Southern Bred and Dead (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries Book 9)

by Angie Fox

  I scooted away from him, toward the window, and popped to my feet as gracefully as possible. “See, no harm done,” I insisted cheerfully as he advanced on me.

  Backing me toward the window.

  “Ha. You know, really, you don’t have to get so close,” I said, trying for nonchalant, my voice pitching way too high. The windowsill hit me mid-hip. “Touching me will give you an awful shock.”

  But he knew it already if he’d been the one to push Jorie from the tower. Sakes alive, I realized I stood in the very spot where she must have been when she toppled over the edge to her death.

  The gravedigger loomed almost on top of me. He opened his mouth to reveal rotten teeth as he reached for me.

  “Verity Long, you get down from there this instant,” a voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs, one I’d recognize anywhere. It was Officer Duranja of the Sugarland Police Department.

  The ghost turned at the sound.

  “Coming,” I hollered. “Bye,” I called back to the ghost, dashing for the opening, not daring to look back and see if he followed.

  “Help me, help me, help me,” I chanted as I fled down the steep stairs in my fancy dress heels, acutely aware I absolutely could not, must not touch the handrail or the walls. And I didn’t want to drop Grandma’s letter. I shoved it into my brassiere as I ran down, down, down. I felt the icy chill of the ghost at my back and chanced a glance back at him. He stumbled after me like a living person, lurching down the staircase. I ran for all I was worth.

  I saw a pair of shiny shoes first, then his spit-and-polish uniform over a thin runner’s frame, and lastly, an entirely unamused countenance as I ran straight into Officer Duranja at the bottom.

  “Oof!” he uttered as I took him down to the floor.

  “Watch out,” I warned, scrambling off him. I took to my feet and spun to face the ghost of the old gravedigger.

  But I only saw an empty stairwell.

  Nevertheless, I braced for the impact, the chilly wind, the attack.

  None came.

  To my eternal relief, it seemed the ghost had given up on me.

  Of course, that didn’t mean I was out of hot water.

  “Verity, a word,” Duranja said, braced up on his elbows, the rest of him sprawled on the floor where I’d flung him.

  Every lady in the church gawked.

  Except Bree. She gave me a thumbs-up.

  “It’s fine,” I assured them all, including myself.

  “It is most certainly not fine,” Duranja barked.

  Ouch. I smoothed my dress and managed a small smile of contrition. Duranja tried to be fair, but he was an ex-Marine who liked things cut and dry. I didn’t quite fit his mold. Despite my charms, he considered me an irksome distraction to his idol, Ellis.

  After today, I might be able to see the distraction part.

  “Come with me to the vestibule,” he ordered.

  I spared a glance at Bree, who grimaced for me.

  “Of course,” I said to Duranja, ignoring the rubbernecking stares from the pews. But I did keep an eye on that stairwell the entire way.

  I could handle Duranja. I could. As soon as the vestibule door closed, he turned on me like a snake in the rapture.

  “Why did I look up and see you in the bell tower after I left you in a church pew?”

  “I wanted to see if I could get any insights on Jorie,” I said quickly.

  “Talking to a ghost?” he barked, like it wasn’t a good reason at all.

  “I’m the only one who can,” I pointed out sweetly. A fact he’d do well to remember.

  “Don’t you think Ellis has enough going on?” he demanded.

  “You need to halt with the hero worship,” I said. Although, I couldn’t help but ask, “Did Ellis see me just now?”

  Duranja squinted so hard his eyes were like pebbles. “Ellis is the one who sent me after you.”

  Lovely.

  “Believe me, you don’t want to be talking to him right now,” Duranja said. “I’m the least of your problems, sweetheart.”

  I had a feeling he was right.

  “Look,” I said, trying to salvage what was left of the conversation, “so you know, I didn’t touch the walls or the ledge or the railing.” I’d never intended to out-police the police. “I went up to see if the ghost in the tower had seen Jorie fall.”

  You know, normal, everyday stuff.

  “And?” he asked, escorting me back to my pew.

  “And I got chased out.”

  “Smart ghost,” he snorted.

  He didn’t have to be snotty about it.

  “Never mind all the times the police have asked for my help,” I said, settling onto the hard wooden seat. Not Duranja, specifically. He was too strait-laced for the likes of me. He tended to think my ghost hunting made Ellis look bad. But Ellis had sought my professional advice on more than one occasion. I shot an icy look at the scowling officer. “Never mind I can talk to witnesses you can’t see.”

  He leaned in so close I could smell his spearmint gum. “Do Jorie a favor and let us handle the investigation.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Now stay put,” he ordered. “For real this time. And stay out of trouble.”

  “I fix problems, I don’t cause them,” I declared to his retreating form.

  I’d have been better off talking to a fence post.

  I settled in for the wait and felt a dry crackling against the tender skin of my chest. That was when I remembered the letter in my bra.

  Well, dang.

  Chapter Six

  I straightened my dress, listening to the paper crumple against my bosom.

  With a sinking heart, I realized I’d gotten my fingerprints all over Jorie’s letter. Worse, I’d lost my chance to come clean right away.

  Not that Duranja would have been civil about it.

  I clasped my hands together in my lap. So much for my efforts to mount a seamless investigation. I’d been scared by the gravedigger and off my game. I’d only wanted to help Jorie, but instead I’d thrown a wrench in the investigation.

  “What did Alec Duranja say to you to have you looking so glum?” Fiera whispered from the pew in front of me. “You know he’s all bark and no bite. I watched him cry when he held his baby niece up to be baptized.”

  “It’s not Duranja,” I told her. Well, it was partly. “I made a mistake,” I said. I was ashamed and overwhelmed and I didn’t know what to do.

  I heard the kneeler clunk down on the pew behind me and smelled Bree’s peach blossom perfume as she crowded up behind me.

  “What’d you find up there?” she asked, scarcely containing her excitement.

  “Nothing,” I insisted, slapping a hand over my chest.

  “It’s in her bra,” Fiera said. “I see it peeking out.”

  This was bad. She had to realize it. “I shouldn’t have taken it,” I said under my breath.

  “Show us,” Bree urged.

  “No,” I said, voice hushed, wishing I could sink into the floor.

  “Ladies,” Duranja cautioned from the back. He could see us talking. I pressed my back against the pew and stared straight ahead.

  “Did the ghost give it to you?” Bree pressed.

  “No,” I whispered back. “It’s evidence.”

  Fiera’s eyes widened. “You took evidence? Why did you take evidence?”

  “I don’t know,” I hissed, drawing the envelope out of my bra.

  Fiera slapped her hand down so hard on the pew that the pop echoed through the church. Ladies turned to stare, and Fiera’s eyes grew big.

  “That was a big mosquito,” she said to nobody in particular, turning back to face the front. To me, she hissed, “You’ve got to turn that in right away.”

  “I know that,” I whispered back.

  Five pews up, Kelli’s head swiveled around. When she realized she was missing the latest, she began to scoot out of her pew.

  Oh no.

  “Kelli Lee Kaiser,” Dur
anja’s voice boomed up the aisle from the back, “I know you don’t mean to wander the church when I distinctly told you to stay put.”

  She slunk back down. “I thought I saw a mouse.”

  “You are here for questioning,” Ellis said, not even looking at me as he, Duranja, and two other Sugarland police officers strolled up from the back. “We’re going to be talking to you one-on-one privately. We’ve set up rooms in the vestibule behind the altar.”

  “Please cooperate as best you can,” Pastor Mike said, trailing the officers. “I know this is a terrible time for all of us.”

  It would be worse when Ellis found out I had the letter the killer discarded in the bell tower.

  I had no doubt in my mind Jorie had been murdered.

  While the officers called up the first four potential witnesses from the pews near the altar, I dropped down on my kneeler and drew up close to Fiera. “I know Jorie showed you the letter this morning, along with the rose and the photograph.”

  She turned toward me, bringing up a hand to fiddle with her bun and help block the view from the front. “Did you read it yet?”

  “No. And now I can’t.” I wasn’t going to tamper with it any more than I had. “I was hoping you’d read it.” I’d like to know a little more about it before I turned it over.

  She blew a frustrated breath out her nose. “I didn’t look. I was more interested in the wedding picture.”

  “That’s still missing.”

  Hopefully, the police had found it.

  “Do you know who else saw what Jorie had for me?” Fiera said earlier that there had been a group of women looking at the photograph. Perhaps someone else had read the letter.

  Or perhaps one of them had been the killer.

  “It was only me and MayBelle Clemens, but neither of us looked too close,” Fiera said. “I can’t recall her showing anyone else.” She shook her head slightly. “It got busy quick, and we needed Jorie and MayBelle to start putting out the cookies, and then we ran into trouble finding enough cups for the lemonade.”

  “Where is MayBelle now?” I asked, scanning the church. “I don’t remember seeing her today.” MayBelle had known both Jorie and my grandmother well, although she had been closer to Jorie on account of them volunteering for the local Meals on Wheels program together.

  Fiera’s silver charm bracelet jangled as she rested an arm on the pew and leaned back. “MayBelle drove home right as I started my first tour. Her arthritis was acting up, and she didn’t want to push it.”

  So MayBelle probably hadn’t been up in the tower pushing Jorie off the ledge.

  Never mind she’d been quite spry when I’d seen her at the Cannonball in the Wall event this past spring.

  Either way, she wasn’t in the church with the rest of us.

  “Where does MayBelle live these days?” I asked Fiera. Perhaps I’d pay her a visit on the way home.

  “Oh, she’s at the old Sugarland Grand Hotel, same as Jorie. She moved in across the hall from MayBelle.”

  We both caught our breath at the mention of Jorie.

  “No talking,” Ellis called from the front, and I sincerely hoped he was scolding someone besides me. His expression lacked his usual warmth.

  Then again, he was on the job.

  I sat back in my pew as Ellis and another officer released two ladies and brought two more up into the vestibule.

  Kelli waved again from five rows up. This time, I wasn’t in the mood.

  We were here because a woman had died, for no reason I could fathom. Still, I felt responsible for her. She was my grandmother’s friend. And as far as I knew, I’d been the last person to see her alive. Worse, if I’d just botched part of the investigation in the tower, I felt even more obligated to do…something.

  Fiera held out a piece of paper over her shoulder. I took it and saw MayBelle’s name and address.

  “Thanks.” I’d be very interested to hear if MayBelle could shed any light on the events leading up to Jorie’s fall.

  I’d also come clean with the police and hand over the envelope.

  That would go over like a lead balloon, but I couldn’t avoid it. I had to do the right thing and help the police in their investigation regardless of how it affected me personally.

  I only hoped that in the end, Ellis and his colleagues would understand we were all on the same side. We all wanted the same thing: justice.

  Only I was used to being on the same team as Ellis, and after the way we’d butted heads this afternoon, I wasn’t sure how we’d manage this time around.

  In fact, I felt very much alone.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sounds of the church, the harsh whispers of the people in the pews, the faint scent of incense and candle wax. The sturdiness of the pew that supported me and the building that had stood for more than a century.

  We were all simply passing through this world, this place.

  I wished I could read my grandmother’s letter or see the smiling photograph of Grandma and Jorie as I sat alone, waiting.

  More police arrived, and they set up another interview station in Ellis’s command tent behind the church. I watched my boyfriend studiously avoid me as they processed each group for questioning. The man who’d claimed to love me didn’t look my way.

  He should be feeling guilty about our very public fight earlier.

  Most likely, he was still upset with me.

  Ellis let Duranja question me, which made sense. He wouldn’t want to show any favoritism.

  I accompanied the deputy to a closet-like office crammed with an oversized, outdated computer and walls full of old photographs I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy.

  Duranja sat stiffly behind the desk while I took the visitor’s chair.

  “How’s your niece?” I asked him, hoping to start off on the right foot. Yes, it was off the subject, but so were most of the conversation starters in Sugarland. I didn’t go for so much as an oil change without talking for a few minutes about Bob Stutz’s latest fishing trip.

  So it did surprise me when Duranja folded his hands on the desk and shot me down cold. “Let’s start from the time you arrived at the property.”

  “All right, then.”

  He didn’t let me deviate. He asked pointed questions about exactly why I thought I should be in the bell tower. And he inexplicably treated me like an irritating younger sister as much as a witness.

  We went over and over the details leading up to the event, as Duranja attempted to prod my memory for clues. I disappointed him, and myself, when I admitted I didn’t witness anything earth-shattering.

  Worse, Duranja didn’t care about the envelope Jorie had tried to give me. It seemed inconsequential to him in relation to her death.

  That is, until I showed him the letter I’d taken from the bell tower.

  I hadn’t realized police were allowed to curse during questioning.

  He took the envelope and bagged it. He also made me go over my story several more times, which could only help Jorie.

  It also meant I didn’t make it out of the church until nightfall.

  Ellis stood talking with the chief of police while Duranja escorted me out.

  So much for a goodbye.

  By the time I stepped down into the parking area, the police had finished with the scene and the coroner had removed Jorie’s body. The soul traces remained, shining gently in an ethereal light, showing no sign of distress, murder, or even suicide.

  They would have turned other colors by now if they were going to. So there we had it, a clean death.

  Yet she couldn’t have fallen on her own.

  Or maybe she had. Maybe I was making this all up because I wanted to believe in my heart of hearts that nothing this terrible could be an accident.

  Soft light illuminated the windows of the church, and my gangster ghost stood outside, having a smoke.

  “I could have used you in there,” I said, telling him about the letter in my bra.

  “I’m better a
t hiding evidence than turning it in,” he said, blowing smoke out his nose. “Let’s go.”

  “So did you find a friend?” I asked, walking down the steps next to him.

  He scoffed. “I met an angry old lady and her six cats. Of course, they were terrified of me. Why do pets hate me? I like cats. I like skunks.”

  “I have no idea.” I couldn’t speak for Lucy.

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “The thing about this gal—and I’m not saying it because she didn’t like me—but she was odd, like she didn’t talk.”

  I stopped. “I had the same issue with the ghost in the tower.” And the organist, come to think of it. “Nobody on the other side is saying much.”

  Frankie shivered. “It’s strange. Everybody walking around like it’s the end of the world.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What possible reason could the ghosts have to remain silent?” Frankie certainly didn’t suffer from that affliction.

  “I don’t know.” Frankie shrugged as if the question itself weren’t worth asking.

  “What about the kid who stole your shoelaces?” I pressed.

  He stiffened at the mention. “Davy never did say much even when he was alive. He’s got faster hands now, though.”

  “Well, we both tried to do good,” I said, starting toward the car.

  “Speak for yourself,” Frankie muttered, taking another drag. “Let’s make tracks,” he said. “I didn’t plan on spending all day at church.”

  “We’re leaving,” I promised the gangster. “I’m so sorry, Grandma,” I added under my breath as I made my way to the car. I didn’t know what I could have done to change the events of the day, but I wished it had been something.

  My car was one of only about a dozen left in the lot. I spotted the book with the pressed wedding flower in the back seat as I opened the driver’s side door. I wished my last words to Jorie had been more heartfelt, that they’d been what she deserved to hear from me.

  You never think it’s going to be the last time.

  I started up the car and turned down the long drive through the cemetery, the Cadillac’s bright, overlarge headlights illuminating the tombstones, catching on the ghost of a mechanic with blood streaming into his eyes as he wandered with his humongous wrench.