaques from floor to ceiling.
And then I notice a blanket in a corner. It looks like nothing but a blanket, but when we get closer, I see a tuft of black hair sticking out. “Is that him?” I whisper, because I can’t believe there’s really a person inside.
Casey kneels down and moves the blanket, and my eyes flood with tears, because, yes, it’s Dusty Mike.
A pack of matches falls out of his hand as Casey pulls on the blanket.
It’s almost like he’s handing them to me, saying, Here—I can’t use these anymore. But through my haze of tears something hits me.
“He’s not stiff.”
It barely comes out a whisper.
“What?” Casey asks.
“He’s not stiff,” I say louder. “His hand opened up!”
Casey realizes what I mean and puts his fingers on Dusty Mike’s neck.
I hold my breath and wait until I can’t stand it anymore. “Anything?”
His head bobs up and down. Just a little at first and then harder. “Yes! It’s really faint, but there’s a pulse.”
“Let’s get him out of here!”
But as I swoop down to grab his feet, the light shines on the two plaques he’d been curled up next to.
LANDON M. POE.
ANNA BELLE POE.
“Oh my God,” I whimper as my eyes flood with tears. “Everyone thought he was a nutcase—he was just having lunch with his parents.”
“Come on, Sammy, get his feet,” Casey says as he scoops his arms under Dusty Mike’s shoulders. “I’ll go first.”
So I hold the flashlight with my mouth, and we struggle him up the steps, one by one. And we’re about halfway up, turning a corner, when we hear someone barking, “Sammy! Sammy, where are you?”
“In here!” I shout past the flashlight. “Call an ambulance!”
Of course it comes out sounding like, “Wa-wa! Wa-wa-wawawa!” but the next thing you know Officer Borsch is in the crypt, helping Casey carry Dusty Mike.
“Is he alive?” Officer Borsch asks when we’re outside.
“Barely,” I tell him. “We need an ambulance.”
Officer Borsch has his weapons belt on over a button-down shirt and slacks. It looks ridiculous, but I’m just glad he’s able to snatch his radio off his belt and call for help.
“They’re on the way,” he says when he switches off. “They should be here fast.” He picks up Dusty Mike under the arms again and says, “Let’s get him down to the road.”
So Casey and Officer Borsch carry him while I shine the light and ask, “Did you arrest the other two?”
“The other two?”
“Yeah! Ted’s trapped in the grave and Courtney’s tied up in the office.”
“They’re what?”
“Didn’t Holly and Marissa explain?”
“They were talking a mile a minute and I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“So are other cops arresting them?”
“What other cops?”
“We called 911!”
“So why aren’t they here?”
“Don’t ask me. It’s your department!”
He shakes his head. “Sammy, I got your message and you sounded … scared. In all the wild messes you’ve gotten yourself into I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound scared. So I just wanted to find you. I really have no idea what’s going on here.”
“Well, you might want to call for backup,” I tell him, “ ’cause we’ve got serial killers trapped in the graveyard.”
“You’ve got what?”
The ambulance is already coming through the gate, so I flash my light on and off at them to let them know where we are. “It’s a long story,” I tell him. Then I grin and say, “With lots of sidetracks.”
He gives a rare smile back, and in his face I see something soft. Almost sweet. “That’s all right,” he says, and I swear there’s a little catch in his voice. “I want to hear every word.”
Courtney was so glad to get the filthy sock out of her mouth that right away she started talking. She swore she hadn’t killed anybody or touched any of the bodies—that it had been all Ted and that he was forcing her to help him, threatening that if she didn’t she would lose her daughter.
The daughter she’d apparently snatched from her ex when she and Ted had fled from Wisconsin on embezzlement charges.
And when they hauled Ted out of the grave and over to a police car and he heard Courtney flapping her lips, he blew a fuse. “You backstabbing liar! You took half of everything!”
So they started screaming at each other, and it came out that they weren’t the killers—that they’d “taken delivery” on bodies and made them disappear.
At twenty thousand dollars a pop.
So Officer Borsch tried to find out who had been killing people, and that’s when the fighting stopped and they both demanded lawyers.
I knew sorting things out would take a long time, and at this point I was worried about two things: (a) whether Dusty Mike was still alive and (b) how dead I was going to be when I got home.
We were all worried about being grounded for the rest of our lives, but somehow we each managed to sneak back home without being missed.
Even Marissa.
And the next day, instead of meeting Casey at the graveyard after school, I went to the hospital to visit Dusty Mike. I brought his hoe, and since he was sleeping I just sat next to him for a while, watching the heart monitor bleep.
I went back on Friday and found him awake. “Hi, Mike,” I said softly. “How are you feeling?”
He just nodded. “They told me what you did,” he said hoarsely. Then he opened his hand and tried to smile. “Thank you.”
His hand opening reminded me of being in the crypt.
Of the matches falling out.
Of the feeling that he was passing something over.
Not matches, not life … some sort of gift.
Something I still didn’t quite understand.
So I took his hand and smiled back and what came out of my mouth was, “Tell me about your parents. I want to know all about Landon and Anna Belle Poe.”
He gives me a very weak version of the dusty raven look, then says, “They were gentle. And kind. And they taught me to feel the spirits.”
And with a little prodding he told me all about how his dad had been a grave digger and his mom had kept house and watched after him, their only child. He talked about how his mom sang like an angel and how his dad could whistle bird calls, and that the two of them would sing and whistle while they washed the dinner dishes together.
He also explained that he’d suspected for some time that something was wrong at the graveyard—and that he had a bad feel
ing about Ted. He told me how he’d been caught eavesdropping on Ted and Courtney discussing a payoff and how Ted had chased him down, taken his keys, and forced him into the crypt.
“Good thing I had matches for the candles, and the blanket I keep down there.” He closed his eyes. “I dreamed I died.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I told him softly. “The graveyard needs you.”
He gave a small smile, but his eyes stayed closed so I left to let him get some sleep. But I came back later with Elyssa and Mrs. Keltner and just stood to the side as they talked. And when it was time to go, Mrs. Keltner invited him to come over for dinner when he was back on his feet and feeling better, and he said he’d like to.
Then on my way out I ran into Gordon and the Vampire in the hallway.
“Wait,” Gordon said, “don’t run off.”
I turned around. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry we cut through the graveyard on Halloween, I’m sorry we messed up your windshield wiper and dented your roof, I’m sorry we snooped through the funeral parlor and violated the dead guy’s privacy—we thought you were bad guys, okay? But we didn’t vandalize anything. We were just trying to figure out about the skulls, but it turns out you weren’t after them at all.”
“Skulls?” the Vampire says. “What skulls?”
I shake my head. “Never mind. The point is, we did some things we shouldn’t have, but nothing, you know, malicious.” Then I look right at Gordon and tell him, “But how could you have fired Mike? He knew something was going on at the graveyard—that’s why he was eavesdropping on Ted and Courtney. He’s worked there his whole life—his dad worked there his whole life—and you fire the guy?”
Gordon looks down. “I’m here to make that right.”
So I felt good about all of that, and then on Tuesday Officer Borsch tracked me down on my way home from school and told me that they’d brought in special equipment—infrared or X-ray or I don’t know what—that allowed them to see through the ground, past the coffin and the body that was supposed to be there, clear to the body hidden underneath.
“They’re there, Sammy. And I’m sure they’re the people we’ve been looking for. We’ll need to exhume the graves and recover the bodies, but first they’re examining all the graves that have been filled since those two started working there.” He eyes me as he sucks on a tooth, then says, “I also had them examine Ofelia Ortega’s grave.”