by Tonya Kappes
“Shh.” Mable Claire was quick to shush him up and drag him past us.
“Ummm… Pastor Brown.” I gave John Howard a quick wave bye and scurried up behind the two lovebirds. “I was actually walking down to the church to see you.”
“Is something wrong, Emma Lee?” Mable Claire asked me, dropping her hand from the preacher. “Is Zula Fae okay?”
“Everything is great. In fact, I wanted to ask Pastor Brown if he’d come back to Eternal Slumber now that I’m no longer a suspect in Debbie Dually’s murder.” I looked between them, trying to see them as a couple, but couldn’t picture it.
“Of course he will.” Mable Claire winked at me. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lunch date.”
“That was weird,” I muttered and headed back to the funeral home to get the hearse since I no longer had to walk down to the church.
It was none too soon either. The gray clouds opened up, and it was pouring. The rain wasn’t going to put a damper on my spirits.
My first stop was the trailer park behind the town square where the Fenwicks lived. It was a nice trailer park. Everyone took care of their mobile homes. Most of them had little white picket fences around them. They all had carports, some turned into outdoor living spaces. When I noticed the Fenwicks’ car wasn’t in their usual parking spot in front of their home, I figured they weren’t home. Instead of getting out into the pouring rain, I had one of those ideas that I’d call them later or maybe even stop by after I made the rest of my rounds, in hopes the rain would’ve stopped.
The Clarks lived out in the Triple Thorn neighborhood. The houses there were fancy with manicured lawns that were taken care of by lawn services. It was one of those areas with a homeowners’ fee and a recreational area that consisted of a swimming pool and clubhouse.
The rain didn’t stop me from being nosy, so I pulled the hearse right up in their double driveway and parked right next to one of their Mercedes.
From my car, I could see they were sitting inside of their all-weather room on the back of the house. Mr. Clark stood up and waved me over.
I got out of the car and tried to beat the rain, but the rain won and flattened my hair to my head.
“Let me get you a towel,” Cissie Clark insisted and hurried into her house.
Mr. Clark had the remote control pointed to the TV and turned it off. He gestured for me to sit down on the love seat while he took a seat in one of the two La-Z-Boys.
“Me and Cissie sure do love it out here.” He rocked back and forth. “To what do we owe the visit?”
“I wanted to come and apologize for what had taken place at Eternal Slumber.” I took the towel from Cissie and ran it down my hair. “Debbie Dually and I were good friends. We did have a little disagreement the other day, but I didn’t kill her, and I’ve been taken off the suspect list.”
“That’s good news.” Cissie sat down in her recliner. She took the glasses off the TV tray next to her chair and picked up the crossword puzzle it looked like she’d been working on.
“Thank you. I also knew it was a hassle for you to change your arrangements to Burns Funeral, so I wanted to come out and ask you to consider coming back to Eternal Slumber.” I sat there and watched as the two of them had some sort of eye dance with each other.
My phone buzzed a text in my pocket, and I knew it had to be Jack Henry. It took everything in my power not to check it.
“I’m willing to give a discount on the second burial.” I knew if I sweetened the pot they might consider it. “I’ll even throw in a free casket.”
The negotiation might’ve sounded so gruesome, but it was part of the gig. Everyone wanted a deal.
“Well, Cissie?” Mr. Clark deferred the decision to his wife.
“Bea Allen sure is going to be mad. She was bound and determined to talk to us that day you had that fight.” Cissie shook her head. “When Sheriff O’Neil came in to see you, Bea Allen told him you were having the awfullest argument with a client.”
“Huh?” I felt my face contort in confusion.
“Bea Allen came in to see you while we were waiting for you to finish with that voodoo lady,” Mr. Clark said, telling me something I didn’t know. “That’s when she asked if we were comfortable dealing with a funeral home who fought with their clients.”
“Then when we saw that voodoo woman dead…” Cissie gulped.
“All that’s water under the bridge,” Mr. Clark said, putting us back on track about changing back to Eternal Slumber. “We didn’t like how Bea Allen forced a sale on us, but there’s no other funeral home in Sleepy Hollow to deal with.”
The Clarks looked at each other.
“If the good Lord’s willing, and the creek don’t rise”—Cissie parted the curtains on the window next to her chair and looked out at the rain pelting down—“we’ll be down there tomorrow to change back.”
“Thank you so much.” I stood up and walked over to shake each one of their hands. “I’m so glad to have you back. I’ll take care of you just like I would my own granny.”
There was a little bounce in my step the rain couldn’t take away, and I couldn’t wait until Bea Allen Burns heard about me taking about two of the three clients she stole.
“Why wait?” I asked myself, throwing the gear of the hearse in drive. “I’ll go tell her myself.”
Chapter Eighteen
The closer I got to Burns Funeral, the more nervous I got. I wasn’t good at confronting people, and Granny wouldn’t have approved of what I was doing, but I was tired of Bea Allen bullying me since she’d come back to Sleepy Hollow to take over Burns Funeral. O’Dell had had to step down from running it after he beat Granny in the mayoral election.
It was raining so hard, there was no hope for an umbrella, and when I pulled up to Burns, I noticed there was a Bobcat and backhoe in the back of the funeral home.
Were they remodeling? My gut sank as I thought about the business they were doing and I wasn’t.
I waited a couple of minutes to see if the rain was going to die down in the slightest bit and checked my text from Jack Henry. The news wasn’t good.
Natalia and Kent were back together. They’d reconnected the day before Debbie’s murder and had left on an airplane for a getaway, leaving them with a solid alibi.
Burns Funeral Home was really no different from Eternal Slumber. They were both very old Victorian homes turned into funeral homes. The stately brick houses had wonderfully large rooms with big windows. The crown molding was something new buildings didn’t have. The character added to the feel of the importance of a nice send-off. Just like Eternal Slumber, there was a large front porch with a fence. Burns had yellow brick and white trim, and Eternal Slumber had red brick with white trim. Both were beautiful, but the employees and owners were quite different.
Burns did have beautiful stained-glass windows throughout their funeral home that were original to the house. Eternal Slumber only had a couple.
They also had a grand staircase with gorgeous oriental carpeting covering each step when you walked in. Their offices were upstairs.
Burns also had a much better employee kitchen space, but I wasn’t going to think about that now.
I was going to march in there and give Bea Allen Burns a piece of my mind as soon as I checked out the new addition for myself. And maybe gloat a little that she couldn’t count on my clients to help pay for what looked to be a big addition.
Through the muddy mess of the rain, I could see shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, and all sorts of digging tools. There was a small trailer in the back of the property with a faint light coming through the window.
“Bea Allen,” I groaned and sloshed through the mud to go back there.
I swung the trailer door open.
“Bea…” I stepped up and looked inside, and no one was in there.
My eyes focused on the building plans laying on the drafting table.
“I’m going to see what’s up her sleeve.” I went in anyways and stood over th
e plans. “Oh no.”
A mixture of anger and jealousy coursed through my veins when I noticed Bea Allen’s plan was to turn Burns Funeral Home into one of those one-stop shop places like my sister Charlotte Rae had run in Lexington. You could go to a birthday party, baby shower, wedding, and funeral all in one day in one of these places. It was a hall for every occasion.
A venue that would for sure take Eternal Slumber down in a week.
“Maybe I shouldn’t cash that check,” I groaned so loud I didn’t hear the door open.
“To what on earth do I owe the pleasure?” Bea Allen stood at the door, causing me to jump and knock the drafting table to where it tipped the plans right off onto the floor.
“I…” I was caught and bent down to grab the plans.
On my way back to standing, I noticed a plastic container with a skull and crossbones on it. For a second, time stopped.
Cyanide.
“I came by to tell you that I’ve got the files for the clients that switched to Burns.” I made up something on the fly. Not only did I just find cyanide, but I realized Bea Allen had motive to kill me. Not Debbie.
I grabbed the plans and tried to put them back on the tilted table, but they fell back to the ground.
“Where are they?” She put her hand out.
“They are at the funeral home.” I gestured to the door and scooted along the wall past her to get the heck out of there.
“Where are you going in such a rush? You’ve not even let me explain what my future plans are.” An evil grin curled across her lips. Her eyes sparkled.
“I’ve got to go.” I was happy to get to the door when she walked over to the plans that were still on the floor and picked them up.
The rain was torrential, and the wind was making it harder to walk.
“Emma Lee!” Bea Allen yelled my name. “Did you forget something?”
“What?” I covered my eyes to shield and try to see when I turned around.
Bea Allen was standing in the door with the bottle of cyanide in her hand.
“I guess you’ve figured out my little secret!” she screamed and took off running toward me.
A clap of lightning lit up the sky like a flashing bulb on a camera, blinding me for a second.
I crouched down when a big shovel swung toward me, and I braced myself for a full blow or to meet Debbie in the great beyond.
I heard a thud but didn’t feel anything. Was this what getting killed was like?
“Here.” I heard a deep voice distorted by the rain.
Slowly I opened my eyes and saw the outstretched hand of John Howard Lloyd.
“I’ve been trying to tell you that Bea Allen has been out to get you, but you keep avoiding me.” He helped me to my feet, and we stood there over Bea Allen’s unconscious body.
“Trevor,” I said, my voice trembling after I’d gotten my wits about me and called his cell phone. “Bea Allen Burns killed Debbie Dually, and she just tried to kill me.”
Within minutes and before Bea Allen even woke up, Sheriff Trevor O’Neil and the rest of the Sleepy Hollow Police Department had surrounded Burns Funeral Home, and they hauled Bea Allen off in cuffs.
“Emma Lee!” Jack Henry yelled my name from behind the police line that stretched all the way around Burns Funeral.
Fluggie Callahan and Granny, along with the rest of the Auxiliary women, were also on the other side of the tape, all trying to get my attention.
“I don’t know how to thank you.” I sat next to John Howard under a tent Trevor and the Sleepy Hollow Police Department had set up for a staging area to be shielded from the rain.
“When I realized you were so busy trying to save the funeral home, I knew I had to follow you around to make sure all those mean things Bea Allen said about you didn’t come true.” John Howard had told Trevor how Bea Allen had been going around telling everyone how she had plans to be the only funeral home in town with the new expansion and services Burns Funeral Home was going to offer.
He also said he was pulling weeds outside of Eternal Slumber when he saw Bea Allen go in to see me but leave with the Clarks, though she’d gone back in after she told the Clarks she’d forgotten something. The Clarks confirmed to Trevor how Bea Allen had gone back into Eternal Slumber, which was when Trevor believed Bea Allen had slipped the cyanide into the tea, thinking the tea was meant for me.
“I grabbed a tea on the way out of the funeral home after I’d dropped the one in your office.” Debbie’s ghost started to remember what had happened to her.
She was standing there while Trevor was piecing together the puzzle of exactly how Debbie Dually, an innocent person, had been caught in the middle of Bea Allen’s rage against me.
“I saw the Clarks walking along the sidewalk with Bea Allen when I was crossing the town square. The gazebo looked so inviting to sit and sip the tea while I waited for the sheriff to leave the funeral home so I could come back in to talk to you.” Debbie’s ghost started to fade.
“Debbie,” I gasped as tears dripped down my cheeks while I watched her fade away.
One of the officers came up to Trevor and said, “Sir, we called David Dually. He’s been informed that his mother’s killer has confessed.”
“She confessed?” I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
“Yes,” Trevor confirmed. “You were her intended target like John Howard thought. I only wish he’d come to us instead of following you around. But I’m glad he was here to knock her out before you were her next victim.”
Chapter Nineteen
With everything that’d gone on over the past week, spending some much-needed alone time with Jack Henry sounded like heaven. I’d spent the past couple of days with David Dually, who’d decided to go back to school and wait to explore his psychic abilities like his mother wanted him to. Before he left, he promised he’d keep in touch with me.
When Jack Henry called this morning to ask me to join him for a picnic lunch, I jumped at the chance. He had something to tell me. He claimed it was going to affect our future, making me a little sick to my stomach. I wasn’t prepared to hear about him going back to the Kentucky State Police job since I’d gotten a little spoiled over the past week with him next to me.
Even with us busy trying to solve Debbie’s murder, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him. I decided to put whatever it was he was going to tell me in the back of my head and enjoy what time we did have together.
There was a nice cool spell that’d ushered into Sleepy Hollow after the big rainstorm, and it was a perfect day to lie on a blanket and stare into his eyes.
The tension between us over him being placed on leave and trying to save Eternal Slumber from financial ruin just about did our relationship in.
My phone chirped with a text from Jack Henry.
I set aside all the new and re-signed-up preneed funeral arrangements paperwork that’d come in since Bea Allen had been hauled off to jail. I grabbed my phone off my desk to read his text. His message read how he was waiting for me near the gazebo across the street in the town square.
“All of this can wait,” I said to myself and piled all the papers on top of each other before I headed to the bathroom to check my appearance.
It was good enough for a picnic. I had on a pair of jeans and a black tank top with black flip-flops. I grabbed my light pullover sweater from the wardrobe I had in the office. There were jackets, suits, and shoes in there for when I needed a quick outfit change for the business.
The sweater would be perfect for the cool breeze blowing through the holler.
Jack Henry was relaxing on the blanket on his back with his hands cradling the back of his head and his legs crossed. He was staring up at the sky.
“Hey, good-looking.” I plopped down next to him and noticed the food was from Bella Vino’s.
He rolled onto his side and propped up on his elbow.
“Hey, beautiful.” He leaned in, and I bent down to meet him for a nice long kiss. “Since our lunch dat
e got interrupted the other day, I thought I’d get takeout and enjoy it here.”
“You sure are buttering me up for this news you’re wanting to tell me,” I said and lay down next to him. He rolled back on his back, and I rested my head on his chest. His heartbeat thudded in my ear. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Jack Henry was nervous about telling me whatever it was.
“Emma Lee, I’m not going back to being a police officer,” he said calmly, but his heart was nearly beating out of his chest. “I want us…”
I sat up. Was this the big moment? The big engagement? My mouth dried.
“You want us to what?” I licked my lips, trying to wet them.
“I think you and I are a great team.” He sat up and took my hand. I started to sweat. “I think we need to go into business together.”
Business? The married kind of business? The questions swirled into my head.
“I’ve been looking into becoming a private investigator, and I want you to join me. I’ve got so many contacts, and you’ve got your gift. The money is good. There’s plenty of unsolved cases out there, and I think we’d make a great living at it.” He grinned so big.
I blinked several times, trying to process the shift in what I thought he was going to say to what he actually did tell me.
“So…?” He wanted me to answer him. “Are we partners? Of course you still have the funeral home, and I’d do more than just murders. So we’d both have our own stuff too.” His head pulled back. “You don’t look like I thought you’d look. It means I won’t be leaving Sleepy Hollow. Maybe I could use Charlotte’s office until we found a new place.” He shrugged. “I’m just talking out loud, but we can figure it out.”
“I’m a little shocked.” I forced a slow smile. “I never knew you wanted to be anything other than a cop.”
“You didn’t say you wanted to go into business.” His eyes searched my face.
“I just wasn’t expecting you to tell me this. I was thinking…”
“Thinking this?” He pulled a box from his pocket and opened it.