Page 25 of My Blind Date is a Ghost

But that’s another thing that makes me think that Jeremiah Holland wasn’t responsible for Cora’s death. The wolf pack didn’t take matters into their own hands. The court decided Jeremiah was guilty and hanged him. If Jeremiah had been guilty, surely they would have delt with him. Or were they trying to protect him? Or did they let the court do the dirty work for them? I don’t think so. I’ve never known a werewolf who didn’t want to take care of his or her own business.

I run my hand through my hair. I’m talking myself in circles. I need to focus. As I drive past the cemetery, I decide to stop. I found Cora when she ran out of the woods, but maybe she originally came from the cemetery. Could she have…crawled out of the ground and just doesn’t remember? Maybe she really is a zombie. After all, she can see ghosts. Parker is a zombie, and while he can’t see ghosts, he can interact with them. Maybe she is just a very powerful zombie and that’s why she can see them.

I pull through the cemetery gate and see signs. “Open Dawn to Dusk.” “No Trespassing.” “Beware of Hell Hounds.” I drive past the little trailer house where Parker lives and make my way to the old caretaker’s mansion. The mansion is home to the Robbins family. They have been caretakers of the Mystic Cove cemetery for as long as there has been a cemetery, so probably four hundred years.

I park the car and open the door. The mansion is a two-story, gray, colonial-style house. It seems overcast up here on the hill, even though it was sunny just a moment ago. I can’t help but shiver. There’s a light fog rolling up from the cemetery. I look around and can easily see gravestones from here. How creepy would it be to see graves every time you looked out your window.

I make my way to the porch, but I’m barely up the stairs when the door opens and a young woman steps out. She’s a very pale thing with long dark hair. She pulls her ankle-length, fur lined opera coat around her tightly.

“Detective,” she says in her calm, even voice.

“Miss Robbins, Veronica,” I say. “How are you on this chilly afternoon?”

“As well as can be expected,” she says. I hear someone cough and turn my head toward the cemetery. I see a bald man in coveralls walking toward us, dragging a shovel behind him. If this were a horror movie, now is the time I’d be running. But this isn’t a horror movie, it’s just life in Mystic Cove.

“Good day, Jasper,” I call out with a wave. Jasper Robbins, Veronica’s…uncle, I want to say, barely acknowledges me as he passes us by.

“Always a friendly chap,” I say to Veronica with a smile.

“Yes, he is,” she says. She takes a few steps toward me, closing the door behind her. “What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for a grave, an old one,” I say. She stares at me, waiting for me to continue. “Cora Barnes, an ancestress of Beverly. Do you know where I can find it? I figured you’d have a map or something to tell you where the graves are. Thought you might save me the time of hunting it for myself.”

She gives a single nod. “I know where it is.” She gathers her coat around herself as she descends the stairs, the heels of her old-fashioned boots clanking on the planks.

“What did you mean when you said you were doing as well as can be expected?” I asked after a few minutes of walking silently. Well, silently aside from the leaves crunching under our feet and the occasional crow cawing in the distance.

“We’ve had some…unwelcome activity around here recently,” she says.

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s funny that you are here. I was considering calling you.”

“That is funny,” I say, though it’s not really funny at all, only curious. Still, I think Veronica has a different definition of funny than most people. If she is a person at all. I think she might be a vampire, but even then, I’m not sure. Her whole family is a bit strange. And that’s saying something in a town like Mystic Cove.

“I’ll show you what I mean after I show you the grave of Cora Barnes,” she says.

“How come you happen to know where it is?” I ask.

“I know where everyone here is buried,” she says. “I was there when it happened.”

I feel another chill down my spine as she says that. “Do you remember when Cora was murdered?”

“Yes.”

I wait for a moment in silence. Veronica seems to be the sort of woman who only gives the information she was asked and nothing more.

“Can you tell me what you remember?” I ask.

“I was not a very welcome member of society, then,” she says. “I rarely ventured into town, so I wasn’t present when it happened, but the scandal of it even reached my door. The wolf clan demanded that Jeremiah be given a place of rest here in the cemetery. But Cora’s family was set against it. You can understand that, I’m sure.”

“It makes sense,” I say. “Cora’s family surely would not want her murder resting anywhere nearby. But if the wolf pack thought that Jeremiah was innocent, they would want him affording dignity in death.”

“Exactly,” she says.

“So, what do you think? Was Jeremiah innocent? Was he framed for Cora’s murder?”

“I was the mortician then,” Veronica explains. “She certainly was not killed by a werewolf.”

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