Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard (8 page)

“Put eight or nine,” Rizzie said. “Maum is a strong, staunch lady. She doesn’t complain about anything minor.

The nurse injected the fluid into Maum’s IV, and almost instantly, Maum’s eyes closed. She seemed asleep.

Sometimes my mouth has a mind of its own, and I can’t control it. Right then, I didn’t know what to say. Maum was the matriarch of Rizzie’s world. Maum made very few demands or requests, but we all followed her instructions. What if she refused the surgery? There I was, doing my exercise by jumping to conclusions like Magdalena in Tamar Myers’s books. We would just have to convince Maum that the operation was unavoidable. Then again, there was always that magical syringe and needle.

A gentle knock on the door. I looked up, hoping to see a doctor. Instead, Sheriff Harmon walked in. He went to Rizzie and gave her a little shoulder hug. “How’s your grandmother?” he asked and nodded at Maum, who’d begun snoring softly.

“The doctors say the heart treatment is working, but her hip is broken. She needs surgery, and she’s scared.”

Until then, I hadn’t realized that “not wanting anyone to cut on me” was an expression of fear.

“I’m sorry about all this. Would you like me to put a sign on the restaurant door? Tell people when you might be reopening? We’ve had a couple of calls from customers who were worried about you, Tyrone, and Mrs. Profit. They’d gone there to eat and found the place unlocked but unoccupied.”

“Ty must have forgotten to lock up when the ambulance left. He’s pretty upset.”

“Well, I locked the doors. It doesn’t appear anyone has trashed the place or robbed you.”

For the first time since this began, I saw Rizzie smile. “Our customers are our friends. They’d never do anything like that.”

“But not everyone in town is part of your clientele. St. Mary is changing. I’m concerned about what’s happening. People need to start locking the doors at their houses, too. That’s why my deputies and I are attending so many conferences and classes, trying to learn to deal with things small towns like ours never had to before.”

“Like what?” I interrupted. “I mean, after all, we’ve certainly had our share of crazies and murders the past few years.”

“We can talk about it later,” Wayne answered. “I came by to check on you girls and Mrs. Profit.”

When I’m a hundred and three, Sheriff Wayne Harmon will still think of me as a “girl,” not a woman. Maybe that’s why we’ve never had any chemistry. Why on earth was my mind focusing on chemistry? Had my evening with Patel made me more conscious of being alone?

“I guess Maum is doing as well as can be expected,” Rizzie said. “I thought the orthopedic surgeon would be here early, but I haven’t seen him.” She stroked Maum’s forehead gently while continuing to talk to the sheriff. “If you want to put up a sign, it needs to say that I don’t know when I’ll reopen. I’m not leaving Maum until she’s a whole lot better or until she …” Rizzie sobbed. Both Wayne and I hugged her. The gentle touch helps sometimes, but not always enough.

When she’d pulled herself together, Rizzie sat down in the bedside chair. I stood by the bed and took over patting Maum’s arm.

Wayne told her, “I’ll have a sign put on the door telling everyone the restaurant is temporarily closed and under the jurisdiction of the Jade County Sheriff’s Department. We’ll do regular ride-bys, also.” He turned toward me. “Callie, I need a statement from you about the body you found yesterday. Do you want me to come by Middleton’s or will you come to the station? I talked to Otis earlier. That’s how I knew where to find you. I’m glad you’re here with Rizzie, but he said you have a client today.”

“Yes, I have to go back to work to take care of Miss Gorman, and then I promised to pick up Tyrone from school and bring him here to be with Rizzie and Maum. It’s not going to be much of a statement anyway. Jane stumbled. I went to help her and saw a body. I didn’t touch it or anything, just called it in.”

“And sent Rizzie away.” Wayne wasn’t happy with me.

“She never saw the body and didn’t know it was there.” I paused. “Let’s talk about this later.”

The sheriff had the good grace to look embarrassed. Guess it hadn’t occurred to him how inappropriate it was to be talking about a dead body in a hospital room or to appear angry because I hadn’t kept Rizzie from getting to Tyrone and Maum as fast as possible.

I glanced at my watch. “I need to head back to Middleton’s. I’ll bring Tyrone when he gets out of school, but I won’t come in. Miss Gorman’s sister is scheduled to be there at four, so I’ll need to get right back to work. Call me if you find out anything or if there’s any change.”

Don’t know how I knew it, but as I headed down the hall, I saw a doctor that I guessed was the orthopedic surgeon. Sure enough, he went in Maum’s door. I turned around and followed him.

An average-sized man with graying hair, he wore midnight blue dress pants and a powder blue shirt with a red and navy striped tie. He went directly to Rizzie and shook hands. I couldn’t hear what she said, but his answer was reassuring.

“Just don’t even think like that,” the doctor was telling Rizzie. “Of course, your grandmother’s hip will be repaired. Dr. Midlands corrects hip fractures in patients older than she is frequently. He did successful surgery on a ninety-five-year-old last week. I’ll be checking in on Mrs. Profit. She’ll have her surgery just as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we’ll be keeping her comfortable until the cardiologists regulate her heart beat.”

When he left, I asked Rizzie, “That wasn’t Dr. Midlands?”

“No, he’s one of Dr. Midlands’s associates. Go on to work so you can pick Tyrone up on time. I don’t like him hanging around after school.”

Almost to my car, the sheriff met me. “Were you waiting for me?” I asked. Should have known he wouldn’t leave without scheduling my statement.

“No, I had some other business in the hospital to take care of, but we do need to decide.” He grinned. “Your place or mine?”

“My place. I’ll put you on my work table,” I teased.

Wayne sees gruesome scenes as part of his position as sheriff, but like many others, the technical aspects of what Jessica Mitford called
The American Way of Death
and scenes from
Six Feet Under
creep him out. He’s not comfortable in my work room, and he flatly refuses to talk to Otis or Odell while they’re embalming someone. He claims he’s happy that autopsies for our area are performed in Charleston, so he doesn’t have to sit in on them like the law enforcement officers in books and TV.

“No kidding. I do need a statement,” he said.

“Well, I saw the body and called you. That’s all I know. Do you have any information about him yet? I guess he’s with the fair and not a local.” I wasn’t about to tell him that Patel had told me he didn’t think the dead man worked on the midway.

“We don’t have an ID. The man appears to be young, no more than early twenties, which would make sense if he’s a midway operator.”

“Why do you say, ‘if’? He was wearing a Midlands Midway windbreaker.”

“But nobody working at the fair can identify him. My men spent the morning over there showing his picture around, and no one recognizes him.”

“A lot of people look very different after death. I know because my job is to make them look like their relatives and friends think of them. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be much resemblance between the person when alive and the dead body.” I looked at my watch again.

“I’ve got to get over to Middleton’s. You can come and get the statement while I work if you like. Otherwise, I’m afraid that if I have to go to the station, it’s probably going to be tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Wayne said, “I’ll get back to you.”

I watched him swagger away and wondered, not for the first time, why I’d never had a crush on him. Must have been that brother thing from having him hang around with John while I grew up. Good grief! There were a dozen more important things for me to be thinking about than who I did or did not have a crush on. Maybe it was because the man I’d been seeing had pulled that old business of getting me used to having him around and then stopped calling, but more likely it was because last night’s dancing and hugging had stirred up my hormones.

Dalmation! A hundred and one dalmations!

6

Miss Nina Gorman awaited me at Middleton’s. Covered neatly with a clean, white sheet, she lay on the table in my work room. I knew that she wore pristine cotton underwear that I would replace with her own. Otis and Odell always put underwear on the decedents before they brought them to my work room. New white boxers, never skivvies, on the males, while the females get white bras and full panties, never thongs or bikinis. If relatives didn’t bring underwear, the white cotton stayed on through cremation or burial. If the family supplied what they wanted, the mortuary underwear was discarded. The Middletons are always respectful to me and to the deceased. Actually, they are respectful to everyone except each other.

I pulled on my smock and gloves before removing the photograph from its plastic bag. In the picture of them wearing beige dresses, both ladies had their hair short and curly, not quite as long as Miss Nina’s was. I’d just use some very tiny curlers. I sprayed setting lotion on her hair—no problem since she lay with her head slightly elevated on a wedge—and rolled it on the tiniest curlers I had. I don’t have to shampoo hair as part of my job. Otis or Odell washes the head during the prep. Sometimes, the hair is still damp when the person is brought to me, but Miss Nina had been embalmed the night before, so her hair was totally dry until I sprayed it.

When I removed the sheet to manicure her nails and do makeup, I felt more emotional than I sometimes do when working with someone. I view my job as an opportunity to provide families with peaceful, pretty memories of their loved ones. After a few years on this job, the only cases that really upset me are when I have to work on children. This time, the elderly Miss Nina made me think of Maum. When the time came, would Rizzie want my services? I just hoped it wouldn’t be soon.

By the time I had Miss Nina dressed in her beige outfit with her hair all curly, nails a pretty mauve, and her pearls on, I needed to go pick up Tyrone. I paged Otis. He came and helped me casket the body. “Casket” as a verb is Funeraleze meaning to put the deceased in the selected coffin. The head is turned slightly to the right though it looks like the person is lying flat on his or her back. We wheeled the bier into Slumber Room A and parked it in the usual place. Otis said he would take care of placing the floral arrangements while I was gone. I stepped back and took a good look at Miss Nina. She looked lovely lying there in her pink casket with its silver handles. I hoped I could do as well matching her sister’s appearance to hers.

• • •

Though I’d usually ridden the school bus, Daddy or one of my brothers had picked me up from school occasionally, but I didn’t remember it being the madhouse that confronted me in the parking lot at St. Mary High School. There were kids all over, and they didn’t seem to fear walking right in front of a moving car. For a moment, I wished I’d driven the hearse. Bet that would have slowed them down.

Some of the teenagers still looked like little kids, but most of them could pass for grown. The girls had bigger ta ta’s than I do unless I’m wearing one of my inflatable bras. I scanned the crowd of noisy kids, but I didn’t see Tyrone. Finally, he sauntered out from behind the building, and I leaned over and opened the passenger door for him.

“Don’t do that next time,” he said. “It makes me look like a little kid being picked up by their mama.” Oh, well, Wayne thought of me as a little girl while Tyrone thought of me as old enough to be his mother. Come to think of it, I
am
old enough to be his mom if I’d had him in my teens. I didn’t bother to tell him that grammatically “kid” and “their” didn’t go together.

“How’s Maum?” he asked as I pulled off.

“She’s not ready for the surgery yet, but she’s responding to the heart medicine.”

“Maum’s not crying, is she?” he asked. “She had tears last night, and I don’t think I can stand to see her do that anymore.”

“The medicine is making her sleep a lot,” I answered, not having the heart to tell him that I’d seen her weep that morning. Tyrone’s lip quivered, but he managed to hold back the tears. I knew the kid was having a rough time and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, I could really go for a cheeseburger right now,” he answered.

My brothers had always had room for cheeseburgers, too.

McDonald’s drive-through. Three of those quarter-pounders with cheese. Doesn’t matter what new burger they put on the menu, my favorite will always be quarter-pounders. I’d opened mine and taken the first bite as I sat at the end of the drive waiting for traffic to slow down and let me pull back onto the road. Four boys walked across, right in front of the Mustang. I wasn’t paying much attention to them until one of them stopped, turned to face the car, and made humping movements at me.

Tyrone went ballistic. “What the (really bad word) do you think you’re doing?” he screamed and threw open his door. I grabbed the back of his shirt and literally held him in the car. The humper ran while his friends laughed.

“Come on!” I yelled. “Maum and Rizzie need you. That jerk’s not worth your time.”