St. Kate’s church bells are announcing that it’s half past the hour, the kids down the block are still shrieking out names during their Red Rover game, the same dog is barking two streets over, and much, much closer . . . someone is listening to the radio during their visit to a grave and, hopefully, not dancing on it. The Everly Brothers are wailing “Wake Up, Little Susie.” That song was one of Daddy’s all-time favorites. He’d sing to barmaid Suzie LaPelt—“Oo . . . la-la”—every single time it came on the jukebox at Lonnigan’s. That’s why I put her on my people to QUESTION OR SURVEIL list. Not because I think Suzie’s guilty of something or should be shadowed. I really and truly miss spending time with the gal that almost all of the other gals in the neighborhood call “That French Slut,” none louder or more often than our own mother.
“Wake up, little Susie . . .”
This is very bad timing for the missing sadness to spring back up. Hearing that tune and remembering how Daddy would get that cute twinkle in his eye when he’d sing it to Suzie . . . my heart just can’t take it.
I stuff the St. Christopher medal in my shorts pocket, brush off the tears, and clear the ache out of my throat so I can tell my sister, I need to go see Charlie, but she cuts me off at the pass when she says, “Someone’s comin’ out of Phantom Woods.”
And that’s when all the other sounds fade away and I hear what she’s been hearing.
The rustle of fall leaves. Not made by squirrels scurrying around for nuts. It’s the crunch of human footsteps, getting louder by the second as closer . . . closer . . . and closer whoever it is comes stomping toward the Finley sisters, who are standing behind the mausoleum like sitting ducks.
Is it the kidnapping murderer?
Instead of hiding behind the mausoleum the way I thought he might be, could he have been watching and waiting this whole time behind one of those twisted tree trunks in Phantom Woods until the time was right?
I have to let my sister know that we could be in mortal danger, but when I open my mouth to scream, nothing comes out. Something’s gone wrong with my breathing, too much out and not enough in and my eyesight isn’t working too good, either. The cemetery is going fuzzy around the edges and my knees have gone wobbly, and before I can steady myself, I land in a heap on top of the leaf pile my sister was digging through. The leaf pile that could still contain a corpse casserole that very soon Birdie and me could become ingredients in.
FACT: Time can fly faster than Dracula, but it can also stagger like Frankenstein.
PROOF: It seems like I’m waiting for an eternity, paralyzed with fear on top of the leaves, before the owner of those footsteps appears on the edge of the woods.
My eyes are still blurry, but I can tell who it is. He’s a few inches taller than the graves he digs, with a face that reminds me of one of those salt maps we made in geography class, that’s how craggy it is from working so many years in the cemetery in all kinds of weather. His eyes are round and cow brown and his nose runs on the big side, too. If he was a kid, he’d get a nickname like “Elsie” or “Shnoz.” The rest of him looks like a capital T. Drinking straw skinny below the waist, but strong in the shoulders from shoveling and the one hundred push-ups he does every morning after he eats his “breakfast rations.” All in all, if you are looking at him from a distance, sideways, the way I am, I think our good friend Mr. James “Jimmy/Good Egg” McGinty is a fine-looking fellow with a good job and to the best of my knowledge, he is not, I repeat, not a murdering monster.
That’s how come I suggested to Louise that she should go on a date with him before she started canoodling with what’s-his-name. If Birdie and me had to have a new daddy, I thought our godfather would do nicely. But when I suggested to our mother that the two of them go on a picnic and even offered to make the sandwiches so she wouldn’t give him stomach poisoning, she said, “Jimmy McGinty? No, thanks. I already have enough on my plate.”