Lucia Calhoun. If there really were any children—?”
I never got as far as even finishing the question before President Garfield started rumbling like a thundercloud. “Young lady,” he growled, “I understand that society these days is far more casual and less structured than it was back in my day, but really, I do not think that excuses a complete lack of decorum, do you?”
I wrinkled my nose. I wasn’t sure when we’d gone from discussing his love life to talking about decorating.
“It is simply not appropriate for you to be asking about such things,” he snarled.
“But Marjorie thought you were related.” My guess was this wasn’t news since Marjorie talked about it all the time, and Marjorie spent all her time in the memorial. “And now Marjorie is dead and—”
“Then it really cannot possibly matter, can it?”
I would have argued the point if Jeremiah Stone didn’t poof onto the scene. He was carrying a stack of papers and he tapped one finger against it. “You really must get these papers signed, Mr. President,” he said. “They are quite essential.”
“Yes, of course.” The president turned to me. “As you can see, I have matters of import to deal with. The ship of state cannot captain itself, and I must provide Mr. Stone here with the proper example. It is my high privilege and sacred duty to educate my successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.”
Like there was anything I could say to that?
They vanished and I stood there alone in the crypt, wondering what to do next. I mean, besides wait for the cleaning people. In the hopes they might show up sometime soon, I went back upstairs and thought about everything that had happened and all I didn’t know and couldn’t figure out.
“But Mr. President . . .” Jeremiah Stone was nowhere to be seen, but his voice floated on the air from the nothingness he’d disappeared into. “We must get your signature on these papers, sir. It is imperative.”
Signatures made me think about Marjorie and all that stuff—including the Garfield autographs—she had in her house.
And thinking about visiting Marjorie that night made me think about Ray.
And thinking about Ray . . . well, I knew Ray might not have all the answers. When it came to my investigation, he might not have any of them. But something told me that a guy who had the nerve to actually visit Marjorie at home just might be a good place to start.
7
I would much rather save my empty calories for the occasional martini than waste them on fast food. Which was why, though the rest of northeast Ohio was flocking to a new franchise called Big Daddy Burgers, I had never been inside the front door of one of the distinctive purple and white buildings. The next day was Saturday and apparently a whole bunch of people were out for lunch celebrating the weekend. It took me a while to find a parking place at the BDB nearest to the cemetery, and even longer to get up to the front of the line so I could ask one of the harried-looking teenagers who was packing the orders and ringing the register if Ray Gwitkowski was working that day.
“The old guy?” The girl’s eyebrow was pierced, and the little silver stud in it jumped when she gave me a look. Clearly, she was trying to figure out why someone as young and stylish as I was needed to speak to Ray. She poked a thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen behind the counter and I noticed Ray flipping burgers at a grill. He was wearing an apron that matched the purple shirts of the kids taking the orders. “It’s not his break time. I know, because he goes right after me, but, well . . .” She glanced around, and since none of the workers looked as if they were old enough to drive and nobody seemed to be in charge of the chaos, she shrugged. “I don’t think anybody would notice if you went back there. If anyone sees you, they’re going to think you’re from the main office, anyway, since you’re old, too.”
So much for young and stylish.
Insult aside, I managed a tight smile and ducked behind the counter before anyone could tell me I didn’t belong. I’d like to say Ray was happy to see me, but truth be told, he was so busy flipping burgers about the size of a playing card, adding cheese, and stirring the chopped onions browning nearby, he didn’t exactly have a chance.
“I checked your file at the cemetery,” I said by way of explanation, even though Ray didn’t have time to ask for one. “I saw that you have a part-time job here and—”
One of the kids at the counter interrupted me with a shrill, “Big Daddy special. Hold the onions. Extra cheese.”
“Hold the onions. Extra cheese,” Ray mumbled under his breath. He tossed a few more frozen squares of meat on the grill and flipped like his life depended on it.
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking about everything that happened at the cemetery and—”
“Baby Big Daddy! Extra onions. No cheese. Extra well done.”
“Extra well done.” Ray slid a burger nearer to the center of the grill, where it sizzled like mad.
“It’s just that—” I dodged out of the way of a skinny kid carrying a box filled with hamburger buns. “With everything that happened, you know, I thought—”
“Wish I could help you, kid.” Ray took his eye off the grill long enough to shoot me a smile. “I don’t have time to talk. Dang!” Ray stabbed his flipper under the burger at the center of the grill. The patties were paper thin, and that one had already gone from raw to crispy. “I hate when that happens,” he grumbled. He tossed the burger into a nearby trash can and moved another one over to take its place. “If the owners weren’t so cheap and would hire a few extra people around here, I wouldn’t have to worry about burning food and wasting it. As it is, I’m the only grill chef at this time of the day, and Saturdays are always busy.” Expertly, he whisked a couple burgers off the grill, slid them onto buns, stepped to the side where he could better reach the pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes in plastic containers, and grabbed a squirt bottle of ketchup.
“Waiting on that Big Daddy!” the kid up front called out.
Ray grimaced, torn between the burgers that needed to be dressed and finished and the ones still cooking on the grill.
And I knew an opportunity when I saw it. Even when it was one I would rather not have recognized.
There was a purple apron like Ray’s hanging from a hook next to the grill, and I grabbed it, looped it over my head, and took the squirt bottle out of his hand.
I hope it goes without saying that I have never worked in a fast-food restaurant. No matter. The work was just as interesting as I always imagined it would be. After a couple minutes, my brain turned off and my hands moved automatically over the buns.
Ketchup. Squirt.
Mustard. Squirt.
One slice of tomato. One piece of lettuce. Three pickles.
Ketchup. Squirt.
Mustard. Squirt.
“Too much mustard,” Ray critiqued while he stirred the onions. “Not enough ketchup on that one. Here.” He thrust a plastic container of grilled onions at me. “Add those. No! Not to that one.” I stopped with my hand suspended in midair above a square of meat. “That’s the Big Daddy special. No onions. Extra cheese.”
“No onions. Extra cheese.” I was beginning to sound as mindless as all the other Big Daddy workers, and I snapped myself out of it and slid Ray a look, all the while not missing a squirt-squirt-lettuce-tomato-pickle beat.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
He didn’t look especially happy about it. Which he should have considering I was doing condiment duty. “What about?” he asked.
I thought he would have figured that out by now, but since he didn’t, I supplied him with the Reader’s Digest Condensed version. “Marjorie.”
Ray’s spine stiffened. The burger on his flipper slipped off and hit the floor. He stared.
Worried he’d gone catatonic on me or had some kind of age-induced stroke or something, I waved the
