I already had one dead person to mourn. Common sense told me that I shouldn’t get involved with Ben, that my heart couldn’t take another goodbye so soon, but I think I’d already decided to help him. I wasn’t sure when I decided—yesterday? When he first showed up at the front door?
I was foolish, and I was only going to hurt myself, because if I knew anything about death, the goodbyes were harder with ghosts than corpses.
16
Songs for the Dead
SATURDAY ROLLED INTO Sunday, and I tried to convince Mom to let me help out with the funeral today—the second-to-last one Dad scheduled before he died—but she adamantly refused the entire breakfast. I hadn’t been to a funeral in years. The dirges, the gospels, the crying widows and the grieving kids and the parents who had to bury their children and— The ghosts.
I pulled on an NYU sweatshirt and texted Mom, Are you sure?
One more word and I will ground you, Mom texted back with a heart emoji.
Well, fine then.
Speaking of ghosts, I hadn’t seen my resident haunt yet today, not even as I went downstairs to grab a bagel and some cream cheese from the breakfast selection in the dining room. （Second breakfast was always my favorite meal of the day.） I smeared a large helping of cream cheese onto my bagel, humming along with the morning radio murmur in the corner of the room. I poured myself coffee in a to-go cup and made my way back into the foyer.
“Florence! There you are.”
I gave a yelp. Sitting at the front desk, his head propped up on his hand, was John. And beside him, leaning smugly against the desk, was Officer Saget.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the police officer commented. In the daylight hours, he looked much older than I remembered. His hair was almost completely silver now, he kept his beard trimmed tight against his jaw, and he looked to be made of nothing but blocks put together. He was as square as they came.
“Ha, that’s hilarious,” I replied tightly. “Nice to see you, Officer.”
“You, too. Did you have a busy night last night, Miss Day?”
“Absolutely not. Went to bed early. Had a great night’s sleep—” Though I couldn’t resist a yawn. “And now I’m up and about to go check out the town.”
“Early, you say?”
“Absolutely.”
He didn’t get a read on my face last night. He didn’t know it was me.
John watched the exchange back and forth like a badminton tournament, putting a bookmark into his current manga to watch.
“You know it’s illegal to lie to an officer,” Saget went on.
“Why would I lie?”
“So you didn’t take any midnight strolls?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” I lied.
He pursed his lips. His nostrils flared. But then, after a moment, he seemed to think better of his strategy. “You get off this once—this once, Florence. If it were anywhere else, I’d be getting you for trespassing. Try to act your age, okay?” he warned, and bid John goodbye, before he left out of the front door, climbed into his police car illegally parked on the curb, and drove away.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Shit, that was close.”
John gave me a look. “Oh, girl, you just love chaos, don’t you.” This morning he had his red beard braided down his front like a Viking, and his pizza baseball cap again.
“It’s in my blood,” I replied, and took a long sip of coffee. “What I want to know is who ratted me out to the cops. Seaburn doesn’t care if I go into the cemetery after dark, but I’ve trespassed so many times everywhere else I feel like Saget’s just gunning to get me on something.”