by Morgana Best
And then, disaster struck. Lynette’s parents arrived. They were both in their eighties, and certainly closer to ninety than they were to eighty. Daisy had spoken to me about them briefly during our first phone call, but she had said they didn’t speak to her or her mother often. Lynette’s father, Frank, had resented his daughter for becoming a clown, and for having her own daughter follow in her footsteps.
They were barely through the door when the old man, Frank, let his jaw drop open.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Frank said in a loud voice. He turned to two of the clowns who were standing nearby, talking. “Get out!” he roared. “This is my daughter!”
One of the clowns stepped forward. It was a woman with pink and purple hair and a big red rubber nose. “Frank? We worked with your daughter. We loved Sunshine.”
“Her name was Lynette,” Frank yelled. “Sunshine was a ridiculous phase she never managed to outgrow. Leave now!”
Daisy hurried in from the viewing area. “They’re welcome here, Grandpa,” she said. “They were Mom’s friends.”
“And you, I’m surprised you aren’t in your little costume,” he said. Through all of this his wife had stayed quiet.
“Would you like some water?” I asked him, in an attempt to calm him. It didn’t work.
He waved his arms. “I don’t need water. I need these people to leave. I need them not to make a mockery of my daughter.”
Anna was writing in a notebook and smiling. That couldn’t be good.
“Grandpa, I think you had better leave,” Daisy said, placing her hand on his arm.
“Why should I leave?” Frank roared.
“I don’t think you should see Mom,” Daisy said quietly.
To my dismay, Frank managed to grasp her meaning right away. “You didn’t!”
“Grandpa, please,” Daisy said.
“Let me see her!” He shook Daisy’s hand from his arm and hurried into the viewing room.
I couldn’t bring myself to follow him. I remained in the foyer. I grimaced every time he yelled. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Anna hurried over to me.
“This sure makes a good story!” she said with malice.
Chapter 9
After the clown funeral, Mom could barely bring herself to speak to me. I knew she just wanted to shout, “I told you so!” over and over, and for once I was impressed by her restraint.
The cleaning lady Mom paid to come by once a week was coming today, and that meant Mom was feverishly cleaning everything. Not a single thing would need to be cleaned after my mother had finished with it. And of course, Susan, the woman who came to clean, went to my mother’s church.
Mom was scrubbing the upstairs bathroom when Tara arrived, unannounced. I made some sandwiches and prepared a salad, and then ducked up to the bathroom to see if Mom wanted to join us for lunch. She did not. Tara and I had just started eating when Mom came in.
“Tara!” Mom exclaimed. “Laurel didn’t tell me you were here.” I had actually told her, but she must have been so busy polishing the bathroom floor that she hadn’t really heard me.
“Oh, I hope that’s okay,” Tara said.
“Of course, but had I known, I would have cleaned the house.”
I shot her a look. “Mom, you’ve been cleaning all day.”
“You know what I mean,” she snapped at me. “Laurel, you dropped some crumbs on the floor! Whatever will Susan think? Clean them up before she arrives. I can’t be embarrassed by you any longer.”
I was bending over the floor looking for the crumbs that Mom thought were there, when I heard her strident voice once more.
“Laurel, you should be using the good plates!” she said loudly. “And you should be sitting in the dining room.”
“We’re just having sandwiches,” I protested.
“Nonsense. Tara, please let me set you up in the dining room.”
Tara knew my mom well enough to know it wasn’t worth trying to argue, and so we spent ten minutes letting her move us into the dining room. Mom opened an old cedar cabinet and brought out her best antique fine bone china, musty smell and all. She made a big display of setting the table. “This is Meissen china,” she announced proudly. “From the eighteenth century. Laurel and I eat from it all the time.”
“No, we don’t,” I said without thinking, staring at the Chinese scenes.
Mom turned her steely gaze on me. “Laurel, I smelled an unholy scent emanating from your room earlier today. Were you indulging in New Age practices again?”
“If you mean my lemongrass candle, then yes,” I said.
Mom looked as if she were about to say something, but then her hand flew to her mouth. “The soap!” Mom exclaimed. She left the room in a hurry.
“The soap?” Tara asked.
“The good hand soap for the bathroom,” I said. “I get the cheap stuff, but you get the good stuff. If only she knew you were a witch!”
Tara paled. “Don’t ever tell her.”
“Of course not,” I said. “She’d call in a whole prayer team to conduct an exorcism!”
Tara laughed. “Anyway, I came around because I have news. I mentioned Anna Stiles to Duncan last night. I was telling him that you were worried that she’s going to write a bad story about the clown funeral. Duncan told me that the hit and run victim had been in contact with her for a lengthy period of time, according to the phone records. He thought it was pretty strange.”
I considered the news for a moment. “She’s a journalist, though, and he was an infamous crime boss,” I said. “Sure, he had served time and was allegedly on the straight and narrow, but he’s the type of person a journalist would interview. But didn’t you say the detectives don’t tell Duncan anything?”
Tara shook her head. “I said they don’t tell him much,” she corrected me. “They ask Duncan questions, and that tips him off as to what leads they’re following.”
I smiled. “I knew Anna Stiles was evil.” I had a momentary fantasy about her being dragged away in handcuffs, and then locked in prison without access to makeup or gym equipment.
“Have you thought of any other suspects?” Tara asked. “What about the mayor’s wife? She was ripped off by the dead guy, according to Duncan. She showed up at his funeral. Isn’t that weird?”
“She went to the funeral?” I asked. “Why?”
“That’s what I just said!” Tara laughed. “It’s weird.”
We sat in silence for a moment, our lunch forgotten.
“So what now?” Tara asked.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “More digging, I guess. It seems like I should look into the whole situation with the mayor’s wife.”
Tara nodded. “She had the motive, as her family heirloom was stolen by the dead guy. Duncan said she never did get it back.” She stood up. “I have to go. Thanks for lunch. I’ll help you clear the table.”
I waved her off. “No, that’s fine.” I showed Tara to the door and then cleared the table, gingerly taking Mom’s three hundred year old china into the kitchen and placing it carefully on the countertop.
Ernie was in the kitchen, staring longingly at the refrigerator. “It’s weird,” he lamented. “I can’t eat, and I don’t need to, but man, do I want to. I miss it.”
Before I could reply, Preston slowly materialized.
“How are you doing?” I asked him.
Ernie snorted rudely. “How do you think he’s doing? He’s as good as anyone would be if they were buried in their work.” He cackled.
I shot him a glare and he vanished.
“Preston, are you sure it was a man?” I asked the apparition.
“I think so, but I can’t be sure,” he said. “The hands were strong.”
I nodded. Anna was pretty strong. She obviously worked out, and worked out hard. “Do you think two people could have been involved?”
He shook his head, which was white and transparent, barely formed. “It didn’t feel like it, if that makes sense.
I never saw them, but you can feel people. I only felt one.”
I nodded. “One person, strong hands, and probably, yet not necessarily, a man.”
“I wish I could be more help,” Preston said as he started to fade. “A part of me feels like I’m missing something.”
“Well, perhaps you are, and perhaps it will come to you,” I said. “In the meantime, I have a few people I want to look into.”
“People you think could have killed me?”
“I would bet one of them did,” I said confidently.
“Who?”
“I’m going to start with the mayor’s wife,” I said to thin air, as Preston had already vanished.
The sound of gospel music blaring through the house alerted me to the fact that Susan was cleaning. She liked to preach at me while she was cleaning, so I hurried out the front door and went in search of Mom.
I found her in my office, sitting in my chair behind the desk, staring at my laptop. “We need money,” she said.
I bit my tongue. I wanted to say something sarcastic, but I resisted the urge. I needed to humor her so she would do what I wanted, so I simply nodded. “I’ve been thinking of ways to get the business going again,” I said.
Mom shut my laptop and looked at me. “What did you come up with?”
“I think we should invite the mayor’s wife over for dinner.”
“The mayor’s wife? Helen?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
The truth was I needed to ask the mayor’s wife about her stolen jewels, and the man who had stolen them. However, I needed something to pitch to my mother, so I launched into my prepared speech. “Helen has good standing with people in this town. If she says there’s nothing to worry about, people will believe it. So we should have her over for dinner.”
“Helen goes to my church,” my mother said.
“I know, Mom, but it would help to have her over for dinner.”
Mom seemed to be considering what I was saying. “Okay. When?”
“Tomorrow?” I said hopefully. “Whenever suits her.”
Mom nodded. “All right. I’ll call her.”
Chapter 10
“I’ll get it.” I hurried to the front door. I opened it up, expecting to see the mayor’s wife, Helen, but instead I found myself face to face with Ian.
“Ian, no,” I said.
He looked bewildered. “No?”
I gathered my wits. “Sorry, I meant to say that we’re having someone over.”
Ian shot me a pitying look. “Of course I know that, dear. Your Mom invited Helen, the mayor’s wife.”
“Mom told you? Mom invited you over?” I was so shocked that I didn’t reprimand him for calling me ‘dear’.
Ian nodded and stepped inside. “I would think you would know by now that your mother and I have no secrets.”
And that’s really weird and creepy, so you need to stop being friends, I thought. Aloud I said, “Mom’s in the kitchen.”
Ian sprinted for the kitchen as if the devil himself were behind him. Perhaps he thought he was. By the time I reached the kitchen, he had taken my place at the large salad bowl, and was tossing the salad in a vinaigrette dressing.
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Mom said as she put a dish into the oven. “You go and wait for Helen to arrive.”
At precisely six thirty, the doorbell rang again, and once more, I crossed to open the door.
“Hi. Come on in,” I said.
Helen smiled warmly at me. “I have to say, it’s always my husband being invited place, and I’m just his plus one. It was nice of you to think of me.”
Ian and my mother rushed into the room and gushed all over Helen. “What would you like to drink?” Mom asked her.
“Red wine, please.”
Mom gasped. “Helen, I must inform you that I do not believe in wine. I signed the Temperance Pledge when I was seven, and I have never let a drop of the Demon Alcohol pass my lips.”
Helen appeared to be at a loss.
“Would you like something else to drink?” I asked her, tempted to offer her my stash of wine that Ian and Mom hadn’t so far found when rummaging through my room.
“What is there?” she asked meekly.
“I have delicious, imitation, non-alcohol white wine,” my mom said smugly. “I bought it earlier today just for you, Helen.”
“Thank you. I would like a glass of that, please,” Helen said.
“Come into the dining room,” Mom said. “Dinner is about to be served.”
Helen took her seat, while Mom remained standing. She poured the fake wine into three glasses, and handed a glass to Helen. Helen took a sip, coughed, and then set her glass aside.
I wondered where Ian was, and why Mom hadn’t poured him a glass of fake wine. I shrugged and sat next to Helen, while my mother sat at the head of the table.
“Laurel, why not sit across from our guest?” Mom asked me, her lips pursed.
“I thought Ian would be sitting there,” I said. And I don’t want to sit next to him, I added silently.
“Oh, Ian isn’t going to be sitting! Why would you think such a thing?” my mother asked me. “Ian serves us.”
I looked at her with my mouth open. “You’re having Ian serve us?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Laurel? It’s what he does, isn’t it?” She looked nervously at Helen.
I was thoroughly confused by that point. I started to catch on when Ian appeared with a tray loaded with three salad bowls. He was wearing a black frilly apron and maid’s cap.
Ian set a bowl in front of each of us.
“Thank you,” Mom said to him in an imperious tone.
And then it dawned on me. Helen was someone of importance, and my mother loved to make herself seem important as well. Apparently, Mom needed to pretend that we had a butler or a servant to impress the mayor’s wife.
I dragged my eyes away from Ian with some difficulty, and turned my attention to the matter at hand. “Helen, I actually saw you not too long ago.”
“The funeral,” Helen said, nodding.
“The clown funeral?” my mother asked, horror-stricken.
Helen looked thoroughly confused. “The clown funeral?”
“No, it was the one before that,” I told Mom. “That man who was hit by a car.”
Mom turned to Helen. “You knew him?”
“The deceased man was a criminal,” I said to no one in particular. “He was a famous jewel thief. He’d been released from prison only recently.”
Helen nodded. “Yes. Some years ago, before he was arrested, he broke into our home and stole jewelry from me.”
My mother gasped and held her hand over her heart. “That’s terrible,” she said. “I will think and pray for you.”
Helen shrugged. “Thank you, Thelma, but it was some time ago, after all. He never did say where the jewelry was. I doubt it will ever be recovered. Of course, he was involved in organized crime, so who knows what happened to it?”
“That’s terrible,” Mom said again, shaking her head. “Thieves will not inherit the kingdom of God. I shall take comfort from the fact that he will suffer eternal torture while burning in hell.”
I ignored her and spoke to Helen. “So he wasn’t a friend of yours?” I asked, knowing full well that he wasn’t. “I mean, with you going to the funeral and all.”
Helen flushed beet red. “My husband was very angry…” Her voice trailed away, and she cast her eyes downward at the table.
“Your husband was angry?” I prompted.
“Oh yes, Gregory was furious. The jewelry was actually his mother’s. She left it to me when she died. Don’t quote me on this, but his mother was miserable and mean to me when she was alive, so it wasn’t anything I treasured. Gregory worshiped his mother, though, and I’ve never seen him so mad. He’s still hounding the police to track down the jewelry.”
I nodded. I
still had no idea why Helen had attended the funeral.
Thankfully, she continued. “Gregory was going to attend the funeral, to see if he could get any clues as to Alec Mason’s associates. He figured the murderer would be there, and he figured that the murderer would inherit the organized crime business. He thought that the man would know where his mother’s jewelry was.”
I was shocked. “So he sent you in to spy for him?”
Helen shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Gregory was called away on urgent business at the last minute, so I decided to go, to help him. He wasn’t happy when he found out. He said it was dangerous, and he was right, considering what happened to the funeral singer.”
I nodded. I had been so engrossed in conversation that I hadn’t noticed Ian appearing with dessert.
“You are better off without jewelry,” he said to Helen. “God probably wanted the jewelry to be stolen.”
I couldn’t help myself. I just had to ask. “How do you figure that, Ian?”
He looked pleased to be asked. “Because the Apostle Paul threw everything into the sea when he was about to be shipwrecked. He threw the cargo and the ship’s tackle overboard. Don’t you see?”
“No,” I said, truthfully.
Ian shook his head. “Paul could not be saved unless he got rid of all his possessions. So that proves that God doesn’t want us to have possessions.”
I frowned. “Ian, you’re driving a car. Does that mean you should walk everywhere?”
“Stop annoying the help, Laurel,” Mom said, “and don’t be so smart. You know a car is not part of a ship’s tackle.”
Ian disappeared back into the kitchen with a flourish of his black, frilly apron. I put my head in my hands and sighed.
Chapter 11
I checked the time on my iPhone as I made my way down the sidewalk. I was a few minutes early for coffee with Tara, but that was just enough time to get a table. I was particularly looking forward to it because our recent girls’ night out had been partly ruined by Basil and his hot date, not to mention my encounter with Basil afterward—and what a disaster that had been!
