My name is Lou. I live in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm a writer, librarian, explorer, paranormal investigator, and museum curator. I get involved in a lot of stuff. And I write about it all here. So either you're welcome, or I'm really sorry, depending on what you're into.
It takes me five and a half minutes to get to work on my bike if I'm not screwing around. I've timed it. I parked it by the street sign out front, where I can see it from my office window, and locked it up. My other car is a UFO.
As I walked into the library, I was met by a tall woman with dark hair, waiting by the front desk. She smiled and shook my hand.
"Lou," she said. "Thanks for meeting with me."
"Thanks for coming, LaKeshia," I said. "Let's have a seat."
We walked back to my desk. She looked around. "So this is your office."
"I dream of walls," I said. "This is the oldest part of the building; Annie Halenbake Ross's funeral was held right here."
We sat down. She said,"So, as I told you on the phone the other day, I'm in charge of the PA Wilds home page. We promote tourism in the PA Wilds area of Pennsylvania, a thirteen-county area. We're looking for content. You and I worked together on the Eagle Eye and the Express, and I thought of you."
"You'd like me to write about local tourism for the website?"
"I would."
"I'm in."
She laughed. "I can give you more information about it...."
"If giving me more information will make you feel like you're doing your job, go ahead," I said. "But I don't see any downside to this. I've been looking for more ways to write and promote tourism. I'll be happy to contribute."
"Well, excellent," she said. "I'll be your editor. I'll need a headshot and a short bio for the site."
"I'll get you something," I said. "It'll be the usual, mostly, history and ghosts and adventures...."
"I'm familiar with your writing," she said. "That's perfect."
"What you doing, Daddy?" asked Paul.
"I'm gonna check some of my messages, little man," I said. I sat down at my desk. I'd woken up in my haunted house with the four dogs, made coffee, and now I was checking for any historic or paranormal e-mails. Paul's shirt had a UFO and said We come in pizza, and mine said Giwoggle: Official Monster of Clinton County. Typical morning.
Paul sat and played on the floor of my office with Duke and Gwen, the pugs. Mickey and Kasper, our new Schnauzers, were downstairs---They're afraid of steps. My office is on the second floor of my home; it contains a lot of my files and history books, as well as artifacts on the shelves. Shoemaker's Lost Chord, a peg from the old phone system, a bottle of bootleg whiskey, a glass jar with a demon in it. Tell me your office is decorated that cool.
I got on my computer and found I had several messages.
"Hunh. Hey, Daddy's in demand today, little guy."
I opened the first of them.
Of course, it was about lost treasure.
Typical morning.
"So how was your day?" My wife asked. We were sitting at the Chinese restaurant in Mill Hall, having dinner with Paul. Paul's default position on almost all foods is that he doesn't like it, but he likes Chinese. He will turn up his nose at beef, pork, and almost every vegetable, but will happily eat an egg roll.
"Kinda busy," I said. "By the time I got up, I had three messages about the lost Civil War gold....You remember I looked into that once?"
"Kind of, yes."
"A shipment of gold from the Civil War, lost somewhere in the area. It was taken on a covered wagon by an Army unit, and disappeared. The one survivor, a guy named Connors, came into Lock Haven to recover, and when he was drinking, he said he knew where the gold was. The Army transferred him to a remote outpost. The gold has never turned up."
"So why are people suddenly asking you about it?"
"Because maybe it's now been found. A group of treasure hunters and the FBI are digging over in Elk County."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Funny thing is, I kind of saw this coming. A few weeks ago, I got calls from both the treasure hunters and the FBI, asking about the Lock Haven end of this. They asked me to keep it quiet, though as it's now national news, I guess it's safe to talk about it now."
"You think they've really found it?"
"Could be. It's hard to say. It'll make a great piece for the PA Wilds website, though. Oh, yeah, and I've been asked to do some writing for the PA Wilds website."
"When did this happen?"
"Yesterday, I worked with the woman who runs it on the Express and the Eagle Eye. She needed someone to produce some content, and she thought of me. This kind of opens up a whole new territory for me; I have thirteen whole counties to play with now."
"And you're going to start with the gold."
"It'll make a good article." I ate a piece of shrimp. "You know what bugs me? I'm jealous of the information they have. When the treasure hunter called me, he said he knew Connors's first name, and I've never found that out. He's holding it back for verification reasons. I'm not jealous of the gold; he can keep the gold. But that's what I'm jealous of---I want to know the first name."
"Did you get my message about the Civil War gold?" Norman asked me, sitting at the microfilm machine in the library. Norman is a good friend of mine, a historian over in Centre County. He's sort of the Lou equivalent across the border, and we talk about this stuff a lot. Buried treasure, ghosts, monsters. Guy stuff.
I laughed. "You and three other people. I had my inbox crammed with that by the time I woke up. I was talking about it down at Piper this morning."
"Your new intern mentioned to me that you guys spent an hour talking about Batman and your Star Wars action figures."
I took the Wookiee toy off my desk and held it up. "You're gonna have to say that in front of Chewbacca, pal."
Norman laughed. "You really think they found it?"
"I don't know. I'm working on an article about it, but my pet theory is that it was up around Altar Rock."
"Most of the researchers think it's further west than Altar Rock."
"Yeah, well, most of the researchers haven't actually found it yet, have they?"
"A fair point. I'm not sure they've found it, either. I've been following the story, but the research looks kind of half-assed to me. These guys are all over the place, and there's a lack of primary sources. This could all come to nothing."
"Make a great article, though," I said. "I'm writing for the PA Wilds. This is a good one."
"You'd mentioned that. Sounds like fun."
"I'm excited. It gives me a new outlet, some stuff I haven't tried before. By the way, didn't you once have an encounter with the Ingleby Monster?"
"I did. You want to see my notes?"
"Yeah, thanks. Can I quote you? This will make a good piece, too."
Later, once I got off my desk shift, I went to research. I like working at the library, in the historic section---Everything I need is right by my desk.
I started with the Civil War file, and looked through that. Plenty of stuff, but nothing about lost gold. I looked through the history book on Elk County, too, and I found the suspected site on a map, but no details.
I pulled a couple of articles from the old newspapers, and then dug through another file and found a 2013 piece that I'd written myself. I looked it over, made sure I had all my facts straight.
Then I got to work writing.
These old legends aren't gonna publicize themselves.
"My uncle has an old photo from the newspaper," the woman said over the phone. "It's all beat up, and I'd like a new copy. When I called the newspaper, they sent me to you guys. Can you find it there?"
"It's possible," I said. "We have newspaper archives going back to 1813. Tell me about the photo."
"It's a group picture from a school. None of the people are named."
"Ah. Do we have a date it ran?"
"No, that part's torn off. It could have been anytime."
"Oh. That complicates things. We have a newspaper archive, but there's nothing to look up there. There's nothing that might appear in our index."
"So what's the process?" she asked. "How do I go about getting this?"
Sometimes I curse the businesses that make sure to provide you with whatever you want. History doesn't work that way. Some people think historic research is like fast food; you just explain what you want and it gets handed to you. It's not like that.
"That's what I'm trying to gently tell you, miss," I said. "Maybe you don't. The only way I can think of would be to go through them all, and that's very time-intensive."
"Well, I could try that. They don't run the old photos every day, do they?"
"They've actually been running them almost daily for about fifty years."
"Oh." She sounded deflated. "But if I did come, you could help me?"
"I can show you how to work the microfilm and look for it, yes."
"I'll talk to my uncle, and come by," she said. "Thanks."
My story had hit the site earlier in the day. Lost And Found. LaKeshia had e-mailed me the link, as if I hadn't been checking daily. I was looking at it on my computer screen at the library when Adam buzzed me over the phone.
"Hey, man, we got a guy here who needs to find two graves," he said. "Also there's a phone call on line one that you might want to handle."
"Send him back," I said. "Having an insane day. I'll help him, and then I gotta look up four obits for a lawyer friend of mine and run them down to him. I'll be back before my desk shift."
"You got it."
I picked up the phone. "Hello, can I help you?"
"Hi, I saw your article on the lost Civil War gold," said a voice with a southern accent.
"That was fast. I've been asked about that a lot lately."
"There was an old article in your local paper about that," said the guy. "I have the date. Would it be possible for you to find it and send it to me?"
I could do that while I worked the desk. "Sure, I can do that," I said. "I can get that in the mail today, no problem."
"That would be great. Thanks so much."
I got his information and hung up. Turning to the old guy whom Adam had sent back, I said."What can I do for you?"
Seven minutes after leaving the building, I walked back in. "Man," I said. "When you take documents down to a lawyer's office, do not make a joke about being there about a murder charge. No matter how funny you think it is, the receptionist won't get it."
"Noted," said Adam. "You ready to take the desk?"
"I'm on it. Give me the key."
I took over the desk, and I started working on the Civil War article. I can see the desk from the microfilm reader; I can do both at once. I got the roll and put it in the machine, scrolling through. These days, I can do microfilm in my sleep.
I found the article and skimmed through it.
Then I smiled.
And printed another copy for myself.
"How was your day, Daddy?" Paul asked, sitting at the kitchen table.
"Pretty good, little guy," I said, turning away from the stove. "I looked into some Civil War gold. Dinner's ready. Everyone go ahead."
Michelle, Tif, and Biz all gathered food onto their plates and sat down. "What's this I hear about Civil War gold?" Biz asked.
"An article I wrote," I said. "Some treasure hunters thought they found it, but it turns out they didn't. Their dig came up dry."
"So you still have a shot at it," Tif said.
"I've always thought it was up around Altar Rock, a big outcropping in the Keating area," I said. "If it is, it's entirely possible that they built Route 120 right over it. I could try digging, but I'd have to disguise it as a twelve-foot pothole, which is not unlikely."
"Maybe it'll never turn up," said Tif.
"Maybe not," I said. "But I'm happy. I got a good article out of it, and I learned a little more about the one survivor who came to Lock Haven. He's mentioned in an old article I found today." I smiled. "His name was Connors....James Connors."
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Friday, March 9, 2018
Grave New World
Most people don't get to spend much time in a haunted house, at least not knowingly. I spend most of my life in them.
I walked through the second floor of the Ross Library. When I was new, I used to routinely get lost up there---It's a big, twisty set of hallways and rooms. I made it to the end of the hall, and looked into the New Boss's office. The old Director had retired, but was somehow still getting mail here. Which is not surprising---Library founder Annie Halenbake Ross was still getting mail here, too, and she's been dead since 1907.
"Hey. We got the free blood pressure program going on in the lobby. If you wanted to come get a free test...."
New Boss laughed. "I'm working on grants up here. I don't want to know what my blood pressure is. Don't let me stop you, though."
I sat with my arm in the inflatable thing, squeezing it into the shape of the Gloucester Sea Serpent.
My name is Lou. I work at the local library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a historian, paranormal investigator, urban explorer, museum curator, and freelance writer. It keeps me pretty busy.
I'm a little bit famous.
The woman looked over the reading, let my arm loose, and then frowned. She turned the machine around.
"Here's your blood pressure."
I read the numbers, and then raised my eyebrows. "Seriously? That's not a blood pressure, that's a Somerset ZIP code. That's way higher than I expected."
"You can bring it down," she advised. "Cut back on caffeine and alcohol...."
"The irony being, that would kill me anyway," I said.
"....Changes in your diet, no tobacco, and get some exercise. You may want to speak to your doctor; there are certain medications...."
"I'll grab some of your literature," I said. "Thanks."
"My blood pressure is alarmingly high," I said in my office. I was at the Piper Museum with Kara. Kara is an LHPS member, has purple hair, and is a really good friend. "I had a program at the library the other day, and got it tested. That was a mistake. According to the colorized chart from the American Heart Association, I rank in at bright orange, which is not good."
"Your bloodstream is basically coffee," said Kara. "And you do tend to stress. Have you considered learning to relax a little?"
"I've been called intense," I said.
"You ever just try to calm down?"
"Sometimes I sit in the Tomahawk and make engine noises."
"I'm not sure that's the same thing."
"I mean, come on, let's be real. I always figured I was more at risk of death by a haunted attic collapse or something. Getting bit by a sea monster. If I die, spread the story that I got bit by a sea monster."
"Of course," said Kara. "You should really consider getting on medication. When was the last time you went to the doctor?"
"I was at the doctor in January."
"This January?"
"January 2014. I think. Have you seen my file on UFOs in New Jersey?"
Kara handed it to me. "You know there's a blood pressure machine in the Church Street drugstore? You can keep up with this."
"I'll try that. In the meantime, let's look for some photos for the television thing....And want to go look for some lost artifacts with me?"
"Where they at?"
"Up the Renovo Road. This one goes back a while---About a year ago, I turned over a buffalo sculpture in the library and caused an international incident. Turns out it was part of a post-World War II shipment of gifts from France called the Merci Train, and there's a whole committee to find the rest of this stuff. All of a sudden I was getting all these e-mails in French."
Kara laughed. "You're kidding."
"Seriously. So ever since, I've kind of poked into it a little, now and then. And I found out that nationwide, the 60&9 Clubs were responsible for handing out the gifts. So I have a friend who bartends at the local club, and I asked her if I could go look. She says they have a big storage area, and I could get in if I wanted. So we're going to go and check."
Kara smiled. "I'm in."
I sat down in the drugstore, looking at the automatic blood pressure machine. I took a few deep breaths. My sweatshirt was on the floor with my pack; I was wearing only my T-shirt. MOTHMAN: West Virginia University Cryptozoology Department. Slipping my arm into the cuff, I hit the green button and felt it squeeze, trying to think calming thoughts.
Cemeteries....Yeah. Ghosts. Water monsters....Mmmmmm, water monsters. I envisioned myself walking through a haunted cemetery with Bigfoot in the middle of the night. Piper Aztecs. Buried treasure. The machine beeped.
I looked down at the readout.
"Aaaargh. Come on! I ate a salad!"
I looked around the store. Nobody seemed to have heard me, or at least nobody was paying attention. There was one guy I recognized behind the counter. The cashier glanced over at me as I pulled my sweatshirt back on.
"Are you Lou?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I love your articles."
"Oh, thanks so much. I always appreciate hearing that."
"I really liked the one about the 1918 Ice Flood."
"Ice, Ice, Baby? Yeah, that was a neat one." I picked up a tiny unicorn toy and set it on the counter. "Can I buy this? My little boy loves this stuff."
"Can I get the skull for Thursday night?" I asked Sue in her office.
"Oh, sure," she said. "Let me get int touch with Lycoming."
The skull is something I've worked with before. For the archaeology lesson for Teen Paranormal, there's a kit. It comes with a skull, and I liked to pass it around and let the kids figure out gender and race. This was always a big hit, and required me to ask my co-worker to order a skull. How is your workday going?
"I'll send her an e-mail," said Sue. "We should be able to get it for you by Thursday night."
"Thanks." I hesitated. "Does it seem weird to you that I just stroll in here and ask for a skull, and you know exactly what I'm talking about?"
Sue smiled. "I know who I work with."
I went to my desk. Getting online, I opened a couple of windows. In one, I sent a message to my friend at the 60&9, asking about when she'd be in. In the other, I began to do a search for how to lower blood pressure.
"Glad you're here," said Stacey when I walked into the office. "We just got a call from the city water department. They wanted to know if we have plans of the property showing the water and sewer lines."
"Can't promise, but I can check," I said. "I brought the video camera from the TV thing, so I'll be getting footage of all the planes, too. I'm in for a busy morning. Oh, hi, Kara."
Kara had just entered in a blaze of purple hair and Star Wars sweater. "Hi, Lou. What do we have going on today?"
"Walk with me." We walked down to my office. "Gotta see about finding plans with water lines in them. This is fun. We have tons of plans; last summer I was looking for a secret tunnel into the old factory building, and I pulled them all out. John later told me, very casually, that there was a secret tunnel. He's used to this from me."
"So where are the plans?"
I led her to one of the shelves, and we looked through the rolled-up plans stacked there. I began unrolling them to check. "In other news, we're scheduled to go out to the 60&9 on Friday morning, if you're up to it---"
"I am."
"And we can look for the other Merci Train artifacts. There was a set of books, which I guarantee we'll never find, a figurine of a French couple, and a photo of the German surrender. We might find them in there; we'll have to check."
"Sounds good. How's your blood pressure?"
"Well. It's still high. When I stopped in to get it tested, I noticed that one of the employees is one of the people who put up those Nazi flyers I fought last summer."
"Oh, no."
"Yeah. So that did nothing for my blood pressure. I maybe need to find a Nazi-free blood pressure machine. You know, that common problem."
"I can always give you a lift to Wal-Mart if you like."
"Might take you up on that. And, you know, I feel another article fighting racism coming on. The Chisholm family was killed by the KKK in 1877, and I figure it's time for a column about them. In the meantime, let's find some old plans."
I hit the button, and the thing squeezed on my arm. I was having my blood pressure taken so often I was beginning to develop a bruise where the thing tightened. I thought about ghosts, and haunted houses, and the Honey Island Swamp Monster for a while. The cuff released, and I looked at the numbers. Still high.
I sighed, and put my jacket back on.
A few minutes later, I walked into the library, where Zach was decorating for Easter. He had eggs and plastic rabbits all over the display case.
"Hey, looks good," I said. "My son is gonna love this."
"Thanks," said Zach. "I got the Sloan Room set up for your teens."
"Awesome. Thanks."
Zach picked up one of the rabbits. "Check this out. His head turns all the way around." He took the rabbit's head and swerved it around a hundred and eighty degrees. "It looks like...."
"Yeah," I said. "Possessed rabbit. That's frightening." I picked up the rabbit and made my voice low and scratchy. "Your mother rots in hell!"
We laughed together. This is the kind of screwing around that always entertains us. I set it down and lifted my Saint Benedict ring. "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"
Tracey came out of the back room to find Zach and I doubled over with laughter, staring at the twisted rabbit. She shook her head.
"I don't even want to know. I just came out to tell you guys that there's popcorn and crackers in the back room if anyone's hungry. Someone bought the low-salt popcorn."
"That was me," I said. "I have high blood pressure, and that's everyone's problem." I followed her into the back room. "Last week, when I had the blood pressure people in here, it turns out I'm frighteningly high."
Tracey grimaced. "Oh, no."
"I looked it up, and it seems celery can help. I saw where four sticks a day can help bring down blood pressure. Do you know how hard it is to eat four sticks of celery a day? It's like a punishment at Guantanamo."
Tracey laughed. "So do you have any good articles going?"
"Yeah, I'm looking into the Chisholm family. They were killed by the KKK in 1877, and buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. But because of vandalism, their graves were moved, and nobody knows where. We have documents that suggest Arlington, though there's other possibilities."
"That's interesting," said Tracey.
"Yeah, I gotta pull a couple of pieces off the microfilm," I said. "Time to get to work."
I dug through the old trunk, and closed it up. I looked up at Kara and Katelynn, who were standing in the old shed with me.
"Looks like it's not here."
"Well, darn." Katelynn is one of my former Teen Paranormal kids. She'd spent a couple of years with me in the group, and had learned well. She'd grown up to be a pretty good amateur investigator.
"It was a long shot," I admitted. "I thought, since the 60&9 Clubs were in charge of handing out the items, they may have kept one. But if they did, it doesn't look like it's here anymore."
"Where else?" asked Kara. "The college, the high school...."
"Joby up at the college looked into this for me, and he didn't find anything," I said. "I'm just gonna have to do some more digging, make this my hobby for a while. Sooner or later I'll stumble on something."
Kara and I went back to the car. Sitting inside, she said,"So where to now?"
"Let's go to Cedar Hill," I said. "I want to see if I can figure out where the Chisholm family is buried."
"You think you can find that?"
"Last night at work, I got the Cedar Hill map and cross-indexed all the people who were buried around the same time as the Chisholms," I said. "If I can't find that spot, I'll retire. I need a win."
"I thought Cedar Hill was out here somewhere," I said. "It was along this road, but it's been like ten years since I've been here."
"Take my phone, and search for Cedar Hill," said Kara.
I looked at her phone. "What in our history together would make you think I'm capable of that?"
"There's a little square symbol on the bottom. Press it---"
"It's asking if I want to close forty-eight windows."
"Jesus, no, don't close forty-eight windows. Click where it says search----"
"This thing?"
"No, the other----"
"Here it is." I looked up and saw the cemetery appear randomly to our right. "I knew I could find it."
Kara gave me a look, and we pulled over and got out of the car. I was wearing the black jacket with all the equipment sewn into it. I pulled the photocopied maps and documents out of my pocket.
"They were in Section One, over this way. I have a list of some of the names who were buried around the same time. It's a good guess...."
"Right, that they'd have been pretty near each other. What are the names?"
"Seyler, Herr...."
"This one says Crotzer."
'That's one. Okay, there's another. It was right here, right in this area." I turned in a circle, looking around. "Those trees aren't all that old. They could have been planted about where the Chicholm monument stood."
Kara glanced around. "This is an open area. That would make sense."
"I think I'm at about the right spot, and this will make a good column. I'm gonna call this one solved." I looked up the hill a bit. "Oh my god. That's the Perry stone!"
I raced up the hill to it, a square white stone. Kara caught up to me a moment later. "You took off like a little kid."
"I've never seen it in place before," I said. "Did I ever tell you about this? It disappeared a hundred years ago, when Great Island Cemetery was moved."
Kara stood beside me. "You've mentioned Great Island Cemetery."
"This is cool," I said. "Let me tell you about how it turned up, totally unexplained, in 2014. And how I broke the story."
I closed my eyes and let the cuff tighten on my arm again. It was all getting very familiar to me. A moment later, it deflated, and I opened my eyes and looked at the monitor.
I was down ten points.
I smiled. Things were looking up.
"So remember, always be responsible when you do archaeology," I told the kids. I was standing at the front of the Sloan Room, with Kara at the table, and Alex, Aubrey, Olivia, Emma, and Skylar all watching me. "Dig carefully. Use the sifter. Document everything, Any questions so far?"
I looked around the table. Nothing. So I reached for the windowsill, and picked up the box with the skull in it. "Okay, then. Let's say you dig something good up."
"Whoa," said Alex. "Is that a skull?"
"It is. I borrowed it from Lycoming for you guys." I grinned, and looked them over. "So let's check it out, huh? Figure out who it came from. Let's get to work."
I walked through the second floor of the Ross Library. When I was new, I used to routinely get lost up there---It's a big, twisty set of hallways and rooms. I made it to the end of the hall, and looked into the New Boss's office. The old Director had retired, but was somehow still getting mail here. Which is not surprising---Library founder Annie Halenbake Ross was still getting mail here, too, and she's been dead since 1907.
"Hey. We got the free blood pressure program going on in the lobby. If you wanted to come get a free test...."
New Boss laughed. "I'm working on grants up here. I don't want to know what my blood pressure is. Don't let me stop you, though."
I sat with my arm in the inflatable thing, squeezing it into the shape of the Gloucester Sea Serpent.
My name is Lou. I work at the local library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a historian, paranormal investigator, urban explorer, museum curator, and freelance writer. It keeps me pretty busy.
I'm a little bit famous.
The woman looked over the reading, let my arm loose, and then frowned. She turned the machine around.
"Here's your blood pressure."
I read the numbers, and then raised my eyebrows. "Seriously? That's not a blood pressure, that's a Somerset ZIP code. That's way higher than I expected."
"You can bring it down," she advised. "Cut back on caffeine and alcohol...."
"The irony being, that would kill me anyway," I said.
"....Changes in your diet, no tobacco, and get some exercise. You may want to speak to your doctor; there are certain medications...."
"I'll grab some of your literature," I said. "Thanks."
"My blood pressure is alarmingly high," I said in my office. I was at the Piper Museum with Kara. Kara is an LHPS member, has purple hair, and is a really good friend. "I had a program at the library the other day, and got it tested. That was a mistake. According to the colorized chart from the American Heart Association, I rank in at bright orange, which is not good."
"Your bloodstream is basically coffee," said Kara. "And you do tend to stress. Have you considered learning to relax a little?"
"I've been called intense," I said.
"You ever just try to calm down?"
"Sometimes I sit in the Tomahawk and make engine noises."
"I'm not sure that's the same thing."
"I mean, come on, let's be real. I always figured I was more at risk of death by a haunted attic collapse or something. Getting bit by a sea monster. If I die, spread the story that I got bit by a sea monster."
"Of course," said Kara. "You should really consider getting on medication. When was the last time you went to the doctor?"
"I was at the doctor in January."
"This January?"
"January 2014. I think. Have you seen my file on UFOs in New Jersey?"
Kara handed it to me. "You know there's a blood pressure machine in the Church Street drugstore? You can keep up with this."
"I'll try that. In the meantime, let's look for some photos for the television thing....And want to go look for some lost artifacts with me?"
"Where they at?"
"Up the Renovo Road. This one goes back a while---About a year ago, I turned over a buffalo sculpture in the library and caused an international incident. Turns out it was part of a post-World War II shipment of gifts from France called the Merci Train, and there's a whole committee to find the rest of this stuff. All of a sudden I was getting all these e-mails in French."
Kara laughed. "You're kidding."
"Seriously. So ever since, I've kind of poked into it a little, now and then. And I found out that nationwide, the 60&9 Clubs were responsible for handing out the gifts. So I have a friend who bartends at the local club, and I asked her if I could go look. She says they have a big storage area, and I could get in if I wanted. So we're going to go and check."
Kara smiled. "I'm in."
I sat down in the drugstore, looking at the automatic blood pressure machine. I took a few deep breaths. My sweatshirt was on the floor with my pack; I was wearing only my T-shirt. MOTHMAN: West Virginia University Cryptozoology Department. Slipping my arm into the cuff, I hit the green button and felt it squeeze, trying to think calming thoughts.
Cemeteries....Yeah. Ghosts. Water monsters....Mmmmmm, water monsters. I envisioned myself walking through a haunted cemetery with Bigfoot in the middle of the night. Piper Aztecs. Buried treasure. The machine beeped.
I looked down at the readout.
"Aaaargh. Come on! I ate a salad!"
I looked around the store. Nobody seemed to have heard me, or at least nobody was paying attention. There was one guy I recognized behind the counter. The cashier glanced over at me as I pulled my sweatshirt back on.
"Are you Lou?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I love your articles."
"Oh, thanks so much. I always appreciate hearing that."
"I really liked the one about the 1918 Ice Flood."
"Ice, Ice, Baby? Yeah, that was a neat one." I picked up a tiny unicorn toy and set it on the counter. "Can I buy this? My little boy loves this stuff."
"Can I get the skull for Thursday night?" I asked Sue in her office.
"Oh, sure," she said. "Let me get int touch with Lycoming."
The skull is something I've worked with before. For the archaeology lesson for Teen Paranormal, there's a kit. It comes with a skull, and I liked to pass it around and let the kids figure out gender and race. This was always a big hit, and required me to ask my co-worker to order a skull. How is your workday going?
"I'll send her an e-mail," said Sue. "We should be able to get it for you by Thursday night."
"Thanks." I hesitated. "Does it seem weird to you that I just stroll in here and ask for a skull, and you know exactly what I'm talking about?"
Sue smiled. "I know who I work with."
I went to my desk. Getting online, I opened a couple of windows. In one, I sent a message to my friend at the 60&9, asking about when she'd be in. In the other, I began to do a search for how to lower blood pressure.
"Glad you're here," said Stacey when I walked into the office. "We just got a call from the city water department. They wanted to know if we have plans of the property showing the water and sewer lines."
"Can't promise, but I can check," I said. "I brought the video camera from the TV thing, so I'll be getting footage of all the planes, too. I'm in for a busy morning. Oh, hi, Kara."
Kara had just entered in a blaze of purple hair and Star Wars sweater. "Hi, Lou. What do we have going on today?"
"Walk with me." We walked down to my office. "Gotta see about finding plans with water lines in them. This is fun. We have tons of plans; last summer I was looking for a secret tunnel into the old factory building, and I pulled them all out. John later told me, very casually, that there was a secret tunnel. He's used to this from me."
"So where are the plans?"
I led her to one of the shelves, and we looked through the rolled-up plans stacked there. I began unrolling them to check. "In other news, we're scheduled to go out to the 60&9 on Friday morning, if you're up to it---"
"I am."
"And we can look for the other Merci Train artifacts. There was a set of books, which I guarantee we'll never find, a figurine of a French couple, and a photo of the German surrender. We might find them in there; we'll have to check."
"Sounds good. How's your blood pressure?"
"Well. It's still high. When I stopped in to get it tested, I noticed that one of the employees is one of the people who put up those Nazi flyers I fought last summer."
"Oh, no."
"Yeah. So that did nothing for my blood pressure. I maybe need to find a Nazi-free blood pressure machine. You know, that common problem."
"I can always give you a lift to Wal-Mart if you like."
"Might take you up on that. And, you know, I feel another article fighting racism coming on. The Chisholm family was killed by the KKK in 1877, and I figure it's time for a column about them. In the meantime, let's find some old plans."
I hit the button, and the thing squeezed on my arm. I was having my blood pressure taken so often I was beginning to develop a bruise where the thing tightened. I thought about ghosts, and haunted houses, and the Honey Island Swamp Monster for a while. The cuff released, and I looked at the numbers. Still high.
I sighed, and put my jacket back on.
A few minutes later, I walked into the library, where Zach was decorating for Easter. He had eggs and plastic rabbits all over the display case.
"Hey, looks good," I said. "My son is gonna love this."
"Thanks," said Zach. "I got the Sloan Room set up for your teens."
"Awesome. Thanks."
Zach picked up one of the rabbits. "Check this out. His head turns all the way around." He took the rabbit's head and swerved it around a hundred and eighty degrees. "It looks like...."
"Yeah," I said. "Possessed rabbit. That's frightening." I picked up the rabbit and made my voice low and scratchy. "Your mother rots in hell!"
We laughed together. This is the kind of screwing around that always entertains us. I set it down and lifted my Saint Benedict ring. "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"
Tracey came out of the back room to find Zach and I doubled over with laughter, staring at the twisted rabbit. She shook her head.
"I don't even want to know. I just came out to tell you guys that there's popcorn and crackers in the back room if anyone's hungry. Someone bought the low-salt popcorn."
"That was me," I said. "I have high blood pressure, and that's everyone's problem." I followed her into the back room. "Last week, when I had the blood pressure people in here, it turns out I'm frighteningly high."
Tracey grimaced. "Oh, no."
"I looked it up, and it seems celery can help. I saw where four sticks a day can help bring down blood pressure. Do you know how hard it is to eat four sticks of celery a day? It's like a punishment at Guantanamo."
Tracey laughed. "So do you have any good articles going?"
"Yeah, I'm looking into the Chisholm family. They were killed by the KKK in 1877, and buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. But because of vandalism, their graves were moved, and nobody knows where. We have documents that suggest Arlington, though there's other possibilities."
"That's interesting," said Tracey.
"Yeah, I gotta pull a couple of pieces off the microfilm," I said. "Time to get to work."
I dug through the old trunk, and closed it up. I looked up at Kara and Katelynn, who were standing in the old shed with me.
"Looks like it's not here."
"Well, darn." Katelynn is one of my former Teen Paranormal kids. She'd spent a couple of years with me in the group, and had learned well. She'd grown up to be a pretty good amateur investigator.
"It was a long shot," I admitted. "I thought, since the 60&9 Clubs were in charge of handing out the items, they may have kept one. But if they did, it doesn't look like it's here anymore."
"Where else?" asked Kara. "The college, the high school...."
"Joby up at the college looked into this for me, and he didn't find anything," I said. "I'm just gonna have to do some more digging, make this my hobby for a while. Sooner or later I'll stumble on something."
Kara and I went back to the car. Sitting inside, she said,"So where to now?"
"Let's go to Cedar Hill," I said. "I want to see if I can figure out where the Chisholm family is buried."
"You think you can find that?"
"Last night at work, I got the Cedar Hill map and cross-indexed all the people who were buried around the same time as the Chisholms," I said. "If I can't find that spot, I'll retire. I need a win."
"I thought Cedar Hill was out here somewhere," I said. "It was along this road, but it's been like ten years since I've been here."
"Take my phone, and search for Cedar Hill," said Kara.
I looked at her phone. "What in our history together would make you think I'm capable of that?"
"There's a little square symbol on the bottom. Press it---"
"It's asking if I want to close forty-eight windows."
"Jesus, no, don't close forty-eight windows. Click where it says search----"
"This thing?"
"No, the other----"
"Here it is." I looked up and saw the cemetery appear randomly to our right. "I knew I could find it."
Kara gave me a look, and we pulled over and got out of the car. I was wearing the black jacket with all the equipment sewn into it. I pulled the photocopied maps and documents out of my pocket.
"They were in Section One, over this way. I have a list of some of the names who were buried around the same time. It's a good guess...."
"Right, that they'd have been pretty near each other. What are the names?"
"Seyler, Herr...."
"This one says Crotzer."
'That's one. Okay, there's another. It was right here, right in this area." I turned in a circle, looking around. "Those trees aren't all that old. They could have been planted about where the Chicholm monument stood."
Kara glanced around. "This is an open area. That would make sense."
"I think I'm at about the right spot, and this will make a good column. I'm gonna call this one solved." I looked up the hill a bit. "Oh my god. That's the Perry stone!"
I raced up the hill to it, a square white stone. Kara caught up to me a moment later. "You took off like a little kid."
"I've never seen it in place before," I said. "Did I ever tell you about this? It disappeared a hundred years ago, when Great Island Cemetery was moved."
Kara stood beside me. "You've mentioned Great Island Cemetery."
"This is cool," I said. "Let me tell you about how it turned up, totally unexplained, in 2014. And how I broke the story."
I closed my eyes and let the cuff tighten on my arm again. It was all getting very familiar to me. A moment later, it deflated, and I opened my eyes and looked at the monitor.
I was down ten points.
I smiled. Things were looking up.
"So remember, always be responsible when you do archaeology," I told the kids. I was standing at the front of the Sloan Room, with Kara at the table, and Alex, Aubrey, Olivia, Emma, and Skylar all watching me. "Dig carefully. Use the sifter. Document everything, Any questions so far?"
I looked around the table. Nothing. So I reached for the windowsill, and picked up the box with the skull in it. "Okay, then. Let's say you dig something good up."
"Whoa," said Alex. "Is that a skull?"
"It is. I borrowed it from Lycoming for you guys." I grinned, and looked them over. "So let's check it out, huh? Figure out who it came from. Let's get to work."
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