by Morgana Best
“Oh my gosh!” I said, the light dawning on me. “When you say ‘know’, you mean…”
My mother cut me off. “Don’t you dare say such a thing! We don’t need more filth in this house.”
“More filth?”
“These candles! These New Age tools of the devil you insist on bringing into my house!”
“They are seriously just candles, Mom!” I all but screamed. “They smell good and make light. That’s all!”
Mom’s lips formed into a tight line, and for a moment I was tempted to tell her I was a witch. I wasn’t one, but I would enjoy telling her that I was. Her only child, a witch. I savored the mental image of her eyes bugging out of her head. I was snapped out of my pleasant musings by her voice.
“Ian is upset because he is already knowing the girl. If she is actually New Age, he will be due for an eternity of torment alongside her. You really shouldn’t know anyone outside of marriage, but it is a different time, I accept that.”
“You accept that? Mom, when you got to the register in a busy supermarket and saw that the teenage girl scanning the groceries was pregnant, you left your things on the belt and hurried out.”
My mother nodded. “I was a different woman then. I know now that the girl deserved pity and guidance. I can change, and I have.”
I snorted rudely. “Mom, the only thing you’ve ever changed was my diaper when I was a baby.”
“I live by God’s influence, and I don’t apologize for that,” my mother said. “And I never will.”
“Mom, how come you think it’s okay that Ian is, err, knowing this woman out of wedlock? You always complain about people ‘living in sin,’ as you call it.”
A look of pure horror passed over Mom’s face. “I most certainly do not think it’s okay, Laurel! I think it’s disgusting. In fact, I think Ian has got a thundering cheek! I’m sure that woman thinks he’s going to marry her.”
I was utterly confused. Talk about mixed messages. “Well, why don’t you say something to him?”
Mom crossed her arms. “I’m going to. It’s just not right.”
“I have to say, Mom,” I continued, “I never thought I would see you befriending someone so young, and speaking with him about who he, um, knows and doesn’t know.”
“He’s my friend,” my mother said stubbornly.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” I said, enjoying myself. “And if I don’t think it’s right, imagine what all your friends and the whole church must be saying about you two.”
The color drained from my mother’s face, and it was all I could do not to laugh. She was positively pale, as white as a sheet. She tried to speak, but she just spluttered, her lips and jaws working but no words coming out. She turned on her heel and left my room, finally leaving me alone. I chuckled to myself and lay back on my bed, savoring my rare victory.
Chapter 16
In the time since I had told Tiffany I would try to help figure out who had killed her, I had made such little progress that I almost dreaded seeing the girl. She never brought it up. We had struck up quite a friendship, which was a pretty strange thing to say, considering she was dead and I was living.
There was certainly an air of melancholy around Tiffany, an air of sadness that her short life was over, but I liked to think that I helped her with that. Without me, she couldn’t speak with anyone. With me, it was almost like she was alive.
Still, I was failing her. I knew that ghosts were people who were unable or unwilling to move on. I felt awful about the fact that I had nothing to show Tiffany about her murder beyond the fact that her boyfriend was a grade A creep. So it was a relief when Tara called me late at night. I was sleeping, after a long night of worrying about the funeral home and the fact that we needed money. I woke up to my cell phone buzzing, a beeping ringtone and the screen bright. I reached over, blinked away a haze of tiredness and looked at the screen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked groggily. Even in my low-caffeine state I realized that something was wrong since she was calling at a little after one in the morning.
“Nothing,” she said, in a half whisper. “I don’t want to wake up Duncan. Let me go out on the porch.”
“All right.”
I heard her move through her house, and then I heard the screech of the old screen door to the porch. “Hey, Duncan would kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but I thought it would help,” she said. “Duncan told me that they caught out Mrs. Kaplan in a lie.”
My ears perked up. “Mrs. Kaplan? Not Mr. Kaplan?” I asked, doing my best to wake up fully. Mr. Kaplan was Tiffany’s boss. Mrs. Kaplan was the wife he had been cheating on with Tiffany.
“Yes,” Tara said. “They caught her lying in the alibi she’d given her husband. She was covering for him. She said he was here with her all morning, but turns out he was delivering coffee.”
I shook my head. “But isn’t delivering coffee an alibi, too?” I asked.
“Not a clue,” Tara said. “That’s all I know.”
“Thanks for telling me.” I lay in the darkness for some time, staring up at the ceiling. It was interesting that the wife had been lying, but I didn’t see how I could ever do anything about it. Could I speak to her without raising anyone’s suspicion? I couldn’t see how. After ages trying to think of a way to get information from her, I finally fell asleep.
By morning I had made up my mind. I intended go to the café where Tiffany used to work, to spy on Mrs. Kaplan. I had no idea what good that would do, but I had no other leads. I could hardly come out and ask her why she had given her husband a false alibi. I supposed most wives would try to protect their husbands.
As I was driving to the café, I glanced down at my phone and saw I had missed a call from Mom. I called her back on the car Bluetooth, but there was no answer. Next thing, I had a text. I pulled over to read it. ‘Did you call me? This is Mom.’
I called her back. This time, she picked up. “Mom, it’s me. What did you call me about?”
“Who is it?” she screeched.
“Me, Mom. Your daughter. If you check the caller I.D. you will see my name.”
“Oh, Laurel.” She almost sounded disappointed. “What do you want?’
I rolled my eyes. “I’m calling you back because you called me.”
“No, Laurel, you called me just then.” Her tone was exasperated.
“Mom, I only called you as you called me, and I’m calling you back.”
“What’s wrong with you, Laurel? You just called me. If you’re not going to speak, I’m hanging up.” She did just that.
I clenched the steering wheel and let out a groan.
My day seemed to improve when I entered the café. I was the only one there, so I took a seat against the wall. From there, I could see both Mrs. Kaplan and the street. There was no sign of Mr. Kaplan, only a waitress who looked to be the same age as the Kaplans.
When the waitress brought my coffee, I decided to be bold. “It’s a shame about Tiffany,” I said.
She turned to me and nodded. “Yes, it’s very sad. You grew up here, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” I said. “I was gone for a while, years really.”
“But you knew Tiffany?”
“Yes,” I said. Of course, I couldn’t explain that I only knew Tiffany after her death, because I spoke to her spirit regularly. “I did her funeral.”
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, yes! That was where Tiffany was, well, you know, murdered.” She finished her sentence in a whisper, and glanced over her shoulder. “The police keep coming here.”
“How awful,” I said in a conspiratorial tone. “I hope they don’t suspect Mr. or Mrs. Kaplan.”
The waitress sighed. I looked her over for the first time. She was attractive, but had a stressed air about her helped along by the deep wrinkles at her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She had an overdone spray tan. Her hair was dyed blonde, although the roots were beginning to show brown. “I didn’t think the cops
would buy the delivery stuff. No one was with him, and there’s no way for them to confirm it.”
“But he actually was doing deliveries at the time, wasn’t he?”
She nodded. “Yes, but still, it wouldn’t have taken any time at all to pop over to the funeral home. It could’ve happened between deliveries.”
I was taken aback. “Do you think Mr. Kaplan killed Tiffany?”
The waitress looked aghast, and shook her head emphatically. “Absolutely not,” she said. “He could never do such a thing.”
I took a sip of my coffee and smiled at her. “I hope they catch whoever did it.”
The waitress shrugged and took her leave, leaving me disappointed. I was no further along with my inquiries.
Tiffany suddenly appeared in front of me, making me gasp and jump. Luckily, no one was in the café.
“What did she say?” she asked.
“I think I want to find out some things about your boss,” I said.
Tiffany shook her head. “You’re looking into the wrong man.”
“I just want to look into everything,” I said. “I want to find out who killed you.”
The dead girl nodded. “You and me both, sister.”
Chapter 17
I didn’t know how I was going to verify the fact that Martin Kaplan had been delivering coffee when Tiffany was murdered. I was pretty sure if I walked up to him and demanded to know where he was the day that Tiffany was killed, he would probably call the police. The last thing I needed was to be standing in front of Duncan and his fellow officers, trying to explain why I had such an interest in Tiffany’s murder. No, I needed another approach, but how could I confirm that Martin was delivering coffee at the time that Tiffany was killed?
I could go to the businesses that regularly had coffee delivered each morning, but how would I get the information? The answer came to me swiftly, but it was so obvious that I mentally kicked myself for having to think of it at all. Tiffany herself could be of help.
Of course, it wasn’t always easy to find the girl. She was walking this world, unable to move on until she felt at peace with her death, but she wasn’t always hanging around the funeral home. I thought that she perhaps went to check on her parents, in particular her mother, but I never asked. It felt like prying. Often though, she was somewhere in the funeral home.
I walked around the funeral home, but Tiffany was nowhere to be seen. I had to get to work, and figured she would turn up at some point. I had a few calls to make. Business was picking up. We had received a lot of publicity over the recent KISS funeral, as the newspaper article had turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I had expected. In fact, it was bordering on praising the funeral home. To my relief, David had not mentioned my mother at all. And thanks to his article, I had more messages than ever waiting for me on the answering machine.
The day stretched on, and still I heard nothing from Tiffany. I took a small break for lunch and went to the house. I made myself a sandwich and ate it while I stood at the kitchen counter. I wondered where my dead friend was. I really wanted to ask her where her boss usually delivered coffee. The longer I waited, the more likely it was that no one would be able to remember anything that had happened on that day.
I thought of one other place she could be, besides her mother’s house, so I hurried to my car.
The graveyard in which Tiffany had been buried was rambling, with a rolling green mound near the center. I pulled up outside the iron gates and parked on the side of the road. As I climbed out of my car, I could see her sitting in front of her headstone.
“Hey,” she said. She sounded sad, and she looked it as well.
“I didn’t know you came here,” I said softly.
“This is the first time actually. It’s weird, knowing that I’m buried here, right under where I’m sitting.”
“That’s just your body,” I said. “You are you. You didn’t have a soul; you are a soul. You had a body.”
Tiffany smiled at me as I sat beside her. “I like my headstone. It’s pretty. Is that weird?”
I returned her smile and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how you should feel. There probably aren’t any rules, you know?”
Tiffany nodded. “Why did you come out here?”
“I was looking for you. I need your help with something.”
“Murder investigation stuff?” she asked hopefully.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry I asked you to do that for me. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It was dumb. I just need to know, but the police are working on it.”
“I want to help you. I told you I would, and I will,” I said. “I like you, and I want to find out how, well, how you got into this situation.” Namely, dead, I thought, but I didn’t want to upset her.
“What do you need to know?” she asked me.
“Where did your boss make deliveries each day?”
Tiffany sighed and shook her head. “Still on him? I really don’t think it’s Martin.”
“I know, but indulge me,” I said. “He went each morning, didn’t he?”
Tiffany nodded. “Yes, he usually delivered to the antique store, the hardware store, and the Kennison farm.”
I was surprised. “Mr. Kennison? With the farm out on Kingstown Road?”
“Yes. Mr. Kennison has three guys working for him. He gets them all coffee each morning.”
“Heck of a boss, huh?”
Tiffany grinned. “Mine was better. I’m telling you, Martin has nothing to do with this. You’re just caught up on him because I was having an affair with him. Maybe you watch too much TV. It’s always the guy the girl is sleeping with on shows, right?”
“Perhaps I am. I just want to be thorough, and if he was going all the way out to that farm, that should clear him.”
“Maybe then you can leave him alone,” Tiffany said.
“If it checks out, it checks out. I’m just trying to help.”
“I know,” Tiffany said. “I’m sorry. I asked you to help me, after all. But wouldn’t the police have already checked his alibi?’
I shrugged. “I don’t have a clue whether they did or they didn’t. I have to do this by myself.”
Tiffany nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
“All right,” I said as I stood. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but I couldn’t. Tiffany hadn’t felt human contact in a month, and she would never do so again. The sudden thought made me sad. I hurried back to my car so she wouldn’t see me cry.
I figured there was no point going to the places that Martin Kaplan had delivered to in town, so I headed for Mr. Kennison’s farm. If I could place Martin there around the time of Tiffany’s murder, then it would clear him.
When I made it to the farm, I pulled onto a long dirt driveway, my tires throwing up clouds of dust as I bounced along. There was a large farmhouse at the end of the drive, and everything was surrounded by brown fields. I parked at the end of the drive next to an old red tractor. I climbed out of my car and went to the front door of the home. I knocked, but no one answered.
I stepped off the porch and shielded the sun from my eyes. I peered all around, trying to find Mr. Kennison, but the fields were large and I couldn’t see him. I went around the back of the house and looked. I could see a green tractor rolling slowly across the ground. I sighed and started to walk.
As I got closer I could see that it wasn’t Mr. Kennison driving the tractor, but a young man of about twenty. He stopped when he saw me and killed the tractor’s engine. He climbed down and grabbed a water bottle from under the seat, and took a long drink.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Could you point me toward Mr. Kennison?”
“Are you another cop?”
“No,” I said, unsure if I should say anything else.
“Good, he’s fed up talking to cops,” the guy said. He pointed behind him, to a thin line of trees. “Wayne Kennison’s out there putting in strainer posts.”
I
turned and left him to his work, and headed out toward the trees. Mr. Kennison must have been around seventy years of age, but he looked like a man decades younger. He was strong. He had a broad chest, and his face and arms were deep brown, tanned after years of being in the sun. He saw me at once and stopped what he was doing.
“You’re Larry’s daughter, aren’t you?” he asked as I approached.
“Yes,” I said. I was surprised that he remembered me.
He pulled his hat off his head and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Sorry to hear about your father.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to ask you something, and it might sound weird, but I’m asking for a friend,” I said. “I wanted to know if Martin Kaplan was here…”
He raised his hand, cutting me off. “That’s what the cops asked me a few days ago,” he said. “I’ll save you some time and tell you what I told them. Usually, Martin did bring me coffee every day. The day that girl was murdered in town, he came, but he was about an hour later than usual. He said he had some car trouble out on the Retreat Road, and it took a while for anyone to get out to him. I don’t know anything more than that.”
His news hit me like a ton of bricks. Martin had been here, but not until after Tiffany had been killed. Tiffany wasn’t going to like hearing that. As much of a jerk as Danny was, it was looking less and less to me like he had killed Tiffany, and more and more like her lover, Martin Kaplan, was the murderer. All I needed to find out now was his motive.
Chapter 18
I was at the Kaplans’ café about to have lunch. I thought it a good way to multi-task. I needed to eat lunch, and I hoped that I’d pick up some information or observe something of interest. Mr. Kaplan was now on the top of my list of suspects—in that regard he had well and truly gone past Danny.
At least that had been my plan. I was waiting for my order, trying to peer out the back for any sign of Mr. or Mrs. Kaplan, when John Jones appeared in front of me. It was all I could do not to groan.
