Here Lies Linc (14 page)

“Dang it, Linc,” he said, his dazed face filling with relief. He clomped his boots to the floor. “I thought you were Kilgore.”

“Kilgore?” I asked with a start. “Aren’t you the only one here on Saturdays? Mr. Nicknish never used to work on the weekends.”

“Well, times have changed,” Jeeter said with a forlorn smile. He reached up to scrub one hand across his goatee and then his sleepy eyes. “Kilgore’s been known to show up on
one or two Saturdays. Thinks he needs to keep tabs on me, I guess.”

He craned his neck to check the clock on the wall behind him. “The good news is if he were comin’, he would have already made an appearance by now. He likes to keep his Saturday afternoons open for …” Jeeter paused, unable to hide a smirk as he filled in the blank. “For his reenactment club.”

“What?”
I dropped my backpack and plopped into the nearest chair. “What’s a reenactment club?”

“Oh, you know. A bunch of guys dress up in uniforms and pretend they’re living back in Civil War times.” A grin crept across Jeeter’s face and kept widening until it was ready to burst at the seams. “They march and fight battles. Camp out. Eat salt pork. Drink out of canteens.”

“No way,” I gasped. “Kilgore pretends he’s a soldier?”

“Not just any soldier,” Jeeter said. He poked out his chest like a rooster. “Word has it he’s worked his way up to field commander.”

I let out an amazed laugh. But actually, it wasn’t too hard to imagine—Kilgore with a musket slung over his shoulder, snarling orders with his uniform buttoned up tight around that bony Adam’s apple of his.

Jeeter leaned forward with his elbows on his desk, observing me. “Hey, I’ve been getting to see a lot of you lately. What are you up to? More research on that project of yours?”

I shrugged and tried to avoid Jeeter’s gaze. “Yep. I just thought I’d stop by before I head over to the Black Angel. I need to copy down all the words in the epitaph.”

If Jeeter noticed me acting funny, he didn’t let on. He
scrunched his eyebrows together. “Isn’t that epitaph written in some kind of foreign language?”

I told him the words were written in Czech. “And guess what. You know Mr. Krasny from down the street? He actually speaks Czech, and he said he’ll help me translate the inscription.”

Jeeter wiggled his shoulders up and down. “Oh, Lord, Linc. You just gave me the heebie-jeebies. You sure you wanna know what that epitaph says?”

“Of course I do. Those words might be the clue I’ve been looking for.” I decided Jeeter didn’t need to know about Theresa’s two dead sons. Or her two dead husbands. Or the rattlesnake bite. Or her amputation.

“I’d have a hard time closing my eyes at night if I was you,” Jeeter teased. He gave himself a little shake and rose to his feet. “Well, I guess I better be heading down to the workshop. We got a leaf blower on the fritz, and I promised Captain Kilgore I’d get it fixed this weekend.”

I stayed rooted in my chair a beat longer. I had stopped by that day intending to take a quick look around the office and convince myself, once and for all, that it would be impossible to swipe the key. But now I could see there wasn’t a padlock on the closet door, like I expected, and no security camera hanging in the corner. And here was Jeeter, ready to wander off and leave the office unattended.

I stood up. “Hey, you mind if I use your bathroom before I go?” I asked, trying to keep the false edge out of my voice. I hated the whole idea of tricking Jeeter, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

Jeeter had his hand on the doorknob. “No problem. But make sure to twist the lock on the front door on your way out, okay? I’ll be down in the shop.”

My heart started to clunk in my chest as soon as Jeeter was gone. I stared at the key closet, barely five steps away. The door stood ajar, almost begging me to investigate.
Just a quick look
, I told myself.
Then I’m out of here
.

With one more glance over my shoulder, I darted toward the closet and slipped inside. The light came on with a pop when I pulled the string hanging next to a bare bulb in the ceiling, and I stood blinking at the nail holes and the blank spot on the wall where the key cabinet used to be. I let out a small sigh of resigned relief. So that’s that, I thought. The keys had been moved. Kilgore had probably decided to lock them up in the safe, where they should have been kept all along.

I was ready to go. I even had my hand on the string to the light switch when I spotted it—the old wooden key case. It was on the floor in the corner, propped against a dented set of metal file drawers. The cabinet must have come loose from the wall, and no one had bothered remounting it.

I stood wavering, imagining myself plunking the key down in front of Mellecker at the lunch table. Beez’s jaw would drop open, and Amy would realize I wasn’t just some dork who could thread microfilm and … before I knew it, I had knelt down, lifted the metal latch, and pulled the door back on its squeaky hinges. Inside were several rows of keys on hooks, all different shapes and sizes, each labeled with a small cardboard tag. I leaned forward and squinted at the
words. Fuel Pump … Lee Street Gate … Equipment Shed. Obviously not what I needed.

I figured I had already spent about five minutes on my “bathroom break.” If I stayed much longer, Jeeter might notice and get suspicious. I reached out and flicked through more of the tags.
There!
I started to see keys labeled with names of families and the sections where their vaults were located.

Mulholland/Rose Hill … Yoder/Forest Lawn.

But the names weren’t in any kind of order. A rumble of sound exploded somewhere below. I jerked back in surprise, then realized it was only Jeeter in the workshop next door, trying to coax his machinery back to life.… Whittington/Cedar Lane … Abernathy/Sunny Slope … It was stuffy in the closet. My skin started to prickle with sweat as I listened to the leaf blower growl and sputter, vibrating the floorboards under my knees.

I had fumbled through all the tags and almost decided to give up for good when I noticed one last key resting at the bottom of the cabinet. It was probably four inches long—an old-fashioned key, too big to fit on any of the hooks. I picked it up, and my palm tingled with the heavy weight of the rust-colored metal. A worn paper tag dangled from a string tied to the curlicued top. The cursive was in pencil and fuzzy with age, but I could still make out the name.

My fist closed around the key. The key to my new life in junior high.

T
HE KEY FELT LIKE SOMETHING
alive in the front pocket of my sweatshirt, waiting for its chance to crawl out of hiding. As I hurried through the graveyard, I scanned the distant tombstones for anyone watching and then switched the key to a safer spot, deep in the front pocket of my jeans.

But it wasn’t long before the sound of Winslow’s cranky voice came drifting toward me from across the cemetery.
Can you believe he just did that, Dobbins? Snatched that key? And now he actually might do it! Trespass on sacred ground!

I know, I know. It’s enough to make you turn over in your grave. Right, York?

Yeah. I’ve turned over so many times in the last ten minutes, I’m getting dizzy. But you don’t think he’ll really go through with it, do you, McNutt?

Over my dead body!

You forgettin’ something, Nutty? You
are
dead
.

Oh, yeah
.

I glared into the distance and started walking faster toward the Black Angel. I was grateful to have a mission. It would help take my mind off the key for a while. When I reached the foot of the monument, I went right to work. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my secret weapon for reading faded epitaphs—a plastic bag full of flour. Lottie had taught me that trick a long time ago. I walked around to the back side of the monument, and with my hand full of flour I reached out and dusted my palm back and forth across the carved words in the inscription. It took a few more scoops from my Ziploc bag, but soon the white flour began to fill in the crevices of the weathered letters as if they had been painted.

I wiped my hands on my sweatshirt and dug in my backpack for my notebook and a pen. The flour had worked like a charm on the first two lines of the epitaph. I could copy down the strange words from several feet away.

PRO MNE SLUNCE MRAKY KRYLY CESTA BYLA TRNITA
BEZ UTECHY UBIHALY DNOVE MEHO ZIVOTA

But the next part was a struggle. I scooped up more flour and dusted and tried reading from different angles. But even after several tries, only a few words in the last line came out completely clear.

STRASTTEBE OCEKAVA

I couldn’t wait to show the mysterious phrases to Mr. Krasny. Hopefully, he’d be able to make some sense of it all. I reached into my backpack again for the spray bottle full of water. I had almost left the water at home, but Lottie’s lessons, even from a long time ago, had a way of branding themselves on my brain like tattoos. As I sprayed the last traces of flour from the epitaph, I could hear her softly reminding me, “Always leave a stone exactly how you found it.”

But suddenly my mother’s words were swallowed up by the sound of tires skidding on gravel. I froze with my finger on the trigger of the spray bottle.

It was Kilgore, slamming on the brakes of Jeeter’s golf cart. He had come zipping over the ridge, along a little service road that dead-ended at the cemetery driveway. What was he doing here? Apparently he had run out of battles to fight with his Civil War club and decided to come pick a fight at the graveyard instead.

I felt like a small animal in the sights of a rifle as he climbed out of the cart and stalked toward me. “You again,” he said. “Well, I’ll be. What you got there?”

My heart lurched in my chest.
The key!
Without thinking, I moved my hand toward my pocket.

“Is that spray paint?” he demanded.

“What …?” My voice trailed off. Then I followed his gaze down to the spray bottle still gripped in my other hand. I started to smile with relief. “Oh! You mean this?
This is just water. See, our teacher assigned this class project, and …”

I stopped. Kilgore was standing over me now, staring at me like I was some kind of juvenile delinquent.

“Oh, yeah? If that’s true, why didn’t I hear anything about it?”

“I’m not sure. I—”

Kilgore grabbed my spray bottle, squirted some liquid into his hand, and lifted his palm up to his nose. His eyes narrowed as he sniffed and sniffed again. Then he walked over and inspected the cloudy drips of water still running down the Black Angel’s pedestal.

Kilgore slowly turned back to me. “What’s your name again, kid? I should know it, seeing as how we keep running into each other.”

“It’s Linc,” I said in a small voice. “Linc Crenshaw.”

“Linc,” he repeated to himself, testing the word on his tongue. “That’s short for Lincoln, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, tell me, Lincoln. Did you know defacing a monument like this goes against every cemetery rule in the book?” He shook the spray bottle. “And not only that. Desecrating historical markers is a criminal offense. You can’t just waltz in here and start spraying crud wherever you feel like it. We don’t even allow people to do gravestone rubbings in here—”

“No, you don’t understand,” I said in a rush. “I only used a little flour so I could see the inscription better. And I brought that water along to clean it off. Some people use
shaving cream to make the epitaphs more clear. But I’d never do that. Shaving cream has acids that can eat away at the stone.”

Kilgore had crossed his arms over his chest. After I had finished my explanation, he stood quiet for a few seconds, looking me up and down. “You’re not a normal sort of kid, are you, Lincoln?”

I shrugged. “What do you mean?”

He had stepped toward me, so close that I could smell the thick cigarette smoke that hung on his clothes. I felt myself edging backward. “I mean, how old are you?” he went on. “Eleven? Twelve? What’s a boy your age doing hanging around a graveyard on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Why aren’t you out throwing the football or doing stuff with your friends?”

“I told you. I’m here for a school proj—”

“You don’t play sports, do you, Lincoln?”

I licked my lips and swallowed. He had hit a sore spot. No, I didn’t play sports. Because I was a klutz. But I was trying. My running times were getting better and better. Plus, I had bigger dreams than just playing on some dumb team in high school. But knowing Kilgore, he had probably never even heard of the Seven Summits.

“No sports?” Kilgore’s lips slid into a knowing smile. “What about friends? Have you got any friends?”

I felt my face flush hot as I stared back at him. “Of course I’ve got—”

He cut me off again. “My hired hand tells me your pop’s buried right here in Oakland Cemetery. You think if your father
was still around, he’d approve of you hanging out here all by yourself day after day? No friends. Nothing to do but make trouble in a graveyard?”

I jerked away and rushed over to collect my things.

“Wait a minute,” he said as I stuffed my notebook and the bag of flour into my backpack. “We’re not done here.”