A Ghostly Murder (15 page)

 

Chapter 25

W
as there a party and I wasn't invited?
I asked myself while I waited for the beep on his answering machine. When it picked up, I said, “I know you are going to be mad at me and I'm apologizing. Or I'll make up for it later. But Dixie Dunn is swindling old rich ­people out of their money and getting them to change their wills, leaving her millions in cash. She is killing them by having them use this moisturizer cream laced with arsenic.” I sucked in a breath before I continued. “The moisturizer is nice. But Beulah.” I tapped the wheel. “Beulah has arsenic poisoning. I took her jar of cream. Details later, but that's what is wrong with her. I gave Vernon Baxter the jar I had taken from Junior Mullins's apartment in the old folks home. Only it's not an old folks home, and you need to give Imogene a ride.” I rambled on. I wasn't sure what to say. “Okay. Fluggie Callahan is probably at the old mill, and she's been helping me. Emmitt Moss is a bad, bad man. Damn!” I screamed when his tape ran out of room.

I had already said enough for him to go and investigate. It took everything in me not to rush over to Mamie Sue's and gather evidence that might be there.
Might
was the operative word. Jack Henry had warned me not to get involved. It was high time I listened to him. I was confident he would get my message and follow up on the leads. He would call me and let me know what was going on.

Fluggie still hadn't called me back or texted me. I could picture her on the phone getting all sorts of good information. In order to keep me out of trouble but not fully out of the investigation, I decided to head out to the old mill and see what she had uncovered. If she wasn't there, I could wait until I heard from Jack Henry.

As soon as I turned on the old country road, my thoughts did change gears to Jo Francis Ross and Jack Henry. I had been able to stick the entire situation in the back of my head. Mamie Sue's and Junior's deaths helped keep the heartache at bay. The idea of Jack Henry moving hours and a state away left a heavy feeling in my stomach. It wasn't what I wanted. It had always been what he wanted. I will never forget a single detail of the most embarrassing night of my life. High school and the ill-­fated game of spin the bottle.

Jack Henry probably didn't remember how he'd talked about his future and how he dreamed of being an FBI agent. He said he was going to make it happen, even if he had to move up in ranks. That was right before the bottle had landed on us to kiss and he'd run off. No one wanted to kiss the creepy funeral-­home girl.

I let out a heavy sigh, putting the bad memory back in the depths of my brain. Fluggie's old junker station wagon was parked right next to the old mill.

The door of the old mill was locked. I tugged harder. The old mill door was never locked, even before Fluggie moved her office back in there after being gone for a brief absence. I walked over to the window and used my hand to wipe a circle in the dust and filth. Using my hands, I cupped them over my eyes and pressed my nose up against the glass. My eyes shifted left and right before they zeroed in on a pair of feet sticking out from behind Fluggie's desk. I pulled back. Blinked my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I thought I had seen.

I stuck my face up against the window for the second time, immediately feeling sick when the feet were still there.

I ran back to the door.

“Fluggie! Fluggie!” I beat my palms up against the door. I was hoping she was diabetic and was in need of some sugar, but my gut told me Dixie Dunn had gotten wind of Fluggie's snooping around and had done something to her.

“Fluggie!” I grabbed the handle and violently shook my body back and forth, trying to force it open, to no avail. “Damn.”

I went back to the window. I took my shoe off my foot and began to beat the windowpanes. Thank God the Hardys, who owned the old mill, didn't replace the old windows when they did the remodel after the explosion. The windows were paper thin, making this one easy to bust.

I made sure the shards of glass weren't going to jab me when I slipped through the window and rushed to Fluggie's side.

“Oh no, oh no,” I cried, rolling her over.

There was a pool of blood on the floor, and her hair was matted to her head from the blood.

I put my finger on her neck to see if I could get a pulse. When I didn't feel anything, I flung my ear down on her chest. Nothing.

I moved down to her wrist. There was a faint pulse.

“Oh, God. Oh God!” I wasn't much of a religious person, but I could sure use some help right now. “I'll volunteer! Anything!”

I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and frantically dialed 911. My fingers shook trying to punch each number.

“Nine.” I took a deep breath, trying to focus my eyes. I continued, “One, one.” Fluggie was on borrowed time, and there was no time to call Jack Henry.

“I need an ambulance at the old mill!” I screamed through the phone when I heard the dispatcher answer. “Head injury, barely breathing, blood everywhere! Hurry! Call Sheriff Jack Henry Ross immediately!”

I put the phone back in my pocket; I crawled on my knees up to Fluggie's face and gently placed my bloodstained hands on each side. I bent down and whispered in her ear, “I'm so sorry. Do not die on me,” I begged her. “I have to stop Dixie Dunn. The ambulance is on the way. Please, please, please don't die.”

There wasn't any more time to be wasted. I couldn't wait for Jack Henry to go through the clues I had left on his voice mail. I had to stop Dixie Dunn before she killed someone else.

I unlocked the old mill door and ran out of there as fast as I could, wiping my hands down my pants to get off the dripping blood.

Dixie Dunn said she was going to be cleaning apartments at Happy Times all day, which meant I could somehow slip into Mamie Sue's house in Triple Thorn and get the real evidence I needed to prove she was lacing the moisturizer.

I floored the hearse as fast as it could go, hugging the curves of the country road. Triple Thorn was clear across town on a different country road, and I needed all the time I could get.

I thought about Dixie and why she would have killed them. Mamie and Junior had both told me they had offered her money to start her business, but she'd refused. Was Dixie that deranged that she would get pure enjoyment out of the thrill of the kill and getting them to put her in their wills?

I didn't have all the answers, but it was a pretty good start. Mark my words, I would have the answers shortly. My eyes darted between the rearview mirror and the side mirrors as I made sure no one was following me. Mamie Sue's file from Doc Clyde's office slid around the front seat. I reached over and grabbed it. I opened it and tried to drive and read at the same time.

The words on the page jumped out at me. The word S
YMPTOM
s was printed in black letters at the top of the page. Underneath it were the words
vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, headaches
. . .

“Headaches.” I threw the file down and gripped the wheel while pressing the pedal to the floor. I said, “Mamie Sue had all the symptoms the doctor at the hospital asked me if Beulah had. Mamie Sue was poisoned.”

I grasped the armrest of the hearse as I skidded in a tight left into the subdivision. The hearse gained speed, barreling down the street, coming to an abrupt halt when I got to the gate. I didn't dare take any chances of any landscapers seeing me. I pulled the car a few doors down and pulled up into Beulah's driveway. The neighbors were going to go crazy seeing a hearse in her circular drive.

Luckily, the house had only large hedges. Mamie Sue's was the only one with a fortress around it. Good for me that I was a loner as a kid and did a lot of tree climbing and hiking in the woods around the caves. I hoisted myself up and over with a little bit of muscle and landed on my feet like a cat. I waited and listened for sounds before I decided to make my way up to the house. I checked my phone. There wasn't a call from anyone, and the reception was spotty. I only had one of five bars, which meant no one was going to get hold of me. I just prayed Jack Henry had gotten my messages.

The back door was in my vision, and it was probably the best place to enter. Wrong! As soon as I stepped foot in the door, Dixie Dunn was standing there with a half-­eaten bologna sandwich in her mouth.

“Good God, Emma Lee, you scared the bejesus out of me.” She choked out a piece of bologna. “Want a fried bologna sandwich?”

“You're joking, right?” I asked cautiously. “I mean, you are standing here without a care in the world as Beulah Paige is dying because you poisoned her?”

“I'm telling you, Dixie would never hurt me.” Mamie Sue stomped her cane on the floor.

“And her!” I pointed to the air. Dixie's eyes shifted to the space between us. “You killed Mamie Sue Preston. God rest her soul.” I did the sign of the cross. “And you killed Junior Mullins, and I can prove it.”

“Is that blood on your hands?” Dixie's frightened eyes looked at my hands, dropped down to the smears on my pants, and back up to my face.

“Yeah, Fluggie Callahan's.” I glared at her and put both hands up in the air to give her a good look at what she had done. “Guess what? She's still alive, and you are going to go to jail for trying to kill her.”

Dixie leaned on the counter. She patted her hands on the countertop behind her. “I heard you were nuts.”

“Tell her, Emma Lee.” Junior Mullins stood next to the shadowy figure I had seen a ­couple times. The figure stepped out into the light. It was a slightly older woman. Not as put-­together as Mamie, but not poor. Her blue eyes had dulled, and she had heavy bags under her eyes.

“Pattie?” Mamie Sue put her hand over her mouth before she burst into tears.

“Who's Pattie?” I looked at the ghost.

“Pattie? That was my momma.” Dixie pulled a butter knife from behind her back. It dripped with mayonnaise. “How did you know?” She jabbed the dull knife in the air between us. “You stay right there.”

She kept the knife in front and used her other hand to grab the phone hanging on the wall.

“You killed your own momma?” I asked in disgust. This was getting way too complicated for me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Go ahead, call Sheriff Ross. He already knows what you have done to Mamie Sue Preston, Junior Mullins and Beulah Paige Bellefry. You can tell him your statement.”

“There will be no such activity.” Tinsie came around the corner of the kitchen, holding the shiniest 9mm and pointing it toward me. “Okay, Funeral Girl. Momma, take her downstairs and then go upstairs and pack our bags. Emmitt Moss is waiting for us at the airport on his private jet.”

“Tinsie! My girl.” Junior Mullins stood with a big stupid grin on his face.

“What are you doing?” Dixie shrieked. “Put the gun away. Right this minute.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “You are the killer. Not Dixie.”

“Do what I say and no one will die. At least not you, Momma.” Shy Tinsie suddenly found her voice.

Dixie ushered me down to the basement, which was just as nice as the first floor.

“What is going on?” Dixie asked, looking between me and her daughter.

“It was all going great, Momma. The moisturizer line was going great. But Pattie.” Tinsie's nose curled. “The woman who raised you. She never wanted to see your dreams come true. She wanted you to stay in Lexington. You had to keep working as a maid. She resented you because you got pregnant with me when you were in high school, just like your real mother got knocked up by good ole Pastor Brown.”

“Shush your mouth,” Dixie scolded her. I put my arm around Dixie. “Are you telling me you killed my momma?”

“Both of them.” Tinsie's eyes grew black. “It was working out great until little Miss Death decided to go poking her nose into dead ­people's business.”

“How did you know?” I asked, taking my arm off Dixie. I wanted to get all the answers I could before she killed me.

“Emmitt and I were going to take Momma and this business to the stars.” With gun in hand, she swirled her hands in front of her and looked out into the beyond. “It was working out great with Pattie out of the picture.”

“We are doing just fine with the cleaning business.” Dixie wasted her breath on a daughter who had already admitted to killing two ­people. Not Junior or Mamie Sue . . . yet.

“Oh, Momma. Look at me! I said look at me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Do I look like I want to clean someone else's shitter the rest of my life?”

Dixie's head fell. Tears rolled down her face.

“What about Mamie Sue Preston?” The words came out of Dixie's mouth as if she were a little child. “Did you kill her?”

“You mean your real mom, who was gracious enough to give you a cleaning job? You weren't good enough to be her daughter, but you were good enough to be her maid?” Tinsie cocked a brow.

“I was young. So was Eugene Brown. It was the summer before he was going to seminary school. Zula Fae had the biggest crush on him.” Mamie Sue told the story. “The night before he left, Zula Fae slipped into his room and found me in his arms. After that, he left for seminary. Zula Fae wouldn't talk to me. I left town when I found out I was pregnant. Only I couldn't care for a child.” Mamie Sue stood next to Dixie like she could be heard as she bared her heart out. “I made sure I kept in touch with Pattie. I wanted to keep my eye on you. I wanted to make sure you were taken care of. That is why I left you this estate.”

“But she left Dixie the estate. Which ultimately meant you,” I answered Tinsie.

“I watched my momma scrounge her way to the top of the chain for this damn moisturizer line. Beg and plead for ­people to see her. She didn't deserve to wait until the old bag who threw her away like a used cleaning cloth died a natural death.” Tinsie snickered. “Emmitt told me how I could get this arsenic pretty easy and slip it in the moisturizer. Then he came up with the brilliant idea to use the cleaning ser­vice to get into these rich nursing homes, become friends with them, have them change their wills, and give them a little cream to help out with their eczema.”