Tomb With a View полностью

“So you’re president here! Inside the memorial!” The bits and pieces of everything he’d said and everything I’d seen in the rotunda that wasn’t the rotunda when he was with me suddenly made sense. So did the reason why, after all these years, his ghost was still hanging around. All of the ghosts I’d met since I’d discovered my Gift had unfinished business, but not this one. The president’s assassin had been punished. Justice was done, and that should have been the end of that. Yet he was still haunting the memorial. Note: I said memorial. In fact, I’d never seen him anywhere else in the cemetery. In light of everything he said, that made sense. “So what you’re telling me is that you’re making up for lost time.”

He nodded. “I was offered a trade, you see. My time on the Other Side for time here. As president. I was denied so many productive years by my untimely death. Now, as long as I stay within the boundaries of my memorial, I continue to exist in this form. If I leave—”

“You go up in a puff of smoke.”

“Not exactly the way I would have worded it, but yes. That is exactly what would happen should I leave the confines of this tomb for too long. I would cease to exist, in this world or in the next. I have no regrets about making the decision to stay on here. Here . . .” He spread his arms, taking in the elegant room. “Here I am president. I continue the work I started all those years ago. I make decisions. I meet with my cabinet. There is a great deal that needs to be done. So you can see why it is of the utmost importance for me to be left undisturbed. With all the ruckus of late—”

“Well, I’m guessing we’re still going to have the commemoration, with Marjorie or without her. So there’s no way you’re going to get away from that. And no way to avoid the tourists who keep showing up to check out the spot where she bit the big one, either. That will die down, I’m sure. And the commemoration won’t last forever. You’ll get your peace and quiet eventually.”

“Yes, yes. Of course those things will come to an end, and it is all for the better. But really, that is not at all what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the comings and goings at all hours.”

I must have looked as baffled as I felt because he shook his head, disgusted. “Really, I have been attempting to tell you about these disturbances since the day we met. I cannot believe you are not aware of—”

“What?” I closed in on the president. “You said all hours. Are you telling me—”

“That there are people coming and going when there shouldn’t be. Yes, yes. Exactly. There are people in parts of the memorial where they have no business.”

“Like?”

“The ballroom, certainly.”

A memory sparked inside my brain and I hurried out of the rotunda and hung a right in the entryway. Good thing I was wearing my sneakers, I made it up to the roped-off doorway outside the stairway that led up to the ballroom in record time. President Garfield was already there waiting for me.

I poked a finger at the printed sign, the one that said CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC. That day, it was exactly where it was supposed to be, and right side up, too. “A couple times when I’ve been up here, this sign has been upside down. I thought maybe someone on the cleaning crew was just being careless. Or some visitor was being a smart-ass. But if you’ve seen people going into the ballroom . . .”

“It may be a signal of sorts,” the president said. His brain and mine were working on the same track, which was kind of scary, but helpful, too, since we didn’t have to fill each other in about what we were thinking. “Perhaps the inverted sign tells these intruders when they should go in. Or that they should stay away.”

I looked beyond the rope to the closed ballroom door. “But why?”

I don’t think he had the answer, so it was just as well that Jeremiah Stone popped up out of nowhere. He cleared his throat. “Mr. President, there is work to be done,” he said. He pointed to the ever-present bundle of papers he carried in one hand and backed away. “And papers to be signed, sir. It is really quite important.”

“Yes, of course.”

When the president moved to follow him, I stopped him. “Wait! What about the ballroom? What about the people who are hanging around who shouldn’t be hanging around? What’s going on?”

I swear, there was actually a twinkle in the president’s eyes when he answered. “Remember, young lady,” he said right before he vanished. “Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. You’re the detective!”