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or next of kin?”
    â€œHow do you know she didn’t have anyone? And where did you come across this . . .” Fluggie put her glasses back on her face and scanned her paper. “. . . Mamie Preston?”
    â€œI noticed her fancy gravestone at the cemetery the other day and I asked my granny about her.” I put on my best blank stare so she couldn’t read me. “Granny said Mamie was the wealthiest woman in Sleepy Hollow to this day. So that got me thinking. Where is the money?”
    â€œInteresting.” Fluggie took the glasses off and tossed them on top of the paper she had scribbled on. “There might be something here. Long shot. But might. It could’ve gone to various charities.”
    â€œWell.” I tapped the desk and stood up. “See what you can find out. I’d appreciate it.”
    Fluggie grabbed her phone, and her fingers flew over the keys like it was a typewriter.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I asked, wondering if she was already texting someone to find something out.
    â€œI like to handwrite a lot of things, but I keep all my notes in my phone.” She waved her hand in the air. “If one of my contacts calls when I’m not here, I keep notes on my phone so I can add the information. Then I come back to the paper file and write down my new tips or anything I figured out.”
    â€œAlrighty, thanks.” I walked to the door.
    â€œTell me, Raines,” Fluggie stopped me before I walked out. She had gotten used to calling me by my last name. I took it as a reporter thing. “Are you going through old client files from the funeral home and trying to figure out their lives?”
    â€œNope. Just a hunch.” I left it at that before I disappeared out the door and jumped back in the hearse to head to Junior’s funeral.

 
    Chapter 6
    W hen I got back to the funeral home, Mary Anna Hardy was bent over Junior’s body. Her big floor lamp was turned on Junior’s head like a spotlight.
    â€œWhat in the world is going on?” I asked and scanned the room. John Howard sat in the front row with his hands folded between his knees.
    The smell of Pine-­Sol overtook the smell of the fresh flowers that had been delivered and strategically placed around the viewing room earlier in the day.
    â€œAsk him.” Mary Anna didn’t look up.
    She wore tight white pants tapered at the ankle, with black sequined flats on her feet. She had on a bright red wrap top. Her bleach-­blond hair was styled in a short bob like her icon, Marilyn Monroe.
    â€œWell?” I walked over to Junior’s coffin.
    Mary Anna was cutting, hair spraying and combing what was left of Junior’s toupee, which wasn’t much. The candelabra, positioned at the head of the casket, was a four-­tiered candle holder. The candles were usually lit for ambiance during the funeral, but it looked like they had already been burning. There were hardened beads of wax on the holder that hadn’t been there earlier. I had made sure new candles had replaced the old ones.
    â€œMiss Emma Lee,” John Howard said in a low voice. “I don’t like the smell of funeral flowers. They have a certain smell to them. I lit the candles,” he admitted. “The lingering smell of death kept creeping up my nose.” He used the back of his hand to give his nose a good scratch.
    â€œNot before you put a sheet overtop Junior.” Mary Anna didn’t miss a beat with the scissors as she told on John Howard. “When he got finished dusting, he whipped off the sheet before he blew out the candles. Junior’s toupee went flying right across the flame. The front of his toupee.”
    Even though Mary Anna had eight stylists at Girl’s Best Friend Spa, she also did all the corpses’ hair and makeup here at Eternal Slumber. I barely got my own hair done and I rarely wore makeup, so there was no way I was going to be able to do