A Ghostly Murder

by Tonya Kappes

  A little cackle filled the empty space around me. I knew it was Mamie Sue hiding out somewhere and watching the show.

  Granny looked around the floor.

  “I swear I felt something around my ankles.” Granny’s brow narrowed, then she went about her business.

  “Take that, you old bat!” Mamie’s voice called out.

  “What were you saying about mortuary school and history?” I wasn’t going to give any attention to Mamie’s bad behavior. “They did go over some history, but what good is history in today’s burials?”

  Charlotte Rae and I both had to go to school to be undertakers. Charlotte Rae was at the top of the class, as usual, whereas I was in the middle. Regardless, we both graduated, and here we were today.

  “Just like Mamie’s stone. There are plenty of them out there with bells on them.” Granny pretended to ring a bell in the air. “In the old days, way old days, sometimes ­people were buried alive.”

  My face contorted.

  “They didn’t have all the fancy equipment to hear faint heartbeats, so if it wasn’t strong, they declared the sick dead.” She stuck her tongue out, faking a dead person. Which was in no way how a corpse really looked. “After hearing scratching coming from graves and realizing they were burying ­people alive, they came up with the bell. The string hung down in the coffin and out to the stone, so if you were buried alive and woke up, you could pull the string. The bell would ding, and they would dig you back up.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “How do you think all those ­people who were buried alive felt?” Granny asked a good question. She walked back over to the table and took a drink.

  “And Mamie Sue?” It wasn’t like she had died in the time Granny was referring to.

  “She was a hypochondriac.” Granny sprayed out the tea that was left in her mouth as she laughed out loud. She put her hand over her mouth to stop the stream. “I’m so sorry. But every time I think about how nuts Mamie Sue Preston was, I get tickled.”

  “I am not nuts!” Mamie appeared. Her face was red, and her hat was sideways. She disappeared again.

  “I’m sure she wasn’t crazy.” I tried to make both of them happy. I had to find some sort of happy medium.

  “She thought she had every single disease.” Granny nodded. “When AIDS came out in the eighties, she swore she had it. She came to the Auxiliary telling everyone she just knew she had it. Thank God she didn’t pass the crazies down. Old Spinster.”

  “Wait.” My mind froze. “She was never married?”

  “Married? Virgin ’til the day she died. No siblings. No family. Just her.” Granny’s words twirled around in my head. “Rich old spinster. Richest woman in Sleepy Hollow, still to this day.”

  The door of the kitchen swung open. My heart sank to the tips of my toes.

  “Ladies.” Sheriff Jack Henry Ross stood in the door with his police hat tucked under the pit of his arm.

  Our eyes met. His smile widened, exposing his beautiful white teeth. His brown eyes sent chills down my body, making me tingle in places that shouldn’t.

  “What do we owe the pleasure?” Granny quickly got up and poured my boyfriend a glass of tea.

  “I wish I could say it was a social call.” He bent over and kissed the top of my head.

  I gulped. Had he gotten some information about Mamie Sue Preston before I had told him that she had gotten to me?

  I looked up at him. He looked at me. His eyes narrowed as though he was reading my mind. His face softened. He knew something was going on with the Betweener gig. He could read me like a book. He rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly.

  “I’m here about a pie and a platter, which is a family heirloom.” His eyes slid over to Granny, who had just taken her pie out of the oven. “I got a call from Bea Allen. Someone stole a pie from the kitchen windowsill over at Burns’s Funeral residence. It was for Junior’s funeral. It’s the platter she wants back.”

  “How terrible,” Granny gasped, trying to be all innocent. “Thank goodness I have a pie to take to the funeral.”

  “What type of pie did you say you had?” Jack Henry asked.

  I tried to contain my laughter as he and Granny did a little dance back and forth. Jack Henry would shift to the right to get a peek over Granny’s shoulder at the pie on the cooling rack behind her, causing her to shift with him to block the view. He switched to the left, and so did Granny.

  “A pie.” Granny folded her arms. She wasn’t going to admit to anything. Especially if she stole the pie.

  “I think Emma Lee keeps pretty good records on who is bringing what dish to the repast.” Jack Henry looked over at me for confirmation. I put my attention elsewhere.

  Was Jack Henry really trying to get me to side with him against Granny? Was he crazy?

  “I can probably get a warrant for those notes if Emma Lee isn’t willing to give them up,” Jack Henry warned.

  “Are you joking me?” I asked.

  I couldn’t believe he was really taking it to a warrant level. “My hard-­earned tax dollars are paying you to investigate a pie?”

  Granny clapped her hands and agreed. “Yep. That’s right!” She nodded. “Did you say open windowsill? Anything could’ve gotten her apple pie. A deer. A bird. A possum.”

  “I didn’t say apple pie.” A sneaky smile crossed Jack Henry’s lips. He knew he had outsmarted Granny. “How did you know it was an apple pie?”

  “Jack Henry Ross, when you are as old as I am, you will have gone to as many funerals as me, so you will know ­people bring the exact same thing each time.” Granny was spitting mad. “Emma Lee, fetch me that pot holder.”

  Granny pointed to the one clear across the room on the counter.

  “There’s one . . .” I pointed to the one right next to her hand.

  “That one.” Her face was steady and serious.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I got up from the table and walked over to get the pot holder. Granny didn’t move. She didn’t want to let Jack Henry get a look at the perfect apple pie she had just taken out of the oven.

  “Heaven to Betsy, y’all get on out of here so I can finish cooking for all of these folks.” She shooed us out of the kitchen, putting Jack Henry in a stutter.

  “And I just let Zula Fae stop my official police business.” He stood outside the kitchen door with a surprised look on his face.

  “That’s Granny for you.” I wrapped my arms around him, curled up on my toes and gave him a good, long, overdue kiss.

  Overdue to shut him up.

  “Emma Lee, your granny can’t go around stealing other ­people’s pies and platters.” Jack Henry pulled away.

  “You look so cute when you try to pull that cop act.” I ran my finger along his strong chin. “Did you forget to shave?”

  It was way too early in the day for his facial hair to be sporting a five o’clock shadow.

  “I didn’t have time to shave because Bea Allen Burns called dispatch, raising all sorts of hell about a robbery. I jumped out of bed and got over there as fast as I could.” He pointed to the kitchen. “I know it was just a pie and platter, but it is still considered theft.”

  “I don’t know if she took it or not,” I said, even though I had a pretty good hunch she did. “But I’ll look into it. And why would you think Granny did it? Did Bea Allen accuse her?”

  “No, Bea Allen was beside herself. She said she put the pie up there at six a.m. and went to get a shower. When she came back out to see if it had cooled down, it was gone.” He pulled out his phone and tapped around on it. He held it out for me to see a picture he had taken. “Here is a picture of the crime scene.”

  “Are you kidding me? Crime scene?” All I could see was the back of Burns Funeral where the residence was located. The window was open, and there was a bush underneath it.

  “Look
at the bush. Do you see anything?” he asked.

  I squinted and shook my head. He used his fingers to enlarge the photo.

  “Right there.” He pointed to the dirt next to the bush.

  There was some sort of tracks. Too small for a car, too big for a bicycle, but perfect for a moped.

  “You and I both know only one person in this town with a moped.” His lips thinned. “Tell me that this isn’t the work of Zula Fae.”

  “I will look into it,” I said and gave him another kiss.

  “Ummhmm,” he mumbled, knowing good and well there was no way I was going to turn Granny in. “And I can tell by the way you were acting in there that something else is on your mind.”

  “Nope, nothing is on my mind. Just getting Junior in the ground without a hitch.” I brushed off the idea of how he knew I just so happened to be seeing another ghost.

  “Nothing. Not even a hint of—­”

  “Jack Henry Ross, aren’t you looking might official,” Hettie Bell interrupted at just the right time.

  “I’m here on official police business.” Jack Henry rocked back and forth on his heels.

  “Official?” She seemed amused at how serious Jack Henry was acting.

  “I’ve got to run and make sure the ser­vice is still going to run smoothly.” I kissed Jack Henry one last time and made a beeline for the door. I mouthed, “Thank you, Hettie Bell.”

  With a few “good mornin’s” I made it out of the Inn and onto the porch, where the rockers were all still occupied. This time, all their bellies were full from Granny’s good cooking. I smiled at the group that had gathered. There was nothing like a porch to bring ­people together. That’s the way it was in Sleepy Hollow, and that’s what I loved about being from my small town.

  I skipped down the front steps and took a sharp right around the Inn. Granny kept her moped chained up to the tree on the side, and I wanted to get a look at the tires.

  The tires were spic-­and-­span clean. If Granny had gone to Burns, wouldn’t there be mud or dirt on the tires?

  A sudden movement from the window on the side of the Inn caught my attention. Granny was leaning over the counter and looking at me out the window. My mouth dropped. There was a joyful sparkle in her eye.

  Right underneath the window was the big plastic garbage can. I marched over and pulled up the lid. Sitting on a nice china platter was a delicious-­looking, perfectly browned apple pie with lattice crust.

  A shadow drew overtop me. I looked back up, and Granny’s face was planted up against the window. Slowly I shook my head and pulled the lid closed.

  I had grossly underestimated my granny.

  “Take care of this,” I mouthed and pointed to the trashcan before I tiptoed back around and across the square back to the funeral home.

  Chapter 4

  The only clue to a possible motive for someone murdering Mamie Sue was the fact that she was the richest woman in Sleepy Hollow. Money was definitely a motive for murder.

  But who? I needed to know more than Granny was willing to tell me about Mamie Sue, and I didn’t have the time to figure any more out, but I could make a quick stop over to the Sleepy Hollow News, where Fluggie Callahan owed me a favor.

  There was some commotion in the viewing room where Junior Mullins was laid out. Charlotte Rae was inside.

  “What are you doing?” I asked and looked at the time on my phone.

  There were a ­couple more hours before the funeral was about to start, which gave me plenty of time to make it out to the old mill and put a worm in Fluggie’s ear about Mamie Sue Preston.

  “After I saw how dusty the curtains were, I noticed how dirty everything else was and started to go through the linens, slipcovers and God knows whatever else is in that closet you are in charge of.” Charlotte’s hazel eyes speckled with anger. Her finger jabbed toward the door.

  “Pretty is as pretty does,” I said, reminding her how her actions were not very becoming of her.

  I really wanted to say it wasn’t easy solving murders and burying ­people, but then she’d call Doc Clyde and have me reevaluated for the Funeral Trauma, and there was no trying to explain to her how I saw dead, murdered clients. Though Mamie Sue wasn’t a client of Eternal Slumber, she was a Betweener client.

  Regardless, it wouldn’t sit well with Charlotte. Nor would she believe me.

  “Hodgepodge, Emma Lee.” She put her hand on her perfectly shaped hip and now shook her slender finger with her pointy pink fingernail at me. “You are in charge of all of this.” She twirled the finger around, going right through Mamie Sue’s ghost.

  Mamie was mocking Charlotte Rae to a tee.

  “I’m so glad I didn’t have a sister. I would have killed her.” Mamie eyeballed Charlotte. “And I’m so glad it’s you who can see me, not her. I don’t think she’d help anyone.”

  “I am in charge of this,” I confirmed and tried not to bust out laughing as Mamie continued to mock Charlotte.

  “I’m telling you. I don’t know where Dixie is cleaning now, but she’d do wonders around here.” Mamie ran a finger along the chair rail around the room. “It could stand a little dusting.”

  “If the slipcovers are a little dirty, they should be cleaned.” Charlotte pointed her finger to the crown molding along the ceiling. “I can’t imagine what that is like up there.”

  “So what crawled up your butt and died?” I asked.

  Charlotte Rae and I were worlds apart, but we had never truly had a knock-­down, drag-­out fight. And I felt one coming. There was no way I was going to let her talk to me like that.

  “I’m tired of losing clients to Burns Funeral.” The fury was in her eyes. “I thought we would get a leg up on them when O’Dell took over as mayor, but I was wrong.”

  “And how is that my fault?” My voice escalated. The anger swelled inside me.

  “Take cover!” Mamie yelled over to Junior’s dead body. “Emma Lee is about to . . .”

  “You are in charge of all the funerals, which includes cleaning! I already spend my days meeting with new pre-­need clients, with the accountant, when you are doing God knows what with Granny, who has also gone a little cuckoo lately.” She sucked in a deep breath so she could continue her rant. She brushed her hair behind her shoulder and continued, “Plus you are giving big raises out to employees without running it by me first. And while you went across the square to visit Granny, you could’ve been in here doing your job of making sure this dust was all cleaned! We are going to have so many ­people in here for Junior’s funeral. They are going to judge us not only on how well the funeral is run, but the cleanliness of this place!” Charlotte shouted so loudly that I squinted.

  “Call Dixie.” Mamie drummed her fingers on Junior’s casket. “And please ask her where my teeth are.”

  “Fine. I’ll take care of it,” I said, giving in.

  Charlotte Rae and Granny might butt heads, but it was because they were a lot alike, even down to the fiery red hair. I could’ve gone back and forth in a duel with Charlotte and probably won, but it wasn’t worth my time.

  I had a funeral to host and a murder to solve.

  “It’s not going to be before Junior’s funeral.” I cocked a brow. “I have some funeral business to take care of first.”

  “Then you need to get John Howard in here to dust and make the big raise you gave him count for something.” She stormed out, clicking her fancy heels a little louder.

  Mamie stuck her cane out right as Charlotte Rae stormed by. Charlotte looked like one of those whirly twirly beanie hats with her arms going around and around. First she teetered on the toe of one foot, and just when she thought she was safe to put the other heel down, Mamie stuck her cane out again. Charlotte Rae tumbled to the ground.

  “And that!” she screamed, grabbing her ankle. “Get the carpet guys here to stretch out this old shitty
carpet! Or get it replaced with hardwood floors like the rest of this shit hole!”

  I choked back laughter and tears.

  “Not funny, Emma Lee,” she said with theatrical bitchiness. “Go find John Howard!” She hobbled down the hall.

  John Howard Lloyd was not going to like coming in here to dust. He was great at digging the holes at the cemetery and doing all the landscape work around the funeral home, making sure it was tidy, but he didn’t do open caskets.

  I waited until I heard Charlotte’s office door shut before I went outside to fetch John Howard. He was bent over the flower bed in the side yard between the funeral home and Pose and Relax.

  “Hettie Bell told me she loved looking out the window during her yoga classes at the flower bed.” He stood up and dusted his dirty hands on the bibs of his overalls. “Says it relaxes her.”

  “Doesn’t he know that’s her Southern way of getting him to really keep it looking nice?” Mamie Sue shook her head. “Men always fall for a Southern woman’s charm.”

  I glanced at her, wondering if what Granny said was true. Had Mamie Sue really been a single virgin all her life? And who had her wealth?

  “Did she?” I smiled and took note of how much time he had spent on the flower bed. “It looks nice. Now,” I clasped my hands in front of me and rocked back and forth on the heels of my shoes, preparing myself for his bemoaning, “I’ve got some funeral business to take care of before Junior’s funeral. I need you to go in the viewing room and dust the crown molding on the ceiling. I think there is one of those long-­handled dusters in the closet. Make sure it’s good and shiny.”

  “Didn’t y’all put Junior in there already?” he asked with a quiver in his voice.

  “Yes, but he’s not going to hurt you,” I assured him. “He is dead.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but you know I don’t like being around no open casket with them looking at me.” John Howard took a step back. “Can’t it wait until after I get the closed casket in the ground after the ser­vice?”

  “You know we have the repast after the ser­vice.” I turned to walk away. “And I just gave you that big raise too, which means you can have a few more duties. I’ll be back to check on your progress.”