A Ghostly Mortality: A Ghostly Southern Mystery (Ghostly Southern Mysteries) Read online

  Granny took it harder than anyone. She felt betrayed by Charlotte Rae. It was apparent from Granny’s comments earlier.

  “I don’t know.” I blew on the much-needed coffee and let the steam swirl up before I took a sip. “You know Charlotte. She makes everything look as if it was all coming up roses. But Granny”—I shook my head—“she still isn’t over Charlotte leaving. I felt bad for her today when Charlotte paraded us around that building showing us how she hosts wedding receptions, baby showers—”

  “Baby showers?” Vernon’s head jerked back and he looked at me as if I had two heads.

  “Yep. I’ve never seen anything like it. Charlotte is not only a funeral director, she’s a party planner now.” I laughed.

  “Did you get the papers signed?” Vernon asked.

  Vernon was not only my employee, he had become like a father figure to me, and since Charlotte left, I found I went to Vernon for business advice.

  “Nope.” I filled my mug again and shuffled through the Post-it notes, taking a look to see who had called. I leaned my hip on the edge of the counter and looked at Vernon. “That is one thing I don’t get. If she’s so happy, then why not sign the papers?”

  “Maybe she’s having second thoughts.” Vernon shrugged. “I’ve got to get back to Jade and sign off on her papers to give to Jack Henry.”

  “You’re all finished?” I asked knowing he’d have to get his final autopsy report to Jack Henry Ross, Sleepy Hollow sheriff and my hunky boyfriend.

  “Mary Anna had come to do Jade’s makeup but I still had to sew Jade’s eyes shut.” Vernon made a sewing motion with his hand, sending chills up my spine. “Mary Anna is down there now shining up the tiara.”

  The tiara was a perfect touch to Jade’s final resting place. I’d even gotten a horse from Dottie Kramer so Jade’s coffin could be pulled to the cemetery in a horse-drawn carriage. My only problem was finding a Cinderella-style carriage. Another reason why Charlotte had left a bad taste in my mouth. She’d come down here after word that Jade Lee Peel had died and tried to get Artie to use Hardgrove Legacy Center to lay Jade to rest. She’d even promised a Cinderella-style carriage. I promised it too, just to nail down Jade’s funeral here. Unfortunately, I wasn’t having any luck finding a carriage.

  “Thanks, Vernon.” It was nice to not have to worry about going down the checklist like I used to have to do with Charlotte Rae. “At least we know Jade would’ve loved this hullabaloo.” I pointed to the door because Jade would’ve loved all the attention from the news media.

  Before Charlotte had left with less than a twenty-four-hour notice, I had a checklist of sorts. Vernon would tell Charlotte when the body was ready to be dressed and Charlotte would call Mary Anna Hardy.

  I couldn’t do my own hair and makeup, much less the dead’s. Not Mary Anna. She said she liked working on the corpses better than her living clients because they didn’t talk back to her or complain.

  Still, Charlotte was in charge of all of that. After the family viewed the body, it was my turn to take over and Charlotte moved on to the next family. I made sure the funeral went smoothly and the parlor was ready for viewing. Charlotte didn’t like to attend the funeral part. She said she didn’t like to see people cry and act all sad. Who did? Since Charlotte refused to do it, lucky me, I had to deal with it.

  Now that I was in charge, it seemed like everything ran a little smoother since I wasn’t a micromanager like Charlotte. Vernon knew the drill and he and I worked like a finely oiled machine. Instead of giving me the burden of calling Mary Anna, he took it on as part of his duties to leave out the middle man and call her himself. That way if there was some sort of special fill-in, like a little more putty on the nose area or an abnormality Mary Anna could cover up with makeup, he could tell her himself. So far so good.

  “I’ll go ahead and call Artie.” I did a quick check of the time by pulling my cell out of my back pocket. “I’ll make sure to get the front viewing room ready for him because Sissy Phillips’s family requested the east room because that was where her daddy was laid out.” Sissy’s funeral was in the morning and I was sure Vernon hadn’t even started on her yet. It was going to be a late night for all of us here at Eternal Slumber.

  It wasn’t uncommon for a family to request a certain viewing room especially if they had used it before. Whatever made them comfortable was fine with me. It was hard enough to lose a family member, so I tried to make the funeral planning a little easier on them. It was nice when the deceased had pre-need arrangements because then there was no decision-making needed from the grieving family. All the decisions had been made. But with Charlotte gone, I was finding it hard to do everything. Even if she was having second thoughts, I would never admit life had been much easier with her here. Or to clarify, life was a little easier when I had an extra set of hands . . . not necessarily her perfectly manicured ones because she never got down into the nitty-gritty.

  Vernon got on the elevator and I walked into my office, the one that used to be Charlotte’s. It was much larger than the one I used to have and furnished much nicer. It was where the family would come to sign all the final papers, so we made sure it was a comfortable and welcoming space for them.

  Death was such a sad and final experience that I tried to make it as nice as I could. I grabbed the portable phone off the charger that sat on the credenza behind the desk and plopped down on the cream leather couch in front of the window while I dialed Jack Henry.

  “Good morning.” I couldn’t stop the smile that automatically found a place on my face when I heard Jack Henry’s voice answer. I sank deeper into the large pillows Charlotte used as decoration only and let my body melt as I talked to him. “I wanted to call and hear a happy voice before I call back my clients and get ready for Jade’s funeral.”

  It was true. Jack Henry made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside that calling him first thing in the morning before returning the calls from my clients really helped me and was becoming part of my routine.

  Knowing I had a lot of work left to do, I got up and walked down the hall into the vestibule of the funeral home before taking a right into the viewing room. The chairs were set up for Jade’s funeral, but I still needed to finish putting the slipcovers over some of them.

  “Good morning. I was going to stop by, but when I drove by, I saw your hearse was gone and Zula’s moped chained to the tree. I knew you must’ve gotten your courage up to go see Charlotte.” Jack’s deep southern drawl melted my heart. It took everything I had not to throw in the towel for the day and spend it with him. Especially now that I only had me to answer to. “How was it? Did she sign the papers?”

  “It was weird and no, she didn’t.” I groaned and walked over to the storage room door. Every viewing room had their own storage room filled with linens for the funerals and other items like Kleenex and floral stands.

  I barely got the door open when the orange-and-white-striped tail darted inside.

  “Oh my.” Quickly, I slammed the door shut. I knew something brushed up against my leg and now that I’d seen the tail, I would bet money it was a feral cat, which wouldn’t be uncommon in our wooded area. “I knew I felt something earlier.”

  “Huh?” Jack Henry sounded confused.

  “I think a feral cat got into the funeral home.”

  “A cat?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered and slightly opened the door with my eye looking through the crack.

  A flash of orange whipped past me. I jumped around to face the chairs, and the tail danced around and under them. I walked down the aisle with my phone pinned between my ear and shoulder, looking all around the room to see if I could find the cat. The last thing we needed was the Peel family to come in here and a cat appear out of nowhere.

  “Didn’t a cat get in there once before?” Jack Henry asked, reminding me of a very bad situation that I had wanted to forget.

  “Umhmm.” I bent down and looked underneath the chairs. A long time ago I had secretly kept a cat
in my bedroom. Charlotte Rae had left my door open and the cat got out when there was a funeral going on. During Pastor Brown’s final prayer when everyone’s head was bowed, the cat had apparently jumped in the casket and curled up right on the funeral pillow. When everyone opened their eyes, screams came from all directions. Needless to say, we’d lost a couple of clients after that and it had spread all over town about how Eternal Slumber let feral animals into the funeral home. Business might’ve recovered after a few months, but the gossip never did stop and still to this day the cat incident was occasionally brought up.

  “I don’t see that cat.” I stood up and looked around, scratching my head.

  “You actually saw a cat?” Jack asked.

  “I saw a cat tail in the air.” I knew I sounded crazy, but I’d seen many more things that others couldn’t. “Anyways, Charlotte kind of pushed the papers aside like it was no big deal and told me she would get to it later.” I opened the door of the storage room and flipped on the light. “And I mentioned it to Gina Marie Hardgrove. She was mad because Charlotte hadn’t signed them.”

  “Why would that be skin off her back?” Jack asked.

  “Apparently Charlotte signed a non-compete with them.” My eyes scanned the room for a roaming tail.

  “That doesn’t make sense since Eternal Slumber is nowhere near Hardgrove’s.” He made a good point.

  “Charlotte did say that she was getting some of Burns’s clients, which still makes no sense to me since I’m right here.” I let out an exasperated, long sigh and walked back over to the storage closet to get a few more slipcovers. I might as well get something done while I was on the phone.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” I bent down and tried to see if the cat had made its way back into the closet and squeezed underneath the lowest shelf. I didn’t know a thing about cats, but I did know they could work their way into tight spaces.

  I didn’t know much about animals in general. My parents didn’t allow animals in our home—the cat in the coffin is a good example of why.

  “You see the cat?” Jack Henry’s voice escalated. Our conversation had turned back to the cat.

  “I think a cat went back in the storage room.” I got on my hands and knees and continued to crawl around looking in all the tight spaces. “Did you hear me say Charlotte said she’d sign them later?”

  “How much later?” Jack asked a good question. “She’s been gone for months now.”

  “Granny seems to think Charlotte is regretting her decision.” I wouldn’t bother telling Jack Henry all the details of my visit to Hardgrove’s. Although my sister and I didn’t get along that well, we were still sisters and I didn’t want to make her look any more stupid than Melinda and her daughter had made her look earlier in the day. Even if it was only gossip between me and Jack Henry, it was still gossip.

  “Do you think she is?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know, but maybe I’ll go back out to see her without Granny,” I suggested and stood back up. There was no hide nor hair of the cat to be seen.

  I grabbed the blue linen chair covers off the shelf. Artie had picked out a blue sparkly pageant dress of Jade’s to lay her to rest. It would definitely look very Cinderella-ish.

  “That would probably be a good idea. Say, I’ve got some free time for lunch before the funeral. Do you want to meet at the inn for lunch?” he offered.

  “That sounds great.” I hated to pass up any time I could spend with Jack Henry. “But I still need to find a carriage for the funeral.” I was starting to regret making a promise to Artie about the carriage when I had no idea where or how to get one. I’d called many places that rent those types of things for sweet sixteen birthdays and parades, but no one had returned my calls.

  Really I wanted to run back up to see Charlotte before Jade’s funeral and talk to her myself. I didn’t want anyone to know, not even Jack.

  “So I won’t see you until the funeral?” he asked with a touch of disappointment in his tone.

  Sleepy Hollow shut down when there was a funeral. Jack Henry always led the funeral procession in his cruiser. I didn’t know what it was about those lights, but when he turned them on, he turned me on.

  “We can make up for lost time after the funeral.” I looked down at my watch and bit my lip, wondering how I was going to fit Jack Henry in my nightly plans since Sissy was a top priority. There was no way I was going to tell Jack Henry that.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “If I’m lying, I’m dying.” I shut my eyes so tight they almost hurt. I was preparing myself to get struck down by lightning. I had made a promise to Jack that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep.

  I had a couple of hours to get everything set up for Sissy in the other room. The memory books for both Sissy and Jade had been sent to Fluggie Callahan, and I needed to return the calls before I could head back to Hardgrove’s. I was going to get Charlotte alone one way or another.

  “Did you find the cat?” Jack Henry asked.

  “No, but I’ll tell John Howard to keep an eye out for it. See you soon.” I hit End and added a couple of blue casket drapes to my growing pile.

  “Hell fire! Where is everyone?” I heard someone yell from the viewing room. “I know someone’s got to be here,” the voice grumbled.

  I walked out of the closet and put the linens on one of the folded chairs.

  “Honey, I was beginning to wonder what was going on around here.” Marla Maria Teater stood in the middle of the room with the biggest casket spray of blue carnations I had ever seen. She wore a bright pink jumpsuit that zipped up the front, but stopped in the middle of her cleavage. A dog leash was fastened around her wrist and the other end was attached to Lady Cluckington, Marla Maria’s prize Orloff pet hen.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I asked, taking a good look at the flowers.

  A white sash across the arrangement read Daughter, Friend, Queen.

  “Are you okay?” Marla took one good look at me and dropped the flower spray on the floor.

  When she rushed over, the leash dropped and Lady pecked the flowers. Marla ignored her and used the pads of her fingers to tap underneath my eyes.

  “You haven’t been using the Preparation H I gave you.” She grabbed my chin with her fingers, giving it a good jerk side to side and up and down. “I don’t go around wasting beauty tips on just no one. I expected you, of all my girls, to take my advice.”

  “I appreciate all of your advice.” I jerked my head back and out of her pinchers. I rubbed my chin, feeling the indentions of the nails she’d embedded in me. She was right. I hadn’t done much about my appearance because I was busy.

  I stared at her for a second, wondering if she remembered that it was dead people that were my clients and they for sure didn’t care if I had bags, circles or even wrinkles around my eyes.

  “Advice?” She ran her hands down my hair and fluffed up a few of the layers. “Preparation H is not advice, it’s a miracle for those little wrinkles under your eyes.” She tapped my eyes again. She sucked her lips in real tight. “If it can shrink a hemorrhoid, think about those wrinkles. And you have a hot cop to keep on the line.” Her puckered lips disturbed me on so many levels.

  I put my hand on my heart. “I will use it tonight. I promise.” I looked back down at the flowers, closed my eyes and gulped. That would be two promises I probably wasn’t going to be able to keep.

  “If you don’t start taking care of yourself, you are going to be right up there.” She lifted her arm and pointed to the front of the viewing room.

  “Now, what are you doing here with that?” I had to change the subject. I might be in the business of death, but I didn’t want to think about my own.

  “Oh no.” Marla Maria’s face melted into a frown. Lady had given that funeral flower spray a run through the ringer. “If Dottie Kramer knew I dropped this on the floor, she’d skin my hide and pluck off all of Lady’s gorgeous feathers for getting a hold of it.”

  “Dottie Kra
mer?” I asked.

  “You haven’t heard?” Marla Maria was bent over the flower arrangement, plucking and picking off the stems that had bent, broke and been nibbled on. “Dottie Kramer opened up a florist in her barn. She has done so well with her vegetables, she decided to try out her green thumb. And she dropped off that old humpback horse you wanted for Jade’s carriage.”

  I went behind her and picked up the pieces she discarded. “And you are helping her?”

  “When I was at Artie’s delivering the eggs, she was in there sticking all sorts of fresh flowers in buckets of water near the register. Artie said he’d let her give it a go and my goodness, they were all gone by the end of the morning rush.”

  “You still deliver eggs to Artie’s?” I was stuck on the fact she continued her deceased husband’s job because, when he was alive, she’d complained to high heavens. She nodded. “I bet Chicken is real happy about that.”

  I referred to her deceased husband, Chicken Teater. Murdered husband. In fact, Chicken was the second Betweener client that had come to me because he was murdered. I’m not going to lie, I had thought Marla Maria killed him because she was jealous of Lady Cluckington, but after putting my amateur sleuthing skills to the test and sticking my nose in places it shouldn’t have been stuck in, I did find out who killed him and why.

  “It just seemed fittin’ since Chicken did a good job at it, and what in hell am I going to do with all of them eggs?” Marla Maria stood up and brushed her hands together before she picked up Lady’s leash and wrapped it back around her wrist. “Now, where is Jade?”

  It wouldn’t be unusual for Marla Maria to ask to see Jade. Marla Maria also ran the pageant school on the outskirts of town for young women who wanted to be beauty queens. She had been fascinated with Jade Lee Peel.

  “She won’t be out until this afternoon, but I’ll be sure to put those in the refrigerator and place them right on top of her big blue casket.” I didn’t want to risk the media getting a photo of Jade like the many they’d done of celebrities in their caskets. I walked over to the linens and picked the top one up and snapped it open. “You didn’t answer my question—are you helping Dottie?”