A Grave Issue Read online

  Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Again? You always do a ringtoss. Can’t you come up with something more interesting?” She had no respect for tradition.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. A fortune-teller, maybe?” she suggested.

  I shot her a look. “We’re a funeral home. As far as we’re concerned, everyone’s future is the same, and it’s not anything anyone wants to hear at a festival. It’s definitely not something you want to tell little kids unless you want to send the entire elementary school spinning into a depression.”

  “Good point, although it might not be bad for my business.” She thought for a second. “What about roulette?”

  “Brings to mind the Russian variety, don’t you think?” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about these possibilities.

  She made a face. “Another good point.”

  “The ringtoss is fine. All the kids love the ringtoss.” I nodded again.

  She laughed. “That’s because you give them prizes even if they don’t win.”

  “And?” I didn’t see a problem with that.

  She pointed at me. “You’re setting them up for unrealistic expectations in life.”

  “I’ll let someone else burst their bubbles, thank you very much.” It’s not like the world didn’t stand in line to do that anyway.

  She cocked her head to one side so I knew a question was coming. “How come you didn’t tell Luke about Marie Ruiz? He’d be able to check her alibi a lot more easily than you could.”

  I stared at her. “First, he’s not interested in looking at anyone but Kyle. Second, do you not see this haircut? You know Luke would either tell her who had pointed him in her direction or she’d figure it out. I can’t risk that.”

  Jasmine clinked her glass against mine. “Good to know your priorities are in place.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  SATURDAY, JULY 20

  Fracas at Funeral Home

  Overcome with grief at her mother’s passing, Madeline Ledbetter crawled into the coffin and refused to get out. Several people attempted to remove her, including Desiree Turner, assistant funeral director at Turner Family Funeral Home. According to witnesses, Ms. Ledbetter fought all of them off. Pallbearers suffered a variety of bite wounds and bruises. Ms. Ledbetter was finally physically lifted out of the coffin by Joseph Turner. Order was restored, and the service continued as planned, but without Ms. Turner, who briefly lost consciousness.

  Corrections

  The Verbena Free Press printed an announcement of an information meeting on reverse mortgages being held at the Civic Center Danube Room. The Free Press mistakenly listed the person holding the meeting as Alan Brewer. The meeting will be held by Johanna Powell, Mr. Brewer’s associate. The Free Press apologizes for the error and thanks the readers who pointed out that Mr. Brewer is now deceased and not likely to be present at the meeting.

  * * *

  Donna looked up from her computer when I walked in with a cup of hot tea for her. “So Rafe Valdez is still obsessed with you?” she asked.

  “What?” I set down the tea.

  She turned the computer to show me the Verbena Free Press website. “There you are again.”

  “You read the Free Press online?” I asked. Apparently my slipping the paper into the recycling before she could see it had been for naught.

  “You don’t think I read the paper version, do you? Joey’s the one who always wants that.” She turned the computer back around. “Why?”

  “Never mind.” I was not anywhere near as slick as I thought I was.

  “What do you have on deck for today?” she asked.

  “I thought I’d drop off some brochures at the senior center.” No one really thinks about marketing funeral homes. Well, that’s not true. Funeral directors do. It’s a delicate thing, though. It’s not like a dress shop, where you can run a sale or offer a BOGO special. Coupons seemed pretty tacky too.

  Turner Family Funeral Home made sure we were always a community presence. We’d have a booth at the Fire Festival. We’d contribute a prize for the Labor Day Fun Run. We’d give away poinsettias at the annual holiday craft fair. We sponsored a weekly movie at the Verbena Senior Center. It alternated between something recent and something classic. This week we were showing one of my personal favorites, North by Northwest. We’d get a good turnout for that one. While they were there, if people happened to pick up brochures about our planning services and the advantages to prepaying to be sure they’d get what they wanted when it was their turn, well, so be it.

  That, of course, meant that I needed to make sure that there was a stock of brochures available to be picked up. I was always surprised at how many we ran through. It would also give me a chance to find out exactly what times Marie had been cutting hair on the morning that Alan was murdered.

  “Hey, welcome back!” Arleen said from behind the front desk when I walked in.

  I smiled. “Thanks. Just dropping off some brochures to have around during the movie.”

  “I’m glad you brought them by. We’re almost out. Do you still have any of those little sticky notes? Those are in high demand too. People stick them to their belongings so the kids will know who’s supposed to get what.”

  “I’ll drop some by next week.” I peeked into the big meeting room. It was full of people. “What’s going on in there?”

  “Tai chi. Very popular. It’s supposed to help with your balance. Nobody wants to fall and break a hip.” Arleen peeked in too.

  “True enough.” I arranged the brochures on the table under the bulletin board, scanning the notices by force of habit. Dog sitting. Piano lessons. An information session on reverse mortgages with Alan Brewer’s face prominently featured on the flyer. They’d be wanting to take that down. Sure enough. Haircuts by Marie Ruiz, Friday mornings from eight to eleven.

  “So Marie Ruiz cuts hair here?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Yep. She comes in every Friday. The ladies love her. She does a great job, you know?” Arleen said.

  “She was here last Friday?” I asked.

  Arleen blinked a few times. “As far as I know. I could double-check for you.”

  “That would be great.”

  Arleen pulled out a log book and leafed back through it. “Yep. She was here. She cut Olive’s hair, did a wash and set for Henrietta, and did a perm for Grace.”

  Did that truly close her window of opportunity on shooting Alan? Could she have done both? “How long would that have taken her?”

  Arleen shrugged. “Three or four hours. Looks like she started a little early that day. Closer to seven thirty. Those perms take time.”

  Seven thirty. No way could she have shot Alan and been here doing a wash and set by then. Marie was not the culprit. On the other hand, I was going to look awesome for some time to come. I turned just in time to see an older woman march up to the bulletin board, grab down the flyer with Alan’s face on it, rip it into four pieces, crumble those up, throw them away, and march off. I’d seen that woman before. I’d seen her when she’d taken a picture of Alan in his casket at his viewing. She’d been dressed up then, but she wasn’t now. She had on a pair of loose, flowing pants and a sleeveless top. On her feet, she wore a pair of high-top Chucks with hearts on them.

  I might have lost one suspect, but I may have gained another. Whoever it was wasn’t crazy about Alan. I froze for a second, unsure of what to do. She walked out of the center, and by the time I rushed out to try to catch her, she was gone. I went back inside and asked Arleen, “Who was that?”

  “Tanya Medina,” Arleen sighed. “You know, the artist? She keeps ripping those signs down.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She lost her house because of one of those reverse mortgages. I don’t know the details. I just know that she blamed the bank. Every time they have one of those informational meetings, she pickets outside it.”

  I pulled the flyer she had ripped up out of the garbage and pieced it back
together. The informational meeting was tonight.

  I went back outside and called Lola. “Has Tanya Medina ever been in your house?”

  There was a pause as she thought. “I think maybe when our house was on the garden tour. It was right after I redid the patio. Yes. Definitely. I remember it now. A bee got tangled up in Tanya’s scarf, and I thought her friend Estelle was going to have a heart attack over it.”

  “Would they have been inside the house?” I asked.

  “Yes. Those two came in to get a drink of water and calm down after the bee thing.”

  My suspect pool was expanding fast. If it got any bigger any faster, I might just drown.

  Chapter Twenty

  Back home, I skipped upstairs and opened up my laptop. My first search of “Tanya Medina artist Verbena” came up with around five million hits in less than a second. I started clicking. Her Facebook page was set to private. I clicked the button to send her a friend request. It was amazing how many people accepted those automatically. Maybe she would be one of those and I’d have a better sense of who she was and what she was up to. Next up was the website for her art. The first image came up, and I gasped. I knew the view. It was from the ridge where I had hiked with my father so many times. The Mondrian-like patchwork of the farmland stretched away into the distance with the blue sky above it so clear that it might cut. I peered closer. It wasn’t huge. Maybe only thirty-six by twenty-four inches. It would fit perfectly in the spot where the girl on the rock had been. The rest of the pieces were gorgeous too, but it was that one that really spoke to me.

  Next I clicked on a link to the Verbena Free Press.

  The Verbena Free Press

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18

  Widow Handcuffs Herself to Home

  Tanya Medina had to be removed by the police from her home on Tuesday. She had handcuffed herself to the wrought iron railing on the front porch, vowing that she would never leave willingly. The house had gone into foreclosure several months before.

  “The bank gave Ms. Medina a full month to satisfy the requirements of the contract,” Alan Brewer of the Verbena Union Bank said. “I understand that she’s upset, but that doesn’t make her above the law.”

  Ms. Medina claims that the bank gave her late husband, Herman Burdette, a misleading contract and that neither of them fully understood the possible repercussions of signing it. “They’re ripping off old people! That’s what they’re doing!” Ms. Medina said.

  Yikes. Chaining yourself to a railing and being forcibly removed by law enforcement was fairly badass. There was something more here, though. There were too many holes in the story. There had to be more to it. Arleen said Tanya picketed all the information meetings on reverse mortgages. Maybe I could find her there and talk to her and find out the rest of the story. Would it be enough to have Tanya do more than spray-paint threats on the bank doors?

  I clicked back over to her painting. I really hoped not. That painting was gorgeous.

  * * *

  I pulled up to the Civic Center to attend the information meeting on reverse mortgages that Alan had been meant to give. Four older women sat in camp chairs in the shade holding signs. “Reverse Mortgages Reverse Your Rights.” “Know Your Rights. Don’t Reverse.”

  The one that caught my eye read, “Bankers Who Sell Reverses Should Wind Up in Hearses.” Beneath the slogan was a photo of Alan Brewer in his casket. It was held by Tanya Medina. I recoiled. The disrespect and the rage it took to make a sign like that shocked me and, frankly, made me a little ill.

  As threatening as the sign was, nothing much seemed to be happening. The four women sat calmly in their chairs, signs resting in front of them. One of them was knitting. Then I saw Johanna from the bank pull up. So did my quartet of protestors. They were on their feet in seconds.

  Johanna got out of her car, briefcase in hand, and walked toward the Civic Center entrance. The women followed behind her. Tanya yelled, “Stepping into Alan Brewer’s shoes, Johanna? Better watch your step! Karma came for him. It could come for you too!”

  Johanna visibly blanched. Her steps faltered, but she swallowed hard, straightened her shoulders, and marched into the Civic Center. The four women went back to their seats and sat down like a Greek chorus awaiting their next cue. I’m no fan of the reverse mortgage. I’d done a story on them back in my reporter days, and they can be terrible for consumers. At the moment, though, they weren’t illegal. The bank wasn’t doing anything against the law by offering them or even by promoting them. Ethics was another question.

  I got out of my car and started up the sidewalk. The quartet of protestors jumped to their feet, then got a good look at me and faltered just like Johanna had, steps slowing to a halting stop. They looked at each other, confused, and then looked back at me.

  “Hi,” I said. I pointed to the sign with Alan’s face on it. “Pretty scary sign.”

  Tanya looked at me, her eyes narrowed. “You’re the Turner girl, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “And you’re the one who took that photo of Alan when he was at my family’s funeral home.”

  “It’s not illegal,” she said, a smirk on her face. “I looked it up.”

  It wasn’t. There were times when people took photos of the deceased in caskets. Usually, it was to send to relatives who couldn’t attend the funeral. It still gave me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. It reminded me too much of those creepy Victorian photos with parents propping up their dead children. “Neither are reverse mortgages,” I said with a matching smirk.

  She looked up at me, one eye squinted shut. “You’re a bit of a smartass, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Better than being a dumbass.”

  She cackled and pulled out her phone. “I’m accepting your friend request.”

  “Gosh, thanks.” I pointed to her sign again. “You took that photo just to make a sign to scare other bankers?”

  “I took it for myself so I could always see that he was dead, that at least I’d have the satisfaction of outliving him.” She smiled. “The sign was a bonus.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a lot of hate you’re holding onto.”

  She laughed. “I’m not holding onto it, honey. I’m sending it out into the universe. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be fine if that hate helped bring him down.”

  One of her friends touched her leg. “Tanya, enough. You’re going too far. Again.”

  “He lost me my house!” she shouted back at her friend. “Did he go too far?”

  Her friend pressed her lips together. “You know he did. That’s why we’re all here. So that what happened to you doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  Now things were getting interesting. “What happened?”

  The story was long and a little convoluted. Tanya had met Herman Burdette when he hired her to paint a portrait of his beagle. Along with casket photography, pet portraiture was one of Tanya’s specialties. In the process of working on the painting, they got to know each other and fell in love. As one does. Nothing like pet portraiture to get the juices flowing, I guess.

  “How does that relate to reverse mortgages?” I asked.

  “Herman took out a reverse mortgage on the house. You know, so we’d have a little extra cash to travel and things like that.” Tanya put her hand on her heart. “Such a dear man. We had such wonderful special times. Take a look at my Facebook page. You’ll see the photos of all the adventures we went on.”

  “Okay,” I said, hoping we were getting somewhere.

  “Tanya’s name couldn’t be on the mortgage because she was under sixty-five,” her friend explained.

  I knew enough about reverse mortgages to suspect where this was heading and got a bad feeling in my stomach.

  “Herman died. Quite unexpectedly. He’d been a really healthy, vigorous man in his late sixties, but when he was out weeding the garden, he dropped dead. Poof.” Tanya made a bursting motion with her hands. “Just like that.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

&nbs
p; “My name wasn’t on the deed to the house, but I was Herman’s heir. The bank gave me thirty days to pay off the balance of the loan. When I couldn’t pay it off, they foreclosed on me.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  I didn’t blame her. I’d heard stories like this one, but it still seemed draconian to kick a woman out of her house a month after her husband died because of a technicality on the paperwork. “It was Alan who made that decision? The one to foreclose?”

  Tanya nodded.

  “That had to be some pretty bad publicity for the bank.” The article I’d read hadn’t been too bad, but kicking widows out of their homes wasn’t really what good neighborhood banks did.

  “Have you heard of banks getting good publicity?” Tanya asked. “They don’t care anymore. Saying a bank did something wrong is a little like saying that Satan sinned. It’s not news.”

  “Tanya will be okay,” her friend said, putting a hand on Tanya’s arm. “She’s got us. She’s got enough money to live on, but what about other people? We wanted to put a little fear into the hearts of people like Alan Brewer.”

  I pointed at the sign. “That’s more than a little fear.”

  Tanya waved it away. “It’s just a sign. Besides, what could an old lady do?”

  “An old lady can shoot a gun,” I said. Tanya was a straight shooter in conversation. Was she one in real life too? Whoever hit Alan with that bullet either had great luck or great aim.

  Tanya reared back. “You think I shot Alan over my eviction? That’s ridiculous. Besides, they’ve arrested the man who did it.”

  “Allegedly did it,” I corrected. Why didn’t people get that distinction? “I don’t think he did, though.”

  She thought for a moment. “It is hard to believe someone with that touch with roses would kill someone. Who do you think did it?” she asked.