“You could even be the one to supervise me

“You could even be the one to supervise me, and if you had to rig me up like a Christmas tree to make sure I wasn’t cheating, I’d have no problem with that.”

“I see,” Jeremy said, thinking of Uri Geller. Geller had been so confident of his powers of telekinesis that he’d gone on British television in 1973, where he’d appeared before scientists and a studio audience. When he balanced a spoon on his finger, both sides began to curve downward before the stupefied observers. Only later did it come out that he’d bent the spoon over and over before the show, producing metal fatigue.

Doris seemed to know just what he was thinking.

“Tell you what . . . you can test me anytime, in any way you’d like. But that’s not why you came. You want to hear about the ghosts, right?”

“Sure,” Jeremy said, relieved to get straight into it. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“Not at all.”

Jeremy reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved the small recorder. He set it between them and pressed the appropriate buttons. Doris took a sip of coffee before beginning.

“Okay, the story goes back to the 1890s or thereabouts. Back then, this town was still segregated, and most of the Negroes lived out in a place called Watts Landing. There’s nothing left of the village these days because of Hazel, but back then—”

“Excuse me . . . Hazel?”

“The hurricane? Nineteen fifty-four. Hit the coast near the South Carolina border. It pretty much put most of Boone Creek underwater, and what was left of Watts Landing was washed away.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, you won’t find the village now, but back near the turn of the century, I guess about three hundred people lived there. Most of them were descended from the slaves that had come up from South Carolina during the War of Northern Aggression, or what you Yankees call the Civil War.”

She winked and Jeremy smiled.

“So Union Pacific came through to set the railroad lines, which, of course, was supposed to turn this place into a big cosmopolitan area. Or so they promised. And the line they proposed ran right through the Negro cemetery. Now, the leader of that town was a woman named Hettie Doubilet. She was from the Caribbean—I don’t know which island—but when she found out that they were supposed to dig up all the bodies and transfer them to another place, she got upset and tried to get the county to do something to have the route changed. But the folks that ran the county wouldn’t consider it. Wouldn’t even grant her the opportunity to make her case.”

At that moment, Rachel arrived with the sandwiches. She set both plates on the table.

“Try it,” Doris said. “You’re skin and bones, anyway.”

Jeremy reached for his sandwich and took a bite. He raised his eyebrows and Doris smiled.

“Better than anything you can find in New York, isn’t it?”

“Without a doubt. My compliments to the chef.”

She looked at him almost coquettishly. “You are a charmer, Mr. Marsh,” she said, and Jeremy was struck by the thought that in her youth, she must have broken a few hearts. She went on with her story, as if she’d never stopped.