by Tonya Kappes
I glared at the ghost of my archnemesis.
“We have to get her crossed over.” My words were sharp. “If not, she’s going to be like a bugger I can’t thump off.”
I had a feeling if I didn’t get her crossed over as soon as possible, I might be Jaded.
Chapter 13
“Psst, Emma Lee.” Fluggie waved me over. Her hand flailed between the cell bars. “You’ve got to get me out of here. Show that boyfriend of yours some skin or give him a little somethin’, somethin’ if you know what I mean. You really owe me now.”
“How do I owe you? I got you that interview. It’s not my fault you left your scarf there.” I looked over my shoulder to see what all the rigmarole was about.
Jack Henry and the deputy were hunkered over his desk in deep discussion. The deputy looked at me, and then back to Jack Henry.
“How did you know that?” Fluggie snapped back. “I didn’t tell anyone about the scarf and my lawyer has yet to show up.”
Oh crap. Oh crap. This was part of the Betweener job I wasn’t good at. I had a hard time distinguishing the line between the living and the dead and what they told me.
“Are you sure you didn’t tell Jack Henry?” I questioned, and pointed over my shoulder. Jack, the deputy and Fluggie’s lawyer were huddled over a desk. “I mean you are stressed out and all. Maybe you just don’t remember.”
“No.” Fluggie wasn’t buying it. “I’m a reporter and I know what I did and didn’t say. Do you think this is stressful? Heck no. I’ve been in so many jails over protesting that this is almost a second home.” She grabbed my shirt through the bars and curled her fist deep in the cotton pulling me closer. “I’ve got to get out of here so I can kick whoever’s ass needs to be kicked for making it look like I killed that girl.”
“Take it easy.” I smacked her hand away from my sweatshirt and ran my hand over the wrinkled-up cloth to straighten it back out.
“Tell me how you knew about the scarf.” The tone in her voice told me she wasn’t kidding. After the deputy had questioned some of the Inn guests who put Fluggie at the scene of the crime at the approximated time of death determined by Vernon Baxter, he read her Miranda rights to her, and then she lawyered up.
“Duh.” Jade appeared on the little cot in the cell. She bounced up and down. “These things are uncomfortable. Oh.” Jade lifted her hand and did her best to snap those fingers, but failed. “Tell her that I called you and told you about the scarf.”
“Or maybe Jade told me that you left your scarf and she was going to give it to me to give you.” If Jade Lee thought I was going to be any nicer to her for helping me out, she was wrong.
“Emma Lee, being too honest was always your problem in high school.” She continued to bounce up and down. “That’s why we never invited you to go to the caves for parties or anything. We knew you’d tell and that nosy granny of yours would’ve told our parents.”
Fluggie looked over her shoulder as though she was trying to see what I was looking at.
“It’s called being a good girl.” The voice escaped my mouth before I could shut it. “I mean . . .” I gulped and looked at Fluggie. “She called to thank me for setting up the interview and then she mentioned the scarf.”
“Oh.” Fluggie’s eyes darted between my eyes. She was trying to read me and I tried to have the best poker face, but Jade was right. I wasn’t good at lying or keeping things swept under the rug.
“Excuse me.” The deputy came over and unlocked the cell. “Your lawyer made bail for you. Don’t leave town.” He opened the bars. “Sheriff Ross is outside addressing the media. You can go out the back door and avoid them. There is a deputy out there to take you back to your car.”
Fluggie didn’t wait a minute longer. She darted out of the cell and pointed her finger at me.
“You. Me. Old mill, nine a.m.” She stomped out of the station. “Don’t be late.”
Chapter 14
I tossed and turned all night long. Mainly waiting to see if Jack Henry was going to stop by or if Jade Lee was going to show up. Neither happened.
Jack was occupied with chasing leads that probably led to nowhere. This was how he did things. Several leads would come in from people who thought they saw something and he would run off to investigate. It was good for me because I would only take what my Betweener clients told me and go on the down-low to investigate myself.
There was no way I wanted Jack to know I took matters into my own hands, and if anyone in the community saw me talking to Jade, it would look like I was crazy.
The door lock on the private entrance to my apartment rattled. Excitement filled me with hope it was Jack Henry coming to rest after a long night of investigating.
“Emma Lee?” Granny’s voice came from the door.
I pulled the covers over my head. I had yet to change the locks and when Granny felt the need to come on in, she did. Fortunately for all of us, she’d yet to feel the need when Jack Henry stayed over.
“Are you still in the bed?” Granny turned the corner into my bedroom. She flipped on the light. “Get up. It’s six o’clock and it’s not good for your mental health to sleep all day.”
I peeked out of the top of my covers and threw them back. Surely to God my eyes were deceiving me. I picked the crusty sleepies from the corners of my eyes, sure they were clouding my vision. I blinked a few times, but the sight still didn’t go away. Granny had on a gold sequin floor-length gown that matched her red hair and skin tone perfectly.
“I don’t have to be at the square until seven.” I reminded her about the time the participants were going to gather before the parade. “You sure are all gussied up to be only serving tea all day.”
I got out of bed and walked over to her. She hadn’t been this dressed up since her wedding day to Earl Way Payne.
Granny always made her famous sweet tea for events held in Sleepy Hollow and she always had a big line.
“Oh no.” Granny shook her bony finger. She batted her eyes. The long black fake eyelashes were curled to high heaven.
“Do you have on fake lashes?” I walked over and held my finger out to get a feel. “Did Marla Maria get her claws into you?”
“Stop that.” Granny smacked my hand away. “I’ve been working on these babies for an hour.” She proudly batted them again. “O’Dell Burns made sure there was no parade.”
“What?” Shock waved over me. The last thing I had thought about was the parade being canceled.
“He said it wouldn’t look good if we had it. Something about cameras and national attention.” She shrugged. “I guess all them camera vans out there should tell you something. Come to think about it, I think I saw that person from the Today Show out there.”
“Where?” I slipped off my pj’s and threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt and pulled my hair back in a ponytail.
“All over.” Granny fussed with a stray hair hanging down in her face.
“So you are gussied up for the cameras?” My eyes narrowed. I knew there was something behind her madness.
“Listen, if Jade Lee Peel could get a reality show, surely to God we can get one.” She rambled. “I mean I run the Inn, you run the funeral home, plus the town thinks you’re crazy and now that your ‘Funeral Trauma’ is acting up . . .”
“You wait right there,” I interrupted her.
“Emma Lee, Doc Clyde told me he saw you just having the best conversation in your hearse with no one.” Granny’s perfectly drawn-on brows lifted. “Between me and you and all the gossip around here, we’re sure to entertain some people. And if the film crew is already here, I figured I’d pitch them my idea.”
“Oh, Granny.” I took one quick look in the mirror before I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Granny continued to spout on about her crazy idea of a reality show. I wasn’t sold on it. Look where it got Jade. Dead. “You’ve been Jaded.”
Reality show? I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and pondered on the reality show aspect of Jade’s li
fe. It was definitely something to explore. Did she have a viewer who was obsessed with her like the rest of Sleepy Hollow seemed to be? Did she make someone on the crew mad?
These were the questions I asked myself with my Betweener clients while Jack Henry followed up on what he called solid leads. Well, one thing was for sure, someone killed Jade Lee Peel and tried to frame Fluggie Callahan for it.
Chapter 15
After I rushed Granny out of my apartment, I grabbed my cell off the charger and decided to go ahead and get my day started. That meant walking down to Higher Grounds Café to get my jolt of caffeine.
Granny had caught me so off guard, I had completely forgotten to ask her about the sideboard and the silly notion she wanted to be cremated. Probably another one of Charlotte Rae’s harebrained ideas.
Network camera vans from all over were parked bumper to bumper, clear around the curb of the town square. Each of them had large steel antennas bolted on top. Most of the reporters were standing in the grass of the square with a view of the Sleepy Hollow Inn behind them and their cameraperson focused on them.
I slipped down the sidewalk and across Main Street.
Higher Grounds was as busy as ever. The four top café tables that dotted the inside were taken up by most of the regulars, including Beulah Paige Bellefry and Mable Claire.
“Good morning, ladies.” I nodded and noticed there were three cups of coffee and only two people. “Can I sit down?”
I had plenty of questions to ask Beulah, but now wasn’t the time.
“No.” Beulah was not a fan of me. “That seat is taken. Don’t you see the coffee cup there?” She jerked the empty chair up closer to the table, clearly not welcoming me to sit there.
“Oh my stars.” I put my hand up to my chest. “I figured you were double fisting to get the grumpy away, but I guess not.”
“I swear, Emma Lee, you are crazier than Doc Clyde says you are.” Beulah twisted her head to look away from me and lifted her chin.
“Mable Claire.” I smiled and walked on past up to the counter where Cheryl Lynne was filling the pastry case with fresh muffins and scones.
“Nothing like a murder to get business going.” Cheryl joked about the full café. “What’ll ya have?”
“Large coffee.” My eyes wandered over the contents of the glass case. I pointed to the apple scone. “Two of those.”
While Cheryl scurried behind the counter to fill my order, I took my phone out of my pocket and thumbed through my contacts until I got to Fluggie’s name. I quickly texted her to see if she was already at the old mill so I could stop by.
There was no reason to hang around town, in the mess of the camera trucks, if I could start working for my Betweener client. Which made me wonder where exactly Jade had run off to?
Fluggie responded back with: Hell yes. Get over here.
“Can you make it two large black coffees?” I asked when Cheryl slid the glass case door open to get out the scones.
“Not two creamers?” she asked. “Because I know Jack likes two creams.”
“Just black,” I confirmed and looked away when her eyes assessed me.
“Any news on Jade?” Cheryl asked.
“No, nothing.” I shook my head. “Jack must be really investigating because I haven’t seen him since last night when I went to check on Fluggie.”
“How is she?” Cheryl wiped down the counter.
“She claims she’s innocent and she accidently left her scarf at Jade’s after she interviewed her.” I shrugged.
“That’s too bad.” Cheryl looked at the door when the bell dinged announcing more customers coming in. “Business is booming. The entire world is watching.”
Great, I inwardly groaned hoping the entire world didn’t notice my little conversations with my Betweener client. Cameras were everywhere. I had to be extra careful.
After I paid and had my goodies in my hand, I turned back around and found out who occupied the third seat at the coveted table. Tina Tittle.
“Tina.” I nodded. “I guess you’ll be going home now that the parade and apparently the reunion is canceled?”
“You’d guess wrong.” Tina picked up the cup and took a sip. “I wanted to stop by Artie’s and see what I could do for him. I just feel awful for him.”
“It is awful.” I sucked in a deep breath and glanced around, surprised Jade hadn’t showed up yet.
“You are such a good girl.” Beulah patted Tina’s hand and slid her eyes up to me. “You could take a lesson or two, Emma Lee.”
“Nah.” I curled my nose. “Enjoy your visit.”
I hurried back down to the funeral home and grabbed my keys. I could hear Vernon Baxter in the basement. I was sure he was busy on the autopsy and collecting all the data he needed to get Jack some answers about Jade’s body.
I resisted going down. I would let him get a little more done and maybe stop by later in the afternoon when he might have some more answers. Not that he’d tell me.
When I put the hearse in reverse, I noticed a few of the reporters running across the street to the funeral home with their cameramen on their heels.
“We understand Jade Peel is in there undergoing an autopsy.” One reporter shouted through the window. Her microphone struck against the glass. “Can you tell us what they might be looking for?”
I held my hand up against the window to shield any sort of video they were taking of me and threw the hearse in gear, zooming out of town as fast as I could.
Of course I had to slow down at all the country road’s curves, but I kept my eye out for anyone following me. I’d seen those cop shows where news crews followed people to get an angle on a story.
The old mill had recently been rebuilt and Fluggie rented it for the Sleepy Hollow News offices from Leotta Hardy, Mary Anna’s mamma. Unfortunately, Fluggie was the only employee at the time, but she was well on her way to becoming bigger.
“Knock, knock,” I called, and pushed the door open with the toe of my shoe, balancing the coffees and bag of scones in my hand. “I come with gifts.”
“Must be a peace offering because you sure didn’t take up for me last night.” The anger in her voice came through loud and clear. She sat behind the desk with papers scattered all over. She looked like she’d been up all night, which she probably was.
Her hair was pulled up in a scrunchie. Any piece of hair that wasn’t long enough to pull back was tucked tight to her head with a bobby pin.
“I didn’t know if you did or didn’t kill her.” I set the coffee and scones down. “After all, she was found dead with your scarf around her neck.”
“You know that I didn’t kill her.” Her voice was just above a whisper. Her eyes drew across my face. “What earthly reason would I have?”
I avoided looking at her and picked up one of the cups and casually said, “So tell me about the interview.” I wanted to get as much out of Fluggie as I could because maybe she had some sort of pertinent information she would consider unimportant.
“I got there and her assistant met me at the door. She let me in and Jade was lounged on the bed in some sort of old Hollywood movie star way. She had this turban on her head and a long silky robe that was neatly tied at her waist. She had on matching house slippers.” Fluggie recalled the scene. There was really no need for her to tell me how Jade looked because ghost Jade was the same. “I asked her about growing up in a small town and how she got started in pageants and into acting.”
Nothing seemed out of normal. Yet.
“Was the assistant there the whole time?” I asked, and mentally put Keisha on my list of people to see now that my day was suddenly wide-open.
“No.” Fluggie walked around the office, busying herself with paperwork, and she continued, “It was just me and her. She did get a knock at the door and abruptly stopped the interview.”
Fluggie walked over to the filing cabinet and slid open one of the metal drawers.
“Was it the assistant?” I asked, hoping I might have
gotten my first clue.
“It wasn’t her voice, but it was a woman’s voice. Something about her hair.” Fluggie glanced over her shoulder and looked at me. “She rushed me so fast I was only able to grab my cell phone off the little desk I was sitting at, leaving my tape recorder and scarf.”
I leaned in a little closer to her. With her back to me, her voice was muffled.
“I got to my car and remembered my scarf.” She pushed the metal drawer shut with a slam. “When I went back to retrieve it, she wasn’t in her room and my scarf was gone along with my recorder.” She eased her back up against the filing cabinet and crossed her arms. She looked at me with a glint of suspicion in her eyes. “And I know she didn’t call you because I picked up her phone.”
She reached deep into the front of her shirt and pulled a cell phone from her bra.
“This is her phone, which I had, and I know she didn’t call you.” She pinched the phone in between her finger and thumb and waved it in a slow manner.
Damn. Damn. Damn. Why on earth did I believe Jade Lee? I knew better. Even as a ghost she was full of crap just like she was while living.
“So that is why I called you here.” She pushed herself off the file cabinet and slowly walked toward me. “I want to know what is going on.”
Each step she took made my chest tense a little more. I wasn’t good at lying and I was in a bit of a pickle.
“Okay. Fine.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I know there is no way you killed her. That is not you, and you had no reason to kill her.” I wrung my hands together. “When I pulled Jack into the closet, I told him that it’s all circumstantial evidence that would never lead to an arrest. He knew it.”
Her lips pursed. She wasn’t buying it but I was going to keep selling it.
“I knew you couldn’t kill anyone and I had to get out of there so we could put our heads together to figure out who set you up.” I waited to see what she had to say.