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“Maybe. ” I crooked my neck and examined the picture posted beside the story. The square black-and-white frame held a shot of a starry-eyed older woman with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Edna-Anne, I gathered, even before I checked the caption. “I wonder if there are any pictures of this Jeremiah guy? Something you could show people for comparison’s sake. If Edna-Anne could pull him out of a lineup, that’d be something. ”
“There might be pictures, there might be. And if there are, you can bet Tripp and Dana will dig them up. ”
I started to ask who he meant, but the answer dawned on me before I could broach the question. “The Gruesome Two-some? Are they coming here to look into this? Oh, good grief. ”
“What?” He brushed his hand to his chest in pretended affront. Then he said exactly what I should have expected from someone who’d never left the valley. “But they’re famous. And I hear that the people at the battlefield actually asked them to come out and look into this. Rumor has it, they’re going to bring all that fancy equipment and set up for a few nights. Taking pictures, and getting readings and things. ”
“They must be working on another book. ”
Dana and Tripp Marshall were such well-known ghost hunters that even I had heard of them. Their shtick had a one-two punch: She had left an engineering career with NASA, and he was a psychic who claimed to have worked for the FBI. Their first taste of notoriety came courtesy of an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and since then they’d made the rounds of every niche cable show and prime-time paranormal investigative special on the tube.
“Did you ever read They Speak from Beyond? That thing scared the pants off of me. ”
“I missed that one,” I halfway lied. I had picked it up from a display in a bookstore and made it through a couple of chapters before putting it down. I didn’t like the feel of it; the authors were trying so hard to sell the audience on the phenomenon that I wondered if they believed anything they were saying.
People who already believe simply know, and they don’t feel compelled to proselytize. People who know tell their stories like Edna-Anne Macomber, with a simple certainty that doesn’t much mind if it’s mocked.
“But why would they come here?” I asked. “Famous ghost hunters with a Civil War fetish usually go to higher-publicity fields like Gettysburg or Manassas. We don’t have ghost stories at Chickamauga, remember? And Old Green Eyes, whatever he may be, isn’t usually good enough fodder for big shots like the Marshalls. ”
“Finish the article. ” He grinned like a maniac. “Something new is going on down there. ”
“Karl, nothing new has happened down there in a hundred years. ” But even as I argued, I scanned for the place where I’d left off. “Well, all right. I stand corrected. ‘Since the Memorial Day incident last week, a dozen new sightings of pointing ghosts have been reported. Though descriptions vary, the encounters are all similar. Witnesses say that the ghosts either appear in front of them or approach them, and then point at a distant location before disappearing. ’”
He barely let me finish. “You know what I heard? I heard that a couple of the park rangers were so freaked out they quit their jobs. ”
“Did you hear this from the same source that told you the Marshalls were coming?” I asked, reading the dull concluding paragraph to myself and handing the paper back to him.
“No, I heard it elsewhere. My doctor’s son had an internship out there, and he dropped it yesterday because he was too scared to keep going to work. And one of the guys who works here”—he jerked his head towards the barista counter—“his sister is married to one of the guys who keeps the grounds. I’m telling you, strange things are going on out there. You’ll see—they won’t be able to keep it page-three quiet for long, not at this rate. Before long, everyone’s going to know about it and they’re going to have to do something. ”
I tried not to laugh, in case he would have taken it the wrong way. “And what precisely would you recommend that ‘they’ do, anyway? These guys are dead. There’s not a whole lot to threaten them with if they don’t want to leave. ”
“I’m not saying they should be threatened, my dear. But it sure would be nice if there was someone hanging around who could just walk up and ask them what they wanted. That’s all I mean. ”
“That’s what Tripp and Dana are for. Let the celebrities handle this one. I only talk to my own dearly departed kin, if I can help it. ” I felt a damp tickle down near my ankle, and I nearly kicked with surprise. Cowboy was sniffing at my pants leg. I reached down and scratched at his head.
“Woman, haven’t you got a curious bone in your body?”
“I’ve got a couple hundred of them,” I assured him. “With change to spare. ”
“Then why not go on out there? Just take a look around and see what there is to see? You never know—you might be able to help those poor folks who can’t seem to rest. ”
I could have handed him one reason for each guilty, curious bone, but I only offered him the most pressing one. “That guy who was leaving when you came in a few minutes ago. Did you see him?”
“Yeah, I did. ” He said it with the exact same inflections as the speaker in the old Ray Stevens song about the streaker.
“Didn’t look happy, did he?”
“No ma’am, he didn’t. ”
“Do you know how he found me?”
Karl shook his head.
“Neither do I. But he’s the second one this month, and I’ve got to tell you, Karl, I really, really hate it when they find me. There’s nothing I can do for them, and feeling sorry for them only makes them mad. ”
I found myself flailing for something to fidget with, and spotting my coffee stirrer, I picked it up. I twisted it around my index finger. “I don’t want any more weird presents of baby teeth, or friendship bracelets, or tiny lockets with a first snipping of hair. It’s awful—and it’s not getting any less awful as they keep on coming. ”
“That’s probably a good thing. ”
