Come Sit By Me (7 page)

“DID YOU
GROW UP
in Hamilton?” I asked Mr. Barnes. Start with a few softballs, Dad always says. Puts people at ease.

“Yes,” he said.

“So you were a student at the high school at one time?”

“Yes, but don't mention the year.” He giggled nervously. I had to suppress the urge to giggle in return.

We went on like that. He went to college at Penn State, and I gathered he taught somewhere else for a while, but finally returned to Hamilton. Probably the only place he could get a job. He lived with his mother. And still did. Pathetic.

“What made you decide to teach social studies?” I asked.

That set him off. It was clear that history was a big deal with him, and he was ready to talk about it all afternoon, as long as somebody was there to listen. Unfortunately, that somebody was me. It was like being with Mr. Gregorio again, except this time on a world scale. Who knew that teachers liked to talk?

I realized I was going to learn a lot about Western Civilization unless I could steer the conversation around to local matters. Just as he was getting started on the importance of the Magna Carta, I took a chance on a question that Mr. Barnes probably wouldn't like: “Was Cale Peters one of your students?”

I thought I had lost him for a second. He even forgot to giggle. He looked annoyed. “He was, but I don't see what that has to do with this interview.”

“No, I just wondered if you knew him well,” I said.

“Evidently not,” he said. “Although he did show an interest in history.” He kind of softened, remembering that.

“Was he working on any projects for you at the time?” I asked. I didn't have to say at the time of what.

Mr. Barnes nodded, slowly. “He wanted to research the background of a story connected with a monument in the local cemetery. An inappropriate story, actually.” He giggled, thinking about it. “I don't usually allow students to work on subjects that are inappropriate, but he was eager, and I thought it would motivate him. He needed motivation.”

“By inappropriate you mean, sexual.”

He giggled again. “Well, I wouldn't put it that way. It was a local scandal.”

“I heard. About Sally Dennis and Martin Crapper.”

Mr. Barnes looked at me as if I had suddenly turned into a vampire. “How do you know about that?” he asked.

“I heard the story,” I explained. No sense in telling him who from.

“Well, then you know that the Crapper family is still sensitive about it.”

That told me something I hadn't known, but it was nothing compared to what he was about to tell me.

“I didn't know there were any Crappers left,” I said. Hearing myself say that made
me
giggle, and I almost lost him. He looked at me suspiciously, as if I were mocking him. “It's just that the name…” I tried to explain, “sounds funny.”

“That's why they changed it,” he said.

I nodded. “What did they change it to?” I asked.

“Craft,” he said. He giggled, but not in a good way. “One of the girls who was killed…that day…was one of them. Sharon Craft.”

At home, I took another look at the picture of Sharon Craft in the memorial issue of the
Treasury
. I decided she wouldn't have looked as pretty if her name had been Sharon Crapper. Wanted to be a veterinarian. Was there any connection between her and Cale? Did he have a dog?

Working on my homework that night, I suddenly had a brainstorm. It seems obvious to me now, but I hadn't seen it before. Mr. Gregorio had told me that Sally Dennis's baby had been born blind. And Cale's grandmother was blind.

When did the tombstone say Sally died? I couldn't remember now. Was it possible that her baby and Cale's grandmother were the same person?

I knew it sounded crazy, but it suddenly seemed very important to find out.

I told my Dad I was going to the store to get something. He was watching some show, and didn't grill me about what I was going to buy. It was only about nine o'clock anyway.

The drive was about fifteen minutes from my house. I probably passed no more than ten cars headed in the other direction. Hamilton was really a dead little burg, especially on weeknights.

I turned off and passed through the iron gates of the cemetery. As far as I could see, it was empty. Except for the people who were there to stay, of course. I wished I had Colleen along. Although then Sally Dennis wouldn't have seemed to be the top item of importance.

In the darkness, I couldn't read the dates on the statue's pedestal from my car, so I parked it and got out. I'm used to the city, where there is some noise at all times. Traffic, people yelling at each other, TVs… But here it was utterly silent. I could hear my shoes trampling down the grass as I walked between the gravestones. I had brought a flashlight and kept shining it along the ground. I was afraid I'd step on something and fall. The light flickered across the names of people who had died long ago. People who were underneath my feet right now. And of course I couldn't help thinking that the ghosts of some of them might be roaming around in the dark.

Finally I reached the statue, and shone my light on the base. There were the dates: 1905-1927. Sally had died in 1927, and her baby was no more than a year old. So the baby could easily have been alive two or three years ago, when Cale's grandmother was alive.

Of course, there were still a lot of things I had to find out. The baby might have kept Sally's last name, or maybe she was adopted by a family and taken their name. And later, she could have gotten married and then would have had her husband's name. I didn't know any of those names. It could all be just a far-fetched coincidence.

I shone the light upward. Even though the statue's face was angry, it was still angelic. I wondered if it had been modeled after Sally's face. Again I noticed the book she was holding in her left hand. It was open, and even though she was looking in the direction she was pointing—the Crapper family crypt—it seemed as though she had just been reading something in the book.

All of a sudden I wanted to see it. I had to turn off the flashlight and put it in my pocket so I could use both hands, and even then it was hard to reach the top of the pedestal. When I reached it, I stood on tiptoes, but couldn't see the pages, so I grabbed hold of Sally's left arm and started to pull myself up.

A voice cried out, “Hey! You! Get off there!” I looked in the direction it came from, and a flashlight shone back at me. It was some guy on the other side of the cemetery, but he sounded as if he was in charge. A guard? Shit. Who knew there was a guard? Where was he on Friday nights?

The light started bobbing up and down. He was coming toward me. I jumped down. It wasn't far, and the grass broke my fall. I started running toward my car.

The guard didn't gain any ground on me. He must have been an old guy. Who else would take a job as a cemetery guard? At night, no less.

I reached the car, jumped in, and started the engine. I lost some time because I had to turn around, but when I was facing the right direction, I floored it. The tires kicked up some gravel and then took hold. Fortunately, the gate was still open.

My heart was pounding as I headed down the road. I kept looking in my rear-view mirror, worrying that the guy might be following in his car. But I didn't see anything.

“Guard in a cemetery,” I said to myself, wondering why. I thought of the old second-grade joke: “Why do they have fences around the cemetery? Because people are dying to get in.” That seemed hysterical. I knew it was just from nerves, but I began to laugh and didn't stop till I was nearly home.

OF COURSE,
HE GOT
my license plate. Wouldn't you know? The only 80-year-old cemetery guard with perfect vision. I don't know if he was really 80.

The next day, I was sitting in Ms. Hayward's world lit class, listening to the discussion of the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, when the P.A. system came on. A voice said, “Ms. Hayward, please send Paul Sullivan to Ms. Brennan's office.” Everybody looked at me.

I really had no idea what this was about. The night before, when I made it back without being chased, I figured I was home free.

That idea went out the window as soon as I saw my father and a uniformed cop waiting in Ms. Brennan's office. And Ms. Brennan, with as stony a look as ever. Apparently it was forbidden for an assistant principal ever to smile.

She told me to sit down. Nobody spoke for a minute. Even though I knew that was intended to make me nervous, it worked. Three against one.

Finally, the cop said, “You're Paul Sullivan?”

I nodded.

“This is being recorded,” he said. “Please answer aloud.”

“Yes, I'm Paul Sullivan,” I said. I was trying to avoid my dad's eyes.

“Where were you last night?”

“Mostly at home.”

“Were you at the Greenwood Cemetery around 9:30 p.m.?”

Oh, shit. I knew what this was about, so I might as well admit it. “Yes.”

“What were you doing there?”

Hard to say. Trying to find the year when a woman died almost a century ago
. “I was just…looking around.”

“Paul,” Dad said.

“That's all I was doing, honest,” I told him. I could tell he didn't believe me. It sounded fishy to me too.

The cop broke in. “Were you there with the intention of vandalizing any of the monuments?”

“No! Why would you think that?”

“A caretaker reported seeing someone attempting to break the arm of a statue. He took down the license number of the car you were driving.”

“I wasn't trying to
break
the arm,” I said. “I was just climbing up there.”

“For what reason?”

“I was trying to find out the name of the book she was holding.” So call me crazy.

The three authority figures in the room looked at each other. If they didn't think I was crazy, they probably thought I was incredibly stupid to make up such a story.

“Had you been drinking?” the cop asked. The only other obvious conclusion.

“No, I hadn't anything to drink,” I insisted. I met my dad's eyes and said, “Honest, Dad. I hadn't.”

“Had you been in the cemetery at any other time?” the cop asked.

I hesitated. This was leading in a direction I really didn't want to go. I wondered if it was illegal in Pennsylvania to feel a girl's boobs. Was Colleen a minor? I hadn't thought to ask. Her boobs seemed fully grown.

“Answer him, Paul,” Dad said in a voice that meant I'd be lucky if I only went to jail.

I thought I saw a way out. “Yes, I was there before,” I said.

“When was this?”

I thought back. “Just after school began. I think it was on a Tuesday afternoon.”

“In the afternoon?” the cop asked, seeming a little surprised. High-school kids didn't go there in the afternoon.

“Yes.”

“Were you with anyone?”

“My sister.”

“You were with your sister?” Clearly the cop was now thinking incest, considering what usually went on in the cemetery.

“Yes,” I told him. “She wanted to learn how to drive, and so we went someplace where there wasn't any traffic.” I was avoiding Dad's eyes again.

The cop looked at my dad. “Can you confirm that?”

“I don't know anything about it,” he said.
Thanks, Dad
.

“We're more interested in last weekend,” the cop told me. “Some vandalism took place over the weekend. It's a serious matter. One of the crypts was tampered with.”

Oh, great. Grave-robbing
. But I thought of Saturday morning, when I'd seen North's truck inside the cemetery, back where the Crapper family had their mausoleum.

“I wasn't there last weekend.” As long as you didn't count Friday night as the weekend.

“Do you know anyone who might have done that?”

This was standard cop technique, as I had learned from watching
Law and Order
. Who says TV rots your mind? I could give up North in return for leniency for myself. And then, of course, become a pariah for the rest of my senior year in high school. Not to mention that I'd need binoculars to see Colleen's boobs ever again.

The decision seemed obvious. “No, I have no idea.” One lie leads to another.

“It's a serious matter,” the cop said again.
Must be really serious.
“The family whose crypt was vandalized has paid for a guard to be on duty.” The word Crappers went through my mind and I had to bite my tongue to keep from chuckling.

That's why the guard wasn't there Friday night. The vandalism didn't happen till Saturday
.

“I'm sorry,” I said. It was sincere. I deeply regretted that nobody could go parking there at night anymore.

Dad finally came to my rescue. “But there was no damage to this statue that Paul was climbing?” he asked.

“As far as we can tell,” said the cop.

“Maybe Paul could volunteer for some community service,” Dad said. “It's an old cemetery, and the graves must need tending, grass cut, things like that.”

And that's how I came to be at the cemetery at 9 a.m. the next Saturday, in my old clothes, ready for work. Dad drove me out there, because I was officially grounded for two weeks. The pastor of the church that owned the cemetery was waiting to show me what needed to be done. His name was Flegel. He was pretty ancient, with wisps of snow-white hair across his pink scalp. He didn't wear a clerical outfit, just some khaki pants and a plaid flannel shirt, although he did have black wing-tips on.

He unlocked the door of the tool shed at the cemetery. Inside, it smelled like it hadn't been opened in years. They didn't even have a power lawn mower. However, Pastor Flegel didn't want me to cut the grass. He took out a large black plastic bag and said he wanted me to fill it with trash that littered the grounds. This included beer bottles, condoms, and a variety of other crap that kids who'd been parking there had left behind.

The old man apparently had nothing better to do, so he walked around with me. “It's a shame the way people have no respect for the dead,” he said. I just grunted because I was bending over to pick up a beer can.

“Think about it,” Flegel went on. “Underneath our feet are the bodies of those who lived here over the past 200 years, now at rest and waiting for the resurrection.”

“Do you think it'll come soon?” I asked, just being a smart-ass.

He ignored the smart-ass part and took me seriously. “That day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,” he replied. I could tell he was quoting from the Bible. Sounded like
Look Homeward, Angel
, too.

“That reminds me,” I said, “do you know anything about the person who is buried under that angel?” I pointed to the stone statue.

“Sally's angel?” he said. “I'm an old man, but she was before my time.”

“She was a sinner, people say,” I suggested, hoping to get him going.

“As are we all.”

“So why put an angel over her grave?”

“Have you read what it says on the pedestal?”

I thought about it. “A fallen angel may rise again,” I replied.

“It gives hope to us all.”

“But why her? Who paid for the angel?”

“It doesn't matter, really,” he told me with a smile. “A charitable person. A person with love in their heart.”

This guy was a pain in the ass. “Or maybe somebody who felt guilty at the way she was treated,” I said.

“I guess you
have
heard the stories,” he said with a chuckle. “You know, there was another boy from the high school who asked me about Sally,” he said.

“When was that?” I asked. All of a sudden, the old man had become interesting.

He thought about it. “I'm not sure. Time seems to pass differently when you grow older. Not recently.”

“Last year?”

“Perhaps.” Great. Now that I wanted him to tell me something, his memory failed.

“It wasn't the boy who killed all those people at the high school, was it?” I asked.

“Wasn't that a terrible thing?” he said. “But I can't recall. I didn't connect this boy with that other one. He did seem concerned about death, though. But that was because someone he knew had died.”

“His grandmother?”

“Perhaps. Yes, I think that was it. She had been the only person who really loved him, or so he felt. I'm sure it wasn't true. Many people love us, even those we don't suspect.”

“Sure.”
Colleen Donnelly, for example
.

“As I recall, he had felt his grandmother should be buried here. In that crypt over there, as a matter of fact.”

“The Crapper crypt.” That name just wouldn't quit sounding funny.

But the pastor never cracked a smile. “He felt his grandmother had some right to be there, but she was not a family member. And there wasn't much space left. The bodies there are not buried, you know. They're interred above ground in stone caskets.”

“He felt his grandmother was a member of that family.” I said.

The pastor nodded. “But she wasn't. Indeed the space was needed not long after that when the shooting at the school took place. One of the victims was interred there.”

“Sharon Craft,” I said.

“Yes. Did you know her?”

“No, I never met her.”

“Were you the one who disturbed the crypt?” His face suddenly changed, looking sad as he realized what a sinner he'd been talking to.

“No, no. I just…happened to be here after the cemetery was supposed to be closed.”

He nodded, seemingly reassured. “I'm glad. I suppose it was somebody's idea of a prank. But it was quite a cruel one. The dead should be allowed to rest.”

Maybe that was good advice for me. In fact, the way things turned out, it almost certainly was.

Now I could see a motive for Cale's shooting. He thought his grandmother was the daughter of Sally Dennis. That would mean that his grandmother's father was Martin Crapper. Only she couldn't prove it because she was illegitimate and had been raised in an orphanage. So Cale took it out on the youngest member of the Crapper family, who were now the Craft family.

So what? The others who were killed were just in his line of fire, except for maybe the librarian. And probably he wanted to kill Donna, who had turned down Cale's direct approach to sex. Her mistake. So that wrapped everything up.

But somehow it didn't satisfy me. What happened to the USB drive on which Cale stored everything he wrote on his computer?

And why had somebody—probably North—messed around with Sharon Craft's crypt?

I knew what kind of advice Terry, or anybody else who was halfway smart, would have given me.
It's in the past. You didn't know any of those people who were killed. Relax and let North fix you up with Colleen or maybe some other girls. Stay cool and enjoy the ride. Keep your grades up and go to college next year.

Or as my dad would say,
Keep your nose clean
.

I guess it was because I had Cale's locker that I felt a kind of responsibility for him. For this kid that everybody seemed to want to forget. Whose face was blacked out in the yearbook. I wanted to know who he was.