Free beyond the grave 03 - a ghostly demise by tonya kappes

way I figured it, Digger would see me and Jack Henry at the carnival and drop the subject of grabbing a beer.
    The ten-minute walk did give me time to assess and reassess the list of notes I had taken on my phone. The suspects I thought could have killed Cephus and the suspects he thought had killed him. I kept turning the facts and little snippets of information I had collected from not only myself and Cephus, but from Granny, Mary Anna and Bea Allen. The pieces weren’t fitting together like a good little murder mystery. My problem was that it was too early in the investigation game and I was too exhausted to try to figure any more of it out.
    “Hey, babe.” Jack Henry’s slow, Southern drawl made my toes curl, tickling my heart. “I’ve been wrestling goats all afternoon. I’m starving.”
    “Good. Me too.” I opened the door and took his hat. “How were the goats? Was it baaaaad?”
    “Nice impression.” Jack Henry bent down and kissed the tip of my nose. “Sanford Brumfield swears someone is letting them out. I even looked at the fence and the gate. Those are some talented goats to be able to get out of those pens.”
    “Was Dottie Kramer beside herself?” I asked.
    Dottie had always lived a life of solitude. She would come into town on Farmer’s Market Day, sell her veggies and go back home. She did come to funerals to pay her respect and she was seated in the front row of the Baptist church every Sunday, but other than that, she was pretty much a hermit.
    “She was. She said they had ruined her berries and in turn cost her money. Sanford plucked a few hundred from his money clip and handed it to her. He said he’d make good by her. I warned him that if they got out again, he’d face a fine. He assured me they wouldn’t get out.” Jack Henry smiled. His dimples deepened.
    Jack Henry Ross was one of those guys who got better-looking over time. Every time I saw him, my heart did flip-flops in my chest. I ran my hands through his brown, high-and-tight cop cut and stared deep into his big brown eyes before I gave him a kiss.
    “So”—he stepped in and followed me down my little hall into the small family room—“let’s get this over with.”
    “What?” I shrugged and held up a finger. “I’ll be right back. I want to check on dinner.”
    Charlotte Rae and I had turned the family residence into another viewing room when we took over Eternal Slumber, leaving a little one-bedroom apartment in the rear. It was plenty enough space for me and my needs. There was a bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom, and small television room. I left Jack Henry in front of the TV.
    I flipped the light on in the kitchenette and pulled the dinners out of the plastic grocery bag.
    “ LEAN MEAL ?” I read the label of the frozen TV dinner Granny had stuck in the plastic grocery bag.
    I knocked on the hard cardboard box with a picture of a flat piece of chicken smothered in some sort of white sauce and pieces of chopped-up asparagus. “Lean Meals?” I asked again, and took out the other Lean Meal Granny thought was good enough for my romantic dinner with Jack Henry.
    “How’s dinner coming?” Jack Henry walked in and put his arms around my waist. He took a deep inhale before he snuggled in my neck. “Your hair smells like cigarette smoke.”
    He pulled back. His eyes slid around me and focused on the microwave meals.
    “Emma Lee? What is going on?” Jack Henry’s eyes hooded like they did when he was on a case. I zipped the cardboard zipper off the side of one of the boxes. “Have you been working on this whole Cephus Hardy notion all day long?”
    I ripped the plastic cover off the Lean Meal.
    “I’m telling you, Cephus Hardy is dead.” I bent down and took a good long whiff of the contents, which were supposed to be chicken. “You and I both know what it means when a ghost comes to visit me. The visits aren’t friendly ‘hey missing you from Great Beyond’ chitchats. Or the big guy from the sky sends his