beyond the grave 03 - a ghostly demise (15 page)

“And what if I can’t do that?” I asked.

“We’ll settle up somehow. But I’ve got faith in you, Emma Lee Raines. You look like a go-getter. You are on a mission.” She bit her lip. She watched my facial expression like cop Jack Henry did. “Obviously, someone didn’t want you to find my old files that I clearly cared nothing for or I would have taken them with me. They don’t like your meddling. So . . .” she paused, “ . . . what gives?”

Ahem.
I cleared my throat. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to tell her I was a Betweener so I chose my words carefully.

“My friend and employee, Mary Anna Hardy, has been investigating the disappearance of her father—”

She interrupted, “Cephus Hardy. Town drunk.”

“You know Cephus?” I was a bit in shock.

“Yeah.” Her mouth opened slightly. Her tongue coiled back, playing with her molars. Her nose curled. “I was getting close to uncovering that gambling ring and I think he’s a key player. I got a few warnings. He disappeared. I got evicted.”

“He’s still not back and his family is wanting answers.”

“And they hired you. An undertaker?” The creases between her eyes deepened.

“Yes.” I kept a steady face. “So are you going to give me your leads?”

“And get you killed?” She harrumphed. “No chance in hell. But.” She stood up. “I’ll be willing to assist you so I can make sure you keep up your end of the deal.”

“Listen, I told you,” I backed up, “I can’t guarantee the paper will reopen.”

“If you and I solve this gambling ring and find Cephus Hardy, they will have to reopen it.” She pushed back toward a fax-machine-type box and took off the paper that had printed. She read the paper and held it up. “Does your little visit have anything to do with the death of a clown from a carnival in Sleepy Hollow that just so happened to have been killed by a stake through his heart that was attached to a
ZULA FOR MAYOR
sign?”

“It might have upped the ante, but it wasn’t the original drive.” I figured I better not tell Fluggie a lie. She seemed to be good at her job. “Do you think the shutdown of the paper had anything to do with the gambling ring?”

“Do we have a deal?” She wasn’t going to answer any questions until I had agreed to get the paper back in Sleepy Hollow.

“I’ll try my hardest.” I was serious. I would go to the town council with a proposal to restart the paper if I had to, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

There was a long silence. I had learned from Jack Henry that during investigations, you sometimes had to be quiet. Let the silence play out. See if the other folds. Unfortunately, I didn’t have all day and Fluggie seemed to be the one with all the time in the world. She eased back in the chair and crossed her arms across her chest. She pulled her leg up and rested her ankle on her other knee.

“Yes.” I gave in. “I’ll get them to start the paper up.”

I didn’t know how I was going to do it but I was going to if it meant getting Granny off the hook and saving the funeral home. The thought of how Charlotte Rae would hold it over my head was even more motivation.

“Yes. There isn’t any proof about the shutdown of the paper being correlated with the gambling ring.” She pulled out a long cabinet drawer and used her fingers to dance over the tabs until she reached the file she was looking for. She pulled out a piece of paper with her handwriting on it. “One of the last things I uncovered was the names of the local bookies before Cephus Hardy kicked me out.”

“Cephus Hardy kicked you out of where?” I asked.

“The old mill. He and his old lady own it.” Fluggie shook her head and put the piece of paper back in the file. She gave the drawer a little shove and it slowly clicked shut. “You didn’t even know that the old mill belonged to the man you are trying to find?”

A little embarrassed, I shook my head.

“You see what you can find out about the paper and I’ll look into these bookies.” She grabbed the mug off her desk and a business card off her keyboard. “I’m going to get some stale coffee.”

She handed me the card.

“Call me when you find something out.” She walked past me and down the hall.

She didn’t ask for my number or how to get in touch with me. I wasn’t going to let a little oversight on figuring out who owned the old mill bring me down. I looked down the hallway, both ways, and I was alone. It was a good time to look at that file.

I barely squeezed the handle open, so not to click, and pulled the file drawer out. I started thumbing through the files until I reached the one labeled “Sleepy Hollow Gamble.” I kept the file sticking halfway out of the drawer so I wouldn’t lose the spot. I grabbed the piece of paper she had pulled out.

She had three names and numbers scribbled on it. It had to be the three bookies she was talking about. I grabbed a pen and ripped a piece of sticky notes from her desk and wrote the names and numbers down before placing the piece of paper back in the drawer and slowly shutting it.

There was a conversation in the back of the building, which I could only assume was Fluggie and another reporter. There wasn’t much time to get out of there. I slipped around the cubicle wall and headed out the door.

Chapter 19

T
here were two things I had learned from my little visit with Fluggie Callahan. Well, three.

The most important to the investigation were the names and numbers of the bookies. The second most important was that Leotta Hardy owned the old-mill property. And third, Cephus Hardy had good timing when he chose to disappear.

On the way back to Eternal Slumber, I thought about why Leotta would want me to keep silent. Did she kill her own husband?

I mean, it really wasn’t that far-fetched. Over and over you hear that the spouse was the first suspect and generally was the one with the motive to kill.

And it seemed Leotta did have a motive. One, Cephus was a drunk. Two, Cephus was obviously a gambler. And if Vernon Baxter and Leotta were in fact having an affair, it would be a way to get Cephus out of the picture.

My phone chirped a text from my back pocket. At the stoplight right before I turned to circle the square, I pulled it out to see who it was.

“Ugh.” A bad taste filled my mouth when I saw it was Charlotte and she wanted to know if I had gotten to talk to the Spears family about the free funeral.

Instead of turning toward the funeral home, I went straight through the light, passing the cemetery, and taking a left into the trailer park.

There was nothing funnier than a hearse’s pulling down the main road of a trailer park. The sounds of front screen doors slammed as I passed and the owners hung over their small porch railings to see exactly where the hearse was going to stop. Even a few kiddos hopped on their bikes and followed the dust the wheels of the hearse had created.

I rolled down the windows and rested my elbow on the sill, giving a few waves as I passed the wondering eyes. In the rearview mirror, I could see the neighbors gathered in the middle of the street, pointing and gossiping. Probably taking bets on who had died.

I eased around the corner to the back of the park, where the Spears’s double-wide sat on a two-lot spot. It was a lot of money to rent two lots. They had to pay double the water, double the electric, double the rent and I was sure a free funeral could help out.

Their trailer was in the dead center of the lots. There was a small lattice fence that went around the base of the white-and-orange-striped trailer. They had a bigger front porch, with a steel awning running across the top. An old, beat-up couch sat on the front porch along with a small table. Mrs. Spears stood up. The old nylon 1980s jogging suit was a bit faded as well as her white, cracked, K-Swiss tennis shoes. Her dishwater-colored hair was in a messy knot at the base of her neck and dark circles had found a home under each of her eyes. She took a long draw on her cigarette and let out a steady stream of smoke before she realized I was stopping at her house.

She went to the door and yelled something. Moments later, Mr. Spears came to the door. He had on a pair of cutoff blue-jeans shorts showing off his stick legs, his big naked belly flopped over the front, hiding the button and zippers that I was sure were strained and taut.

I grabbed some Eternal Slumber literature out of the glove box and got out. Mr. Spears gestured for Mrs. Spears to give him her cigarette. She did and he took a draw off it before he flicked it in the yard toward me.

“What do you want?” Mr. Spears growled. That was not happiness to see me. “Don’t you think your family has done enough to us?”

“I’m sorry about what happened to Digger.” I thought a little empathy went a long way. Boy was I wrong.

“Git ya skinny little ass out of here!” He flung his finger to the front of the park. “Before I go and git my gun!”

I put my hands out in front of me.

“I really am sorry. I just wanted to know if we can offer you a free service and burial for Digger.” I threw in the free plot at the cemetery. Charlotte Rae was going to die about that, but it’s better than her having to stick me in the ground.

“We don’t need your charity.” He spat. “Our boy hadn’t been back since he graduated high school. He was going to come here for dinner last night but looks like your Granny ruined it. Look at my wife. She’s heartbroken.”

Mrs. Spears never said a word. She lit another cigarette and eased back on the old couch.

“O’Dell Burns is going to give our boy the send-off he needs for free.” His words stung. “I hope that Granny of yours rots in hell for what she did to my boy!”

“I told you to stay in the shadow!” Cephus warned someone next to the trailer.

I gulped. I choked. I almost died right then and there when I saw the ghost of Digger Spears standing next to the ghost of Cephus Hardy.

“Umm . . .” I turned around. I had to get out of there. “Have a good day.”

“And you can tell Zula Fae that we have changed our vote to O’Dell Burns for mayor!” Mrs. Spears screamed at me.

I jumped in the hearse and pulled the gear down as quickly as I could.

“Shit! Shit!” I gulped and sped through the trailer park. “This is not happening,” I prayed, and repeated, “this is not happening.”

“It’s not happening. It happened.” The voice of Digger Spears was eerily too close.

“You are not here.” I squeezed my eyes shut before I looked over.

Digger Spears sat next to me in the passenger seat. Clown makeup and all.

Cephus sat cross-legged on the church truck.

“I tried to tell him not to show himself because you were a little sensitive to helping us, but he insisted that y’all were friends and you’d help solve his murder first.” Cephus rolled his eyes.

“So, have you always had this talent?” Digger was interested in my other job.

“No.” I gripped the wheel and took a left out of the trailer park. I had to get to Jack Henry. Not only to tell him about Digger’s ghost, but I had to talk to someone who genuinely cared about me and knew that I wasn’t going nuts. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Just one question.” He held his finger up in the air. My silence must’ve been his go-ahead. “You really didn’t have the Funeral Trauma like my momma said?”

“No.” My hands hurt from how tight they held on to the wheel. The pain made me feel real, alive. A little less crazy. “Your mother told you about that?”

“Hell ya. We thought you lost your marbles.” He did a shimmy shake. “The thought of your seeing ghosts is creepy.”

“Your having a job as a traveling clown is creepy.” My body relaxed a little. I guess I felt like I was just talking to Digger, not the ghost. “Besides, I’m helping you get to the other side.”

“I told you that she’s called a Betweener.” Cephus’s nerves were running thin. “He’s dumber than a box of rocks. No wonder he could only get a job as a clown.”

“Listen here, you drunk . . .” Digger started, but I interrupted.

“You listen.” I let go of the wheel with one hand and pointed between them. “I won’t have ghost-fighting going on here. If you want my help, you have to follow my rules.”

I had never had to put in ground rules, but there was a first for everything.

“First rule, I ask the questions, you answer. No back talk and absolutely no fighting between you two.” I sighed deeply. “There might be more rules to come.”

Both of them eyed each other before they both did some sort of wrestling move.

“I’m not kidding,” I warned. “Or you both will be in the between forever because I’m good at ignoring now.”

They seemed to listen to that last warning. They knew I was their only hope.

Chapter 20

I
s Jack Henry here?” I asked the dispatch officer when I walked into the Sleepy Hollow police station—Cephus and Digger in tow. “I really need to see him.”

The dispatch officer must’ve heard the urgency in my voice because she never told me where he was if he was out and about. She looked around and when the coast was clear, she leaned out the small, sliding-glass window.

She whispered, “Honey, he went to see your Granny. I don’t think it’s looking good.”

“Thanks.” I tapped the ledge of the window and skipped right out the door.

“What did that mean?” Digger asked.

“It means Zula Fae is being charged with your murder.” Digger was catching on quickly to how this Betweener gig worked.

“Zula Fae didn’t kill me.” He shook his head. “She couldn’t have hit me that hard.”

“What do you mean hit you?” My eyes slid his way. “You were stabbed in the heart.”

“That was after they hit me from behind.”

“Wait. What? Start over,” I coaxed him.

“The night was over. A buddy who has the strong-arm booth.” He flexed. “I really wanted the strong-arm booth, but I had to work my way up in the ranks. First, I worked at the fill the balloon with water game.”

“Stay on task,” I encouraged him.

“Oh, yeah.” He looked out the window. “Anyway, Gus, the strong-armed man, brought me over a beer. For good luck, all the workers end their night by sitting at their booths and drinking a beer.” He shrugged. “I always get off the dunking board, but I wanted to look around Sleepy Hollow since it was my town. So I was enjoying my beer, feet dangling, and pretty proud to have seen all y’all. It was fun.” He smacked his hands together, causing me to jump. “Then whack! My head felt like it had exploded. I fell forward. I think I drowned from being knocked out.”