A Ghostly Murder

by Tonya Kappes

  “You didn’t seem too upset when I came in with you spackling the white stuff all over your face,” I said, trying to contemplate what I should do.

  Call Jack Henry and tell him Granny had the money? Call Pastor Brown and explain we found it in the cabinet?

  “I knew you were on your way and I couldn’t dare stay in here with the money someone planted on me. Just like the pie.” Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned. “I bet Bea Allen is trying to get rid of me.”

  “No,” I shook my head, “she’s trying to get rid of me.”

  “What?” Granny’s head almost twisted off her neck.

  “Nothing.” I didn’t have the time or energy to go into detail about my disastrous date with Jack Henry at his family’s home and Bea Allen flapping her lips about me impersonating her. “Let’s just go over this one more time.”

  Granny did her entire routine, and nothing changed. When she made the motions of opening the cabinet and all the stuff falling to the ground, I pulled the picture out of Granny’s Bible and stuck it in my pocket.

  “When was the last time you opened the cabinet before this morning?” I asked.

  There had to be some sort of reasonable explanation for Sleepy Hollow Baptist Church’s entire collection being in Granny’s cabinet with her honey sitting on top.

  Okay . . . maybe not reasonable, but some sort of answer.

  “Did you tell anyone about your secret ingredient of honey when making your biscuits?” I asked, trying to narrow down someone, anyone.

  “No.” She ran over to the ball of yeast she had covered over. She cried out, “Now these aren’t going to be any good because I’ve waited too long to put honey on them.”

  “Granny,” I said. “Focus.”

  “Focus? Are you kidding me?” Granny tossed the rising dough ball into the trashcan. “I have Inn guests who will be up in less than thirty minutes. I have all of Sleepy Hollow’s residents’ ten percent tithe drenched in honey on my floor. And someone placed Bea Allen’s pie in my cabinet a ­couple days ago. Twice!” She held up two boney fingers. “Now this!”

  “I have an idea.” I picked up the plate, to Granny’s displeasure.

  There was a lot of money. Most of it was dripping in honey. I put the money in the sink and turned the faucet on.

  “We are going to launder the money, literally?” Granny asked.

  “No.” I did my best cleaning off the honey. “You are going to take a chisel hammer to get that crap off your face. I’m going to sneak the money back into the church.”

  “How are you going to do that?” She put a hand on her hip.

  “You are going to get rid of the plate, and I’m going to hide the money under my sweatshirt. Remember,” I smiled, “I told Pastor Brown I would fill in for Mable Claire.”

  Mable Claire. Exactly why couldn’t she volunteer today? I tucked the little question in the back of my mind with the rest of them.

  Granny and I hatched our plan. She was going to put her finest Southern pearls on and do the best she could with the biscuits she was working on. I was going to grab a cup of coffee at Higher Grounds Café on my way to Sleepy Hollow Baptist Church to put the money back and do my volunteer duties.

  I probably should’ve gotten a shower and brushed my teeth first, but the way I saw, God didn’t care what I looked like as long as I returned the tithe. And maybe did a little snooping around for Mamie’s million dollars.

  “Good morning,” I said to Mable Claire, who was sitting in her regular table at Higher Grounds, minus Beulah Paige. I stopped to give my condolences. “I’m so saddened to hear about Beulah. Is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t think we should talk about it, since you were the one who put her there.” Mable Claire’s bottom lip jutted out.

  “Mable Claire, I did no such thing,” I protested, being careful not to move around too much with the wad of cash stuck down my waistband. “When I left there, she was healthy as a hog. Regardless, I wish no ill will on anyone.”

  “Thankfully she switched her funeral arrangements to Burns, and I’m going right over to do the same thing.” Mable Claire stood up and jingled her way to the door.

  “Good!” I yelled at her back. “We don’t want you anyway,” I muttered, thinking about the hissy fit Charlotte Rae was going to have when she found out.

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t kick the bucket.” Cheryl Lynne poured a to-­go cup of coffee for me. “It seems like you are batting a thousand with the Auxiliary women.”

  “Yeah,” I grumbled and ran my hand through my hair, which was becoming increasingly greasy as the morning minutes flew by.

  “I was there last night,” she said. “I’m not sure you want some coffee with your bowel issues.” She handed the cup over the glass-­top counter.

  “I don’t have diarrhea.” I knew what she was saying without having to say it. “I’m fine,” I informed her.

  “There seems to be a lot of strange things going on around here.” Cheryl leaned against the glass counter, resting on her forearm. “The money from the church went missing. Beulah has some sort of heart attack. Strange.”

  “How did you know about the money from the church?” I asked. Jack Henry was pretty good at keeping police business on the down-­low.

  “Mable Claire told me.” She pointed to Mable Claire, who was across the street on the sidewalk talking to Pastor Brown. Cheryl Lynne walked over to the cappuccino machine. She threw in all sorts of things to make the fancy drink. “I guess she should know. She comes in here every Monday morning before she goes to the church to count the money.”

  “She wasn’t going today.” I watched the interaction between Mable Claire and Pastor Brown.

  “What did you say?” Cheryl Lynne asked over the cappuccino maker.

  “Nothing.” I waved and stood at the door of the café until Mable Claire and Pastor Brown turned enough so they wouldn’t see me slip out and down the street to the church.

  Haste makes waste, and I didn’t wait. If fast walking was an Olympic sport, I knew I could win a gold. No one, not Pastor Brown, was going to beat me to the church. I would slip in through the side door, which was always open for anyone who felt the spirit and needed to pray, and put the money in a different collection plate.

  All in Sleepy Hollow must have been good, because no one was in there to pray. I did stop at the altar and give a little healing thought to Beulah Paige. If she did have a heart attack because of me and my lies, that would be hard to live with. I really did want her to be okay, although maybe come back a little nicer.

  “Boo!” Junior danced around, smoke signals floating up in the air. The signals turned into perfect smoke rings. “I’ve figured out how to create rings. If I move this way and that way . . .” He darted in a circular motion.

  “Great.” I walked up the altar steps and went over to the door Pastor Brown always comes out of during ser­vice, then I jiggled the handle.

  To my surprise, it was open and exactly where I needed to be—­the hallway, the guts of the church. On my way down the hall, I opened each door on the left and the right. I needed the office, and these were Sunday-­school classrooms. Each had a table with chairs around them, Bibles on top, and a chalkboard with all sorts of Bible verses written on them. One of the rooms had a Baggie full of frosted animal crackers.

  I couldn’t resist. I took the bag.

  “Mm . . .” I chewed on an animal cracker and sipped my coffee. It was so good.

  The office was at the end of another hall. The door was open, so I was happy I wouldn’t have been accused of breaking and entering. The empty collection plates were stacked on a large credenza.

  The sound of footsteps caught my ear. I jumped in the rolling chair and took the money out of my waistband. I wheeled over to the credenza and stuck the wad of cash in the top collection plate. With the plate in my hand o
n my roll back to the desk, I grabbed a piece of paper off the copier and pencil off the desk.

  “One hundred and twenty,” I counted the money loud enough for the person coming closer to hear me. “Twenty-­one, twenty-­two.” I wrote the number down. “Jesus loves me this I know,” I sang and pretended to stack the money when I heard the footsteps stop at the door of the office.

  “For the Bible tells me so.” I sang loud and proud of the one and only song I remembered from Sunday school.

  “Emma Lee?” Pastor Brown asked.

  “Pastor.” I smiled and held a stack of money in one hand. “I’m here to do my volunteer work.”

  “Where did you get the money?” he asked with a perplexed look on his face. He walked over. His mouth dropped when he saw the collection. “Where did it come from?”

  “Um . . . in the plate right here.” I tapped the stack with my pencil. “Is this not right?”

  “You mean you came in here and the money was in the collection plate?” he asked with trepidation.

  “Right there,” I confirmed my big lie.

  Please God, don’t strike me dead right here in your house. I bit my lip and begged for forgiveness.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked, as if I didn’t know anything about the missing collection.

  “Great!” He clasped his hands together. Joy spewed out of his mouth. “Better than great, Emma Lee!”

  “Great.” I shrugged and turned back around.

  The sound of a cabinet opening caught my attention. Then Pastor Brown’s footsteps.

  “Here are the checks from the other collection.” He handed me a stack of paper checks. “You will log the number on the check, who it’s from, and the amount in this ledger.”

  I opened the notebook. Mable Claire’s handwriting was clear and neat. After I counted the sticky money and put it in the zipper deposit bag, I worked on the checks. It was going to take me forever to do these. I worried about how much time I was going to have to snoop.

  “Yes.” I heard Pastor Brown talking to someone.

  I bent back in the chair and looked through the open door he had disappeared through. He was sitting behind a desk, and the back of the chair was to the door. The phone cord left the receptionist-­type phone and tugged around the chair.

  “I came in and Emma Lee Raines was counting the cash right here,” he let the other person know. “Yes. Emma Lee. Mable Claire wasn’t able to come today, so Emma had volunteered yesterday after church to come in and count it.”

  I smiled. I did kind of like him bragging on my volunteering until I figured out who it was he was talking to.

  “Thanks, Jack Henry, for all your work. I must’ve not seen it in there. It’s my fault.” Pastor Brown said a few more words and hung up.

  Great. Now Jack Henry was going to be on my ass about the money. He was way too smart to think Pastor Brown had misplaced the money and it had just shown up.

  Quickly I got to the last check.

  “Junior Mullins?” I asked and looked at the check. It was written when Junior was still living.

  “Of course I pay my little tithe to the church.” Junior appeared next to me, looking down at the check. “It might only be ten percent, but it’s what the good book calls for.”

  “Excuse me?” Pastor Brown walked out of the office.

  “This check is from Junior Mullins.” I thought it was strange. “And for two thousand dollars?”

  I gulped when I heard Junior say “ten percent.” Wasn’t ten percent a lot? Considering Junior had one of the cheapest funeral packages and lived in the old folks home, I figured he was on a fixed income.

  “Two thousand dollars.” Junior’s face set. “Fine. I know it should’ve been three thousand, but I was afraid the home of the near dead was going to up my rent. Hell, I didn’t know I was going to die.”

  “Emma Lee?” Pastor Brown’s hand waved in front of me. “I hope you know ­people’s tithe to the Lord is a private matter and this information doesn’t leave the office.” He took the check from my hand. “Mable Claire is very good at keeping every penny coming into the church discreet.” He took the ledger and stack of money, along with the checks. “I hope I can count on you to do the same.”

  The image of them talking on the sidewalk this morning was stamped into my brain. Did Mable Claire know everything about the money coming in and out of this place? Just how much did Sleepy Hollow Baptist Church have?

  One million dollars for sure. Where was it?

  “Of course I won’t say a word.” I made the sign of the cross like Granny always did.

  “Dear, we aren’t Catholic. Your discretion is appreciated.”

  “Yes. Yes.” I nodded. “But do the deceased members ever leave the church money in their wills?”

  It seemed like a good question to start with.

  “It’s not unusual for them to leave the church a little something.” He smiled. “After all, it all belongs to God. Have you ever seen a U-­Haul behind a hearse?”

  “No sir,” I laughed. My first Betweener client, Ruthie Sue Payne, used to say that. “But what do you do with the money?”

  “Pay bills, pay salaries. It’s not cheap to run a church,” he said.

  “Salaries?” I guess I had always thought everyone did volunteer work.

  “Sure. Mine.” He pointed to himself. “The accountant. The lawyer. The secretary. Handymen. A bunch of ­people are on salary at the church, but no one in the community realizes that when they have a hard time paying their ten percent tithe.”

  “Ten percent, huh?”

  “Are you going to keep throwing it up in my face?” Junior protested from across the room. “I’ve always paid my ten percent. At least most of the time.”

  “It’s what the good word says. Most members of the congregation don’t pay the full tithe.” He picked up the Bible next to the collection plate and walked back into his office. He held onto the money in one hand and the Bible in the other. “If you will excuse me, I have to go write next week’s sermon. Thank you for your help. You have no idea what a ray of light it was to see you yesterday and this morning.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Your sermon was lovely, and I was happy to see the old photo of you and Granny and . . .” I tapped my temple before I took the picture out of my pocket. “Granny, you and Mamie Sue Preston.”

  Pastor Brown’s eyes drew together in an agonized expression. I held the picture up so he could get a good, long look and I could get a read on his face. There was definitely surprise and shock running throughout his body.

  “Pastor, are you okay?” I asked.

  “Fine. Fine.” He rocked back and forth. He put the ledger and the Bible, along with the money, back on the table. “I had no idea you knew Mamie Sue Preston.”

  “Oh, she and Granny were good friends.” I for sure was going to get struck by lightning.

  “They were?” He looked shocked. “It wasn’t the same after Mamie Sue moved away, and then came back.”

  “Mamie Sue moved away from Sleepy Hollow?” This was news to me.

  “Right after we graduated from high school.” He paused and took the picture out of my hands. “As a matter of fact, a ­couple weeks after this photo was taken, I went off to seminary school. I came home about a month into school to visit, and Mamie Sue had gone. Zula Fae told me she went to visit Mamie and she was gone. Disappeared.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Disappeared?”

  “It wasn’t until years later, after I had taken over as the pastor here at Sleepy Hollow Baptist, when Mamie showed up in the front pew, looking just like the teenage girl she’d always been.” He laughed. “She was the envy of all the women in the Auxiliary. She had on a big hat and fancy clothes.”

  “I bet.” I could only imagine what Ruthie Sue Payne and Granny thought when they saw Mamie Sue struttin
g down the aisle at the Sunday ser­vice. “Where was she all those years?”

  “I don’t know. We never really talked after she moved back.” He handed the photo back to me. “She became sort of a recluse. She had her family’s wealth and she had the big house in the new Triple Thorn subdivision. She had everything she needed. But God . . .” He pointed upward. “She came to church every single Sunday. I tried to reach out to her, but she kept everyone at arm’s length.”

  “Did she?” Then it would make sense to leave the millions. “Did she tithe her ten percent?”

  “I have no idea what kind of money she had inherited from her family’s coal mine shutting down in Eastern Kentucky, but she did make up for years of not being part of the congregation,” he said.

  “Did she have any family?” I knew Fluggie Callahan had told me Mamie didn’t.

  Which reminded me, I hadn’t heard from Fluggie in a ­couple of days. I was going to have to stop by the old mill and see if she’d uncovered any more details about DD LLC.

  “None.” He shook his head. “Her momma and daddy were both the only children in their families. She was the only child between them. Plus she never got married. Say, why all the interest in Mamie Sue Preston?”

  “I had seen her headstone from afar when I was finishing up Cephus Hardy’s funeral. I found it interesting, that’s all.” I sucked in a deep breath and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I asked Granny about her, and she told me she was an old friend.”

  “Really?” Pastor Brown asked. “I’m glad to see Zula Fae forgiving Mamie.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know that Granny of yours can be a grudge holder. I thought she was going to rip Mamie’s fancy hat off during the singing of ‘Amazing Grace’ when someone told her Mamie had switched her funeral arrangements to Burns.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t one of Zula Fae’s finest moments.”

  “I’d say not,” I agreed.

  “I’m just glad to see Zula is forgiving in her older years. We aren’t getting any younger. Thankfully, our Lord doesn’t hold grudges.” He picked the ledger and the money back up. “I really have to get going. Next week’s sermon isn’t going to write itself. Don’t forget about the spaghetti dinner.”