by Tonya Kappes
The memorial was packed. There were even people there from the community that hadn’t gone to school with us, along with the camera crew.
“Emma!” Jade screamed above the DJ’s music. She was in the middle of the school gym standing behind a circle of people. She was pointing to the middle with one hand and waving me over with the other.
“Hey there.” Cheryl Lynne touched my arm and handed me one of the two glasses of wine she was holding. “This turned out really nice. You really outdid yourself for someone that you were fuming about just a day ago.”
“I know. I feel bad for Artie and really I never wished anything bad to happen to her.” It was sad that I had gotten to know Jade in death better than I had in real life. The truth was that death changed her attitude, which was a lesson all the living could learn. “From now on, I’m going to try to be a nicer person to everyone. Even if they aren’t nice to me.”
“I don’t think you ever had to worry about that. Everyone likes you.” Cheryl waved to someone in the distance. “Look, it’s Daryl Davis.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Shh.” She ran her hands through her hair. “He’s coming over.”
“Ladies, ladies, ladies.” Daryl Davis, someone I didn’t remember, walked up with a silk brown shirt tucked deep into a pair of black slacks. His shirt had three buttons unbuttoned and a few black hairs stuck out from underneath. He ran his hands over his heavily gelled black hair, sniffed and grabbed Cheryl. “You look amazing.”
“Oh, Daryl.” She blushed, pushing him off her. “You were always a charmer. Wasn’t he, Emma Lee?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I pinched a forced smile. I looked over Mr. Sauvés’s shoulder to see Jade jumping up and down in the middle of the crowd pumping her arm up and down in the air.
“What can I say?” He winked, giving me the creeps. Seriously, he was one gold chain away from a small role on The Sopranos.
“Hey, sexy.” Jack Henry’s arms came around me from behind. His words hot against my ear.
“Jack.” I turned around and found my handsome other half looking all cleaned up in slim-fitting gray suit pants and jacket. He had a black button-up shirt on underneath. “You look . . .”
“Delicious.” Jade purred like a kitten next to me. “Emma Lee Raines. I hope you didn’t wear those granny panties.”
“She’s here?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Who’s here?” Daryl pushed between us with his hand held out. “Jack Henry Ross. Dude, you look even better as a grown-up. Man, how are you?”
“Davis!” Jack obviously remembered this meathead. “I’m great. How are you?”
“Better than I deserve.” Daryl’s lips did that duck bill thing and he slowly nodded. “Single.” He elbowed Cheryl. “Maybe not for long. Own my own real estate company up in Lexington and I have my own hot tub.”
“You do.” Jack tried to act impressed, but I knew better.
“Yep. It’s outside on a deck I built around it.” He whipped out his phone and swiped his finger across the screen as he showed us his photos.
I couldn’t help but look.
“Wait,” I protested when I saw something that was green.
“What?” Daryl snarled.
“Can you go back?” I gestured with my finger over top of his phone. “I think I saw something neat.”
“Sure.” His ego inflated with each swipe of his finger.
“There.” I pointed and looked up at Jack’s face when he noticed it was a green car.
“My girl.” He grinned so big. “Calli.”
“Dude, that’s a great car.” Jack played along. “Tell me about it.”
“I don’t have to tell you about Calli the Cutlass.” Daryl stuck his phone back in his pocket. “I can show you.”
“Great. Now?” Jack asked a little too enthusiastically. I glared between the two of them.
I wanted so badly to point at him and blurt out, “Murderer!” But I knew I couldn’t.
“You.” Jade gasped when she saw Daryl. “Well if this just takes the cake.”
My jaw tensed. My eyes fluttered between ghost Jade and Daryl.
“I ought to give you down the road!” She shook her fist at him. “If I weren’t a lady and beauty queen, I’d . . .”
She hollered and fussed and flew off the handle—only he couldn’t hear her. I could and I was taking it all in.
Jack looked at me, giving me the look that asked me if my Betweener client was here. I slowly nodded.
“Going nuts,” I mouthed, hoping he could read my lips.
“Well, let’s go take a look because we are burnin’ daylight.” Jack smacked Daryl’s back. To make it look sincere, Jack leaned in and acted like he was going to kiss me. He whispered, “Act like we are saying a long good-bye. Is she here?”
I pulled him to me and looked over his shoulder, scanning the room. She was gone.
“I don’t see her and she was just right here cussing him out.” Was it true? Was Daryl Davis the killer? My insides felt like there was electricity running through me or I’d had too much coffee from Higher Grounds. I gripped Jack’s back.
“Call the department and tell them about the car. Send a deputy,” Jack whispered in my ear and put his hand on the back of my head. He kissed my cheek.
When he pulled away from me, our eyes held for a few seconds.
“You are whipped, man.” The back of Daryl’s hand smacked Jack’s bicep.
“Let’s go see that car.” Jack and Daryl walked off.
“Isn’t he something?” Cheryl was grinning from ear to ear.
“He’s definitely something all right.” I groaned, bringing the wineglass up to my lips. “I need to make a call.”
“Fine.” Cheryl started to bebop toward the group of people who were in the middle dancing.
I slipped out into the hall and called dispatch like Jack told me to do. Any minute some backup would be here to help him. Hopefully he was out there checking out the car and making Daryl think he was really interested.
Nervously I gulped down the wine and on my way over to the bar, the sound system squeaked. I stopped and looked up at the gym stage.
“I would like to thank everyone for coming.” Artie’s hand gripped the microphone. “Jade would have loved this reunion. She would’ve told us to go on as planned, but she would’ve also wanted to be memorialized,” he joked. The crowd laughed. “You know that she loved a good party and enjoyed being center of attention. It’s my fault. I did make her the center of my life. She had a hard time when her mother passed away and I made sure she was pampered and taken care of. I know that she is reunited with her mother. I can’t help but ask that if anyone knows anything about her murder, please come forward with any information. Sheriff Ross, your own classmate, is here tonight and please give him any tips you might have. Even if they don’t seem to be a big tip, any tip is big.” He pulled something from his pocket. “I’m going to offer a ten-thousand-dollar reward in the case.” He held a check above his head.
Any minute I was sure Jack would be in here and let Artie know that he could keep his money. There was a murmured wave over the crowd. Anyone in Sleepy Hollow would go nuts if they won ten thousand dollars. It didn’t matter how much the Powerball jackpot was every week, the Buy-N-Fly was always packed on Friday nights with lottery winner hopefuls.
Cheryl Lynne was back by the bar yakking it up with someone I didn’t recognize and the DJ was still playing the tunes. Jade did love a great party.
I glanced up to the ceiling picturing Jade sashaying down the gold road she’d told me about.
“There you are.” Jack Henry brought me out of my dream.
“How did it go?” I asked.
He grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the gym.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we crossed the tape the school janitor had put up to hinder any stray memorial visitors from roaming around the school.
“I’ve always wanted to make out in the locker r
oom.” Jack Henry pulled me into the doorway when we turned the corner. “I think we got our murderer and we can get on with our night.”
“No alibi?” I asked.
“None with anyone that can corroborate his story.” Jack pulled me closer. “He admitted being disgusted with her on the two occasions. In front of the café and then at the Buy-N-Fly. He said he was going to embarrass her at the reunion and that was what he meant when he said he was going to get her back. We’ve got people interrogating him now.”
His lips seared a path down my neck.
“Jack,” I whispered, and looked down the hallway. “You are being bad.”
I joked, kind of liking this spontaneous Jack Henry Ross.
He took my lips in a soft moist kiss. My body melted against his. The pressure of his lips increased. His hands ran down the sides of my arms and his fingertips found the hem of my skirt. His fingers grazed my leg, sending chills all over me as they moved up my thigh.
“I could never get him to do this with me.” Jade leaned up against the wall in the hallway.
“Go away,” I gasped. “I warned you.”
“Huh?” Jack Henry pulled away.
“No.” I grabbed him by the shirt and brought him closer. “Not you. Her.”
Jack looked over my shoulder.
“You mean her as in Jade?” His lip cocked. “You mean Daryl Davis isn’t her killer?”
My heart sank. Jack ran his hands through his hair.
“This case is never going to get solved.” Jack was frustrated. “I thought we had him.”
I held up one finger. “You wait right here. I’m going to go have a talk with her in the bathroom.”
“I’m going to have to go back to work and somehow let Daryl go.” Jack chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t have time to wait.”
He kissed me good-bye and walked down the hall the opposite way.
I stalked down the hall with Jade by my side.
“I’m glad you want to talk to me because the first thing you need to do when we get into the bathroom is get rid of those big granny panties.” She snarled from behind me.
“You just ruined it.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Daryl Davis obviously didn’t kill you because you are still here. Jack had to go to the station to somehow clear him.”
I opened the door to the bathroom.
“Thank you so much.” Tina Tittle stood in front of the mirror with a tiara on top of her head. Her purse was laid open in the sink. A pair of black men’s shoes were sticking out of her purse. There was a phone propped up on the back of the sink. “Emma.”
She jumped around. She grabbed the tiara off her head and stuck it in her purse. She grabbed the cell.
“You scared me.” She smiled and let out a deep sigh.
“That’s my phone!” Jade rushed over to Tina. “I have that purple case on my phone. Why does she have my personal phone?” I looked at her. “What? I have a business phone and I have a personal phone.” She pointed to the shoes. “Those are the shoes the killer was wearing.”
“Why do you have Jade’s phone?” I asked. Then it hit me. “Oh my God.” My mouth dropped. “Tina, you didn’t.”
“Jesus, Emma.” She let out another big huff before pulling out the tiara and a gun. “You always have stuck your nose into other people’s business just like your granny.”
I glared at her. Anyone that talked about my granny set me on fire. She pointed her gun at me.
“Jade was your best friend.” I was beginning to get dizzy. I gripped the trash can next to me to help steady myself.
“Is the creepy funeral home girl getting scared because she’s afraid her sister is going to host her funeral?” Tina talked with duck-billed lips in a whiny voice. “I about died when Artie decided to let you, of all people, host Jade’s funeral. She hated you.”
“No I didn’t.” Jade was quick to come to my defense. Too bad she was dead and it looked like I was going to join her any minute.
“She still didn’t deserve to die.” I took a deep breath. I had to get out of there.
“She did have to die,” Tina said with a flat voice. “She did deserve it.”
She shooed me into one of the bathroom stalls. She kept the door open with her hip.
“Sit down,” she ordered. “Why on earth did you have to come in here? I hate to have to kill you because I was almost home free.”
“Why did you do it?” I had to know before she killed me. The entire thing had stumped me.
“Jade had nothing to do with me after high school. She divorced our friendship. Something about having to let her past go if she was going to find her future. She found out that I was marrying a producer of reality shows and immediately came to see me. I thought she was really there to rekindle our friendship. The only thing she kindled was my husband loins.” She pulled out Jade’s phone. She swiped her fingers over the screen and showed me a picture of Jade and a man in a very compromising position. “That’s her, on my husband. Then she gets the reality show.”
“That’s a good reason to kill her.” I couldn’t help but say it.
“I told her how he drugged me.” Jade stomped around the bathroom. “How can I get help to you? I never thought she was the one who killed me. I was on the phone with her when I got attacked.”
“He drugged her though,” I spouted.
“Did she tell you that?” Tina seethed. “Who else did she tell?” She jabbed her gun my way.
“No one.” This was not the time to forget my conversations with my ghosts. “She said how much she loved you and was glad that your friendship withstood the hardships. She was so proud of your bond with each other.”
“No she wasn’t. Did she tell you that? Because when I was on the phone with her, she said that she was going to expose my husband drugging her because he canceled her little show before it even got the first episode filmed.” She glared.
Things were becoming very clear to me.
“You mean to tell me that after Jade found out the show was canceled, she called you and that was when the threats started?” I asked. Tina nodded. “You showed up at her room at the Inn and killed her.”
“Better than that.” She grinned, pleased with her actions. “I was standing outside her room when I called her because I knew if the police did track her calls from the phone carrier, that it would show I had just gotten off the phone with her and there was no way I killed her.”
“You had a reason to kill her. She was going to blackmail you. The police will understand.”
I did my best to talk myself out of the mess I’d gotten into.
“Emma, honey.” She threw her head back in a fit of laughter. “I’m not stupid. My husband is the producer of those cop shows. They will throw me in jail forever. It was perfect, though Vernon Baxter was pretty good with figuring out the strangling. I thought for sure I’d made it look like a suicide since she was so crazy and had the nut house records to prove it.”
“I’m not crazy!” Jade fumed. “I’m a beauty queen! Take my tiara off now!”
“How did you get Daryl Davis’s shoes?” I asked.
“Poor Daryl. He was insurance for my freedom, but it looks like you’ve screwed that up. Daryl is sitting in jail while you are being killed, which doesn’t make him your killer, so maybe I’ll make you strangle yourself.” She waved the gun in the air. “Have you ever contemplated suicide, Emma Lee Raines?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“Anyways, Daryl was so mad at Jade that he even threatened her. While they were busy cussing each other out at the Buy-N-Fly, I took his shoes out of his car without him looking. I made sure I wore them to the Inn just in case my plan didn’t work out and Jade noticed the shoes. She would notice something as stupid as a pair of shoes.” She was still waving that gun around. “She was so shallow. She always judged people by their shoes. She was wrong this time.”
“Well I’ll be.” Jade stood behind Tina, snapping away. “I can snap.” Jade smiled. Sh
e looked up at me. Then she looked over my shoulder. Her eyes glistened.
I looked behind me at the wall. I was seeing the old orange tile that had been there since I was in high school.
“Do you see that?” Jade asked. I turned back and looked at her over Tina’s shoulder. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Emma, I think I’m ready to go to the big pageant in the sky.”
I watched Jade sashay past me, swinging her hips and snapping her fingers until she was gone.
“What are you looking at?” Tina asked, bringing me back to the living.
Just as she turned around, the trash can came barreling out of the air, knocking Tina Tittle in the head and out cold.
Chapter 28
“How did you figure it out?” Jack Henry asked Fluggie Callahan.
After Fluggie knocked Tina out, I was too stunned to do anything, so I sat there while she called the Sleepy Hollow Police.
Tina didn’t even come to when they put handcuffs on her. For good measure, they took her to the hospital to see if she had gotten a concussion, but not without the police guarding her room.
“I know you are going to get mad, but Emma Lee and I have done some sleuthing on our own.” Fluggie thought she was telling Jack something he didn’t know. “We had crossed off suspects one by one. When you hauled off Daryl Davis for questioning, I knew he wasn’t the killer because I had talked to him at The Watering Hole and Hoss said he’d been there a couple of hours. Out of all the people who Jade let into her life, Tina Tittle was the only one who really didn’t have a solid alibi. Yeah, the phone records would’ve shown she was on the phone, but no one was with her.”
“It still doesn’t make her the killer,” Jack noted.
She leaned back in the chair and pulled a file from her bag that was hanging on the back of the chair. She threw it on the desk. Jack opened it up and took out some photos.
“I went to the library earlier in the day and looked up all of Jade’s friends from high school. These are all the photos the library had and the school yearbooks. Tina is in almost all of them. She is looking at Jade with that jealous look on her face any woman would recognize. That was my first clue.”
