by Tonya Kappes
“Slicklizzard, Kentucky?” Now, there were some strange counties in Kentucky, but I’d never heard of Slicklizzard.
“Oh!” The eyes on Ruthie’s kitty cat slippers jingled as she bounced up and down. “Earl Way mentioned Slicklizzard a few times.”
Ruthie bent down and looked at the name. She stood back up. Her mouth and eyes turned down.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “We have a name to start with. I can go to Slick . . .” I looked at the name again, “ . . . Slicklizzard and do some research at the courthouse in the records room.”
She shook her head. Tears filled her eyes.
“I can find your next of kin,” I assured her.
“I think this is Earl’s family, not mine.” She touched the picture. “He had fond memories of being in Slicklizzard as a boy.”
“Still?” I shrugged. “You said it spoke to you.”
“It’s probably because it was Earl’s.”
I turned around to look at her, but she was gone.
Without hesitation, I opened the old tin box. There were a couple of pictures, some old coins and a tarnished ring.
It was a man’s ring with an old family coat of arms, with a shield as the focal point and the name Payne engraved in a banner at the top. Triangular red rubies garnished the two top points of the shield. There was a triangular hole at the bottom point of the shield; I came to the conclusion that it was missing a ruby.
This was obviously Earl’s. He had probably put it up in the attic since it didn’t have much value.
I put the ring back in the tin box and took out one of the old photos, an old snapshot, in particular, that had caught my eye. The edges had yellowed from aging.
It was the exact same picture as the big framed one from Slicklizzard. I flipped it over.
“Slicklizzard, Kentucky,” I read out loud. “Earl Way Payne, Becky Dawn Payne, Dugger Bob Payne.” A few more names were listed.
I flipped the picture back and forth. Someone had taken the time to write the names of all the individuals on the back. Something Granny would’ve done with her pictures so we would have known what family was who when she was dead and gone to the great beyond.
I snickered looking at Earl Way. He looked to be a rascal as a boy. Thank God he’d had his teeth fixed. I couldn’t help but zero in on his crooked smile.
Ruthie Sue was right. This old stuff was probably nothing. It was Earl’s junk. Nothing more, nothing less. There were a few other odd things in the box, but nothing significant to help solve Ruthie’s murder.
I was still going to tell Granny about the stuff. She’d get a kick out of it. But then again, she’d probably already seen it.
I stuck the picture and box back in the closet and shut the door. I was back to square one. There was no time to wallow in self-pity. There was still a murder to solve, not to mention the assault on Beulah.
The next clue that would help clear Granny was the fact that she had a solid alibi the night Ruthie was murdered—Doc Clyde.
I reached into my bag and pulled out Zula Fae Raines Payne’s file. If Granny ever decided to get remarried, they’d have to extend her file tab somehow.
There were a lot of regular things in there that Granny had seen Doc Clyde for, but nothing that looked to be alarming.
“Last visit.” I paged through the file and reached the end. I dragged my finger down the page to the last entry. “March 2012?”
I read it again. “March 2012? Over a year ago?”
But her eye didn’t twitch. I recalled her reaction when I asked her about her alibi when Ruthie and I paid her a visit after Jack Henry had told me about his suspicions that Ruthie was murdered.
Granny was up to something. The taxes . . . the lying about going to the doctor . . . in the back of my head, I knew Doc Clyde wasn’t open at three A.M., but I knew someone that was. Well, not open, but up. Cheryl Lynne Doyle and John Howard Lloyd.
Chapter 22
It wasn’t long after I wrote Cheryl Lynn Doyle and John Howard’s names in my sleuth notebook that I heard John Howard’s heavy footsteps coming up the front steps of Eternal Slumber, through the hall and down the stairs to the basement, where the morgue, tools and prepping rooms were located.
He was a sucker for a hot cup of coffee—my ticket to get him to talk.
“Morning, John Howard.” I held out a cup of coffee that I had poured before I came down to ask him my questions. The coffee would help break the ice before I started to drill him with questions about Beulah and the night of Ruthie’s murder. “I brought you down a cup of coffee.”
He reached out his dirt-stained hand and took the cup. “Thank you, Miss Emma.” He smiled. The steam from the coffee curled around his nose when he held it up to his mouth. “That’s good coffee.”
“Why, thank you.” I looked around. He was cleaning the tools that he needed for digging graves.
“Are you sure you don’t want a machine to help?” I asked, hoping new equipment would change his mind about leaving.
With the new equipment out there, I had offered to buy John Howard something different than the little backhoe he liked to use along with a few shovels, but he always refused.
“No, ma’am.” He flexed his arms. “I like the workout it gives me. But the rate we are going with deaths, I might not be able to keep up with the work.”
What work? In case John Howard had been under a rock lately, no one was using Eternal Slumber for their beloved ones’ final resting stop.
“You mean with Ruthie and now the attack on Beulah?” I couldn’t have planned his timing any better.
I walked around the room and pretended to take inventory so he wouldn’t think I was being nosy.
“It’s a shame.” He shook his head and took another drink. “Someone is preying on the elderly women in the community.”
“I would hardly call Beulah old at forty-two.” I referred to Beulah’s age.
“She’s only forty-two?” He pulled back in shock. “She hangs out with the older Auxiliary women; I thought she was older than that.”
“You are out pretty late, aren’t you?”
“I guess you could say that.” He sat his cup on the old metal shelf and used a worn rag and paint thinner to clean the blade of one of the shovels. “I don’t sleep much, so I walk around.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I picked up another one of his rags and dipped it in the tin of paint thinner. I grabbed the shovel and cleaned the dirt from the blade. “These attacks are happening in the middle of the night. You and I both know that Granny didn’t kill Ruthie, but I have a sneaky suspicion she is a suspect.”
John Howard put the rag and tool down. His eyes narrowed, casting a shadow on his face. No one messed with Granny when John Howard was around. After all, she was the only one in town who had given him a chance and a job when he came to town.
“And I wanted to know if you saw anything or anyone out of the ordinary that might give me a lead on who to ask if they saw anything.”
“You know”—his eyes lit up as if he remembered something—“on two occasions I saw someone that I know doesn’t live here walking around three A.M. I know it was the same person because they had on overalls and some crazy hair. I’m sure it was one of them hippie visitors going camping or hiking the caves.”
“Do you remember the days?” I was getting somewhere, I knew it, though it wouldn’t be unusual for hikers to come into town. But in the middle of the night?
“Yea,” He scratched his head. “One was the night before I heard Ruthie died and the other was last night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He nodded. “Especially last night. How was your date with Jack Henry?”
“I’m guessing you saw that?” I questioned in an apologetic tone.
“Not your fin
est hour.” His mouth turned up in a crooked grin. “If Beulah wasn’t in the hospital, I’d probably be laughing right now.”
“Yeah, me too, John Howard. Me too.” I picked up my mug and went back upstairs.
There was at least one person of interest sneaking around Sleepy Hollow, and I had a description.
Before I forgot what John Howard told me, I wrote it in my notebook.
I grabbed my purse, locked the door to Eternal Slumber and headed straight for Higher Grounds Café.
Hettie Bell crossed the street from the square and into the courthouse. She had papers in her hand, which made me wonder if she got all those signatures she needed in order to stop the development.
Cheryl Lynne wasn’t going anywhere and I was curious to see what Hettie was up to. I snuck up the courthouse steps and slipped in the door.
Hettie went into a room with a sign hanging over the door that read RECORDS.
“Morning, Emma Lee.” Mayor May sashayed down the hall, sporting an all-white one-piece dress and electric-blue high heels. “What are you doing in here this morning?”
“I was . . .” I bit my lip. I had to think fast. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, you are in luck.” Her eyebrows rose and so did her lips. “I have about five minutes before my meeting with my new campaign manager.” She took me by the arm and guided me toward her office—the opposite direction of Hettie. “Isn’t this exciting!” She let go and put her hands up in the air like she was framing something. “Small-town mayor becomes the governor.” She sighed with happiness.
“Yeah, great.” I smiled.
Being mayor must be pretty nice. Her office was as big as Eternal Slumber. The biggest oriental rug I had ever seen lay on top of the hardwood floor. There was a floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelf that spanned the entire length of her office, filled with books.
“I’ve read them all,” she said when she noticed I was staring at them. “Reading is knowledge, Emma Lee. Knowledge is power. You remember that.”
Her desk sat in front of the bookshelf wall. Her view was phenomenal with the tall windows overlooking the square.
“I see it all.” She walked over to the windows, folded her arms across her body and looked out. “What did you want, Emma Lee?”
She turned on her heels, with her arms still crossed.
“I wanted to ask you about this development thing.” I lied, but it would be good to know. “Hettie Bell is determined to stop it and I think it might be good for the community.”
“You do?”
“Charlotte is always telling me that we need to support the community more and this might be a good way to do it.”
“Does she?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was beginning to think the mayor knew I wasn’t at the courthouse to see her.
“I’ll keep that in mind when the town votes and if Hettie gets the signatures, but for now, Zula and I are in talks with the development company.” She slinked back to her desk and sat in the large leather chair. “We will provide an update in the Journal. Thank you for your time.”
It was my cue to leave.
“Thank you for listening to me.” I gave a slight wave to leave.
“Emma Lee,” she called after me. I turned around. “I like your new haircut.”
I brushed my hands through the layered tresses. “Thanks.”
Just as I walked out of the office, Hettie was walking to the exit. I rushed into the records room, where the deputy county clerk was putting away some files.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” She stood on a stool and pushed in a record book.
I watched and counted over to the ledger she was replacing. I had to know what Hettie had requested. The record had to be what Hettie had asked to see, because they didn’t let you retrieve your own material. That was the job of the deputy clerk.
“Now.” She brushed her hands together. “Getting those P’s kills me every time.” She smiled. “What can I help you with?”
“I need to see any records on . . .” P? Payne? “Payne.”
“You are the third person who has come in here researching the Paynes.” She sighed.
“My granny is a Payne and I’m working on a family tree.” Why would Hettie be looking up Payne? “Is there any way I can request the records be copied?”
“Sure, but it’s going to be a day or so.” She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m swamped.”
“Sure.” I really didn’t care about records here. I had to make a trip to Slicklizzard, Kentucky. Hettie was trying to dig up some dirt and I had to know all I could.
Who was Hettie Bell? Where did she come from? And why was she so interested in the Paynes or saving the Sleepy Hollow Inn?
Chapter 23
After I left the courthouse, I went back to my office and marked John Howard’s name off the list of people to see.
“Cheryl Lynne Doyle.” I tapped her name and pictured her with long blond hair and perfect body as she happily made those delicious doughnuts. Looks, brains and talent . . . ugh. “I’m coming to see you, Cheryl Lynne.”
I threw my notebook in my purse and flung it over my shoulder.
Within minutes I had the hearse pulled into a parking space right in front of Higher Grounds Café.
“I think Earl has a past.” Ruthie came out of nowhere, slipping up to me when I walked up on the sidewalk. “The more I think about the items you found and things he’d say, something is not adding up.”
“I understand that, but he is dead.” I rushed around the corner of Higher Grounds so I could talk to her without someone seeing me and accusing me of the “Funeral Trauma.” On second thought . . . “Earl didn’t kill you, Ruthie Sue Payne!”
If I was getting set up for murder and now an attack, I wanted people seeing me act crazy so I could claim insanity, just in case.
A few people turned to watch me have my conversation with Ruthie’s ghost, only they just saw me talking to the air.
“He is dead. How can a dead person kill you?” I questioned the air around me and twirled.
“What are you doing?” Ruthie whispered as if someone could hear her. She tugged at my sleeve for me to shut up. “They are going to lock you up. You said so yourself.”
“Good morning!” I yelled at a couple of the Auxiliary women standing outside of the café with their hands across their mouths as they stared at the crazy girl . . . me, before I headed on in.
“I’ve been to see Beulah.” Ruthie stopped right in front of me. I closed my eyes and walked right through her. A surge of electricity sent a jolt through me. “Are you listening to me?”
I gave a slight nod for her to continue.
“She has the same pinch on her neck that I have on my back.”
Okay, that stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Hi, Emma Lee.” Cheryl Lynne was wiping off the countertop. “Zula nearly bought me out of doughnuts this morning.”
“I’ll be right back.” I did a pee-pee dance, pretending I needed to use the restroom. I shut the bathroom door behind me and locked it. “Spill.”
“I obviously know you didn’t try to kill Beulah, so I went to the hospital.” She paced the small room back and forth. “She isn’t dead, but close to it.”
“Get back to the pinch mark,” I coaxed her to hurry up. I didn’t want Cheryl to think I was crazy.
“They tried to use their hands, but I heard Jack Henry talking to the doctors.” She wrung her hands. “They said that someone had cleaned off their prints because they thought she was dead, but she had a faint pulse that couldn’t be detected by touch, only machine. I got real close to look and see if they had big hands or small hands, just like you asked me, and there it was.”
“What?” I waited with baited breath.
“A mark just like mine on the r
ight side of her neck.”
“Right side? Yours was on the left.” I reminded her.
“I didn’t see my attacker, but I bet Beulah did!” Ruthie snapped her fingers in the air, before she pretended to strangle the air.
I followed suit and put my hands in the air like I had someone around the neck and then I put them down like I was pushing someone.
“I think you have something.” I smiled and pulled my notebook out of my purse and jotted down what Ruthie had seen. “Did Jack Henry say anything about it?”
“No, not a word and neither did the doctors.” Slowly she shook her head. “Now I know someone is trying to set you up.”
Her words made me shiver, sending goose bumps up my legs and arms.
“What do you mean? The police know I didn’t kill you.” I was confused.
“No, but now the killer knows that you are investigating this and now they have tried to pin Beulah on you.” She looked up. Terror lay deep in her eyes, her brows furrowed with worry. “Someone is out to get you and Zula.”
Knock, knock, knock.
I jumped when someone knocked on the door, bringing me back to the living.
“Washing my hands,” I hollered and grabbed a paper towel before opening the door.
“Emma Lee!” Mary Anna’s red lips curved up. “Oh . . .” She took me by the arm and led me back into the bathroom. She locked the door behind her and threw herself up against it. “Spill it!”
“Spill what?” For a brief second I freaked out. My palms sweating, I grabbed another paper towel and wiped them. Did she know I was trying to figure out who killed Ruthie? Did she know I could see Ruthie?
“Your date with Jack Henry.” She bounced in her white short dress that resembled the iconic dress Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch. “You know what Marilyn said.”
“No, what?” I had no idea of anything Marilyn said unless it came out of Mary Anna’s mouth.
“Sex is part of nature, and I go along with nature.” She grinned. “So . . . tell me.”