This was interesting, and though it wasn’t likely I’d forget, I made a note of it on my legal pad. “I can’t say it would do any good, but I don’t think it would hurt to go talk to this Lenny guy. I don’t suppose you have any idea where he is these days, do you?”
“Oh, certainly! He’s still the warden at Central State.”
The news hit me like a punch to the stomach. “You mean, if I wanted to see him, I’d have to visit the prison to do it?”
Helen laughed. Maybe she wasn’t used to seeing anyone go instantly green at the mention of prison. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Not to worry,” she said. “I heard that Lenny was recently injured in a motorcycle accident. He’s recovering nicely, but the hospitals are far better here in Cleveland than they are out in the sticks where the prison is located. He’s doing his rehab at the Cleveland Clinic.”
As I walked away and got back in my car, I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure I’d ended up with more questions than I did answers from my little talk with Helen Lamar, but was that such a bad thing? I had one more person to talk to, plus I’d dodged the prison bullet.
To my way of thinking, that made it a successful afternoon.
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6
By the time I got to Monroe Street on Monday morning, there was a line of cars parked outside the stone archway that led into the cemetery. There were also people-two and three at a time in tight little groups-standing on the sidewalk outside the six-foot iron fence.
Curious, yes?
But things got even weirder.
Just as I got out of my car, I felt someone watching me.
I turned to see a man standing across the street just at the spot where the sunshine met the shadows of a boarded-up house. He was middle-sized and middle-aged. I didn’t recognize him, and he was so bland, I wouldn’t know him again if I tripped over him. When I looked his way, he stepped into the shadows. I twitched away the uneasy feeling that crawled up my spine, and kept right on walking. I didn’t expect to bump into Ella.
“Can you believe this?” She met me as I was about to head out into the wilderness that was the cemetery. Her eyes were as bright as the glimmery earrings and beads she wore with her yellow sundress. “I had to stop and see you. I know Jim is anxious for some feedback. But really, Pepper, did you expect this?” She smiled and waved when we passed a group of middle-aged ladies.
I may have been baffled (OK, I was plenty baffled), but I had a plan for the day, and there was no way I was going to let whatever was happening deter me. Part of that plan included cruising the perimeter of Team Number One’s section. I wanted to see what they were up to and what they’d accomplished while I was breaking my back yanking weeds the week before. I also wanted to look around my own section to see if there was any evidence of what might have happened to the box and coin we’d found at Lamar’s grave and who might have swiped it. I hadn’t seen anyone leave with the box. I hoped that meant it was still around the cemetery somewhere.
Impressive, yes? But my planning did not stop there. I was going to the hospital at lunchtime to visit Lenny Fitzpatrick, so I’d dressed even more carefully than usual that morning in skinny jeans and a just-sporty-enough-for-manual-labor tank in a shade of olive I knew looked perfect with my fiery hair. Not incidentally, as long as I looked that good, I was hoping to run into Bianca just to show her what a top-notch fashion consultant I could be.
With all this spinning around in my head and Ella still walking at my side, I turned off the drive and into the undergrowth toward Team One’s section, but once we were there, I hardly noticed what they’d gotten done. I was too distracted by the elegant, screened tent that had been set up for their supplies. It was complete with a cloth-covered table, crystal drinking glasses, and five picnic baskets, no doubt packed with tasty lunches. The second thing that caught my attention was Mae being interviewed by a reporter. Greer, of course, was recording the whole thing for posterity.
Watching me watch them, Ella put a hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t see the show last night, did you? Pepper, how could you miss something so important?”
“I tried to watch.” I cringed at the memory, and my stomach flipped the way it had the night before when I sat down and turned my TV to the local PBS station. “I saw the opening. You know, the one where the words Cemetery Survivor float across the screen. I bet Greer thought of the name of the show. She’s the only one dumb enough to think of anything that boring.”
“That’s all you saw?”
“I turned it off,” I admitted. “I even unplugged the TV. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing me in a show that stupid. I couldn’t stand the thought of watching myself in a show that stupid. My mother called from Florida three times so I could tell her what was going on. I didn’t answer my phone. Two of my aunts called after the show was over and left messages about how cute it was and how good I looked. I didn’t talk to them, either. My only consolation is that they watched because they felt obligated. Nobody else could possibly have-”
“So where do you suppose all these people came from?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked around some more. There were a few people hanging around on the sidewalk outside Team One’s section. They were polite and apparently interested in what was going on. A couple of them had cameras.
“You’re not telling me these people actually…?” It was too weird, even for my brain to wrap itself around. I glanced from the lookers-on to Ella’s sparkling presence. “People watched? They… they actually care?”
She grinned from ear to ear. At the same time, she looped an arm through mine and piloted me toward my section. “It’s amazing how fast word travels. But don’t get carried away, there’s good news and bad news,” she said, in that motherly way of hers. “The bad news is that the judges awarded the first ten points of the competition to Team One. They said they were more organized and got more accomplished last week.”
I swallowed this bitter pill because it was, after all, the absolute truth.
“And the good news?”
“Well, the good news!” Ella beamed. “According to the station, they got hundreds of calls for more information before the show ever aired. And they’ve gotten even more calls this morning. So many people are interested, they’ve scheduled a repeat of the show in prime time on Thursday night. Isn’t it fabulous?”
“It’s unbelievable.”
I meant this just the way I said it. It was improbable that anyone would have wasted their Sunday night with the likes of Cemetery Survivor. It was pretty pathetic, too. Ella took my unbelievable to mean something more like cool. Which would explain why her smile never wilted.
“The publicity is priceless,” she said, nearly swooning. “If we’ve got this sort of a following after only one episode, imagine what’s going to happen next week.”
I was still trying to work my way through the weirdness of the whole thing. “It’s a fluke,” I said, convinced. “There may have been a few losers who watched the show, but-”
I heard the commotion before I was close enough to see what was going on, and the noise brought me up short. I turned, all set to ask Ella what was up, but she marched me right along, and like the little engine that could, she didn’t stop, not until we ducked under the branches of an overhanging tree and stepped into the section assigned to my team.
I took one look around and nearly keeled over. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Ella giggled. “Does it look like I’m kidding you?”
“No. But…” Feeling a whole lot like Dorothy when she walked out of that black-and-white house and into a technicolor Oz, I stepped closer to the scene. There were bigger crowds here where my team would be working, mostly women, and they held signs that said things like DELMAR, WILL YOU MARRY ME? and