Nothing to Ghost About (11 page)

“
But Tiffany’s murder was
solved,” I protested.

Katy shrugged and slapped hot towels
on my hands.

Ernie materialized behind Katy and I
jumped.

“
Oh sorry. Did that hurt?
Are the towels too hot?”

I hurried to reassure her. “No, that’s
fine.” I glared at Ernie.

“
She’s right, you know,” he
said. “If the murder isn’t solved soon, you’ll lose all your
clients to Tamworth. It’s a dying business.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

As Katy buffed my nails with vigor, I
formulated a plan. The police had not yet arrested anyone for
Preston’s murder. I had every confidence that they would solve the
case, but I was fairly certain that I would be broke by the time
they did. With people abandoning the funeral home, there was only
one thing I could do.

Chapter 15

The first part of my plan involved
visiting a florist in the next town. The man who served me had big
ears, and a bald head that shone under the flickering lights of the
ceiling. He gave me the third degree about what I wanted the
flowers for, followed by lengthy advice.

I bought a nice bouquet of Asiatic
lilies, snow drops, and gerbera daisies, all in soft pastel pinks.
The man wrapped the bunch in pale green tissue paper, and I made my
escape.

As my google search had revealed,
Donna Kerr lived just north of that town, right on the outskirts. I
pulled up in front of a brick, two-story house, surrounded by
expansive gardens. I parked next to one of the two cars in the
drive, and made my way to the house, the flowers held in the crook
of my arm.

I knocked on the door, but no one
answered. I tried a few more times—still nothing. As there were two
cars parked in front of the house, and all the upstairs windows
were open, I figured that someone was home.

I walked around the side of the home,
waving the flowers above my head to ward off the magpie that had
just dive-bombed me. It took off with a loud caw. My eyes fell on a
large fountain in the center of the garden. The headpiece was a
large cherub, with a jet of water spraying from the top of its
small harp.

I was so focused on the fountain and
the sweetly pungent scent of honeysuckle that I didn’t notice
anyone present.

“
Can I help you?” a voice
said from the side.

I whirled around to see a short,
red-faced woman. She was buttoning up her blue shirt. A man stood
next to her, tightening his belt.

“
Mrs. Kerr?” I
asked.

“
Yes, I’m Donna Kerr,” the
woman said. “Can I help you?”

“
I’m Laurel Bay,” I
replied. “Your husband, Preston, was at my funeral parlor the day
he was…” My voice trailed away.

“
Murdered,” the man said.
“Preston was my brother.”

“
Cameron was trying to
console me,” Donna said quickly. “I’ve been in a terrible state
since Preston was killed at your establishment.”

It sounded as if she was trying to
push the blame on me. I was sure she was simply trying to distract
me with the murder, so I would not focus on the fact that I had
walked in on something taking place between her and her dead
husband’s brother. Their clothes were wrinkled and dirty, and there
was a clump of grass stuck to the side of her head.

I held out the flowers. “Yes, that’s
why I stopped by,” I said. “I wanted to bring you these. I know you
had his funeral somewhere else, but I wanted to bring you these,
and tell you I was sorry for your loss.”

Donna stepped forward and took the
flowers. “They’re lovely. Thank you very much.” She sniffed
them.

“
Well, I was just leaving,”
Cameron said, after having finally tightened his belt properly. He
did not notice that a tall rose stem was sticking out of his hair,
pointing toward the sky.

“
Right. Thanks for stopping
by.” Donna stepped forward as if she was going to kiss him, but
caught herself in time and awkwardly patted him on the arm instead.
She watched him go and then turned to me. “I was just about to put
on some coffee.”

I wondered why she said that. I knew
what she had just been about to do, and it had nothing to do with
coffee.

“
Would you like to come in
for a cup?” she continued.

I couldn’t believe my luck. “Yes, that
sounds lovely,” I said, and I followed her out of the
garden.

The door opened up directly into a
large kitchen. Donna set the flowers in a vase on the center of the
kitchen island. I sat on a stool on one side of the island, while
she busied herself with the coffee.

“
I didn’t know Preston had
a brother,” I said. I realized that my comment made it sound as if
I knew the man. I did, of course, but only by speaking to his
ghost, so I added, “I mean, we only spoke briefly.”

“
Preston and Cameron were
close when they were younger, but they had a falling out when their
parents divorced. Each one sided with a different parent, and they
could go months without speaking. It was sad to hear stories about
them as children, and then see them so far apart. Cameron was upset
about it. As was Preston,” she added.

I nodded.

“
I certainly don’t blame
you for Preston’s death,” she continued. “I saw that article in the
Sydney paper, and I felt rather bad about it. I’ve been meaning to
call you and tell you, but I haven’t had a chance to get around to
it, what with everything.”

“
Thanks for letting me
know.” I smiled at her. “I thought you must have blamed the funeral
home somehow, since you had the funeral somewhere else.”

“
Mr. Dunne called me and
offered me quite a good rate,” Donna said with a shrug. She handed
me a cup of coffee.

I took a sip. It was disgusting.
Instant coffee is against my religion. “I understand,” I said. “It
would have been hard to be in the place where he’d been
killed.”

Donna sipped her coffee and appeared
to be lost in thought. Tears swam in her eyes. She reached up to
touch her hair, and her fingers touched the clump of grass. “You
should have told me!” she said in alarm.

“
I didn’t want to embarrass
you,” I said lamely. “Things like that often happen to me in the
garden.” Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth, but I
wondered what was going through Donna’s mind as her eyes
widened.

“
You know, Preston and I
were thinking of divorce,” she said.

“
Oh?”

Donna nodded. “We fought about
money.”

“
About money?” I asked,
surprised. “This house is beautiful.”

“
It is. Oh believe me, we
had money, but it was all gone. Preston was spending it faster than
he could make it. I suppose that sounds horrible. I’ve never
worked, you see. Preston didn’t want me to, but in the last few
years he sank so much money into his little project.”

Donna was looking up at the ceiling,
so I took the opportunity to tip my coffee into the dead maidenhair
fern sitting next to me in a fancy ceramic pot on the countertop. I
wondered if it had been killed by other guests pouring their bad
coffee into it. “What was his little project?” I asked.

“
An album. At his age! He
was recording an album. He hired a producer and bought time in a
studio. All that’s so expensive. He was sinking us.”

I thought for a moment. “But now,
without him, there’s nothing coming in. You’ll have to work now,
won’t you?”

“
Perhaps,” she said,
sipping from her cup before she leaned forward and smiled. It was a
predatory smile. “Between you and me, there’s a pretty big sum of
money coming from Preston’s life insurance. It will be enough to
set me up for the rest of my life.”

I nodded, and set down the empty cup.
“I really should be going,” I said as I stood. “Thanks for the
coffee. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“
Thank you.” Donna hadn’t
stopped smiling since she had mentioned the insurance
money.

I hurried out to my car and drove down
the road for some way before pulling off at a lonely gas station. I
sat in my car and thought about what I’d heard. Donna and Cameron
were having an affair. Preston Kerr had spent all their money. The
insurance money was certainly a motive. In this case, divorce would
not have been easier. Donna wouldn’t have been able to get anything
from Preston in a settlement, because there was nothing to
get.

I pulled back onto the road and headed
for home. I had a new favorite suspect. My only reservation was
that the police would have this information, but had not acted on
it.

Chapter 16

It was Friday evening. It had been a
long day. I had spent hours cleaning out the gutters at both the
funeral home and Mom’s house, and as a result, I was covered with
leaves and dirt. After the gutters had been cleaned, there were
fifty more things to do. By the time I finally walked into the
house, all I wanted to do was take a nice, relaxing bath. My
mother, as usual, had other plans.

“
Hurry up, Laurel!” she
snapped as soon as I walked in the door. “Dinner’s almost ready.
We’re having guests.”

I sighed. “I didn’t know you were
having guests.”

“
We
are having guests,” she barked at me, waving a long silver
spoon in the air. “I told you that. Don’t pretend you didn’t
know.”

“
I actually didn’t know,
Mom.”

Mom snorted with disgust. “Hurry up
and get ready.”

“
Who’s coming?” I asked
with some trepidation. “Not John Jones?”

“
Ian, of course,” Mom
said.

I should have known that Ian was
coming. I saw him so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if he had
moved into the spare room. “So John Jones isn’t coming?”

Mom shook her head. “I already told
you that, Laurel. Weren’t you listening? John Jones is already
here. He’s in the kitchen, praying and thinking over the
food.”

I clutched at my head. I thought I was
going to be sick. I made my way slowly to the stairs when Mom spoke
again. “Basil Sandalwood is coming, too.”

I froze in horror and my heart raced.
Basil? Why would Mom invite Basil to her home? “Basil?” I
stammered. “Here? To this house? Here?”

“
Yes.” Mom was quite smug,
a fact which worried me. When she had that look on her face, she
was always up to something. Something bad. Really bad.

I hurried upstairs. Instead of a nice,
relaxing bath, I had a rushed shower. This was going to be
uncomfortable. Basil and I had parted in an awkward manner. Then
there was the fact that Basil and I were the only people who had
ever set foot in Mom’s home who didn’t attend her church. And then
there was the fact that Mom probably intended to fire Basil, with
Ian’s support. The fact that she couldn’t do so would in no way
stop her from trying. Whichever way I looked at it, this night was
going to be a disaster.

I was walking down the
stairs when the doorbell rang. I sighed.
Here begins a night of embarrassment
,
I thought. I hesitated, hoping Mom would answer the door, but she
did not.

I crossed to the door and opened it.
“Hi, Basil. Come in.” I tried not to meet his gaze. I looked past
him and saw Ian parking in the drive that ran alongside the funeral
home. I shut the door as Ian was climbing out of his
car.

Basil appeared to be tense as well.
Before either of us could say any more, Mom appeared. “Mr.
Sandalwood, please come in. Laurel, you can wait there for
Ian.”

Ian knocked only a moment later.
“Didn’t you see me?” he asked as soon as I answered the
door.

“
Yes,” I said simply. I
turned to walk to the dining room.

Mom and John Jones had already set hot
food on the table. When John Jones saw me, he hurried over to me
and puckered up his lips. I ducked and hurried around to the other
side of the table. Mom introduced Basil to John Jones and Ian. To
my dismay, she introduced John Jones as my date.

“
He is
not
my date, Mom!” I said
angrily.

Ian, John, and Mom all gasped. I
thought I detected a flicker of amusement pass across Basil’s face.
Mom pretended to cry and rushed out of the room.

“
See what you’ve done,
Laurel,” Ian said. “Your poor mother. How could you treat her like
that?”

John Jones nodded his agreement, but
stopped when I shot him a furious glare.

I wondered whether to run out the
door. In fact, I would have left, only I couldn’t leave Basil there
alone. Who knows what they’d say to him?

As soon as we all sat down, Mom poked
her head around the door. “We need to say Grace,” she announced.
“Ian or John will say it, as they are the men.”

I wondered what Basil was, if not a
man. I was already mortified, and I knew it would get worse. I was
only grateful for the fact that I was sitting opposite Basil, so
didn’t have to hold his hand while Ian said Grace. I did have to
hold John’s hand, but for once, I thought that the lesser of two
evils.