A Ghost of Brother Johnathan's (11 page)

For the next hour we chatted about Luke’s ambitions. Turns out I had judged him too quickly. Luke had grown up in the area, was invested in it and planned to make his future here. He had solid ideas and concepts to improve Eureka and to do so while maintaining the historic and cultural integrity of the town and the lifestyle of the residents.

While in the bar, Luke ran into some friends. He introduced me as the business writer for the Edgewild Tavern project, which his friends were interested in and enthusiastic about. After giving a brief summary of my involvement, I felt it was the prefect moment for me to bow out. I saw myself back to my room.

I showered and crawled into bed. Fuzzy notions, outof-place puzzle pieces and a thick fog of confusion swirled around in my mind.

At two in the morning, I awoke, quite suddenly and for what reason I had no clue. Sitting up in bed, I listened for sounds filtering up from the hotel. A few voices here and there, that were vague and faraway broke through the silence. The hotel would have closed by now and I guessed the voices and sounds I heard were those of the bar staff closing up, ushering out a few stragglers.

I got out of bed and poured myself a glass of water from the carafe on the table outside the bathroom door. When I turned around there was Donkey, sitting on the floor with a guitar in his hands…
hands?
Well, okay he strummed a guitar with his front hooves… his sort-ofhand-like hooves.
Argh!
At this late hour and groggy, all I could think of was how much I hated dealing with cartoon animals. All my life I’d never been able to reconcile my confusion over Walt Disney’s characters of Goofy and Pluto. Both were dogs, yet only Pluto acted like a dog. And what is it with cartoon characters wearing gloves on their hands, paws… whatever? When they did have hands, gloved or not, they never had four fingers and a thumb, the characters had three fingers and a digit that resembled a thumb, well, a sort-of thumb. I sighed, and sat back in bed. I knew that attempting sleep was futile.

“Huh? Why in tarnation would you do that?” He asked in his Eddie Murphy, slash,
Shrek
movie voice.
“Isn’t that what your friend Jonathan Rupp called you? I heard he told people that at the end they would meet God, meaning you, because the acronym of G.O.D. stood for the initials of your first, middle and last name.”
“Lie. No way, no how. Not my name.
Pffft
,” Donkey huffed nonchalantly, and then added, “Let me serenade you.” He strummed the tune of “Beautiful Dreamer.”
Donkey’s version of “Beautiful Dreamer” was a melodic and soothing rendition and I listened to it all the way through. At the end, Donkey stood up and bowed deeply.
Then, he hee-hawed and said, “Thank You, Thank You. Thank You. And for an encore I shall recite a poem.”
He stood tall, cleared his throat and said, “Three last round shapes considered. Ta-dah!” He came over to me, grinning ear to ear, leaned into my ear and whispered, “If you’d wear those pretty blue spectacles, you’d see that they have all gone to meet their maker.”
I did something extraordinary. Clinching my eyes shut, with both hands I shoved Donkey and screamed “Get out of here!”
I kept my eyes shut for several moments. When I opened my eyes he was gone, and the telephone light on my bedside table was blinking. Did it ring? Curious about not having heard a ring, I picked up the handset.
“Hello?”
“Miss Delaney, is something wrong?”
“No. Why do you ask?” I queried the hotel manager.
“Miss Delaney, a scream was just heard and a guest said it may have come from the direction of your room.”
Gulp. I took a slow deep breath and gathered my wits about me and then calmly replied, “I’m so sorry, I had a nightmare. I’m fine, I promise. Thank you.”
Nightmare? More like a Nightass! Pulling the covers over my head, I fell into deep hypnotic sleep.
First thing in the morning I popped out of bed, grabbed my purse and pulled out the eyeglass case I had put the blue glasses in. I took out the blue spectacles. What did Donkey mean by telling me that if I had worn these I would have seen that they went to meet their maker? They, whom? And besides, if I had worn these tiny glasses last night to the cemetery I most likely would not have seen anything at all, at least not much beyond the scope of a few feet directly in front of me. I perched the spectacles on my nose and attempted to see through them. Well, sure enough, all I could see were my own two feet.
I sat down on the desk chair to see if that point of view gave me a broader field of vision. In a sitting position, all I could see was my lap. Odd, odd indeed. I was ruminating about this situation when my phone rang. It was still in my purse. I reached for the purse, dug around in it to retrieve my phone, and in doing so, my purse dropped out of my grasp and all the contents tumbled out onto the floor. I grabbed the phone.
“Hello?”
“Shannon, you sound flustered, did I call at a bad time?” Rosario asked.
I giggled. “Had it been any other person than you, I’d not owe up to the fact that I was clumsy and in grabbing for my phone, I upset my purse, it tumbled upside down and now all the contents are on the floor.”
Rosario chuckled. “Think of it has a timely suggestion to reorganize your purse. Knowing you, you probably have too many items stuffed inside of it.” Rosario sighed and then said, “I wish my call was for a happy reason, unfortunately, I have bad news.”
“Uh-oh, what is it?” I asked.
“It appears that Frank Dazi is challenging Marta’s legal ownership of the Jonathan Rupp tavern and all its land. I understand why, and I understand he has legal right to do so. It’s such a blow to Marta. Shannon, she needs the money. I’ve been very reluctant to let anyone know that her finances have suffered in the recent economic downturn, but that is the truth of her situation. Anyway, the historical society has now declined to lease the tavern and land. In other words, the pizza restaurant project is a no-go.”
I was heartbroken for Marta. “Oh, Rosario, that is sad news. Last night at dinner, Marta seemed distracted, but I didn’t want to pry, so I let it go.”
“Well, dear, now you know. She got the news yesterday morning in a personal phone call from her lawyer. He said she could be served with legal papers on Monday and he did not want her to be shocked. Evidently, the court filing of Dazi’s request was on Friday afternoon. You might as well come home. Thanksgiving is a little over a week away. I’m thinking of asking Marta to join us. Alex insists on seeing to her airfare and I’ll suggest she fly back with you.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea. Except, I need just two more days, three at the most. Let’s plan on Thursday morning this coming week. We can catch an early flight out of San Francisco. That makes it exactly one week from Thanksgiving. This way you can invite Marta and it gives her time to prepare. Also, I have an idea that Frank Dazi is not such the hard-hearted villain in this situation. I have a gut hunch there is more to his legal filing than what meets the eye. Let me see what I can do, but don’t tell Marta.”
“Oh this is good. I knew that calling you would help things out. I’ll let Alex know. One of us will be at the airport when you and Marta land. Bye dear.”
I hung up and in doing so was overcome with a frantic sick feeling I had just bitten off more than I could chew.
Where there is a will, there is a way
, isn’t that what my father always told me when I got down in the dumps about an obstacle?
I looked down at the mess of purse contents heaped on the floor. Gingerly, I picked up the cookbook. I held it in my hands, totally unaware I still wore the blue spectacles. When I flipped open the book, there on the inside front cover, awareness flooded over me.
Of course, that darn donkey had been correct, and now I knew why. Forgetting about my spilled purse contents, I grabbed a notepad and in a fury of chicken scratches wrote down:
Inside front cover are three names; Geoffrey Ozwald Dresden, Gordon Dalton, Gerald
Derringer. Can only be seen with blue
spectacles.

Gordon Dalton? The same Gordon Dalton who was the original owner of Jonathan Rupp’s land, the man who lost that land in a tax sale?

All of the names appeared to have been written very lightly in pencil, and then erased? This effect meant that the names were not visible to the naked eye, however, once I wore the blue spectacles I could read the writing.

Then, taking the spectacles off, I closed my eyes, forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly. In a mantra I whispered, “Feel what is important. Release from your mind all prior concepts and feel,
just feel
what is right. Let the past speak to me.”

I concentrated on the sounds around me. In the distance a tugboat blew its horn. On the street below, a car screeched to a stop in front of the hotel. Kitchen noises drifted up. I opened my eyes and jotted down:

KGC?
I set down my pen and studied these notes. With the utmost certainty I knew my plan for today would be to revisit the Ferndale Cemetery, alone. Then, call an editor I knew in Chicago who was a Civil War buff. I didn’t have a shred of evidence pointing to the Knights of the Golden Circle angle. Not a single, solid lead did I have to connect them to this mystery, and this nagged at me. I hoped my editor friend would shed light on this obstacle. And, last but not least, telephone Frank Dazi to arrange a private visit with him.

Spending a brisk and breezy autumnal Sunday morning at the Ferndale Cemetery was a popular activity. The crowds of visitors surprised me. I knew that this cemetery wasn’t only popular with local residents, but judging from the license plates in the parking lot, people came from all over the nation to stroll the memorial grounds. At first, the idea that I could not have some privacy in my mission aggravated me. Then I realized that the throngs of foot traffic provided the right amount of camouflage for my objective. No person would pay attention to me. In fact, instead of attempting to avert suspicion to my objective by appearing to stroll about, I made a beeline for the back area of the cemetery.

The lay of the land looked different in daylight, and of course I did not have Luke to guide me. The fact that last night, in bleak darkness, Luke had taken me to the exact spot I wanted to see made me think twice about not calling him and asking him to accompany me this morning. Oh well, the deed is done. I dutifully walked on toward my target, stopping to glance back now and then, remembering a few landmarks from last night to help me on my way.

When I came to the graves of Stephen Wilson and Margaret Kuchen I took out my cell phone and brought up the GPS application and entered the coordinates. My plan was to locate a historically accurate map of the cemetery and see if, indeed, these graves were authentic to this section. I knew from doing genealogy research that in historic cemeteries, such as this one, gravesites were sometimes moved due to various practical reasons. Here in California, while working a case I discovered that graves of some of the first California Hispanic founders had been moved due to an earthquake fault line running directly under the section they were in. The fault had been inactive for decades, then in the 1930s a major quake hit and it upset the graveyard to the extent that at first glance the graves appeared to have been dug up and robbed. That was not the case, the violent upheaval of the earth caused the graves to surface. The deceased were reburied in another section of the same cemetery, and in accordance with having the graves be as historically accurate as possible, the section they were transferred to was also an older section of the memorial grounds. However, it was a section on the opposite side from the original burial sites.

After I entered the coordinates I took photos of Wilson and Kuchen’s graves. Then, turning to the section a little further back and behind these two graves, I meandered onward, looking for gravestones or markers that were
three last round shapes
. Ten minutes into my walk I found them at the very back of the cemetery where three graves stood alone, the last graves in this section of the cemetery, next to the border of public land. An eerie thought crept into my mind…
death stopped here
. Surveying this section I noted that I was alone, I guessed it was because these graves were not interesting. There was nothing unique, decorative or remarkable about the headstones. I looked down at three graves, side by side, in a row. Small half-circle rounded-top stone planks served as markers. Ah-ha, here are the three last round shapes, and these are the graves representing the names of the men written in code in the front of the cookbook!

I entered the GPS coordinates and then took photos. And for the pure sake of making a mental note that I couldn’t forget, I took out my notepad and jotted down the information:

Left to right, first grave is for Geoffrey Ozwald Dresden. Second grave is for Gordon Ogden Dalton. Third grave is for Gerald Orson
Derringer.

Gordon Ogden Dalton. This must be the same person who was the original owner of the Rupp tavern and land? The same Gordon Dalton who had to forfeit his ownership because he was
behind in property tax payments?

On each stone, the men’s initials are printed above their names: G.O.D. All three men have the same initials: the acronym is
God
. Weird?

Were all three of these men so-called vagrants who were buried at the expense of Margaret
Kuchen?

I noted each man’s dates of birth and death, wondering why no birth place or place of death was given for any of them. Next, I walked around each grave, studying it for additional clues, hoping to discover marks on the backside of the stones. No markings were apparent and although the stones were old, the ground in this section was well maintained. Had it not been for the tidy nature of each grave, I would have been tempted to get down on my knees and sift through the grass where the stones were set.

What now? I wondered. A wind gust sent chills up my spine. I pulled my jacket around me and with my arms crossed and leaning into the wind, I hurried back to the cemetery’s front office. A quick request and I was given a photocopy of an official map of the cemetery along with the identity of the names of who buried who in regard to the three men. I thanked the clerk, left the office and walked to my car.

Once inside my car, with warm rays of sun streaming through the windows, heating up my bones, I relaxed and thoughtfully considered the map. According to it, all the graves I was interested in were authentic to their time period and location in the cemetery. Well, that was good to know, though it didn’t provide me with additional clues. However, the payment of the three burials was a clue, and it was an angle I never suspected. Turns out, it was Gordon Ogden Dalton who paid to have Geoffrey Ozwald Dresden and Gerald Orson Derringer buried. And who buried Gordon Ogden Dalton? None other than his daughter Bonnie Parting! This information gave me some solid answers. I now knew that Parting was the daughter of the landowner of the property that Jonathan Rupp purchased in a tax sale. I strongly suspected that because these three names have identical acronyms, that the names were aliases.

On the drive back to my hotel I came up with a plan. First, call Ozzy to see if he would enlist the assistance of Daniel at the museum. I wanted to stop at the museum before meeting with Dazi, and Daniel would be able to make quick work in helping with questions I had. Next, telephone Frank Dazi and arrange for a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Then, call my editor friend in Chicago, and finally, get on the Internet and research.

This last step in my plan was the most challenging. I felt there were facts and clues floating around on the Internet highway and given the access to the right sites and archives, I would be able to find them. But I was lost, and it wasn’t because I didn’t know how to do deep research on the Internet, but rather, where to begin? Hopefully my Chicago friend would provide answers.

As I drove up to the hotel and parked and was about to switch off the radio my fingers missed the off button and hit the tab that switched stations. Immediately I recognized the first bars of a tune my father favored and I jerked my hand away from the radio dial. I loved listening to songs from my parents’ era because it calmed me and allowed me to feel good about a special time in my life, a time that was gone forever and yet was never lost from my memories. I relaxed with my head on the seat’s backrest and let my dad’s favorite folksong wash over me.

The song ended and so did my sweet reverie of bygone times. I was in a better mood. I strolled into the hotel and stopped at the lobby desk to ask about messages. There were none. I thanked the desk clerk and when I walked away she said, “I’ve not heard that song in along time.”
“What song?” I asked.
“The one you were humming, It’s ‘The Wreck of the

Stunned by this revelation, I stuttered to regain composure. “Uh, yeah, I guess it is. I just heard it on the radio and remembered it was a favorite song of my dad’s, from the 1970s, pretty sure about that date.”

The clerk just nodded and smiled.
I went to my room and made my phone calls. Ozzy said it wouldn’t be a problem in getting Daniel to help and I could plan on being at the museum about ten. The museum was closed on Mondays, but Daniel worked that day to catch up on administrative work. Next, when I called Frank Dazi I was pleasantly surprised by his hospitality. He invited me to lunch at his favorite Italian restaurant. We agreed to meet at one o’clock. Following a gut hunch, I delayed calling my editor friend and instead, I got on the Internet.
Using the Gordon Lightfoot song about the shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald as a lead, I attempted to find ships with the names of the three men in the Ferndale Cemetery. After an hour I knew I was traveling down the wrong path. Yet, I felt that the Edmund Fitzgerald song cropping up at that particular time, with my fingers accidentally switching stations to the exact station playing that song, had to be a clue,
it had to be
.
What involvement did the three men have to this mystery? And if it is true that at the end you meet “God,” then which one of these men was the one “God” at the end? Out of the blue another possibility occurred to me, did the end justify the means? Hmm, if I had interpreted this clue in a lopsided way, then maybe these three men were not the end, at all, maybe they were
the means
. Energized by another angle to explore, I got back on the Internet. And this time, I was successful. Turns out, that at the time of the shipwreck of the
Brother Jonathan
, all three men, of the same names buried in Ferndale Cemetery, were suspected operatives in the Knights of the Golden Circle. How in the world did all three men come to be buried in the same cemetery? Maybe another favorite Internet site would provide an answer. I signed in to Find A Grave.
The results on Find a Grave were enlightening, to say the least. These same three names, including the exact dates of birth and death were found on graves in cemeteries throughout the country, including Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky. All the headstones appeared the same, in each cemetery the gravesites were always the
three last round shapes
. Additionally, information on the gravestones was no more or less than the graves at the Ferndale Cemetery. Coincidence? No way this was a coincidence. And the names had to be aliases.
I saved notes to a word document file and then logged off. I was ready to call my friend in Chicago.