Free The Urn Carrier by Chris Convissor Page B

to “Midnight Rider ” begin playing, and she turns up the volume and opens the windows, directing the
rig from the middle part of Illinois toward Tennessee. With any luck, she’ll be
in Stone Mountain tonight.
     
    MR. FORSYTHE’S REVISED directions takes her beyond the actual park
entrance by about a mile. Curious, she pulls into the trailer park and asks at
the office if they have a reservation for her. It’s after nine p.m. She really
needs to quit driving like it’s a job.
    “You’re Tessa Wiliams?” the woman asks doubtfully.
    “Yes.”
    “Mmmmhmmm,” the woman intones. She doesn’t wear a name tag.
Obviously everyone knows everyone else. She’s middle aged, and has frizzy fine
fake red hair. Her lip gloss is purple and it’s smudged a little.
    “And how long you staying?”
    “One night, maybe two.”
    “Mmmmmm-hmmm. Says here, a week.” Tessa can hear a loud television
behind the thin walls of the office. There’s a lot of shooting and sirens on
TV.
    “A week?”
    What the hell could Forsythe be thinking?
    “Mmmmmhmmm. Says you want a quiet lot. You gotta dog?” the woman
asks suddenly.
    “Yes.”
    The woman crosses Tessa off one lot and puts her way in the back.
Instead of five lots around her she’ll have one neighbor next to her.
    “Yeah, okay. License, license plate number, no dogs off leash.
Pick up after them.” The woman pushes back from the desk and waits for Tessa to
hand print her information.
    “Got kids?”
    “No.” Tessa’s head is bent over the paperwork and she glances up
to see the woman smirking. “Oh . . . that was a joke?”
    The woman shrugs, looking over Tessa’s brown, blonde-pink hair.
    “Site’s paid for a week. If you leave early, let us know.”
    Tessa sighs and goes to find the lot circled on her hand-held map.
Guessing from the crude diagram and the fine print she heads straight in and
all the way to the back. She veers left and follows this drive a short
distance. She can see the bottoms of very large trees here. In the morning
she’ll look over the site and make sure no dead limbs are about ready to fall
on her.
    The next morning she’s out stretching with Murphy before their
run. An older guy wanders over from the camper next door with a cup of coffee
in his hand.
    “Name’s Brett.” He holds out his hand. He has
no drawl to his voice, like the woman the night before. “In town for long?”
    “Not really,” Tessa says, retightening a shoe lace.
    “Nice dog.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I’m here working on a movie set,” Brett offers. “Union painter.”
    “Really? I didn’t know they used painters on movie sets.”
    “Oh yeah. It’s a good gig, especially when they wreck one by
accident.”
    “So you just travel all over?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “What’s the movie?”
    “Well, I’d have to kill ya if I told ya,” he jokes.
    She laughs.
    He leans over and whispers, “ ‘Don’t Talk to Strangers.’ It’s a
murder mystery set in Atlanta.”
    “I thought you were giving me advice.” Tessa can tell by Murphy’s
reaction to her neighbor, he’s unconcerned. He wanders to a pile of junk and
lifts his leg.
    She looks up at the trees. They are fine. She looks over to her
left and breathes in a little.
    “That’s a cemetery.”
    “Yup,” Brett says, wandering over with her.
    “Well, why is it so . . . I dunno, trashed?” The stones are every
which way, and a blue plastic cup blows over the weedy tan grass. She goes to a
stone and wipes the long grass from the face. These are very old graves. 1886.
    “I believe it’s a black cemetery.”
    Mystified, Tessa turns to him.
    “From the slave days.”
    “Yeah but these should be cleaned up . . .”
    “Did you meet the owners last night?”
    “Red hair?”
    Brett nods.
    “Mmmmhmmm,” he intones.
    They both laugh.
    “Perhaps this is one of those situations where the folks operated
it with care and the kids . . .” He wags his head. “Not so much.”
    They regard the stones silently