by Tonya Kappes
“When you get up to here”—I put my hand way above my head—“you let me know.”
My eyes shifted to the sound of jingling bells right before a stream of white fog entered the far back corner of the room. I knew that jingle. It was Debbie’s ankle bracelet.
Ghosts were a funny thing. They all came to me in different forms. Some I could touch. Most I could not. They were always dressed in the clothes they were killed in. Luckily for Debbie, she had on regular clothes. And the bells were a nice touch.
It helped signal her arrival before her appearance. That was important because it helped me prepare to see her and not get taken by surprise when she showed up like most of the other Betweener clients.
“My, my, my. Trevor O’Neil.” Debbie tapped her temple. “Let me see.”
Since Debbie had her incense and feather on her when she died, she had it in the afterlife too. I could only imagine all the clients she’d have in the great beyond.
“Tell him to remember where he came from and mind his manners or Nana would be awful disappointed in him.” Debbie circled around using the feather to create the awfullest sight of smoke you ever did see. “She didn’t raise him that way. And it wasn’t why he’d become a cop. He needs to look at all the evidence.”
If only Trevor wasn’t there so I could ask Debbie what that evidence was and see if I could get to the real killer.
“Now, Trevor.” I let out a long, deep sigh and placed my elbows on the table, leaning my chin on my hands like a little cup. “Do you think Nana would approve of your behavior? It seems you’ve had it out for me since the day you got here, and she didn’t raise you like that.”
He jerked up to standing. His face turned to stone.
“How do you know about her?” The tone of his voice shifted, almost eerie. “Have you been looking into my past?”
“I’m just saying that I know southern gentlemen, and you’ve not been very neighborly since you got here.”
I was interrupted by the knock on the door.
We both turned to look at the small vertical window at the little man standing with his face planted up to the glass. He held up a badge.
“You’re lucky your counsel is here, but we will revisit this later,” Trevor warned and walked over to the door to let in what appeared to be my lawyer.
“Ernest Peabody.” He was a short man, maybe five foot three at the most, with a bald spot on the back of his head and a comb-over so thin he should just do the right thing and go all bald. He had on a light-blue leisure suit and the brightest-white wing-tipped shoes I’d ever seen.
If this was the man that was going to try to get me out of here, then I might as well make myself comfortable. I shifted in the chair. It groaned, imitating how my insides felt.
He gave Trevor a card. “I’ll be representing Ms. Raines, and you cannot hold her on fraud charges or impersonation. This is a joke. You know it, and I know it. I talked to the young lady outside who had gotten a psychic reading from Ms. Raines, and she did say that she was the one who cornered Ms. Raines at the home of Debbie Dually. She did in fact say that she’d go on record that Ms. Raines was apprehensive about Jody’s insistences to have a reading since she was late to an appointment with Debbie Dually.” Mr. Peabody rambled on and on, making my already swimming head a flood. “According to David Dually, Debbie’s son, Emma Lee and his mother were good friends, and it wasn’t unusual for Emma Lee to be in their home.”
“Good boy.” Debbie smiled with pride. “David.” She smiled when she said his name. “He’s got the gift, and I tried to contact him. I told him to help you.”
That was good information to know that I’d wished I’d known before now. It was a gift I didn’t have, but Debbie seemed to be wanting to work through me, and if I was going to get out of this mess, I was going to have to listen. It was how the Betweener client thing worked. I was at their mercy.
When Trevor tried to say something, Mr. Peabody spoke up again.
“Both Jody and David will give sworn statements saying the exact same thing.” Mr. Peabody took a piece of paper from his briefcase and stuck it in Trevor’s face. “So, unless you’re going to charge my client with something that’ll stick, I’m going to take her out of here.”
“You do know about the evidence against Ms. Raines and the murder of Debbie Dually?” Trevor wasn’t about to give up that easy.
“You mean how she and my client had met up at the funeral home earlier today, where you walked in on them, only overhearing part of a conversation?” Peabody laughed, scoffing at Trevor.
Trevor’s face turned red.
“The victim was found at the scene with a glass mason jar, the exact kind of mason jar Ms. Raines leaves out for her clients to enjoy tea. And it just so happens, I saw the victim break one of those glasses with my own eyes.” Trevor really thought he had this one in the bag. His confidence exuded from him.
I hated how he called Debbie a victim and not by her name. But Debbie didn’t seem to mind. She stood next to Peabody and fanned him with the feather, probably putting some sort of thoughts in his head.
“You mean to tell me that Emma Lee Raines is the only person in the south from here to Lexington that drinks tea from a mason jar?” About that time, Mr. Peabody retrieved a mason jar from his briefcase. “Because I drink from them all the time. Plus, didn’t you just tell me the one you saw Debbie Dually drinking from had broken?”
Trevor stood there in utter silence.
“Why don’t you just move out of the way so me and Emma Lee can get out of here.” Mr. Peabody waved me to get up.
“Hurry up, Emma,” Debbie said before she ghosted, taking the plume of smoke with her.
I didn’t waste a moment’s time getting up and hurrying out the door with Mr. Peabody on my heels.
“Emma Lee!” Granny screamed from across the room and scampered out of her chair. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
It wasn’t when I saw Granny that I lost it. It was Jack Henry Ross in the chair next to her that made the tears free flow down my cheeks.
“Emma.” I could feel the heat from his voice that made chills crawl along my spine after he’d embraced me, and the warmth of his protection wrapped around me like a blanket. “We need to get you out of here. Don’t say another word.”
“Ernest, you are a lifesaver.” Granny took Ernest’s hands in both of hers and looked him dead in the eyes. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you.”
“Finally going out for that $2.99 blue-hair-special-plate supper down at the diner.” He winked at Granny.
Though this was no time for flirting, Granny had always been the cat’s meow among single elderly men, and she knew how to work a room like nobody’s business.
“You old dog, you.” Playfully, she smacked him on the light-blue suit coat and batted her eyes. “You make sure they don’t charge my Emma with anything that has to do with that crazy psychic, and I’ll see what I can do about that supper.”
“Where can we talk?” Ernest had turned back to business.
“My office?” I suggested since it was the only place where I could control who had wandering eyes and nosy ears. “It’s our safest bet.”
All eyes were on us.
“Where is David?” I asked when I didn’t see him.
“He drove the hearse here behind Trevor like you asked him to do, and Mazie gave him a ride back.” Jack Henry knew Mazie had the inside scoop on my Betweener gig. “Let’s not worry about that right now. We’ve got to focus on you. Things don’t look good.”
His words chilled me to the bone.
Chapter Seven
While Granny, Jack Henry, and Ernest Peabody sat in my office in Eternal Slumber trying to come up with different ways to get me off the suspect list for Debbie Dually’s murder, I slipped down to the morgue in the basement to see if I could talk to Vernon Baxter.
There was a visible temperature change from the main level of the funeral home to the basement where the county morgue
was located. Sleepy Hollow was a small community in the holler and between caves where tourists loved to flock to explore. When we needed a real morgue so we could avoid transporting bodies to Lexington every time there was a death, Vernon Baxter had received a grant from the state along with money from the city. He had gotten every piece of equipment imaginable, and all of it was the latest and greatest. I was banking on the real forensic evidence to be on my side.
The doors of the elevator opened. The cold whipped around me, making goosebumps along my arm. Vigorously I rubbed them to chase them away.
I pushed through the double metal doors that kept the really cold air inside of the actual morgue. Debbie Dually’s body was lying on one of the exam tables, and Purdy Ford was on the other, with Mary Anna Hardy hovering over her head with a can of Aqua Net hair spray.
Mary Anna looked up at me and batted her blue eyes. She rushed over in her hot-pink high heels and hugged me to her chest. I couldn’t help but look down at her big boobs toppling out of her white V-neck. Her short bleached-blond hair was styled exactly like Mary Anna’s icon, Marilyn Monroe.
“Oh, honey.” She chomped on gum like a cow chewing its cud. “Everything is going to turn out all right.”
I already knew she was talking about me being a suspect in Debbie’s death. Word got around like wildfire in Sleepy Hollow. Granted, more than half of it was gossip, and the more it was told, the saucier the tale got.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her and stepped back. “The sheriff will find the killer.”
“I can’t believe it.” Debbie Dually was sitting on the steel table next to her human body. Smoky incense spewed from her body. The bells around her ankles jingled as she swung her legs. “You know, Emma Lee, there’s a lot of people who could’ve done this to me.”
I gave her a sympathetic look.
Mary Anna went back over and picked up a comb and the can of Aqua Net to finish off Purdy Ford, an Eternal Slumber client whose funeral was in a couple of hours.
“Do you think you should be down here? Seeing as you’re the number-one suspect.” Vernon Baxter was a stately older man I was sure was the cat’s meow in his younger years. His salt-and-pepper—more salt than pepper—hair along with his steel-blue eyes made him look very old-Hollywood debonair.
“Hush your mouth, Vernon.” Mary Anna tsked. “You know our Emma Lee didn’t hurt a flea, and someone is out to get her.” She waved the comb around while she talked. “Do you think it’s Burns Funeral? Bea Allen is so jealous of you right now with all your business. They ain’t got nothin’ going on over there.” She rolled her eyes, took a step back, and took another go at Purdy Ford’s bouffant hairdo with the comb. “She had the nerve to try to do one of their clients’ makeup. The corpse looked like they’d straight up just left the carnival. The family called me, and hand to God”—she stuck one hand on her big boobs and the other with the comb in the air—“I had to work on the skin for two hours. Two hours. They paid me double, but still. Bea Allen knows better than to try to save a dime. But if you do go to trial, please let me do your hair. Jurors look at that kind of stuff, you know.”
Mary Anna picked up the can of hair spray and gave Purdy’s head a good soaking.
“I’m sure there’s gonna be humidity up there with everyone gabbing about you and what happened.” She pushed the spray nozzle a few more times. “Ain’t gonna hurt to use more.” She winked a big blue eye at me and chomped on the piece of gum in her mouth.
“That’s exactly why I’m down here.” I shook my head and walked over to my friend. “You both know I didn’t do this, and I really need some evidence to prove it.”
“From what I heard, you and Debbie here were having an argument before the Clarks found her.” He gave me the idea that I had to go see the Clarks and find out what they knew.
“The Clarks found her?” I made that mental note.
“See, I’ve done said too much.” He looked up from Debbie’s body, his eyes magnified under the binocular-looking headset he had on.
“Cissie Clark has an appointment with me in about an hour. She and Purdy were in Jesus group together, and she’s heading up the repast.” Mary Anna mentioned the get-together after the funeral. “That’s why I’ve got to get this head of hair done.” She looked down at Purdy and groaned. “No wonder she had the perfect beehive all her life. I’ve never seen someone with so much hair.”
“Maybe the beehive will die with Purdy.” Vernon looked over at us and laughed.
“Vernon,” I gasped. “That’s awful.”
“That hair sure is awful,” he said, and we all laughed. Even Debbie laughed. It was the first time I’d seen her smile since… well… you know.
“Gosh. I needed that.” I put my hand on my stomach. “I really could use y’all’s help. Mary Anna, if Cissie just so happens to mention anything, do you think you could work your magic?”
“Honey, that woman’s flips flap more than a leaky heart valve. I’m sure she’ll be spilling her guts to anyone who will listen.” Mary Anna grabbed her makeup bag. She took out a big brush that looked like a feather duster and swiped Purdy’s face one more time. “She’s already to go.”
“Thank you. Good job. Better than when she was living.” Vernon shrugged, making another snide remark.
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” Mary Anna packed up her cosmetics along with her hair products in her rolling bag and tugged it along behind her when she walked to the door. “Toodles.”
“I’ll have her dressed in about a half hour so you can get her up to the viewing room.” Vernon and I both looked over at the casket that her family had picked out and was waiting for her.
Vernon would dress her and place her earthly body in its final bed. They’d picked out a nice oak with a cream interior. We might’ve made fun of Purdy’s style of hair, but she was a good woman and always kind. She’d be sorely missed.
While he signed off on the paperwork for me to pay Mary Anna, I walked back over to Debbie and her ghost. She, too, would be missed by me.
“You didn’t see anyone?” I asked her when Vernon had walked into his office to make a copy of Purdy’s last spa treatment so I could put it in her file upstairs in my office.
“No one.” She shook her head. “I did linger in the front viewing room of the funeral home while the Clarks came in to talk to you. There was a noise from the vestibule, but I figured it was one of your employees. When I walked out there, I thought it must’ve been Hettie coming back with more tea because there was a fresh glass of tea sitting there for someone to take.” She looked down at herself. “I took it and walked outside to let the warm sunshine cover my face because I was mad at you for not confirming your gift. I was going to wait in the park for your clients to leave before I came back in to talk to you and apologize for how I behaved in your office.”
“Forget about that. We need to figure out who did this.” I reached out to see if I could touch her, but my hand went through her wispy body. “I’m going to need you to help me. You said there were a lot of people who might’ve wanted to kill you.” I recalled her saying that earlier. “Can you give me some names?”
“There’s a big psychic fair at the convention center in Lexington. You need to go there. I feel it.” She put her hands out, the incense in one, the feather in the other. Her chin was lifted to the ceiling, and her eyes were closed. “David. You have to talk to David.”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t want to see me right now.” I shook my head. “Maybe I’ll give him a day.”
Not that I had a day. It was already six p.m. and there was no way I would make it to Lexington in time to get into the fair. I remembered the commercials on TV for it. The times were seven a.m. to seven p.m.
Trevor wouldn’t be able to gather enough information to have me arrested by morning. I could get up early and get out of Sleepy Hollow before Trevor opened those green eyes of his.
“I don’t think you done it either, but there’s cyanide in her system tha
t I was able to trace back to the drink in her glass.” Vernon walked out of his office and picked right up from our conversation from earlier. “It’s the same type of glass you have here. Did you count how many glasses you have up there? Is one missing? Are they all accounted for?”
“Vernon!” I bounced on my toes. “You’re a genius. I still have the box they came in upstairs, and I can count them. I know there were twelve. But the cyanide. Where on earth did that come from?”
“That I do not know.” His expression stilled. A much different look from when we were talking about Purdy.
Which reminded me that I needed to make sure all the arrangements upstairs were ready for her evening layout, followed up by her funeral. It was going to be a long walk to the cemetery.
“Let me know if you get any more clues from her body.” I knew Vernon would go over Debbie’s body twice for any sort of evidence that would lead us to the killer.
“There’s always a silent piece of evidence the killer never realizes they left behind on a victim,” Vernon’s tone created a chill between us that seemed to grow, making us both shiver.
“Thanks, Vernon.” I offered a peaceful smile that I wished would land in my knotted stomach. “Trevor can’t arrest me on having tea served in a mason jar alone.”
After we said our goodbyes and confirmed Purdy Ford would be ready in a half hour, I headed back upstairs to join the defense team.
“There you are. Where you been?” Granny’s panties were in a wad when I walked back into my office.
“I had to go check on Purdy Ford and see when Vernon was going to be bringing her up.” I grabbed Purdy Ford’s file off my desk and flipped it open. I put Mary Anna’s time sheet and the paper Vernon had signed off on in the file.
Granny gave me the stink eye, and so did Jack Henry—both for different reasons. Granny was always looking to see if I had gotten the Funeral Trauma symptoms back, and Jack Henry was trying to figure out if my new Betweener client was there.