Her Father's Secret

by Sara Blaedel

  She lit a cigarette, and slowly the car filled up with smoke. How could the memory of something so dramatic vanish, only to pop up again so many years later? And where had they lived after that? She couldn’t remember. Up until now, her only memories had been from the house in Brønshøj she’d thought of as her childhood home.

  She rolled the window down to get rid of the smoke, and after crushing out her third cigarette in the tiny ashtray she felt clearheaded enough to drive again. She wanted to call her mother, but instead she slowly pulled away from the curb.

  She turned into the parking lot behind the funeral home and parked beside Artie’s black pickup. He sat on the back steps with a cup in his hand and a cigarette hanging from his mouth, watching her. His weird longish hair was knotted up in a bun, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt. All in all he looked a bit quirky, yet for a moment she was tempted to sit down and cuddle up to him, hold him, let him cheer her up. Though not just because of all the forgotten childhood memories suddenly returning; as she began loosening up after the wild episode at her father’s house, a sort of delayed shock set in.

  Artie Sorvino had worked for her father for eighteen years. He was the closest thing she had in Racine to a friend she could confide in, though that wasn’t saying much, because she still couldn’t figure him out. Most of the time he backed her up, but occasionally he acted like he wanted nothing to do with her. At least their relationship at work hadn’t suffered after the night she’d seduced him; he seemed to be okay with it as just a one-night stand.

  Without a word she sat beside him and fished out her pack of cigarettes. He watched her reach for the lighter lying on the steps.

  Finally she said, “She could have mowed them all down.” She took a drag and blew the smoke out. “Okay, she shot above their heads first, but then she aimed right at them. It’s a miracle nobody was hit.”

  “Who are we talking about here?” He turned to her and leaned closer to the doorway.

  “Mary Ann, that’s who! She and Leslie were thrown out of their house, I was there when it happened. A bunch of men came and emptied the place. They took everything away in a big moving van. But before that she shot at them with a rifle. The woman’s crazy!”

  “Sounds like she was trying to defend her property,” Artie said.

  “But they hadn’t done anything to her! She rolls out onto the porch with a gun on her lap, nobody says a word, and she starts shooting. It was absolutely insane! She shot right out into the street! Somebody could have been walking by! Then one of the men started shooting back, and nobody did anything to help, not even call the police. What’s wrong with everybody?”

  “Maybe you should just be happy you Danes don’t have to defend yourselves that way over there. People don’t buy guns here just for fun. In Wisconsin, nobody needs a special license to keep a gun in their home, as long as it’s for defending yourself, for hunting, or for anything else legal.”

  He ticked that off as if it was something every single person in the state knew by heart.

  “Listen,” she said. “The men weren’t even close to the house when she started shooting. You can’t say you’re defending yourself before someone threatens you or does something.”

  “They were on her property. I understand it’s different in Denmark. You’re so busy having fun, or whatever that hygge of yours means, that no one has time to shoot at people. Your father told me about the Danish police, all the time they spend helping mother ducks and their little ducklings across the street. Well, guess what, the cops over here have other things to do. We’re prepared to defend ourselves. We have to be.”

  She ignored his attempt at humor. “That’s not true. It’s just that in Denmark it’s not legal to have a gun on the table beside your bed.”

  He shook his head at her, but he added that there must have been a reason why Mary Ann felt threatened. “I mean, we don’t just start shooting at people who happen to stop by.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then he shook his head again and smiled. “No, I don’t own a gun. But I do have a fishing knife, if it came down to that. Why don’t I get you a cup of coffee, then you can tell me exactly what happened out there.”

  Before he could stand up, Ilka said, “No thanks, I’ve already had three cups. Another thing, in Denmark the person who takes over someone’s property doesn’t show up carrying a gun.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “The bailiff?”

  “If that’s what he’s called, yes. Six men in fact, plus the ones who emptied the house. Mary Ann and Leslie didn’t hire them, that’s for sure.”

  “It couldn’t have been the bailiff.”

  “Well, they were put out on the street, anyway. I saw the man changing the locks.”

  “That sounds strange.” Artie swung his legs to the side so Sister Eileen could get out the door. Her gray habit grazed Ilka’s shoulder. She was associated with a parish outside town, and for the past twelve years she had worked as an unpaid volunteer for Ilka’s father, though she did accept donations for her church. Yet she was often the first to show up for work in the mornings, and she knew the most about managing the funeral home. Her small apartment was next to the coffin storage room, and it seemed that Ilka had inherited her along with the business.

  She stepped past them and turned around. “Who’s been put out on the street?”

  “Mary Ann and Leslie were thrown out of their house,” Artie said. “But the law didn’t do it, I’m sure of that. It’s got to be somebody else.”

  “It was so humiliating for them, standing out on the porch, watching them drive away with everything they owned,” Ilka said. “They didn’t even get to keep their coats and bags.”

  “You don’t need to feel sorry for them,” Sister Eileen said without blinking an eye. “They probably went right out to Mary Ann’s father. He lives very comfortably, and his daughter and granddaughters will too.”

  Ilka raised her eyebrows.

  “Raymond Fletcher is one of the richest men in Wisconsin,” Artie said. “And one of the most powerful. He owns a stable and breeds these insanely expensive trotters on his ranch.”

  Ilka’s heart skipped a beat when he mentioned trotters. And a stable. Now it made more sense why her father’s financial situation had collapsed, why he’d left everything in a big mess. Not that it changed anything. She hadn’t forgiven him for dragging her into it. Just thinking about it made her angry, and suddenly she felt no sympathy at all for the two women. Apparently, they had no money worries, yet obviously they weren’t going to help her, even though legally they were Paul Jensen’s nearest family.

  She pulled Maggie’s letters out of her bag and handed them to the nun. “Do you know anything about these? The reason I drove over to Mary Ann’s house was to give them to her. Honestly, I don’t care anymore about anything that comes out.”

  The nun skimmed the five letters, then folded them up again and handed them back.

  “Who’s Maggie?” Ilka said. She looked at Sister Eileen, then at Artie, who stood up and shrugged. He held out his hand when Ilka started to rise. “The name doesn’t ring any bells.” He dumped the rest of his coffee on the ground.

  Sister Eileen shook her head and turned to go to her apartment, but Ilka stopped her and asked them to come into the office to discuss the future of the funeral home.

  “I’ve been going over the books,” she began after they sat down around her father’s desk. “We have an agreed overdraft in our bank account of almost two hundred thousand dollars. Besides that, we haven’t paid several suppliers; that adds up to over forty thousand of debt. The two hundred thousand comes from withdrawals this spring. If I close the funeral home and go home now, I’ll be paying off this debt the rest of my life. So I have to talk to my bank before I make any decision.”

  Ilka had thought about how to say this so it didn’t sound as if she was abandoning them, yet that’s what it came down to. Her father had been broke, and when he died he left the business deeply in debt. The past
several days she’d gone through all the books for the past five years. She had no choice: She had to shut down.

  “If they even let you leave the States with a debt like this,” Artie said. She knew he might be right. Her mother had warned her about that before Ilka flew over to Wisconsin. Her ears began ringing.

  “Right now we don’t have the money for the funeral tomorrow. It’s not prepaid; we’ll have to wait for the family to pay the bill. Luckily, it’s not one of the more expensive funerals. We just have to deliver the body to the church. But we’re still responsible for the flowers and decorations.”

  “I’ll take care of the flowers,” Artie said.

  Ilka knew he had stolen flowers from the common grave for an earlier funeral, but decided not to say anything. She saw no alternative. “What about embalming supplies?”

  “I think we have enough for five or six more jobs.”

  “The biggest problem is the coffins,” Sister Eileen said. “The suppliers have shut us down because of what we owe them. There’s only one white coffin left, and then there’s the light-blue used one out back, waiting to be hauled away.”

  “When we need more coffins, I’ll order them online from Costco. We’ll just have to say we can’t trust our regular suppliers. I don’t feel bad at all for blaming them, it’s their fault for not giving me a chance to get the business back on its feet.”

  Artie and Sister Eileen stared at her.

  “Really, though, we don’t need to tell anybody where the coffins come from,” she added.

  Most people wouldn’t even notice if the white coffin in the catalog was different from the one they got, she thought.

  Sister Eileen spoke sharply. “But will you charge them the catalog prices?”

  “We’ll see.” Ilka asked if they’d eaten lunch, if she should bring them something when she went out to shop.

  Artie offered to make her a sandwich from what he had in the refrigerator, but Ilka politely declined. Her father’s partner had already sunk a great deal of money into the bottomless pit of the funeral home’s debt by paying back taxes that would have shut them down. At the time they’d believed they could sell the business to another undertaker in town, and Artie’s dream was to start up an embalming business and freelance for other funeral home directors in the region. That way he could avoid all the pickups, conferences with families, and services themselves. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Golden Slumbers Funeral Home had been bought out by a large chain, American Funeral Group, which almost certainly wouldn’t make use of Artie’s special talents. The chain had also been interested in Ilka’s business, but she’d played her cards all wrong. At best Artie would be left with the funeral home building, and his dream of freelancing would probably remain just that—a dream.

  Abruptly she stood up. “I have to go out anyway, there’s something I have to take care of.” She grabbed her coat and umbrella and started down to Oh Dennis!, a local pub that also served as a hangout for people in Racine who had run into hard times. A week earlier she’d been standing in front of a one-armed bandit in back, unable to stop pouring coins in it. She was hoping he was working today—the young bartender who had finally refused to break more bills for her. She wanted to thank him.

  He was off work. A younger woman with colorful tattoos on her brawny forearms stood behind the bar. Ilka scanned the menu prices and ordered the cheapest lunch without even looking at what it was. She felt dirt-poor, down and out. She remembered back when she was a kid, on Children’s Aid Day at the Triangle in Copenhagen with her friends. A small carnival had been set up, and Ilka had emptied her piggy bank and coaxed a little extra out of her mother. She’d spent most of the money on a one-armed bandit, the rest on a scratch ticket at the hot dog stand while her friends ordered hot dogs and chocolate milk.

  Ilka paid for the lunch and was about to sit down when she noticed Larry out on the sidewalk. Less than a week earlier, she’d met him in a bar and screwed him behind a shed down by the canal, and a few days later he stopped by the funeral home and invited her out. She explained she wasn’t looking for any sort of relationship, that it had only been a physical thing, and though she’d tried to put it nicely, she felt she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in seeing him again.

  She turned quickly, but it was too late; he’d spotted her. He was on his way to the door, and to avoid him she hurried to the back of the pub, where the only other person in the place sat at a table against the wall. A small man in a light-blue windbreaker. He’d been sitting at the same table the evening she’d lost it. She didn’t know him, but she pulled a chair out and asked if she could sit down. “Would you do me a favor and pretend you’re talking to me?”

  “Who are we hiding from?” He was old, and from his rusty voice she guessed it wasn’t often people sat down wanting his company.

  Suddenly Larry was standing at their table. Ilka smiled politely up at him.

  “Hi!” Larry unzipped his jacket and told her he’d been trying to get in touch with her. Ilka glanced at the elderly man out of the corner of her eye and nodded as Larry rambled on about a visiting delegation from a European architectural school they were going to show around their headquarters.

  Ilka had no idea what he was talking about, and before she could react he pulled a chair out and sat down beside her. Then she remembered he worked for Johnson Wax, which was in Racine.

  “It’s a historical building,” he continued, as if Ilka had begged him to describe Racine’s architectural wonders. “In fact, the administration building and the research tower were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.”

  He scooted over so his leg grazed against hers. Ilka moved her leg away; forcing this spectacle onto a stranger enjoying his afternoon coffee was embarrassing. Her food arrived, but before the waitress could ask if Larry was ready to order, the man leaned over the table.

  “Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been looking forward to this lunch with the daughter of my deceased friend from Denmark.”

  Ilka and Larry were both surprised. Larry because he likely couldn’t imagine her having lunch with an old bum, and Ilka because the man knew who she was. And apparently had known her father.

  Larry regrouped and stood up slowly. He held Ilka’s eye, as if to give her a final chance to reconsider.

  She watched him walk off. He was in good shape, and he did have a nice ass, but she turned and instantly forgot about him.

  “Your father and I were colleagues,” the man said. He explained that he’d been a funeral home director in town before her father had arrived. “But that was years ago. I had to give up my business. He was a fine man. It’s hard knowing he’s not around anymore.”

  Suddenly the memories seemed to overwhelm him, and he fell silent. Ilka ate her chicken wings. After she’d gnawed the last bone clean, she tore open a tiny plastic sack, pulled out a damp napkin, and wiped off her fingers. “Did you see much of each other? You and my father?”

  “We did a betting game, a weekly lottery where you paid to keep the same numbers year after year, and for a long time we went together to the track, harness racing, but the track went bankrupt. And it wouldn’t be the same without him anyway.”

  Ilka pushed her plate away. Of course her father had kept betting over here. She was about to mention that weakness in her father’s character when the man nodded, as if he were reading her mind. “It wasn’t always easy for Paul to control his gambling—it was in his blood—but he tried. And there were long stretches when he stayed away from the track. In the end he wasn’t out there at all. He paid the price for his habit, we knew that. His friends. By the way, did you know he bought a horse for you, not long after he came here?”

  Ilka nodded slowly. She’d read it in one of the letters she found in his desk. A packet of letters he never sent. But it touched her that he’d told his friend about her.

  “The pony died just a few years ago. At a ripe old age, very ripe. Toward the end it didn’t even want to leave its stall. But
it had a good life, and the kids loved it.”

  Ilka stared down at the table. When she was a kid she would have given her right arm—both arms—to have a horse. It was strange to think she’d actually had one waiting for her over here.

  “Another friend of your father’s, Frank Conaway, boarded it at his family’s stable. Occasionally Paul drove out and checked on it. Sometimes I rode along. It’s a nice drive, and we’d known Frank for many years. When the pony wasn’t out in the pasture, your father walked it in the woods behind the stables. Like he was walking a dog.”

  He looked away while the tattooed waitress picked up Ilka’s plate and asked if they wanted coffee. Ilka shook her head, but he held up his cup.

  “I haven’t heard about Frank Conaway,” she said. “I’m sorry, but what’s your name?”

  “Gregg.” He put his cup down and held his hand out. “Gregg Turner, and your name is Ilka Nichols. Your father told me. Back then I had no idea I’d ever meet you. But word gets around when strangers come to town.”

  “Please excuse me if I’m being nosy, but are you the one who sold your funeral home to the American Funeral Group?”

  Artie had told her about a funeral director who made a deal with the large chain, and as soon as he signed, things went downhill. And not only for the man Artie described as a shadow of himself: The funeral home was abandoned. Now it was boarded up, the Old Glory out front in tatters. No one had been inside since the sale. American Funeral Group had only been interested in wiping out one more competitor, which sent a message to all nearby funeral homes.

  His smile disappeared as he nodded. “The past is dead and gone, you can’t change it. I was naïve. I thought they’d keep their word, but they just wanted to crush me. It was my uncle’s old business, and I figured they’d keep me on. I was out of work before the ink on the contract dried.”

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  “Is Frank Conaway one of his friends from the racetrack?” Ilka asked. She imagined her father had hung out with others interested in horses, just as he had in Denmark. Several times she’d gone along to the stables, where he visited the sulky drivers he knew. While the grown-ups talked, or while he watched the horses being trained, she was allowed to run around in the stables. Once in a while she’d even ridden in a sulky.