by Fran Rizer
"I can’t believe that! Bill and Frank have been telling me it was Jane’s idea and that she really wants your two brothers to have a double wedding."
"Maybe the four of you should sit down together and talk it over."
"Good idea, and please get the final fitting on your dress. You know the wedding is almost here."
"Yes, I know. I’ll go tomorrow, for sure."
"And don’t forget the couples shower my aunts are giving Saturday. You can bring a date if you want."
Yeah, like which of my numerous suitors would I want to take to a shower where my daddy and four of my brothers will be present?
"Jane and Frank will be there. Maybe I could ask them to come early and we could talk."
"No, Molly, I think you should handle this today. Why not call now and ask the three of them over this evening?"
"You’re probably right. By the way, how’s your dog?" Big Boy had been a gift from Molly through my brother, her fiancé Bill.
"He’s fine, still growing though. The vet says he’s one of the largest Great Danes she’s ever seen."
"Terrific! I’ll see you Saturday then." I could probably have said Big Boy had turned purple with yellow spots and could sing "The Star Spangled Banner," and Molly would have responded the same way. I didn’t think my answer really mattered to her.
"Miss Parrish! Miss Parrish!" The voice was louder than "The Old Rugged Cross."
I left my desk and headed for the front door. The new deputy I’d seen at the bookstore yesterday was running down the hall, yelling my name.
"May I help you?" I said.
"You’re Callie Parrish?"
"That’s right."
"Sheriff Harmon sent me to tell you not to move Johnny Johnson’s body from the Frigidaire before he gets here. He’s on the way with a warrant." The man talked faster than I could think.
"First, it’s not a refrigerator. Second, what kind of warrant? He can’t arrest a dead man."
"I’m Eddie Blake, new to Jade County Sheriff’s Department, and I understood that I was to guard the corpse until the sheriff arrives. I’d appreciate your leading me to it."
"There’s no need to watch Mr. Joyner. He’s in a slot in the cooler. No one’s here but me, and I’m not planning to pull him out."
"What’s a slot?"
"It’s like a drawer."
Blake stood up taller and straighter. He also raised his voice at me. "Ma’am, I demand access to that corpse so that I can do my duty."
The back door closed, and I knew that Odell had returned. It only took a minute for him to reach us. "What do you mean screaming in a funeral home? Have you no respect?" Odell growled.
"Just following orders. Who are you?" Blake said.
"I’m Odell Middleton, one of the proprietors of this establishment, and you met me when I picked up the man found in the Jaguar over at Best Books yesterday. You run around trying to look so efficient yet you don’t remember anybody. Part of law enforcement in small towns is knowing the citizens. Wayne Harmon told me you’d come highly recommended by the Philadelphia Police Department, but you got a way to go to be successful in St. Mary."
Blake had the good grace to look embarrassed, but when Sheriff Harmon came in, the deputy immediately began complaining.
"I told them you wanted me to guard the body, but they won’t let me," he whined.
"I didn’t tell you to guard the corpse. I told you to let them know I was on the way with what we need to postpone the funeral."
"And what do you have?" Odell grumbled.
"Since Mrs. Joyner is so adamant she wouldn’t put off the service until the FBI arrives, I got a subpoena from Judge Cain."
"You got an arrest warrant for a dead man?" Puh-leese. I knew I should be quiet, but I couldn’t control my mouth.
"No, Callie," Harmon sighed. "Of course I’m not going to arrest a corpse. I’ve got a subpoena for Mr. Joyner or Mr. Johnson, as I believe he really is, as evidence. Not a witness, not a suspect. Just as evidence. And not indefinitely. Judge Cain gave me seventy-two hours, but the FBI agent should be here late this afternoon."
"I didn’t know you could do that!" Blake’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.
Odell glared at the deputy. "There’s a lot you don’t know," he said before he turned to Harmon. "Have you notified Mrs. Joyner that we can’t bury her husband today? I had the tent and chairs set up this morning, and the grave has been dug."
"She was here when I told Callie the funeral would have to be postponed, but she didn’t believe I could do that. Maybe I should have Blake stay until she’s seen the warrant."
Just what we need. Blake here to handle a distraught, but strong-willed, widow.
My thoughts were needless. The front door opened. "Just As I Am" sounded, and Grace Joyner entered. Her eyes darted from me to Blake to Odell to Harmon, then back to me.
"What’s going on?" she asked.
"Mrs. Joyner, the sheriff has obtained legal permission from Judge Cain to require a seventy-two-hour postponement of Mr. Joyner’s burial," Odell said in a voice almost as Undertaking 101 as Otis usually sounded. "Of course," he continued, "you may have a service here today and then have interment in a few days if you like."
"You know I don’t want that. Just a few friends at graveside." She glared at Harmon. "Tell me the truth. Is there anything I can do to keep you from stopping me burying my husband today?"
"No, ma’am." Harmon cleared his throat. "And believe me, I wouldn’t have taken this action if I didn’t feel it’s absolutely necessary."
Grace Joyner’s whole demeanor changed. "If there’s nothing I can do, I’ll just have to regroup," she said softly. "I doubt I can contact everyone I invited in time to stop them going to Taylor’s. Can I just have a little commemorative service and plant the tree today? Actually burying the body isn’t as important to me as planting the memorial tree."
"Of course," Odell answered.
"And I don’t want any big funeral home vehicles," Mrs. Joyner said. "I’ll carry the tree to Taylor’s Cemetery in my car. It’s really not necessary for any of you to go."
"Mrs. Joyner, one of us will accompany you. We don’t have to use anything you consider a gas-guzzler. I’ve made arrangements for some more fuel efficient cars to use today."
"Cancel them," Mrs. Joyner ordered. "I’ll let Callie ride with me, and I’ll bring her back after it’s over."
By noon, I was in Mrs. Joyner’s hybrid. She was driving, and the crape myrtle tree was sticking out the back with a red flag blowing in the breeze. Mrs. Joyner was lecturing me on crape myrtles. At least I was getting paid to listen. When Daddy or Otis go into teaching/preaching mode, I have to hear it off the clock.
"The reason I chose a crape myrtle is because it’s an ornamental that can be controlled by pruning. Besides, Harry loved flowers, and I think the white blossoms are so pretty." She continued with a lot of facts about proper pruning to make the plant a tree rather than all bushy.
I tuned her out and wondered how Otis was doing. Odell had gone back to the hospital. He’d called in Denise Sharpe to answer the telephone. We’d been using her as a part-time receptionist since her previous employer, Nate’s Sports and Subs, closed. Just as the Middletons required me to wear black dresses, Denise had to wear them, too. Hers, however, had to have long sleeves and turtleneck collars to hide her piercings and tattoos.
Taylor’s Cemetery is a very old graveyard about an hour from St. Mary. It’s not a perpetual care graveyard, so people maintain their loved ones’ plots. Some were carefully manicured grass or covered with white pebbles. Others were overgrown with weeds. The markers stood in all sizes from one foot tall to fourteen feet angels. The front of the acreage faced a country road. The other three sides were bordered by thick trees.
I’d been there several times on behalf of Middleton’s. The most memorable visit was the exhumation of a lady buried ten years previously. Her granddaughter won the state lottery and moved the old woman’s grav
e to a perpetual care facility. For sure, I hadn’t forgotten that day.
Odell had said he’d had the grave dug and an awning erected. The canvas covering wasn’t one of ours. It had Clark’s Funeral Services printed on the flap. Clark’s was located closer to Taylor’s Cemetery. Odell must have subbed out the work instead of rounding up some of our part-timers for the job.
Parked along the drive through the grounds were cars that wouldn’t have passed Mrs. Joyner’s "no gas-guzzlers" criteria. The majority of them were Cadillacs, Mercedes, and beemers. Even one Hummer. Mrs. Joyner’s choice of proper burial attire for her husband might be golfing clothes, but the attendees had dressed in traditional, appropriate funeral attire—suits for the men, dark garments and heels for the ladies. They stood respectfully around the tent, waiting for the widow before sitting in the folding chairs.
Mrs. Joyner nudged me and whispered, "Stay with me." I followed her to the front row. It only took a second for me to realize exactly where the tent and open grave were. Taylor’s Cemetery had sold Mrs. Joyner the same space we’d invaded to disinter the grandmother. I wondered if Mrs. Joyner had gotten a discounted price or if she even knew she’d bought her husband a used cemetery plot.
A man who may or may not have been a minister stood. I couldn’t really tell because he wore a light blue suit but no clerical collar, cross, or anything like that. I can spot Catholic and Episcopal priests as well as Lutheran pastors, by how they dress. It’s impossible to distinguish other denominations by looks. Have to wait ’til they start preaching.
After Mrs. Joyner and I sat, people crowded under the tent and were seated behind us. A few bouquets of fresh flowers lay around the grave, which was covered by green Astroturf and roped off. A hole for the tree was dug at the head of the site.
I’d noticed that no floral arrangements had been delivered to the mortuary even though Mrs. Joyner hadn’t had us mention a charity for donations "in lieu of flowers" in the obituary. She’d also had the services posted as "private, by invitation only." Apparently, she’d told the privileged guests that she favored natural bunches of flowers over professionally assembled wreaths and sprays. I didn’t know if this was typical of ecologically friendly funerals or simply the widow’s preference.
The gentleman in charge opened with a prayer. The main topic was preservation of the earth and its resources. That’s what he talked about when he began the eulogy, too. Realizing that the absence of clerical robes and collar meant we wouldn’t be jumping up and down throughout most of the service, I let my mind drift. I was thinking about my brothers’ upcoming weddings when I noticed a bright purple truck shining through the trees at the back of the cemetery. I barely heard the engine cranking before I watched a purple Ford 350 dually pull out of the trees and exit in the opposite direction from the cars at Mr. Joyner’s site.
My heart thudded in my chest. I wanted to scream. I wanted to chase that truck. To stop it and demand, "Bill, what in the name of heaven are you doing parked in the back of a cemetery with some woman who is not the one you’re marrying?"
I couldn’t do any of the above.
The truck sped out of the gate and up the road. By the time my thoughts returned to the present, Mrs. Joyner was holding the crape myrtle tree upright in the hole while mourners walked past and dropped clumps of dirt around the tree like the "dust to dust" casting of soil onto a casket as part of a regular service. After that, each of them came by again and sprinkled water from a fancy container. The service concluded, and Mrs. Joyner spent the next thirty minutes talking with her guests.
I was so mad at Bill that I could hardly bear waiting for Mrs. Joyner to take me back to St. Mary. When most everyone else had gone, she finally told me she was ready to go. I climbed in and rode in silence for a while. "Are you okay?" she asked after about thirty minutes.
"I’m all right," I said. "How are you?"
"I’m as fine as I can be under the circumstances. I thought the service went well, didn’t you?"
"It was beautiful," I answered though I really had no opinion at all. When my thoughts finally got off my brother Bill and back to the tree-planting, I wondered again if the widow knew they’d sold her a used plot. I wanted to ask her, but I felt that Otis and Odell wouldn’t be pleased if I said anything about it.
Chapter Nine
Otis and Odell’s niece. That’s who I became when I arrived at the hospital patient information desk and asked for Otis Middleton’s room number.
"He’s been moved into Medical Intensive Care and can only be seen by two family members for ten minutes every two hours. Are you a relative?" the clerk asked.
"Yes," I lied, feeling guilty, but justified. "I’m his niece."
"Oh, you must be his brother’s child," she said. Like Magdalena, Tamar Myers’s character in her Pennsylvania Dutch mysteries, the clerk must have gotten her exercise by jumping to conclusions. "I think your dad is in the Coronary Intensive Care waiting area now," she continued. Like if I were Otis’s niece, I’d have to be Odell’s daughter. I could have been the child of another brother or a sister. Of course, they had no other siblings, but they could have.
"The orange steps lead to Intensive Care. Just follow them." Her words brought me back to reality and away from thinking of additional branches on the Middleton family tree.
I looked down and saw that the floor had different colored footprints painted on the tiles. I guess if you knew the color code, they would lead you just about anywhere in the hospital.
"Thanks," I mumbled and set out following the orange outlines. I wondered where the yellow ones went. I’d always been a big fan of The Wizard of Oz, and fantasized about following the yellow brick road.
Those orange steps led into the elevator and out again with a big orange arrow by a number three painted on the wall. I got off on the third floor. At the end of the hall, I saw double doors with a sign that said, "Do NOT Enter. Intensive Care." I headed there to ask where the waiting room was, but Odell called my name before I got to the doors. I looked to the left and saw him sitting with other worried-looking people in a small room with lots of fake plants and a television showing some program about "Your Hospital Stay." No one paid any attention to it, and someone had turned the volume to "mute."
I joined the others and told Odell, "I’m scared to ask how he is. I didn’t know he was in Intensive Care."
"It’s not good right now. He isn’t responding to treatment." Odell sat beside an older blonde-haired lady. She truly fit the description of a yaller-haired woman. Heavily made up, but not cheap-looking, she wore a pink dress with floral appliqués on the shoulder. In other words, she was wearing a painted-on corsage. The dress cinched in to her small waist, accenting a full bosom and robust hips. Her fingernails and toenails were painted a hot pink that picked up one of the tones in the flowers.
A gentleman sitting on the other side of Odell moved across the room. I thanked him and sat. Odell asked a few questions, and I assured him that the tree-planting had gone well and that Denise would forward any calls to my cell. She’d also promised to lock up at eight o’clock. The sheriff and the FBI agent hadn’t arrived when Mrs. Joyner dropped me off at the funeral home. I didn’t mention seeing Bill at Taylor’s Cemetery, nor the fact he hadn’t answered when I called him.
"Odell," I said, "Mrs. Joyner’s hybrid vehicle was a good ride. I thought you couldn’t go but a few miles at a time in those cars. If the Mustang ever totally dies on me, I might get one."
"Not unless you get a different job," Odell said. "No way can we pay you the salary you’d need to buy one like hers. Folks who own them aren’t trying to economize, just trying not to use up gasoline."
A woman wearing a hospital volunteer uniform stepped into the room. "It’s six o’clock," she said. "Two members of each family may visit for ten minutes."
Odell turned toward the blonde. "Darlene," he said and motioned toward me, "this is Callie Parrish. She works at the funeral home. I’ve seen Otis every visiting time since they
moved him to ICU, you and Callie go in now. I’ll see Otis at eight."
Darlene leaned across Odell and said, "Thanks," to him, then, "Hello," to me. Her voice sounded really familiar, but I couldn’t identify it. We followed the volunteer past several curtained-off spaces where others folks from the waiting room stopped and slipped in to see their relatives. The lady turned toward us and asked, "Are you here to see Mr. Middleton?"
"Yes," Darlene and I said in unison.
"Relationship?" she questioned.
I said, "Niece."
My mouth almost flew open when Darlene said, "Wife."
I’d never heard any mention of Otis being married. I knew Odell had two ex-wives, but nothing about Otis. He was a very private person and hadn’t ever spoken of having been married. He didn’t date, so I’d always assumed he wasn’t interested in women.
The nurse held the beige curtain back for us. Otis lay motionless on a narrow hospital bed. His eyes were closed, and there were IV tubes and wires reaching from his body to several machines.
Darlene leaned over to him and patted his fingers below the needles in his arms and hands. "Otis?" she said softly. "Are you awake?"
He didn’t open his eyes, but he muttered, "Darlene?"
"Yes, Big Boy," she said, and my mouth flew open for real this time. We’d both chosen the same pet name. Her choice for Otis was the same as mine for my dog.
After a few minutes, she stepped back and motioned for me to move up to Otis. I was so shocked at how bad he looked that I couldn’t think of what to say.
"Just tell him who you are and that you’re here," Darlene whispered. I’d been around Otis for several years now, and this woman had just surfaced after who knew how many years. I felt awkward that she seemed to be in charge. I wondered how long they’d been married and how long they’d been parted.
"Otis," I said and patted his hand as Darlene had. "It’s Callie. I came to see how you’re doing, but I don’t want you to talk. Save all your strength to get well."