"...This is the grave of John Meginness," I said, standing in the Jersey Shore Cemetery. "Somebody take my picture." I could hear my voice projected across the cemetery, to the gathered tour crowd. I was wearing the small speaker they'd given me to broadcast this thing. "Meginness was one of the writers and historians from the late 1800s, and he wrote histories of both Clinton and Lycoming Counties. He gave me a lot of material to work with."
I moved down the hill toward the next site. Tina and Mary, my contacts from the Jersey Shore Historical Society, walked with me as I covered the microphone. "This thing is great," I said. "I gotta get one of these for my Lock Haven tours."
"The tour is going well. Good crowd." Tina smiled. "So what else are you working on back in Clinton?"
"There have been several really loud booms in Noyes Township, east of Renovo," I said. "They were heard as far away as the next county, but there's no explanation. I'm working on an article, and trying to figure them out."
"Oh, I think I read about that one," she said. "Interesting. Any luck yet?"
"Not yet. But I just started."
I stopped at the next grave, and released the microphone. "This next stop is the only headstone in the cemetery known to be written in German. Oh, and before I forget, I'm going to apologize to all of you preemptively for anything I might say when I forget I'm wearing this thing."
"Tell me a bedtime story, Daddy."
Paul was lying in the bed in the dark room. I sat by his bedside on a small chair, pulling the blanket over my son.
"Okay, little man. How about this? I got a good one."
"I don't want one of your made-up ones," Paul said. "I want you to read me one. How about the Pennsylvania one?"
"No, wait, you're gonna love this. It's about a king."
"I like kings."
"This was a king from a long, long time ago. King Arthur. He was hurt in battle, so he went far, far away, and came to Pennsylvania."
"Where we live!"
"Yes. It's an old legend. He came to Potter County, and found a healing spring. He was healed, and lived here a long time, and then died. His men buried him in a river. Now, you're gonna like this next part. Years ago, before you were born, two people went looking for where the king was buried. And they hiked down a mountain, and across a bridge...."
"Did they find him?"
"Yeah, they found him. You know who those two people were?"
"Who?"
"Me and Aunt Biz."
Paul's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yep. That picture of Aunt Biz that you have, is her right by the river where the king was buried."
Paul looked at the photo he had tacked to his closet door. He smiled and turned back to me.
"Tell me that again."
"Hey!" I looked up and greeted my old friend Chris, and my new assistant Morgan, who had arrived at the same time. Chris had interned for me years ago, and was now working several jobs locally. Morgan, I'd known as a toddler---I'd worked with her mother fifteen years back. Now she was ready to graduate, and doing her senior project with me. Which made me about a hundred and thirty-nine.
"I wanted to ask for some clarification on the missing mayors thing," Chris said. "Got a minute?"
"Sure. I owe Joby a nickel." I waved Morgan into the Pennsylvania Room. "Come on, kid, you might as well sit in on this."
We sat around a table. I said,"Since you're here, Chris, you gotta hear this. I just got a tip from another freelancer for the Express."
"What's this one about?" Chris asked.
"Cow genitals."
Chris stared at me. "What?"
I grinned. "On the east wall of the Simon Building is a mural advertising Bull Durham tobacco. We've all seen it like a million times. Turns out, this was a company strategy back in the old days. I'm gonna get an article out of it. The company hired four artists to travel the world, and paint these murals with the cow on them, advertising Bull Durham tobacco. The cows, however, had really visible, uh...."
"Anatomically correct," Chris suggested.
"Yeah. And of course, there was an outcry about this---People protested. So they sent the artist back to paint a fence over it, blocking the view. They'd charge more for this, and get a ton of free publicity for it."
Chris laughed.
"My source says that in Lock Haven, the fence doesn't quite cover all of it," I said. "You can still see a little bit of the cow parts. I'm gonna get a great article out of this."
"What're you going to title it?"
I thought it over. "Cock And Bull Story?"
"The editors would never let you get away with that."
"Apocalypse Cow."
"Never mind."
Morgan grinned at me. "This is awesome. I love learning about this stuff."
"There's always plenty more of it, kid," I said. "I'm always working on something."
"Did you hear, there's a fire at Notre Dame?" the woman asked me.
I looked up from my desk and nodded. "Yeah. It's all over the internet."
"Did you see? The Lock Haven Express ran a photo of Notre Dame as their Photo of the Day," she said. "They picked it before the place started burning. Isn't that a weird coincidence? It's kind of creepy!"
I sighed. A landmark burns in Paris, and I get questions about psychic phenomena. That sounds about right.
"Not so much as you might think." I stood up and walked over the the newspaper rack, and got the day's Express. I opened it to the right page and laid it down on the shelf. "See, if you read this caption, they chose this photo because of construction currently being done on Notre Dame. It's that same construction that started the fire. So it's not really as big a coincidence as all that; the photo and the fire came from the same root source."
She nodded. "Well, that makes me feel better about it."
"Glad I could help." I picked up my phone as she walked away, and got one of the oil campanies on the line. I was talking to them when my daughter walked in a few minutes later.
"So, you're saying you don't know how the sound happened? Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for your time, sir."
I hung up the phone and turned to see Biz standing by my desk at the library. "Hi, hon. How's it going?"
"Had a little time between classes. What're you working on?"
"The loud booms in Noyes," I said. "They were heard all the way down here, but it's a mystery. I'm making some calls, digging into it."
"Noyes Township." Biz laughed. "I see what you did there. What have you ruled out?"
"Well, the gas companies deny any involvement," I said. "Which makes sense when I think about it. If the gas wells had caused a boom that could be heard thirty miles away, there would have been emergency vehicles and stuff involved. It would have been impossible to hide. So I can rule them out. Also my contact in the college geology department says there's no record of recent seismic activity. I'm thinking a sonic boom from a military plane, but for some reason, I'm having a hard time getting the military to return my calls."
"Imagine that. What else is new?"
"Well, also working on a Bigfoot sighting in Beech Creek," I said. "Someone sent me a photo of the track. Check it out." I brought it up on my computer, and she leaned over and took a look. "What do you think?"
"I'd guess a hoax."
"How come?"
"The print is very even, as if it was put there deliberately. All the edges are really clear. Real bipedal prints are kind of mushy around the sides, because bipeds roll their feet as they walk. You taught me that."
"Correct. That's my take on it, too." I closed out the photo. "I told Paul last night about that time we found King Arthur's grave. He loved that story."
Biz laughed. "I was, what, about fifteen? That was fun."
"It was."
"Hey, Dad, I hate to ask....But my paycheck was a little short this week. Can I have a few dollars to help out?"
I gave her a twenty from my wallet. "Here you go, hon."
She leaned over and hugged me more than I'd expected. "Thanks. You're better to me than my biological father ever was."
"Worth it, hon. I remember when you were a kid, coming over for the weekend to grab a shower and a meal because your father drank all the bill money. Paul actually loves that the room was yours and Tif's before he was born."
Biz smiled. "He's adorable."
"He knows that."
"I better get to class," she said. "Good luck on your boom noise."
"I'll keep you updated."
Once a month, I meet with some teenagers in the Sloan Room. They're my group, Teen Paranormal. I teach them how do investigate cool things like ghosts and Yetis. I had Chris there, and several of the teens.
Don't look at me like that; it's my job.
"So that's the method to finding buried treasure," I said. "Now, in your handout is an article I wrote about some lost Civil War gold from last year. They never did find it, so it's still out there somewhere. I'd like you guys to read the article, and tell me what you notice about it."
As the kids read, I spread four government topographic maps out on the table. "When you're done, let's see if we can figure out where this gold most likely is."
Alex looked over the map. "So they were going to Lock Haven, and the article says they passed through Emporium and Saint Marys. But then, people are looking in Dent's Run? That doesn't make any sense."
"Exactly---They were going east, but then turned due south. It's way off course. So what's a more likely location to find it?"
Aubree pointed at the map. "Here's Round Island, mentioned in the article. Around there?"
I was rather proud of her for this. "Possibly. They'd have been sticking close to the Susquehanna; it's a pretty good bet. What else do you notice?"
"The survivor mentioned burying the treasure near a big rock," Aubree said. Alex rolled his eyes. She continued,"I know, Pennsylvania's full of them. Wouldn't that mean it would have to be a really big, noticeable rock?"
"Ah, you got it," I said. "And there is one very near Round Island. Right about here. Chris, you got your phone? Show them Altar Rock."
Chris brought up the photo of the tall, odd-looking rock outcropping. I said,"This has always been my suspicion. Altar Rock is very noticeable, even among other rocks. It's in the right area for the trip. Unfortunately, that means that they probably built Route 120 right over it, and I'd never be able to get to it."
Alex laughed. "Unless you had a metal detector."
"Hell, even then. There's been a lot of stuff dropped in that area over the years. A little south, about here..." I poked at the map, and then stopped.
"Lou?" said Aubree.
"Project Ketch," I said softly.
"What's that?"
"Back in 1967, there was a government program to create a gas well by setting off a nuclear bomb in Sproul State Forest," I said. "Due to protests, it didn't last, but they started production. This could be the answer to something else I've been working on, the loud boom noises out west of Renovo."
"You think nukes may be finally going off?" asked Chris.
"Or the dynamite they used to create the hole," I said. "Or something."
"What're you going to do?"
"I gotta call Sproul State Forest in the morning."
Morning. UFO T-shirt. Coffee in my Bigfoot travel mug. At my desk, I grabbed a topographic map, a notepad, and my cell phone, and retreated upstairs to the Sloan Room. I dialed Sproul State Forest and got the head ranger on the line.
"Hey, this is Doug."
"Hi, Doug. This is Lou---I'm a freelance writer with the Record---"
"Oh, I know who you are."
I will never get used to that. "Well, good, that'll make this easier. I have a couple of weird questions for you."
"Been the week for 'em. Why stop now?"
"Are you familiar with Project Ketch?"
"Sure. Government thing to make a gas well with a nuke back in, what, sixty-four? Sixty-five?"
"Sixty-seven," I said. "Has anyone been out to the site recently? Any activity out there?"
"Nah, we'd know it," he said. "Nothing going on out that way."
"I'm trying to run down possibilities for the loud boom sounds people have heard this year."
"Probably fighter planes in the low-fly zone," Doug said. "Happens all the time."
"So there is a low-fly zone over Sproul?"
"Oh, yeah, we get military planes out of State College up here breaking the sound barrier all the time. I've seen F-4s, F-5s, Raptors, Ospreys...."
"That may answer my question. It was one possibility, but I couldn't get the military to pick up the phone."
"Not surprised."
"Hey, thanks a lot," I said. "This probably solves this one for me. Case closed."
I walked downstairs, my new glow-in-the-dark Jersey Devil shirt on. Adam was working the front desk as I checked in. "Hey, Adam."
"Hey, Lou. You got a few calls today. One guy wants to set up a program. Got a call from a woman who wants information on her house. And a package came in for you from the Jersey Shore Historical Society."
"Thanks." I opened my mailbox and got out the small box. Inside, there was a small speaker system with a headset, and a card.
Compliments of the Jersey Shore Historical Society.
I smiled.
"Well, I'll be able to make some noise with this," I said. "When's my next tour?"
