(2012) Colder Than Death (7 page)

I didn't so much pray as reflect on the loss: he of his life, me of my father, my mother of her husband, us of our family. Despite the fact that he'd been gone nearly twenty years, it still seemed like I'd only seen him yesterday. He was young, 36, and even though he would now be 56 I couldn't picture him at that age. He would be eternally 36 in my mind.

“Why is your name on that gravestone?” said Quilla much too loudly for a cemetery. I turned. She was standing next to me, looking down at my father's grave.

“It's my father,” I said.

“If you have a kid are you gonna name him Dillard Coltrane the fourth?”

“I don't plan on having kids.”

“Why not? You'd be a good father.”

“How do you know?” I said, a little surprised and touched at her observation.

“I have good instincts. And I've had two so-called fathers. One's a world-class loser, the other's a world class bastard. I have friends who mostly have idiots for fathers. But you're like the dads of the two or three kids I know with fathers who behave like fathers should.” She bent down and touched my father's headstone. “This is nice here. Would you mind if my Aunt was buried near your father?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” She pointed to an empty swatch of grass three plots over. “Doesn't look like anyone's buried there.” I glanced at where she was gesturing. There was an expanse of land allotted for ten plots. “Then this is the place.” She smiled. She seemed happy and pleased with herself.

“All I have to do is check back in the office to see if the specific plot is unclaimed and it's yours.”

As we headed back to the hearse, I said, “You're the youngest person I've known to pick out a grave site. Most kids your age couldn't handle it.”

“I'm not like most kids my age,” she said, defiantly.

“Quite frankly, most adults can't handle it. You're a pretty special kid.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “I'm glad somebody thinks so.” There was an almost frightening sarcasm in her tone.

When we got back to the hearse I started to open the door for her, but she stopped me saying, “I hate gentlemen.” She opened the door and jumped in.

I walked around to my side and slid in.

“I want to see where my Aunt's body was found.”

I looked at her hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically.

******

It took about two minutes to drive to the mausoleum. We didn't talk. I glanced over at her once. She was shaking. I think I heard her teeth chattering. I brought the hearse to a stop directly in front of the sign indicating that we had come to Section 12. We got out and walked side by side, but as we got closer to the mausoleum where Brandy Parker's body was found, Quilla slowed her pace and walked behind me.

The mausoleum had been re-sealed, but the yellow police crime scene ribbons still cordoned off the area. Within seconds we were standing three feet in front of the entrance. Quilla looked at the gloomy, marble structure that stood roughly eight feet high and ten feet deep.

“Looks like a cement beach cabana,” she smirked, then ducked under the police ribbon and stepped slowly to the door. It was as if she were approaching her Aunt's body in a coffin. She walked around the mausoleum, studying it closely, as if she were looking for something.

She placed her right hand, palm up, onto the door and lowered her head as if in some silent prayer or reverie and remained in that pose for about thirty seconds. I heard the sniffle again, but this time she didn't try to hide it. She pulled back her hand and looked at me.

“How did the guy who killed my Aunt get
into
this thing? It looks totally break-in-proof.”

“Some of the old ones have loose stones. Remove one or two and it's easy to slip inside. My guess is that whoever did made sure nobody else could get in unless they broke in through the door like the guys who stumbled onto her body.”

“What a horrible way to die,” said Quilla, then without warning she ran straight back to the hearse, almost tripping over an in-the-ground headstone. As I walked back I watched her yank open the door and climb inside. She put her hands to her face to hide the tears.

I could hear the sobbing twenty yards away. I stayed back, pretending not to hear her. She struck me as someone who would be embarrassed to be seen crying so vehemently. To give her privacy I stood behind a four-foot high headstone with sheaves of wheat carved into it, symbolizing that the deceased had lived to a ripe old age.

As I listened to Quilla cry I remembered my conversation with Perry, specifically, how I had told him that the killer had to know something about cemeteries, especially
this
cemetery. I wondered if he had acted on that. But I also wondered if I was right. Maybe the killer came up with the idea of hiding the body in a mausoleum in a remote part of an old cemetery from watching a horror movie. Or maybe it was just a good guess or a dumb luck decision that worked for the past nine years.

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt in my gut that my initial assumption had to be right. A cemetery buff had killed Brandy Parker. Either that or someone who knew a cemetery buff and had picked up enough knowledge from being around him. Or her. Choosing this mausoleum in this part of the cemetery was no good guess, no random selection. It was a clever, calculated decision.

As Vaughn always said when he was convinced of something, I felt it in my bones.

Chapter 9

I gave Quilla about five minutes alone to work through her tears before I made my way back to the hearse. I slid in and said, “You okay?” and she muttered a soft, choked up “Yeah,” that told me she wasn't.

I turned the key in the ignition and drove back to Mel's office. Again, I left Quilla in the car while I ran inside and had Mel work up the paperwork for the purchase, opening and closing of Brandy Parker's grave. Within five minutes I was back in the hearse and Quilla and I were heading to Dankworth. I decided that she probably needed silence and that there would be no conversation unless she started it.

She didn't say a word for about five minutes. All she did was fiddle with the knob on the glove compartment. I concentrated on driving, then suddenly, Quilla asked me a question that caught me totally off guard. “Do you know any private detectives?”

I hesitated for a moment. “No. Why?”

“I want to hire one to find the guy who killed my Aunt.”

“I changed my mind. Understand something...
nobody
cares who killed my Aunt except me. My mother could care less. When the call came about finding the body her only reaction was that it couldn't have come at a worse time. Know why? She and her husband were going on vacation this week.”

I was curious that she didn't refer to Suzanne's husband as her father. “You mean your father?”

“My father lives in California. He's a jerk. I hate him. Alan is my stepfather. He's only half-a-jerk and I hate him too. I can't wait for them to leave. I'll be alone for fourteen days and have some peace and quiet.” She bit her lower lip. “My mother didn't even cry. And when Cobb called her she didn't even ask him about what he's gonna do to find out who did it. That's why I'll be the only one who does anything about finding out who killed my aunt.”

“What will you do?” I was fascinated by her tenacity and not for one second did I find her passion false.

“I haven't figured that out yet.”

“Look. I have a professional relationship with Perry. I can find out if he's doing anything.”

“I can find out too,” she almost barked. “I have a relationship with Greg.”

“Greg's not somebody Perry would tell crucial facts to.”

“And like he'd tell things to
you
--a mortician?” she snapped.

“Perry and I go way back. I'll set up a meeting between you two. You can tell him everything you know about your aunt, starting with the fact that you have her things and that she has notebooks.”

“He'll want to read them. I don't like the idea of him knowing her thoughts.”

“You can't think like that. Whatever piece of her that you possess, no matter how personal and intimate, if it'll provide a clue to her killer, you have to turn it over.”

She paused for a few more seconds. “Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, it's almost like you really give a damn.” She arched her eyebrows. “Or is this all part of the Funeral Director act?”

“You're not the typical grieving person I deal with.”

“There's something more going on, isn't there? You don't come off like some perv child molester who's acting like you feel sorry for me so you can get in my pants. It's just... your motivation confuses me.”

“I'm touched by your love for your Aunt. It makes me want to help you.”

“But
why
? I keep getting vibes from you that, like, this is somehow personal to you.”

I averted her eyes. Her perception was alarming. At fifteen she had the ability to pinpoint truth or the lack thereof. It made me uncomfortable.

“I understand loss,” I said. “And the importance of closure. I never got it with Alyssa.”

“I know all about closure. I've been waiting for it nine years. I got it yesterday.”

“Not completely. You won't have full closure until you find out who killed your Aunt.”

Quilla was silent for a moment. “Do I have to wear a dress when I come to the Funeral Home tonight? And does it have to be black?”

“Wear what you think your aunt would have worn.”

Quilla shot me a smile. “Cool.”

After dropping Quilla off, my next destination was the Coroner's to pick up Brandy Parker's remains. I didn't tell Quilla where I was going.

From my iPhone I called the Home to let Clint and Nolan know that we had another body coming in. If it hadn't been such a hectic week I would've had Clint come with me to pick up the remains. He only accompanied me, or I him, on removals when the corpse was inordinately heavy and difficult for one person to manage alone.

Nolan took the call. The words weren't even out of my mouth before he asked if it would be a full service.

“No,” I said. “Closed coffin. It's the corpse found in the mausoleum. There's not much.”

I heard Nolan sigh in disappointment. Just like me, he gets restless when he's not busy. Even though he'd been occupied the last few days, he was again at loose ends.

******

Ray, the same pathologist on duty when I dropped off Brandy Parker's remains, was there to release the body. “Tough one,” he said as he wheeled a gurney out of the lab along the corridor to the loading dock.

“How do you mean?”

“Simple blow to the head. Could've been done with anything. What with all the moisture inside that mausoleum, insects doing their thing and the desiccation of the body, especially around the wound, it was impossible to get a handle on the weapon or anything else. About the only thing that could be established is that she probably died fast. Perry's gonna have his hands full.”

Ray's comment haunted me for the entire drive back to the Home. I wanted Perry to solve this case, if for no other reason than Quilla's peace of mind.

It was my nature not to get even remotely involved in situations where the stakes were high. It was part apathy, part not wanting to be bothered and partly being petrified of getting too close to people. I was very good at watching life go by. If it didn't touch me in any way I was thankful. Let it ram into everyone else. Had it been anyone other than Quilla, I would've steered far and wide from this mess, but there was something about her that sucked me into it with a ferocity that scared the hell out of me.

I beeped the horn as I pulled up to the rear entrance of the Home. Within thirty seconds Nolan appeared, a warm smile on his pink face. He was wearing a T-shirt--black with the following words in Gothic lettering:

Take An Embalmer To Lunch

Nolan enjoyed going to industry conventions to learn of new advances and exchange embalming tricks. Three or four times a year he would take off for two or three days. A couple of years back he'd gone to a Seminar in Chicago on the latest tricks on restoring mangled bodies and come back with four T-shirts. One for me, Lew, Clint and himself. He'd done it as a gag, but one morning I saw him walking along Dankworth's main business district wearing it.

I'd given him permission to wear the T-shirt only at the Home and only when the public wasn't around. Most people are fairly ignorant about what goes on behind the closed doors of a Funeral Home. Embalmers engender mystery. Many people are aware of their existence and that he, or she, does something to the bodies once they've been brought to the Funeral Home, but they're not sure what.

Other than friends and families, a good-sized number of embalmers go through life without revealing the truth of how they earn a living. I'd say with great certainty that most people in Dankworth under forty who pass Nolan on the street, sit near him in church or stand behind him in line at the supermarket don't know that he embalmed the bulk of the bodies buried from Henderson's Funeral Home for the last thirty-plus years.

If they did, it might be extremely unsettling. Not because of any monstrous physical appearance. Nolan was actually quite nice-looking or could have been if he stopped wearing his hair long like an aging rock star. Plus he had a goofy-looking goatee that gave him an almost satanic aura. Not like the classical interpretation of the devil, but more like a cartoon caricature.

******

Nolan was cranky because his trocar wasn't working properly. The trocar, one of the most important tools for an embalmer, is a long, hollow needle attached to a tube that comes into play near the conclusion of the embalming process. What most people don’t know is that embalming consists simply of draining blood from the veins and replacing it with fluid pumped in through the arteries. Between three to six gallons of a dyed and perfumed solution of formaldehyde, glycerin, borax, phenol, alcohol and water is injected into the body, primarily for disinfecting and preservative purposes.

The next step involves the trocar, which is jabbed into the abdomen and poked around the entrails and chest cavity, the contents of which are pumped out and replaced with cavity fluid. Once this is done, the hole in the stomach made by the trocar is sewn up, the body's face is heavily creamed to protect the skin from burns which may be caused by leakage of the chemicals and the corpse is ready for restoration.