A Ghostly Undertaking Read online

  “Doc Clyde said something about hallucinations. And I think I might be having one right this moment.” I bit my lip and paced back and forth, wondering if I should yell for Charlotte.

  “He’s a moron.”

  Since Ruthie was so chatty, I was about to pepper her with questions. Lots of hows and whys. How was I able to see her? Why was she talking to me? And why did she think she’d been murdered? But before I could, I heard a tap on my office door, then the room flooded with light. “Emma Lee?”

  Ruthie’s eyes widened and she put her finger up to her mouth, “Shh . . .”

  “I’m here!” I screamed, hoping that it would scare the hallucination or Ruthie’s ghost off. It didn’t matter which one left, as long as it left.

  I had never been so relieved to see Charlotte Rae poke her pretty little head into my bathroom. “Emma Lee, what are you doing in here? What happened to your makeup? Are you okay?”

  She took her hand and rubbed it across my cheek, wiping off smudged makeup. For a second there, I thought she was going to spit on a napkin and go in for another rub, so I dodged to the side.

  “What are you looking at?” Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. Her perfectly coifed red hair didn’t move.

  “Nothing.” I smiled, brushing down the front of my skirt as if there was some stray lint. “There was a lull in the visitation, so I wanted to come freshen up my makeup.”

  I lied . . . for the second time tonight.

  Charlotte Rae took the opportunity to look in the mirror. She grabbed the hand towel and rubbed the jeweled buttons on her jacket, making them sparkle even more. “Hurry up. The visitation is almost over. You need to go over all the final touches for the burial before tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow! Would Ruthie be gone tomorrow? I’d been so sure that Ruthie was going to be like Chicken Teater: here one minute and gone the next. Once Ruthie’s body was in the ground, would she be gone . . . forever?

  I had no idea—­but maybe Ruthie knew. “I’ll be right out—­I just need a few more minutes.”

  Charlotte Rae grabbed my arm. “No, now. The place is packed and I need your help.”

  As she grabbed my arm and dragged me along, I grabbed my high heels, and actually hoped that Ruthie would stick around a while longer so I could ask those questions. Murdered. It didn’t seem possible.

  Back in the viewing room, the place buzzed with Sleepy Hollow residents. The first and last hours of a funeral visitation were the busiest. ­People believed that if you got there early, you got out early. Or if you got there late, you had to leave by closing time. Let’s face it, who wants to be face-­to-­face with a corpse for any length of time?

  Besides my crazy family, that is.

  As I made my way back to Ruthie’s casket, I overheard a conversation between two men sitting in one of the rows. I paused for a moment to hear exactly what they thought about her sudden death.

  One gentleman hung his head and stared at his fingers, which were folded in his lap. He said, “I knew those stairs were too steep.”

  The other man, who couldn’t take his eyes off of Ruthie’s casket, added, “That inn needs to be bulldozed. It’s dangerous and old.”

  “You never know.” The first man shook his head. “Ruthie was getting up in age and maybe she wasn’t as with it as we thought.”

  “She wasn’t crazy.” The second gentleman was offended.

  “Not crazy,” he corrected himself. “We aren’t as spry as we use to be.”

  The other man nodded in agreement. His eyes deepened along with his lines.

  Leaning up against her casket, Ruthie fiddled with the jewels on her fingers. “Half of these ­people are only here to be nosy. Most of them hated me, you know. And I bet my murderer is in this very room. Who could it be . . . ? Hmm. I suppose there’s no lack of suspects. Someone came up behind me and shoved me down those stairs. Could be just about anyone, including your granny, you know. She’d been itching to push me down those steps for years.”

  That was true. Granny hated Ruthie. But Granny wasn’t the type to murder someone and not take blame for it. She’d be going around town bragging about what she’d done.

  “You’re going to have your hands full trying to figure it out,” Ruthie added.

  I smiled and nodded at all the ­people walking past and gawking at Ruthie’s body, wondering if they could tell that I was listening to a ghost rant. But even though I couldn’t openly speak to Ruthie here and now, she did have me thinking . . . about who could have killed her.

  Even if Ruthie was right and all of these ­people were here to see what was going on, they all did seem to have some sadness about them. No one said a foul word about her.

  “It’s so good of you to stand up here to greet everyone.” One of the local elderly women patted my arm when she walked by.

  It really wasn’t my place to stand by the casket, it was the job of the next of kin or any sort of family. Unfortunately, Ruthie didn’t have any next of kin listed on her pre-­arrangement form, nor could I find any.

  I’m all she had.

  I glanced over at the grandfather clock that stood in the corner. The brass weights and pendulum were polished to a high shine. Only twenty more minutes to go before everyone left and I could talk to Ruthie without fear of being overheard.

  Charlotte walked up and nudged me. “I can’t help but feel a little victorious that Ruthie is lying in the same spot from where she stole Earl.” There was a little pleasure in her voice. “That’s some kind of karma.”

  I glanced over at Charlotte and couldn’t help but smile. Old Ruthie had her hand up to her nose and was wiggling her fingers with her tongue stuck out, like a six-­year-­old. Ruthie had never been this funny when she was living.

  Five years ago, Earl Way Payne, Ruthie’s deceased ex-­husband, had lain in the exact same spot as Ruthie . . . until Ruthie stole him.

  On the day of his funeral, Earl Way’s will was read, leaving Granny his half of the Inn.

  Apparently, Earl Way hadn’t changed his “pre-­need” funeral arrangements when he married my granny and hadn’t let her know what his plans were. So, Granny had Earl Way laid out in this very viewing room as if he were the king of En­gland, with a room full of Sleepy Hollow residents here paying their respects, when O’Dell Burns marched in, rolling a casket cot, with Ruthie right behind him.

  “Pick him up,” Ruthie had demanded, pointing back and forth from Earl Way’s body to the basic wooden box O’Dell had wheeled in. “Go on, put him in.”

  I had never seen Granny speechless, but she was that day. O’Dell picked up Earl Way’s body and plopped him into that cheap pine box.

  Granny had stood at the front door with her arms crossed as O’Dell barreled out of the viewing room with Earl hopping and bopping and Ruthie scurrying alongside.

  And no one could do a darned thing about it, because old Earl hadn’t changed the orders to make Granny in charge of his eternal rest. That duty had been left to Ruthie, and she was determined to see it out. Her way.

  That was the moment when Granny decided to move into Earl’s side of the Sleepy Hollow Inn and make Ruthie’s life miserable.

  A hymnal played through the intercom, bringing me back to reality, or the reality that I had come to know.

  Some of the ­people had filtered out into the employee gathering space, while others mingled in the hallway just outside of the vestibule.

  “ ‘Low in the Valley?’ ” Ruthie cried out. “I know that song wasn’t in my pre-­need packet. I couldn’t stand that song living, let alone dead!”

  We both looked at Charlotte. She had a smug smile on her face.

  “Charlotte Rae Raines,” I gasped at my sister. “ ‘Low in the Valley’ was not in Ruthie’s ‘pre-­need’ arrangements.”

  Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes the music gets mixed up.” />
  This was no mix-­up. Charlotte was making a dig at Ruthie on Granny’s behalf.

  Ruthie was spitting mad. She vanished into thin air, which made me feel a little bit better. I was too busy watching her instead of doing my job.

  I refilled the memorial cards and made sure there were plenty of mints in the glass bowls as I walked around and greeted the mourners.

  There were a few ­people here I didn’t recognize. Casually I walked over to the chairs and sat diagonally behind Mayor May and a gentleman I didn’t know.

  “Is this little hiccup going to hinder our little deal?” the man asked. He was shaped like a bull and looked like a sausage in a gray pin-­striped suit. His beefy fingers scratched his nose before rubbing the back of his football player’s neck, like he was trying to work out the stress of the conversation they were having.

  Mayor May smiled, batting her long eyelashes. Her teeth were as white as the strand of pearls around her neck. “I’ll take the proposal to the town council.”

  “You better figure out who the next of kin is,” the man hinted a threat. “We’ll need approval.”

  I could only assume he was talking about Ruthie’s next of kin. No one in town seemed to know anything about her. When I was filing all the paperwork for her arrangements, the next of kin was supposed to sign off on it. I went to the mayor and the local sheriff, Jack Henry Ross, to see if they knew anything. Neither of them had a clue. There wasn’t a will to be found, either. Nothing.

  Per the funeral director code of ethics, I had to do everything in my power to find Ruthie Sue Payne’s next of kin.

  Reaching into my suit pocket, I grabbed my cell phone and tapped the calendar application. The town council meeting was coming up and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it—­the proposal Mayor May was talking about had me intrigued.

  Ruthie appeared out of nowhere . . . again.

  This time, there was something wrong with Ruthie, and it was more than just her listening to “Low in the Valley.” She darted back, forth, and leaned over her dead body.

  “Where is my brooch?” She yelled so loud, I put my hands over my ears. The woman sitting next to me oddly smiled and casually got up as if the “Funeral Trauma” was like bedbugs.

  Contagious.

  “In my arrangements, I specifically said that I wanted my spider diamond brooch on my left side.” She pointed to her chest. “Right here! Where is it?”

  I shrugged. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. It was my job to make sure the funeral arrangements were taken care of. Charlotte Rae had taken a vested interest in Ruthie and insisted that she dress Ruthie for the viewing.

  A high voice came from behind me. “My-oh-my.”

  Oh boy.

  Standing right in the doorway of the viewing room was all five feet four of Granny.

  Zula Fae Raines Payne was the epitome of a true Southern belle. Any insult that came out of Granny’s mouth was often followed up by “bless her heart.” Which any Southern woman knew was a phrase used to soften the blow of the previous statement.

  Someone could stab Granny in the back and she’d send them a thank-­you note.

  And I’d put money on it that Granny had already prepared some sort of dish for Ruthie’s ser­vice tomorrow. That was about the only good thing that happened in a Southern funeral. Whether you were liked or not, all the ladies in the county made sure you went out with a large meal.

  “I do love this song.” She pranced past me with her head held high. Her short flaming red hair, tousled and mussed up with the perfect amount of gel, complemented her emerald-­green dress perfectly.

  For a seventy-­seven-­year-­old widow of two, Granny looked great and behaved fifty years younger. The Southern saying “When the husband dies, the widow blossoms like a morning glory” was true with Granny. She looked better than ever and I’d heard she did the same after my grandfather had died. Unfortunately, he passed when I was a baby and I didn’t remember anything about him. That was when my parents stepped up and helped Granny run the funeral home.

  As she made her way up to the casket, Granny’s eyes were on old dead Ruthie. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn Granny had a little bit of a happy twinkle in her eye.

  I stepped up beside her. “Granny, what are you doing here?”

  Granny didn’t say a word, but I remembered exactly what she’d told me after Ruthie had O’Dell Burns wheel Earl out of Eternal Slumber Funeral Home. Never underestimate a Southern belle.

  The next day she moved her belongings into the Sleepy Hollow Inn and Antiques, right next to Ruthie’s room. “We Southern gals don’t get mad”—­she patted my hand when I tried to stop her from moving out of the funeral home owner’s quarters—­“we get even.”

  Ruthie leaned across me, swinging fists in Granny’s direction. “You thief! She is a thief! I want her arrested!”

  There was no denying what Ruthie’s panties were in a wad about. As sure as I was alive, Granny stood over poor old dead Ruthie with a diamond spider brooch neatly pinned on the right side of her dress.

  Chapter 3

  Have a good night.” I waved off the last attendee at Ruthie’s visitation and locked the door behind me.

  There were a million and one things I needed to do but that list was going to have to wait. As much as I didn’t want to, I needed to talk to Ruthie and ask her why she believed she was murdered. Ruthie might not have been the most popular citizen in Sleepy Hollow, but she didn’t deserve to die . . . or worse, be murdered.

  If there was a murderer on the loose—­I shuddered thinking about it—­he or she needed to be caught. Not that I was a capable of catching anyone, but I certainly could take my concerns to Sheriff Ross.

  I slipped back into the viewing room, going from flower arrangement to flower arrangement, pretending to straighten the sympathy cards. ­People loved to look at the cards to see who they were from.

  Believe it or not, someone’s status in a small town was often based on the size of the arrangement they sent to the funeral home. Right or wrong, the higher price tag equated to how beloved you were. The larger the floral design, the higher the price tag.

  Truth be told, I was procrastinating, working up my nerves to talk to Ruthie.

  The funeral home was quiet. Being around dead bodies in caskets really never bothered me. It was a normal daily routine. However, being around a dead body in a casket with its ghost standing next to it was an entirely different story.

  “Emma Lee, I’m leaving!” Charlotte hollered through the door from the office, causing me to jump. “I’ll see you bright and early.”

  “Good night!” I yelled loud enough for her to hear me, my voice as shaky as my knees.

  I heard Charlotte’s high heels click out the door, and the door clicked closed.

  Here goes nothing. Where was the Ouija board game when you needed it?

  “Ruthie?” The sound of her name as it crossed my lips—­and the thought that I was actually trying to talk to her—­ sent chills up and down my spine.

  “I’m here.” Ruthie stood in the back of the room, nowhere near her casket. “Seeing myself gives me the willies.” She shivered. Her jewelry jangled. “Come back here.” She waved me over.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be foggy or see-­through?” Wasn’t that how ghosts were portrayed in the movies? Sort of free floating?

  I straightened some of the chairs on my way to the back of the room, making sure the cream cotton slipcovers were perfectly matched up at the seams. The old wooden folding chairs looked much better covered up, even though they still squeaked when someone sat down.

  “That’s only in the movies.” Ruthie smiled as she squeezed a hair clip back in place. She always wore her hair pinned up on one side.

  I smiled back, taking in her hot-­pink pajamas and kitty-­cat slippers. I just couldn’t get u
sed to seeing Ruthie in such an outfit.

  “What?” Ruthie looked down at her clothes. She did a little jig. The kitty eyes on her slippers jiggled around.

  “I never figured I’d ever see you in kitty slippers.” My eyes squinted from the smile that crept up on my face. Ruthie was wealthy. She would never be caught dead in anything other than her fancy jewelry and a cardigan sweater.

  “It was late when I got pushed down the stairs. It was bedtime.” She brushed her hands down the front of the silk pj’s and held her head high. Even in death, Ruthie still had dignity.

  “What is this business about you being murdered?” There were no more reasons to beat around the bush.

  Her brows snapped downward. “I don’t know who did it.”

  “How do you know someone pushed you?” I remembered the men talking at the funeral. I paused for a moment. “Those steps are steep, and you do have that bad hip.”

  “Emma Lee Raines, I am not feeble and I did not fall down those steps.” She shook her finger at me, and then comically wrapped her hands around her body. She pointed to a spot on the center of her back. “Right here. Right here is where I felt two hands push me.”

  “And why do you think I can help you?” I dug my finger into my chest. “I’m not a cop. I’m not a private investigator. I’m just a funeral girl.”

  “Because I know you have access to all the rec­ords on the autopsy.”

  “There wasn’t an autopsy.”

  “What?”

  “You fell down the steps. There was no reason for anyone to think anything else.”

  “I’m telling you, I was murdered.” Ruthie’s voice escalated. She pointed her bony finger at me. “You are going to help me get to the other side by figuring out who killed me.”

  “Other side?”

  “Great beyond. The light. The big guy in the sky.” Ruthie looked up to the ceiling and then back to me. “I can’t cross over until I can rest eternal. And that means catching my killer.”

  “Killer?” The sound of it made me more worried than scared. Was there really a killer on the loose in Sleepy Hollow? Or was there just one person out to get Ruthie Sue Payne, and why?