Read Whipped Wedding Woes: A Cozy Mystery (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book 8) for Free Online Page B

was so excited about it, but he needed the money to get it off the ground. Something about sound waves and ultraviolet lights.”
     
    “He talked to Bruce about it too,” Paige replied. “He even wanted Bruce to invest in it, but of course we wouldn’t.”
     
    “Where was he planning on getting the funding for his project?” I asked.
     
    “I know he was pestering my father about investing in it. Daddy always talks about all this money he has, so Howie thought he’d for sure get it from him. But of course, Daddy has told those tall tales of hitting it big in the stock market for ages. Doreen and I always took it with a grain of salt. We’ve never seen anything to back it up. He certainly never spent any of those millions on himself or his children. I think he tells these stories to make himself feel more important and no one ever debates him about it. I mean, let an old man have some comfort in his made up stories.”
     
    “Momma, are you done rambling?” Stormi was impatient when she was sweating buckets.
     
    “You all wanted to know about Howie and his cockamamie invention plans.” Dottie sat back in her chair and allowed the fan to cool the sweat on her brow.
     
    “Okay Momma, thanks for the info.”
     
    As we gathered outside, we decided to take a drive out to Jeb’s house. Maybe he could shed more light on Howie’s last few days. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Now Jeb was delighted to see us. He didn’t get many visitors out here in the countryside, but his property was stunning with all the various rose bushes and wild flower patches dotting his yard. His garden brimmed with full ears of corn, ripe and red tomatoes, and yellow and green peppers. He loaded us down with bags of the delicious vegetables until we filled the back of Paige’s SUV to the brim. Then we sat down with glasses of sweet tea to visit with Papaw Jeb.
     
    Jeb regaled us with stories from his youth and funny ditties about Dottie and Doreen that I knew Stormi was storing away for further use. Then we sat around Jeb’s evening primrose bush and at approximately 7:43 pm, he directed our attention to the sudden movements of the plant. The bush shuddered for 30 seconds and then yellow blooms sprouted from the tiny limbs. It was like watching one of those fast action movies of flowers blooming, but this was happening right in front of us. I loved it.
     
    “I need to get me one of those for my front yard,” I exclaimed.
     
    “It’s fun to watch,” Jeb said. “But every night the blooms fall off and you have to clean them up each morning. But the show it provides is well worth the effort.” I had to agree.
     
    “Papaw Jeb, we need to ask you a few questions about Howie,” Stormi said.
     
    Jeb shook his head and rubbed the grey whiskers on his chin. “It’s a dang shame what happened to that boy. So young…I don’t quite understand.”
     
    “We don’t either Papaw, but we heard from Momma that he’d been out here to talk to you.”
     
    Jeb shifted in his lawn chair. He wore a pair of worn out jeans and a white t-shirt. His lean frame and long legs over took the small lawn chair.
     
    “Yes he’d been out here a few times. He wanted me to invest in his new venture, something about recording ghosts.” Jeb rubbed his chin between two fingers. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but well, hunting ghosts just didn’t seem like a healthy financial venture. I sadly declined his offer and he wasn’t very happy about it. In fact one day he became angry, said if I had all that money why didn’t I spend some of it on my kids and grandkids. I told him that it was their inheritance from me and he said ‘so we have to wait until you’re dead then.’ I was a little hurt at first, but then chalked it up to him being over zealous about his creations.”
     
    “However, a few days before the wedding, I went out to the barn and found that someone had been digging around the dirt floor. I never knew who it was, but I