Hallie Garner was blond, short, and cute in the typical college student way. She had a yin/yang tattoo on her wrist, and a blue backpack sitting next to her chair. We sat in a coffee shop near the Museum of Science and Industry. Hallie
“We left class together. It was about 3:15. He was excited, because he heard about a place that had a book with some stuff about that thing, that symbol Professor Styles had him looking for.”
“What place?”
She closed her eyes. “It was a, a fortunetelling shop. Madame Olivya. On 55th Street.”
I made a note. “How did he hear about it?”
Hallie thought for a moment. “I don’t know. He spends a lot of time looking for anything about that symbol.”
“What do you know about it?”
“He’s obsessed.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. He’s getting some extra credit, I guess, but it’s more than that. He spends hours looking stuff up online and in the library, getting books from other libraries, watching videos. I’m surprised he gets any studying done for his other classes.”
“Do you know why Styles picked him?”
Hallie shrugged. “Not really. I think David was just really interested in it. He does all the international business stuff because it’s what his father expects. This is something different.”
“How do you know David?”
“We met in class. We’re not dating or anything,” she added quickly, looking away from me, embarrassed.
Maybe she wanted to? But that wasn’t any of my business. “So you’re not as obsessed with the symbol as he is?”
“It’s—interesting. I like doing this kind of research. I like digging into stuff.” She shrugged. “I’m prelaw. You do a lot of reading and research.”
“Do you talk to Professor Styles a lot?”
She shook her head. “I don’t talk in class. I went to his office once with a question, but that was only five minutes. I’m not sure he knew who I was.” She giggled. “But David—he spends hours in his office talking about stuff.”
“The symbol? Or other stuff?”
“I don’t know. Mostly the symbol, I guess, and the different places it’s been found, the civilizations and cultures around it.” Her head jerked up suddenly. “There’s nothing going on. I mean—it’s only school. Nothing else.”
“That’s what everyone says.” I finished my coffee and stood up. “Thanks for your help. If you hear from David, will you let me know?”
“Sure. I’ve got your number.” She stayed in her chair and unzipped her backpack. “I’ve got some work to do.” She pulled out a laptop.
“Have at it.” I left Hallie to her studies.
After a quick search on my phone and a 10-minute walk, I found Madame Olivya’s Fortunes & Futures between a Thai restaurant and a liquor store on 55th Street. Her name was in dark red on the front window, and the black velvet curtains inside the window made the name hard to see from across the street. They also hid the interior of the shop when I got up close.
Inside I smelled incense. Of course. Candles flickered in sconces, naturally. Shadows shrouded the room. A counter ran across one side, with another velvet curtain behind it. No one was in obvious sight. “Hello?”
The curtain swung open. “Yes?”
The woman spoke with a slight accent. Her complexion was dark, a Pacific Islander maybe. She wore a floor-length black dress and a silver bracelet.
“Hi.” I raised my hand. “My name’s Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective. I’m looking for a student named David Beckerman. Do you know him?”
She cocked her head. “I know many people.”
“He was here yesterday to buy a book from you. He’s missing. His father is concerned.”
She stared at me. Trying to read my mind? Gauge my sincerity? Or estimate how much money she could take me for? Finally she sighed. “Yes. He was here.”
She gestured for me to follow her behind the counter and through the curtain. The room behind was small, dark, with a circular table covered with a red damask tablecloth and a stack of Tarot cards in front of her chair. A gas lamp glowed on a small table behind her. All fairly stereotypical, including the leatherbound books lining the walls around the room.
She reached underneath the table and came up with a bottle of red wine. “Would you like a glass?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
Madame Olivya brought up a glass and poured. After a sip, she sighed. “David.”
“Does he come here a lot?”
“Sometimes. Maybe every month or so. I do readings for him. He looks at my books.”
“What do your readings tell you?”
She seemed surprised at my question, as if she didn’t expect a detective to take her seriously. “He’s afraid of his father. He enjoys many advantages and privileges. He values knowledge and learning.”
“Most of that could match any student in this neighborhood,” I said.
Madame Olivya frowned. “He’s looking for another father and he think he’s found one. He likes a girl but he’s afraid to tell her because he broke up with his last girlfriend a year ago and it still hurts. He’s scared of monkeys.”
That fit what I’d found out about the boy in an afternoon. Except for the monkey thing. “What book did he want?”
Another sip of wine. “He’s always looking through my books. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he was here last week, and after my reading he was going through again and he saw something, and he left right away. When he came in yesterday he didn’t want a reading, he just wanted to buy the book.”
“So you sold it to him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t sell my books. I don’t know what he saw in. it, but he had to have it. I told him he could borrow it.”
“What book was it? What’s the title?”
Madame Olivya leaned back, tilted her head, and closed her eyes. Was she going into a trance? But she just shook her head. “I don’t know. It was something like, Stones and Symbols of Illinois, I don’t really remember. To be honest, I bought a lot of these books by lot at an estate sale. They give this place the right atmosphere.” Then she leaned forward. “But I’m not a fake. Try me and see.”
Again I wished Rachel was here—a psychic I could trust. “Do you remember the author?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sanderson, I think. A man’s name.” She pulled her stack of cards to the center of the table. “Try me now.”
I needed to get home, but I was curious. And I like to keep an open mind. “Okay. Just a few minutes, though.”
“Some things can’t be rushed.” She invited me to shuffle the cards. They were thick and awkward. Then she arranged them in five stacks, and invited me to pick the top one in each pile.
I don’t know Tarot cards very well, but I didn’t recognize any of these as I placed them face up between us. “This isn’t a standard Tarot deck, is it?”
“It’s been in my family for generations. It comes from Italy, of course.” She stared at the first card for a moment—a figure in a hood, riding a black horse and carrying a broad scythe. “You have seen death. More than your share.”
True enough, although she could have been mistaking me for a stereotypical P.I. from TV who stumbles over corpses every episode. “Keep going.”
This one showed a dancing man with his arms raised toward the sun, in a suit of many clashing colors. The fool. “You are met with distrust frequently. People accuse you of lying and you are helpless to change their minds.” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Usually they say I’m crazy,” I said.
She looked at a third card. A man and a woman, nude, embracing. “You have one true love to depend on. You worry that you are unworthy of their love. But you are not.”
I thought about Rachel. “Good to know. Go on.”
She tapped the next card with her finger. This one had a man in a chariot, driving forward as arrows shot through the air around him. “You are driven. Unstoppable. When you believe in a cause, you cannot be turned away.”
That tracked. I’ve been called a stubborn asshole by too many people, Rachel included.
She looked at the last card. The moon on a starless night, with a man—or a woman—staring up at it. She said nothing for a long time, until I said, “What is it? I’m getting struck by lightning? Winning the lottery? I’m dead and I don’t know it?”
She shook her head. “There’s a darkness around you. Too deep to see through. You can see through the shadows, but no one else can see in. A part of you is—hidden. In the dark.”
I looked down at the card. Clouds covered a new moon as smoke rose from a distant mountain. “That was more than just the cards.”
“The cards are a window that allows me to see the deeper truth.” She started gathering them together.
“What deeper truth did they tell you about David Beckerman?”
She took her time assembling the deck into a neat stack. Then she looked at me. “He’s searching for something, and forgetting what he has. He may lose both.”
“Cheery.”
“The cards tell the truth.” She set them at the center of the table, waiting for her next reading.
“Do you?” I stood up.
She shot a stare into my eyes. “Always.”
Out in my car I spent a few minutes looking for the book online. Amazon didn’t have it, and neither did any of the used book resellers I usually go to. It didn’t sound like something any of the more esoteric libraries I’ve visited would have, but I’d call them when I got home just in case. Before starting the Prius, though, I spent a few minutes looking through library databases.
The Tarot cards hadn’t said anything about my luck, but I hit a small jackpot today. The book was at the U of C library. Not something students or professor could take out, let alone private detectives, but available for viewing. Score one for me.
I texted Rachel that I might be late for dinner. Fortunately it was her night to cook. Her response: Fine. It’ll be cold. Or maybe burned.
Whatever, I texted back, and started the car.
I found parking a block away from the library, and straightened my collar and jacket to try looking at least a little bit collegiate as I walked up to the front doors.
Inside, after talking to a research librarian, I turned over my ID and was directed to the floor where the book could be found. A university student helped, and soon I was in a study cube leafing through Stones and Symbols: A Tour of Illinois and the Midwest, by Alan J. Sanders. Close enough.
The book was more than 400 pages long, with lots of photos and a lengthy index. The index gave me no guidance to obscure symbols anywhere in Illinois or the surrounding states, so I resigned myself to looking through the book one page at a time. I had to stop myself from going too quickly more than once, and twice I went back just to reassure myself that I hadn’t missed something important.
Then I found it—a photo on page 324. The back side of a tombstone, and carved into it was a circle with two straight lines running through it, meeting at the center.
Underneath the drawing were the words: Symbol (unknown origin) found in Oak Woods Cemetery, 2003.
I took a picture with my phone. Then I used the phone to look up Oak Woods Cemetery.
It was only a few miles away.
Rachel was going to be mad, but I had to let her know. Checking out a graveyard. Not sure how long it’ll take. I gave her the address.
She texted back: Don’t fall into anything. Once I take my shoes off I’m not coming to dig you out.
I sent her a heart and got up to return the book.
At the welcome center just inside the cemetery gates a woman looked at the picture on my phone and shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you.” She was in her 50s, Black, and tired. She looked closer. “It’s a drawing, not a picture. Could be anywhere, you know?”
“Yeah.” I showed her a photo of David Beckerman. “Have you seen him? He’s looking for it too. He might have been here yesterday.”
“I wasn’t here yesterday.” She peered at David. “Good looking kid.”
“Who was here? It would have been around this time.” It was 4:30 or so.
“Well . . .” She took out a map, frowned, and drew a circle around an area toward the west side of the cemetery. “You might find Yune around here. He was working the front yesterday. He’s out checking the site. We rotate working up here.”
I thanked her and went to my car.
I could almost feel the ghosts around me. I seem to attract the supernatural in a lot of my cases, and nothing gives off supernatural vibes like a cemetery. I kept an eye open for wandering spirits.
I only got lost once before finding Yune. He was cleaning a gravestone about 20 yards off the road. In his 20s he had a thin beard and a shaved scalp, and wore a green jacket. He looked up as I walked toward him. “Help you find someone, sir?”
“Hopefully someone still alive.” I showed David to him. Yune stared at my phone and slowly nodded. “I think so. He was around yesterday, looking for something.”
I showed him the symbol. “Is this it?”
“Yeah. He had a book. I told him I thought I remember seeing it over on the north side. Maybe up by—oh, yeah, the map.” He took it from me, frowned, and pointed. “Somewhere here, I think. Maybe. I spend a lot of time out here.” He looked off into the distance. “It’s peaceful.”
I thanked him, and he went back to cleaning the tombstone.
I drove around to the north side of the cemetery and got out. The sun was almost down, and clouds drifted in the darkening sky. I stood on the grass for a moment, slowly turning, trying to convince myself I wasn’t just wasting my time. Maybe I wouldn’t count this time in my invoice. Maybe dinner would still be warm when I got home.
I walked randomly. In a half hour I’d need a flashlight, but for right now everything was clear. I looked at the tombstones, walked past the plates in the ground, gazed at the mausoleums, and spent a few moments wondering where I’d end up. I’d told Rachel I wanted be cremated, then scattered in the lake where we’d encountered a Bigfoot several years ago. She didn’t promise to do it.
After death? I’ve met a few ghosts, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t just end once you’re in the ground—or in the lake. What would that be like? I was in no hurry to find out.
The dark was coming, and I’d need to go back to the car soon. I decided to make one more long arc to the north, hoping I didn’t get lost among the tombstones or encounter any ghosts angry that I was disturbing their eternal sleep. Just a few more minutes . . .
I found David lying on the grass in front of a tall granite stone for a woman named Mary Atkins, who’d died in 1971. He was on his back, breathing shallowly, no obvious signs of assault or injury. A backpack lay next to him, halfway unzipped.
He looked a lot younger than 20 years old.
I called 911 for an ambulance, and I called the front gate to let the woman there know what was happening. Then I called David’s father: “I’ve found your son. He’s unconscious in a cemetery in Hyde Park. He doesn’t seem injured seriously, and I’ve called an ambulance.”
“What?” Beckerman started gasping. “He’s—okay? He’s not hurt?”
“He’s unconscious,” I said again. “I don’t know why. He’s breathing and he’s got a decent pulse from what I can tell. I’m not a paramedic. They’ll be here soon.”
“Okay. Okay.” He was struggling to breathe. “A cemetery? I don’t—what happened?”
“I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I know later. Why don’t you catch your breath and I’ll call you when I know where they’re taking him.”
He coughed. “Yeah. Right. Call me.”
We hung up. Then I texted Rachel to let her know I was going to be really late.
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