Cowabunga Dead: Grandfather Mummy Series #3

By J.A. Sprouls

Jo, Ava, and Hank Skinner don't take too kindly to someone murdering a popular
television reality star and dumping the body into the moat of the Clankerton Medieval Museum. To top things off, because of the murder, the town mayor shuts down Hank's money making endeavor. This simply won't do. The sooner they find the murderer the sooner Hank can get back to hauling in the dough.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.A. Sprouls
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301912131

J.A. Sprouls

J.A. Sprouls lives in the beautiful and rather flat Plains of West Texas. As a former antique dealer whose business tanked along with the rest of the country's economy, she had to go out and get a real job. Writing, for her, has become a way to wind down after a long day and escape reality for just a short while. 'My Grandfather Is One Heck Of A Mummy' is the first in what will hopefully be a successful cozy mystery series. The second novel in the series, 'Mace Of Spades,' with 'Cowabunga Dead' as the third in the series. Another series that she has written is the Cryptozoology Series with two current books: 'Kamikaze Pigs' and 'Don Coyote.' She has even tried writing a youth novel series titled: 'Abigail Dumpling Adventures.' She has also written two non-series books: 'A Vision Touch' and 'Death Drives a Chevy.' She is currently working on her next novel and should soon be finished. She enjoys writing cozy mysteries with a humorous touch and hopes her readers enjoy reading them as much as she has enjoyed writing them.

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Cowabunga Dead

By J.A. Sprouls

Published by J.A. Sprouls at Smashwords

Copyright J.A. Sprouls 2012

Cover Design Copyright J.A. Sprouls 2012

Discover other titles by J.A. Sprouls at Smashwords.com:

My Grandfather Is One Heck Of A Mummy

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22897

Mace Of Spades

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43569

Kamikaze Pigs

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/97712

An Accidental Pirate: The Adventures of Captain Pigtail McQueue

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/154993

A Vision Touch

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/264127

Connect with Me Online:

Smashwords.com:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jasprouls

My blog:

http://jasprouls.blogspot.com/

Smashwords Edition, License notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Dedicated to my Mother and Sister

For always being there!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

About the Author

~~~~~~

Chapter 1

I sat there a bit bummed about the way things had turned out. Edna Clankerton had been semi-murdered by her long lost brother and she left everything to me and my mother. Semi-murdered because he was basically trying to give her a heart attack but instead caused her to fall and impale herself on one of her father's antique maces. So he did succeed in killing her, just not exactly the way he had figured on doing it. I know there could be worse things than inheriting a neat castle shaped house, a fair amount of money and that's not to mention her vast collections. Mother and I had made the decision to turn her estate into a museum and to basically get out of the bed and breakfast business. There was just too much stress involved in regards to dealing with the public and all the necessary codes and whatnot, so we allowed Bulah Jerkins to become the manager of the bed and breakfast. I figured she could deal with all the headaches. It was certainly better than dealing with them myself. And since Bulah was the town gossip that meant she could get some great gossip on our visitors first hand. It would also mean she wouldn't have as much time to get dirt on any of the locals, namely me, mother or my grandfather. I saw it as a win-win situation. We get the profits from our bed and breakfast without the headaches and we save the town's people from the biggest snoop around. What's not to like about that.

And to top it off, a museum was just up my alley. I had earned my Masters of Arts in Museum Science and had always hoped to someday use it, but there were very few museums in West Texas. Oh, there were plenty of local museums in the small towns around my home town of Drought, Texas, but they were already staffed, primarily with volunteers. Volunteering wasn't exactly my cup of tea. If I'm gonna be working then I would really like to get paid for it, in cash, and not with that 'warm fuzzy feeling of helping' that volunteers are always going on about. So now I had a museum. I could charge admission and do something I liked and get paid; yet another win-win situation.

But I sat there bummed because Edna Clankerton had taken care of everything. Her father's collection of any and everything to do with medieval knights was all inventoried, properly documented, displayed, and so there was basically nothing left for me to do but to familiarize myself with the collection and its history and open the museum. Now where the heck was the fun in that? The only work I'm able to do myself is to set up a gift shop and decide what areas are to be private and what would be for public use.

Edna had even stored the parts of her father's collection she didn't have the room to display in all the proper acid free containers and had a storage area that was properly ventilated and temperature and humidity controlled. And that portion of the collection was catalogued and inventoried. Yet again, piddle.

Okay, I should be happy that I didn't have the drudgery and stress of trying to get everything photographed, documented and inventoried. I realize that. But couldn't she have even given me something more 'hands on' to do? Personally, I could imagine Edna looking down from heaven, or what was more likely, looking up from, well, you know where, and laughing. She was as much of a control freak as me and here she took away any control I might have had in her museum. No big surprise. I guess that was her revenge on me. She seemed to think our bed and breakfast and its guests were created by me to irritate her. She even made daily visits to gripe me out for our guests invading her borders. I guess I should point out that Edna was the most superstitious person on earth and she felt that anyone who crossed her borders would break the 'sacred plane' and allow hell hounds onto her property and after her. So now she's taken away any fun I might have had in creating a museum from her property. She even knew that was what Mother and I would do with her property. It's like she's this puppet master from hades controlling us. And that ticks me off no end!

I should be thankful though, at least she didn't end up like Drought's last murder victim, my granddad, though he too was semi-murdered but in a different way. His wife, my grandmother, May Skinner, bonked him on the head with a cast iron skillet when she caught him in bed with Clash Boombah and then stuffed his body in the attic along with Clash's. Only the dead corpse part of a murder didn't take, in regard to granddad. He was simply mummified and is now a walking, talking mummy who was more of a handful than a toddler in his terrible twos. Now if Edna had ended up a mummy and was still walking around, then I would see if what the Egyptian archeologists of old said about historically insignificant mummies was true; they make great kindling wood. They couldn't arrest me because she would have basically already been murdered by her brother and so they couldn't convict me. My defense would also be I was simply attempting to show her what to expect in her afterlife. But thankfully that's not the case, though I did enjoy the visual I had conjured in my mind.

I sighed to myself and tried to stop thinking about the past and look to the future. I started to look for that catalog of merchandise so that I could stock the gift shop with cute kitschy things that would appeal to the type of person who would visit a museum like this one.

Edna's father, Abner Clankerton was obsessed with medieval knights. This was because while tracing his genealogy he discovered he had a Knight in his family. No, it wasn't a true blue, honest to goodness, dragon fighting knight but simply someone whose surname was Knight. But Abner was never the fullest cob of corn, if you get my drift. So he built a house in the shape of a castle with a moat, though the moat is never filled because, well, it's located in Drought, Texas. We got the name for a reason. He also spent just about every dollar he could on buying authentic medieval weapons, armor, and anything else related to the subject. My favorite room in the castle was the toy room where he had the entire room filled with antique toy knights and soldiers. He had battle scenes depicted and all sorts of really neat displays. It wasn't until I found his personal diary about the collection that I found out why he had collected toy soldiers too, because they were the modern day equivalent of knights.

His weapons room was probably my least favorite but that was because after her brother was sentenced they had returned the mace that Edna had accidently impaled herself on. It was too gruesome to display as far as I was concerned, but Granddad said if I didn't show it then I would lose money because people are gonna want to see it. My mother, Ava, agreed and so it's in a separate display case with all the information about the piece and its history documented for the truly gruesome museum goer.

The money to create this museum, add to the collection, and catalog and store everything in such an exclusive and expensive manner was available due to the fact that Edna was blackmailing a good many citizens of Drought. She was also, on occasion, a member of the paparazzi. (Those dreaded photographers who take photos of the rich and famous and then sell the photos to the tabloids.) I know that Edna wasn't too thrilled about people knowing what she did for a living, so just to show her, I had one room dedicated to her photos and her camera equipment. HA! That would show her who was really in control here.

I will admit that there was probably no other museum on the planet that had the pieces we had. We did have a couple of experts come in to authenticate everything in order to know just how to properly label the items. We couldn't say it was real if it wasn't, so I wanted to make sure of everything. Luckily, Edna had a Swiss bank account that no one else knew of, at least until we inherited her estate and went through her things. She was loaded to the gills. So we could afford to fly in the experts and pay them well for their efforts. I can honestly say I was baffled by the true worth and extent of the collection. Abner may have been a nutter but he was one smart collector. The experts began drooling from the moment they saw the first display and it only got worse the deeper they delved into the collection. I got tired of following them around with a mop and bucket. Granddad was convinced that if the collection affected them in this way, then an eye needed to be kept on them to make sure they didn't try to take anything. So he took it upon himself to be the security guard of the possessions. He caught one expert trying to slip one of the antique toy knights into his backpack. So that expert was quickly shipped home sans the toy knight and replaced with another one. By the end of the appraisal we found out that we were sitting on about six hundred million dollars' worth of items. We got a security system installed the next day. After all, Granddad couldn't play the security guard all the time and he also couldn't watch everyone all the time. He was a mummy, not a ghost.

Mother and I had decided that the upstairs would be the offices and where the security TV's were located. We were even going to have interviews with candidates for security guard positions. Since most of the displays were covered in glass I wasn't too concerned about anyone trying to steal anything. I mean the expert had to remove the glass in order to see the collection up close. That was the only reason he managed to try and snag one of toy knights. Granddad was taking it upon himself to interview the possible candidates with Mother in attendance, just in case. I really don't know what she had to worry about. Granddad had his own method of doing things and they turned out to be very effective. He would threaten them about stealing on the job or slacking and not doing their job by pointing out that he was murdered and so he could and would haunt any one of them that tried to do any such thing.

Overall I was very happy. I was away from the bed and breakfast and now could use my degree doing something I really liked. It was very much like when Mother and I had the antique store. Unfortunately, when the economy tanked so did our store. But I had been surrounded by really neat, inventive, historical and attractive antiques. You know, back when people took pride in what they were making and used the best materials, which is why they lasted so daggum long. Nowadays, most things are primarily made of plastic and done so in the quickest and cheapest manner available. So now I was back in my element with the historic antiques in the collection and enjoying it despite Edna's having everything pretty much already taken care of. I hoped the fact that I was happy, in and of itself, would tick Edna off no end while she resided in the netherworld. So I tried to hide the fact that I was also bummed.

~~~~~

Chapter 2

I was thumbing through the catalog and was trying to decide if an actual hangman doll, which involved connecting different body parts until the loser ended up with a complete doll hanging from the gallows, was right for the museum. There was also a board game, 'The Holy Grail.' It had to do with a knight and his search for the Holy Grail. He would encounter dragons and save distressed damsels. There were all sorts of neat pewter game pieces and it just looked fun. I thought I might order a few of those, who knows they might sell well; when Granddad came shuffling in with a big grin on his face.

Hey, howdy, Jo, how's it going? He didn't wait for a response. I've been thinking.

Piddle, that's never a good thing.

I think we should have some amusement rides with the museum. That way the kids will actually want to come with their folks to a museum. I even know what type of rides we can put up. First off we have the Charging Knight rollercoaster, with scenes of battle depicted along the route of the tracks. Then we get the Tunnel of Treasure. It would be a dark, gloomy, scary place like in that movie, Indiana Jones, and they have to get through booby traps to make it to the gold. Of course, they wouldn't actually be dealing with the traps but what with virtual reality and 3-d technology we could make it seem like they were really there. Now how cool would that be?

I sighed and said, It would be really cool, but even if we used the money that Edna left us we still wouldn't have enough to pay for those things. Not to mention the insurance we would need. Roller coasters can be a big drain on the cost of insurance. Besides, I think the displays and items in the collection are cool enough for kids to want to come with their folks.

Granddad snorted and added, Jo, you have got to be the most naïve person in the world. Now maybe if you had gotten married and had a passel of young'uns then you might fully understand that no kid wants to go somewhere educational for vacation. They want fun. They want a vacation they aren't ashamed to tell their friends about. And let's face it, telling them they went to a castle museum ain't gonna cut it.

I tell you what, I'll ask Mother what she thinks about your idea and get her take on it, okay?

Fine and dandy by me, Ava has one good head on her shoulders. Though if she had two we could sell tickets to folks who would want to see such an oddity. Now that brings into play one of my other ideas - a life size sculpture of Ketzial. He paused waiting for the magnitude of the idea to fully hit me and then he said, Now I know a lot of folks don't believe in him but I do and think a lot of other people do to. So we could have a portion of the museum dedicated to him. You know use those pictures people have managed to capture of him and then have the actual people telling their stories of their encounters with the giant horny toad on video. Yep, that will draw them in. And in case you've forgotten, that giant fiberglass sculpture of him drew in a lot of money, before that tornado blew him away. So that proves that money can be made by having one. I think we should replace the one that 'went with the wind' and it should be a big seller for us.

If a tornado can blow away that sculpture then it could blow away ours too, though obviously you aren't planning to make it as big, from the sound of it. And as far as those so called photos go, they are all blurry or out of focus. They don't prove anything. And having videos of actual witnesses, I think we would have to put at the bottom of the screen their blood alcohol content when this sighting actually occurred. That is if we wanted to truly give the public the facts. I was amazed at the depths of Granddad's imagination.

Now, Jo, don't go raining on the parade before it has ever even started. Jeesh, you're starting to sound like May, and that ain't a good thing.

Oh, really, why not? She always seemed to be a very smart person, I countered.

In case you have forgotten, she tried to do me in. And since I'm still alive and she ain't, then that proves I'm the smarter of the two.

Longevity doesn't prove a person's intelligence level, it just proves you got lucky when you were mummified, oops, sorry, fummified, and that you have better genes than she did, nothing more. I keep forgetting that Granddad doesn't like to be called a mummy, because it has feminine connotations. So since the word 'father' begins with 'F' he thinks he should be called a 'fummy' instead of a mummy, even though doctors have ruled that he is in fact a mummified albeit living person. The same doctors can't explain how he is still alive, though. So who knows just what Granddad really is? All I know is he is a hand full and as much as I dislike admitting it, he's certainly made mine and Mother's life much more interesting.

I'll go get Ava and we can ask her about my ideas. After all, this is a money-making venture so we need any and everything we can get to pull the people in. He said this as he shuffled off