Read beyond the grave 03 - a ghostly demise for Free Online Page B

into her office without even waiting for our response.
    “Good to see you too.” Mary Anna’s nose curled. “Anyway, you going?”
    “Yes. Of course. Jack Henry and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I waved her off and shut the door behind her.
    I took my phone out of my pocket and texted Jack Henry.
    How is the goat situation? Working on the case I told you about earlier.
    Quickly he texted back: Leave it to the police, Emma Lee!
    I responded: You worry about the living and the goats. I’ll worry about the dead!
    I dipped my head into Charlotte Rae’s office to see what her hurry was. Not that I wasn’t in a hurry. I was. I needed to get on some of these leads to help Cephus to the other side, starting with figuring out who did him in and where they put him.
    “What’s the hurry?” I asked her when I opened up the door.
    She stood by the window with her back to me. Her long legs looked much longer in her black skirt suit and black heels. Her long red hair draped down her back in the most beautiful curls. She was blessed with Grandpa Raines’s genes and Granny’s pretty hair. I was cursed with Granny’s side of the family. Short and average, but had the Raines’s dull brown hair.
    Charlotte was good at running the financial side of the funeral-home business. Like consoling the family, helping them pick out the casket, giving them the options on funerals and paying the funeral-home bills.
    I was good at making sure the arrangements ran smooth and the burial was flawless.
    “I’m not sure how I’m going to handle that sign out front.” Slowly she turned around. An angry gaze rose on her face. “Granny has taken it a bit too far this time. People aren’t going to vote for her if she’s not going to take this seriously.”
    “It’s just a sign.” I rolled my eyes. “You can’t go around forgetting where it is that you come from now that you live in the next town over and in that big house.”
    When Granny gave us the funeral home, Charlotte refused to live here like we had all our life. I stayed. It was perfect for me. How many people could say that they literally rolled out of bed for work?
    Not Charlotte. She had wanted to get out of Sleepy Hollow all her life. Now she’s just partly out.
    “Little sign?” Her voice rose and she pointed out the window. I followed her long, thin fingers down to her perfectly-pink-painted nails to the outside world. “Did you see it, Emma Lee ?”
    “Oh how bad can it be?” I asked, and left her office. I was going to go outside and see it for myself.
    “Oh. My. God.” It was the second time my mouth dropped today.
    The sign was that bad and that big . It took up the entire front yard. I walked down the front steps of the porch and stepped over a few, like ten, extension cords that were all plugged into one another, then in the outside outlet. I made my way around to the front.
    VOTE FOR ZULA FAE RAINES PAYNE flashed in big red lightbulbs. The backdrop was a picture of the United States flag and she had a motto scrolled along the bottom.
    You let me take care of your loved ones, let me take care of you!
    “What’s wrong?” John Howard’s wrinkles on his forehead creased. “You said in the middle.”

 
    Chapter 6
    G ranny?” I stomped up the steps of the Sleepy Hollow Inn. “Granny!”
    After seeing the sign, I had jumped in the hearse and driven around the square to the Inn. Normally I’d just run across the square, but the carnies were setting up for the carnival and I didn’t feel like running around them.
    I let the screen door slam behind me when I walked into the Inn. A couple of guests were in the room on the right, eating some of the hors d’oeuvres and drinking her famous sweet tea.
    Their heads turned at the sound of the screen door’s smacking the frame.
    Granny rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall, wiping her hands on her apron.
    “What in the world is wrong with you today?” She grabbed me by the arm and jerked me toward the