Each envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars.
I knew I couldn’t give the money directly to Auntie Jo. She would ask where the money came from, and I couldn’t tell her I found it on my bed. I couldn’t tell her the money came from my savings, either. She knew how much I had. I also couldn’t let her see the envelope withPipwritten on the front, because that would just lead to more questions. Ultimately, I took the money out of the first envelope, wrapped the cash in newspaper, and left the bundle in Auntie Jo’s locker at the diner. She found the money after her shift the following day and didn’t say anything until we got home. Then she pulled the money from her purse and showed it to me. She thought Mr. Krendal left the package for her. If she told me aliens beamed it into her locker from their mothership circling the Earth, I would have been happy with that explanation, too, as long as she didn’t suspect the windfall came from me. She said she confessed to Mr. Krendal she was behind on the rent and needed an advance. He told her he didn’t do loans or advances. If he helped her out, he’d be obligated to help everyone out, and times were tough. She believed he left the money anonymously simply to avoid potential problems with the rest of his employees. When she thanked him for the money, he simply said, “What money?” and returned to the grill. Sometimes unspoken words say more than an entire conversation.
When the second envelope arrived, I again wrapped the cash in newspaper and placed the money in Auntie Jo’s locker. Again, she suspected it came from Mr. Krendal. She was no longer behind on the rent and considered giving it back. I told her sometimes it rains, we should save it. She tucked the money away in the back of our freezer wrapped in aluminum foil with MYSTERY MEAT written across the package on masking tape.
With the arrival of the envelopes that followed, I hid the money in my underwear drawer. I didn’t want to risk Auntie Jo attempting to return it to Mr. Krendal again, and she no doubt would. Auntie Jo had her faults, but she was a proud woman, and taking charity wasn’t too far off from panhandling in her book. If money got tight again, I’d find another way to get it into her hands.
I looked up from my post beside a large granite obelisk to see Dunk wheeling around the corner on his BMX bike. He wore no jacket, only aRun DMCsweatshirt and jeans. As he crossed through the cemetery gates, he backpedaled, engaging his rear brakes, locking the back tire, and skidded sideways to a controlled stop a few inches from my feet.
“What exactly are we doing here?” He dropped the bike in the grass and leaned against a tall black tombstone, realized what he was touching, then took a few steps back, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “You know I don’t like this place. Cemeteries creep me out. Haven’t you ever seenNight of the Living Dead?Romero doesn’t live far from here. For all we know, he got the idea for that movie when one of these stiffs made a grab for him right where we’re standing.”
“Well, he lived to tell about it.”
Dunk’s eyes narrowed. “Or did he? Have you ever seen him? He looks like a zombie.”
“Zombies aren’t real.”
“If there are zombies anywhere, they’d be here in Pittsburgh. This place is a shithole,” he said. “Chicago was a happy place. Look at the films set around Chicago—The Breakfast Club,Sixteen Candles. In Chicago, we had Molly Ringwald down the road in Evanston. Nothing bad ever happens in Evanston.”
“Anthony Michael Hall could easily be a zombie. That Ducky kid, too.”
He thought about this. “You got me there. They’re some creepy-looking dudes. Molly’s a fox, though. I’d do her.”
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“Of course I do. A gentleman never kisses and tells, though. You’ll have to fumble through the art of love all on your own, Mr. Thatch, now that you have a girlfriend.”
I had told Dunk everything.
He knew about my first meeting with Stella through the incident with the old woman. I didn’t know what else to call it.The incidentseemed right. He knew about the money, too.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Whatever, Romeo. Is she here?”
I didn’t need to check the bench to be sure she wasn’t here, and wouldn’t be, until next August. I gave up attempting to find her any day other than August 8, and that day was still very far off. “No, I haven’t seen anyone.”
“Then why arewehere?”
I needed to know more about her. I need to knowsomethingabout her. Lately she seemed to occupy nearly all my waking thoughts, and I figured it was because I had so many questions. If I answered those questions, if I figured out who she was, maybe I could get past this. Maybe I wouldn’t want to see her so bad. Maybe I wouldn’t bother to go to the bench next August at all. “Her name is Stella Nettleton. I want to check all the headstones in here and see if I can figure out who she visits every month.”
Dunk’s mouth was open slightly, and his bushy eyebrows seemed to touch. “That may be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. How many stiffs do you think are buried here?” His face went red, then, “I mean, besides your mom and pop, because they’re not stiffs, they’re, I mean were, I mean—”
“We need to watch for any headstones dated August 8, too,” I interrupted. “Just in case whoever she visits didn’t have the same last name.”
He nodded toward the small white building next to the adjacent parking lot. “Isn’t there a log or something in the office? That seems much easier than running around Satan’s waiting room, checking names. Not that your parents would be…oh heck, this is awkward. Can’t we just go play ball or something? I saw some kids at Carnegie Park. Justin was there. He’ll let us play.”
“I can do this myself, if you don’t want to.”
Dunk sighed. “No, if this is how you want to spend your night off, I’ll help. We should start at the office, though.”
“I tried that a few weeks ago. They didn’t have any records for people named Nettleton, and I found three people who died on August 8, two others who were born on that day.” I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and showed it to Dunk. “All five of these are on the far end of the cemetery, the newer part. I tracked them down yesterday. The bench is in the oldest portion of this place, nowhere near these. The man at the office said a fire destroyed all the records prior to 1926, all the old stuff, so the only way to be sure there is nobody else is to check all the gravestones, one by one.”
Dunk scratched at the side of his head. “How many are there?”
“One hundred and twenty-four thousand.”
The color drained from his face. “You know that’s impossible, right? You realize how long that would take? Like a thousand years. Maybe longer. Maybe a lot longer.”
