Horribly Haunted in Hillbilly Hollow (Ozark Ghost Hunter Mysteries Book 1) Read online

The goat shook its head and bleated again, louder this time.

  “Oh, no. I’m not putting up with your shenanigans!”

  I stepped over the small creature, and as I did, it leaned forward, and started chewing on the hem of Grandma’s nightgown. The tug on the nightgown’s hem caused me to trip, and I fell forward onto the dirt path. As I tripped, one of my shoes went flying, and landed in the tall grass. I stood up, looking for my shoe, and just as I spotted it, the goat snatched it up in his teeth, and began chewing.

  “No! Stop it! Drop that shoe!”

  I lunged forward, but the small goat was too fast, and leaped out of my grasp. It trotted down the path toward the house, happily chewing on my designer deck shoe. I chased it all the way to the house, and found it standing on the back porch, still chewing on what was left of my shoe.

  Grandma opened the door to let it in just before I got there.

  I burst through the screen door after the goat.

  “Grandma, that thing has my shoe!”

  “That,” she said, pointing the wooden spoon she was using to scoop the eggs from the pan, “is Snowball. And if you didn’t want her to eat your shoe, you shouldn’t have given it to her. She’ll eat anything, you know. Now sit down, Emma. Breakfast is ready.”

  “Grandma, I got a splinter in the outhouse thanks to this one’s shenanigans,” I said, crooking a thumb at Snowball. “What should I do?”

  Grandma made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue and teeth. “Sit,” she said, retrieving a little, white, metal box from the cupboard. She grabbed the box of baking soda and set it on the table next to me.

  “That’s a deep one. Hold still, child,” she said. She walked to the sink and put a small amount of water in a glass, then added the baking soda. She applied the mixture to the back of my hand where the splinter was, and put a large bandage over it.

  “Leave it alone. It’ll work its way out by the morning,” she said.

  She brought me a plateful of food, and a cup of strong coffee.

  Looking over to Snowball, I saw that my shoe was beyond salvaging anyway, so I sat down to eat. I was famished from the late night arrival and the even later cow relocating.

  “Oh, and your cell phone has been buzzing and blinking nonstop.” Grandma pointed to the device on the kitchen table.

  “Thanks, Grandma,” I said, picking up my phone. I hit the button to unlock it, and saw that I had a missed call and a message. Seeing the toll-free number, I was relieved that the airline had called about my bag. I played the recording.

  “Hi, this message is for Emma Hooper. Ms. Hooper, this is National Airlines calling about your bag. We have some great news! We found your luggage. Unfortunately, it was loaded to another flight, and is on its way to Vancouver. Once it arrives, it will have to go through customs, and be loaded onto another flight back to our hub in Chicago before it can be sent on to Branson. As it stands, we hope to have it back by the end of the week. We’ll give you a call as soon as we have an update. Thanks, Ms. Hooper.”

  Argh! I let out an exaggerated sigh of frustration.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” Grandma asked.

  “Oh, it’s my missing luggage. It’s on the other side of the continent and I won’t have it back until the end of the week. I’ll have to put my clothes from last night back on and go to town to pick up a few things.” I shook my head, and took a bite of the delicious sausage on my plate.

  “Well, I washed your clothes this morning. They’re on the line. Should be dry by this evening,” Grandma replied, taking a bite of biscuit.

  “Grandma, I have nothing to wear! I can’t wear your nightgown all day,” I said, appreciative that she was trying to help by taking care of me, but frustrated that I didn’t have any of the things I needed.

  “Don’t worry, Emma, dear! I’ll loan you something you can wear to town.” She pointed her fork in the direction of Snowball. “Looks like you’ll be needing shoes, too.”

  I rolled my eyes in frustration. “Thanks, Grandma. Hey, isn’t Grandpa going to join us for breakfast?”

  “Oh, no, he ate ages ago. He’s out doing chores.” She smiled sweetly at me.

  After breakfast, Grandma put some clean clothes and a towel in the laundry room for me, and I bathed in the old claw foot tub. It felt good to get the travel grime and last of the mud from the previous night’s escapades off of me.

  I toweled off, raking my fingers through my dark hair as best I could to dissuade any tangles from forming. I grabbed the clothes Grandma had set out for me. They consisted of a turquoise blue sweat suit with a huge spray of pink flowers across the chest of the sweatshirt. She had also provided me with a pair of slip-on sneakers. Luckily, we both wore a size seven.

  Slipping on the borrowed outfit, I tried to shake aside an uneasy feeling about the weird luck I was having so far on this visit home. Lost luggage, hungry goats, and creepy ghost sightings were the last things I wanted to focus on right now. I was under doctor’s orders to relax.

  Chapter 3

  I grabbed my handbag, and took Grandpa’s truck keys off the hook by the door. Before I headed out the door, I kissed Grandma on the cheek.

  “I’ll be back soon, Grandma. Do you need anything?”

  “No, no, I can’t say there is anything at all we need, dear,” she replied.

  On my way outside, I saw movement in the barn, and decided to go say hi to Grandpa before I left.

  I walked out the screen door, and as I did, it didn’t make the customary slam against the doorframe. I looked over my shoulder to see Snowball wriggling her way out the door behind me. She did a little leap off the porch, and trotted up to me.

  “You’re not coming with me,” I said, to which she replied with a bleat.

  Taking a few steps toward the barn, I realized she was following me. I turned again.

  “I’m serious. You’re not coming.”

  Again, she bleated.

  I gave up and headed out to the barn.

  The sun blinded me as I approached, and I couldn’t see inside. As I stepped into the barn, and my eyes adjusted, I saw Grandpa raking up hay.

  “Hi, Grandpa.”

  “Emma,” he said, without really looking up as he continued his work.

  I walked to the center post of the barn, and found the spot where my dad had carved his initials when he was a little boy. I rubbed my fingers gingerly over the spot. It always made me feel closer to him. I put two fingers up to my lips, kissed them, and waved them toward the sky. I had done that since I was a little girl. It was my way of sending my parents kisses in Heaven.

  I hadn’t seen my parents since I was the age Daddy had been when he made this carving. I was at the farm the night they died. They had dropped me off so they could have a night out. It was the middle of the night when the sheriff knocked on the door to tell my grandparents that their only son and his wife – my parents – were gone. A truck had taken a turn too fast. The driver swerved, and the trailer lost its balance. It was over quickly, from what the deputy told my grandparents. We went home and got my things, but from that point until I went to college, I’d been here, on the Hooper farm, with my grandparents.

  My grandfather’s voice broke my trance. “Emma,” he paused, leaning on the top of the rake’s handle. “Dorothy and I haven’t seen you since you graduated college. That’s been a lot of years. Not that we aren’t glad to see you, but why are you here, exactly? Why now?”

  He wiped the sweat away from the tanned skin of his forehead with the back of a gloved hand, and walked over to a hay bale, hoisting it over his shoulder the way a bodybuilder might pick up a barbell.

  “Uh, well, I’m here to take care of you…and Grandma,” I said, then realized I was talking to a fit, seventy-year-old man who was probably in better shape than I was.

  It’s not totally a lie. I expected them to be old. Feeble. In need of my help. Instead, they’re active, spry, and healthy. In fact, I may be the sickest one here. It’s doubtful either of them sees imaginary appari
tions.

  Grandpa looked at me quizzically.

  Before he could say anything, a squad car pulled up to the front of the barn.

  The driver’s door opened and a tall, strapping, handsome man I didn’t immediately recognize stepped out. Tufts of thick, blonde hair poked out from underneath the back of his sheriff’s hat, matching his neat blonde beard. The man strode toward us, and called out to Grandpa.

  “Mornin’, Ed,” he said. Then he looked me up and down, grabbing the rim of his hat, and tipped his head. “Ma’am.”

  “Tucker, what brings you out so early this morning?” My grandfather walked forward, taking off his work gloves.

  Tucker? Larry Tucker?

  I couldn’t believe this was him. He was a few years ahead of me in school. He must have been thirty-three or thirty-four by now. Captain of the football team, and all-state baseball, he was always cute, and an amazing athlete, but it was well-known that the cheerleading squad had to do all his homework to keep him eligible for sports.

  “Well, some bad news, Ed. There’s been a death in these parts. A murder, in fact.” Tucker said it more like a question than a statement. “We found Preacher Jacob this mornin’ down at the old fort. Dr. Will’s takin’ a look now. No idea what he was doing there so late. You ain’t seen anything strange, have ya?”

  “Preacher Jacob? Oh, now that’s a tragedy. A real tragedy. Who’d want to hurt a fine man of the cloth like him?” Grandpa took off his ball cap, and clutched it to his chest. “No, no. I haven’t seen nor heard a thing. I’ll ask Dorothy, but she’s been right here with me all morning. I just can’t believe it.” He shook his head. “Best preacher we’ve had. What a shame. What an awful shame.”

  “I appreciate it, Ed.” Tucker turned to me. “Ma’am, you haven’t seen anything unusual, have ya?”

  “Tucker, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. It’s Emma – Emma Hooper. I was a freshman when you were a senior,” I said, partly because I felt uncomfortable with a guy I’d known my whole life calling me ma’am.

  “Emma? I thought you looked familiar. It’s good to see ya.” He smiled that megawatt smile down at me. “Real good to see ya. Sad circumstances, though, I’m afraid. You moved after high school, didn’t ya?”

  “Yeah, I went to college, then moved to New York. I haven’t been home for…well, about five years, I guess.” I blushed, trying not to look at Grandpa. I was ashamed it’d been so long since I’ve seen my family. I quickly changed back to the topic at hand. “It’s a real shame about Preacher Jacob. I didn’t know him well. But no, I haven’t seen anything strange.”

  As the last word passed my lips, my mind flashed back to the spectral figure I had seen in the early morning hours as I closed the pasture gate.

  “You-you said he was at the Old Fort? When do you think he passed?” I asked tentatively.

  “Well, not real sure yet. Didn’t look like much of a struggle, really. Dr. Will’s down there now takin’ a look at the body. He should be able to tell us more.”

  The radio on his shoulder crackled to life, and he mumbled some police mumbo-jumbo into it.

  “Well, I best be headin’ on. Lots of folks to talk to. Thanks again, Ed. Keep your eyes open for me, would ya?” He shook my grandfather’s hand.

  “Emma, good seeing ya.” He stepped forward and patted my shoulder once, then headed back to his patrol car.

  “Grandpa, I’m so sorry. Were you…were you very close with Preacher Jacob?”

  I felt like hugging Grandpa would be a bit much in his eyes, but as he stood, wringing his hands and looking off distractedly, I felt as though I needed to at least try to be of some comfort.

  “He’s been at the church since Pastor Bailey retired. That’s been, what now? Six, seven years? He was an important part of this community, Emma. Our moral beacon, and an active member of the historical society.” Grandpa shook his head and put his gloves back on. “Course, you’d know that if you’d been around more, I ‘spose.”

  I swallowed hard, my brow furrowing into a frown. Grandpa returned to his chores, and I turned and walked to the truck. He was right. I could have come to visit more often - checked on my grandparents more regularly. After all, this was still home.

  I opened the door to the truck, and Snowball immediately tried to climb inside. I picked her up, deposited her on the porch, and using the most commanding voice I could muster, gave her a firm, “Stay!”

  She bleated back at me, annoyed.

  As I headed down the old gravel road from the farm, I looked over to the fence line where I had been the night before. I knew I’d seen Preacher Jacob before, but I couldn’t picture his face.

  Could that have been him I saw? Come on, Emma, get it together. It’s pure coincidence, I told myself. Just electrical impulses misfiring in your brain.

  I unconsciously put my hand up to my scalp. The knot may have healed, but whatever was still floating around in my brain, making me see things that I knew couldn’t be there, sure hadn’t.

  Chapter 4

  Leaving the farm, I passed Colton Road, and wondered how Suzy was.

  Suzy Colton lived further down from us, but was my very best friend all through school. Her parents owned a large farm on the road named for her great-great-grandfather. We had shared everything together. Billy was my earliest friend, and we played together almost every day of childhood. When a girl gets older, though, she needs little girl friends. Together, Suzy and I ambled through adolescence. The pretty, spunky little blonde would boss me around, and I’d fall right in with all her hair-brained schemes. We were inseparable. We shared beauty tips, gossip, stories, and dreams.

  My heart sank a little as I drove on. Suzy was my best friend my whole life. We stayed in touch for a while after we went off to college, but like so many things, over time, she fell away from me. Just like this place. Just like my grandparents.

  I began to wonder if coming back was the right thing to do. I had only been thinking of myself when I made the decision. I needed a place to rest and recuperate, away from the hustle and noise of the city. Maybe I’d changed too much, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.

  I followed the dips and curves of the two-lane road as I got to the outskirts of town. The hilltop farms and pastures full of grazing cattle were scenic and serene, overlooking the town in the valley below. The view relaxed me a little.

  I drove past the turn-off for the old fort. A sheriff’s deputy had his cruiser pulled across the entrance with its lights on. A wooden board with the word “closed” in capital letters swung by eyehooks from the sign that marked the entrance to town.

  I slowed down as I passed, and the deputy looked toward me and tipped his hat. I got suddenly cold, thinking of the man whose life had ended there less than a day before.

  It was less than a twenty minute drive from the farm to this edge of town, but it felt farther.

  I thought, That’s the difference between a New York minute and a country mile I guess, and giggled to myself.

  The town of Hillbilly Hollow itself was an idyllic slice of Americana. The place had another, more ordinary name once—Fort Harris, named for the old fort on its outskirts. But at some point, nobody could quite remember when, folk from the larger neighboring towns had dubbed the little settlement in the valley Hillbilly Hollow. Instead of taking insult, our townsfolk had embraced the name and begun proudly referring to themselves as “hillbillies” from the Hollow.

  The town had grown a lot since those days but still remained one of the smallest in the area. The old fashioned main street looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I passed the shops and restaurants, heading toward the library and city hall where I knew the open parking area was.

  My heart lightened as I saw the ice cream parlor. I thought of all the times I had begged my parents to take me there for ice cream when I was small, and of how Mom would always relent, saying, “Okay, Emma, just this once,” with a wink. When I got older, Grandpa would pile Billy and me into th
e pickup, and let us pick up Suzy on the way to town. He’d give me three dollars, and we’d walk, arm-in-arm across the street to the ice cream shop for an ice cream and a pop.

  I had no idea how long it would take for my luggage to actually arrive, and I needed everything. The general store would have enough makeup and toiletries to get me by, but I needed clothes and shoes that fit me properly and were more appropriate to a thirty-year-old than the sweat suit I was currently wearing. I looked down at the pink flower patch across my chest.

  Blech!

  At the end of the block, I saw a new shop that appeared to be a women’s boutique. I pulled into the parking lot.

  I stepped through the door of Posh Closet and found racks of sundresses and flowy tops, and bins filled with embellished flip-flops and funky jewelry. The shop was actually cute! I started flipping through the racks, and suddenly heard a voice from the back of the shop.

  “Hi, there!” The voice bouncing between the racks as it approached me had an air of familiarity. “Welcome. Can I help you find anything?”

  As the blonde woman belonging to the voice set a huge armful of clothes down on the counter and turned to me, I recognized her immediately.

  She shrieked when she saw me.

  “Emma? Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe it!” She leapt at me, hugging my neck so hard she almost knocked me over.

  “Suzy! You are a sight for sore eyes! I can’t believe it’s you! Is this your shop?” I asked, grateful for the warm greeting.

  “Yes! I really cannot believe my eyes! When did you get here? How long are you staying?” She held my hands in hers, then looked me up and down suspiciously. “And why are you wearing what you’re wearing?”

  We both laughed.

  “Very late last night, not sure, and the airline lost my luggage!” I replied. “Oh, Suzy, it’s so great to see you! I’m almost glad the airline lost my stuff and I came in here looking for something reasonable to wear. This,” I waved my hand up and down, “is Grandma’s tracksuit.”