The Smoky Corridor

36

That night, Eddie and Madame Marie snuck into the cemetery behind the school.

They had driven straight from Lily Dale, New York, to North Chester, Connecticut. Eddie led the way through the iron graveyard gates. Madame Marie carried a worn leather briefcase. In it were all the tools she would need to conduct a séance.

“Where are the physical remains of the spirit you wish to contact?” she asked Eddie as she adjusted her turban.

“Over yonder, ma’am.”

They hiked downhill toward the Pattakonck River, which flowed through the darkness like a velvet ribbon. Madame Marie swung her flashlight beam back and forth across the rows of weathered headstones. It hit upon one, the largest marker in the cemetery.

“Ma’am?” said Eddie. “That isn’t the spirit we wish to contact.”

“This Captain Pettimore must have been a Mason. See that carving at the top of his stone?”

Madame Marie pointed at the image of an eye inside a triangle surrounded by sunbeams. It reminded Eddie of the floating eyeball over the pyramid on the back of a one-dollar bill.

“Masons call that the Eye of Providence. It serves as a constant reminder that a Mason’s deeds are always being observed by the Grand Architect of the Universe!”

“Fascinating,” said Eddie, who figured he might as well see if the medium could discern anything else about the plundering Yankee gold thief. “What else can you tell me after studying that stone?”

Madame Marie focused her flashlight beam on the tall slab of marble.

CAPTAIN HORACE PHINEAS PETTIMORE

1825–1900

ALL THAT I HAVE

I LEAVE FOR HE

WHO COMES AFTER ME

“Only that it is a lovely piece of chisel work—I love the delicate, lacy framing above and below the epitaph—and that Captain Pettimore must have been a very generous soul, leaving all that he had to those who came after him. Quite impressive.”

Yes, ma’am, Eddie thought, it’s easy to give money away when it isn’t your own.

“Now,” warbled Madame Marie, “where is the soul you wish me to contact?”

“This way, ma’am.”

Crickets chirped. Frogs croaked. They hiked downhill.

“Our man is buried way down there,” said Eddie, pointing toward a clump of short stones near the riverbank. “They put him in with the paupers—poor folks buried free of charge.”

They came to the smallest of the small headstones.

Madame Marie read the words chiseled into the tiny slab:

JOHN LEE COOPER

1835–1873

CSA

HOORAY, MY BRAVE BOYS,

LET’S REJOICE AT HIS FALL.

FOR IF HE HAD LIVED

HE WOULD HAVE BURIED US ALL.

MR. COOPER WAS A SNOOPER.

“My heavens,” said Madame Marie. “Rather disrespectful, don’t you think?”

“Yes, ma’am. But in 1873 I suppose the wounds of the Civil War had not yet fully healed. Mr. Cooper had, as you see, fought for the CSA.”

“The CSA?”

“The Confederate States of America. He made the unfortunate mistake of dying too far north.”