Researcher hopes a spirit will move her

If she's not answering the phone in her office or digging through boxes of old files in the basement, there's only one place to find Su Richards: the Fort Douglas Cemetery.

"This is where the dead people live," says Su with a smile, strolling toward her favorite meditation spot in the middle of the historic military graveyard. "I know this cemetery, and it knows me. These people are family."

She pauses in front of a tombstone for Matthew Burgher, a prison warden who was beaten to death by prisoners trying to escape in 1876. Buried somewhere in the cemetery's "unknown" section, he didn't have a headstone until a few months ago.

"I researched his story for three years and came to know about everything there was to know about him," says Su. "It's important that he finally has a place where he can be recognized."

A research archivist at the Fort Douglas Military Museum, Su wanted to join me for a Free Lunch of takeout fish sandwiches and onion rings to share some of the stories she's unearthed during her eight years on the job.

With Halloween less than a week away, it seems appropriate that many of the tales involve hauntings and unexplained voices at the cemetery and buildings throughout the old military camp.

"People who lived here 40 years ago come back all the time and tell me about the ghosts they played with as kids," says Su. "They remember it as harmless fun."

Try telling that to two contractors who were hired several years ago to remodel the old Fort Douglas hospital. "They heard so much moaning and screaming," she says, "that it drove them away."

The fort's most famous ghost, "Clem," is frequently seen standing in museum doorways in his Civil War uniform. "I personally haven't seen him," says Su, "but I'm open. Sometimes I feel like I'm getting extra help with my research — like somebody is helping me to find things that nobody else has been able to find. So the ghosts around here are not only friendly — they're productive."

It's no surprise that Su's workplace has become a popular place for ghost hunters to spend hours with video cameras, tape recorders and temperature monitoring equipment in the hope of finding a few active spirits. On Halloween night, a group will stake out the cemetery, on the lookout for ghostly orbs and mists mingling among the headstones.

"One person has spotted an actual figure in the cemetery," says Su, "but any hauntings that occur here are peaceful ones. If