Pennies for the Ferryman - 01 (7 page)

Four hours and a few official statements later, Jenny and I were back on the road, headed north. With some luck there would be a check in the mail from Roanoke County in the next week. Candace slipped me her number in case I was, “ever down in this neck of the woods again.”

Mentally, I was picturing what I would tell my mom, if she asked me what I did today, “Drove four hours, dug up a dead body, answered a few questions, and drove back, so not much. How was your day?” when Jenny started in on Candace. “So, did Candy ask you out?”

“Is that important?”

“Unless you’d like to walk home, yes, it is.”

“Not really, but she gave me her number.”

My driver looked momentarily angry. “You wouldn’t really go out with her, would you? She may call herself
Candace
now, but all the boys used to call her Candy, because she was ‘sweet, cheap and easy to get,’ if you know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean, but I probably wouldn’t go out with her anyway. She lives over four hours away. I still can’t drive until my vision is good enough to get my license back.”

“Suppose she lived closer?”

“Why are we having this discussion?”

“I’m just curious what kind of girl interests you, Ross.”

A word of caution, it’s never a good sign, when a girl calls you by your last name.

“I don’t think she’s my type, even if she lived closer.”

“Good.” That lie seemed to satisfy Jenny and she put her claws away. She seemed rather pleased with herself after that. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have minded going out with Officer McKenna. I hadn’t been on a real date, since my deployment. There’d been a girlfriend back in Texas, but we broke it off before I left for Iraq. Frankly, if we were matching reputations, I’d wager that Candace from Roanoke would have come out better than Heather from Kileen. She and Don Hodges’ wife, Sonya, used to dance at some piss-hole club near Fort Hood and yeah, there’s a reason mothers warn their little boys to never date strippers, though there are far more reasons that those little boys never listen…

Jenny’s second trip back to Roanoke went over even better than the first one and despite the fact that her aunt and uncle came up with something that needed to be done the following weekend, she managed to get out of it and drive me up to Gettysburg.

I hoped one of my buddies from my weekly poker game would be able to give me a lift. Sadly, no one was available and I was reluctant to reveal my new found talents anyway, so that left the irrepressible Jenny Goodman.

Riding with her was the best advertisement for life insurance that I’ve ever sat through. Coming from a recent combat vet that was saying something!

I spent the better part of the previous week emailing and calling several of the “ghost tour” businesses in Gettysburg. I pretended to be a former customer of Darren Porter’s Ghostly Sightings Tour, who was disappointed that he was no longer in business.

One thing that immediately became apparent to me is that the ghost tours were a rather competitive business. The first one I talked to politely mentioned that Mr. Porter had “passed on” and immediately launched into their spiel on how they go to the same sites and began naming the magazines and travel specials they’d been featured in.

By the third call, I struck a small nugget of gold. That company hired one of Darren’s former tour guides, Ian Wells. We were signed up for a tour that evening. Once again, I wasn’t nearly as excited as Ms. Goodman.

“How many ghosts do you think you’ll see, Mike? Thousands of people died there, they’ll probably be all over the place!”

“And something strange happened to Darren Porter. He died rather mysteriously. Either way, I don’t know if it will be as many as you think. From what I’ve seen, most don’t hang around for a long time, and there were only a few in the cemeteries I’ve been to since my operation.”

We ended up parking off of Steinwehr Avenue. For a change, I was actually early getting somewhere. We found the wooden sign indicating where the tour groups form and went inside the nearby tavern to pick up our tickets.

The barkeep was nice enough to point out Mr. Wells, who was reading a copy of
USA Today
at one of the tables. He was an older and somewhat heavyset, balding man with a striking handlebar mustache, wearing a Union Officer’s uniform. Well, they did promise period dress…

“Good evening.”

“You’re a bit early for the tour. Most won’t show up for another thirty minutes.” He gestured for us to sit down. Jenny slipped away to use the bathroom.

“I was actually wondering about Darren Porter. You used to work for him.”

He set his paper down and sipped at his coffee while looking me over. “Darren died back in March. What would you like to know about him?”

“Was he really a psychic?”

“Yes, I believe he was. I worked for him for a couple of years – nice guy, damn shame too. He’d walk into a room with only a brass divining rod and within thirty seconds he could tell you if something was there. Darren never cared for all the fancy gadgets. He really knew his local history, too.”

“How did he die?” Divining rods? I always thought that was something to do with finding water. Suffice to say, there were some holes in my knowledge.

“They said it was a heart attack, but he was in pretty good shape. He drank a little, probably didn’t exercise as much as he should. Now, why are you asking so many questions?”

Pointing to my eye, I said, “He was an organ donor. I got one of his corneas in a transplant and wanted to know a bit more about him, what he did for a living? Who his friends were and all that jazz?”

Ian paused for a moment to digest all of it. After a moment, he shook his head, “Well, that’s something you don’t hear every day! I reckon you couldn’t make that up, if you tried. I was mostly just an employee. You might try looking up Karla Thompson. She was his girlfriend.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Afraid not, Karla left town right after the funeral. I’m not really sure where she went.”

My face likely didn’t hide my disappointment. “Did you see him much right before he died?”

“He was talking about how much he’d been enjoying his vacation and that he’d spent it working on a book. I had lunch with him about ten days before and he was fine. Darren seemed really excited too. He said it was going to be a great tour year, but wouldn’t give me any details.”

Jenny came back and she listened to a few Darren Porter stories with me and we learned where he was buried and that one of the local book shops on Baltimore Avenue still sells episodes of his old public access show on DVD and VHS.

I sent Jenny off to buy the videos and then headed off to Evergreen Cemetery while there was still daylight. I’d told Jenny to go ahead and join the walking tour and I’d meet up with her later.

Walking past the imposing archway-shaped gatehouse, I flinched in surprise. The few cemeteries I’d been in were mostly empty with only a few ghosts. That wasn’t the case here.

I saw quite a few ghosts. It was disconcerting, almost like I had stumbled into a reenactment or something. I headed over towards the area where Ian said that Darren was buried.

Closing my right eye periodically, I separated the few living visitors from the ghosts. I acted casual enough and started looking for the grave while pretending not to look at the ghosts. There were three ghosts gathered in this one spot. One of them was actually pacing like he was on guard duty.

A quick look at the headstone confirmed my fears – Darren Austin Porter. I opted to pass by the grave and pretend I was looking for an adjacent one. A fourth ghost rose out of the ground and went to the one with a saber and actually saluted the officer while another one sank into the ground.

I’d have to come back later tonight. There were still too many people around, so I headed back and lucked into the walking tour that was just getting started.

Jenny immediately grabbed me, “Well, what did you find out?”

“His grave is being guarded by some Civil War ghosts.”

“Really?”

That required some kind of smart-ass response, “Jenny,
why
would I make that up?”

“Um, yeah. I guess you wouldn’t. So what are we going to do?”

“There were too many people and too many ghosts for me to do anything, so I’m going to go back later on tonight.”

“I’m coming too!”

“No. I need you to keep the car nearby so we can get out of here. I’m guessing that even in Gettysburg there are laws against trespassing.”

We rejoined Mr. Well’s tour and followed the route. It was somewhat odd that I could see some ghosts actively watching the tour group. In a weird sort of way, it was like being at the zoo. I was trying to figure out which side of the bars I was on.

Waiting until the lights in the caretaker’s house went off, I slipped back into the graveyard. I needed to find out why there were ghosts guarding Darren, so I crouched behind one of the larger nearby markers and watched them for awhile. Once again, one climbed out of the ground and was replaced. As the ghost walked off, I followed him with my pipe wrench in hand. One thing working for me was that this ghost was shorter than me. Of course, Abe Lincoln was considered a giant during that era and nowadays, he’d have been lucky to land a spot as a shooting guard in the NBA.

We were walking behind one of those mini-mausoleum type crypts and out of sight of his colleagues when I grabbed him.

“What the hell!”
I pushed him against the stonework and I could tell that he was shocked that he wasn’t passing through it.

“Keep quiet! Why are you guarding Darren Porter?”

“You can see me! Ow! Ow! My arm!”
He could still feel pain and I pulled his arm higher into his back.

I repeated myself, “I can hurt you too. Why are you guarding Darren Porter?”

“Orders. We got orders to guard the prisoner.”

“Who’s giving the orders?”

“Colonel Vincent. Let me go!”

This was a problem. “Is he the one with the sword back there?”

“Yes, now let me go. I’m not telling you no more!”

I tried asking him a few more questions, but he started struggling and raising his voice, so I whacked him with the pipe wrench, several times, until he dropped to the ground. Mitch, back in Roanoke, told me that I knocked him unconscious for several hours. I made certain this soldier didn’t get back up anytime soon.

It was now or never. I was committed to finding out what was going on, so I simply started walking towards Colonel Vincent. I wish I knew more about Civil War history; he was probably someone important.

I slid the wrench into my pocket. They watched me as I approached. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to react. They were complacent. I stood at the headstone. Vincent was on the other side looking at me appraisingly.

“Hello, Darren. I’ve come a long way to see you. I’ve got some questions for a psychic like you to answer if you’ve got the time.”

There was a strange feeling, kind of like a violent chill passing through my body as a guy in a suit burst out of the ground with a soldier hanging on to him. I pulled the wrench out of my pocket and hammered the gawking soldier next to me in the gut and kicked the one holding Darren’s leg in the face.

Drawing his saber, Colonel Vincent stepped through the headstone. My kick smacked into his kneecap and I spun him away before turning to the “man” that I freed.