Make the Ghost of It (Witch Woods Funeral Home Book 3): (Ghost Cozy Mystery series) Read online

  Basil laughed. “Don’t believe a word he says.”

  I could see my mother and Ian thought that Lewis was some kind of accounting superhero. My loyalties lay firmly with Basil. I wondered why he had such a horrible friend as Lewis, but then I realized that Basil probably hadn’t seen Lewis much since his college days, and Lewis was only passing through town. I was glad of that; I wouldn’t want to have to spend too much time in Lewis’s company.

  Lewis looked at his watch, which must have been a very expensive watch, given that he made a big display of looking at it and holding it in front of him for all of us to see. “Oh my giddy aunt, look at the time! We’d better be heading off to the drop zone, Basil.”

  “Where does anyone go skydiving around here?” my mother asked him.

  “There’s a drop zone not far from here,” Basil said.

  I nodded. “Oh yes, is that the place with all those little airplanes? I thought they were crop-dusting planes.”

  “Those ones are crop-dusting planes,” Basil said, “but that’s the runway for the skydiving club as well. The clubhouse buildings are just further on down that side road.”

  “Be safe,” I said to Basil.

  Basil smiled warmly at me, but Lewis stepped in front of him. “Catch you later, Laurel,” he said with a wink, looking me up and down once more.

  I shuddered.

  Chapter 3

  After everyone left, I made some headway. I called and booked the plumber, and I scrubbed all the windows in the apartment. There was a never-ending supply of dust, and soon I was covered with dirt and grime.

  I had slept in the smaller of the two bedrooms, because the master bedroom was being used as a storage room. However, the colors in the smaller bedroom were nightmarish. I suppose the colors might have been fashionable in the seventies or eighties. One wall was painted grape; one wall was painted mustard, and two walls were painted the darkest navy blue I had ever seen. I wanted to paint the walls white before I spent another night in the bedroom.

  The carpets throughout the apartment were a rather hideous shade of blue. Blue is my favorite color, and this was about the only shade of blue I had seen that I didn’t like. I knew that there were timber floorboards under the carpet, so I would save time by not putting down drop sheets for painting. Those carpets were going to go!

  I could make as much mess as I liked while I was painting and get it all over the carpet, because I was going to pull up the carpet anyway. I enjoy chalk painting furniture—thrift store finds—and so I thought that white chalk paint might look nice on the walls. I mixed equal parts of Plaster of Paris and water, and then mixed that with some of the white paint. I supposed that might have worked, had I not used a roller.

  I soon discovered that rollers and chalk paint just don’t mix, and there was no way I was going to paint all those walls with just a brush. I used up the small amount of chalk paint I’d made by going around the edges with the brush.

  I worked feverishly, faster than I normally could have, given the fact that I was able to splash the paint all over the carpet. When I had finished the four walls, I stood back to admire my work. It was pretty bad, truth be told, but I suppose that was mainly due to the fact that I would need to paint another coat or two. One thing was sure; although I wouldn’t win any prizes for painting, the room was infinitely brighter already.

  After an exhausting time of painting, washing, and scrubbing, I decided to walk outside to visit Basil’s two pet sheep, Arthur and Martha, who grazed in the paddocks that adjoined the funeral home.

  When Dad died, he left the funeral home building and business with its adjacent five acres to me, and the large house next door as well as a considerable sum of money to Mom. Mom was terrible with finances, and donated any money she could get her hands on to religious causes. She didn’t appear to have any discernment as to whether or not the causes were genuine.

  I walked over to the fish pond and sat on the old seat. It had been my father’s—he had made it himself from discarded railway luggage iron and boards. I idly wondered how the goldfish managed to live happily below the thick coating of ice in winter. One of the goldfish, a big one, stuck its head out and eyed me, probably expecting food, but then turned its attention to some mosquito larvae and gobbled them up. I could hear the distinctive call of a Pobblebonk frog, but couldn’t see it. The pond was a happy place. I yawned and stretched and then made my way back.

  I had only gotten as far as the roses outside the funeral home when Mom appeared.

  “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Laurel?”

  I looked at her with suspicion. Why was she in such a good mood? It wasn’t like her at all. “Yes, it’s a lovely day,” I agreed tersely.

  “Come over to my house and see what I’ve done with my garden now,” Mom said. She was very proud of her garden, and she was at her nicest when she was showing me around her garden. To be more accurate, it was the only time she was nice to me.

  I followed her back to her garden and saw with dismay that John Jones was there, bending over a rhododendron.

  “John Jones is here!” I hissed at my mother. “I told you I’m never going to date him.”

  Mom scowled at me. “Why are you always so paranoid, Laurel? I have a few people from the church over to help me with my garden.” She shot me a look of such pure innocence, that I would have believed her, had I not known better. She grabbed my arm. “Look, Janet’s here, too.”

  Janet was furiously pulling out weeds and probably a few good plants along with them.

  I smiled at Janet, and she walked straight over to me. “I see your mother has invited us to cover up for the fact that she’s trying to get you to date John Jones,” she said with her usual truthfulness. Janet always said what she thought, even if it was incredibly tactless.

  Mom scurried away. She was no match for Janet.

  “Yes, Mom just won’t give up,” I said.

  “I’m thinking I should date John Jones,” Janet said. “It’s just that I have a thing against combovers. Still, he does go to my church, and I’m desperate. There’s not much in the way of men to choose from in my church, and my biological clock is ticking.”

  “You want children?” I said with surprise. “I didn’t know you liked them.”

  “I can’t stand the little…” Janet broke off, looked thoughtful, and then continued. “Um, I mean the little dears. What if get older, and then find that I wanted them, after all? Perhaps I’ll like children in my old age.”

  “Have you ever considered dating a man who doesn’t go to your church?” I asked her. “There are plenty of other churches around.”

  Janet looked at me as if I had gone mad. “No, Laurel. Our church is the only one that’s right. Everyone else in the world is going to hell.”

  I shrugged. At least Janet admitted it. My mother thought the same thing, but denied it vehemently. And speak of the devil, I looked up to see Mom pulling John Jones toward me. “Hello, Laurel,” he said with a big grin.

  I sighed. “Hello, John.”

  “You’re looking lovely today,” he said.

  “Are you kidding?” Janet said. “She’s covered in paint, and she isn’t wearing any makeup. I’d like to scrub her face and put some makeup on her, but I only do that to dead people.” She smiled seductively at John, but he cowered away from her.

  I left them alone, and hurried over to Ian, as he was a lesser evil than John. At least Ian wasn’t pursuing me. Ian was pulling out pansies that he appeared to think were weeds, but Mom was too much of a people pleaser to say anything.

  “Ian, those are actually not weeds; they’re pansies,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I didn’t think it right that he was killing Mom’s plants, either.

  Ian did not appear to mind, but instead tossed a pansy over his shoulder and pointed to the sky with his trowel. “There’s that skydiving plane. If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings.”

  “How did you get here today, Ian?” I as
ked him.

  Ian looked puzzled. “In a car, of course, dear.”

  I folded my arms. “Well, dear, if God meant you to drive, he would have given you wheels.”

  Mom and Ian burst into laughter as if I had said something bizarrely stupid. I was surprised—I thought Mom would scold me for twisting things, like she usually did. Instead, she looked up at the sky. “Isn’t that Lewis Lowes such a lovely man? He probably goes to a branch of our church, given that he’s so nice. Don’t you think so, Ian?”

  I could see that Ian didn’t agree, but there was no way he was going to say that. “We should invite him to our church,” he said. “So he can repent for his lies.”

  “Oh what a great idea, Ian,” Mom said. “He can sit between us.”

  That seemed to cheer up Ian. “Yes, and we can invite him to the night service as well, and the afternoon service, too.”

  Mom clapped her hands with delight. “Good idea, Ian! Now Laurel, look at these lovely hybrid roses I bought yesterday. I’ve put them right next to these scented ones.”

  I had to agree that the roses were beautiful, and the scent was as delightful as only roses can convey. Mom was a wonderful gardener. The roses looked gorgeous against the backdrop of the blue flowers of the lavender and the rosemary bushes.

  I was broken from my thoughts by a cat squealing in fear. I looked up in alarm, hoping the poor animal wasn’t injured, when I realized it was only Ian shrieking.

  He grabbed me by the arm and then let go, and then grabbed Mom by the arm. He then let go of her, too, and pointed once more to the sky. “Look! In the sky!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s Jesus!” my mother screamed at the top of her lungs. “It’s Jesus! It’s the Rapture. Jesus is appearing in the clouds.”

  Janet and John hurried over to us. John nodded furiously, while Mom turned to Ian. “See, I told you I was right. Pre-Tribulation was right after all, and you always said it was Post Tribulation!”

  Ian’s face was white. “You were right, Thelma! You were right! It was Pre-Tribulation, after all. And now Jesus is coming in the clouds to gather unto him all who are pure and holy and are not evil sinners!”

  Mom, Ian, and John looked at me at that point, while Janet looked at the sky. Ian’s and John’s faces held something akin to sympathy, but my mother’s face clouded over. “I told you, Laurel! I’ve told you for years and you didn’t believe me. Now you are going to suffer a terrible tribulation. They are going to stamp 666 on your forehead, and you won’t be able to buy or sell, because you’re an evil sinner! And now he’s come in the clouds to take me, John, Janet, and Ian, and all else who are righteous to heaven, and you will be left here on earth. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!” She waved her finger in my face.

  I was too shocked to speak. I was only half listening to them, because my eyes were fixed on the black spot in the sky which was growing bigger and bigger and bigger.

  The black spot was, in fact, heading right for us. Mom and Ian clutched at each other. “Goodbye, Laurel!” my mother said gleefully. “We are going to the place where the other holy and pure and righteous ones are going, to be caught up in the sky with Jesus!”

  I was in shock. It seemed to be happening in slow motion. The shape was much bigger now, and coming fast.

  Within moments, the shape crashed into Mom’s roof with a deafening thud.

  Ian burst into tears. “Jesus hit the roof!” he said.

  Chapter 4

  I was frozen with shock. Part of my mind had registered the fact that this was someone whose parachute hadn’t opened. What if it was Basil? I felt as if I had fallen into another dimension. Everything around me was happening in slow motion. It all seemed so surreal.

  I heard someone calling my name, but I just stayed locked in my own little world. I tried to force myself into action. I’m usually good in an emergency, and it’s only afterward that I feel the effects.

  But nothing could be done for whoever it was that had landed on the roof. Finally, Mom managed to get my attention. I looked down to see she was shaking my arm. Her face was white. “Laurel, what should we do?”

  I just looked at her. I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. Janet walked over to me and shook my shoulders hard. “Laurel, I’ve just called the police.”

  I nodded. I could feel myself returning to reality, but the shock was just too much to bear. I looked at Ian and John, and I could see they were feeling the same way that I was. They were still staring at the roof. Luckily, Janet had the presence of mind to call the police.

  “I wonder if that was Basil?” Janet said calmly. “If it was Basil, you’ll need to be looking for another accountant, Laurel.” She said it in a matter of fact voice.

  Instead of making me even more upset, her words spurred me into action. “We must do something!” I exclaimed. I looked at my mother, who was white and shaken.

  “Laurel, there’s nothing you can do,” Mom said. It was the nicest tone she had ever used on me.

  Unfortunately, Janet agreed with her. “Even I won’t be able to help him,” she said. “They’ll be scraping up the pieces and putting them in a plastic bag.”

  I clutched at my stomach, and bent over the rose bushes. I thought I was going to be sick.

  To my surprise, Mom came to my rescue. “Janet,” she said, “go to the front and wait for the police.”

  Janet did as she was told. After a few moments, the nausea passed, and I straightened up.

  “I hope it wasn’t that wonderful man, Lewis,” Mom said, looking up at the roof once more.

  Ian and John had apparently recovered sufficiently to walk over to us, but they didn’t speak. Both looked shaken. I heard police sirens in the distance. One of the perks of living in a small country town is that the police are never far away. I hoped that I would soon hear that it wasn’t Basil. With that thought, I had to sit down on the grass because I felt as if I was going to faint. I put my head between my legs and hugged my knees to me.

  I only looked up again when a police vehicle came to a stop near me. I was relieved to see Duncan, my best friend Tara’s husband, and one of the two police officers in town. Duncan, Tara, and I had gone to high school together. Duncan got out of the car, and headed straight for me. I stood up, and he took me by the arm. “It wasn’t Basil, Laurel.”

  I sank back to the ground, this time with relief. I shook uncontrollably from head to toe. I had been somehow holding it together, and now that I knew Basil was safe, the relief was having a strange effect on me.

  “Was it that nice man, Lewis Lowes?” Mom asked Duncan.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so, Mrs. Bay,” he said solemnly.

  Mom burst into tears, and Ian and John both awkwardly patted her on the back.

  Duncan was talking to Janet, the only lucid one amongst us. I could see his lips moving, and I was close enough to hear, but I couldn’t take it in. Finally, I found my voice. “Is Basil all right?” I asked Duncan.

  Duncan nodded.

  “Where is he?”

  “The detectives will need to question everyone involved,” Duncan said. “They’re on the way to the clubhouse, and then they’ll need to question all of you. Forensics are on their way here now.”

  Duncan kept speaking, but I zoned out again. The relief that Basil was okay was overwhelming. I was still trembling with the shock of what had just happened. Mom, Ian, and John did not seem to be fairing much better than I was, although Janet was obviously her usual self. “Even I won’t be able to make that body look good,” Janet said loudly and gleefully to Duncan. “And I’m sure there won’t be a body, at any rate.”

  Duncan shot the rest of us a look, before putting his hand on Janet’s shoulder and mercifully leading her away from us.

  Duncan said a few words to Janet and then walked back over to us. “I’ve just asked Janet to take you to the funeral home, and make you all a cup of hot tea.”

  I wondered at the wisdom of sending Janet with us, given the way she was physically u
nable to say anything tactful, but I really didn’t feel as if I’d be up to making anyone, even myself, a cup of tea.

  “Why can’t we go to my house?” Mom protested.

  Duncan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bay, but your house will be off limits until the detectives have cleared it. I suggest you call your insurance company right now.”

  I’d been so worried about Basil, that I hadn’t thought that Mom’s roof would be damaged. Clearly it had not occurred to her, either. I watched as the realization dawned on her, and her hand flew her mouth. “What? You mean that poor man fell through my roof?”

  Duncan appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “There’s likely to be some damage, Mrs. Bay, but we won’t know the extent for a while.”

  Ian spoke up. “We’ll just hope and pray that there isn’t any damage to the roof, and that will fix it.”

  Mom rounded on Ian. “What do you mean?” she snapped at him. That was the first time I had ever seen her speak like that to Ian.

  Ian was clearly taken aback. “I just mean, if we think and pray on it, then the roof will be all right.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, Ian!” Mom said angrily. She turned on her heel and stormed off toward the funeral home.

  For the first time ever, I felt sorry for Ian. “Mom’s just upset,” I said. “Let’s all go to the funeral home, and Janet can make us all some nice hot tea.”

  The three of us duly followed Janet into the funeral home. We found Mom already in the kitchen, her face beet red.

  “Tea or coffee?” Janet asked us cheerfully.

  “I think tea would be better, Janet,” I said, “given that everyone is so upset.”

  Janet appeared to be genuinely puzzled. “Why would anyone be upset?”

  If she didn’t know, how could I explain it to her? Nevertheless, I attempted to do so. “Well, someone has just died, and…”

  Janet nodded. “Yes, I see. The insurance mightn’t cover the entire costs of the roof.” She shot Mom a rare look of sympathy, and then turned to me. “How long do you think forensics will take to get here?”