by Tonya Kappes
I looked down. Right there on Granny’s ring finger was a ring.
“Granny!” I gasped and grabbed her hand. “Doc?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She glowed. “He said that you might’ve had something to do with it. He said that when he saw how happy I was opening your gifts that he knew I was still on the market for a husband.” She threw her head back and laughed. “I told him he was brave because I’ve outlived all my other men.”
“Oh, Granny.” Even though it seemed as if all the parts of my life were somewhat in limbo, Granny’s life was coming together. “Are you happy?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor’s wife.” She winked and held her hand out in front of her. “I’ve got to get my bridesmaids into shape.” She nodded behind us. “Are you going to be my maid-of-honor?” she asked.
“Of course.” I threw my arms around her and gave her a big hug. “Are you kidding me? This is going to be the wedding of the year.”
“You can say that again.” She fanned her hands out in front of her. “I can see it now. The entire day is going to be declared my day. I’m going to have an outside wedding right here. The chairs can go there and me and Doc will stand right up there with Pastor Brown behind us and you next to me.” She pointed to the steps. “The girls will stand here. Each one on a different step. I’ve not decided if I’m inviting Bea Allen Burns or her nasty brother.”
“Now, now.” I tsked. “How could you even think of not letting them get so jealous of how amazing we are doing.” I snugged her up real tight. “You’re going to put on a pretty dress and smile to high heaven.”
“I hope me and Doc make it to at least twenty years.” She started to count on her fingers. “That’d put me damn near one hundred. I think I’ll make it.” She curled her nose. “I’m too mean to die.”
“Twenty years.” The number rolled around in my head. Twentieth anniversary. “Granny! You are a genius.” I jumped up. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll be over for supper tonight and you’ve got to tell me all about how Doc proposed.”
Granny let out some ah’s, huh’s, and yeps, as I took off toward the funeral home. The morning was wasting away and Granny had given me a fabulous idea. There was no time to waste.
I hurried up the front steps of the funeral home and headed on inside to grab the keys to the hearse.
“Emma Lee, is that you?” Vernon Baxter called from the employee kitchen. The smell of fresh coffee drifted down the hall and hit me in the face as I approached my office.
“It is. I’m grabbing my keys. Hold on,” I called back.
Next to my bag and the keys was a hand-written note from Jack Henry. He wrote that he’d stopped by because Cheryl told him I’d already been to Higher Grounds to pick up two coffees. He asked me to call him. He’d obviously thought the coffee was for him, which normally it’d be, but not today.
“How’s it going?” I asked Vernon after I walked into the kitchen and stuck the file Mazie had given me into my bag.
He was pouring himself a cup of coffee and adding his sugar. Vernon was a very good-looking older man. He was sophisticated looking with his silver hair and steel blue eyes. I could only imagine the women he’d gotten in his younger days. Nowadays, he didn’t seem to care about any relationship except with the corpses in the morgue.
“Disturbing.” He offered me a cup of coffee. Interested in his words, I accepted.
“The case?” I asked and grabbed the creamer.
“Yes.” He set his cup and my cup on the small café table before he pulled out my chair and his. He sat down. “I’ve got what looks to be two sets of bones. A skeletal cat.”
As soon as he said that, Mr. Whiskers appeared and rubbed his body around Vernon’s ankles. His tail curled around Vernon’s pant leg.
“And the little girl. I got back her dental records and it’s confirmed to be Betsy.” Which I knew from Jack Henry, but I let Vernon continue, “The way the roof fell on her, it really didn’t disturb her body. It looks like the barn beam had broken her back, the smoke had suffocated her and her cause of death was smoke inhalation. You think the little girl was playing in there with the cat, which Jack said she didn’t have a cat, so we can safely assume it was an old barn cat.”
“Mr. Whiskers isn’t just any old barn cat.” Betsy sat on the kitchen floor with a book in her lap. Mr. Whiskers scurried over to her. “He’s my friend.”
“It appeared as if the cat had curled on Betsy’s face to shield her from the smoke. We obviously know the outcome. I wondered why her hands weren’t up around her face as a common reaction would be to cover your own mouth and nose or run out, but I found this.” He pulled out his phone and flipped to the photos. There were marks on the bones that weren’t normal.
“Was she tied?” I asked.
“Yes. It appears as if she had her wrists tied together. The way the bones were found, her wrists were behind her hip bones.” He let out a long sigh, eased back into the chair, and ran his finger along the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m afraid this was a homicide. Someone probably took the little girl, put her in the barn figuring it was safe.”
“In a separate incident Herman Strauss was torching the place so he didn’t have to pay someone to do it and that’s how Betsy died.” I thought for a moment. “But who would’ve put her there?”
Was it Kevin? Was it her mom? There was only one way to find out.
“I don’t know who would’ve been so sick to do this to a little girl, but I do know that I’ve got to go see Herman Strauss. From what I understand, he’s out of jail now.” I patted my bag where I’d stuck the files. “In any case, I’m not so sure someone wanted the little girl dead as much as missing.”
Mazie did a good job with her investigation.
“Hey.” Vernon stopped me before I walked out of the kitchen. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Can you believe it?” I knew he was talking about Jack Henry and the engagement rumor. “Granny is going to do it a third time. Poor Doc Clyde. Doesn’t he know how her other husbands turned out?”
I left Vernon standing there speechless. Granny and Doc were the last couple on people’s minds. At least it’d become a great way to deter any more rumors about Jack and me. Especially now that Jack was thinking of taking the state job.
I knew I was being a baby and I knew that I had to talk to him. Only I couldn’t bring myself to do it just yet. I wanted to work on my Betweener job and that meant that I had to do it alone. Well, with Betsy’s help.
When I got into the hearse, I pulled out Mazie’s file where I’d seen Herman Strauss’s address. I plugged it into the GPS on my phone and drove the hearse in that direction.
I’d checked my GPS as it took me out toward the river. It seemed as if Herman had decided that once he’d gotten out of jail, he wanted to live a quiet life. Out near the river was about as quiet as you could get. Maybe a few passing boats or fishermen, but other than that, it was a pretty nice and easy-going area.
The man on the tractor in the front field had pulled over and stopped when he noticed me driving on his driveway. He pulled his hat off and jumped down off the machine and walked toward me. I stopped before I made it up to the house because I’d seen him get off. There wasn’t any sense in me pulling up to the house when the man I wanted to see was probably him.
‘”Herman Strauss?” I called.
He patted his chest with both hands. He was older than the photo in the file. He’d lost most of his hair. The skin under his chin was sagging and there were wrinkles around his eyes.
“Am I dead?” He laughed.
“Oh that.” I was so used to driving the hearse and everyone was used to seeing me drive the hearse, it never dawned on me that it might throw Herman off. “I’m Emma Lee Raines and I own and operate Eternal Slumber.”
“That’s the man voice that I remember from the barn, but he doesn’t look like him.” Betsy stood next to him and looked up. Like she did with all the adults, she peered at him intently.
>
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“The county morgue is in my funeral home and we’d gotten some bones from the barn. . .”
He stopped me, “There ain’t nothing I can say to you that I didn’t already tell the police. I don’t know anything about that little girl. I did my time for the crime I committed. I didn’t check the barn when I lit it up. Like I said, I’d checked the barn the night before and slept on what I needed to do.”
“The police have already been out to see you?” I asked.
“Yep.” He nodded and put his hat back on his head. He pulled something out of the chest pocket on his shirt. “Ross. Jack Ross, Sheriff.”
“I’m not with the police. Can you tell me what you told him? We are doing an autopsy on the bones and want to make sure that what happened and what the bones are telling us corroborate.” I knew I could get in all sorts of trouble for this, but I had to help Betsy.
“Like I told the sheriff. I did set the barn on fire because I didn’t want to pay to have someone come take it down. Like I said in court, I didn’t know I was breaking any laws. They’d not started to build the strip mall and no one was around. When that newspaper lady came snooping around here last night, I figured something was going on with the barn. Then I read it this morning in the paper. I had nothing to do with that little girl. I’d never seen her a day in my life. From what I can figure, she’s a runaway because her mama was getting married and the little girl threw a fit.”
Betsy didn’t like that at all. She raised her foot in the air and stomped on the man’s shoes.
“Owww,” Herman reached down and rubbed his toe, before she took a kick to his shin. “What on earth?” He rubbed his shin.
“I’m no runaway.” Betsy was spittin’ mad. “Are you sure that’s the man that came in and set the fire?”
“You have arthritis?” I didn’t try to stop Betsy from beating up on Herman. He didn’t seem to have any compassion for the situation, which to some extent I could understand since he’d spent the last twenty years in prison.
“They told me that my mommy was going to get rid of me anyway and I needed to go ahead and leave. But they took me.” Betsy’s head dropped before she ghosted away.
“No, I don’t have no darned arthritis.” He hobbled around in a circle like he was trying to walk it off.
Abduction? Why did someone want to abduct her? My mind kept going back to Kevin. He didn’t want kids. He was wealthy. Did someone want something from him?
“Thank you for your time.” I gestured to his tractor. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“Like I said, I’m more than happy to cooperate, but I didn’t do anything to any little girl.” He shuffled on back toward the field.
“One more question.” I turned around. “Are you sure you set the fire to your own barn?”
“Mrs. Raines.” He stopped.
“Ms. Raines. Emma Lee,” I corrected him.
“Emma Lee, don’t go sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.” He turned back around and headed on back to his tractor.
“Betsy, are you here?” I asked once I’d gotten back into the hearse and on the road back to town.
If I was going to get any good leads, I needed to know exactly what she remembered, even just the pieces would help.
“If you come out and talk to me, I’ll take you back to the library.” Not that I was a mother or anything, but I’d heard my fair share of mothers bribing their children to be good during funerals. “I’ll even read you whatever book you want me to read.”
“Really? I love all the Dr. Seuss books. My mommy always read them to me.” She appeared in the front seat. Mr. Whiskers sat next to her.
“You know,” I smiled at them. “Mr. Whiskers really did try to save you. Do you remember that?”
“It’s been a long time to remember anything.” Her little eyes blinked. “My mommy sorta looks like my mommy, but sorta doesn’t.”
“Well, it’s been almost twenty years. You’d be my age.” I couldn’t help but think what she’d look like today and if we’d crossed paths and been friends. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be her friend if I was still ten.
“Twenty years,” her voice faded.
“Do you remember anything about leaving your house for the last time?” I wasn’t sure how to ask questions to a child without her getting upset.
“I remember looking back at the door. The outside light was still on and the house was so big, but once we got into the car and drove off, the house looked so small.” She sighed. “I knew my mommy wasn’t going to give me away. Why did I listen?”
“Who said that to you?” I asked.
“That girl. That little girl with long black hair.” She finally gave me something that I could actually sink my teeth into.
“Do you remember the little girl’s name?” I asked.
“It was different. Albertine.” Betsy looked over at me with an element of surprise on her face. “She didn’t tell me her name, but someone yelled Albertine when she tied me up.”
Betsy used her small hand to rub her wrists.
“At first I thought she was joking because she was little like me. She tied me up with rope and it fell off when I moved my hands.” She put her hands in the air as though she were showing me how she did it. “Someone said, ‘Albertine, like we practiced.’ And I continued to laugh because it was like a magic trick I was able to get out of.”
“You thought she was kidding?” I asked.
“Yes. After a few tries, someone came in with a mask over their face. They weren’t as nice as Albertine. They hurt me. And they were mean to Albertine.” Betsy clasped her hands in her lap. “So now can we go to the library?”
“Yes. But first I need to make a stop. You might not like it.” I pulled the hearse to the side of the road.
Kevin, Kay’s fiancé, had been interviewed by the police and it seemed like he was a suspect, but for some reason he wasn’t pursued.
“But you said we would go to the library,” she whined.
“We are, but I have to go see Kevin first.” I dug in my bag to retrieve the piece of paper Kay had written down Kevin’s number and address on.
“No. Why? I don’t want to.” Betsy was sounding more like my child than a client.
“I know this is hard, but you wanted my help and that means that I have to talk to and see everyone who you knew. Even the ones that hurt you.” I wasn’t sure Kevin hurt her, but there was something that she didn’t like about him.
“He didn’t want children. He told my mommy.” She sniffled. “He didn’t want me.”
Just like that, Betsy ghosted away.
Chapter Fourteen
Even with twenty years passed, the mansion that Kevin Allen owned was still by today’s standards considered a mansion.
“If it looks this big from the road, imagine what it looks like inside,” I mumbled to myself and looked out of my windshield at the massive house that sat way off the road.
I rolled down the hearse window and pushed the little black button on the silver box. It appeared it was the only way to get the gates to open.
“How can I help you?” the lady asked.
“I’m here to see Kevin Allen. I’m Emma Lee Raines from Eternal Slumber Funeral Home.” I stated as if I had official business with him. “He wanted to see me about some pre-need funeral arrangements.”
“Hold please,” the person said and clicked off the speaker.
“All you have to do is push the button on the side of the box. That’s what Momma would do when she forgot to take that button thingy that hangs up there.” She pointed to the visor.
“I’m glad you are here. I really do need you and could really use your help.” It was time for some more book talk. “Did you ever read Nancy Drew?”
“Oh, I love mysteries.” She smiled real big.
“That’s great because we have to pretend to be Nancy Drew and figure out how exactly you got to the barn and who took you.” I
nodded and reached my hand out to feel for the button. “Voila.” I pushed it and the gates started to open.
“This is going to be a lot of fun. I love mysteries.” Betsy bounced in her seat. When she looked forward the bouncing stopped. “I really hate that house.”
“Really?” The closer we got the bigger the house was. “I’d think you’d like to have a big place to play and run around in.”
“Why do mommies think that?” she asked. “When me and Mommy would go places, they’d always talk about how nice and big the house was. I think it’s cold and lonely. But not when Lu came.”
“Did Lu work here?” I questioned her.
“She lives here.” Betsy laughed.
I put the hearse in park when I got up to the front of the circular drive. The main part of the house looked to be three stories tall. There was a small, enclosed breezeway to the right side that joined another two stories. The grass was nice and green, no doubt from the sprinkler system that was spitting away. The mums had already started to come up with pops of vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds. The pasture on the left side of the mansion had at least six horses, beyond that I could only see miles of farmland.
“There’s a pool out back. If you like that sort of thing.” Betsy’s voice was calmer than it had been over the past few minutes. “My mommy really wanted to live here. She said that it would change our lives. She always told me to be a good girl.”
“I bet you were always a good girl.” I couldn’t imagine she’d be anything else.
“Can I help you?” An older man with wire-rimmed glasses, short brown hair that was parted on the sides, a small pot-belly that hung over his khaki pants and snug against his short-sleeved golf shirt that was tucked in, pulled next to the hearse in a golf cart.
“Hi.” Startled, I grabbed my Eternal Slumber Welcome to Your Eternal Life packet out of the glove box and got out of the car. “I’m here to see Kevin Allen.”
“Is Mr. Allen dead?” The man chuckled.