Row 12, Plot 14

Barney and me were taking a stroll by the new graves. Everyone there had been buried within the last ten months. I couldn’t seem to get the thought about that disturbed grave out of my mind. I had decided that it couldn’t be grave robbers. That was in the old section. We were told not to even bother tidying up down there. All in all there were about 20 of the old graves. Some dated back over a hundred years or so. The old stones had cracked or faded, making the writing unrecognizable. Why would someone bother to rob an old grave?

As I turned I could see Old Addie coming down the winding path from the top gates. She was about 60 or so at a guess. She handled the small shopping trolley like an expert though. Old Addie was something of a legend in this area. She was the town’s bag lady and spent most of her days looking for old items that she then repaired and tried to sell to anyone who would buy them. She was harmless, and sometimes it was a pleasant thing to talk with her. She had all the old values. Honesty and courtesy are the best of them. She always hung around the graveyard at night. There was a storage shed that lay ruined down by the old section, and I had my suspicions that she slept there sometimes. As far I as was concerned she could stay there. Why not, after all she didn’t harm anything or anyone.

Addie past me one morning and mentioned something about troublemakers down by the old section. Sheltering from the rain she had made her way into the old shed and waited for awhile, thinking it might ease off. She could see someone, outside by the old graves. No doubt the same grave that had been tampered with the other night. The figure looked like it was dragging something. Something heavy. It was too dark to see exactly what was going on, but it looked as if something untoward was happening. She said something about a man, tall and very thin. That ruled out the theory about kids playing pranks. He was also dressed strangely. "Looked like a priest or summin’. He was all dressed in black, but I couldn’t see ‘is face." Addie had good eyesight when she wanted to use it. Sometimes she would feel the need for a little sympathy and ask if anyone had seen something that she’d dropped recently. Other times she could detect a coin on the ground with the accuracy of any metal detector. All right, she told me about the strange man by the graves, but I had the feeling she didn’t want to talk any further, and I wasn’t about to push her.

There didn’t seem much point going to the police, to them Addie was a joke. They would probably say she’d been at the bottle again, and they might have been right. It convinced me of one thing though; something was going on, and I was going to find out what.

There were cars everywhere. Police cars. The old shed she once used as a shelter was where they found Addie’s body. They didn’t release many details but someone had mentioned the words "suspicious circumstances". Parker would have tried to find out what was going on, but not me. I was never the kind to poke my nose where it wasn’t wanted. He wasn’t around though. Hadn’t been to work for a few days, and that was weird in itself. It was time I took matters into my own hands though. After all, this place was like a second home to me and I somehow felt responsible for anything that went on here. I was gonna have to find this man myself. I grabbed the heavy rubber torch from the shed, along with an old rusted crowbar. If I found that guy doing...whatever then he was gonna get it. Get it hard. Whether he killed Addie or not wasn’t clear, but he was gonna regret ever coming here.