Putting the Fun in Funeral Read online

  Putting the Fun in Funeral

  Diana Pharaoh Francis

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café 2018

  In conjunction with

  Lucky Foot Press

  Celebrating death never felt so good

  Beck Wyatt has always hated her mother—enough to kill her. As luck would have it, someone beats her to murdering Mommy Dearest and now Beck gets to plan the tackiest funeral the world has ever seen for the worst woman she’s ever known.

  But first, Beck has a few minor problems to deal with. First on the list? Avoid getting kidnapped. She also has to convince the police she didn’t kill her mother. And then there’s surviving a death curse ….

  With the help of her three best friends, cheesecake, and a little magic, Beck figures she can handle anything, even the mysterious and irritating Damon Matroviani, whose sexy good looks light her panties on fire.

  All too soon, her life is turned inside out, and just when things are looking like they can’t get any worse ... everything hits the fan.

  Chapter 1

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  “She’s dead.”

  Detective Ballard gave me a studiously bland look. “I’m aware. Do you think this is funny?”

  I pretended to consider. “Funny—no. Ironic? Yes.”

  “Do you care to explain yourself?”

  “Because I get to plan her funeral.” I already was. It would have to be the tackiest, white-trashiest, low-rent trailer park sort of affair for kicking off the dearly departed. I’d definitely serve beer. Oh, and champagne. With Funions and pork rinds and pigs in blankets and deep-fried Twinkies. And confetti. Maybe fireworks. Or pumpkin chunkin’. I could go with a viewing and dress her in Daisy Duke shorts and a tube top. Add some blue eye shadow and crimson lipstick for that extra-special touch.

  Regret slid through me. No. She’d need to be cremated. I needed her cremated, just to be sure she couldn’t come back as a zombie or vampire. Maybe I’d be allowed to light the match on the fire.

  “Miss Wyatt?” The detective said, tapping my knee and interrupting my happy daydream.

  I focused on her. She could have used some under-eye concealer. Maybe a little lipstick. And some rouge. The woman looked like death. “What?”

  “I asked how you would categorize your relationship with your mother?”

  “She pretty much hated everything about me, and I tried my damnedest to earn her malice.”

  Her brows rose at my candor. “So you didn’t get along with her?”

  Was she deaf or just stupid? “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “Did you?”

  The detective needed her ass kicked. “Yes.”

  “. . . relationship contentious . . .” she muttered as she wrote in her notebook.

  Such a mild word. Like my mother hadn’t been the wicked witch of the west. Like she hadn’t spent every minute of every day criticizing and castigating me and moaning over my flaws and failures, which were all I was to her. I don’t even know why she’d had me. Or kept me.

  “Did she have any other family? Do you have siblings?”

  “Don’t know and no.” Because if there was one thing that was true about my mother, it is that she kept her life a secret from me.

  “What about friends? Or enemies? Anyone you can think of who might want to hurt her?”

  “Grab a phonebook and start with the A’s,” I suggested.

  The detective looked up from beneath her brows. “Your cooperation could go a long way in solving your mother’s murder. Don’t you want to find her killer?” Her tone implied heavily that I might just be the killer. Not that I could blame her. I was a perfect suspect. Luckily I had a perfect alibi.

  “If the killer walked in right now, I’d probably offer to suck his dick,” I said. “That’s how much better my life will be without my mother.”

  Which was pathetic. And also a challenge the universe had no intention of losing. Not only could my life get much worse, it Murphy’s Law said it probably would.

  “Where were you yesterday?”

  “I already told you. Twice.”

  “I’d like to hear it again.”

  “Yeah? I’d like a mansion in Monaco and naked hot-tub time with Ryan Reynolds, but neither of those are going to happen either.”

  Detective Ballard visibly gritted her teeth then changed tack. “Was your mother seeing anyone romantically?”

  “Check her nightstand. Bet she’s got a rainbow of vibrators in there.”

  The detective’s mouth dropped open then snapped shut. “I’d think that you’d be a little bit serious about finding your mother’s murderer.”

  “What you think isn’t my problem, is it?”

  “It is if I arrest you for obstructing a murder investigation.”

  I stood up. “And we’re done.”

  The detective stood up, tapping her pen against her notebook. “Sit down. I still have questions for you, Miss Wyatt.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her in disbelief. She did not know when she’d lost. Up to me to teach her, then. “Here’s the answer to all of your idiot questions. Ready? Going to write it down in your little book so you don’t forget? Here we go, then. Fuck. Off. There. You now have all the answers you’re going to get from me. Now get out.”

  “Can you tell me who the beneficiaries of her will are?”

  The detective was tenacious. I had to give her that. I glared, flipped her off, then spun around and walked into the back room, slamming the door behind me.

  I leaned against the door and took a deep breath, my heart pounding. My mother was dead. It was my own personal miracle. I was shaking. I held up my hand to watch it tremble and laughed quietly at myself. God, how long had I been hoping and praying for karma to come and dump my mother in its cosmic woodchipper?

  Leaving the door, I wound through the maze of antiques, expensive knickknacks, unusual finds, and everything else I’d packed in the back warehouse of my store until I made it to my office. A Louis XV desk and chair in honey-colored birds-eye maple sat in the middle, surrounded by crowded shelves of my favorite finds. I’m an estate broker, selling people’s things when they downsize or die. I’ve found some amazing and strange things over the years and keep them in my eclectic collection.

  I grabbed the phone and punched in a number.

  “Lorraine? Get over here. Now. Bring champagne. Mother is dead.” I depressed the talk button to cut off questions and made two more calls to Jennifer and Stacey, repeating myself both times.

  After that, I went to the back door of the warehouse and unlocked it, dropping a spell on it to warn me if anybody besides my three best friends should try to enter. I ran up the steel grate stairs to my home. Inside the utility room I toed off my shoes, then went down the short hallway to slide open the rustic barn doors to my living room.

  The place was perfect. The walls were unpainted brick with giant, industrial windows along every exterior wall. Each was five feet wide and twenty feet tall, crisscrossed by mullions. I’d put up a few walls for three bathrooms and three bedrooms, but the rest of my loft was open. More of my weird and strange collection clung to every stray surface, horizontal and vertical. I had a giant nearly square cushy white suede couch in the middle of the loft space with a giant ottoman inside that pretty much made the whole thing a walled bed. The girls and I had spent many a Saturday night drinking, watching movies, and dishing dirt there.

  I waltzed through my house to the kitchen, on the other side of my living room. It was a large, gourmet space since I liked to cook. I dug out glasses, shoved more champagne into the wine fridge—I kept one chilling all the time, just in case a reason to celebrate popped
up—and grabbed some of my triple chocolate cookie dough out of the freezer and set the balls onto a cookie sheet before tossing it into the oven.

  Next I turned on the stereo, flipping until I found the mix I wanted, all of which were songs about winning. Halestorm kicked it off, followed by Beyonce. I ran down the front stairs into the store to make sure Detective Stick Up Her Ass had left, which she had. A cruiser was still parked outside, its lights flashing. No doubt to make sure I wasn’t off on a killing spree. I locked the doors and flipped the closed sign then snapped off the lights. It was only three hours until closing anyhow.

  I glanced once more out the door, just in time to see a news van pull into the parking lot. Hadn’t taken those vampires long. I stuck my tongue out at them and closed the shades.

  Chapter 2

  “Here’s to no more tirades about your crappy whore friends while we’re standing there,” Stacey said, clinking her glass against ours. Champagne sloshed over the edge, and I nudged it back with a subtle swipe of magic. I avoided public magic at all costs, but the couch was suede and custom made.

  “And here’s to no more bribes or threats to us and everybody we know to stay out of your life,” said Jen.

  “Oh, and no more siccing the cops on you, suing you, getting your power and lights turned off, your cars towed, your houses quarantined—”

  “Don’t forget the bedbug infestations. That had her handwriting all over it,” Lorraine said, interrupting me.

  “She was awful to you guys. Why in the hell didn’t you guys run for the hills?” I asked, not for the first time in our long friendship.

  “Because these bitches don’t run, and we’re like the marines—no friend left behind,” Jen said, throwing a cheese puff at me. “And anyway, all the things she did to us pale in comparison to what she was doing to you.”

  “What do you mean?” I’d kept all the bad stuff hidden.

  “Oh, please. It’s not like we didn’t know she was fucking with you. Afterward, you’d be sick in bed for entire weekends and vacations. Half the time at school you’d have bruises and lacerations and you should have been in bed,” Lorraine said, scowling at me.

  “You should have been in a hospital,” Stacey corrected.

  I’d never been sick. That’s just what I told them. If I hadn’t, they’d have demanded to know more and I was never going to tell the real truth about what happened when I said I was sick.

  “Man, I’d have been out of that house like my ass was on fire,” Lorraine said. “I still don’t get why you stayed.”

  Because as much as my mother had hated my three friends, she’d used them to blackmail me into staying put. All the things she’d done to them were half because she wanted to get rid of them and half so I’d know she was serious when she threatened them with real harm. Like burning their houses down around them. Or getting them fired from jobs. Framing them for murder. She even had some guy roofie Jen and take nasty sex photos of her. My mother really was mean. I’d paid big to get the pictures and all the evidence of their existence without Jen ever knowing about it. My mother gloated the whole time. At least the scum fuck she hired never got his dick hard from that day onward. I can be vicious too.

  “I’m a sadomasochist,” I declared in response to Lorraine’s comment. “Obviously. With twisted-mother issues. Somebody get me in to see Dr. Phil. Or is it Dr. Oz? Better yet, find me a really hot sex therapist and we’ll both head straight to the couch and work my issues out, all naked and sweaty.”

  “One of these days, we want to know the real reason you stayed,” Jennifer said, giving me a shrewd look that said she could see right through my bullshit. “And then we’ll all go piss on her grave.”

  I snorted at the mental picture of the four of us squatting on a grave together. Champagne came out my nose.

  “I hate peeing outside,” Stacey said. “It always ends up running down my leg.”

  “Clearly you need more practice,” Lorraine said, passing me a napkin to sop the champagne dripping from my nose. I gave up trying to keep the couch clean at that point. It’s a little OCD to worry about it, anyhow, when I have the magic to clean it into pristine condition without hardly a thought.

  “No thanks. But I’m willing to suffer for the sake of peeing on your mom’s grave,” Stacey said to me.

  “Maybe we should do it weekly,” Jen said, filling my glass again. She froze as she drew away, her eyes widening. “You don’t think she could possibly haunt us, do you? I mean, she’s mean enough to hang out and torture us for eternity if she can.”

  “If she does, I swear I’ll build one of those backpack things from Ghostbusters and suck her up,” I said.

  “Do you think there’s any possibility she was wearing a g-string and nothing else when they found her?” Lorraine asked longingly and then sat up. “No, wait! Maybe she was wearing a dog collar with spikes, thigh-high stiletto boots, and a ball gag? Oh, God—we have got to get ahold of the crime scene pictures and see for ourselves. Stace, don’t you have a friend in the copshop? Doesn’t he owe you a favor?”

  “Mike isn’t talking to me,” Stacey said, toying with her blonde ringlets. “He’s mad about Luke.”

  “Luke? Your stepbrother?” I asked, not seeing how the pieces fit.

  “Mike thinks Luke has a thing for me. He also thinks I have the secret hots for Luke.”

  “Is he right?” Jennifer asked, wagging her brows.

  Stacey shrugged. “Luke is hot as sin. Can’t argue that. But he’s my stepbrother. And he has sex with just about anything that moves—male or female, often in groups. I know because he tells me,” she said before any of us could ask. “Sometimes he shows me videos. He’s a slut. I am so not going there.”

  “Tell Mike that,” I suggested. The cop was a beautiful specimen with broad shoulders, a lean waist, legs like tree trunks, a square, chiseled face, and an ass made to be grabbed. Unfortunately, he was also a straight arrow and didn’t approve of Stacey’s friends—especially me, Lorraine, and Jen. Somehow he had this idea that Stacey was some sort of innocent angel and we were the devils out to corrupt her. It’s the blonde ringlets and the fact that she’s only five foot two. She looks like a little angel. If only he knew.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “He wouldn’t believe it if I swore on a stack of bibles. And anyhow, what’s the point? He’s not going to let me play ride ’em cowboy unless we get married, and that is never going to happen. Not without brain damage, anyhow.”

  “He’d probably only want to do it missionary in the dark anyway,” Lorraine said, nodding sagely. “And only to make you pregnant. Can you imagine him going down on you?” She shook her head. “At least Luke would keep your engine lubed.”

  “Luckily I don’t have to pick either one of them,” Stacey said loftily.

  “Still, would be nice to get ahold of the crime scene photos,” Jen said. “They didn’t tell you anything about how she died or where or anything?”

  I shook my head. “Just that she was murdered.” I frowned. “You don’t suppose they were lying about that, do you?”

  “Possible, but I doubt it,” Jen said. “Otherwise they harassed a victim’s kid for no good reason. That would be stupid. It would end up smeared all over the papers. Probably will anyway.” She grabbed her phone and started texting. Her sister was a reporter for the local news station.

  A minute later, she got a text back. “Val wants to interview you.” Jen looked at me. “Tomorrow morning? Here?”

  “I have to open the store tomorrow, and I’ve got two sales this weekend. I don’t have time.”

  “Nine a.m. it is,” she said, her fingers flying. “She’ll bring doughnuts. And your quadruple espresso mocha latte.”

  I scowled at her. “What am I going to say? Mom was a bitch, and I’m glad she’s dead? I’d lose all my business. Her friends and clients all shop here.”

  “Don’t worry. Val knows how evil your mom was. She needs a scoop, and interviewing you gets her that. Plus you get a plug f
or the store. You know, grieving daughter carrying bravely on. Val will softball you. If she doesn’t, she knows I’ll kick her ass.”

  I still didn’t like it, but I also wasn’t getting out of it, so there wasn’t any point arguing. I sighed and grabbed another handful of potato chips. “Fine, but you have to do my hair and makeup for it.”

  “And dress you,” Lorraine said. “Otherwise you’ll wear jeans and a torn T-shirt.”

  “Aren’t those in right now?” I asked.

  “Only if you’re flashing back to the eighties. Don’t worry; we’ve got your back. You’ll look totally killer.”

  “Don’t put me in black. I don’t want to look like I’m mourning.”

  “Would we do that?” Lorraine asked. “Trust us.”

  Chapter 3

  The interview went off well. I managed not to giggle every time Val gave me the sad-sympathetic face, and not once did I break into dance, though my toes were tapping. The girls had put me in an indigo sheath that hugged my curves like a horny man’s hands. I wore black heels and pearls, along with a black lace bolero, and I looked amazing, if I do say so myself.

  I’m not pixie cute like Stacey, nor Amazon beautiful like Jen. Lorraine is mother earth gorgeous, and I’m your basic California-style surfer girl, except that I’ve never even seen a surfboard. I’m medium tall, with thick blonde hair that hangs in a long bob to my shoulders. It’s my best asset, if you ask me. I’m on the too-thin side, but my mother’s death will change that. I’m also extremely athletic—mother’s fault again. The woman was a sadist. I still don’t know if it was personal or if she generally liked to torture people. Maybe it was both.

  The girls had spent the night, waking early to shove me into the shower and make me presentable. The back buzzer of the warehouse started going off so much with flower deliveries that I finally turned it off. They could pile the offerings outside if they wanted. I’d be having them carted over to the hospital anyhow. No sense wasting flowers.

  Luckily, Jen, Lorraine, and Stacey kept a supply of clothing at my place, and while Val interviewed me, they ran interference with the other press and everybody else who had descended to offer their condolences. Some of them even seemed genuinely to have liked the bitch, which only goes to show how fake people can be.