My cousin Danny ran up to me. He was dressed in his Power Ranger costume. “Betsy. You're here! It's Halloween, Betsy.” My cousin, who has Down syndrome, has been wearing the same red Power Ranger costume since 1995.
Aunt Maggie has mended it several times over the years. No matter what, Danny loves that costume, and it would be hard to find a replacement when it’s too worn or no longer fits. Danny is not one for scary things and usually stays away from anything frightening.
But he was comfortable at the Halloween party, in part because Joe Nelson, who rents out the bouncy houses, always gives Danny ten minutes to jump by himself. Most parents are not comfortable with a thirty-year-old man, nearing two hundred pounds, bouncing with their children. Joe understands that, but he also understands that Danny is just a big kid himself.
“Everyone should get to jump,” Joe would say, and so Danny got his turn. From the redness of Danny's cheeks, it looked as if he had already enjoyed his ten minutes.
“Hello, Danny. Are you having fun?”
“Oh, yes. My mom said when you walked in that I had to find you and bring you to her. Come with me.” He motioned to Aunt Maggie who was in the corner emptying a bag of rainbow-colored gummy worms into an oversized, pumpkin-shaped bowl. I was surprised to see my father standing there as well.
Leo said, “I think I forgot to lock the car. Be right back.”
“Coco?” I held out my arms to her, but she wrapped herself around Leo’s neck. Lately she’s been a daddy’s girl. Accepting her decision, I walked with the boys over to where Aunt Maggie smiled and waved.
“Hey, darlin', how are you tonight?” My father greeted me. He reached out and patted Tyler on the shoulder. “Sorry I couldn't get to your game today. Had an investigation.”
“I heard. Did you get the guy?”
“Not yet, but you can bet it won't be long. Not with my crack squad.” My father winked at Tyler, who dropped his chin to his chest.
“Well, you didn't miss anything. Coach didn't put me in the game.”
“Is that right? Want me to arrest him for you? I'm sure I could drum up a charge.”
Tyler's face twitched, and then he smiled as if he had been trying to keep his face from showing anything positive. “That would be cool, Grandpa.”
“It's a done deal, then. Don't you worry, son. Every single one of those NFL stars you see on TV today sat on the bench at one time or another. This is just your time. Your job right now is to keep those skills in place. Practice, practice, practice.”
“I thought you'd be out patrolling the town, Dad. Isn't that your usual habit on Halloween?” I asked.
“The night is young. The real action doesn't start until around ten. I thought I'd help out Maggie until then.”
Aunt Maggie wadded up the cellophane candy bag and threw it into a nearby trash can. “How are you two doing after your shakeup this morning?” Danny was listening, so we would talk in code. She was referring to our discovery of John Simpson on the wrought-iron fence.
“I’m fine.”
“I'll bet it was that Teddy Hancock. Then again, maybe it was an accident.”
“That's where you're wrong, Maggie.” Howard Gunther joined us. “It was the evil spirit that wanders the funeral home. A shadow person. This spirit is not happy with anyone living in the house. That is your killer. That poor soul who died never knew what hit him.”
Feeling the conversation taking a turn that would make Danny uncomfortable, Aunt Maggie touched his arm. “Why don’t you show the boys the cakes on the cake walk? They can try to figure out which one’s mine.”
Danny’s eyes brightened. “Okay. Come on guys.” Zach started following him while Tyler paused.
“Go find that cake,” my father told him. Finally Tyler went with Danny, and Dad turned his attention back to our conversation. “I'm going to have to beg to differ with you there, Howard. John Simpson knew a lot more than what he was letting on. Teddy Hancock had one thing right. John Simpson wasn’t related in any way to Jerry Marion.”
Leo re-appeared at my side with Coco in his arms. Using his one free hand, he grabbed a couple of gummy worms out of the pumpkin bowl. Leo put one in his mouth and gave the other to Coco. She put it in her mouth, made a face, and threw it on the floor.
“John Simpson was no relation?” Leo asked as he grabbed a napkin off the table and picked up the discarded gummy worm.
“Nope. I’m beginning to think everything that man said was a lie. His boxes were all empty, and he was more interested in staring out at the graveyard than paying attention to my efficiency evaluation.”
Howard perked up. “A fellow paranormal investigator! I should have known. He ended his life after a valiant battle with the other side.” Flyaway strands of gray fluttered around his wrinkled face while Howard slowly patted his chest in pride.
My dad gave me a wink at Howard’s dramatics. “Not quite. Simpson worked for the FBI. I didn’t know that until we got that briefcase of his open. We called up the Bureau, and they claimed him. He was working a cold case and had a new lead on some stolen money linked to the cemetery.”
As my father told the crowd about Jerry Marion's brother and the time he spent in prison for an armed robbery, I thought about Mr. Simpson. He didn't have any desire to open those boxes. He was living on cans of soup. The one thing he had taken out of a box was a set of binoculars. All the clues had been staring me in the face, and I'd missed them. He was surveilling the graveyard, but why had he called me? What would be the purpose of having a helpful hints writer come to visit?
“I still think Teddy Hancock did it,” Aunt Maggie interjected.
My father nodded. “John Simpson was in top physical form. Teddy Hancock is a scrawny man who is barely able to make a living. I hardly think he had the strength to do something like that.”
Howard Gunther put in his two bits. “Regardless of what Mr. Simpson was doing there, I think it was a malevolent spirit that killed him. Maggie, we need to organize a paranormal investigation of the residence just as soon as the police department clears it as a crime scene.”
“That idea is as mixed up as a pumpkin full of worms,” my father said. “We're investigating this case, and theories from outside the police department need to be kept to a minimum.”
I smiled at my father's description. The thing was, theories like Howard’s continued to grow. That was when it all came clear to me.
Chapter 8
Armed with my cellphone on the flashlight setting, I walked from grave to grave at the Pecan Bayou Cemetery. All I needed was to find Bert's freshest pile of upturned dirt. There were over three hundred graves in the cemetery and checking each one would take some time. The wind whipped around my legs, making me wish I had chosen to change my costume before going out.
When I left the community center, I lied to Leo, telling him I needed to go home and pick up some forgotten cookies. I couldn't exactly share with him that I wanted to walk around the cemetery at night, alone, with a possible killer in the neighborhood. It was just better to say that I forgot to bring cookies.
My white vinyl go-go boots crunched through the leaves that had fallen on Bert Finley's well-manicured grass. As the wind picked up again, there was a sound behind me. It was probably just the rustling leaves, but I pivoted with my cellphone, imitating the rounding beam of a lighthouse.
Nobody was there.
I walked among the tombstones of Pecan Bayou's dead, recognizing so many familiar names. Just like in Our Town, it was more than names on tombstones. It was a store owner, the milkman, a Little League coach, and a teacher. They were all here.
I finished a row and realized the one light bulb that was working in the Marion Funeral Home had been turned on. Had the crime scene investigation crew left it on? Were they still examining evidence there? If they were in there, I could share my theory about the upturned dirt. I left the cemetery and went to the house, taking the porch steps two at a time. I opened the front door and called out, “Is anybody in here?”
<
br /> There was no answer. Maybe they just forgot to turn the light off. I repeated my call. “Hello? Anybody here?” I started to turn and go back to the cemetery when a voice spoke from behind me.
“Your daddy ain’t here, girl.”
Was this the voice of the malevolent spirit Howard Gunther warned us about? Would I be the next one impaled on the wrought-iron gate? I tried to calm myself by reasoning that it was probably local kids out on a Halloween night adventure, visiting the murder scene. I pressed forward, my jaw set.
“Who is that?”
“Get out of here,” The voice spoke again, slowing down, as if to ensure I understood the message. The voice was male and angry. Somehow I had always imagined the evil spirit being a former funeral customer who was upset Mr. Marion messed up her final appearance with cheap makeup.
There was a familiar smell in the air. I remembered smelling it just a day or two ago. Whiskey. Teddy Hancock was in the house.
“Teddy, is that you?”
“Get out of here. You need to mind your own business, or you could end up like Simpson.” My heart raced. Maybe Aunt Maggie was right all along, and Teddy Hancock was the murderer, but why would he come back to the murder scene?
“Why are you in this house, Teddy?”
Teddy stepped out of the shadows, wobbling a bit. He leaned against a door jamb to steady himself.
“Bad enough I was cheated out of the house, I figured I could at least get some of the possessions that rightfully belong to me. There are some valuable things here. It's not like I'm living like a rich man, you know. Poor as a church mouse. That’s going to end. Right here. Right now.”
“There’s nothing here but empty boxes and one half-burned light bulb. What could you possibly take?” I asked.
“You’re just saying that. If you want to stick around for your Thanksgiving turkey, you should just walk on out of here and forget you ever saw me.”
“Did you kill John Simpson?”
“Get out!” Teddy hollered, his voice echoing through the empty house. I turned on my go-go boots and ran back into the graveyard. When I didn’t hear him coming after me, I stopped and took a breath. Had I come close to being murdered? If Teddy Hancock was the murderer, why was I out here looking for upturned dirt? Flicking on my cellphone flashlight, I tried to remember the areas where I had already searched. I walked past a few more graves and then stopped. Once again, I sensed something behind me. I turned, bouncing the beam of my flashlight across the tombstones. The outline of a man filled my view. Bert Finley stood, holding a rifle pointed directly at me.
“Take one more step into the cemetery, and you’ll find yourself a permanent occupant. You need to get out of here and go back home.”
I drew in my breath, feeling great relief. If Teddy Hancock did come after me, now I knew Bert had a gun and could protect me.
“Mr. Finley, thank God it's you.” He squinted into the glare of my cellphone and shielded his eyes with his hand.
“Betsy? What are you doing out here at night? You’re the last person I expected to be doing a cemetery walk on Halloween.”
“I know. Teddy Hancock's in the Marion house. I tried to get him to leave, and he threatened me.”
“Teddy always was an idiot.”
“I’m finding that out.”
“Why are you out in the graveyard? Shouldn’t you be at the community center with everybody else?”
I debated whether to tell him the truth or make something up. “My dad told me John Simpson was an FBI agent and that he was here to watch the cemetery. They think there is money hidden here somewhere. Isn’t that wild?”
“Money in the cemetery? I don't think so. We bury most people dressed in their finest suit, but there isn’t a whole lot of money in their pockets. You can't take it with you, you know.”
“I've heard that.”
“So what were you looking for?”
“I'm not sure really. Upturned dirt?”
“Really.”
A silence fell between us, making me re-evaluate whether I should have confided as much as I had to the cemetery groundskeeper. His shoulders stiffened. His hand had not relaxed on the rifle. His aim was still on me.
“Would you know anything about this, Mr. Finley?” I asked, the tremor in my voice betraying my growing fright.
“Why would you say that?”
“It's just, now that I think about it, you sure spend a lot of time digging around these graves. It occurred to me tonight when someone mentioned worms. I thought about your special compost, and then I decided that maybe some of the things you were doing were little over the top. Even so, I couldn’t believe you might have any other motive than doing your job.”
“It might surprise you to know I read your column every week. I never miss it. There’s one thing I especially like about you.” Bert Finley's voice had become suddenly very calm. It was as if we were sitting by the fire having a cup of coffee together, instead of engaged in a stand-off, with him pointing a double-barreled rifle at me. “It's your attention to detail. I love that about you. You see things that other people might have overlooked for years. Like the bald spots in the lawn. Most people would walk straight into the house, but you started right there. You saw everything, inside and out. I considered having you do one of your efficiency evaluations over at my place, but then I decided you might pick up on too much.”
“Too much?”
“Come on, Betsy. You're not out here for the night air. You figured it out, didn’t you? Old Mr. Finley, digging up the graves at night and re-seeding them in the morning? This town rolls up its sidewalks at night. Pretty easy to pull off.”
“It was you? Were you looking for the money? Did you kill John Simpson?”
“Sure enough. Easiest thing in the world. I could always tell the police he had to borrow my ladder to put in lightbulbs so he wouldn’t run into things in the middle of the night. Sleeping in a funeral home, you’d want to have the lights on. Once he got up to the top—oops. He fell right into the fence. A tragic accident.”
Now that Bert Finley was talking, he seemed happy to tell me his whole story. My odds of leaving the cemetery alive weren’t looking good. Why tell someone about a grisly murder if you plan to let them go? I started weighing my options while he continued to talk. I had to find a way to get away.
“You see, I had gone through almost every grave in the cemetery. There are hundreds of graves in this cemetery. And then I found it. I found the grave that had the money. Jerry Marion's brother had left it in Mabel Schatz’s grave. Do you know what Schatz means in German? Treasure. Pretty smart, huh? I found the money just a few feet down. I wanted to shout, but kept quiet because of my new neighbor. Unfortunately, when I came out of the hole I had dug, John Simpson was standing there with a flashlight. He’d been watching me the whole time. I searched for this money for years, night after night, and when I finally found it, the FBI was standing on the edge of the grave. A guy can't catch a break.”
“So what did you do?”
“I hit him with the shovel. He went right down. I knew the legend of my old cellmate’s brother falling on the wrought-iron fence, so when I dragged Simpson back into his house I set up my ladder, and I threw him onto the fence. It was easy. Simpson didn’t weigh much more than a headstone. Wasn't nothing to it.”
I realized I had to get away, and fast. Before I could take a step, Teddy Hancock walked out onto the porch of the funeral home.
“I called the police on you, Betsy. They’re on their way.” Sirens cut through the air in the distance. “Your daddy’s not going to be happy about this.”
Now Bert Finley was going to have to shoot us both. Teddy Hancock was an irritating man, but he didn’t deserve to get shot.
“Betsy?” Teddy called out again.
Bert turned his attention toward the man on the porch, and as he did, I stomped on his foot with the heel of my boot. With a groan, he bent to grab his hurt toes. His gun slid out of his grasp and onto the g
round. I ducked behind a bulky tombstone, hoping any bullet wouldn’t make its way through.
Moaning in pain, Bert picked up the gun, but as he ran across the cemetery, rifle in hand, the headlights of a Pecan Bayou Police Department cruiser illuminated the scene. To my great joy, I counted six headlights. It was full Pecan Bayou Assault Force time. All three of their cruisers were on the scene. My dad hopped out of his car and shouted, “Drop the gun, Finley.”
“I don't think so,” Finley shouted in reply. He shot directly at the squad car, and I screamed as my father hit the ground. I wanted to run to him, but an immediate volley of fire came our way. I hid behind the tombstone as the bullets rushed past. I heard Bert Finley's body hit the ground, crunching the leaves around him. When the shooting stopped, I grabbed his rifle and pointed it at him.
He gasped. “I almost had it. I almost had my paradise. So close.”
Chapter 9
Two weeks later
My father returned to the table after excusing himself for a phone call. As he sat down, his hand absently touched the shoulder where the bullet from Bert Finley’s gun grazed him. As we neared Thanksgiving, having my father sitting at my table was one thing for which I was especially grateful.
“That was Jerry Marion's sister on the phone. She's decided to let Teddy Hancock off on the trespassing charges. When Simpson came to her with the idea of setting up surveillance in the graveyard, she admitted she should have realized there would be trouble.”
I set a plate in front of my father. “Just how did John Simpson know to watch the cemetery? That money had to have been buried out there for years. Why now?”
“Something came up in the FBI's system. Bert Finley's real name is Bert Fenderson. He gave his fingerprints for Mayor Obermeyer’s town security program. His prints turned up as flagged from an earlier investigation. Before this, the FBI had no idea where he was.”
“Was he wanted for a crime?”
“He was cellmates with Jerry Marion's brother, Clint. He was in for armed robbery, and told Bert that he had buried the money in the cemetery. After Clint died in prison during an inmate scuffle, Bert realized he was the only one who knew where the money was. He was released from prison shortly after. He knew there was an opening for a groundskeeper at the funeral home, because Clint had told him about Jerry’s death. Mayor Obermeyer hired him as Bert Finley and rented him the house by the cemetery. Once he got situated, Bert began to dig. Unfortunately, there were over three hundred places to explore. If it hadn't been for Mayor Obermeyer's heightened security, he might have stayed Bert Finley forever.”
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 22