beyond the grave 03 - a ghostly demise by tonya kappes Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t want the visitors to come explore the caves. What had he done for the community?
    “You’re right!” I pounded my fist on the table. “You do deserve to be mayor and Charlotte is going to have to suck it up.”
    “Good for us.” Granny leaned down and hugged me. I patted her arms. “I’ll leave it up to you to tell her.”
    “Of course you will.” I rolled my eyes. “Granny, what do you know about Terk Rhinehammer?”
    It seemed like a good question to start with. I needed to go visit Terk and try to figure out if he and his relationship with Leotta had anything to do with Cephus’s murder.
    “Not much. Terk Rhinehammer and Cephus ran around with a different crowd when your daddy was growing up.” She looked at me. Her brow twitched. “Cephus might’ve stopped to visit every now and then, but not Terk.”
    “Granny, tell me.” I coaxed her to tell me what she was hiding.
    “You know, idle gossip.” She looked me up and down. Slowly she shuffled over to me. “I guess you are big enough to know stuff.”
    “Big enough?” I laughed. “I am a big girl and an adult by law.”
    “Well, kids can be cruel and hurt other kids. But since you and Mary Anna are big kids, I’m sure you’ll keep this to yourself.” Granny eased down next to me. “I had heard, just heard now”—Granny tried to make gossip sound better—“when Cephus lost his job, I heard Terk had given him a job down at the water plant. If I can recall, I believe Terk was the manager down there. But like I said, he ran around in a different crowd.” Her face turned serious. “Them Rhinehammers are Burns people.”
    Granny liked to classify families into two groups. Burns or Eternal Slumber, depending on what funeral home the families chose to bury their loved ones. In this case, the Rhinehammers must have always used Burns Funeral to bury their people.
    “I think it caused a lot of problems between Leotta and Cephus because I had heard that Leotta didn’t want handouts and if Cephus didn’t drink so much, he’d have been able to stay in construction.”
    “Construction?” I realized I had no idea what Cephus had done for a living.
    “And I never would have pegged Leotta and Terk together, but I just can’t shake the image I saw today.” Granny’s lips turned up like she had the biggest secret. “When I went to yoga this morning, in the middle of plank pose, I lifted my head and looked out the window overlooking the street. Terk Rhinehammer’s big Buick drove right on by, with Leotta Hardy driving.” She nodded. “Saw it with my own eyes.”
    “And she didn’t say a word about it when I asked her.” I found it interesting that Leotta was trying to hide it.
    “Not a word,” Granny said. “She looked shocked that you knew it was his. How did you know it was his?”
    “Lucky guess.” I shrugged. “Where does Terk live?” I asked. I could feel her staring at me. “I’m just wanting to try to understand the dynamics between Leotta and him since I do work with Mary Anna and all.”
    “Has she been talking about it?” Granny poured herself a glass of tea.
    “Well”—I leaned in on my elbows as if I was telling her a big secret—“they are having a big family gathering tomorrow night at the carnival. Mary Anna said Teddy is coming into town. I can’t help but wonder if Leotta is going to bring Terk as her boyfriend or something. Besides, he is a voter.”
    I held the glass up to my lips, lifted my brows and peered over the top at Granny, who was contemplating every word I was saying.
    “A vote is a vote.” Granny’s eyes narrowed.
    “What if I pack up some of those cookies and take them over to Terk’s for a little campaigning?” The idea was solid. I could pretend to be going door-to-door handing out buttons to get in front of him.
    “You are brilliant, granddaughter!” Granny jumped up. She searched the cabinets for some Tupperware and stacked some cookies in it. “This is exactly why I gave you