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it with a mallet, while Greg beat
a staccato rhythm on a drum with his hands. Everyone made some sort
of noise: yelling, whistling, hand clapping, or feet stamping. Anna
smiled at May, who yodelled beside her, while Erna genteelly patted
her hands together.
    After two or
three minutes of this, Tiernay held up her hand for silence. “That
was terrific, everyone! I’m sure we chased away all the evil
spirits with that noise. For the next part of the ceremony . .
.”
    But she never
got the opportunity to finish her sentence because the music
suddenly stopped and the lights went out. It was black inside the
store, the only illumination coming from a street light outside the
front window. People began to mutter, and someone shoved past Anna,
knocking her into a table.
    “Hey!” she
exclaimed.
    “Everybody stay
where you are,” Steve called from behind her.
    “Greg, what
happened to the emergency lights?” Tiernay shouted.
    The bell on the
store door chimed, and a fresh blast of chilly air rushed into the
room. Anna looked up from rubbing her knee as everyone fell silent.
The dim light from the street lamp illuminated a shadowy figure
hovering on the door step. It paused, turning its head slowly, as
if searching for someone. Pulling a slender cylinder from its
pocket, the figure stepped into the room. The crowd recoiled and a
woman gasped. Someone barrelled past Anna and tackled the intruder,
knocking him to the floor. People started shouting and pushing,
squirming to see what was happening. Then the lights flashed back
on, and the music started to play.
    Anna craned to
see past the people huddled in front of her. Steve was climbing to
his feet, the back of his shirt pulled out of his pants and his
hair hanging in his face. He had another man by the collar and was
hauling him up from the floor. The man twisted in Steve’s grasp,
and Anna saw his face. It was Sherman Mason, the cemetery
caretaker. He looked dazed, and blood trickled from his nose. Steve
released Sherman’s collar to take hold of his elbow, steadying the
wobbly man.
    “Sherman, what
the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.

Chapter Five
    Steve asked the
visitors to clear the store, and ten minutes later, almost everyone
was gone. Sherman sat hunched in a chair behind the front counter
pressing tissues to his nose, while Steve crouched beside him,
asking questions. Tiernay hovered beside Steve, while Greg leaned
against the counter with his arms folded over his chest. Anna and
her friends sat on the sofa by the book shelves where they were
hidden from view.
    “How’s your
knee doing?” May asked.
    “Looks like I’m
going to get one heck of a bruise, but it’ll be okay,” Anna said,
rolling her pant leg back down.
    “Good, because
I can’t hear anything from back here. Let’s get closer so that we
can hear what Sherman’s saying,” May said, springing to her feet
and heading for the front of the store with Anna and Erna scurrying
after her. Steve glanced up as they arrived, and Tiernay did a
double-take.
    “You’re still
here?” she asked.
    “We are, dear,”
Erna replied. “Anna was injured while the lights went out, so we
were just resting on the couch until she felt well enough to walk.”
She turned to Sherman. “You were saying?”
    The caretaker
glanced at Steve, who straightened up from the floor. “It’s not a
criminal investigation. If you want to talk in front of them, go
ahead.” Looking at the three women, Steve added with a wry smile,
“Sherman has kindly declined to press assault charges against
me.”
    “It was a
mistake. I guess people were a little spooked when they saw me,”
the caretaker said.
    “To put it
mildly,” Anna murmured.
    Sherman nodded
and rose to his feet. Heavy drinking hadn’t ruined the caretaker’s
looks; he was still tall and broad-shouldered with a chiselled jaw
and a broad forehead, but his shoulders were stooped, and his eyes
were bleary. He checked the tissues to see if the bleeding