Big Ghouls Don't Cry - a Jodi Collister, Ghoul Detective Mystery

Chapter Three

(Remember ... this is a rough draft. :)

Chapter Three

            “Okay, so. What do we do next?”

            “I really have no idea.” I stretched out my legs and put my feet on the ottoman in Mel’s living room. “I guess we need to get me buried and stuff.”

            “Yeah.”

            That was weird—sitting there, discussing my funeral like I was only pretending to be dead or something. I didn’t want anything fancy, which was just as well because I was broke and Mel was broke and we had no idea how we were going to pull this off. We tossed around ideas for a few minutes, ways to come up with quick cash, but we were strapped.

            “I’ll talk to my grandmother,” Mel said after several minutes of pretty lame ideas.

            “Oh, no. You can’t do that,” I protested. “I can’t let you put yourself at her mercy just for me.”

            “I’m not going to just leave your body at the coroner’s, Jodi. What kind of friend does that?”

            “The kind of friend who has a barracuda for a grandmother. Come on—she’s loaded, but there has to be another way.”

            Mel sighed. “Believe me, I don’t want to do it. But what good is having a trust fund if I can’t tap into it when I really need it? And this is a need.”

            “She won’t let you use it for your business—why would she let you use it for your business partner?”

            “Because you’re also my friend. Listen, let’s just plan out what we need and see what she says. It’s the best solution we’ve got, so let’s go in there prepared.”

            “I don’t think we need a whole service—I don’t have a lot of friends,” I said. “Maybe just a little graveside ceremony or something?”

            “That would be nice. And we’ll need a casket spray. Purples and pinks?”

I nodded, and Mel wrote that down. Then her pen froze over the notebook. “Dang it, Jodi, why’d you have to die?”

            “I don’t know.” I played with the tassel of the throw pillow next to me. “It wasn’t my idea, believe me. But take this as a lesson that flirting with cute guys in coffee shops is dangerous. Very dangerous.”

            “I’ll remember that.”

            “What are we going to do about the business?” I asked. “I mean, it’s pretty cut-and-dried in our partnership agreement—you get my half, no problem. But clients and stuff—we had a case this week, remember? How are you going to solve the case and get me buried and everything all at the same time?”     

            Mel pressed a hand to her eyes. “I totally forgot. And we need this one, too—we’ve got to pay the rent.”

            “I wish I could help.” I shook my head. “Money is stupid, you know that? And it’s not fair—I’m dead and I still have to worry about it. I thought dead people got a break from all that.”

            “Apparently not.”

            I stood up and paced back and forth. This always relaxed me when I was alive, but now, it just seemed to make my anxiety worse, so I sat back down. “We’ve just got to believe. Things will work out, right?”