"I feel like we should be in a limo," Eric said as he drove his car through the town towards the cemetery.
"Or a hearse," Joshua countered as they passed through the wrought iron gates. Audra was amazed by the display of magnolia trees that lined the cemetery's entrance street.
"Which way?" Eric asked as the car came to a stop sign that offered the option to either continue forward, turn left, or turn right.
"The tomb is in the middle of the cemetery," Audra said. "I think this road goes straight to it."
As they drove past row after row of headstones, Audra felt a strange sensation come over her. She reached for her purse and pulled out the specter shield. She clamped it on her wrist and turned it on.
As they came to the center of the cemetery and pulled to a stop near the tomb, Audra strained to see if she could make out a name.
"I don't see a name," she said.
"Isn't that the candle shop owner?"
Audra looked back to see where Joshua was pointing.
She saw the woman kneeling by a humble headstone near the other side of the tomb.
"Yeah. You all sit tight, I'll ask her if she knows whose tomb this is."
Audra exited the car before the group could object. She stepped lightly, lifting her dress to keep the hem from touching the ground. Mackenzie heard her approach and looked up with a curious smile.
"All dressed up for the cemetery, Agent Wheeler?" she asked as she rose from her knees and came to the road to meet Audra.
"No, dinner…"
"At the Shelleys'," Mackenzie supplied. "It's all over town after your shopping trip.
Audra nodded. "I was wondering if you could tell me whose tomb that is?"
Mackenzie looked up at the building and sighed. "No one's," she stated and looked back at Audra.
"Do you know who built it and why?"
"That tomb has nothing to do with your investigation. I can assure you of that much."
"Still, I'd like to know."
Audra could tell that Mackenzie wanted to ask why but she pointed to Audra's heels instead. "Show some respect, take those shoes off and follow me onto the hallowed ground of my ancestors."
Audra peeled off her shoes and held them by the straps in one hand as she lifted her dress hem higher with the other. She was surprised at the lush softness of the grass. Mackenzie led her to the humble tombstone that she had been kneeling in front of earlier.
"This is my great, great, great-grandmother's grave. One of the few slave graves here we were able to accurately identify," Mackenzie told her. "Slavery wasn't the same everywhere. In this town the Shelleys were the only people rich enough to have slaves. When they started out planting cotton and tobacco, from the records, there was just as many paid white laborers as there were slaves working in the fields.
"That was a boon for the Shelleys because after the Civil War, they divided a great bit of the land among their newly freed people. This bit of land was just at the edge; it was already designated as the slave cemetery so the freed people decided to build a church." Mackenzie pointed to the land that held the humble tombstones, some of which Audra noted didn't have names.
"Well, time goes by, and the most fertile land was in the hands of people of color and no white person ever wanted to have to work for or do business with them. But, it was getting to be just that bad for a majority of the town. The Shelleys didn't need laborers so long as they had enough sharecroppers to work the land and lived just as happily as ever.
"Then that Klan foolishness started here. I'm quite sure they just wanted to scare some of the black families away so the white people could take over, but soon enough it got ugly. After a night of Klan terror, thirty-five young black men were found dead on these grounds. Some were hung. Some were shot. All were beaten.
"The Shelleys of that time understood that it would only get worse. They leased their own land back from the freed people so they could go find a life up in the north and hired the white laborers again to help pay the lease. After a while, a good majority of the families that left ended up selling their property, maybe one or two generations later.
"The church house eventually fell over and the families that remembered what happened built this tomb in memory of those young men who died. There's a little plaque and alter inside. My grandfather's father was one of those men killed when he was just a little boy."
Mackenzie took a deep breath and let it out. "It was him who convinced me to move back here as we still held our land."
Audra looked at the tomb in the evening light. She was deeply affected by the story Mackenzie told.
"May I?" she asked, indicating the tomb.
"Of course," Mackenzie said, kneeling against her great, great, great-grandmother's grave. "I'm just going to visit for a little while longer."
As Audra walked to the other side of the building and stepped into the tomb, she heard several voices fade out. She realized that because she was wearing the specter shield, those who had been inside were most likely miffed at being pushed out of the small building.
She smiled at the beautiful altar on the back wall of the tomb and what appeared to be a fresh bowl of holy water. She tried to remember the last time she had prayed. She tried to remember the last time she believed in a God worth praying to.
She found the plaque on the prayer bench dedicated to those young men who'd lost their lives. She took a seat and let her gaze fall to the figure of Jesus hanging on the wall in the middle of the altar. Audra closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. As she thought, she wondered about the Shelleys who had been generous enough to divide their land for their freed people to start their lives with, and then how tender-hearted they were to help those who survived that night of terror try to find a better life elsewhere.
She wondered if, in that same family, was the possibility to commit the crimes that eliminated Abigail Stevens and the others.
"Are you okay?" Eric's voice found her in the middle of her meditation.
"Yes," she said, standing. "I was just… praying I guess."
"Cordero told me not to let you out of my sight, so if you want to stay here, I'll stay with you."
"No, we should go on to the dinner party," Audra said. "One way or another we have to get to the truth."
Eric held an arm out for her again and she took it until they found themselves back on the road in front of the tomb. She turned to see Mackenzie looking in their direction and waved goodbye.
"You ever wonder how life goes on after the most horrific tragedies?" Audra asked as she used Eric's arm for balance to put her heels back on.
"Life finds a way," Eric commented and escorted her back to the car.
They arrived at the Shelley mansion five minutes before six o'clock. Audra was surprised to see Margret open the door in a stunning black form fitting dress. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and her makeup was nude with just a hint of pink. She greeted them with a shy smile.
"Your specter shield is upsetting some of the guests," she said in just over a whisper. "And some of the staff as well."
Audra took a deep breath and reached into her purse to turn the shield off. A male specter looking to be about middle aged in butler dress appeared next to Margret.
"Welcome," he said cordially. "Cocktails are served in the drawing room."
Margret stepped aside, allowing the butler to lead them through the foyer of the house, past an antebellum staircase, and left into a room with an impressive library that, Audra assumed, was the drawing room.
There were more people present than Audra had anticipated. Principal Shelley sat perched at the piano next to Brendon Shelley, the councilman. Specter Dr. Kenneth Shelley the second, sat on a settee next to an older gentleman with distinguished features and a pleasant smile. Charles Stuart and Katherine Taylor from the library held up the far wall as they nursed what Audra was sure to be their first and perhaps only drinks of the evening.
Audra took note of Mackenzie's specter grandfather, Marcus, smiling charmingly at a young glamorous woman that Audra thought was one of the dancers from Magic's show. Then her eyes fell on Magic who did it up in a stunning red number with a thigh-high slit and a red flower in her hair.
Seated in matching chairs near the head of the room were two aging people Audra assumed to be Dr. Kenneth Shelley, senior, and his wife, who seemed to be a couple decades younger than her husband.
Dr. Shelley, the specter, stood from his seat to come and greet Audra and her team with a pleasant and welcoming smile. His friend stood as well, following him.
"I'm glad to see you are doing well, Agent Wheeler," the specter doctor said. "I wanted to introduce you to my husband, Doctor Brian Hawthorne, Ph.D."
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Hawthorne," Audra said. "The same that taught and tutored Abigail Stevens at the high school?"
"The one and only," Dr. Hawthorne assured her as Dr. Shelley smiled proudly at him.
"These are my friends and colleagues, Eric Neil, Yolanda Eagles, and Joshua Kane," Audra introduced each of them in turn.
"Wonderful to meet all of you," specter Dr. Shelley assured them. "Go on, mingle, the waiter will be by with cocktails, although I'm sure dinner will be ready soon." He walked back to the settee with Dr. Hawthorne and they resumed their conversation.
Eric led Audra further into the room and she steered him to the wall Charles and Katherine were bunkered against. Joshua and Yolanda headed for the piano where Audra could make out that Councilman Shelley was trying to get Principle Shelley to liven up the room with a selection.
"Oh, alright," she said, opening up the piano, and began Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Audra was impressed with the artistry and dexterity of the older woman's technique.
"Mr. Stuart, Ms. Taylor," Audra said pleasantly as she and Eric came near them. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"We were invited as friends of Gwyneth's," Charles Stuart said. "The Shelleys decided to dedicate this dinner in honor of her. I think they sent an invitation to her and Sheriff Miller as well but something tells me they won't be coming."
"I wouldn't assume that," Sheriff Miller's voice filled the space before he manifested next to Audra.
"Sheriff Miller," Audra welcomed him. "I was just about to introduce my date, Eric Neil, to Charles and Katherine here.
"Nice to meet you," Eric said politely.
"And you as well," Sheriff Miller responded, making a show of sizing him up. "Audra Dear, I've always loved this song, care to cut a rug, as they say?"
"No one else is dancing," Audra pointed out.
"Not yet."
The Sheriff took her hand and she wondered what kind of concentration it must take for a specter to interact with the living in such a way. He led her to the small carpet space and placed his free hand on Audra's hip. There were not too many dancing options to the sonata. Sheriff Miller stuck to swaying side to side. Drs. Shelley and Hawthorne, Magic and Councilman Shelley, Yolanda and Joshua soon joined them, and Eric managed to guide Margret to the floor as well.
"I saw you stopped by the cemetery," Sherriff Miller commented. "Got some of our shameful history."
"Yes," Audra confirmed. "It was a sad story."
"Indeed," Sheriff Miller agreed. "You never know when tragedy will take the ones you love away from you."
"Are you speaking of Ethan and me?" she asked.
Sheriff Miller smiled. "Do you love him?"
Audra looked over at Margret who seemed to be having a grand time in Eric's presence.
"She's a great girl too," Sheriff Miller pointed out. "Smart, kind, caring. Giving Ethan the cold shoulder will eventually push him to find a warm one. You can't begrudge a man for trying to ease his loneliness before you arrived."
Audra looked back at the specter.
"How'd you get so smart, Sheriff?" Audra asked.
"I've seen a lot in life and death. I earned every one of my gray hairs before passing away."
Audra smiled and found herself giving the specter a little squeeze.
"Dinner is served," the butler announced from the doorway.