by Tonya Kappes
Jack looked carefully at each picture.
“The camera crew’s red-eye was delayed due to Mother Nature’s downpour when the fog rolled in so they came to the memorial to get some footage like the rest of the news crews. Being a reporter, I notice a lot of things.” Fluggie tooted her own horn. “The camera equipment is stamped with a Canadian airlines logo. I recalled Tina saying something about being from Canada. I did a little Google search.” She put her hands out in front of her like she was typing. “With a little snooping, I found that Tina’s husband is the producer and the man Jade had the affair with. What more motive do you need to kill someone?”
“You were right.” Jack put the pictures back in the file. He closed it and handed it back to her. He looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“Much better now that Fluggie saved me.” I patted my friend sitting next to me.
“Now you really owe me.” Fluggie stood up. She grabbed her bag. “I’ve got to go. I’m putting out a special edition of the Sleepy Hollow News in the morning. I’ll be sure to add Jade’s funeral arrangements.”
Jack had to finish up some paperwork, but he promised me he would come stay the night since we barely had any time together.
Eternal Slumber was completely dark when I opened the front door. I flipped on the light switch next to the door.
“Charlotte Rae!” I jumped when the light illuminated my sister sitting in the chair next to the sideboard.
Her pink suit had a little dirt on the front and the curls of her hair were falling flat.
“You scared the crap out of me. What is wrong with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She looked sad. “I told you that your actions would have consequences.”
“Whatever. I don’t even know what that means.” I planted my hands on my hips. “It’s late and I just almost got killed. So if you wanted to come here and bully me, you can just leave. I’m tired and I want some sleep.”
I walked over to the door and opened it wide, giving her the unspoken signal to leave.
Gracefully she got up and walked out the door.
Chapter 29
The sun streamed through the window. I rolled over and looked at Jack Henry. He must’ve slipped in without me hearing him because I never woke up. He was in a deep sleep, his heavy breathing was the clue.
I eased myself out of bed and looked at the clock.
Jade’s funeral was today and I hadn’t heard from anyone I had contacted about a carriage for Dottie’s horse to pull Jade’s casket around the square and to the graveyard.
I tiptoed out of the room so Jack could sleep a little longer and made my way down to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. The basement rattled with movement. I looked out the window and saw Mary Anna’s car parked in the drive. She was busy getting Jade ready for her final debut.
“Hey, Granny.” I held the phone between my shoulder and ear while I poured myself a cup of coffee and added some cream. “Do you want to run up to Hardgrove’s with me? I want to get Charlotte to sign those papers and maybe she’ll do it with you standing there.”
“I reckon I can,” Granny said. The rattling pans clinked behind her. “I got Hettie here fixing some of them crazy healthy snacks for the snack room, so the Inn will be fine in her hands. I’ll be right over.”
Without waking up Jack, I pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt and brushed my hair so it wasn’t sticking up all over. When I heard the whiz of the moped shut off and the sound of a heavy chain, I knew Granny had parked her moped by the big Oak tree in front and locked it up tight.
Unfortunately, our trip was a bust. Charlotte was too busy showing off her fancy new job to even listen to anything I had to say. But the best part was how one of her customers made no qualms about how unhappy they were with how Charlotte had handled her event.
I was too spittin’ mad to even talk about Charlotte Rae. And I just couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t sign the papers turning the funeral home over to me like she was supposed to do.
In no time and a little bit of a lead foot, I had the hearse parked in the back of Eternal Slumber. It was still strange not seeing Charlotte’s car parked in the space right up against the back door, because Lord forbid she walk any further than she needed to. Charlotte always claimed that since she was the one who “sold” our packages that she needed to be presentable, which meant the less she did to mess herself up the better.
While Charlotte was here, I was in charge of making sure the arrangements for the family were carried out as they had planned, the burial service was ready, and all the details were taken care of, like the repass, flowers, memory cards, and any other details.
“I better get out of here.” Granny opened the door and grabbed her black leather touring helmet off the seat next to her and strapped it under her chin. “I left Hettie in charge and God only knows what concoction she made at the juice bar. Plus I still have to make my pies for dinner tonight.”
With Granny on her way, I finished up the touches of Jade’s funeral by getting the chairs set up and making sure Vernon, Mary Anna, and Jack were ready with their parts of the service.
In fact, I had just enough time to make one last-ditch effort to get Charlotte to sign the papers, so I zoomed back out of town to no avail. Charlotte and Gina Marie Hardgrove were in a heated discussion on something Charlotte had messed up and she just shoo’ed me off. But happy to see that there was a carriage hooked up to Dottie’s horse in the front yard of Eternal Slumber. Someone must’ve gotten my message.
Within a couple of hours, Charlotte had come to Eternal Slumber to pay her respects to Jade’s father but didn’t want anyone else to see her so she hid in the office and waited for me because she wanted to talk to me. No doubt about the contract.
While I stood next to Granny greeting mourners a cackle from the vestibule caught my attention as Granny walked over to me to stand in the back.
“What is Charlotte doing?” I groaned and gave my sister the stink eye when I realized it was her laughing. She took a seat next to the sideboard table. “She told me she didn’t want anyone to know she was here. And now she’s making fun of the sound system.”
“Hi-do,” Granny nodded at a couple of late folks as they walked by and took a seat in the back of the viewing room. “Where is she?”
“By the sideboard,” I bent over and whispered. Charlotte smiled her pretty smile, crossed her long, lean legs and twiddled her fingers in the air at me, giving me a little wink. A wink in Sleepy Hollow said more than a thousand words. “Uh.” I glared at her. “Of course she didn’t mean it. She wants everyone to see her,” I whispered.
“Where?” Granny asked again. Her eyes darted around the vestibule.
“In the chair.” I pointed to Charlotte in the chair. “Oh.” My mind reeled. “If she thinks she’s going to sit there by that sideboard after I told her that she couldn’t have it, she’s got another thing coming to her.” I wagged my finger at Charlotte.
Granny smacked my hand.
“Emma Lee Raines, that chair is empty.” Granny put her hand up on my forehead. “Are you getting sick? Have you taken your meds?”
“So you really can see dead people?” Charlotte Rae was suddenly next to me. “And you really don’t have the ‘Funeral Trauma’?”
Suddenly things had become very clear.
Charlotte Rae Raines wasn’t there to visit her family home, make amends with me, sign the papers or help me with Jade Lee Peel’s funeral. She was there as a Betweener client.
Announcement
Enter the world of Tonya Kappes!
Be sure to read the first four novels in her
Ghostly Southern Mystery Series!
A GHOSTLY UNDERTAKING
A GHOSTLY GRAVE
A GHOSTLY DEMISE
and
A GHOSTLY MURDER
Available now from Witness!
An Excerpt from A Ghostly Undertaking
A GHOSTLY UNDERTAKING
A funeral, a ghost, a m
urder . . . It’s all in a day’s work for Emma Lee Raines. . . .
Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she’s suffering from “funeral trauma.” It’s trauma all right, because the not-so-dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne—innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee’s granny—she’s adamant that she didn’t just fall down those stairs. She was pushed.
Ruthie has no idea who wanted her pushing up daisies. All she knows is that she can’t cross over until the matter is laid to eternal rest. In the land of the living, Emma Lee’s high-school crush, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, isn’t ready to rule out foul play. Granny Raines, the widow of Ruthie’s ex-husband and co-owner of the Sleepy Hollow Inn, is the prime suspect. Now Emma Lee is stuck playing detective or risk being haunted forever.
Chapter 1
Another day. Another funeral. Another ghost.
Great. As if people didn’t think I was freaky enough. But, truthfully, this was becoming a common occurrence for me as the director of Eternal Slumber Funeral Home.
Well, the funeral thing was common.
The ghost thing . . . that was new, making Sleepy Hollow anything but sleepy.
“What is she doing here?” A ghostly Ruthie Sue Payne stood next to me in the back of her own funeral, looking at the long line of Sleepy Hollow’s residents that had come to pay tribute to her life. “I couldn’t stand her while I was living, much less dead.”
Ruthie, the local innkeeper, busybody and my granny’s arch-nemesis, had died two days ago after a fall down the stairs of her inn.
I hummed along to the tune of “Blessed Assurance,” which was piping through the sound system, to try and drown out Ruthie’s voice as I picked at baby’s breath in the pure white blossom funeral spray sitting on the marble-top pedestal table next to the casket. The more she talked, the louder I hummed and rearranged the flowers, gaining stares and whispers of the mourners in the viewing room.
I was getting used to those stares.
“No matter how much you ignore me, I know you can hear and see me.” Ruthie rested her head on my shoulder, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. “If I’d known you were a light seeker, I probably would’ve been a little nicer to you while I was living.”
I doubted that. Ruthie Sue Payne hadn’t been the nicest lady in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky. True to her name, she was a pain. Ruthie had been the president and CEO of the gossip mill. It didn’t matter if the gossip was true or not, she told it.
Plus, she didn’t care much for my family. Especially not after my granny married Ruthie’s ex-husband, Earl. And especially not after Earl died and left Granny his half of the inn he and Ruthie had owned together . . . the inn where Granny and Ruthie both lived. The inn where Ruthie had died.
I glared at her. Well, technically I glared at Pastor Brown, because he was standing next to me and he obviously couldn’t see Ruthie standing between us. Honestly, I wasn’t sure there was a ghost between us, either. It had been suggested that the visions I had of dead people were hallucinations . . .
I kept telling myself that I was hallucinating, because it seemed a lot better than the alternative—I could see ghosts, talk to ghosts, be touched by ghosts.
“Are you okay, Emma Lee?” Pastor Brown laid a hand on my forearm. The sleeve on his brown pin-striped suit coat was a little too small, hitting above his wrist bone, exposing a tarnished metal watch. His razor-sharp blue eyes made his coal-black greasy comb-over stand out.
“Yes.” I lied. “I’m fine.” Fine as a girl who was having a ghostly hallucination could be.
“Are you sure?” Pastor Brown wasn’t the only one concerned. The entire town of Sleepy Hollow had been worried about my well-being since my run-in with Santa Claus.
No, the spirit of Santa Claus hadn’t visited me. Yet. Three months ago, a plastic Santa had done me in.
It was the darndest thing, a silly accident.
I abandoned the flower arrangement and smoothed a wrinkle in the thick velvet drapes, remembering that fateful day. The sun had been out, melting away the last of the Christmas snow. I’d decided to walk over to Artie’s Meats and Deli, over on Main Street, a block away from the funeral home, to grab a bite for lunch since they had the best homemade chili this side of the Mississippi. I’d just opened the door when the snow and ice around the plastic Santa Claus Artie had put on the roof of the deli gave way, sending the five-foot jolly man crashing down on my head, knocking me out.
Flat out.
I knew I was on my way to meet my maker when Chicken Teater showed up at my hospital bedside. I had put Chicken Teater in the ground two years ago. But there he was, telling me all sorts of crazy things that I didn’t understand. He blabbed on and on about guns, murders and all sorts of dealings I wanted to know nothing about.
It wasn’t until my older sister and business partner, Charlotte Rae Raines, walked right through Chicken Teater’s body, demanding that the doctor do something for my hallucinations, that I realized I wasn’t dead after all.
I had been hallucinating. That’s all. Hallucinating.
Doc Clyde said I had a case of the “Funeral Trauma” from working with the dead too long.
Too long? At twenty-eight, I had been an undertaker for only three years. I had been around the funeral home my whole life. It was the family business, currently owned by my granny, but run by my sister and me.
Some family business.
Ruthie tugged my sleeve, bringing me out of my memories. “And her!” she said, pointing across the room. Every single one of Ruthie’s fingers was filled up to its knuckles with rings. She had been very specific in her funeral “pre-need” arrangements, and had diagramed where she wanted every single piece of jewelry placed on her during her viewing. The jewelry jangled as she wagged a finger at Sleepy Hollow’s mayor, Anna Grace May. “I’ve been trying to get an appointment to see her for two weeks and she couldn’t make time for me. Hmmph.”
Doc Clyde had never been able to explain the touching thing. If Ruthie was a hallucination, how could she touch me? I rubbed my arm, trying to erase the feeling, and watched as everyone in the room turned their heads toward Mayor May.
Ruthie crossed her arms, lowered her brow and snarled. “Must be an election year, her showing up here like this.”
“She’s pretty busy,” I whispered.
Mayor May sashayed her way up to see old Ruthie laid out, shaking hands along the way as if she were the president of the United States about to deliver the State of the Union speech. Her long, straight auburn hair was neatly tucked behind each ear, and her tight pencil skirt showed off her curvy body in just the right places. Her perfect white teeth glistened in the dull funeral-home setting.
If she wasn’t close enough to shake your hand, the mayor did her standard wink and wave. I swear that was how she got elected. Mayor May was the first Sleepy Hollow official to ever get elected to office without being born and bred here. She was a quick talker and good with the old people, who made up the majority of the population. She didn’t know the history of all the familial generations—how my grandfather had built Eternal Slumber with his own hands or how Sleepy Hollow had been a big coal town back in the day—which made her a bit of an outsider. Still, she was a good mayor and everyone seemed to like her.
All the men in the room eyed Mayor May’s wiggle as she made her way down the center aisle of the viewing room. A few smacks could be heard from the women punching their husbands in the arm to stop them from gawking.
Ruthie said, “I know, especially now with that new development happening in town. It’s why I wanted to talk to her.”
New development? This was the first time I had heard anything about a new development. There hadn’t been anything new in Sleepy Hollow in . . . a long time.
We could certainly use a little developing, but it would come at the risk of disturbing Sleepy Hollow’s main income. The town was a
top destination in Kentucky because of our many caves and caverns. Any digging could wreak havoc with what was going on underground.
Before I could ask Ruthie for more information, she said, “It’s about time they got here.”
In the vestibule, all the blue-haired ladies from the Auxiliary Club (Ruthie’s only friends) stood side by side with their pocketbooks hooked in the crooks of their elbows. They were taking their sweet time signing the guest book.
The guest book was to be given to the next of kin, whom I still hadn’t had any luck finding. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have any family members listed in my files for Ruthie.
Ruthie walked over to her friends, eyeing them as they talked about her. She looked like she was chomping at the bit to join in the gossip, but put her hand up to her mouth. The corners of her eyes turned down, and a tear balanced on the edge of her eyelid as if she realized her fate had truly been sealed.
A flash of movement caught my eye, and I nearly groaned as I spotted my sister Charlotte Rae snaking through the crowd, her fiery gaze leveled on me. I tried to sidestep around Pastor Brown but was quickly jerked to a stop when she called after me.
“Did I just see you over here talking to yourself, Emma Lee?” She gave me a death stare that might just put me next to old Ruthie in her casket.
“Me? No.” I laughed. When it came to Charlotte Rae, denial was my best defense.
My sister stood much taller than me. Her sparkly green eyes, long red hair, and girl-next-door look made families feel comfortable discussing their loved one’s final resting needs with her. That was why she ran the sales side of our business, while I covered almost everything else.
Details. That was my specialty. I couldn’t help but notice Charlotte Rae’s pink nails were a perfect match to her pink blouse. She was perfectly beautiful.