Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard (16 page)

Not that the Middletons sent me in there very often. Most families select a casket from photographs Otis and Odell show them during the planning session. We kept the most popular choices in stock and Otis or Odell would bring what we needed from the warehouse. Occasionally, we “borrowed” something from a nearby funeral home. Of course, we didn’t return that exact coffin. We’d order a replacement to return to the lender. Most of the time, I didn’t see a casket until it showed up in my workroom waiting for the decedent I was working on.

The first time I went into the warehouse, I expected it to be set up like the display room had been upstairs with caskets open so customers could see the beautiful interiors. Not so in the warehouse. The caskets were closed and then covered with what Otis called “dust covers,” but they were really packing blankets. I knew because I’m the one who wrote the check to pay for them.

Enough backstory about that big building jammed plum full of closed caskets draped with blue blankets. The next morning, after I dropped Tyrone off at school, Odell met me at the employee entrance. “Doofus (Odelleze for his brother) agreed to let Mr. Haeden from Haeden’s Funeral Home in Beaufort get a Gates model 111399 Exquisite from us.

“They’ll be sending a funeral coach (Funeraleze for hearse and Otis and Odell’s preferred word) sometime this morning, but Otis and I are going to see our lawyer because that damn fool at the hot-air balloon place is suing us. They think the man who hit their pilot works for us. I don’t even know who he is.”

“I know his name.”

“Good!” He pulled a scratch pad from his pocket and handed it to me with a ballpoint pen. “Write his name down but don’t tell me what it is.” I wrote “Arthur Richards” on the paper. He folded the pad closed without looking at it and shoved it into his inside suit coat pocket. “I want to be able to honestly say I don’t know that man’s name, but if this gets too deep, I’ll sic the lawyers on the idiot who did the hitting.” He scowled, but I knew it wasn’t
at
me—it was
for
me, to show me his displeasure at having to deal with the situation.

“When someone comes from Haeden’s in Beaufort, let them in and make sure they pick up the right model. I put a tag on it last night. Doofus and I should be back before too long, but you know how lawyers are. This might take some time.”

Sure enough, the Middletons hadn’t been gone ten minutes before “The Old Rugged Cross” announced someone in the front hall.

Mr. Nathaniel Haeden himself had come to get the casket. I’d seen him before, and he was one of those men that women don’t get tired of seeing—broad shouldered, slim hipped and a constant smile. The only thing wrong with Mr. Haeden was his left hand. He wore a wide gold band on his ring finger. I shouldn’t say “only” thing. He had an annoying habit of saying “You know?” after almost every statement.

“Morning, Miss Parrish. Good to see you, you know. May I see Otis or Odell?”

“They had to go out on business, but I’m authorized to release the Gates Exquisite to you.”

“Fine. Where should I take the hearse? Will we be loading it from the rear dock like the last time?”

“No, sir. We have a new warehouse in back. Pull around and you’ll see it. We’ll bring it out through the garage doors.”

“I’ll do that.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Otis and Odell didn’t happen to go to Beaufort for a pick-up, did they?”

“No, sir. It’s a business matter, not a pick-up.”

“I really shouldn’t have even asked that, you know, but I saw in the paper that Nila Gorman used Middleton’s for her sister Nina’s services. You know, they actually lived in Beaufort, and I’d assumed we’d be who they called, you know. If we’re doing something at Haeden’s that’s driving our customers to Middleton’s, we want to correct it, you know.”

Memory of Miss Nila telling me she’d come to Middleton’s because she liked the way I did makeup filled me with pride. If my dress had buttoned up the front, I could have burst those buttons loose even without my wonderful bra, which I’d fully inflated this morning before heading out of the house. I really wanted to tell Mr. Haeden what Miss Nila had said, but I had enough sense not to brag on myself to Middleton’s competition.

I detoured by my office for the garage door clicker, and then went out through the employee door while Mr. Haeden backed his funeral coach up to the wide automatic doors of the warehouse. He opened the back of the vehicle and pulled out the church truck, which isn’t a vehicle. It’s a portable stand that’s used to transfer caskets to and from funeral coaches.

“Be careful walking,” Mr. Haeden said. “The ground’s still muddy from last night’s rain, you know.”

Seeing no need to enter the building through the office door, I stood between Mr. Haeden and the church truck, pointed the remote control, and pressed “open.”

Shih tzu!
I gasped in astonishment while Mr. Haeden spouted profanity that wasn’t anywhere near kindergarten cussing. Matter of fact, it was post-graduate level profanity. The warehouse was a mess! The blue blankets that had covered each casket lay crumpled on the floor beside them. Lids stood open. Bright red paint defaced almost every one of the coffins—ruining even those with only a small spatter. Who wants to bury a loved one in a vandalized casket?

Three men stood inside the warehouse. I can’t say that they looked like deer caught in headlights because I couldn’t see their eyes very well with the ski masks covering their faces. Frozen in shock, we all just stood there—three people dressed in black with their faces covered and their gloved hands holding spray cans of paint. Mr. Haeden and I also wore black, but he had on a suit and I had on my Middleton’s uniform—black dress and low heels.

A few minutes, or perhaps only a few seconds, we stood facing each other in disbelief. Suddenly, one of the masked three screamed, “Run!”

Just my luck—I stood between the door and the open space of the outdoors because the funeral coach blocked most of the way.

Whap!
A runner knocked me over. I fell onto the open door of Haeden’s hearse and then down to the ground. Mr. Haeden started to lift me to a standing position but stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and punched 911.

“Send an ambulance to Middleton’s Mortuary,” he shouted into the telephone.

“I don’t need an ambulance,” I protested. “Just help me up.”

“No, you’re bleeding, you know. Something could be broken, you know.”

I managed to pull myself up by holding onto the hearse. I looked down. Blood saturated the front of my dress and had smeared onto the funeral coach. I wiped my face and said, “It’s okay, Mr. Haeden. Just a bloody nose.”

Too late. I could already hear the sirens screaming their way to us. Ambulance, fire truck, sheriff’s deputy—they all arrived at the same time.

Mr. Haeden insisted on telling the paramedics that I needed to go to the ER. “She hit the corner of the back door of the hearse really hard, you know. She could have a broken bone or internal injuries, you know. I’d really like to have her checked out because technically she was injured by my hearse, you know.”

Whoooosh.
The sound was slow and drawn-out, kind of like the noise a balloon makes, not when it pops, but when it’s leaking.
What’s that?
I thought, and then I realized what it was.

My boob had sprung a leak. Well, not really one of The Girls. It was the bra.

I looked down and saw that I was lop-sided. The left side of my chest appeared round and firm and fully packed, but the right side was rapidly going flat. I felt like wrapping my arms around my chest so all the emergency workers couldn’t see me, but I had to hold the gauze pad the paramedic had given me pressed to my nose. It still streamed blood which was landing on my chest, directing everyone’s eyes to my uneven bosom. This was extremely upsetting. Whenever I wear my inflatable bras, I always measure to be sure The Girls are equal. At least with all the blood, the mud on my dress was barely noticeable, but my one-sided chest was definitely obvious.

“Callie Parrish!” The fireman we’d seen in the ER parking lot when Rizzie’s van was on fire spoke around the fat cigar in his mouth. His eyes twinkled, and I knew he was amused rather than sympathetic.

“Dixon, I believe,” I said.

“You got it. We’re sent out anytime the ambulance goes, but I don’t think you need a fire engine even if you do look like a hot mess.”

“You’d better examine her, you know. I don’t want any injuries showing up later, you know.”

“The EMTs will check her out.” Dixon laughed so hard the cigar shot out of his mouth. “Perhaps they have a pump that might help her.”

“A pump? I don’t understand, you know.”

Dixon roared. “Don’t you hear the air coming out of her chest?”

“Oh, my God! Does she have a punctured lung?”

“No, I think she’d be having trouble breathing if that happened.” Dixon picked up his cigar from the ground, wiped it off, and put it back into his mouth. He waved to the other firemen and called, “We aren’t needed here. Let’s go.”

I didn’t think I needed to go to the ER, but I didn’t want to stand out there where everyone could see my bosom (or at least the half that was still there) either, so when the paramedic wanted me to get in the ambulance, I climbed in and obediently lay down on the gurney. Just then, the deputy decided he needed me to answer a few questions so he could fill out his incident report.

Dalmation!
He climbed up beside me.

“Let Mr. Haeden tell you what happened,” I insisted. “I don’t know any more than he does. We opened the warehouse door and three men came running out.”

The deputy wrote that on his paper and asked, “You could see they were male?”

“I didn’t really see they were men, but they moved like it. Young men because of the way they sprinted.”

“So you’re telling me they were men because of how they ran?”

“Yes, and they were all flat-chested, too.”

“All the way flat-chested or just half-way?” The deputy laughed as long and loud as the fireman had.

“Out,” the paramedic ordered. “We’re taking her in to have a chest X-ray. She must have taken a hard blow there.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, wanting to defend my position on the gender of the vandals. “The one who yelled, ‘Run,’ definitely sounded male. Matter of fact, the voice seemed familiar.”

“You’re interfering with her medical treatment,” the other ambulance guy said.

The deputy got out and the EMTs closed the ambulance with one of them in the back with me and one up front to drive.

“A chest X-ray?” I asked.

The man with me smiled. “Your brothers are friends of mine. I figured you wanted to get out of there—considering your wardrobe malfunction.”

• • •

I admit I wondered if Dr. Donald Walters would magically appear when I reached the emergency room. He always had before, but not this time.

Going to the hospital wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed because they had to cauterize a blood vessel in my nose to stop the gushing blood. I removed the faulty bra when I put on the little hospital gown thingy for a chest X-ray and a head scan, both of which turned out to be totally negative. They dismissed me.

Too bad I’d gone to Jade County Hospital instead of Healing Heart where Maum was. I could have gone to her room to check on her, but, on second thought, I wouldn’t want Rizzie to see me all bloody. I called Frankie and he showed up with Jane. He went bonkers that I’d been hurt. The blood all down the front of my dress scared him even though I assured both of them I was fine. At least he didn’t see my lop-sided boobs because I’d put my bra into the bag the hospital gave me for my belongings while I wore the little open-back gown that let my tush peep out but didn’t expose my pathetically flat chest.

As we left the hospital, in walked J. T. Patel.

“Well, hello,” I said in the most chipper voice I could muster.

“Are you all right?” He didn’t seem to mind the bloody dress, flat chest, and mussed up hair. “I called you and whoever answered your telephone said you’d come here by ambulance.”

I confess that I’m not the most conscientious person when it comes to my cell phone. I had no idea where I’d left it, probably on my desk.

“I’m fine,” I lied. I definitely wasn’t fine about him seeing me like I looked. I turned toward Frankie and Jane. “Patel, this is my brother Frankie and his girlfriend Jane.” I introduced them.

“I remember Jane. How are you today?” Patel responded.

“Thank you for buying my sausage dog that day,” Jane answered. I knew Jane well enough to realize that was her way of letting him know she remembered him, too.

Patel laughed. “I apologize for offending you. I meant to be helpful, not insulting.”

“I understand you and Callie went to Andre’s,” Jane continued, letting him know that I shared my life with her.

“It’s a wonderful restaurant. Perhaps the four of us can have dinner there together one night before I leave.” Patel turned on the charm.

Frankie’s eyes about popped out of his head and he spouted, “Double-date to Andre’s? Afraid not. I’m not a carny making tons of money off poor hicks at the fair. Can’t afford a place like Andre’s.”

I was tired. I was still upset about the warehouse. My head had begun to hurt. I was embarrassed to be seen all flat-chested and bloody. Those are some of the reasons I slapped my brother in front of everybody going in and out of the emergency room that afternoon. Only some of the reasons, the main one was because I was ashamed of him, humiliated that a member of my family would be so rude to someone that was a total stranger to him but was someone that I liked more and more every time I saw him.