“Oh, shut up. But yes, yes it does. ”
“And what does this mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know if it means anything at all,” I fibbed. It must have meant something to Ann Alice, or else why would she have gone to the trouble of showing it to me? Why not lead me to her body—wouldn’t that make more sense?
“I know the building you’re talking about. It used to be a bank, didn’t it?”
“Eons ago, yeah. It was a furniture store most recently, though. Now someone’s bought it out and they’re gutting it, by the looks of things. Maybe they’ll put up condos or something. How hard do you think it would be to find out about the place?”
“What, like if it was used by the Klan?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I mean. There must be records of that kind of thing. ”
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. The Klan, I mean—let’s be honest. Even these days they aren’t the most organized bastards around. Have you seen their white power flyers? Have they no spellcheck—or is that an oppressive tool of the Jews and the blacks too?”
“I found one of those flyers on my car the other day, so I’m thinking they need to research their target demographic a little better. I wonder what they’d do if I showed up for a meeting?”
“Do you still have it?”
“The flyer? No. ” I frowned at him, and he hastily explained himself.
“Might be an interesting sort of investigative piece, that’s all. It’s been a while since anybody’s bothered with the Klan in the news. And hey, I’m a white guy. I could probably get past the bouncer to take a peek at a meeting. ”
“Ew. ”
“For research purposes!” he protested.
“For whatever purposes—ew. But if you wanted to take a camera into the old Clark’s building, it might make an interesting quickie piece. Tell the boss you got an anonymous tip and found the place open. ”
“Is it open?”
“Technically. You can get inside if you’re willing to get dirty. If you can make a few phone calls, you might not even need to. Some sweet talk might get you past the front door in a more legal fashion. ”
If there was one thing I’d learned from hanging around Nick, it was that journalism credentials opened doors and got people talking—so if he wanted to check into the paintings, I’d be happy to let him. He’d almost certainly find out more about them than I could.
In my experience, if a ghost isn’t trying to lead you to a body, she’s trying to lead you to a killer. I didn’t know what an old Klan meetinghouse had to do with Ann Alice’s demise, but it must have been important one way or another. Ann Alice was Caucasian and non-confrontational, so far as skater kids go. I had a hard time believing any neo-Nazis had gotten her.
“I’ll make a note of it,” Nick said, and I knew he’d remember. If nothing else, he’d get bored and short of ideas some afternoon and go poking around. “But that’s not what you wanted to talk about. You wanted to talk about Caroline, right?”
“Right. ”
“Good. So did I. I found her grave. She’s buried in that big spread over at the foot of Lookout. You want to go check it out?”
“Why?” I asked. What was the point of seeing where her body was? It was the rest of her that was making trouble.
“Why not?”
“It’s raining, for one thing. And who cares, for another?”
“Do you think she cares? You’ve talked before about ghosts who don’t know they’re dead. If she knew where her body was, might this solve the problem?”
I shook my head and stood up, having suddenly realized that I had no coffee. “Whatever’s wrong with her isn’t going to be fixed with a little show and tell. ” I fished a couple dollars out of my jeans pocket and took them to the counter, where I exchanged them for a to-go cup.
When I returned, I’d had some time to think. But I still didn’t believe her grave was going to do us any good. “Here’s what I think would work better,” I began. “We know she was institutionalized somewhere, right? Do we know where?”
“I’ve got it written down someplace. ”
“Good. So wherever she was,