Nothing to Ghost About (5 page)

“
Thank you,” a voice
said.

I shrieked, and then realized the
voice was Basil’s, not a sheep speaking to me.

I spun around.

Basil’s amusement over my reaction was
brief, and he wasted no time coming to the point. “I saw the
article,” he said. “It was a disaster.”

I grimaced. “That’s for
sure.”

“
Well, I’ve been thinking
about Anna Stiles,” he said.

My heart sank. “Oh, her,” I said,
unable to keep the obvious distaste from peppering my
voice.

Basil did not appear to notice my
attitude as he leaned over the fence to pat Arthur, who butted
Martha out of the way and nuzzled Basil’s hand, looking for apples.
“Did anyone cancel?”

I nodded. “Yes, sadly, all but
one.”

“
Please tell me the clown
funeral is the one still on.”

I sighed. “You’re in luck.”

“
That’s perfect!” Basil
said. “I’m guessing you’re the only funeral home that’s willing to
do a clown funeral. Others frown upon that sort of
stuff.”

He had a point. I wondered if Daisy
had tried to book her mother’s funeral somewhere else, but couldn’t
find anyone willing to paint her face as a clown before they buried
her.

“
So I have one funeral, and
a whole bunch of cancelations. What’s that have to do with Anna
Stiles?” I asked.

Basil stopped patting the sheep and
turned to face me. “You need her on your side. A good local article
would help you.”

I bit my lip. “I don’t think she’s
going to write anything good. She was more interested in the
murders than Bob Hendry was.”

“
Well, give her a reason to
write something good. Invite her to the clown funeral. People leave
this place loving you and your mother.”

“
Basil, I don’t think they
leave this place loving my mother,” I said with a laugh.

“
Okay, so that’s a bit of a
stretch,” Basil admitted. “I was trying to be nice. But people do
come away loving you.”

I wondered if Basil ever came away
loving me. What sort of effect did I have on the man who had such a
strong effect on me?

Basil was still speaking. “It couldn’t
hurt.”

“
It could hurt if she
writes a bad article, though,” I pointed out.

Basil looked thoughtful. “I could call
her for you if you want.”

I was taken aback. “You have her
number?”

“
She called me after she
left here last week. She wanted to make sure I couldn’t give her
any more information for her story. Don’t worry—I was
tight-lipped.”

I sighed. “No, I can call her. I’ll do
it now.”

“
All right, then,” Basil
said. “Good luck.”

“
Thanks.”

I left Basil with his sheep and walked
over to the rose garden at the front of the funeral home. I bent
over and inhaled the heavenly fragrance of a beautiful butter-gold
rose with a licorice spice scent. I loved old-fashioned blooms. I
liked to spend my spare time tending to the rose garden, not that
it had many weeds. After Dad died, Mom paid a man from her church
to weed the garden every Saturday. He was expensive, and he was
hopeless. The gardener, and I use the term loosely, could not tell
the difference between flowers and weeds. As a result, he had
pulled out all the irises, daisies, peonies, and goodness knows
what else from the garden. Only the roses remained. I figured that
was because they had thorns. Of course, there was no point saying
anything to my mother. It would only make her mad, and there was no
way she would fire the man.

I had missed being close to flowers
and trees when I lived in my apartment in Melbourne. Sure, there
were parks everywhere, but there were no flowerbeds on the inner
city streets.

My eyes fell on the yellow rose’s tag,
‘Soul Mate’. I thought of Basil, and that reminded me to call the
journalist. I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.

“
Anna Stiles,” she
snapped.

“
Hi. It’s Laurel Bay from
Witch Woods Funeral Home.”

“
Bob Hendry beat me to the
punch, didn’t he?” Anna said smugly.

“
Well, I don’t want any
more punches,” I said. “I wanted to invite you over tomorrow. We
have a clown funeral, so you could see one of our unusual
funerals.”

“
Your place, during a
funeral?” Anna said with a chuckle. “I had better bring my
bulletproof vest.”

“
It’s been a stabbing and a
strangling,” I said grimly. “I don’t think a bulletproof vest would
help you.”

Anna laughed. “I’ll be there,” she
said. “What time?”

“
One,” I said. I had a bad
feeling. I knew something would go wrong.

Chapter 7

“That’s not funny, Tara.” I recoiled
from the object in my best friend’s hand. It was an iced sugar
cookie wrapped in shiny clear cellophane and tied with a tangle of
tightly curled blue and yellow ribbons. It would have been cute but
for the fact that it was a grinning clown head.

Tara offered the sugary disembodied
head to me. “Come on! It was right there at the coffee shop,
begging to be bought.”

“
Why do people like
clowns?” I wailed. “They’re the stuff of nightmares!”
Like the one I had last night
, I added silently,
where the clown
jumped out of his coffin and dragged me away, all the while
laughing with that awful clown cackle
.

“
They really freak you out,
don’t they?”

I nodded. “Yes, and now I
have to do a funeral for one. And did you ever see
It
, the movie? I couldn’t
sleep for a month after that.” Nevertheless, to avoid hurting
Tara’s feelings, I took the thing and quickly shoved it into my
purse, to be buried with the countless receipts and enough change
to sink a battleship.

I tried to shake it off. It was going
to be a busy few days with the clown funeral and my attempts to
rebuild the home’s reputation. I couldn’t see how Anna Stiles was
going to help, but I deferred to Basil’s judgment on that. I could
not think of a single reason that the woman would write anything
positive about the clown funeral. I could, however, think of dozen
or so horrible headlines she could come up with.

“
So how are things going?”
Tara asked me.

“
As well as they can, I
guess. I’ll be glad when it’s all behind me.”

“
I can imagine. When it
rains, it pours, huh?” Tara stopped to check herself in the
reflection of a window, puckering her lips. “Clowns and murders.
You can’t make that kind of stuff up.”

I had to smile. Since I had moved back
to Witch Woods, my life had been far from dull.

“
You know what you
need?”

“
Therapy?” I
ventured.

“
Chocolate and a good
movie. How about we see a movie sometime soon?”

I turned to Tara. “What movie is
it?”

“
Gosh, Laurel, you
have
been gone for a long
time. It’s a twin cinema now, has been for years. They have about
eight movies going, all at different times, obviously.” She stopped
and opened the door to the restaurant for me.

I was a little tempted. “It does sound
like fun.” Truth be told, I was turning into a bit of a recluse,
working seven days a week and worrying about the
business.

No sooner had I sat down
than I caught sight of a familiar face, or rather, profile. Anna
Stiles, the supermodel journalist. I could smell her perfume from
where I was sitting. It was the citrus one again. As the smell of
limes, oranges, and lemons wafted over to me, I wondered
what
she
was doing
here. I looked at her companion, and my stomach fell.
Basil!

A pang of jealousy hit me as I studied
the two. They did make a handsome couple. They were paying close
attention to each other, deeply engrossed in conversation. I had a
strong feeling that they weren’t discussing deductions and net
worth inventories.

“
Tara, can we
leave?”

“
No, we have reservations.
Why, what’s wrong?”

Tara looked behind her. “Oh! It’s
Basil Sandalwood, your crush, and he’s with another woman,” she
said in hushed tones.

“
He’s not my crush. Oh,
okay, so he is. Tara, stop looking,” I said, as she looked over her
shoulder once more.

Tara turned back to me. “Why is Basil
having dinner with that woman?”

“
Silly question,” I said.
“What man wouldn’t want to have dinner with that woman?”

“
Do you know who she
is?”

I nodded. “Yes, she’s Anna Stiles, the
journalist I told you about. She’s the one who’s coming to do a
story on the clown funeral.”

Tara patted my hand. “Don’t worry,
Laurel. It’s probably a business meeting.”

“
Oh sure,” I said
sarcastically. “She’s interviewing him about the latest exciting
tax laws. Can’t we just leave and go to that little Italian place
down the road?”

“
No,” Tara whispered. “He’s
probably seen you. It won’t look good if we leave. Seriously, don’t
be upset. You really don’t know for sure that they’re on a
date.”

I smiled and nodded. I didn’t want to
ruin Tara’s night just because I was melancholy. Why was I letting
it get to me like this? It wasn’t as if Basil and I were an item.
He had never asked me out, and he’d had plenty of opportunity to do
so. So what if he went on a date?

Still, my stomach remained clenched,
and by the time the waitress came to take our orders, I had lost my
appetite.

I munched on my tomato pasta and
listened to Tara tell me about the murder case. “So, your husband
really doesn’t know anything?” I said in disbelief.

Tara nodded. “Those detectives don’t
like to tell the local cops much. They’re keeping Duncan in the
dark. Duncan says it’s obviously related to the murdered man, the
criminal, not the funeral singer. The detectives did tell him that
they can’t find a connection between the funeral singer and Alec
Mason.”

“
Yes, and like I told you
on the phone, the funeral singer was murdered because he overheard
the killer speaking to the corpse.” Tara was the only person who
knew I could speak to ghosts, given that we had been friends ever
since we were young children. Well, my mother did too, but she was
in denial—strong denial.

Tara set down her wine glass and
sighed. “If only I could tell Duncan, for all the good that would
do. I don’t keep anything from him, apart from the fact that you
see ghosts.” She chuckled.

Her chuckle was drowned out by
raucous, loud laughter. I looked up to see Anna Stiles throw her
head back and laugh like a hyena. I have never heard a hyena, but I
imagine that’s how one would sound—a hyena, or a thousand
kookaburras on steroids.

I averted my eyes and stared at my
fork. It was silly of me to have a crush on Basil, but it wasn’t as
if I had made a conscious decision to do so.

Somehow I managed to muddle through
the rest of the night, but it was hard, given the spectacle right
before my eyes.

I shook my head at myself as I started
for home. Tara had offered to drive me, but I sorely needed a good
walk to clear my head.

Of course, all I could
think about was Basil. Anna Stiles was attractive, successful, and
had that tough as nails attitude that seemed to turn men into
puddles at her Prada-heeled feet. It was disappointing to see Basil
fall for the siren song, but what could I do against someone
like
that
?

“
What are you doing?” a
masculine voice demanded.

I whirled around. There was Basil
standing behind me.

“
Didn’t you hear me calling
out?” he said.

“
I’m sorry, Basil. I was
lost in thought.” I guiltily hoped that he couldn’t guess that he
was the subject of my thoughts. “I was just walking
home.”

“
So lost in thought that
you’re walking home after dark? With a killer on the loose?” Basil
raised his eyebrows. “One who used your funeral home as a crime
scene?”

When he put it that way, it did make
my walk seem a lot less rational. I suppressed a sigh. And to think
that the walk was supposed to help me relax. Just thinking of the
murderer being out there in the dark made me want to sprint for
home.

“
I’m a big girl. I can
handle myself,” I said lamely. I hoped I sounded
convincing.

“
How about I drive you
home?” He waved a hand toward his car.

I tried to peer through the windows.
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your date,” I said uneasily. I
wondered what was a worse fate, being attacked on the way home by a
killer, or being stuck in a car with Anna.

“
What date?” Basil looked
over his shoulder.

I bit my bottom lip. Why did I mention
the date? Now he’d know I had seen him earlier. Although come to
think of it, what did it matter if I saw him? It was a public
restaurant, after all.