beyond the grave 03 - a ghostly demise

by Kappes, Tonya

  “Though he did have reason.” Terk patted Leotta’s hand.

  I noticed she jerked away and took a swig of beer.

  “I came to see you today to let you know that.” Her beady black eyes zeroed in on mine. It was hard for me to not look away.

  “Go on, tell her,” Terk encouraged her. “I know that you took that piece of paper off my table when you came to campaign for Zula Fae.” His eyes lowered.

  He was onto me.

  “Well, Mary Anna has been worried about her mom and she really wanted to know Cephus’s whereabouts. That’s all.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “I was just trying to help her.”

  “That’s why I hired Terk.” Leotta pointed the bottle at Terk before she took another swig.

  She got up and squeezed past Terk’s chair and the wall, giving Terk some eyelash fluttering. I swear there was a little drool in the corner of his lip.

  “I’ll take another one, babe.” Terk held up the empty bottle.

  “Don’t call me babe,” she warned Terk, and pulled out two more beers before she sashayed back to her seat. “Terk has been hot on the trail of Cephus’s bookie. But you seemed to have gotten that list. Plus Beulah Paige Bellefry asked me if Cephus was back because you told Doc Clyde he was.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “I want you to know about me and Vern.” She took a deep breath. Her lungs filled. Her boobs inflated and pulled the wife beater tick tight. “Vern is a good man. There was nothing between us then. In fact, I had set him up on several dates with Bea Allen. But that didn’t work out. Lucky for me because now me and Vern are a different story.” She held the bottle up to her lips as she talked. “A girl has needs and Cephus isn’t here to give me my needs.”

  There was a whole lot of ewww in my head. My nose curled at the thought of what she was trying to tell me.

  “Hmm.” Terk’s displeasure was apparent. He rolled his eyes. “Keep going, let Emma Lee decide.”

  “Decide what?” I asked.

  “Cephus threatened Vernon the day he went over there. He was going to blackmail him,” Terk blurted.

  Leotta smacked him in the arm. He winced and put up a shoulder barrier to her.

  Blackmail was a pretty good reason to kill someone. I didn’t say it out loud but she wasn’t helping Vernon’s cause.

  “I wasn’t going to really blackmail him. Just a warning.” Cephus huffed like a little baby.

  “What do you mean by blackmail?” I asked, encouraging Leotta to tell me.

  “Cephus had it in his mind that I was cheating on him with Vernon.” Her eyes hooded. “I wasn’t. I just want to make that clear.”

  “You have made it very clear.” I nodded.

  “Cephus had dug into Vernon’s past because he said that someone as young as Vernon just doesn’t move to a place like Sleepy Hollow because they retired.” She tapped the table with the bottom of the beer bottle. “Cephus was pretty good at knowing the strangest things. He was right. Vernon had been brought up on charges at his last job as a county coroner in Tennessee.”

  “What?” I shook my head. Before Vernon Baxter was hired at Eternal Slumber, there was a background check on him that turned up nothing.

  “Yep.” Terk’s lips pushed out like a duck’s. “Criminal.”

  “He’s not a criminal. It was the people working for him. They were taking the organs out of the dead and selling them to labs all over the United States for research.” Leotta let it all roll out of her mouth. “He didn’t know a thing about it until the Feds showed up and arrested him.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Betcha one thousand dollars I’m sure.” She stuck her hand out like I was going to take her up on that bet.

  And who had the gambling problem?

  She drew her hand back. “The Feds didn’t find anything on Vernon and he cooperated with them by going undercover and getting his employees to let him in on the action. After a few months, they let him do a drop of a heart. That’s when it all went down.”

  “He didn’t get charged with anything?” I wanted to make it one-hundred-percent clear so I could tell Jack Henry.

  “Not a thing. He didn’t do nothin’; I told you.” Leotta’s words were starting to slur. Her body slumped back in the chair. “It gets my goat every time I think about Cephus trying to blackmail Vernon. Vernon told Cephus to tell the world that he wasn’t charged. But if I know Cephus, he probably kept on and on.”

  “Did not.” Cephus folded his arms in front of him and looked away. His words weren’t so convincing.

  “Vernon said that he and Cephus had words in the garden because he was gardening when Cephus stormed over there. The phone inside Vernon’s house rang and he went inside to get it. When he came back out, Cephus was gone,” Leotta said.

  “Did he tell you who called him?” I asked.

  “He said it was a hang up.” She drank the last bit of beer in the bottle, which looked like backwash to me.

  “Are you in love with Vernon Baxter?” I asked.

  Leotta drew back. “Why Emma Lee Raines, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “If Cephus was right and there was something between you and Vernon like you alluded to, then it gives you motive to get rid of Cephus.” I stood up because I knew what I was about to say was going to get me kicked out on my ass. “Cephus spent all your money on his ice-cold Stroh’s and if there was anything left over, he used it to gamble. Are you sure you want to find his bookie to see if he did anything to Cephus or do you want to see if Cephus had any money coming to him? Where is Cephus, Leotta?”

  “I don’t like what you are implying, Emma Lee.” Leotta pounded her fist on the table. “I think it’s time you let yourself out.”

  I did what she said.

  “I told you she wasn’t going to help you,” I overheard Terk say when the door slammed behind me.

  My mind hurt when I left Leotta’s. She had said a lot in a little bit of time. It was true that the information Cephus had on Vernon wasn’t anything to blackmail him over. But it did give motive for Leotta to do something and it was definitely something more for me to look into before Leotta got in touch with Mary Anna.

  Mary Anna and her momma were tight. If I accused Leotta of something she didn’t do, Mary Anna would be all piss and vinegar on me. That was a headache I didn’t need. But it was information Jack Henry could use.

  I was past the point of exhaustion by the time I pulled into Eternal Slumber, so I stuck the steaks on the small portable grill on the outside of the funeral home and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Tonight, Cephus and Digger’s murderer was going to have to wait.

  There was no room left in my head to fit any more nonsense and clues that didn’t add up. I needed a night off and that was going to be spent with Jack Henry.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about your granny?” We almost made it through dinner without either of us talking about it.

  “Nope.” I picked up the empty beer bottle, threw it in the trash and grabbed another out of my minifridge.

  I unscrewed the top and took a nice long swig.

  “Too bad that’s not an ice-cold Stroh’s.” Cephus smacked his lips next to me.

  “Nice of you to show up in this little investigation of ours.” I had reached my tolerance limit with my Betweener clients or I had reached my alcohol-consumption limit. Either way, I was done with them for the night. “I’m sick and tired of your disappearing whenever you feel like it. I need answers. I need them now and if you don’t produce some soon, then I’m all done helping your ass!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  “Emma Lee, honey.” Jack Henry got my attention. “Are you talking to me? Or them?”

  “Them.” I glared at Jack Henry. He knew that meant to hush up. I turned back to Cephus and Digger. “I’m not going to work on either of your cases tonight. I need a break from both of you. Do you understand me?”

  They didn’t bother to respond; they both just disap
peared.

  “I guess I don’t need to ask what that was all about.” Jack Henry held out his arms and I dropped down into them.

  The small kitchen wasn’t quite the romantic place I had hoped to be kissing my boyfriend, but if it was all I had, I was going to take it.

  Chapter 23

  It was one of those nights where Jack Henry had decided to sleep over. The alcohol didn’t do the job of relaxing me like it should have, nor did my time spent with Jack Henry.

  My mind turned over and over about the murders and how they had to be all connected plus the arson.

  Jack Henry did tell me that he finally got his squad car and found Granny at the cemetery, sitting between Earl Way and Granddaddy. He said that he had to tell her to come to the station as a formality, but she wasn’t being charged with murder and her little escape through the square didn’t help matters. It made her look more guilty.

  We also talked about the old mill. He said that the land did indeed belong to Leotta and although he couldn’t accuse her of murder since there was no body and no one had suspected Cephus of being dead, he did question her on the arson.

  She claimed she hadn’t been out there in years. It was something Cephus took care of. The last time she had gone was when some hippies had been camping in the caves and found the place, making it their home.

  Jack Henry said that hippies could’ve been the ones to torch it if they saw me in there. They were good at making bombs and being resourceful. I kept my mouth shut. It sounded like an ignorant statement for him to believe, but he was the cop, not me.

  I was also happy to hear that he did talk the Spearses into an autopsy on Digger’s body. That would definitely help clear Granny’s name and the funeral home, making Charlotte Rae happy. Though the results wouldn’t be in for a few days.

  In an election, a few days was the whole election. Granny’s chances of winning were becoming slim to none. As much as she told me to hide my crazy, she had hers out on display for the world to see.

  I sat in the family room so as not to wake up Jack Henry. He was out of it, happily snoring away. I played with the piece of paper I had taken from Fluggie Callahan’s office, trying to reason with myself on what I was going to say to these bookies.

  I dialed the first one.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “My friend Cephus Hardy sent me to you.” It sounded like a good way to start to see if he knew Cephus.

  “Don’t know him.” The end of the line went dead.

  I had heard these bookies were sensitive as to who they worked with. I wondered if Cephus was as lucky as he claimed. Most bookies wanted their clients to lose. Wasn’t that how they made their money?

  I dialed the next guy and the same thing happened. Slowly, I dialed the last, hoping and praying he was the one. If he wasn’t, I was going to have to start over and try to find out more about the gambling ring. Maybe stop by to see Dottie Kramer.

  “Yeah, what about him?” The bookie on the other end didn’t hang up on me.

  “I wanted to make a bet,” I whispered into the phone when I heard Jack Henry make a loud snore and become silent. That was generally when he woke himself up. But the snoring started back up. I continued, “He just gave me your number and said to call. I don’t have the particulars.”

  “It’s a five-hundred-dollar up-front fee. Five-hundred-dollar minimum bet and right now I’ve got the high-school basketball teams on the docket.” He was matter-of-fact.

  Five hundred dollars?

  “Our meet-up place is on the line of Sleepy Hollow and the Watering Hole. Put your cash along with your bet in a gallon plastic Baggie. You walk into the Hole, go to the men’s bathroom, and stick it in the first men’s stall inside the tank at midnight.” He paused. “You got that? Midnight. You sound like a girl so it might be difficult to get it in there, but you women are resourceful. Unless you’re some sort of high-pitched freak.”

  “No, I’m a girl. I’ll be there at midnight.” The clock on my wall said it was already eleven thirty. I had to haul ass if I was going to run through the ATM, grab the cash and get to the Watering Hole before midnight.

  I tiptoed around my place, trying to get dressed and gather the plastic Baggie and note. I didn’t bother looking at the time because it would have only made me anxious.

  I knew I had made pretty good time but didn’t realize how good until I walked into the Watering Hole and looked at the time on my phone. It was ten minutes ’til midnight.

  “Here for an ice-cold Stroh’s, are ya?” The bartender pulled a can from his secret Stroh’s stash and already had the lid popped open and sitting in front of an open stool. I moseyed over but not without taking a look around to see who was the bookie. “You are pulling a late one. Is your boyfriend joining you?”

  “No.” I eased myself into the saddle. I put the bottle up to my mouth.

  “Hot damn!” Cephus scared the shit right out of me and the beer sprayed out of my mouth across the bar, hitting the bartender right in the face.

  He grabbed his bar towel and wiped off his face.

  “I know that beer isn’t old. I just ordered some new for the just in case.” He eyed me.

  “I’m so sorry.” I shook my head and apologized profusely. “I just wasn’t prepared for a fresh one.”

  The bartender wasn’t happy and he made his way down the line. The stools were taken, the pool tables were full and the jukebox blared. There were only two empty tables near the stage where the local bands sometimes played but that was it. Who knew the Watering Hole was still hopping this late?

  “I know you said not to bother you, but I know the smell of an ice-cold Stroh’s, even from the Great Beyond.” Cephus was in panic mode. He stood across the bar where the bartender was with an eager face.

  Slowly, I blew a steady stream of air in front of me. Cephus sucked in all he could, smiling the whole time.

  If there was a way I could get him a Stroh’s, I would, but this was going to have to do.

  “You want another one?” the bartender asked. I nodded my head yes and pointed to the bathroom. That way he would put the fresh one on the bar to save my seat while I made the drop-off.

  There was no way I was going to leave my cash in a toilet bowl for just anyone to take. I was going to see who went in and out of that bathroom and get some answers about the big payoff for Cephus.

  I came to the conclusion that men were nasty. How could they not aim into that big round pee bowl? And why was the stall dirty?

  I grabbed some toilet paper off the roll and used it to lift up the tank lid. I pulled the Baggie of cash out of the waistband of my jeans and slipped it in the tank, replacing the lid and flushing the toilet paper. Thankfully, no one came in the restroom. I slipped back out and went to my fresh beer.

  The time ticked away and not a soul went to the bathroom.

  “Honey, it’s 1:00 A.M.” The bartender put my tab in front of him. “Closing time.”

  “But I’m not ready.” I shook my beer to show him there was some left but kept my eye on the bathroom door.

  The joint had been cleared. All but me and Cephus Hardy plus the bartender.

  I wondered if the bookie had seen me and tried to wait it out until I left.

  “Listen, I’m going to clean the bathrooms. You can finish your beer, then you have to go,” he warned, and grabbed a bucket full of cleaning stuff.

  “Damn.” Disappointment settled in my gut. I glanced over at Cephus. “I was hoping to meet your bookie tonight. He said you won a bunch of money and I wanted to see if he was the one who could’ve killed you.”

  “Nah, he’s harmless.” Cephus shook his head.

  The bartender came back after a few minutes. He put the bucket back and turned around.

  “You’re going to have to leave now.” He smiled and nodded toward the door.

  Reluctantly, I threw my legs over the saddle and started for the door after I stuck the only few dollars to my name on the bill. Then it occurred to m
e. If the bookie used the Watering Hole, I bet I could ask the bartender. He seemed to know everyone in here.

  “Say,” I turned back around. “Do you happen to know the bookie that Cephus used? He uses your first stall as his drop-off.”

  Slowly, the bartender turned around. He grinned. My wad of cash in his hands.

  “I dee-clare, you’re Hoss.” There wasn’t anything that would’ve shocked me more. “Why didn’t you say something the other night about being a bookie?”

  “I told you Cephus had a big payday.” He slid the money across the bar back to me. “And I knew it was you on the phone. So when you just sat here, I figured you were waiting to see who the bookie was.”

  I eased my butt back on the saddle, sideways, and was still stunned.

  “I ordered more Stroh’s after you came in here because I could tell you weren’t finished with me.” Hoss nodded. “Am I to expect that cop boyfriend of yours too?”

  “Nooooo.” I wanted to make it clear that Jack Henry was in no way, shape or form supposed to know I was here. “He would kill me if he knew I was snooping around.”

  “Well, you seemed a lot more legit than that reporter that sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong.” He took a glass off the clean stack and pulled the tap of beer, filling it to the top. He took a nice long guzzle. “Ah.” He licked the foam from his upper lip. “After a long day, I allow myself one beer. So what do you know about my buddy?”

  “I know that he’s been missing for quite some time and his family is worried.” Now that I knew who the bookie was, I was sure he didn’t have any involvement. “Tell me how this works and how Cephus got involved.”

  “Cephus spent a lot of time in here. Just like anything else, he got to know the regulars, then became one.” Between sips of his beer, Hoss used the towel flung over his shoulder to wipe down here and there. “You hear things. Cephus was good at hearing stuff that he shouldn’t have gotten involved in. He started out with the ponies, race cars, then got into the school sports. University of Kentucky versus Louisville, those types of bets.”

  “And you just kept letting him stay here and spend his hard-earned winnings instead of take it back to his family?” I knew it was a low blow, but it was true.