One by one, they saw what I saw.
“What the-” Absalom’s voice rumbled up to the top of the dome above our heads and echoed back at us.
“Oh, dear,” Ella chirped.
And Sammi? She took one look at her display, screamed, and broke down in tears.
“What’s going on in here?” Reggie and Delmar had just arrived, and they rushed inside and looked to me for answers.
Somehow, I was able to find my voice. “Our art show…” I looked around again, and my heart sank. “Our art show has been vandalized.” I waved a hand toward what had been a beautiful display when last we saw it. Now it was a mess. Absalom’s dolls had been torn down and stomped on. Jake’s photos were ripped to pieces. So were Delmar’s drawings. A couple of Sammi’s outfits had been burned. The ashes of all that was left of them lay in little mounds on the floor.
And all of it…
From my vantage point, I could see all four displays. They had all been scrawled with letters that were distorted and hard to read. They were written in a shade of pink that looked awfully familiar.
I turned every which way, trying to get a sense of the entire message, and when I couldn’t, I violated every rule of Garden View and stepped onto the marble platform that houses the statue of the president. From there, I could see exactly what James A. Garfield could see. Too bad his statue couldn’t talk. Then he might be able to tell us who had scrawled the message that started at Sammi’s display and ended on Absalom’s. It was written in the garish pink lipstick I’d thrown in the Monroe Street trash the moment I found it. It said-
I gulped down the sudden sour taste in my mouth and read the words out loud. “Pepper, don’t ignore me.”
“Oh, dear.” With nervous fingers, Ella twisted her beads.
Sammi was on the floor next to her display, scooping up the ashes and weeping.
Delmar was too stunned to move, and Absalom, he pounded one fist into the open palm of his other hand. I could just about see the steam shooting out of his ears.
That’s how Crazy Jake found us when he shuffled in and snapped some pictures.
“You look pretty, Pepper,” he said. “You’re standing with the president. You’re the first lady.” Jake thought that was pretty funny, but it didn’t take a genius to know he wouldn’t be laughing when he saw that his photos had been destroyed. Maybe Reggie and Delmar realized that; they latched onto Jake and walked him outside before he saw any of the damage.
I stepped back to where my teammates waited. “What does it mean?” I asked Absalom. “Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” he thundered. “But when I find the guy, I’m going to break his freakin’ neck.”
I am not a violent person, but I thought it was a great plan.
“Pepper.” Ella touched a hand to my arm. “Pepper, I know how awful this must be for you. All your hard work.” There were tears in her eyes and she sniffed. “And I know you don’t feel like thinking about anything else right now, but Pepper-”
“The caterers are here!” Delmar called from outside.
“And your guests are going to be right behind them,” Ella reminded me. “Pepper, what are you going to do?”
Honestly, I didn’t know. It was too hard to think about anything except the damage that stared me in the face.
That, and the inescapable reality that pounded through my body and filled my veins with ice water.
I had pissed someone off. Big time.
Call me Little Miss Sunshine, but I had a feeling this was actually good news. It meant I was getting close to finding out who killed Vera Blaine.
15
Pissed-off murder suspect or not, I had other things to i worry about. Notice I didn’t say bigger things. Just other. Other big things. Like the fact that even as I walked out of the memorial-still in shock and with my head spinning-I saw that our guests were arriving. In return for their twenty-buck donations, they were hoping for something more than just fruit, tiny glasses of wine, and nibblers. At Mae’s, they’d gotten fancy brownies and a taste of the high life. From us-
We needed a Plan B, and we needed one fast.
Lucky for me, I’m quick on my feet, and nothing if not resilient. In the time since I’d become PI to the dead, I’d faced worse problems than a messed up art show, and I’d never let them beat me.
With that in mind, I swallowed down my panic, went through my mental Rolodex for every way I’d ever seen anyone-anywhere-raise money, glanced over my team, and reminded myself how fine they all looked that evening, and-
Voilà!
Yes, I am a genius. Which is why when I blurted out my plan to Ella, I fully expected her to jump up and down with joy. Instead, she stared at me a little slack-jawed for a moment, before she said, “I’m not sure we can do that.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was still trying to persuade her with the whole Pepper-is-brilliant argument. She was still not so sure. We were back out on the flagstone veranda, and it was Ella’s turn to pace. She was also wringing her hands. For the record, I was no less nervous, I just wasn’t going to let it show.
I patted her shoulder. “Not to worry. It’s not like we’re desecrating the president or anything. We’re not inside the memorial.”
“No…” Her gaze drifted toward the steps and the wide expanse of lawn that surrounds the building. Lucky for us, it was a beautiful summer evening, blue skies, warm without being sticky. Sunlight dappled the grass and added golden highlights to the headstones and mausoleums that surrounded the memorial. There was a pleasant breeze out of the north. It was perfect. Even if we did make the caterers scamper to find a place they could put the food and our guests did look a little perplexed as to why they were being kept outside. “But if the cemetery trustees find out…” Ella squeaked.
“By the time they find out, it will all be over,” I said, and I wondered just how prophetic I was being. All over? Was I talking about our fundraising event? Or my job at Garden View Cemetery?
I knew that Bianca would be there that night, and I reminded myself that I looked like I just stepped out of the display window at La Mode, and that, oh, by the way, I’d never much liked working in a cemetery, anyway.
Which meant I didn’t have anything to lose.
Except the Cemetery Survivor contest, of course.
And there was no way I was going to let that happen.
“It’s going to be fine.” It was like the hundredth time I’d said this since I made up my mind about how we were going to keep people entertained now that our art show was ruined. “I asked them. You saw me go over and ask them,” I reminded her with a look over to where Absalom, Sammi, Reggie, Delmar, and Crazy Jake waited. “My team’s all for it, and it’s going to bring in a boatload of donations. How can anybody fault us for that? It’s what we’re here for, right? We’re supposed to be raising money to give to the Monroe Street Foundation. No way our trustees can complain when that’s exactly what we’re doing. And we’re doing it with class and style! And this is going to give the restoration project even more publicity, and Garden View, too. It’s perfect, Ella. We should have thought of it sooner. We’re going to create a sensation!”
“Yeah, a sensation.” Ella was paler than any ghost I’d ever met, and her voice was no more than a terrified whisper. When a tuxedoed waiter passed carrying a tray of glasses filled with wine, she grabbed one and downed it. Her cheeks flushed with a color that matched her outfit. Her shoulders shot back. “Let’s do it,” she said.
And before I could talk myself out of what I’d already talked myself into, I hurried to stand on the steps right outside the main doors into the memorial.
I figured there was no need for a lengthy introduction or an explanation of any kind. How do you explain that some whacko with a cheap tube of lipstick ruined days and days of work? And why would I want to give the nut job that kind of spotlight, anyway? Of course, that didn’t stop my mind from racing or my gaze from wandering the crowd.