The Ghost in Mr. Pepper's Bed Read online

  Zeb quickly scanned the diner to make sure no one else had heard or was likely to overhear Sonya’s comments.

  “Mrs. Caruthers,” he said throwing a ten-dollar bill down by his half-finished plate and standing up, “would you please come with me outside. Let’s find another place to discuss your…um…findings.”

  Sonya rose and followed Zeb out to his police car.

  “This morning, Dale Smith called me. He was very excited to inform us about Poppy Turner and…” Zeb hesitated to continue as if he wasn’t sure of the ground he was standing on. “It’s not typical police procedure to conduct an investigation on this kind of information. You do understand, don’t you?”

  Zeb was trying to be as considerate as possible, and Sonya recognized this. She nodded her head and said, “Of course, I understand, but it may save you some time. Look, Sheriff, that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to know more about Ryan Houseman and the Turner treasure.”

  “You’ve been listening to gossip, Mrs. Caruthers,” Zeb said with a knowing smile and a shake of his head. “I’d like you not to ask Ryan questions about Poppy and definitely don’t tell him you’ve been talking with his high school sweetheart’s ghost. He’s not exactly off our radar regarding this investigation and I don’t want you…setting things in motion.”

  It was a habit of Sonya’s when she was asked to do something she didn’t agree with to pucker her mouth up and over to one side. She considered Zeb’s request. “Normally, I’d be happy to comply, Sheriff, but Poppy is an unhappy, lost soul, and she wants to see Ryan. It’s my job to help her. Also, she wants her body buried properly and her murderer, in my opinion, should be brought to justice. Isn’t there any way you can work with me on this?”

  Zeb blinked a number of times more than necessary and took a deep breath before proceeding. Sonya knew this was new territory, and his body language was saying so.

  “I tell you what, Mrs. Caruthers, you give me twenty-four hours, and I’ll,” he held up his index finger much like a teacher who’s about to make a point, “give you the go-ahead to talk whatever spiritual, ghost stuff you need to with Ryan Houseman. Okay?”

  Sonya wasn’t pleased, but she nodded her assent. She decided not to push it about the treasure and Poppy’s husband, Ricky Mitchell. Sheriff Walker opened his car door and got in to start the engine. The conversation was at an end. Sonya stepped back up on the curb and waved ‘goodbye’ as he backed out onto the road.

  If she wanted to do some real digging without affronting her local sheriff, it was time to go to Lana’s Beauty Shoppe. The girls at Lana’s always knew all the romantic entanglements, the real parentage of most children in town, and the true motivations (financial or emotional) of most business deals struck in Willow Valley.

  With Zeb gone, Sonya turned to see Willy snoozing comfortably in his basket on the back of the moped. Patting him on his cute head, she sat down on the vehicle’s seat and put on her helmet. It was off to Lana’s for a nice cup of coffee, a fresh do of her hair, and some gossiping, Willow Valley ladies’ style.

  Chapter 18

  “This place is filthy!” Melanie Mitchell complained as she picked her way gingerly through the debris of the burnt-out shell of the Turner house.

  After Sheriff Walker’s visit, Ricky wanted to see for himself what the fire might have unearthed with its destruction. If that treasure the old woman had hidden was still out there, he believed it was rightly his.

  “Why did you wear those ridiculous shoes, woman? You’re not going to be any help dressed like that,” Ricky said irritably, as he tried in vain to lift some fallen timbers from over a charred trap door in the floor. “Why would anybody burn this place down, Melanie? It’s like it was done for a reason. Everyone knew about the treasure. It might be burned up now for all we know.”

  Ricky’s better half appeared disinterested in soiling her outfit or her hands with the dirty business of treasure hunting on a condemned site. Melanie sat down on what was left of the stone foundation, let out a bored sigh, and turned the exquisite sapphire ring on her left hand.

  “What makes you think it’s even here? The treasure was probably a lie. The only treasure, Ricky, was the land itself. It’s not likely that there was ever a hoard of money stashed somewhere in this old pile anyway. You said yourself Poppy’s mother up and left one day. If there was money, she probably took it with her, Ricky.”

  Not deterred by his wife’s laziness or her disinterest in a possible fortune, Ricky continued his search. He’d freed an entire area of what was once the hallway between the living room and the kitchen. The crows squawked and beat their wings in protest to his interfering presence. Some took to the air calling out their warnings, while a few swooped down to land on the ground not far from the entrance to the lovely barn which had been standing since before the Civil War.

  “Those birds scare me,” Melanie said eyeing the black-winged creatures who kept a reciprocal watch on her. “They’re getting too close.”

  “They are stupid birds, Mel. Tell’em to shoo, and they’ll go away.”

  With two great heaving efforts, Ricky finally lifted an old trap door in what was left of the house’s floor. A fine ash mushroomed up on air currents created from the suction of opening the hatchway.

  “Hey, I’m going down. Don’t wander off, Mel, in case I need you. No one has been in this cellar for years. This might be where she hid it.”

  As Ricky descended the cellar steps, a great shot rang out, sending the crows into flight with raucous cries. Melanie bolted upright into a standing position wobbling on two precariously tall high heel shoes, as Ricky twisted around to look up into the air at the flying black birds beating their wings over his head.

  “What the hell?” he yelled. “Was that a gunshot, Mel?”

  But Melanie wasn’t answering; she was already running for their rusty, red pickup truck. It wasn’t an easy thing to do in three-inch wedge pumps, but she managed a fast toddling gait in the direction of their truck. As for Ricky, he continued to stare at the sky for signs of the bullet that passed by.

  Melanie had no sooner reached the truck’s door when another ear-splitting gunshot blasted overhead. Ricky practically levitated vertically from his spot on the first step of the cellar stairs. Pitching himself forward, he stood again like a turkey with his head upturned, as he tried to scan the air for the second bullet’s trajectory.

  “AAAiiieehhh!” Melanie screamed in reaction to this second eruption. Her own body made a jolting move resembling a windmill doing jumping jacks. At the truck, she frantically worked the door handle. “I’m leaving Ricky!” she screeched. “Get over here, you idiot!”

  Being a bit on the portly side, Ricky did his best to scramble over the crunchy, charred remains of two-by-fours and metal remains of ductwork. He made it down what was left of the house’s front steps and worked his way to the fired-up getaway truck. Melanie gunned the engine.

  As the two stayed low in their front seat in an effort not to be shot, the old, red truck roared down the bumpy dirt road occasionally hitting a pothole, causing it and its contents to bounce and pitch haphazardly, but always in a forward motion. If Ricky or Melanie had turned around, they might have caught sight of a woman emerging from the Turner barn, holding a long shotgun in her grasp.

  Ma Turner watched as the billowing dust from the dirt road obscured her view of the Mitchells’ departure. She broke out with a great hearty laugh.

  “Boy, I wish they’d come back so I could do that all over again. What a treat! I’ve been wanting to run that worthless piece of human waste off my property for years.”

  She fired another shot off into the sky.

  “Yippee!” she called out with joy. “Ricky Mitchell, I should have planted two of these shells in your back end, but I’m a peace-loving woman, so better to see you run like a worried ninny than feel the guilt of wasting two good shotgun shells on the likes of you. I’ll see you rot in jail.”

  With a happy smile and a gleeful tun
e, Ma Turner, Poppy’s mother, tucked her gun under her arm and went back into the barn. She was back from Australia where she’d spent the last three years living with her daughter, Rose. As for Ricky and Melanie, they wouldn’t be skulking around the place again anytime soon. A living Turner woman was back in residence and she wanted justice.

  After dropping Willard off at La Pooch Salon for his monthly freshening, Sonya hurried over to Lana’s to have some work done on herself as well. As any woman will tell you, the local beauty shop is a delightfully enjoyable place. There are lots of refreshing smells, uplifting treatments to make you feel good, and tasty news, whether it’s found in the plethora of magazines or shared by the stylists themselves. There is something comforting about being surrounded by the chatty, camaraderie of the small town beauty shop.

  “Why, hello, Sonya,” Lana called warmly from the back of the shop. “Your timing is great. I just finished Mrs. McGillicuddy’s perm. Have a seat, and I’ll be right with you.”

  She pointed to her station’s chair, which, in and of itself, was a true work of art. Lana’s theme for her shop was rhinestone cowgirl meets pink princess, which meant every station’s chair was done up in shiny leather the color of strawberry Shasta cola and so much bling a girl had to feel special just sitting down in it.

  Sonya gave a friendly wave to Lindi, Jaxon, and Sabrianna, the stylists, as she walked past. They each smiled, but it was Jaxon who stopped his razoring a pixie cut in mid-whack to say, “Mrs. Caruthers, it’s all over town this morning that you had a séance in your parlor and you raised the dead!”

  All the rest of the beauty shop crowd made noises of awe and delight. Sabrianna, who was wrapping a lady’s hair with tin foil and applying color, shivered dramatically and exclaimed, “Please, Mrs. Caruthers, invite me next time. I’ve got to get in touch with my Aunt Belle. She’s the only person who knows if my brother, Lou, is my daddy’s real son.”

  Sonya laughed. “Sabrianna, I’m not touching that one with a ten-foot pole. Sounds like Aunt Belle might not be happy with you poking your nose into that kind of family trouble. She might blow up a storm in my house to teach you a lesson and, believe me, it has happened before.”

  Again, lots of thrilled oohs and aahhs from the clientele. Sabrianna laughed and continued her work. As everyone got back to their regular conversations, Popcorn, Lana’s grandchild poodle about the size of a football came over to Sonya wagging her tail in greeting.

  Sonya walked over to Lana’s pink bedazzled client chair. “I see you’re doing better, Popcorn,” she said picking up the pint-sized dog and holding it in her lap. “You shouldn’t eat from the trash can, Popcorn. Willard could tell you stories about the things Dr. Landon, the vet, has X-rayed in his stomach.”

  Popcorn, content with her ears being scratched, curled up in a fluffy ball on Sonya’s lap.

  “That dog costs me more than some of my kids did,” Lana said with a sigh, putting a bright purple cape around Sonya’s neck. “I’ve told Zebadiah I’m not going to constantly dog sit while he’s at work every day.”

  She patted the sleeping dog on Sonya’s lap.

  “Lana?” Sonya asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is there any chance you are Sheriff Walker’s mother?”

  “I claim him. He’s mine.” Lana fluffed Sonya’s hair a bit and gave her a long, penetrating assessment. “Do you want to add some fun highlights? I think a strip of lavender would be pretty.”

  “Would it have to be dark?” Sonya asked giving the idea some consideration.

  “Just a hint of color. What do you think?”

  “If you promise it will be light, I think it would be pretty.”

  Lana was excited and rambled off to the back area to mix the color. She continued to talk as she worked.

  “Zeb’s my firstborn and still not married.” She pointed to the cup-sized poodle in Sonya’s lap. “He’s got a child, but it runs on all fours. You’d think from looking at him, he’d have a wife, but keeps telling me he hasn’t met the right one yet. Why do you ask?”

  “Last night, at the spiritual therapy session…” Sonya noticed Lana’s look of confusion through the mirror. “Okay, the séance.”

  Lana nodded at the revision, so Sonya restarted her line of thought.

  “Anyway, the point is that the spirit we contacted talked about the Turner Treasure. Do you know anything about that?”

  Picking Popcorn up off Sonya’s lap and putting her in the doggy bed near the warm clothes dryer, Lana said, “Didn’t want Zeb’s dog to have purple dots on her. Sometimes this hair dye can get away from me. Yes, everyone knows about the infamous treasure. This morning, Dale Smith, Marnie’s handyman and our town crier, let it be known your spirit last night was Poppy Turner.” Lana shook her head at the tragedy of it all. “It’s being whispered, Sonya, that Poppy was killed for that treasure and people are pointing fingers at Ricky, her husband.”

  Sonya pursed her lips in consternation. The last thing she wanted was someone to be blamed for something they might not have done.

  “Lana, if you would, let it be known that Poppy, herself, didn’t believe it was Ricky. I don’t want gossip to get in the way of the sheriff’s investigation.”

  “Oh, girl, don’t play a player,” Lana teased, “that’s why you’re here; for the gossip.”

  Both women chuckled conspiratorially. “Okay, okay, you’re right, but tell me what you know about the treasure. I think it may have something to do with Poppy’s story.”

  “When Kathy Berkowitz and Ryan Houseman were youngsters in high school, they dated each other. Everyone thought they’d be married, but things never go smoothly where love is concerned. Poppy Turner was a beautiful girl, and one day she took a liking to Ryan. It was Mother Nature mixing things up and poor Kathy lost out. To be honest, people whispered unkind things about Poppy and blamed her. No one ever considered it was Ryan who walked away from Kathy. People always want to blame a woman. Never fails.”

  “It was a sad situation for all three in some way, wasn’t it?” Sonya said more than asked. “How did Kathy handle it?”

  “She went away to a college in Texas and no one saw her for a few years. She got married. Very successful but I heard she divorced her husband and moved back to a town close by. As for Ryan and Poppy, they broke up a year after Kathy left. Got into a fight over something, and to make Ryan jealous, Poppy married Ricky Mitchell a year later. They were together for at least six or seven years. Poppy was pretty, but simple. Marrying Ricky was a colossal mistake.”

  “What happened to Ryan?” Sonya asked.

  “He’s taken over his family’s tractor supply business and never married. Most people think he’s waiting for Poppy to come back to him. Ryan nearly killed Ricky one day down in front of Puggly’s Grocery Store. He demanded to know where Poppy was, and Ricky called her a whore and claimed she ran off with some man from a neighboring town. It was my Zeb, who pulled Ryan off Ricky. Good thing he did, because Ryan would have killed Ricky. They’ve kept to the opposite side of the road ever since.”

  “Did Ricky remarry or begin to live lavishly?”

  Lana laughed out loud. “Come on, I need to rinse you.”

  As she made Sonya comfortable in the shampoo bowl, she continued her story. “Ricky has since remarried a woman named Melanie. Some say they were stepping out long before Poppy ran off with her new lover from Springville. Today, they run a fertilizer farm on the other side of town and by no means do they live an extravagant lifestyle. If the treasure was ever found, it wasn’t by those two.”

  “What exactly do people think the treasure was, and who is supposed to have hidden it?”

  “The Turner’s were actually wealthy farmers. All that land around the old house, down next to The Whispering Pines RV Park and right up to Willow Valley itself, was Turner property. They’d been here since before the Civil War, and Poppy Turner and her sister, Rose, were heiresses in every sense of the word.” Lana’s voice lowered to a whisper. �
��Some estimate those girls were worth over ten million dollars.”

  Sonya sat dumbfounded, seated once again in the pink rhinestone chair.

  “That’s a reason to kill, if ever I heard one,” she said softly.

  “Honey, that’s why I know it wasn’t Ricky and Melanie. They’d have been gone in three shakes of a bear’s tail if they’d gotten hold of the money.”

  Nodding in agreement, Sonya sat quietly for a while until Lana began snipping with her scissors at the ends of her hair.

  “So the real value was in the land, but it must have been sold off over time. No one lives at the Turner place anymore, do they?”

  “No. It’s been abandoned since Poppy left or died, and Ricky moved in with Melanie. Rose and the girl’s mother, Nellie Turner, were disgusted by Poppy marrying Ricky and Nellie never made any bones about it. Nellie stayed on for a long time and finally left. Supposedly, it was because they’d married and she didn’t want Ricky to ever get his hands on Poppy’s money.”

  “Where did she go?” Sonya asked.

  “Nellie left to go live in Australia with Rose, who married some boy she met on a trip to Europe and that was the last anyone ever saw of her. From what I’ve heard, Poppy and Ricky fought all the time about money. Nellie always sent them money to live on, but it was never enough some people say for Ricky. He smelled more and wanted to get his hands on it.”

  Lana was drying Sonya’s hair. The lavender highlight came down next to her face. It was exactly the softness in hue that Lana had promised it would be.

  “I love the color, Lana. You were right to suggest it. Thank you,” Sonya said with a bright smile of gratitude.

  “Darling, it makes me happy to see my customers leave feeling good. Glad to do it.”

  Sonya paid Lana, along with an extra-hefty tip for the information, and went outside to get on her moped. Wishing it wasn’t necessary to put on her helmet after having her hair done, she looked in the round side mirror and admired her new do. With a sigh, she strapped the helmet on and puttered down the pretty, tree-lined road to go rescue Willard from La Pooch Salon. It had been an enlightening morning, and it was time to consider another conversation with Poppy.