The Undertaker's Daughter

by Sara Blaedel

  Ilka pushed the box of Kleenex over to her and waited as she pulled a few out. She blew her nose and dried her eyes; then she cleared her throat. “Phyllis told the police it was a coincidence she saw him on the path from the cabin. She’d wondered about it; it’s not a place he normally went to. Later, when she heard about Ashley, she put two and two together. But she didn’t say anything.”

  “And now finally she tells this to the police?”

  Shelby nodded and pursed her lips but quickly got hold of herself again. “She’s only doing it because she hopes to get her sons out of jail. By sacrificing her dead husband.”

  “And what do the police say about this coming out now?”

  “Phyllis says she kept quiet because of her children, the funeral home business, and the family reputation. She made her choice, to be the silent wife. She did nothing. Except she likely drove him to his death, little by little.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Douglas Oldham hung himself in the embalming room.” She paused for a moment to let her rage and despair die down. “The oldest son found him. I think the whole town knew he’d taken the easy way out. The story was that he suddenly felt sick and lost consciousness because of the dangerous chemicals. But everybody talked about a rope. It was rough on the sons.”

  “What about the daughter?” Ilka asked.

  “Carlotta has always been a mama’s girl, but of course it affected her too. After his death, it seemed like the boys sort of dropped out, and it wasn’t long before they left to go to school. They didn’t come back until they were grown and ready to enter the business.”

  “So all these years your son was gone, Phyllis Oldham knew her husband killed the young girl?”

  “Yes.” Shelby stared at the dark mahogany table and nodded, as if she was slowly becoming aware of the extent of the tragedy.

  “Do the police say the Oldham sons are responsible for killing Mike?”

  After a few moments, the woman shook her head. “But they don’t need to. Isn’t it obvious?”

  Maybe, Ilka thought. If they thought he had come back to expose the family…

  Her hunger was gone, replaced by an emptiness inside her. She thought about all the years the secret had hung around Racine like a dark cloud, casting its cold shadow, particularly on Mike’s mother and sister.

  Shelby stood up. A handful of balled-up Kleenex lay on the chair. While buttoning her coat, she turned to Ilka. “Phyllis claims she didn’t know anything about Howard falling in love with the girl. Just like she didn’t know her brother-in-law broke into your garage and desecrated my son’s body.”

  She looked away. “What kind of people are they?”

  She shook her head and left the room.

  So. A young girl had turned the heads of two grown men. Nothing new there, Ilka thought.

  Sister Eileen appeared in the doorway. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” she announced, adding that Ilka might want to change into something more respectable before Ed McKenna’s daughter showed up to view her father.

  The nun was right. She didn’t look like someone who should be meeting a grieving daughter. But first, she needed some clarity about finding her father’s clothes in the Dumpster. The whole thing was confusing, and Ilka just couldn’t let it go.

  “I keep meaning to ask you,” Ilka started, turning to Sister Eileen. “Why were my father’s things thrown into the Dumpster?”

  A look of sheer surprise crossed over the nun’s face as she stared, with seeming bewilderment, into Ilka’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know; it was so strange. I saw them in there and couldn’t figure out why you would have thrown them away.”

  “I most certainly didn’t,” Sister Eileen said assertively. “You must be mistaken. I would never have done that. Never. Oh my goodness, no.”

  It was all so odd, but Ilka didn’t want to cause any more upset or spark an argument. Apologizing for the mistake, she excused herself to change into something more appropriate, and headed upstairs.

  Up in the room, still shaking her head, Ilka grabbed her father’s black suit. Her uniform, she thought. Once again she felt homesick for her own bathroom and bathtub, her clothes, which might not have been the most fashionable, but at least they hadn’t been bought for a man in his seventies.

  27

  “Please, have a seat.” At the doorway, Ilka gestured discreetly toward the oval table in the arrangement room. Lisa McKenna entered without a word, leaving in her wake a strong scent of lavender, which Ilka followed.

  “This won’t take long,” Lisa said, her voice deep, almost masculine. That surprised Ilka; Ed McKenna’s daughter was light in complexion and thin, her hair set up loosely in a very feminine look. “We haven’t really seen much of each other the past several years.”

  “Of course,” Ilka replied quickly. She wished Artie was there, but she knew he was busy reconstructing Mike Gilbert’s face. He had told her what to focus on: coffee, kringle, and Kleenex. Sister Eileen would bring everything in, he’d said. And then just talk to her, or rather, let her talk. Anything she wanted to talk about. “And call me if she wants to know what it takes to prepare her father for transportation by air.”

  Ilka had asked if they should also show the dog. “Only if she asks,” he’d said.

  Ed McKenna was prepared for viewing, and he lay in the front part of the chapel, which had been curtained off so the room didn’t seem so big. The two large altar candles, one on each side of the coffin, were lit. For a moment, Ilka considered mentioning that the dog had licked her father’s cheek off before lying down to die beside him, but Artie had done a fantastic job of reconstruction, and she probably wouldn’t even notice that part of his face was wax now. There wasn’t any reason to let her in on this macabre detail.

  “Coffee?” Ilka kept her voice down, thinking it would help the woman feel at home, cared for.

  “No, thanks, but I’d like to use your bathroom before we go in.”

  The woman’s voice surprised her again. “Of course. This way.” She pointed and led her out into the front hall.

  The daughter’s hair was graying, and a fine net of wrinkles softened her face. In her fifties, Ilka guessed.

  “I couldn’t stand him,” Lisa McKenna said when she returned from the bathroom. “If it was up to me, you could pour his ashes in a can and take it to the dump.”

  Ilka froze; so much for her plan of action. It looked like they wouldn’t be needing the Kleenex.

  “He was an egotistical, self-centered asshole. But for some strange reason my children want him to be brought home and buried in our cemetery.”

  Sister Eileen stood in the doorway. She must have heard what the daughter had just said, and Ilka was sure she spotted a glint in the nun’s eye after the outburst that left the room silent. The daughter’s anger was deep, savage; her attractive face had morphed into a grimace as she spat the words out.

  Ilka had no idea what to say, but fortunately Artie stepped into the room and saved her. He wore a black coat with a white shirt attached over his Hawaiian shirt, though part of the turquoise collar stuck out at his neck.

  Still unable to speak, Ilka walked over to the section of the chapel being used as a reposing room and opened the door. “If you want to see him, it’s this way.”

  The daughter glanced at her and, seemingly in spite of herself, walked over to the coffin.

  “If you need to be alone, you can just come out whenever you’re ready. Then we can take care of the practical details about transporting him.”

  Ilka was about to close the door, but the daughter said, “No, that’s fine. I’ll come with you now.” She turned on her heel and followed Ilka out of the room. “What happened to Toodie?”

  “The dog?”

  The daughter nodded.

  “It’s being kept cold,” Ilka said. “We didn’t want to do anything before you arrived.”

  “May I see her?” The anger on her face was gone.
<
br />   Artie stepped forward and said of course. If she could wait just a minute, he would bring the dog in.

  “My father didn’t care about us. About me or the kids. He was never there when we needed him. The past twenty years, we’ve only seen him the few times I came from Albany to beg for help. I’ve been alone with the kids since they were small, since their father…well. And Mom died before the kids were born.”

  She looked as if she’d made up her mind not to cry. “I gave him Toodie, and he loved her. I thought the company might mellow him out. Thought maybe we could have a connection that way. But he just didn’t want anything to do with us. Maybe you think he was lonesome, but I can assure you, he chose to be lonesome. Nobody should feel sorry for him.”

  Artie came in one of the side doors, pushing a small cart in front of him. He looked like a hotel worker delivering room service. A white sheet covered a mound on the cart.

  “Just a second.” Lisa McKenna took a moment to gather herself. She looked like Ilka had expected she would when she went in to view her father. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Artie lifted the sheet, and he and Ilka stepped back. Ilka looked questioningly at him.

  “You poor little thing, were you all alone?” She spoke to the dog as if it still were alive. “Did she die of starvation?”

  Ilka wasn’t expecting that question. She looked at Artie, who was rocking on his heels. “I’m afraid so, yes,” she said.

  While the daughter continued talking to Toodie, Ilka couldn’t help glancing at the coffin where Ed McKenna lay; he should be the one she was grieving over.

  “I don’t know what it would cost to have the dog embalmed,” she said, after they returned to the arrangement room and coffee. “But my father had plenty of money, so I’m bringing her home and burying her in the yard.”

  After saying good-bye, Ilka stood in the reception area and watched her leave. In a way, she could relate. The difference was that Lisa McKenna had known where her father was. But the rejection must have felt the same.

  28

  The next morning, coffee, a soft-boiled egg, slices of bread, and a newspaper were lined up on the table in front of Ilka. A large photo of a young Mike Gilbert was plastered on the front page of the paper. The photo bore no resemblance to the ruined face Artie had spent all Sunday afternoon and evening on, shaping it to match the photo his mother had brought. By the time Ilka said good night and went up to her room, the face had been transformed from a bloody mass of broken bones and swelling into a sleeping man with slightly too prominent eyebrows and lips painted on, but it was still far from the big, smiling, happy teenager on the front page.

  Ilka guessed it was a school photo. She would have arranged it similarly, but unlike the smiles of many of the students she had photographed over the years, Mike’s smile reached all the way up into his eyes. It wasn’t just a reaction to the photographer saying, “Smi-i-ile!”

  The photo had probably been used often following Ashley’s death. In the accompanying article, all the details of Mike’s death were described, at least as well as the journalist could with the few facts that were known. Nobody had been found who had seen Mike Gilbert back in town; that was clear. No one had any idea how long he’d been hanging around before being murdered. Judging from the reactions of the people on the street interviewed by the journalist, most were surprised that Mike would dare show his face in town again. The owner of the tobacco shop even believed that Mike Gilbert had tempted fate by returning to Racine. The short statements were accompanied by small head shots to prove the journalist had done some leg work before writing the article.

  The long and short of it was that apparently no one saw him before he was killed. Which was why no one knew when he’d returned. The only new information in the article came from a former pathologist, who colorfully described how little it took to crush a skull, with the right weapon.

  His guess was that Mike had been murdered with a baseball bat. “Incredible,” Ilka muttered to herself. Then she skimmed a description of Ashley Simpson’s death. The journalist had found an old school friend and asked her what she remembered from back then. The woman, who obviously hadn’t been taking good care of herself, was photographed behind the warehouses where Mike’s body had been found. She stood with folded arms and stared grumpily into the camera. In the article, she claimed Mike Gilbert had been cursed.

  “Everyone around him dies,” she was quoted as saying. Ashley, himself, and now his sister was dying, too.

  “Idiot!” In her irritation, Ilka spilled coffee on the newspaper. Beside the article was a small box containing a short statement from the police. Two people detained for questioning that weekend had been released.

  Poor Shelby, Ilka thought, sad and tired now as she glanced over the local announcements and sports section.

  Soft rain fell from the gray Monday morning sky, streaking the window and blocking the sunlight. But Ilka enjoyed the peace and quiet. For the first time since she’d been in Racine, her morning hadn’t been disrupted, no one banging on her door to rouse her out of bed; that alone was enough to loosen her shoulders up, relieve her tension. She’d planned on spending the day going through her father’s business papers. Yesterday she had found a cabinet filled with files, but it had seemed far too much to tackle. She’d also called her mother and explained why she had to stay in Racine. Everything was up in the air—finances, creditors. No one knew much about the orders that had come in. Or how many prepaid funerals the funeral home had. She’d realized these things made up the business’s actual worth.

  “I’ve got to take care of this. You know yourself how much work it takes to turn around a funeral home in debt.”

  The moment she said it, she knew how rotten it sounded to bring her mother’s struggles into this. But at least it would help her mother understand why everything was taking so long. Ilka had begged her to take care of the photo shoots until she could find a solution. She still hoped Niels from North Sealand Photography could take the jobs. If he’d ever answer her.

  Her confrontations with the suppliers who had bailed out on Jensen Funeral Home had pissed her off. It was okay for people to drop a customer when they got tired of unpaid bills. But she wasn’t going to stand for suppliers not giving her a chance to right the ship. And she wouldn’t accept that the problems could have been avoided if Sister Eileen had made the calls. They were damn well going to do business with her! She stood up to answer the phone out in the reception area.

  “We’ve booked a business meeting today at twelve thirty,” said a man whose name Ilka didn’t catch. “Two consultants will be there, and the meeting will last one hour, so please bring along the books for the last two years.”

  She set her coffee down. The carefree morning mood had evaporated the second she heard his brusque voice. At first, she wasn’t sure that Artie had been able to hold the IRS off.

  “Excuse me, who are you again?”

  “We spoke last week. We informed you of our interest in taking over Jensen Funeral Home. And now I understand there are no longer any other transfer agreements standing in the way. We’re prepared to reach an agreement quickly to take control of your family’s business.”

  Ilka had pulled Sister Eileen’s chair out and was sitting on its arm. She remembered the call, but back then the voice had been ingratiating and as smooth as melted chocolate. Now he sounded ice-cold and arrogant. “There is no ‘your family.’ It’s ‘my’ business, and I’ve decided to run it myself, so I’m not interested in your proposal. Jensen Funeral Home is not for sale. Thank you anyway.”

  She was shaken when she hung up. Not so much because the call had sounded more like a demand than a polite business inquiry, but because something in the man’s tone made her skin crawl.

  Sitting briefly in thought, she shook her head. If she’d had any doubts about the wisdom of taking up the challenge and righting the ship, they were gone now. The decision had been made.

  Something else stirred underneath her anger
about the call. Sitting there at Sister Eileen’s desk, she realized she’d just made the first clear decision of her career. It may have been spur of the moment; it was definitely a rash decision. And it was stubbornness, not ambition, that had motivated her to become a funeral home director. But she didn’t give a damn, because she was going to show them.

  The phone on the nun’s desk rang again. Ilka stood up to return to her breakfast; if it was that man again, he would have to wait until the sister was back. But then she changed her mind and picked up. “This funeral home is not for sale, and it will not in the future be for sale either. And any business meeting has to be approved by me.”

  “Excuse me,” a woman said warily. “Is this Ilka Jensen? I was referred to this number when I called her cell phone.”

  “Yes, this is Ilka.”

  The woman began speaking in Danish. “I’m calling from Linde School in Virum. We’re very dissatisfied with the photographer you sent. It’s disgraceful that the photographs are taking so long.”

  Ilka was startled. She’d never worked for that school before, and she had the feeling the school secretary was just warming up.

  “The woman you sent only managed to get through two classes today. I’ve never seen anything like it. You can’t expect students to have the patience to be steered around so much. This isn’t about details and shadows; you should know that. We’re talking about school photos here. And they missed far too many classes!”

  Ilka tried to get a word in, but the woman ignored her. “This is about giving students a memory of their time in school, of their schoolmates throughout the years. We’re not paying for all the extra time being used. Choosing you was obviously a mistake. And it’s going to be difficult to give you a good review on Trustpilot.”

  Ilka finally broke in. “Yes, I would say it was a mistake that I sent our prize-winning portrait photographer out to you. But I’ve heard that for years, parents with children attending your school have been complaining that the individual photos were taken like the students were on an assembly line. If your school administration doesn’t appreciate higher-quality work, you shouldn’t be using us. You should go back to the standard you’re used to. I’m afraid we can’t offer that.” She could almost hear Erik cackling up on his cloud. “I think we should stop here. We don’t serve clients who prefer discount work.”