Nothing to Ghost About (10 page)

I went back home, fury causing my body
to shake.

Mom was standing at the door, waiting
for me to return. “What was it?”

“
Nothing,” I lied. I went
inside and shut the door, but had not gone more than three steps
when there was a knock on the door. I hoped it wasn’t David
Dunne.

I opened the door to see John Jones.
This was infinitely worse than David Dunne. John was sexist, rude,
and boring. When I had first moved back home, my mother had tried
to set me up with John Jones. There were no prizes for guessing
that John went to her church.

“
Are you ready, Laurel?”
John asked.

I was puzzled. “Ready for
what?”

“
Ian’s party,” Mom said
from behind me. “You needed a date, and I invited John to be your
date.”

And so I found myself in one of those
moods where I was pretty sure I was just going to burn down the
house and the funeral home and become a drifter, hitchhiking and
jumping trains as I went from town to town, just so I didn’t have
to be around my mother any more. I closed my eyes and counted to
about one million in the hope that the feeling would
pass.

“
Hi, John,” I said when I
opened my eyes. I knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue, so I was
just going to suffer through John Jones, my mother, and Ian, the
birthday boy.

Twenty or so other people arrived just
after John, as did Ian, with a woman I assumed was his girlfriend,
the adventurous one. She did not go to Mom’s church.

“
Thank you so much for
coming!” Ian said to all and sundry. “This is my girlfriend,
Audrey.”

“
Nice to meet you all,”
Audrey said.

I smiled. “I feel like I’ve already
met you,” I said before I could stop myself, thinking back to the
times I had heard Ian discussing his girlfriend with my clueless
mother.

The woman looked at me strangely, so I
modified my original statement. “I mean, Ian has told me so much
about you, that I feel like I’ve already met you.” Audrey appeared
to be normal, which wasn’t something I could say for Ian, my
mother, or John.

“
Oh!” Audrey said. “That’s
nice.”

Ian interrupted her and introduced
Janet.

“
Oh, so you’re the one
who’s living in sin with Ian?” Janet said. “You’re much
better-looking than Ian, and not as weird. I would have thought you
could do much better.” She smiled and walked away.

Audrey froze, a shocked expression on
her face. I figured she was trying to decide whether or not Janet’s
words were a compliment.

“
Don’t mind Janet,” I said
quietly. “She’s nice—she doesn’t mean things to come out like
that.”

Audrey still appeared to be shaken.
“Err, can I get you something to drink?” she asked me.

“
I’ll do that,” John said,
stepping forward. “This is a date, so that’s my job.” He looked at
me. “Punch?”

“
Yes, I’d like to,” I said
sweetly. “Right in the head, and hard enough to knock you
out.”

Mom glared at me and reached over,
pinching my arm. “Rude!” she whispered.

“
Yes, punch, please,” I
said to a confused John. He nodded and walked over to the big bowl
on a long table against the wall.

John stayed glued to me like he was
afraid I would vanish into thin air if he took his eyes off me, and
to be honest, there was a good chance that I would. At the very
least, every ten minutes or so, one of the people I spoke to said
something to make me reconsider the whole train hopping drifter
thing.

I huddled into a corner and tried to
make myself invisible. I thought about my earlier meeting with
David Dunne. I wondered if he’d had something to do with Preston
Kerr’s death. The murder had certainly been driving business his
way, and he sure seemed like the kind of man who would do anything
to come out on top. I had to add him to my list of suspects, the
one I went over and over in my head. Still, I was worried he was on
my list because I didn’t like him. Anna was on my list for the same
reason. But no, he really did have something to gain, and at the
very least, I needed to look at him and see if he fitted with any
of the other clues. I wasn’t anywhere close to solving Preston’s
murder.

“
Laurel,” I heard Mom’s
voice screech. “Laurel! Laurel!”

I reluctantly left my corner and went
over to Mom. “Your date has been looking for you, Laurel!” she said
loudly. “I can’t believe you abandoned your date! What did I ever
do to deserve a daughter like you? I hope one day you have a
daughter as horrible as yourself. Then you will realize just how
I’ve suffered.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Mom, John
Jones is not my date. He never was my date, and he will never be my
date!”

The sound of collective
gasps drew my attention. I looked around at Mom’s friends, all of
whom were clearly horrified. They at once averted their eyes and
whispered to each other. I could make out the words of those
closest to me. They were saying I was an ungrateful daughter and a
rude woman, and they wondered how Mom managed to put up with me. In
general, they were all sorry for Mom. I was furious. She always
managed to make
me
look like the bad one.

I was about to storm off to my room,
but Ian was blocking my way. He was standing at the bottom of the
stairs, surrounded by gifts. “It’s time for me to open my
presents!” he announced.

I sighed. It looked as if I would have
to stay a bit longer. Perhaps I could go to the funeral home and
lie inside a casket. At least no one would find me
there.

Ian gleefully reached for a gift. “Oh,
the first one’s from Thelma and Laurel,” he said, tearing the
wrapping paper into shreds.

I thought it was nice that my mother
had put my name on the card along with hers. That sentiment did not
last long.

Ian held up a book to
murmurs of appreciation. The title was
Deliverance from the Demon Alcohol: A How-to Exorcism Book
for Beginners
.

Everyone turned to look at
me.

“
I thought that would be
useful, Ian,” mother said, nodding to me.

“
I rarely drink!” I
protested.

“
Those possessed by the
Demon Alcohol are always in denial,” a woman standing next to Mom
said, and her words drew a chorus of “Amen!”

Chapter 14

I knew I needed some answers, and I
knew just the place to get them. I made the call.

“
Hairway to Heaven. How may
I help you?” The voice was breathless.

“
Katy? This is Laurel Bay,
Thelma’s daughter.”

“
Oh sure, Laurel! How are
you? Sorry about the wait. I’ve got Agnes under some curlers and I
didn’t want her hair to burn. You know, you burn off someone’s hair
just once, and it gets all over town!”

I laughed, because I figured she was
joking, but then I wasn’t so sure. At any rate, Katy was the gossip
queen in town, and if I had questions, I was willing to bet that
she had the answers. “Do you have time to fit me in
today?”

“
Have you changed your
mind? Do want your hair purple or pink, after all?” Her voice was
hopeful.

I grimaced. “Actually, I was just
after a manicure.”

There was a long silence and I was
about to ask if she was still there, but then she spoke. “How’s
three for you?”

“
Perfect,” I
said.

When I stepped into Katy’s salon,
there was no sign of her. I peered into the salon itself only to
see a figure at the back of the room whom I didn’t and couldn’t
recognize. Its face was wrapped in bandages, and green goo was
finding its way out of the cracks. My jaw dropped. It looked just
like an Egyptian mummy. And what was that overpowering smell? It
reminded me of stale fertilizer and seaweed.

Katy appeared. “Laurel, hi. Come this
way.”

I was unable to speak, so I motioned
to the mummy. I reached into my purse and found a tissue, which I
held firmly over my nose.

“
It’s a facial wrap. You
should try it. Have you heard of mud masks?”

I gingerly moved the tissue from my
nose and mouth so I could speak. “Is that a mud mask?”

Katy shook her head. “No. It’s a horse
manure and spirulina face wrap, so it’s the same type of thing as a
mud mask. It’s a new service for the salon. It’s great for serious
wrinkles around the eyes. We just wrap them away!” She held the
door open for me and I hurried in, keen to escape the
smell.

Mercifully, Katy shut the door behind
me. “Have a seat.”

I sat down. “Is that lavender in that
oil burner?”

Katy nodded.

“
Could you bring it closer
to me, please?”

“
Sure,” she said. “I have a
cold, so I can’t smell anything at the moment.”

That explains
it
, I thought. Soon, there was no horse
manure to be smelled, only the fragrance of lavender essential oil.
I sighed and relaxed into the manicure.

“
So, how are things going?”
Katy asked me as she massaged sweet orange oil lotion into my
hands. “I saw that terrible article in the Sydney paper. Just a
horrid thing that man wrote about you.”

I nodded. “The local article was a lot
better.”

“
I saw that one too,” Katy
said.

“
Actually, I was wondering
if you knew David Dunne.”

Kate reached for her file. “Yes, he
has a funeral home in Tamworth. He did the funeral for that man who
was killed at your place, the funeral singer. What was his
name?”

“
Preston Kerr.”

“
Right, I knew it was
Preston something,” Katy said. “At any rate, I heard there was a
bit of a scene at his funeral.”

I pricked up my ears. “What do you
mean?”

Katy signaled for me to give her my
left hand. “Apparently someone confronted the dead guy’s wife at
his funeral.”

I was about to question her further,
when the song track changed. Sure, I knew that Katy went to Mom’s
church, but the music so far had been unobtrusive background music.
Now the music was different.

I winced as I heard the blaring
words:

The world is very
evil

The times are waxing
late

Be sober and keep
vigil

The judge is at the
gate
.

“
Katy, would you mind very
much changing the music, if it isn’t a bother?”

Katy looked taken aback. “You don’t
like it?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“
But it’s your mother’s
favorite hymn!” Katy said.

Exactly
, I thought. Aloud I said, “Mom’s version is at least
quieter.”

Katy popped out of the room.
Mercifully, the volume dropped moments later. “It’s such a quiet
hymn that I always play it at full volume,” she explained when she
came back and took up her file once more. “Everyone needs to
realize that the world is evil, so that’s why I play it
loudly.”

I grimaced. “Speaking of the world
being evil,” I said, silently congratulating myself on the segue,
“what was the confrontation at Preston Kerr’s funeral
about?”

Katy’s face lit up. “His wife was
having an affair.” Her tone was nonchalant, but not believably so.
I could tell she was chomping at the bit to tell me the
news.

“
With whom?” I
asked.

“
Preston Kerr’s
brother.”

I gasped, and if both my hands were
not covered in exfoliating cream, I would have slapped one over my
mouth. “Did Preston know?” I figured he didn’t, because he had
never mentioned it to me.

“
I have no idea,” Katy
said.

“
Who brought it up at the
funeral?” I asked.

“
It was her own sister. Can
you believe that?”

I shook my head. “Wow.” Poor Preston
Kerr. Not only had he been murdered because he had overheard
something he shouldn’t have, but his wife had been cheating on him
with his own brother.

And then something dawned on me. What
if his murder hadn’t been caused by what he’d overheard? What if
his wife had wanted to be free to carry on with the brother? Of
course, divorce would be the easier option, but some people just
weren’t wired correctly. My mother was a good indication of
that.

“
Did his wife admit to it?”
I asked.

Katy giggled. “Oh no, of course not.
She told her sister she was crazy.”

“
But do you think she was
having an affair?”

“
I don’t know,” Katy said
with a smile. “I just report the gossip. I’m not sure what’s true
and what isn’t. Anyway, it’s bad that it’s affecting your
business.”

I jumped, and that earned me a sharp
jab to my cuticle. “What do you mean?”

“
Lots of my clients have
said that they’re going to avoid your funeral home from now on.
They think it’s pretty strange that there have been two murders,
and so close together at that.”