This story takes place in Rockingham.  It starts out in modern
times, but later refers back to the mid 1950’s.  I had just retired
as an actuary from a large insurance company in Greensboro
where I had worked for over thirty-six years.  I had always
wanted to write a fictional book about steam locomotives,
drawing from my early experiences in Rockingham.  As a young
boy, I had seen many a steam engine come and go from the old
depot when it was over on Caroline Street across from the old
Great Falls Mill Pond near Veteran’s Memorial Bridge and near
where the VFW is now located.  But diesels had replaced steam
engines by the mid 1960’s.  So I needed to do some research on
the old steam locomotives.  There are myriads of information on
the Internet, more than you could possible use.  What I needed
was to go back and read some of the old newspaper articles from
those bygone days and to talk to someone who had actually
worked on steam locomotives.  So I headed to Rockingham and
rented a room for a month from a nice lady over on Randolph
Street.  I figured I could do my research during the weekdays,
and then go home to spend the weekend with my wife.  The
newspaper archives are in the public library over on Franklin
Street at the intersection with Rockingham Road.  The
librarians there were extremely helpful just as they had been
fifty years ago when I went to the old library to research Colonel
George Armstrong Custer.  I had also made contact with two
people who currently live in Rockingham.  One was a old school
buddy, John Poole, who I talked with about my proposed book
at the forty-fifth reunion of the class I would have graduated
with had my family not moved away just after I finished the
sixth grade.  He was fixing to retire from the City of
Rockingham.  I’m not sure what he did for the city, but he had
some extra time and proved to be very helpful just to talk over
certain possible plots.  There was also a young lady, Caroline
Lanning, who worked as a reporter for the Journal.  I had sent
her an email congratulating her on a fine story several years
before.  I had dinner with her and her husband, Jeff, at a local
restaurant several days ago.  They were both very encouraging
to me.


While on a visit to the Railroad Museum in Hamlet, I was given
the name, address, and telephone number of a retired stream
engine engineer who was in a rest home down in Charleston,
South Carolina.  When I called him, he seemed to be very
coherent and was eager for my visit.  As it turns out, the old
saying was true: “Once a railroad man, always a railroad man.”  
I was scheduled to visit with him the following day
(Wednesday).  I figured I could start early, be able to spend four
or five hours with him, and return to Rockingham that same
evening.  The night before my trip to Charleston and after
everything was already set up, my ninety-five year old mother
called me on my cell phone.  She had an old dear friend, long
dead, whom she’d known in Rockingham over fifty years ago.  
She and her friend, Ms. Rebekah Collier, had made a pact that if
one survived the other long enough, the survivor would place a
wreath on the grave of the deceased on their exact one-
hundredth birthday.  And that exact one-hundredth birthday
was the next day, Wednesday, October 20, the same day as my
Charleston trip.  Since I was already staying in Rockingham, she
wanted me to buy a nice wreath and place it on Ms. Becky’s
grave for her.  I mentioned I was going to Charleston that day,
and I was scheduled to meet with a retired railroad engineer at
a rest home.  It took a lot of planning to get all that scheduled.  
My mother said the wreath had to be placed, and it had to be
placed on Wednesday, October 20.  If I couldn’t do it for her, she
would have to bother one of her other sons to take her down
there so she could place the wreath on that particular day
herself.  I told her I would buy the wreath for her, and that I
would place it on Ms. Becky’s grave tomorrow evening when I
got back to Rockingham.


This elderly engineer was very talkative, and he had invited
several of his railroad friends to join in our conversations.  We
had a wonderful and productive eight hours.  When it was over,
I knew as much about steam locomoting as Mark Twain knew
about “Life on the Mississippi.”  However, it was now fifteen
past six as I stopped for gas for my trip back to Rockingham.  
Then, I noticed the note I had written to myself on the
dashboard about the flowers for Ms. Becky.  I needed to stop in
Charleston to buy the wreath.  I’d never find a florist still open
in Rockingham when I got back there.  I did find a nice florist in
a small strip mall right outside of Charleston.  They were a little
expensive, but I figured I didn’t have time to shop around like I
usually like to do.  It was ten thirty when I finally got back to my
rented room in Rockingham.  I showered and changed into
some clean clothes.  It was about eleven thirty when I finally
started for the graveyard.  It’s out on US 1 North also known as
Fayetteville Road.  It’s called Eastside Cemetery.  I remember
attending Ms. Becky’s funeral, and I remember a fence around
the graveyard.  I figured I could drive straight to the gravesite if
the fence wasn’t locked.  During my drive over, I thought to
myself: “Why am I doing this?  I could just come out here
tomorrow morning and place it on the grave.  My mother would
never know the difference.  Since Ms. Becky’s in heaven, she
won’t care about it one way or the other.  But then I realized
that my mother would ask me if I had placed it on the grave on
Wednesday, October 20, like I had promised.  Not fulfilling a
promise to the exact letter is one thing, but lying to my mother
was another.  I couldn’t do that.  Besides, Ms. Becky had been
my Sunday School teacher for more than a few years.  Yes, I
have to do it and I have to do it tonight.”


As I turned off Fayetteville Road to approach the cemetery, I
found the fence was not locked.  Boy, was I lucky or what?  
There was a half moon; so it was reasonably luminous for seeing
what I was doing.  So I drove the same path I had at the funeral
and arrived at the gravesite by eleven forty-five.  I immediately
placed the wreath, and then the fun part began. It started out as
some weird music as if from a Boris Karloff movie probably
played on a small portable tape recorder from behind some
trees about fifty feet away.  Then out of nowhere, two feminine
figures started dancing toward me.  They danced together as if
they had previously rehearsed, but they were by no means
perfectly synchronized.  They were wearing all-white garments,
and appeared to have white theatrical makeup covering their
faces.  They certainly intended to make me think they were
ghosts.  At first I thought it was funny.  That state of mind lasted
about one one-millionth of a second.  I quickly became alarmed
that they might want to rob me, as us older folks are favorite
targets of muggers.  But if they wanted to rob me, why go to all
this much trouble?  Just the threat of a knife or gun would have
been sufficient to take all my money and my car.  Then the
young ladies began to speak in unison: “We cannot rest until
someone brings our murderer to justice.  You have to help us.  
Our graves are over here.”  Then the young ladies moved back
toward the trees and appeared to disappear as suddenly as they
had mysteriously appeared.  There I was, still holding my car
keys in my hand with my mouth wide open in astonishment.  I
thought about going over to where they had disappeared, but my
better judgment quickly talked me out of it.  I was back to my
rented room on Randolph Street shortly after midnight.  There’s
probably no need to tell you, but I didn’t sleep too well that
night.


The next morning I was up early as I usually run five kilometers
(a little more than three miles) before breakfast each day.  I
remembered that this graveyard had some paved roads where I
had seen other people walking and jogging before.  So I put on
my run clothes and headed back to the graveyard.  The fence
was now locked, but there were many places for pedestrians,
but not cars, to enter.  Sure enough, there were some others out
there walking and jogging.  Young people mostly.  They must
have planned to walk or jog before they headed off to work.  
After I finished running, I walked over to Ms. Becky’s gravesite
where I had visited the night before.  Then I saw the trees where
the “ghosts” disappeared.  I figured they must have draped a
black blanket across some wire or rope tied between two trees.  
That would enable them to appear to disappear.  There was only
one set of trees that seemed likely.  I looked closely and noticed
a torn rag on the ground that may have been overlooked if my
“ghosts” were in too big a hurry to leave.  The blanket must have
snagged on a tree or bush as they took it down.  Then I notice
the gravesites of two twelve-year-old girls right beside each
other.  One tombstone read: “Doris Gail Grayson.  Born March
14, 1944.  Died August 20, 1956.” The other tombstone read:
“Unknown Girl.  Twelve years old.  Died August 20, 1956.”  Then
I reasoned with myself:  “If the second girl was unknown, how
did they know she was twelve?  Also, if the girl was unknown,
why was she not buried in a potter’s field?  These gravesites are
not free.  Someone had to pay to have these two girls buried
together.  Also, since they both died the same day, they may
have been involved in the same calamity.”

I called my friends John and Caroline to inform them about my
escapade the night before.  They both agreed to meet me for
lunch at a buffet over on East Broad Avenue.  In the meantime
off to the public library I went to search through the microfiche
of the Journals for the summer and fall of 1956.  Sure enough,
there was the story.  The two girls had perished in a house fire.  
One of the girls, Doris, lived at the house, but the other
appeared to be visiting.  The mother, a widow, who survived the
fire but has since been long deceased, said she thought the
other girl was a school friend of her daughter.  But a check at
the school found no one missing.  Also, there was no missing
persons report filed on anyone fitting the description.  There
was no mention of foul play in the newspaper articles or in any
of the follow-up articles over the following several months.  
There was a cousin, Greg Grayson, who had been staying with
the family after his own parents had died in an automobile
accident several years before the fire.  According to the
neighbors, he was still living in this same house that his aunt
had rebuilt after the fire.  He was not listed in the telephone
directory.  The house now has a fence around it with a button to
ring a doorbell at the front gate.  The neighbors said he still
lived there but did not socialize with anyone.  They called him a
hermit, a recluse, and a loner.  Never married from what they
could tell.  They did see him on rare occasions when he
ventured out for supplies such as groceries, but for the most
part he kept to himself.  They thought either the bell didn’t
work, or Mr. Grayson deliberately did not answer it.  I pushed
the button for several minutes, but to no avail.


It was time to meet my lunch guests.  I quickly brought them up
to date on what I had learned that morning and supplied more
details of the night before.  Caroline said a rival reporter, Carl
Davenport, at the Journal had overheard our conversation this
morning.  She discussed the case with him briefly, but she now
regrets having done so.  She said he was just not a good man and
that she trusted him about as far as she could throw him.  John
then said that they lock those cemetery gates every night at
sunset and do not open them until eight the next morning.  If
they were unlocked and open, then someone must have
monkeyed with the lock.  The attendant did not report any
irregularities at the cemetery.  A reasonably good crook could
open those gates with a small knife.  John then went on: “But
why would anyone want to do that.  Obviously, the motive was
not robbery.  Why would anyone want you to investigate these
deaths from over fifty years ago?”  I replied: “Yea, someone
wants me to investigate this for them.  But, why wouldn’t they
just hire a private investigator?”  Then Caroline added: “Private
Investigators cost money.  Besides, I don’t think we have any in
Rockingham or anywhere in Richmond County for that matter.”  
Then I said: “Well, they certainly got my attention.  I assume it
was not the guilty party, that is, if there is a guilty party.  It had
to be someone who doesn’t have much money, and who
probably doesn’t have much evidence, and who wants me to get
involved.”  John then said: “Maybe a neighbor or maybe a
relative.”  Then Caroline added: “Don’t forget about the
unknown girl.  I’ll check at the sheriff’s office to see if there was
an investigation into her death.  Actually that house is in the
city limits now.  The sheriff’s office might have turned the
records over to the police by now.  The paper didn’t mention
that any foul play was involved.  But you can’t just have people
appearing out of thin air.”  John had to get back to work, but
Caroline went with me to the sheriff’s office.  She was working
on this story to publish if we can ever get to the bottom of it.


The sheriff confirmed they investigated the deaths of the two
girls back in the mid 1950’s.  The investigation concluded there
was no reason to suspect foul play.  The unknown girl’s
description was distributed nationally, but no one ever
responded to it.  They closed the files about twenty years later.  
The deputy mentioned that if we uncovered anything we needed
to involve the police since that area is now in the city limits.  I
thanked Caroline as she left to head back to work.  I decided I
should go talk with as many of the neighbors or former
neighbors as I could locate.

To be continued...