A Ghostly Suspect

by Tonya Kappes

  “Clark and I picked up a lunch at Artie’s and then came here to eat it.” Cissie, for some reason, was answering my questions I had for Debbie.

  I didn’t want to know where they’d gone. I wanted to know where Debbie had disappeared to after she dropped the tea glass in my office.

  Cissie Clark nodded to the gazebo. Trevor O’Neil stood up, and the crowd parted as they followed his eyes and what he was fixated on.

  Me.

  For a split second, I stared back before my focus dropped to his feet and Debbie Dually lying on the ground. Her eyes were open. Smoke was coming from the incense still burning in her hand. There was an empty mason jar with a little bit of tea in the bottom. It sure did look like one of the mason jars I served Granny’s sweet tea in at Eternal Slumber.

  I jerked around and looked at Debbie Dually, who was standing next to me.

  “But…” I stammered when the ghost of Debbie was clearly by my side. “Is this why you came to see me?” I tried to blink back all the confusion.

  “Emma Lee.” Granny tugged on my arm. “What are you doing? Hide that crazy. Tuck it up inside of you right now.”

  “I need your help.” Debbie Dually’s ghost looked frightened. “I saw my own death before I was killed.”

  “Killed?” I gulped.

  Chapter Four

  Granny had dragged me back over to the Inn along with the Auxiliary women. She was busy serving tea and cookies while I was sitting on the top step watching the sheriff’s department assess the murder scene and scour the funeral home. Trevor said he’d get a warrant if I didn’t let them go through Eternal Slumber since he had enough evidence to get a judge to grant one.

  Trevor said, “I’m not saying this is a murder, but it’s strange to me that I heard you and Debbie Dually had a loud conversation for the Clarks to think you two were fighting, not to mention when I walked into your office you had your hand on her before she dropped her glass. Now she’s dead?”

  I had nothing to hide. I knew she’d been murdered, but it wasn’t like I could tell him. I didn’t kill her, and I wanted them to find out who did do it.

  “Fine,” I told him. “Do whatever you need to do in the funeral home.” Here I sat. Watching from clear across the town square, trying to figure out why on earth someone would want Debbie dead.

  I kept an eye out for Debbie’s ghost, but she seemed to disappear. The only thing I could recall from Debbie’s visit this morning was the fact she wanted me to tell her I still saw dead people.

  I saw my own death before I was killed. Debbie’s words played over and over in my head. What did that mean? Who on earth would want Debbie dead? Why was she killed in Sleepy Hollow? If she saw her own death, didn’t she know who murdered her? These were all questions I was eager to ask her.

  “Emma,” Mazie whispered and sat down on the step next to me. “Is she?” Mazie jerked her head to the right in two quick motions as if she were gesturing to someone. She didn’t bother finishing her sentence because I knew she meant the ghost of Debbie Dually.

  “Not at this particular moment,” I muttered, nervously glancing over at Mazie.

  “It’s been a while.” She reminded me of the last Betweener client I had and how she pegged me as a Betweener after I’d gone to the library to do some research.

  Mazie Watkins was the librarian. She knew something was up when I’d come to the library a few times in a week and during a case with a Betweener client. Not only that, but I also didn’t know how closely she’d been watching me over the previous years after I was diagnosed with the Funeral Trauma.

  Bogus diagnosis, she’d said. She was very well-read in all genres and topics, including the paranormal. When she noticed how I would cover things up and that when I did do research, it was only when people were murdered, she started to research my actions and how I thought I was sleuthing… undercover.

  During my last Betweener case, Jack Henry had decided to take the Kentucky State Police job, leaving me here alone with my secret.

  It felt like a ton of bricks hit me when Mazie had confessed how she’d been watching me, recording my every move in her head, and knew I was able to see as well as communicate with dead people. When I confessed to her it was specifically murdered people, she was beyond thrilled and instantly insisted on helping me. She convinced me that she had skills in finding things out that I couldn’t with her access to different databases and that she could help out tremendously when I was involved in a Betweener case.

  “Shhhh.” Mazie nudged me and nodded over at the square.

  Trevor O’Neil was walking over to the Inn. His cowboy hat was tucked up under his armpit. A sigh of relief swept over me when he stopped to put his hat in his sheriff’s car.

  “Crap,” I groaned when I realized he’d just made a pit stop and continued his journey over to the Inn.

  “Keep your cool,” Mazie instructed me like she’d been through this a million times with me. “What was her name, and how did you know her?”

  “What?” I asked her.

  “What’s the woman’s name? I’ll go get started doing… you know,” she said in a mysterious tone, her chin slowly turned toward me, her head tilted down.

  “Debbie Dually. Psychic from Lexington who told me I was a Betweener.” The words quickly rolled out of my mouth just in enough time for Trevor not to hear me.

  “Hi, Trevor,” Mazie gushed and jumped to her feet. She tucked in a strand of her chin-length short, wavy brown hair behind one ear and swayed a little to the left and right.

  She loved to flirt with Trevor. The first day we’d seen him was when we were in Southern Comfort, a clothing boutique, waiting for Granny to try on a dress suitable for her wedding. It was the first ticket I’d gotten from him, and it certainly wasn’t the last.

  “Ms. Watkins.” The smile he always gave Mazie never went unnoticed. “It’s good to see you, but I’m here to talk to Emma Lee.”

  “No. I haven’t paid the tickets yet.” I stuck my wrists out. “Just arrest me.”

  “Arrest you for the tickets or the murder of Debbie Dually?” he asked.

  “Murder?” Mazie laughed nervously. “Trevor, you’ve got to be kidding? I just saw Emma Lee at Higher Ground Café, and so did…”

  The screen door to the Inn creaked opened. Without turning around, I knew it was Granny, closely followed by Mable Claire, the rattling change giving her away. They came out to the porch to see what was going on.

  “Murdered?” Granny gasped.

  “There aren’t visible signs of the cause of death, so we will wait to see what Vernon Baxter says.” The sound of the rolling gurney came from the square, making us all look. Vernon Baxter didn’t have to go far to get the body since he worked at Eternal Slumber, and the county morgue was in my basement. “Emma Lee said murder, Mrs. Payne, not me. Unless Emma needs to get something off her chest.” Trevor looked back at me like he’d already convicted me.

  “Look at her, Trevor.” Mazie rotated to me and put her hand out. “You can see she’s upset. Her friend is dead.”

  “I’d be ashamed, Trevor O’Neil.” Granny was going to shame Trevor right off the Inn’s steps. “You coming here like this and accusing Emma Lee of such a crime. If you’re going to arrest her, get on with it so I can get a lawyer down there to get her out on such bogus charges. And you don’t even know if she was murdered.”

  “Ma’am, I didn’t say I was going to arrest anyone, but I would like it if Emma would come down to the station and answer a few questions I have for her.” He was going to start the investigation with me, and it was for a good reason. “Just formality. To help out her friend and all.” The sarcasm poured out of him.

  “Is that…” Granny started to say. I stuck my hand out behind my back to have her stop talking.

  “It’s fine. I have nothing to hide.” I stood up. “I’m more than happy to meet you down there. Now?”

  “No time like the present.” Trevor looked pleased with my willingness to go and not
be coerced. “Ladies.” He nodded Granny’s way and at the other women. He shifted his eyes to Mazie. “Ms. Watkins.”

  “Trevor.” Mazie’s voice was flat.

  Trevor turned and walked back to his car. I gave us a minute to watch him and let him get in before I addressed the women behind me.

  “This is ridiculous,” Mazie spat.

  “Ridiculous or not, Debbie did come to see me this morning, and now she’s dead.” I glanced over to the square.

  Cissie and Roger Clark were still talking to an officer near the gazebo. It looked as though they were giving him a statement. Cissie lifted her hand and pointed my way. Roger and the officer looked. Roger said something, and the officer went back to writing something on his pad of paper.

  I gnawed on my lip and walked down the steps. I turned around and looked at Granny. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in time to get that meat loaf.”

  “You’re not going alone.” Mazie hurried along beside me down the sidewalk of the square.

  I wasn’t about to walk through the square and around the police line. It was the last place I wanted to be. Especially since Vernon Baxter was rolling Debbie’s body across the square so he could take her to the morgue.

  It might’ve been a conflict of interest for me to have Debbie in the basement of my place of employment and where I lived, but maybe it was a good thing too. Vernon would have all her death records there, and Vernon would surely tell me how she was murdered before he let Trevor know it was changed to a homicide. There was a little window of time for me to get a jump on who might’ve done this heinous act.

  “You don’t need to go with me. They aren’t going to arrest me. They don’t even know that she’s been murdered. Only we do,” I said over my shoulder to Mazie. “What I really need you to do is to find out any information you can find on Debbie while I’m down there giving my statement.”

  It seemed like a great place to start.

  “I do think she knew that she was going to be murdered, and I didn’t stop it.” I stopped in front of the funeral home.

  “Why do you think that?” she asked. She blinked with confusion.

  “Debbie didn’t have an appointment with me, and she came in all nervous, waving a feather and incense around like she was warding off something.” I proceeded up the steps and walked into Eternal Slumber. Now I wished I’d asked her why she was burning the incense. Hindsight. “She insisted on me telling her that I still saw dead people. The Clarks saw it all.”

  I stopped at the credenza, where Granny’s tray with her glass pitcher of sweet tea was sitting, and counted the mason jars. I had eight, and there were only five there.

  “I thought you said she was the one who told you about your gift.” Mazie halted and watched me count and recount.

  “She did. For some reason she wanted me to confirm it out loud, and I wasn’t sure why until now.” My body stiffened in shock when I realized just why she did insist. My eyes darted nervously back and forth as I put the scenario in my head into words. “She saw her death coming. I bet she knew I’d not seen any Betweener clients for a while and wanted me to confirm so she could become my client.”

  “Say it,” the ghost of Debbie Dually appeared.

  “I can see and hear you. I promise. Just like I saw you over there.” I walked over to the door and looked back over at the gazebo.

  “She’s here?” Mazie’s eyes widened in alarm. “Hi, I’m Mazie, and I’m going to help Emma.”

  “We’ve got an eager one,” Debbie joked and ghosted behind me when I headed toward my office, where I needed to grab my purse and keys so I could hurry up and get this over with.

  “How was she murdered?” Mazie was digging right on in and followed behind Debbie, though she had no idea Debbie was in front of her.

  “And she gets right down to it too.” Debbie ghosted up to Mazie and surveyed her kindly. “Tell her I don’t know. If I knew that and who did it, I’d have already told you.”

  “She said she has no idea who and how she was murdered.” It was the beginning of the investigation, and it didn’t look good for me since there didn’t appear to be any visible signs of murder, which made me think of poison or something internal. “All I know is that I have a few people who saw me with you this morning and how you had a glass of tea at the crime scene.”

  “The cop did put that in an evidence bag,” Mazie said. “Then I saw them interviewing the Clarks.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma Lee.” Debbie’s eyes traveled down to her feet. “I didn’t know I was going to be murdered in Sleepy Hollow, so I’m going to need you to go to my house. I’d asked David to come home from college a week early. He even got permission from his professors to take his exams early.”

  “You want me to tell him that you’re dead?” I blinked rapidly at her, before I turned to go back into the vestibule.

  “He knows you.” Debbie said quietly but with emphasis from behind me. “He needs to hear it from you. I thought I had a few days. I was wrong.”

  “What is she saying?” Mazie asked, continuing to follow me around.

  “Her son is coming home from college today, and she wants me to go there and tell him before I go to the police station.” I knew how the cops worked. They’d get all her information and tell the next of kin, which would be David. They’d have to spend the time to try to find out where she lived along with getting that information about David. It was a good step that I could just skim right over.

  “You have to.” Mazie answered in a rush of words. “He has to hear it from you and not one of them.” She gave a quick lift of the chin to the cops gathered in the square. “Trevor can wait a couple of hours. You told him you’d be there. You didn’t give a time.”

  “Okay.” I had a pit in my stomach telling me that I might just regret agreeing to the new plan of driving to Lexington to tell David then stop by the police station on my way back into Sleepy Hollow. Then I suggested, “I’ll head to Lexington after I go give my statement to Trevor.”

  “No. You have to go now,” Debbie’s ghost insisted. “They might beat you there. There’s not any time to spare. Now, Emma. Now.”

  “But—” My voice broke off in midsentence when I realized Debbie had ghosted away.

  “But what?” Mazie asked. “I don’t like being out of the conversation.”

  “There’s a whole lot I don’t like about the conversation, but this is how this works.” I gestured between me and Mazie. “I talk to the ghosts. You do the research. She said I have to go tell David now and go give my statement afterwards.”

  Mazie gnawed on her bottom lip. Her brows furrowed. “You’ve got to do what Debbie says since she needs your help, but Trevor can put you in jail for not coming.”

  We stood at the front door of Eternal Slumber and looked across the street.

  “Trevor can’t do squat without opening the case up as a homicide, and right now, it’s not.” I sucked in a deep breath to try to make the knot in my stomach go away. There was something not sitting well with what Debbie wanted me to do. “I’m on borrowed time.”

  I gulped when I saw the Clarks were still in the square talking to town folks about what was going on and what I had to do with it because all of them turned and stared right at me.

  Chapter Five

  The entire forty-minute drive to Lexington was spent going over everything that’d happened from the time Debbie Dually had shown up at Eternal Slumber until she ghosted away when I left to drive up here to her house.

  I’d thought Debbie might make an appearance and at least give me an opportunity to ask her some specific questions. I’d like to know who might have had something against her to do such a thing or even if she had friends that I could talk to. In reality, I had never been a good friend like she’d been to me. In all honesty, I never even looked at Debbie as a friend. More as a mentor who helped me figure out what my purpose in life was, something I’d obviously not chosen.

  When I’d go see her, I’d dump all my issues
on her about my Betweener clients and how I was going to help them, seeking her advice. Rarely had I asked about how she was doing, though we did talk about David.

  Oh, David.

  A million different scenarios bounced around in my head on my drive from Sleepy Hollow to Lexington on how I’d tell him about the fate of his mother. I also had decided to bring David back to Sleepy Hollow with me for the night so we could try to figure things out. How safe was Debbie’s house if she knew someone was going to kill her?

  They had to have known she lived in Lexington and had followed her to Sleepy Hollow, where she’d met her untimely demise.

  Before I knew it, I had pulled up in front of her small brick home and knew exactly what I was going to say to David. So much so, I could already see the look on his face and how I’d respond to his reaction.

  I grabbed my crossbody from the passenger side and got out of the hearse, throwing my keys inside my bag as I placed it over my shoulder. I was relieved when I noticed there wasn’t a car in her driveway. I’d beat David home.

  “The key is under the fairy near the mailbox,” Debbie’s ghost called out to me. She was seated on the one step leading up to the small porch of her house.

  I smiled at her. I was thankful she was here for when David got home. Once inside and out of any eyes of prying neighbors, I’d question her once we were alone.

  “Ma’am! Ma’am! Are you Debbie?” A young woman was standing by a beat-up blue car that had more rust than paint. Her blond hair was braided all over her head, and some was knotted up in dreadlocks. “I know I’m late for our five o’clock appointment, but I had to work late. Another server was late for her shift and, well.” She stood in front of me. She smelled of greasy fried food, and it was oddly pleasing to me. She pushed back her hair, and I noticed her fingernails were so short that she had to be a biter. “Like I said on the phone, I just need some clarification.”

  “Invite her in,” Debbie urged me and swept near the girl. “She’s in need, and we can help her.”