A Ghostly Secret Read online

  “I hope it’s on nursing homes.” The familiar voice of Beulah Paige Bellefry chirped behind me.

  My inner core shook. Hearing her this early was fingernails-on-a-chalkboard rough.

  At five-foot-six, Beulah Paige was the epicenter of gossip since Ruthie had passed. It was like the baton was passed right on over to Beulah and she never had anything real nice to say about anyone.

  “Excuse me?” I turned around and glared at her.

  “Lookie yonder.” She pointed her long thin finger to the outside.

  “Now what?” I asked with a pit in my stomach when I saw Granny parking her moped in the bike rack in front of Higher Grounds and wearing a wedding dress.

  “Like I said,” Beulah’s southern accent dripped with sarcasm, “I hope you’re researching nursing homes because Zula Fae has lost her mind. Or getting married for the third time.”

  Before I could get past the line of customers and zig zag through the filled café tables inside Higher Grounds, Granny was inside the door with a bouquet of flowers over her head.

  “Who’s getting married next?” She twirled the flowers around and around her head and then flung them at me. “Congratulations Emma Lee and Jack Henry! You’re next.”

  I caught the bouquet like a football. Leaves and petals fell off the stems where she’d hit me so hard with them.

  “What is wrong with you? What do you have on?” I pulled her aside to one of the café tables in the corner and tried to not look at all the eyes on us.

  “I remember that dress.” Mable Claire’s face beamed from one café table over.

  “Looks like we need to talk about arrangements.” Bea Allen Burns was enjoying this way too much.

  “Over my dead body.” Granny grabbed the flowers out of my hand and whacked Bea Allen with them.

  “Stop it.” I grabbed the flowers and profusely apologized to Bea Allen.

  I really didn’t mean the apology since Bea Allen Burns, owner of Burns Funeral Home, was my biggest competitor. She did everything in her power to monopolize all the deaths in Sleepy Hollow. It was really her brother and our current mayor, O’Dell Burns that we Raines had a problem with. Specifically over Granny’s second husband, Earl Way Payne.

  Ever since a mix up with Earl Way’s funeral arrangement our families have been at odds. Mix up meaning Granny wasn’t going to fulfill his wishes of being buried by Burns Funeral, so she went ahead and got him all dolled up and looking so handsome in the big picture window of Eternal Slumber. She figured O’Dell didn’t have the guts to go in there and take the body. She figured wrong. Needless to say, O’Dell didn’t waste no time pushing the church cart down the center aisle of Earl’s funeral and packing him right on out of there. It had been a mess. Now Bea Allen and I continued the feud since she took over her brother’s funeral home business after he was sworn in as mayor. Another sore subject with Granny.

  “You look as pretty today in that as you did on your wedding day.” Mable Claire grinned.

  Bless Mable Claire’s heart. She was so loyal to Granny. So loyal that she still wore the Vote For Zula For Mayor campaign pin on her shirt every day and the election had been over a year ago.

  “Who’s getting married?” Jack Henry stood under the dinging bell, signaling his arrival. He looked very amused with Granny.

  “Apparently you are.” Beulah broke the news. His amused look faltered.

  “Oh Granny is playing silly.” I smacked her in the chest with the flowers. “Now, go on back to the Inn and change out of that ridiculous dress.”

  “Wouldn’t Emma Lee look so pretty in this silky cream wedding dress?” Granny did the step and stop, step and stop walk brides used to do when they walked down the aisle with the flowers firmly held up to her chest. “It might be a little outdated, but it’s mine and it’s something old.” She turned and gave me a theatrical wink.

  “Emma Lee would look good in a brown sugar sack.” Jack Henry stepped aside as Granny continued her walk and stop routine out the door. “What was that all about?”

  “Granny and her thirty-year-old joke I’m sure.” It wasn’t a secret around here that Granny said if you weren’t married off by thirty, you were an old maid. I watched out the window as she zoomed off on her moped toward the Inn, regretting I’d even mentioned the ring I’d found in Jack Henry’s coat pocket.

  Technically, I didn’t find it. It fell out and I quickly stuck it back in his pocket before he came back into my hospital room.

  “She’s a character.” Jack Henry was doing a good job of throwing me off. I nodded.

  “I’m going to grab a coffee and head on out to the office.” He gave me a kiss. “What’s your plan?”

  “I wanted to grab a coffee and walk over to the library to see what I can find out about my little friend.” I took a drink of the coffee and wished there was something a little stronger in it when I saw Granny do a loop around the square. She held onto the moped with one hand while she twirled the bouquet above her head before tossing it at the café door and gunning it. “Want to grab a drink later?”

  “Drink?” Jack looked at me.

  “I have a feeling a drink might be in order because it’s gonna be a long day.” I sucked in a deep breath.

  “I’m outta here.” Bea Allen patted Jack Henry on her way out. “Congratulations to the happy couple.”

  “We aren’t. . .” I started to say but she walked out too fast. And I did notice Jack Henry just smiled.

  Chapter Six

  There was one thing I did know, no matter how much I tried to convince Granny to stop it with the wedding dress, I was going to lose. There was no sassing Granny when she had something in her head. Right now, me getting married was in her head.

  There was a slight chill in the air. The horizon of fall was on the cusp of Sleepy Hollow and soon I’d be walking down the street with a Pumpkin Spiced Latte instead of a regular coffee. The library was a little piece away from the square past Sleepy Hollow Baptist, the only church in town.

  Like the rest of the town, the library was small and in a clapboard house. It didn’t lack books or access to anything new. The library had the latest in technology and Mayor Burns was very proud of that. In fact, it’s how he got elected. Granny relied on loyalty against O’Dell where he relied on parents and their children’s education. Part of his platform was growth in funding for the library and the local school. Granny’s platform was. . .come to think of it, Granny hadn’t even had a platform.

  Of course my phone chirped from my bag that was strapped across my body as soon as I walked into the quiet library. Mazie Watkins’s eyes flickered from behind the reference desk. It was her way of telling me to take it outside without even opening her mouth. When I retrieved it, I noticed it was Mary Anna, probably wanting to pick up her paycheck.

  “Good morning, Mary Anna,” I greeted her after I’d hit the green answer button and walked back out of the library.

  “I’m so excited!” she screamed through the phone. “I’ve already got you down for a cut, color and brow wax.”

  “Brow wax?” I ran my finger over my eyebrows.

  “Honey.” Mary Anna scolded me. “The wedding of the century and our bride has to at least get those brows done. It might’ve looked good on Brooke Shields in the eighties, but that was then. You need a cut, color and wax. Maybe not just on the brows either. Where are you going on the honeymoon? We can discuss other waxing options later.”

  “Mary Anna, I think you’ve got this all wrong.” Sheer panic hit me. If I didn’t get Granny under control, she’d have a wedding tomorrow. “I’m not even engaged.”

  “But Zula called first thing this morning and made an appointment for the shower, rehearsal dinner and wedding.” Her voice faded.

  “Between me and you,” I had to stop the train. “Granny might be losing her mind. Don’t you think I’d have told everyone myself if I was getting married?”

  “Poor Zula.” Sadness held in her tone. “You know when she traded her perf
ectly good Toy-yota and got that moped, I wondered if she’d lost her mind. I’m so sorry. I’m sure Doc Clyde can give her something for it. After all, they’re still dating, right?”

  “Right they are.” I smiled when I got the idea in my head. What if Granny and Doc Clyde got married. That’d keep her occupied. Whatever Zula Fae Raines Payne wanted, she got. “Zula Fae Raines Payne Clyde doesn’t have a bad ring does it?”

  “You are a stinker. But I have to say that I’m sad the rumors aren’t true. You’d have made an excellent bride and mother.” She clicked off the phone.

  Mother? Did she say mother? I let out a long audible breath and tried to get myself into the right frame of mind to try to get to the bottom of Betsy’s death.

  “You do know that we ask you to turn off your cell phones when you enter the building.” Mazie pushed a strand of her short brown wavy hair away from her mouth. Her olive skin and green eyes gave her a very exotic look.

  She pointed to a sign that had an illustrated picture of a cell phone on it with a big red slash through it. “But then again, I never see you in here. In fact, I don’t ever recall you coming in here.”

  “I’ve got some research to do.” I flipped the little button on the side of my phone to silence it and stuck it back in my bag. “I’m going to use some of that funding Mayor got for us. The computers.”

  “You mean computer? As in one.” She held up her finger and then my eyes followed it as she swept it across the room. “And we have a wait list to use it.”

  She slid a piece of paper across the reference desk and placed a pen on top of it. It looked like I was second on the list. I scribbled my name.

  “What does that say?” she asked.

  “My name.” My voice hardened.

  “You don’t have very good penmanship,” she noted before she hmm’d to herself and turned away.

  The only other people in the library were the person on the computer and the person who must’ve been on the list before me. Out of the corner of my eye, Betsy appeared in the children’s section. She took off running toward one of the beanbag chairs and fell in, then bringing her book above her head, she started to read.

  I grabbed a book on my way over to act as though I was interested in reading something and opened it, pretending to read to myself, but really talking to Betsy.

  “So you love to read.” Not that it was a big revelation. She’d always carried around a book.

  “I do. It helps me escape into far away places.” Her little smile warmed the piece of my heart that knew she was precious, but my the other side of my heart ached knowing somewhere someone was missing her. “I guess you’re going to get married on your birfday.”

  “No. No.” I held the book up in front of my face and sat next to her on the beanbag. “I’m not getting married.”

  “But everyone’s saying you’re getting married. Are you going to forget about me? That’s what she said. My mommy was going to forget about me. I think she forgot about me,” her small voice faded and so did she.

  “Betsy.” I took the book down and looked around for her. “Who said your mommy was going to forget you?” I asked out loud. “Psst, Betsy,” I called.

  “Emma Lee, this is a quiet zone.” Mazie didn’t waste one second to reprimand me. “You’re up.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the computer.

  “Oh, sorry.” I held the book up. “This is a great book.”

  “Beer crafting?” Mazie’s brows lifted.

  “Beer crafting?” I turned the cover around and noticed the book that I’d haphazardly picked up was just that. “Yeah. Jack Henry is interested.” I lied and tucked my chin down so I didn’t have to look at her on my way over to the computer.

  There was a process to using the missing child database. Since I knew Betsy’s first and middle names, I typed those in and immediately an article appeared from twenty years ago, almost to the date, with a photo of a much more vibrant Betsy Lynn Brady. A ten-year-old little girl from Lexington had gone missing from her mother’s home. The article stated that her mother had woken up late. It was unusual because Betsy always crawled into bed with her and woke her up. When she woke up and Betsy wasn’t in there, she immediately went to Betsy’s room. Betsy was nowhere in the house. The housekeeper had been there but hadn’t seen Betsy either. The housekeeper said that she thought Betsy had gone to her father’s house or a sleepover.

  “Are you printing?” Mazie called from the resource desk.

  “Shhh.” I reminded her and smiled so she knew I was joking.

  “We are the only people in here. As a matter of fact, today has been the busiest we’ve been since school’s been in.” Mazie held up some papers. “Are you printing or not?”

  “Yes.” I watched as she read the headlines about the missing girl.

  “I remember this case.” She held up the papers. “Don’t you remember our parents telling us to stay close to our homes in fear of getting abducted?”

  “I don’t.” My parents didn’t really have on the news or the TV. They claimed having dead bodies around our house was enough sadness and that they didn’t expose us to any more than they had to, but when I read the article it didn’t dawn on me that Betsy and I were the same age.

  “They never found her.” A sad sigh accompanied Mazie’s turned down mouth. “My mother couldn’t wait for the nightly news to come on to hear any updates.”

  “Was it national?” I asked.

  “Yes. I remember my mother just crying and hugging me saying over and over how she couldn’t imagine if it was me.” Mazie stared off into space with no knowledge that the little girl she was talking about was right there staring back at her.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sleepy Hollow Police Station was on the outskirts of the square. It was the typical brick building with an flagpole in the middle of a circular drive with an American flag waving in the cool fall breeze.

  “My mommy came to one of these places.” Betsy stared out of the front seat of the hearse.

  “In a hearse?” I asked. My heart dropped. I couldn’t imagine doing a funeral for a little one. Luckily, I’d not had to do that.

  “No. In a police station. They thought that my mommy hid me away but she didn’t.” Betsy’s face greyed even more than her ghost form already was. “I tried to get her attention several times but she never looked at me. Maybe she was going to get rid of me when she got married.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” I asked and parked the hearse on the side of the building in the visitor lot.

  “She was going to get married. I don’t think he wanted children.” She tucked her chin to her chest and gripped the edges of her book before she faded away.

  The one thing with my Betweener clients, they wanted help but only when it was convenient for them. If the conversation got heavy, they’d just ghost away and I hated that part of the gig.

  “I’m dying to know why you are here.” One of the officers said when he saw me and laughed. “Get it. Dying.”

  I pretended to laugh, but inwardly cringed. Funeral home humor was never funny to me.

  “Is Jack Henry here?” I asked.

  The officer pointed behind him. “Should be in his office.”

  “Thanks.” I took it as a go ahead to walk back there.

  Jack was sitting behind the desk and reading some papers. He waved me in when I knocked on the door.

  “Wow.” He got up and walked over to hug me. “You never come here. What do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Betsy Lynn Brady is a cold case from Lexington.” I opened my bag and took out the articles I’d printed off at the library. “She went missing almost twenty years ago to the day. Her mother was a suspect along with the maid. Neither of those leads panned out. The mom’s fiancé was questioned but was never a suspect. Betsy keeps telling me that someone said to her that when her mom got married, she was going to get rid of Betsy.”

  “Abduction?” Jack Henry looked over the papers. “Maybe the kidnapper to
ld Betsy that to go with him.”

  “Maybe?” My head tilted to the side. “Mazie Watkins said that she remembers this being a national case when she was a little girl. Do you?”

  He took a minute to read over it.

  “I vaguely remember something about it, but not much. I was so busy with sports that we were rarely home for the news, but I do recall some of the moms at the ballpark talking about it.” He laid the papers on his desk.

  “Well.” My brows lifted.

  “Well what?” he asked.

  “Reopen the case.” I jabbed at the paperwork. “Obviously, Betsy was killed or she wouldn’t be here with me.”

  Betsy stood next to Jack Henry, her hands at her sides. A book in one hand. Her body twisted back and forth.

  “I’d marry him.” She blushed. “And he’s going to help me.”

  “Emma Lee, I don’t do cold cases.” Jack Henry Ross’s words weren’t pleasing to me. “And it’s not our district.”

  “Then who does do cold cases around here?” I asked and got up from the chair. “Let’s go Betsy.”

  “She’s here?” Jack looked around.

  “Yeah. She thinks you’re going to help her.” I looked at her. “He’s not,” I said flatly.

  “Emma Lee, that’s a whole ‘nother unit up in Lexington.” Jack Henry peeked around my shoulder to make sure no one was looking at us before he leaned in and whispered, “The girl is this little girl in the photo?”

  “Yes.” There was no denying it. “A little more ghost-like and pale, but yes.”

  “Let me look into it and see what I can come up with.” He lifted his hand to my face. “I would hate to disappoint you but I’ve got to have something to go on.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like where is her body? Bones by now,” he restated. “But where is the location? I’ll get out there and look around.”

  “Something about a barn.” I shrugged. “Do you remember anything about you and Mr. Whiskers?” I asked.

  “No. He kept me company when I was alone. I was scared. Especially when the flames came.” She looked up at me. Her eyes popped. “There was smoke and flames. I couldn’t breathe.” She lifted her hand and put it across her nose. “Mr. Whiskers laid on my face to filter the smoke.”