Eggs Benedict Arnold (2 page)

Because there were a couple of extra rooms for sprawl
ing, it became readily apparent that a Book Nook might bring in extra business. So cases of books, mostly myster
ies, romances, and children
’
s books, had been ordered and neatly arranged on shelves. Petra, who was a knitting and
quilting freak, decreed there was also room for a Knitting
Nest in an adjacent room. Colorful skeins of yam and hun
dreds of knitting needles were carefully displayed, along
with towering stacks of quilt squares. And once rump-
sprung armchairs were liberated from attics, draped with
woolly afghans, and arranged in a cozy semicircle, custom
ers felt more than welcome to sit and stay awhile.

In a relatively short time, a few months to be exact, the
C
ackleberry Club had emerged as the crazy quilt apex for food, books, knitting, quilting, and good old-fashioned female bonding that drew fans not just from Kindred but from all over the tri-county area.

Petra nudged Suzanne with an elbow.
“
Look. Mayor Mobley
’
s squeezed in a little campaigning.
”

Suzanne gazed past the face-painting booth and the funnel-cake wagon to watch their pudgy mayor swagger
along, glad-handing folks and slapping oversized campaign
buttons into their palms.
“
What a slimeball,
”
she muttered to herself. Though Kindred was a picture-postcard little town with historic brick buildings and well-kept homes
skirted by towering bluffs and remnants of a hardwood for
est, their mayor, as top elected official, left something to be desired. Suzanne always had the niggling feeling that Mayor Mobley was just this side of legitimate. And that various permits, licenses, and easements could be more easily obtained by greasing his sticky palms.

“
Ozzie never came back for his pie,
”
observed Petra, looking at the paltry few that had been reserved. Ozzie Driesden was the local funeral director as well as a civic booster. Of course, what funeral director wasn
’
t a civic
booster? They all wanted to win friends and influence peo
ple for that final trip to the great beyond.

“
Hmm?
”
murmured Suzanne, still keeping a watchful eye on the swaggering Mayor Mobley.

“
Ozzie bought a cherry pie earlier, but hasn
’
t been back to pick it up.
”

‘
Tell you what,
”
said Suzanne, frantic to ditch out.
“
I
’
ll
run the pie over to Ozzie, and you pull out your squishy black magic marker and slash prices on all this stuff. Hopefully, it
’
ll magically fly off the table so we can boogie on out of here.
”

“
Deal,
”
said Petra, as Suzanne snatched up Ozzie
’
s pie.

“
But I think I
’
m going to slip a few ginger-spice cupcakes to that poor fellow sitting by the picnic tables. He looks like he hasn
’
t had anything to eat in a week.
”

“
Better taste them first,
”
warned Suzanne.
“
You wouldn
’
t
want to kill him.
”

Delighted
to be done with the bake sale, Suzanne set off down Front Street, finally able to relax and enjoy the
afternoon. What little was left of it, anyway.

An orange September sun hung low in the sky, but the
faint rays were still warm and relaxing on her back. A lin
gering lazy-day feeling before the crispness of autumn took hold.

In fact, Suzanne was casting admiring glances at fire maples and daydreaming about riding her horse across a
sunny hillside of blazing sumac when she pushed open the
front door of the Driesden and Draper Funeral Home.

That
’
s when the day
’
s warmth and Suzanne
’
s good humor suddenly came to a crashing halt.

The mingled aromas of overripe flowers, chill air, and...
what else?... chemicals?... jarred her mind and assaulted her sensibilities.

Suzanne wrinkled her nose and set her jaw firmly. Well,
of course it
’
s going to smell funny, she told herself, taking
a few tentative steps into the entryway. It
’
s a funeral home.
There
’
s always going to be ... chemicals.

She shook her head as a shiver oozed its way down her
spine. When Walter had
died
, they
’
d held his visitation right here, in this very place.

Squaring her shoulders, Suzanne crossed the whisper-
soft celadon green carpet and called
out;
“
Ozzie?
”
in what
she hoped was a confident and slightly authoritative voice.

She waited a few moments, keeping company with a
grandfather clock, a wooden podium reserved for guest
books, and a small brocade fainting couch that had a small
table with a box of Kleenex snugged up next to it. Sighing,
Suzanne decided it was time to be a little more proactive.

Gripping the pie tighter, Suzanne struck off to her left
and peered through the open doorway into
th
e smaller
of the two chapels. The room was tastefully furnished in
shades of dove gray and mauve. And it was empty, except for a nondescript sofa and a semicircle of black metal fold
ing chairs that looked like a cluster of skinny crows.

“
Ozzie?
”
Suzanne called out again.
“
I brought your
pie.
”
But
th
ere was no answer, save
the
ticking of
th
e staid
grandfather clock.

Suzanne re-crossed the entry hall. Maybe Ozzie was
scurrying about in the other chapel. She touched finger
tips to an ornate brass pull and slid open a heavy wooden
pocket door. As she glanced in expectantly, a bronze coffin
met her eyes. Lid propped up, resting on a wooden bier,
th
e
coffin was flanked by two pots of
slightly
drooping irises.

Oops, this room is
ocupado.

Suzanne caught a quick glimpse of cream-colored satin
brocade as well as the coffin
’
s occupant lying in still repose. Letting out a quick breath, she quickly turned her
gaze to a brass candle holder that held six white tapers. And
couldn
’
t shut the door fast enough.

Shifting uncomfortably, a little unnerved, Suzanne
stared at the double doors that led to the back of the funeral
home. The room where Ozzie did his sad business.

“
Hey . . . Ozzie?
”
she called out again, drumming her
fingers nervously on the underside of the tin pie plate.

No answer. Nada. And the insistent ticking of the grand
father clock was beginning to seriously grate on Suzanne
’
s
n
erves. Glancing at the offending antique clock, she suddenly recalled fragments of a long-ago childhood story,
whispered at night around a flickering campfire. Something
about a grandfather clock that stopped dead the exact mo
ment its creaky old owner drew his final, rattly breath.

“
Silly,
”
Suzanne murmured to herself. She wasn
’
t a big believer in legends or signs or portents. Suzanne was a
woman who believed in living fully and wholly in the pres
ent and not fretting unduly about what might be coming down the road. That didn
’
t mean Suzanne hadn
’
t noodled a five-year plan or even a ten-year plan, because she had.
But that was for business. Mostly, in her personal life, she just tried to keep things on an even keel and obsess as little
as possible. She found this approach helpful in retaining
positive mental energy. It wasn
’
t a bad way to keep crow
’
s
feet and wrinkles at bay, either.

Shifting the pie to her left hand, Suzanne smoo
thed
the
front of her blouse, then placed her palm flat against one
of the double doors. They were swinging doors, of course,
similar in design to the service doors restaurants installed between dining room and kitchen. Except, in this case, there was no eye-level window to peek through. Because who in their right mind wanted to see into the back of a funeral home, anyway?

Suzanne pushed lightly, felt the door move inward.

So not locked, she told herself. Which meant Ozzie was
probably puttering around in back. And since there was a body out here, there probably wouldn
’
t be one in back. At
least she hoped there wasn
’
t. Suzanne couldn
’
t recall any recent obituaries in the
Bugle.
Could only think of the one last Thursday for Julius Carr.

And she
’
d just encountered
him.

So... okay.

But as
the
door continued to swing inward, it clanked hard, hitting a rolling metal cart. Suzanne did a double take. The cart lay wheels up, half blocking the door. To
either side of her, stacks of blue and white pharmaceutical
boxes, no longer lined up nice and neat on their grid of shiny metal shelving, were tumbled haphazardly on gray linoleum. Suzanne could read the labels on the upended boxes
—Hizone, Lynch, ESCO.

What just happened here?
she wondered.

And suddenly heard a faint clink.

What was that? The snick of a metal door, the click of an
instrument being set down?

Sure it was. So Ozzie was back here. Probably.

“
Ozzie,
”
Suzanne called, rounding a corner.
“
What the heck hap ...
”

Suzanne stopped dead in her tracks, her words segueing to a sputter, then a
dying gasp. Her mouth opened re
flexively, snapped shut,
the
n opened again. But no sound issued forth.

Because Ozzie was back here, all right. Splayed out on
an enormous metal table like some sort of medical experi
ment gone horribly wrong.

Suzanne
’
s eyelids fluttered uncontrollably as she took
in
the
ghastly scene. Plastic hoses kinked around Ozzie, his
right arm stuck rigidly out to one side. And
there
, sticking
into that arm, his very white, waxy arm, was a large needle
attached to a length of tubing.

Suicide?
The word exploded in Suzanne
’
s brain like a thousand points of light.
Oh no, not Ozzie Driesden. He wouldn
’
t do that, would he?

Suzanne
’
s stomach lurched unsteadily and the beginnings of bitter, hot bile rose in
the
back of her
throat
.

Struggling to force her mind to work, to reboot her
brain
’
s frozen hard drive, she thought to herself,
Got to get
help.