Whipped Wedding Woes: A Cozy Mystery (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book 8) (5 page)

Chapter Eight

The next day was business as usual at The Frozen Scoop. Stormi and Greg delayed their honeymoon until we could find the underlying cause of Howie’s death. We decided to work that day until late afternoon, when Sammi and her friends could come in and take over for us once again at the shoppe. Then we would head to the funeral home where Howie’s body was to be cremated. We still couldn’t reach anyone on the phone, so an in person meet and greet would have to occur.

Paige stopped over around noon to get her and Bruce strawberry and banana smoothies. While she was there, ol’ Charlie made his daily entrance as well. Paige ran over to hold the door open for him. He had his cigar, which Paige promptly told him he couldn’t bring inside the shoppe.

“Oh, I tend to forget that,” he replied. “Here you go,” giving Paige the cigar.

I could read the ‘crap’ expression on Paige’s face a mile away. She held the cigar between two fingers and as far away from her face as possible and stubbed it out on the sidewalk. I heard Brandon’s voice say, “Didn’t know you started smoking cigars Paige. Going for the George Burns look?”

“How about I stub this out in your eye,” Paige remarked as she stood up.

“My my, we are cranky today,” Brandon continued to kid as he opened the door.

“We are not cranky,” Paige replied. “But I think I’ve been relegated to Charlie’s ashtray.”

Stormi and I giggled while Charlie rolled his wheelchair to one of the tables. I brought him his coffee and Paige handed him his unlit cigar. “Thank you dears…you are too good to me.”

As we walked back around the counter I asked Paige, “Now don’t you feel bad about the ashtray comment?”

Paige sighed. “Yeeesss…I love the old coot, but that cigar reeks.”

I walked up to Brandon and gave him a peck hello. “Are you on a break?”

“Yep, thought I’d come in for a small dip of butter pecan to help fuel my energy for the rest of the afternoon.”

Brandon took a seat at one of the stools in front of the counter while I dipped out his ice cream into a sugar cone. As I handed it to him, Stormi came in from the back of the store.

“Did you know about Howie harassing Papaw Jeb about his money?”

Brandon took a lick of his butter pecan. “Hello to you too sister.”

“Cut the crap…did you?”

“Boy, you women are in a mood today.”

We all three stood staring at him. I secretly chuckled inside as I watched him wilt. Even the ice cream was melting hurriedly down his cone from the heat emanating from the other two women.

“I did not know until Tara told me last night on the phone, although Momma probably mentioned it,” Brandon said as he took another lick.

“How could he do that?” Stormi was not happy. I believed the fact that we couldn’t locate Howie’s body was causing her to unravel. “This is just crazy…first he’s hurt, then he’s dead, and now we can’t find him or Luella!”

“Supposedly his body is at the funeral home,” Paige said. “The funeral home where nobody answers the phone, but still we can assume he is there. Now Luella is another story.”

At that moment, Sammi and her friends walked into the shoppe to take over for the rest of the day as we headed to the funeral home more than an hour away. Brandon walked over to keep Charlie company and we headed out. Of course, we had no idea that we would find more than we were searching for.

Chapter Nine

The funeral home in Marshall was small. Heck the town was small. I was surprised they even had a funeral home. The town had a small grocery, a tiny hardware store, and a funeral home. They didn’t even have a restaurant…, which might be a good thing.

The funeral home appeared to once have been someone’s home. A long concrete porch covered the front and one side of the building. A sign out front said Johnson Funeral Home. So this had to be the place.

Paige grasped the knob to the front door and found it locked. “To say I’m surprised would be a lie.”

“Guess we know why no one answered the phone,” I said.

“This is nuts,” Stormi exclaimed. “Where the heck is my cousin’s body? The fur’s going to fly when I get to the bottom of this mess.”

“Hello ladies,” a small voice behind us said.

We spun around to see a little old man wearing brown slacks, a white shirt, and carrying a cane. “I live right next door. Are you looking for someone?”

“Yes,” Paige answered. “We’re looking for the owners of this funeral home. We need to talk to them.”

“That might be difficult,” he said. “The owner died a few months ago and the funeral home has been closed since then. The family is going to sell it, but they have to wait until all debts are paid.”

Stormi turned white. “But my cousin’s body was sent here to be cremated.”

The old man shook his head. “I’m sorry dear. This funeral home never had a cremation facility. They sent the dear departed remains to a crematorium in Atlanta, that is when they were open.”

“I’m going to rip her a new one!” Stormi belted.

The poor man looked stricken, so we thanked him and ushered Stormi into Paige’s SUV.

“What in the frick is going on?” Stormi was headed for a tirade.

“There’s only one person who does know, and that’s Luella,” Paige said as she drove out of the tiny town of Marshall. “We need to locate her or we’ll never know what happened to Howie.”

“If I remember correctly, she still had her dorm at Southern State University. Maybe we can ask around and find her,” Stormi offered.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Paige said as she headed towards the outskirts of Atlanta.

“This isn’t making any sense,” I replied. “Why would Luella hide Howie’s body?”

“Maybe she’s some sicko,” Stormi said. “Maybe she’s in some cult and they have Howie’s body right now.”

“You’re hopping on the crazy train,” Paige replied. “You better leap off and calm down.”

“It’s not your cousin’s body that’s missing,” Stormi whined.

“No, but going off the deep end isn’t going to help anyone. Let’s look at this rationally.”

“That’s it though,” I said. “There’s nothing rational about it. Luella took Howie to the hospital, or so she said. She then tells Brandon everything is okay but the doctors want to run some tests. Then we get the call that Howie has passed and Luella has sent his body to a funeral home for cremation.”

“How can she do that…she’s not even next of kin,” Stormi replied.

“Supposedly Doreen talked to someone at the funeral home and gave the go ahead to have his body cremated as that was his wishes,” I said. “But I think everything went through Luella. So that means Luella directed his body towards this already closed funeral home, which means she had no intention of his body going there.”

“But what in the heck is she doing with his body?” Paige asked. “That is just creepy.”

“See,” Stormi said. “She’s some kind of weirdo that’s holding Howie’s body hostage!”

“If you holding something hostage, don’t you ask for a ransom?”

“But instead we haven’t heard a thing from her,” I surmised. “So we won’t have answers until we find her.”

Chapter Ten

We kept our eyes peeled as we walked the Southern State University campus. Although the grounds weren’t as large as some major college campuses, it was still a lot of ground to cover. When we couldn’t see hide or hair of her, we began asking some of the students who were walking the campus if they knew her. Luckily, we had several snapshots from the wedding to show the students. Many didn’t know her, which wasn’t surprising since she’d been living with Howie for several months in Caesars Creek.

Finally, we found several girls who knew Luella. In fact, she lived right down the hall from their room on the third floor in their dormitory. They gave us her room number and we thanked them profusely. It didn’t seem like they cared for her, likely the reason they were so free to give out information on her.

We devised a plan on our walk to the dorm. Stormi and I would ask at the front desk to see Luella, while Paige would sneak up the back stairwell and wait for her to come out of her room. Once she did, Paige would sneak into the room and look for incriminating evidence. Since Paige enjoyed her undercover work at the hospital, despite the sidetrack to the ER, she volunteered to steal into Luella’s room.

After we entered the building, Paige slipped into the stairwell as we walked over to the front desk. We didn’t want to hurry so as to allow Paige enough time to climb three sets of stairs. So we looked at the bulletin board that hung on the wall. Finally, we walked to the front desk and asked if they could call Luella Vance’s room to come down and talk to us. When the lady got off the phone, she said Luella would be right down.

I felt like multiple toads were playing hopscotch in my stomach. I had no idea what to expect from Luella, and I could tell Stormi was feeling the same way. She bounced from one foot to the other in anticipation.

“Now don’t scare her off Stormi. I know you’re pissed, but we’ve got to allow Paige enough time to look around in her room.”

“I’ll try,” Stormi said through gritted teeth.

Before we knew it, the elevator door opened and Luella stepped out. As usual, she looked like she stepped out of a bandbox. Every hair in place, wearing a tan pantsuit with an emerald green blouse.

“Hi girls. What are you two doing up here?”

“We came looking for answers,” Stormi stewed. Not what I was hoping for.

I interrupted Stormi. “Luella, we’ve had some issues come up. No one can seem to find Howie’s remains so the family is very concerned.”

Luella looked confused. “Well that’s odd. Last I knew the funeral home was sending the ashes to his mother.”

“That funeral home is closed,” Stormi steamed. I gave her a pleading look.

“We thought maybe we got the name of the funeral home wrong, so when we couldn’t get you by phone, we decided to come up here. Perhaps you have the phone number and address to the funeral home?”

“Sure,” Luella replied with some impatience. “I’ll have to find it upstairs in my room.”

Stormi and I blanched.

“I’ll be right back,” Luella said as she headed to the elevator.

We ran behind her and got into the elevator with her. “We’ll go with you,” I stated. “No reason for you to keep riding the elevator up and down for us.”

If we were going down, it might as well be together.

Chapter Eleven

We hurriedly followed behind Luella down the long hallway to her room. Stormi and I talked loudly in an effort to warn Paige that we were coming. Not that it would do much good. What would she do? Hide in the tiny closet or under the bed? Those dorm rooms were small and what if Luella decided to look in the closet while we were there. We were caught and there was nothing we could do to stop it. When we stopped outside of Luella’s room, she performed a weird knock on the door.

“This is a code knock for my roommate,” she said. “In case she has a guy up here and I don’t want to find them in a compromising position.”

Stormi and I looked at one another. Didn’t she just come from her room? Does her roommate work that fast? I wasn’t sure what we would find when Luella opened her dorm room door, but it sure wasn’t what met my stunned eyes.

We looked down and there was Paige. She was on the floor sitting on the back of a very alive Howie. She brandished a metal nail file to keep him in line.

“It’s about time!” She yelled. “I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this buffoon down.”

I grabbed Paige’s free hand and pulled her off Howie who remained on the floor with his hands over the back of his head. Despite his prone position, Paige kept the nail file at the ready. I doubt it could have done much damage, but she wasn’t about to holster her weapon. Paige had her nail file and Stormi had her ice scream scoop. I was still searching for my weapon of choice.

“What the frickety frack Howie!” Stormi screamed. Paige and I winced as her ear-splitting howl hit our ears. “Don’t just lie there like the coward you are! Get up and explain before I kick you in the family jewels!”

I noticed Luella was sliding closer to the dorm door. “No way sister,” I said. “You’re staying put until we find out what’s going on.”

We finally pulled Howie from the floor where he had been putting together one of his crazy puzzles. As soon as Paige opened the door, she spotted him. Luckily, she got over her shock within seconds and pounced on him. She grabbed the metal nail file from her purse and held him at bay until we got there. While Howie may be smart, he’s also a wuss. It didn’t take much for Paige to turn him into a whimpering mess with her cutting words of ‘your days are numbered’ and wielding the nail file like a sword. We sat them down on Luella’s bed to explain what was behind the entire dead, then missing body fiasco.

Seems that Howie came up with the bright idea of staging his death. He wanted to steal the millions Jeb claimed he’d hidden away on his property, but since he pestered him so much about the money, Howie was afraid he’d be the first suspect. He’d be right. So he concocted his fake death with Luella and decided it would occur after Stormi’s wedding. Howie would slip out of the reception and make sure several people noticed, so that later people would deduce he’d been missing for a while. Which is exactly true. I had noticed him leave and then wondered why he was gone for so long.

Howie waited until the workers had taken down the decorations on the gazebo and in the courtyard. After they left, he called Luella to let her know so they could start their hoax.

So Howie wasn’t hurt when we found him lying in the courtyard. He was fully aware of what we were doing and saying, only acting as if he was unconscious. Once he and Luella were well away from the reception area, she pulled over and called Brandon, telling him that Howie woke up and she was taking him to the hospital where she worked. Instead, they headed to Luella’s dorm room. From there she made all the calls to Doreen and Brandon about Howie’s condition, while he was sitting right next to her listening in. He knew his mother Doreen wouldn’t make the trek from California, and would accept his wishes of being cremated. Luella was to get some kind of ashes that would appear like cremation ashes and send them to Doreen in an urn. Only problem was, Howie didn’t count on his family being concerned and trying to locate him.

Howie wasn’t close to his family, never had been. So he didn’t think anyone would care when he ended up dead. What Howie didn’t realize was that even though he didn’t care about his family’s wellbeing, they did care about his. He just never let them in to find out.

So his elaborate scheme was to fake his death, and then go search for Papaw Jeb’s millions. That way he wouldn’t be considered a suspect.

“What if Papaw Jeb had found you?” Stormi asked accusingly. “What would you have done to him?”

“I don’t know,” Howie said looking down at the floor. I didn’t have a good feeling on what might have befallen Papaw Jeb if Howie’s plan had succeeded in going through. But I wasn’t all that confident that Howie was the mastermind either. Sure Howie was a genius, but that was with inventions. I had a feeling Luella was the mastermind behind the staged death.

She sat like a statue during Howie’s explanation, not offering a word of affirmation or denial. I had a feeling Luella knew not to open her mouth and say anything that could be incriminating.

Stormi called Greg and he came up to the university to arrest both Howie and Luella for fraud. We followed Greg’s police car back to Caesars Creek.

“I don’t think this was all Howie’s idea,” Paige claimed. “Luella’s in as deep as he is if not more.”

“I agree,” I said. “What do you think Stormi?”

Stormi sighed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure Luella’s up to her eyeballs in it, but Howie will take the fall for her, I’m sure.”

I turned around to look at Stormi in the back seat. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Stormi said with a wave of her hand. “Just tired. I didn’t know how stressed out this whole predicament had me until Greg got there and I could finally relax.”

“Let Greg take it from here then,” Paige said as she turned into a parking space in front of the ice cream shoppe. “I think we’re all due a double dip of frosty pleasure. Bruce said he’d meet us here when I called him before we left.”

Sammi and her friends were holding down the fort when we arrived. It meant a lot to me that she and her friends helped out and I planned to pay them a good wage for all their hard work.

Brandon and Bruce were already there, enjoying their ice cream shakes while us girls grabbed a couple of scoops of peanut butter cup, Mississippi mud, and caramel nut. We were giving them the lowdown on what transpired that day and enjoying our ice cream concoctions when Greg entered the shoppe. Sammi whipped him up a chocolate shake and he joined us at the table.

“I left Howie and Luella with booking,” Greg said taking a sip of his shake. “Not much else I could do at that point.”

“How was Howie taking it?” Paige asked.

“He didn’t say much and Luella kept asking for her lawyer.”

“What do you think will happen to them?” Stormi asked.

“Howie might see a bit of jail time for fraud,” Greg answered.

“Even though it’s his first crime?”

Greg nodded. “The court doesn’t like it when you try to fake your death for financial gain…or anything for that matter.”

“What about Luella?” I asked. “What happens to her?”

“She’ll likely get off with a slap on the wrist. She’ll claim that he made her go along with it, just to minimize her role.”

Paige took a bite of her peanut butter cup ice cream. “I think she was the mastermind of the entire event, but Howie will never admit it.”

“You’re right, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Stormi replied. “I let Momma and Doreen know that Howie‘s alive and well, and they’re ready to send him right back to the hospital. Actually, he’s safer in the jail right now. “

She looked at Greg with longing eyes. “Right now I’d like to get back to our honeymoon which was so rudely interrupted.”

“I could use a vacation myself after all this ruckus,” Bruce announced.

“Me too,” Brandon agreed. “Nothing like a non-death in the family to take it out of you.”

“Hey,” Stormi exclaimed. “Why don’t you all come with us?”

“On your honeymoon?” Paige shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Stormi looked glum again. “We’re always together anyways.”

“Just the reason you two need some alone time together,” Paige looked at Greg. “Don’t you agree?”

Greg gave Stormi a loving look. “Whatever makes her happy makes me happy.”

Stormi snuggled up against Greg’s shoulder while Brandon and Bruce shook their heads.

“You’re a goner already man,” Brandon kidded. “I thought it would be at least a few months before she had you whipped…being a police officer and all.”

Stormi took a swipe at him.

“I can’t afford to close my shoppe anyway Stormi,” I replied.

“We can keep the shoppe open Tara,” Sammi yelled from behind the counter.

“See, it’s all working out!” When Stormi got something in her head, she was a force to be reckoned with.

“Well somebody better get the travel agent on the phone,” Bruce said as he sucked the frosty remains at the bottom of his milkshake cup.