A Ghostly Murder (14 page)

 

Chapter 23

T
he lattes in the Happy Times cafeteria would really give Cheryl Lynne Doyle and Higher Grounds Café a run for her money. I watched Sunny lick, slurp and sip his drink until he was ready to talk.

“How well did you know Junior Mullins?” I asked as he licked the whipped cream on top.

I glanced around the cafeteria-­styled room. Underneath awnings attached to the wall were different stations for different appetites—­Italian, Thai, Chinese, American, vegan. Anything any of them wanted was right there for their tasting palates. There was even the little café stand where we had gotten our fancy coffees.

“Know me?” Junior bounced up and down, creating smoke rings all over the room. “He tried to take me to the cleaners every week during our poker tournament.”

There was the money thing again. It seemed Junior had had money and everyone knew but me.

“He was an old coot.” Sunny's mouth dipped. “Though I never figured he was going to kick the bucket.” He elbowed me. “You know, eeck.” He drew his finger across his neck.

“Are you telling me he was murdered?” I found it odd he would choose the cutting gesture.

“Murdered?” He drew back. “Nah. I'm just saying he didn't look good. Sorta bad.”

“I was damn fine!” Junior spat at the ground.

“What do you mean by ‘sort of'?” I cautiously asked, well aware it must be time for afternoon snack.

The lunchroom-­style tables were filling up with many residents having a cup of coffee and afternoon treat.

“A ­couple weeks ago, he started complaining of headaches. I thought it was because I was beating the pants off him.” Sunny smacked his leg in delight, and then grew serious. “For the next few days, he started to get pale. Even his eczema grayed.” He shook his head. A sadness bore deep in his eyes, like he could see that the ghost of Junior Mullins was right in front of him. “He said he couldn't shake the headache and felt tired. I told him to go to the doctor, but he said it had to be his allergies acting up.”

“Eczema?” I asked.

“Hell, all us old ­people have skin conditions.” Sunny raised up the sleeve of his plaid shirt and showed me some flaky skin that would probably go away with a little bit of lotion.

“Next thing I knew, Junior didn't show up to play poker. I went up to check on him.” He patted his walker next to him. “It takes me a while to get up there, but when I got there,” he gulped, “he didn't answer. The door was cracked, and I pushed it open to find him lying on the floor. Dead.”

“His door was open?” I asked. He nodded. “Was his door always open?”

“No. We all keep our doors locked. We have our own keys.” He patted his pants pocket, and the keys in them jingled.

“Did you tell the police all of this?” I found it strange how the door was open and nothing was investigated.

“I told them I found him dead.” He didn't take his eyes off his drink. “The poor sheriff had to put up with all these old hens pecking around him like they was cougars.”

“Did you tell him the door was open?” Jack Henry would have thought it was strange, just like I did.

“No. The way I figured it was he was coming downstairs to play poker and he had a heart attack just like the coroner said.” He picked up his cup. “I'm gonna drink this now.”

“One more question.” I held a finger up. “What was Junior's room number?”

“Fourth floor, number twelve.” Sunny had a cute whipped cream mustache on his upper lip. I handed him a napkin. In the corner of my eye, I could see Imogene and a few of her woman friends making their way over.

“Number twelve.” I made a mental note. “Looks like you've got company, Casanova.” I winked and greeted the women before I excused myself.

The halls of Happy Times smelled like mothballs. I had always heard old ­people loved to put mothballs all over, and now I knew it. Thank God Granny thought she was not old, because I could hardly take the smell. I found the elevator at the end of the hallway waiting for a passenger. I got in and punched the fourth floor. I took the downtime and ride up to text Fluggie.

Something strange. Dixie Dunn is associated with a lot of rich ­people. She has cleaned for a few. I noticed she has new vans for her cleaning crew. Somehow Mamie's death, Junior Mullins's death, and Beulah Paige Bellefry's illness have to be related. Beulah Paige is a local who suddenly took ill. Where are you? Call me.

I hit send right as the doors slid open. I looked down the hall before I stepped out. No one was around. It was time to see what was in Junior's apartment that might tie Dixie Dunn to him.

The right side of the hallway was odd-­numbered apartments, and the left side was even. I didn't bother counting my way down, I just looked for the number as quickly as possible.

“Twelve. One. Two.” I tapped the gold numbers nailed to the door. I grabbed the handle and turned, but the door was locked.

“What's going on?” Dixie Dunn asked from the next apartment over. She walked out of the door and put her cleaning pail on the ground in the hallway.

“I was . . .” I paused. “I needed to collect the paperwork from Junior Mullins for his final burial.”

“Maybe you need to ask the manager to let you in.” She grabbed an aerosol can from her bucket and disappeared back into the apartment she was cleaning. “I can't stand here dillydallying. As it is, I'm going to be here all day.”

A set of keys dangling from the wire handle of the cleaning bucket caught my eye. Without thinking, I grabbed them. Each one had a sticker with a number. The first number had to be the floor, then there was a dash, and the next set of numbers.

“Four dash twelve.” My eyes lit up when I found Junior's key. I stuck it in the keyhole and turned, opening the door.

I put the keys back where I found them and ran into Junior's apartment. Quietly I closed the door behind me and locked it, just in case she tried to open it to see if I'd made it in.

A shadow of something or someone caught my eye, and I jumped around. No one was there. The place was a one-­room apartment that was broken up into sections. He had a queen bed with two side tables. Each with a lamp. Very tidy. His kitchenette was just as clean as the rest of his apartment. Every cabinet was stocked nice and neat with dishes, cups, and glasses. The inside of his microwave was even shiny clean. Not a speck of dried-­on splattered food anywhere.

The room off the kitchen was his bathroom. There were a few creams with prescriptions on them for his eczema. I opened the mirrored cabinet on the wall.

“What do we have here?” I picked up a jar of the moisturizer Dixie Dunn had given me.

On the top, written in Sharpie marker, were instructions for Junior on how to apply the cream to the affected area three times a day for two weeks. Two weeks?

Sunny's words rang out in my head about how Junior had complained of a headache a ­couple weeks ago that had progressively gotten worse.

I reread the label of the moisturizer. My heart sank. Was Dixie Dunn somehow getting these elderly ­people to put her in their will and then poisoning them through moisturizer?

“No.” I pondered the possibilities.

“That's my good cream.” Junior appeared next to me when I shut the door “It did good on my skin.”

“I'm not sure Dixie Dunn did you one bit of good.” I held the jar in my hand. “Did you have Dusting Dixies clean your apartment?”

“I did. Fine job too.” He looked out the door of the bathroom. “Cleaning fool. When I had to cancel because I had a doctor's appointment, she asked me what for and I told her I had bad itchy eczema. Other than that, I was pretty healthy.”

“Did you happen to change your will over the past few weeks?” I asked.

“How did you know?” He looked at me with an open mouth.

“Who changed your will?” I asked.

“Some guy came here.” He thought about it for a minute. “Strange name.”

“Emmitt Moss?” I asked.

“Hot dang.” He smacked his leg and did a jig. “That's his name. That eczema cream fixed me up good. The cleaner said she didn't have enough money to get the cream into stores. I gave her a few thousand dollars to get some marketing help and even decided to give her a ­couple million in my will.”

­“Couple million?” My eyes bolted open. “How in the hell did she get you to give her money in your will?”

“I can't take it with me up there. And she wasn't getting it until I was dead. She kept me company. I told you,” he rolled up his sleeve again, “she fixed me up good.”

“She sure did fix you up good. Fixed you dead,” I said matter-­of-­factly.

 

Chapter 24

F
luggie, where are you?” I said into her answering machine. “You better be knee deep in research, because I have found out some information you aren't going to believe. I've got to stop by the funeral home and then by Beulah Paige's hospital bed to see if my hunch is right. I'll be by if I don't hear from you first.”

With Junior's jar of cream in my hand, I wanted to get back to the fancy lab Vernon Baxter had in the basement of Eternal Slumber. A few months back, the city council had voted to equip Vernon Baxter's lab with the latest in DNA and autopsy technology with the incentive money the state had awarded the city. It included poison testing. Vernon would be able to tell me if my hunches were right.

Since Vernon Baxter had retired and moved to Sleepy Hollow, the police had been keeping him busy with autopsies. Plus he did all the embalming for Eternal Slumber.

I pulled into the driveway of the funeral home and was happy to see Charlotte Rae's car wasn't there. I didn't want to spend any energy on her or hearing her yell at me, though she would've been excited to know I had gotten fifty new pre-­need arrangements from Happy Times Retirement Community. Now she wouldn't know. Even though Hardgrove was in another city, it was still competition. Charlotte Rae was now on the other team. Blood or not.

I didn't bother using the elevator to go downstairs to where we kept our clients cold and Vernon did his handiwork.

“Hey, Emma Lee.” He took his eyes off the microscope and peered at me over the top of his glasses. His steel-­blue eyes were striking, like those of old Hollywood film legends Gary Cooper and Peter O'Toole. He ran his hand through his salt-­and-­pepper hair. “I overheard the ruckus this morning between you and Charlotte Rae. I'm sorry.”

“Oh don't worry about her. We are going to be just fine.” I handed him the jar of moisturizer. “Listen, I need you to do a side job.”

“Oh-­kay.” Reluctantly he took the jar and looked at it. “Moisturizer?”

“I think there is some sort of poison in the moisturizer.” I watched his expression go from shocked to confusion. “I know it sounds weird. But I think there is a serial killer in Sleepy Hollow.”

“Serial killer?”

“Serial killer.” The sound of those two words made the hairs on my neck stand up. “I think Junior Mullins, along with another resident of Sleepy Hollow, were poisoned to death. And I think she might have struck again with Beulah Paige.”

“Did you get clearance from Jack Henry about this?” he asked.

“No. I don't want to say anything until I get these results back.” I pushed the button on the elevator. “Let me know what you find out.”

“Don't worry. I will.” Vernon opened the jar and immediately started to take samples and put them in little test tubes.

There was no time to waste. I needed to get over to the hospital to see what the doctors were saying about Beulah Paige. If my instincts were right, Dixie Dunn had gotten her toe in Beulah's door and was trying to kill her with whatever it was she put in the cream.

I looked in the rearview mirror.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I ran my hands down my face. I had slathered that shit all over me last night. But I felt fine. I didn't feel sick. “Shit.”

It was time to exercise my job as undertaker. I pulled the hearse right up to the emergency room exit of the hospital. No one would dare put a ticket on the windshield or call a tow truck if they thought some poor, pitiful dead person was being taken to their final resting place.

I shimmied through the sliding-­glass doors before they were fully opened. The receptionist pulled her glasses off her face, and they dangled from the long chain down her front. She looked past me and saw the hearse.

“Can you please tell me what room Beulah Paige Bellefry is located in?” I asked.

“She didn't die.” The woman typed away on her computer. “Did she?”

“Not that I know of, but I know her, and while I was here doing my job”—­I glanced back at the hearse, and then back at her—­“I thought I would pay my respects to her after what had happened.”

“Yes. She's in ICU north.” She pointed down the hall and gave a few directions on how to get there before she sent me on my way.

She had me so turned around, I have no idea how I got there, but I did.

The sign on the entrance read
PUSH THE BUTTON TO ENTER
. I pushed the button.

“Can I help you?” a woman's voice asked through the intercom.

The last time I did this at Mamie Sue's house, it didn't go so well.

“Yes.” I did my best Southern drawl, just like Beulah Paige Bellefry. “My dear aunt has had a spell, and I'm here to pay her a visit. Beulah Paige Bellefry.”

“You are her niece?” the woman chirped.

“Yes.” My voice dripped of sweetness and lies.

“Room three.” The door shot open. I half expected to see the woman behind the mic, but no one was there.

The ICU rooms were around the perimeter of a large desk full of ­people in scrubs looking at computers or talking amongst one another. None of them paid a bit of attention to me as I ducked in room three, where Beulah Paige Bellefry would've had a heart attack if she'd seen how her lipstick was smeared and dripping down her face.

Not that I really cared, but I took the sponge at the end of the stick thingy and put it in the water next to the bed. I dipped it in and gently rubbed down her face, getting most of the lipstick smear off.

“Well, well.” I glanced down at her lifeless body. Tubes coming out every which way. The heart monitor she was hooked up to showed that her heart was beating at a steady pace. “Haven't you gotten yourself in a jam? And it's going to be little ole me who gets you out of it. Again.”

Once before, not too long ago, Beulah Paige had been right in the exact same place after being attacked. Of course, they'd thought I had done her in, because we had mixed words right in front of Eternal Slumber. My words might have had “death” and “going to kill you” or “over my dead body” in them. Naturally, someone had overheard and had me pegged as the attacker.

She obviously wasn't too grateful I had saved her life once, because here we were again. Right back where we started a few months back.

“Now.” I looked around the room for a report. I had no idea what I would do with it, but maybe something would jump out.

“Good evening.” A young gentleman came in. “You must be Ms. Bellefry's niece.”

He shoved his hand into mine, giving it a good ­couple of pumps.

“Was she feeling dizzy, having headaches, or pains?” He shot questions out to me like firing a semiautomatic. “Vomiting, delirium?”

“I know she had a major headache for a ­couple days, but since I don't live with her, I'm not sure about the other stuff.” I was beginning to believe my own lies.

“All her tests are coming back negative. No heart attack, no stroke.” He folded one arm around him and rested his other elbow on it. He wiggled his finger in the air. “You know.” He shook his head. “Nah.”

“What?” I asked. I needed to know what had him so perplexed.

“If I didn't know better, I'd think she had been poisoned with arsenic.” He threw his hands in the air. “The test results will tell us.”

“Arsenic?” I whispered.

Going back to mortuary school, I remember them saying something about how arsenic can be disguised in many things and can be absorbed through your skin pores. Even the ones on your face.

“Moisturizer.” I smacked my hands together and grabbed the doctor, giving him a big kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Doctor!”

I scrammed out of the ICU and took the stairs down the four flights as fast as I could.

“Thanks!” I yelled to the receptionist in the emergency room as I flew by her desk.

“Wait!” she screamed. “Did you forget a body?”

“Oh.” I stopped in front of the sliding doors and waited for them to open. “The damnedest thing. He started breathing as soon as I put my hand on him to take him to the freezer.”

The doors opened, letting me escape back into the safety of my hearse. Nervously, I fumbled for my phone. I had to call Jack Henry and tell him what I had found out.