That Voodoo That You Do

by Ann Yost

If he’d had his druthers, Dennis wouldn’t have bothered with a three-thousand-dollar, coffin but he had to keep up appearances. Everyone knew Miss Leticia Appleby didn’t approve of cremation. She’d made a big enough fuss about it after Blanche Maynard’s death. So here he was, pretending to care about her final resting place when all he wanted to do was find a hole and throw her in.

  “That one.” He pointed to the first one he saw. Dark veneer with a blue lining. “Smith should release her tomorrow,” he told the mortician. “You can pick her up at the M.E.’s office in Roanoke.”

  Mort nodded.

  “We’ll have the service tomorrow evening. I’d like to get it out of the way before Christmas.

  Mort looked at him over the top of heavily rimmed glasses. “I would think so.”

  Dennis gulped. Christmas Eve would be a big day. The annual Christmas pageant was always the most important event in Mystic Hollow. There was also the matter of the much-anticipated payoff. Half a mil. This would be the last one, he promised himself. The deal had turned rancid. It wasn’t worth the sleepless nights, the sense of always looking over his shoulder.

  Mort slid a piece of paper in front of him. It was a form to release money from Letty’s estate for burial expenses. Dennis didn’t check to see whether he was authorizing anything else. Sometimes it was better not to know.

  Their business completed, Mort accompanied him to the reception area.

  “I’ll be busy with an embalming for the next hour or two,” the mortician told his wife before he disappeared down the darkened hallway.

  Dennis looked at Lois. His anxiety level was so high he barely noticed the magical breasts. He knew he had to break it off with her.

  “We have to talk,” he said, in a low voice.

  She came out from behind the desk, took his arm and squeezed it. “Sure,” she said, “I know just the place. Lots of privacy.”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised at his reaction to her heavy perfume and the jiggling flesh pressed against his side. Christ. He’d turned into one of Pavlov’s dogs. Show him a mammary gland and he’d salivate. She drew him into the showroom he’d just left. The walnut box was still standing there with its lid up, a grim reminder of Letty’s future. Everyone’s future, he thought, glumly. Even his. He shook off the gloomy thoughts.

  “We can’t go on like this,” he told Lois. Before he could finish his thought, she had her hands inside his charcoal velour shirt.

  “Like what, sugar?”

  Dennis tried to ignore the way her palms felt against his slightly convex naked chest. “It’s too dangerous. We’re playing with fire.”

  “Um-hmm.” She was only half listening. Most of her attention was on his Italian leather belt. She loosened the buckle with one hand before he could protest.

  “No,” he mumbled. Lois ignored the protest and sought the thick flesh inside his pants. She began to stroke using the right amount of pressure to drive him insane. His eyes rolled up in his head.

  “God, that feels good.”

  “And I can make it feel better.”

  She rubbed and squeezed until he groaned and then, without letting go, she tugged him across the room, a cow led to slaughter.

  “What’re you doing?” By now he was so turned on he didn’t really care.

  She stopped when she reached Miss Letty’s open coffin.

  “Lie down,” she commanded. “Let’s play Dracula.”

  ****

  Maude closed the living room curtains and turned off all the lights, while Millicent lit five fat white candles and set them on the card table that Mabel Ruth pulled out of Francie’s closet. While the older ladies set everything up, Jessie helped Francine into a clean, burgundy colored sweat suit.

  She couldn’t resist a question. “Do you do this often? Consult the Ouija Board, I mean.”

  Francie smiled. “You want to know whether I believe in it. Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know. My mom was my only family and she died nearly ten years ago. I think there are spirits or unseen hands or whatever you want to call them. They’ve sustained me on more than one occasion.”

  “Some people might call that God.”

  “Sure. And some would call it an overactive imagination.”

  “Mabel Ruth and the others seriously believe in magic,” Jessie said.

  Francie nodded. “That makes it more fun.”

  Moments later Jessie rested her fingers on the plastic planchette. Francine sat opposite her.

  “I call upon the corners and the elements.” Mabel Ruth’s deep, pleasant voice rolled throughout the room. “I call upon the animals and the spirits, the goddess and her horned consort. We wish to speak with the recently departed.”

  Maude and Millicent began to hum like a couple of occult backup singers. Jessie and Francine exchanged an amused smile.

  “Pierce the veil, Letty,” Mabel Ruth chanted. “Come back one last time. What happened to you last night?”

  The planchette was as still as a stone dropped in a quiet stream.

  Nothing.

  Crickets.

  Mabel Ruth didn’t seem to notice. With her eyes squeezed shut, she kept chanting, and Maude and Millicent kept humming, and finally, Jessie felt a faint vibration. Francie’s brown eyes widened. She’d felt it, too.

  The plastic pointer began to swoop and circle, like a skater feeling out the ice. The first circles covered the whole board, but they got smaller and smaller, as if zeroing in on a target. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the planchette stopped. Jessie shivered. Francine’s cozy living room felt like the inside of a cave.

  “S,” Millicent called out.

  Jessie concentrated on keeping her touch feather light. If Miss Letty was speaking to them she didn’t want to interrupt. The planchette began to move again, this time fast and then faster. It barely paused over the letters, and Millicent rattled them off.

  “S.Y.N.E.R.”

  The movement stopped.

  “Synergy?” Jessie guessed, pleased with her powers of deduction.

  “Sinner,” Millicent corrected. “Spirits can’t spell for beans.”

  The planchette moved again.

  “R.A.T.H.”

  Jessie looked at Millicent.

  “Wrath,” the older woman interpreted. She sniffed, and her voice took on a chastising tone. “All right, Letty, stop being so judgmental. We know you’re angry. Give us something we can work with.”

  The planchette started to spin and soar.

  Letters appeared with lightning speed.

  “B.O.S.I.M.L.”

  “Bossy Mil.” Millicent frowned. “You were the bossy one, Letty. You turned into a regular old hag.”

  “Stop bickering,” Mabel Ruth whispered. “And you, Letty, stop beating around the bush.”

  “Obstinate,” Millicent griped. “Just like she was in life.”

  The planchette whirled and swooped.

  “E.G.G.S,” Millicent read. She shrugged.

  “Eggs?”

  The five women searched each other’s faces.

  The planchette stopped in the center of the board, the temperature rose, and one of the candles flickered out.

  “She’s finished,” Mabel Ruth said. “She’s gone.”

  “She left us with eggs,” Maude said.

  “More like egg on our faces,” Millicent grumbled.

  Jessie stared at Francine. She knew she should be trying to figure out the message, but for some reason her mind kept drifting back to last night’s surreal experience in the church closet. She felt the warmth of Luke’s body around her. She heard his constricted breathing. She jumped as someone cried out. Prendergast at the moment of climax.

  “I’ve got it,” she said, in a too loud voice. “It isn’t ‘eggs.’ It’s ‘Epps.’”

  “Gracious Goddess,” Maude breathed. “Does that mean Mr. Epps is the murderer?”

  “Or it could be Lois Epps,” Mabel Ruth said. “Letty didn’t specify.”

  “Nonsense,” Millice
nt huffed. “It’s Prendergast. Prendergast killed them both.”

  Maude sighed. “Mil, just because he closed the library doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “Infidelity could drive a man crazy,” Francine put in, quietly. “If he were already unstable, it could probably drive him to murder.”

  “Then wouldn’t he kill the faithless wife?” Millicent asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Mabel Ruth said. “Perhaps he couldn’t face the humiliation of having everyone know about her affair.”

  “I still think there’s more to it,” Jessie said, thinking hard. “Epps is probably involved in whatever is going on at St. Michael’s. What we need to do is figure out where he was last night.”

  “You mean whether he could have gotten the peanut oil into Letty’s system,” Maude said.

  “Exactly. I think a little visit to the undertaker is indicated.”

  “Jessie.” Mabel Ruth’s voice was sharp, authoritative. “I don’t want you going there alone. There have already been two deaths.”

  Jessie nodded. She didn’t want to lie to her aunt’s best friend, but she didn’t know how to explain her odd compulsion. For some reason it was important to do this herself. Excitement mixed with trepidation rocketed through her. The investigation was about to be well and truly launched.

  ****

  Eleanor Prendergast sliced the baked chicken. Soon she would mix it with a special blend of olive oil and spices. Then she’d combine it with the vegetables she’d chopped into precisely equal bite-sized bits. Mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, leeks. It was a healthy recipe, one of several she’d developed to help in Denny’s battle of the bulge. She herself didn’t have a weight problem.

  She’d lost her appetite years ago.

  She glanced at the wall calendar she’d received courtesy of the J. Mortimer Epps Mortuary. Only four days until Christmas. It was past time to finish up the details on the annual Christmas pageant and to decorate the church with fresh evergreens, bright red bows, and slim white candles. This would be her twentieth year as a pastor’s wife. She’d spent a fifth of a century decorating churches, directing pageants, teaching church school, visiting the sick, and providing a home for her husband.

  She had little to show for her efforts: A spic-and-span duplex that didn’t belong to her, acquaintances but not friends, a life of service but no career of her own, a faithless spouse.

  Eleanor paused, her paring knife poised in the air. She knew she was an object of pity to the people of Mystic Hollow, but it didn’t bother her. This wasn’t the life she’d have chosen, but she’d found satisfaction in it.

  Eleanor pushed down on the knife and made a sharp, clean cut through a crisp carrot. There was always honor in a job well done.

  A few moments later she slid the casserole into the oven and set the table for her husband’s supper.

  ****

  Lois Epps’s breasts were hard to miss. They bobbed in the spandex top like a couple of buoys on the waves. She had a way of directing attention to them by slipping her finger under the fabric, taking in a quick little breath, slightly arching her back.

  It was wasted effort. The breasts were a flagship and, probably, a business asset. Luke could imagine a newly bereaved husband so distracted he didn’t notice the humongous cost of a funeral. Epps should have them insured.

  The mortician’s wife moved so close he could smell tic-tacs on her breath.

  “It’s Luke Tanner, isn’t it? I hope condolences aren’t in order.”

  He smiled faintly. “No. I’m just here to pick up a copy of Blanche Maynard’s death certificate.”

  Lois’s smile gleamed. Her teeth were slightly crooked, like pickets in an aging fence.

  “I’ll have to get permission from Mort, and he’s tied up with an embalming. Maybe you’d like a tour while you wait.”

  She managed to make it sound like she was offering a roll in the hay. Maybe she was.

  “Great.”

  She slipped her hand through his arm, as if she needed his support. One bulbous breast pressed against him. The movement recalled the feel of Jessie’s resilient curves and he tensed. He could tell by Lois’s smile that she knew it. What’s more she’d taken the credit.

  “I’ve heard business is good,” he said.

  “Yeah. Mort’s doing a land-rush in the embalming business. Lots of times the family decides to use the churchyard here. It’s kind of quaint.”

  The oversized breast squashed against him. Luke began to develop a little sympathy for Dennis Prendergast. The preacher’s wife was nice but essentially sexless. In contrast, Lois was as lush as the Garden of Eden.

  They’d just stepped inside the coffin showroom when the phone rang. Lois answered an extension but quickly put the caller on hold.

  “It’s a contract,” she told Luke. “I need to handle it with the computer. Wait here for me?”

  “Could you direct me to the men’s room?”

  Her eyes sparkled and she winked.

  She probably figured he planned to duck in there and slip on a condom.

  Chapter Nine

  As soon as Lois’s well-padded butt disappeared down the hall, Luke slipped into the showroom office. The top desk drawer contained individual keys, all but one identified by bits of tape. It was the unmarked key that he scooped into his hand.

  He ducked back into the “L” shaped hallway and turned the corner. He walked past the embalming room, the office, the kitchen, the crematorium. The last door on the end contained no label. With his sixth sense screaming in his ear, he fitted the key to the lock, turned the knob, and walked into a tomb.

  There were no windows, no lights, no air.

  He moved his fingers along the wall and found a switch.

  Suddenly the darkness exploded into a blinding, white-hot glare. Pain stabbed the backs of his eyes and forced them shut. He’d fallen into the sun. Or maybe this was Hell.

  He opened his eyes gradually, wincing at the glare. After a moment, he realized the unsettling effect was caused by the brilliance of the megawatt overhead light as it bounced off shiny surfaces. He opened his eyes wider. It looked as if Epps had papered the room in stainless steel.

  Everything was metal, all the countertops, drawers, cabinets, and tables. A refrigerator that could have supported half a dozen catering companies took up most of one wall.

  He began to open cupboards and pull out drawers. Inside were an array of surgical instruments including scalpels, cutters, picks, sutures, and scissors. A cabinet contained lengths of pipe. Plumbing pipe?

  What was the mortician doing? Building Frankenstein?

  Luke pulled open the refrigerator door.

  It was deep enough to hold a dozen bodies awaiting burial at sea. A dozen. Why on earth did J. Mortimer Epps need that kind of capacity? Was he storing corpses? For who? The mob?

  Luke poked around the surgery a little more, but all he found was a second, smaller refrigerator, this one filled with soft drinks and a couple of sandwiches. Smelled like tuna fish.

  A hissing sound behind him made his heart jerk. No one was ever able to sneak up on him. J. Mortimer Epps moved like a ghost.

  “May I ask what you are doing in here, Mr. Tanner?”

  Luke studied Epps’s face. It looked like a skull with the hollowed out eye sockets, prominent bones, and skin the color of a winter moon. Luke’s attention quickly shifted to the revolver in the mortician’s hand.

  J. Mortimer Epps was certainly not your garden variety mortician.

  Luke indicated the sandwich. “Looking for lunch.”

  It was hard to read the mortician’s eyes behind Coke-bottle lens set in dark frames, but Luke watched a muscle move in his ill-defined jaw.

  “This isn’t a cafeteria.”

  “I came to get your records on Blanche Maynard,” Luke said, easily.

  “Surely you didn’t mistake this for my office.”

  “To tell you the truth, Mr. Epps, I am having as much trouble figuring out what this ro
om is used for as I am understanding why you’ve got that weapon in your hand.”

  “None of your business.”

  Luke contemplated the other man. “Fair enough. I have some questions that are my business. Why, for instance, was Blanche cremated on the day of her death? What was the damn hurry?”

  Epps’s expression didn’t change. “There was no reason to wait. There was no family to consult. We made an attempt to reach you, Mr. Tanner.” The arrow hit home. Guilt sliced through him.

  “You moved very fast.”

  Epps shrugged. “I’m a busy man.”

  Luke nodded at the refrigerator. “A busy man with a lot of business. You could fit several football teams in there.”

  “We harvest organs, Mr. Tanner, for donation. They have to be kept cool.”

  “What about the plumbing pipe? Surely that’s not all for bathroom repair.”

  The muscle moved again in Epps’s jaw. He fingered his lapel, his right hand moving nearer the gun. “Interested in mortuary science, Mr. Tanner? If so, I’ll start the tour with the crematorium.”

  ****

  The Mystic Hollow Emporium was heavily geared toward winter in the mountains, so Jessie bought several oversized lumberjack shirts, a pair of overalls, a yellow slicker, black fishing boots, and a couple of Christmas-themed sweatshirts as well as hot chocolate mix, popcorn, cranberries, and a turkey. She might have to celebrate Christmas alone, but she’d do it up right. Besides, maybe Luke would still be around. They could roast chestnuts over an open fire. She imagined the two of them cuddling on Blanche’s Victorian sofa, then she shook her head.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  Still, Christmas was Christmas. Jessie’s spirits rose, and she stuck out her tongue to catch the first crystals of snow.

  By the time she got her purchases back to the witch hat house, it was four p.m., and snow was falling steadily. She deposited her packages in the kitchen. She wondered if it was too late to drop in on Epps. She could say she needed Blanche’s files or something. Hastily she shed the too-large parka and slipped into her boots and slicker.

  It was time to get some answers.

  The only person in the dimly-lit reception area was Lois Epps, dressed in some kind of bubble-gum pink leotard. Unorthodox choice of clothing for an undertaker’s wife, but then, as Jessie had reason to know, Lois was unorthodox for any kind of wife.