Better Dead

by Pamela Kopfler

  “Is he gone?” Nelda asked, taking a tentative step toward Holly.

  “Yes,” Holly whispered as she rose to her feet. She swept her hair from her face.

  Lordy. What could she say to get out of this? Just kidding?

  “Who wants pie?” Jake’s voice rang from the entrance hall. He strode into the parlor, balancing a coconut meringue pie in one hand and a chocolate pie in the other. His smile faded as his brows smashed together. He stared at the carnage from the bridge game like he had walked in on the first line of a bad joke and had no clue what the punch line could possibly be.

  Cool air brushed Holly’s neck.

  “Gotcha, Blondie.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Holly slammed her bedroom door, then locked it behind her. She leaned her back against the door and slid down onto the hardwood floor where she clutched her knees against her chest. The Deltas had to think she was certifiable. How could she face anyone ever again? Tears burned her eyes. Burl wasn’t worth it. He never was. She swiped at her tears, then pushed to her feet.

  She met Burl eye to eye. In one quick motion, she launched a blow to his face and caught nothing but air. Fury ripped through her. She’d needed to make contact, give him the physical pain he’d faked.

  Burl stepped back. “Whoa, slugger. You’re going to throw your arm out.”

  “Why did you do that?” She shoved her hands on her hips.

  “You mean the holy water?” Burl laughed. “Why did you fall for it?”

  “I thought you were in pain.”

  “I could have drunk that stuff. Don’t you realize that peon of a priest is at the bottom of the food chain? St. Peter sent me here, for Christ’s sake.” He looked heavenward. “Sorry, God. Just making a point for Blondie here.”

  “Leave God out of this. The point is now the Deltas just think I’m nuts. The whole plan was to show them the house is haunted.”

  “Ah, but you missed the second act. After you got all pissy and ran upstairs, I blew a pencil across the table and flipped some cards over a few times. All with perfect timing for effect, mind you.” He aimed a look at her. “I’m good,” he said, puffing out his chest. “It looked like the Senior Olympics when the old ladies cleared out of there.”

  “What about Jake?”

  “If that loser had seen the whole show, he’d have hightailed it, too.”

  “You mean the Deltas think the place is haunted, after all?”

  “Not the one with the big hooters.”

  “Eeew. She’s an old lady. You shouldn’t say that.”

  He cocked his head. “You knew who I was talking about, didn’t you?”

  Holly groaned.

  “She may give you trouble, but the others are coming around.” He opened his arms to her and grinned. “Now, don’t you feel bad about trying to slug me?”

  “Not one bit.”

  “Come on. I know you still love me. I saw you cry.”

  “We’ve been over this. You and I are history. This is a business deal. You haunt, and I bust the smuggling ring, and then you get your ticket out of here. End of story.” She pointed a finger at Burl. “But get this and get it good. I will not talk to you in front of anyone ever again. I don’t care if your hair is on fire.”

  * * *

  Holly jumped when a knock sounded on her bedroom door.

  “Holly,” Jake said from the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”

  She rested her hand on the doorknob. What could she say?

  Burl frowned. “Tell what’s-his-name to go away.”

  She wished she could. Holly glared at Burl. “No. You go away.”

  “I was here first.”

  “You sound like a second grader,” she whispered. Burl’s face swelled into a sulk.

  She gave Burl a “butt out” look and opened the door.

  Jake handed her a card and cocked an eyebrow. “Nelda left this for you. She said if you wanted her back to call this woman.”

  Holly glanced at Claireese, the psychic’s card. She blew out a sigh and stuffed the card in her pocket. What the hell could it hurt? She’d call her tomorrow, since the pope wasn’t available to exorcise Burl. A psychic probably couldn’t get rid of Burl, but she’d try one for Nelda.

  Jake looked down at Holly. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Not really,” she said, with a downward glance. Thanks to Burl, the whole town would think she was nuts after the Deltas told their tale. She’d rather not confirm it to Jake.

  “Mind if I come in?” Jake asked.

  Holly lifted a shoulder and stepped back as he strode into her room.

  Burl sat on her bed and pounded his fist in his hand. “If I could land a punch, I’d knock this guy out. He’s just worming his way into your life.” Burl looked around the room. “And your bedroom. I don’t like this, and I’m not sticking around to watch.”

  “Nelda and the bridge ladies think you saw a ghost. You want to explain?” Jake asked.

  Woman up, Holly. Think of something. She forced a lighthearted tone into her voice. “You know the Deltas. They’re easily excited. They’re the ones who thought I was on drugs.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The whole thing was bizarre.” She waved her fingers through the air. “The lights went out, and the candles kept blowing out. Then Nelda came in with a priest. I got caught up in it all and thought I saw something.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “How do you suppose the electricity went out and the candles blew out? And why is Nelda so convinced there was a ghost down there?”

  Holly shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

  “I think you do.” He grabbed her by the hand, and she trotted behind him down the stairs to the parlor.

  “You see that window?” he asked with a nod to the broken windowpane.

  She slammed a palm against her head. “I’ve got to get that fixed.”

  “You don’t suppose the wind from the storm blew through that window and blew out the candles, do you?”

  “I suppose it could have.”

  “And you don’t suppose someone pulled the main power switch, do you?”

  Holly chewed a nail, wondering if he’d checked the power switch. “I suppose someone could have done that.”

  “Someone did.” He directed an accusing stare at her.

  “You don’t believe I saw a ghost?”

  “Nope.”

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “Nope. I think you rigged a haunting.”

  Rigged? Okay, she’d go with that. She huffed and stuffed her hands on her hips. “Okay, okay. You got me.”

  “What I want to know is why.”

  She gave a sheepish look and lifted a shoulder. “I need a ghost.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Jake parked himself at the counter at Dottie’s Diner and combed a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to yank it out by the roots.

  A ghost. That’d sound great on his report. He could hear his whole department laughing now. After they stopped laughing, he’d be yanked from this dead-end assignment.

  He rolled his neck, which seemed to get stiffer by the minute. She’d said she needed a ghost for business. And ICE had considered Holly capable of running drugs out of Holly Grove. Jake rubbed his hand over his mouth to discourage a grin.

  As he slid a greasy Dottie’s Diner menu from behind a chrome napkin dispenser, he tipped over a saltshaker. Dot snatched the saltshaker from Jake’s hand and shook it over his shoulder.

  “I don’t want any bad luck sitting in my diner,” she said, then thumbed toward a box of a room in the corner. “I got video poker machines in there.”

  “Don’t worry.” He winked at Dot. “I was born lucky.”

  “Nah. You were born good looking.” She winked back and sat the shaker on the red Formica counter. “Lucky too. You got your looks from your mama instead of your daddy.”

  “So I
hear.” He wouldn’t know. His mother had left before he started school. His dad had burned all her pictures and drowned the memories in Jack Daniel’s.

  “She was something.” Dot pulled a towel off her shoulder, then wiped up a few drops of coffee from the counter. “Yeah, Marcella blew into town, married Mackie, and you came along in short order.” Dot flipped the towel over her shoulder. “Blew out of here just as fast.” She shook her head. “Mackie ain’t been the same since.”

  “No one’s fault but his own.” Jake set his mug down harder than he intended, and coffee sloshed in the mug.

  “I used to think so, but now I think he’s gone too far to help himself.” Dot looked past Jake to the diners behind him, probably to see if they needed anything. Their conversations and the clinking of silverware blended into a white noise. In New York he’d be part of the white noise. Here Dot wouldn’t allow it.

  Jake sipped his coffee. “I do my part.” The hiss of the grill and the smell of fried bacon wafted from the kitchen. “Which reminds me . . .What do I owe for his meals this week?” He straightened a leg and reached for his wallet.

  “Nothing.” Dot topped off his coffee. “He hasn’t darkened my door lately.”

  Jake shrugged. “He’ll come around when he’s sober enough to realize he’s hungry.”

  “You’re probably right, but he’s got high mileage. He can’t keep on like he has. He won’t last.”

  Fifteen years ago, Jake had made the choice to stop trying to save his dad the only way he could. He stopped by bailing out of Delta Ridge for good. He couldn’t save him then, and he couldn’t save him now. “His choice.”

  “Guess so, but it’s a waste. He’s the best carpenter in town when he’s sober.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a stack of messages. “You see these? Every widow woman in town is waiting for him to do some sort of chore.”

  Jake took the messages and thumbed through them. “How long this time?”

  “A couple of weeks or more.” She pulled the towel from its perch on her shoulder and rubbed a smudge on the counter. “Mrs. Martha Jane Shaw calls nearly every day. She thinks Mackie is the only person on the planet who can replace the rotten gingerbread on her Victorian.”

  “He may be.” Jake handed the stack of messages back to Dot.

  “You could. You used to come get his messages and do his jobs.” She stuffed the slips of paper in her apron pocket. “You’d make up some excuse about his back, but we all knew he’d fallen off the wagon again.”

  “It’s called enabling. People have to pay for their mistakes, or they don’t change.” His voice came out firmer than he’d intended. “Sorry, Dot.”

  She waved his apology off like it wasn’t needed. “Well, between you and me, at least we know he won’t starve if he doesn’t see the error of his ways. He still thinks he won free lunches for life as a door prize. I can’t believe you sucked me into that scam.”

  “You know if I gave him the money, he’d drink it.” Jake didn’t owe his father respect, but duty had nothing to do with respect. Usually, he paid his dad’s tab at the diner by mail, but this time he’d wanted to pay in person and show Dot some appreciation.

  “Why don’t you and Mackie make up? How long has it been?”

  “It’ll be long enough when he stops drinking.” Jake’s jaw tensed around the words he lived by.

  “You don’t get to choose your kinfolks, but he’s the only daddy the good Lord gave you.”

  “I hear you, but it is what it is.”

  The bell over the door jingled, and Jake turned. He stiffened as Sheriff Walker and a deputy walked in.

  “You’re both hardheaded.” Dot pulled out her order pad and moved down to the end the of counter where Sheriff Walker and his deputy had claimed two bar stools.

  The last time Jake had talked to the sheriff, he’d opened the parish jail door and instructed Jake to stay out of trouble, or he’d end up like Mackie. Jake had been arrested for driving underage with an open container of alcohol in the truck. It was Mackie’s whiskey, and Jake was driving so his dad wouldn’t get another DUI. None of that mattered to by-the-book Sheriff Walker.

  Dot took the sheriff’s order, then hollered over her shoulder, “BLT, extra mayo.”

  The bell over the door clanged as more diners came in for lunch, and Jake scanned the menu. He’d better load up, because if Holly was cooking tonight, it might not be edible.

  “I hear you’re staying at Holly Grove,” Dottie said, parking herself in front of him again.

  “Yep.”

  She leaned into Jake. “See any ghosts?”

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t believe in that malarkey, either, but if it gets tourists to Holly Grove, they’ll venture into town, too, and be hungry.” Dot straightened and scratched her head with her pencil. “Weren’t you and Holly sweet on each other in high school?”

  “Yep.”

  “Now, that’s a nice girl. She could use a good man.”

  “Who says she’s looking?”

  Dot cackled and slapped Jake on the shoulder. “Honey, every single woman is looking.”

  “She hasn’t been a widow long.”

  “Well, she’s been a widow longer than she knows. Burl was carrying on with a redhead over in the next parish.” She propped her elbows on the counter and eyed Jake. “I heard she used to be a stripper.”

  Jake raised a brow. “Holly know he was cheating?”

  “Don’t think so. Now, with him dead and all, who wants to tell that? Might as well let her think he was better than he was. Ignorance is bliss, you know.” She flipped to a fresh sheet on her order pad. “Now, what you having?”

  The bell jingled again. At least business was good for Dot.

  “I’ll take a blue plate.” If Holly hadn’t known her husband was cheating, it was likely he’d hidden the smuggling from her, too.

  “I’ll have eight of those to go,” Holly said, leaning against the counter next to Jake. She brushed a Southern hello on his cheek. His gaze lingered on her as she settled on the stool beside him. He was 99 percent sure she didn’t have anything to do with Burl’s operation and 100 percent certain he’d do something he’d regret if he didn’t blow this town soon.

  * * *

  Holly’s body temperature spiked as she brushed a peck on Jake’s cheek.

  Dot hollered over her shoulder, “Eight blue plates to go.”

  Jake spun on his stool and flashed a teasing smile at Holly. “Hungry, huh?”

  “I noticed the pies you bought for the Deltas came from Dottie’s, so I figured I’d cook like a man.” She cast a smile at Jake. “I don’t want to poison paying guests with my cooking.”

  Dot pointed her pencil at Jake. “Jake here is special. I’d bake him a pie anytime.”

  Lordy. His charisma even crossed age barriers.

  Jake gestured to an empty booth. “Come on.” He brushed his hand across the small of her back, sending warm shivers through her. “I’m cooking.”

  Lunch did sound good. Holly slid across the Naugahyde bench.

  Two of the Deltas, Miss Martha Jane and Miss Penny, huddled in a corner. The sheriff and a deputy perched on stools at the counter. Holly knew nearly everyone in the diner, but she hadn’t noticed anyone except Jake when she’d come in.

  Forks scraped ironstone plates as diners whispered back and forth between each other and some looked her way.

  “You think they’ve heard about my ghost?” she asked.

  “No doubt.”

  Unless they all thought she was nuts or an addict. “Good. Publicity is what I wanted.”

  His look turned serious. “Anyone who would fabricate a ghost to draw business has got to be desperate.”

  “Look, Jake, I know you’re trying to help, but it’s this simple. Burl spent everything we had before he died. End of story.”

  Jake eyed Holly as though he knew there was more. Dot rescued her by interrupting to take their lunch order, but he jumped back on topic
as soon as Dot left.

  “Any idea why?” Jake asked.

  Holly shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell the editor of the local newspaper Burl had been smuggling drugs through Holly Grove to pay gambling debts.

  “Didn’t you and Burl discuss your finances?”

  “I know. I know. I should have been more involved.” Holly ran her finger around the rim of her water glass. “I was so focused on Holly Grove, I didn’t pay attention to Burl’s business, until it was too late. We didn’t really talk that much in the end.”

  Jake nodded. “So you and Burl weren’t happily married?”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Never bit that bullet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Never found the idea of settling down in one place with one woman appealing.”

  Proof positive. He was trouble. “I can’t imagine living anywhere except here.” She lowered her gaze. “I had thought Burl was my happily ever after, but I should have known better. Women in my family have a history of marrying trouble. But they all held on to Holly Grove. That’s why she’s so important to me. I can count on her to be there, always.” Unlike money or men.

  Dot slid two burger baskets on the table. “Can I get y’all anything else?”

  “Are you still taking messages for Mackie?” Holly asked.

  “Yep.” Dot fished a stack of messages from her apron. “Get in line, girl.”

  “I was hoping he could fix my window and some other things.” Holly eyed the stack. “He’s pretty backed up, huh?”

  “Most of the messages are a few weeks old. He could be off on another tear. It wouldn’t be the first time, you know.” Dot turned and headed to the next table.

  Holly looked back at Jake. “He cleaned up Burl’s hangar last month so I could rent it out. He was sober and didn’t even look hung over then. I thought he was doing better. Have you talked to him?”