Murder is on the Clock

by Fran Rizer

  yard at Daddy’s for the cocktail hour while photos of the

  wedding party were taken at the church. Finger foods and

  punch would be served. One of her ideas was a table full

  of various cold spreads with different kinds of crackers

  and breads in ornamental baskets. Daddy had made a lot

  of spreads, including his favorite “beer dip,” and

  refrigerated them, but Molly and Miss Ellen were

  supposed to be preparing more food as well as cutting

  assorted breads into small shapes.

  Buh-leeve me. I’d rather go to Charleston to get Jim than

  be stuck in the kitchen, especially now that Molly and Miss

  Ellen were upset.

  “I told you I’ll go for Jim,” I said. “I know you’ve got

  way too much to do.”

  “Odell is letting you off?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t bother to tell Daddy that I’d still be on the

  clock, paid to make the trip in the hearse.

  “Works for me. Get a paper and pen.”

  “Got it right here at my desk.”

  Daddy gave me Jim’s flight info and I managed to get

  through the conversation without telling him exactly what

  had happened at Bill’s house. Before I disconnected, I

  heard Daddy’s door slam.

  “Where’s Molly?” Bill demanded loud enough for me to

  hear over the phone.

  “She’s in my room with Ellen, and you don’t need to go

  in there. Both of those women are having some kind of

  wedding meltdown,” Daddy grumbled. “It’s about time you got here. Frankie and Mike are outside fixing up the

  yard. They’ll need your help with the tents and tables.” I heard Bill pleading, “I’ve gotta talk to Molly.” Disconnecting the phone, I left my father to deal with

  Bill. Not thinking I needed to go right then, I went to

  YouTube on my desk computer. I used to read mysteries

  during any downtime at work, but I’d discovered ‘50s and

  ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll on YouTube and begun spending way too

  much time at home and at work watching old music

  videos.

  Odell opened the door. “Are you doing makeup or

  dressing first now?”

  I’d done hair and completed makeup before dressing the

  deceased for a long time at Middleton’s. Then a male

  cosmetician from Savannah told me that he always dressed

  the decedent before applying makeup to avoid smudges

  on the clothing. That had sounded strange to me, but after

  I tried it, I found it worked better, especially if the

  deceased would be wearing a garment that pulled over the

  head. Contrary to what some people believe, we do not

  slit clothes up the back to make them fit.

  “Clothing before makeup,” I answered.

  “Well, there’s nothing for you to do for Mrs. Greene until

  the family comes in tomorrow and brings the dress,” he

  said. “Why don’t you take the funeral coach and go back

  to Dunbar Road? The sight of you waiting there might

  speed up the coroner.” He paused, and then added, “Not

  really. He has to do what he has to do, but it will save

  time if you’re already there and ready to go.”

  I love driving the hearse. My daddy was actively farming

  when I was a teenager, and I used to be thrilled when he

  let me drive equipment. Though not nearly so big as the combine, the hearse, which we call a funeral coach, is big and sleek. The sound system in it is great, and with Sirius Radio that Otis had recently installed, I could listen to any kind of music I wanted over some seriously awesome

  speakers.

  I tuned in old sixties rock ‘n’ roll and heard Chuck Berry

  singing, “Riding along in my automobile.” I sang along

  substituting funeral coach for automobile. Of course, Chuck

  had no particular place to go while I was definitely headed

  for a crime scene.

  The radio music was so loud that at first, I wasn’t sure

  Bob Seger was singing from my phone. I looked at the

  caller ID: Jane.

  Buddies since her mom brought Jane home from the

  School for the Blind in Spartanburg during our freshman

  year of high school, Jane and I live next door to each other

  in duplex apartments on Oak Street right outside the city

  limits of St. Mary. She usually slept late because she

  supported herself as Roxanne who she called a “fantasy

  actress” on a 900 line. It was the perfect job for Jane since

  she didn’t have to depend on anyone to transport her to

  and from her work, but it had been a major source of

  contention between Jane and my brother Frankie when

  they were engaged.

  “Callie, come get me,” Jane screamed through sobs into

  my cell phone the minute the line was open. All of this

  crying was getting on my nerves—first Molly, Loose Lucy,

  Miss Ellen, and now Jane.

  “I’m on my way to pick up a deceased individual,” I

  said. According to Odell, I was never to refer to anyone

  dead as a “body,” but I wouldn’t have used that word to

  Jane anyway. My work freaks her out.

  “Come NOW!”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked as I wheeled the funeral

  coach to the side of the road and then U’ed it back toward

  Oak Street.

  Jane was hard to understand through her weeping, but

  when I made out her words, I headed home at a speed that

  Middleton’s hearse had never rolled before.

  What Jane said was—“A creepy-sounding man called

  me. He said, ‘Roxanne, I know who you are, and I know

  where you live’.”

  “I’m sure he was just bluffing,” I tried to calm her. “You

  know they assured you that your Roxanne landline is

  secure and can’t be traced.”

  “You don’t understand!” Jane screeched. “He called me

  on my cell.”

  4:00 P.M.

  I looked at the clock, it was almost four When Jane came flying out of her door Jane amazes everyone at what she knows without seeing anything. She can tell who has pulled up in the circular driveway in front of our duplex apartments by the sounds of familiar cars. She wouldn’t have recognized the funeral coach’s engine, but she ran out her door as I pulled into our circular driveway.

  Her red hair, grown out shoulder-length since I gave her a short, short cut, bushed out around her face. She had on flannel draw-string plaid pajama bottoms and one of her mom’s old tie-died T-shirts from her mother’s hippie days. Since her mom died right after Jane and I finished high school, my family treats her like a second daughter—good because her father had abandoned her in infancy.

  Jane held her arms out like a floundering bird just learning to fly, and her right hand clutched her cell phone tight. Jane’s eyes—those sightless green eyes—were wide with panic. I jumped out and grabbed her, led her around to the side, and opened the passenger door.

  I could hear Big Boy barking behind the building. I’d finally fenced the backyard so my Great Dane wouldn’t have to be left inside when I went to work. I wanted to go pet him, but Jane needed me more.

  Sobbing so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath, Jane managed to say two things: “I’m scared” and “Are we in the hearse?”

  I turned off the radio so I could hear her better, and answered, “Yes, calm down and tell me about this call.”

  “I was asleep when the phone rang and woke
me.” She was so terrified her body shook. “I told Rizzie yesterday that I’d come help her with food for the rehearsal dinner if she’d send Tyrone to pick me up this afternoon. I thought the call was her to tell me he was on the way.”

  “Okay. So you answered the phone?”

  “Of course, but it wasn’t Rizzie. Some weird-sounding man’s voice told me he knows who I am and where I live. He emphasized where.”

  “Probably kids playing pranks.”

  “No, he called me Roxanne. Some caller on the 900 line has found out who I really am.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dried the tears from her face. “Callie, I haven’t mentioned it to you, but lately some of Roxanne’s callers have seemed kinky and bizarre—not just lonely old men.”

  “Then why’d you come running out when I got here? You couldn’t have realized it was me when I pulled in. I know you would have recognized the sound of my car, but not the sound of the funeral coach.”

  “I was so frightened that I started thinking somebody might be inside the apartment with me. I listened for breathing, but even though I couldn’t hear anyone, I kept thinking if a man was standing very still inside with me, I wouldn’t know it. When I heard you pull into the drive, I came out because I could tell you’d cut the corner like you usually do regardless of what you’re driving.” She giggled. “And besides, I could hear the radio. Who else drives around blasting Chuck Berry these days?”

  “He was a major star and influence on musicians of all genres,” I defended my taste in radio music which was primarily bluegrass and old rock, and then returned to the phone call. “Did you report the man to the sheriff?”

  “No, what would I tell him? Sheriff Harmon wouldn’t understand how scared I am. The man didn’t actually threaten me.”

  I disagreed. Wayne Harmon was twelve years older than Jane and me, but he’d been my oldest brother John’s best buddy while I was growing up. I knew he was compassionate both as a law enforcement officer and as a friend.

  “Should I have called 911?” Jane asked.

  “Not necessarily 911 unless you really thought someone was inside with you, but the sheriff needs to know what happened.”

  “Should I call him now?” Jane fingered her cell phone.

  “We’re headed to where he’s working. You can tell him when we get there.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You found another body.” She slipped the phone into her pocket.

  “I did not! Tyrone found it,” I protested.

  Jane laughed. Amazing how that woman moved from hysterical tears of fright to a light, joyful sound. “Where were you when that happened?”

  “We were right over the hill on Dunbar Road.”

  “Together?”

  “I’d stopped to move trash out of the road. Ty came up behind me. When we dragged the bag over to the side, we looked inside and saw a man.”

  “A dead man?”

  “Yes, a deceased individual.”

  “So you found the sack but Ty found the body inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re going to put the ‘deceased individual’ in the back of this hearse while I’m riding in the front seat?”

  “You betcha.” I shrugged. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No, but my mom would have said that you are clearly in denial about attracting dead people.”

  “I don’t attract them. They don’t come to me.”

  “No, they draw you to them like a magnet.”

  I was glad to reach Dunbar Hill and end the conversation by parking outside the yellow tape and opening my door. Jane unlocked the passenger door, too. That’s when I realized that she hadn’t brought her mobility cane.

  “Just stay inside,” I told her. “I’ll bring Wayne over to you.”

  “Then turn the radio back on,” she said.

  I knew better than to enter the area marked off by the crime scene tape, but I wished I could go to my car and get out the teal dress for the wedding. Then it hit me! What would I do about my car? I’d drive away in the funeral coach. And what about Rizzie’s van?

  When the sheriff walked over, the first thing I asked was, “Can we leave my car and the van on the side of the road until someone comes for them? I don’t want them towed.”

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea. We’re almost done here. Get your brother Mike to bring Tyrone and Bill or Frankie over to pick up the vehicles.”

  Whoosh! A big sigh of relief gushed out of me. “Then you’re not going to impound the Mustang?”

  “No need. I didn’t want them moved until we checked the grid around them, but it’s obvious that this is a secondary crime scene. It’s obvious the homicide took place elsewhere.”

  “Did you find a bullet wound?”

  Wayne gave me an amazed look. “No obvious signs of gunshot, knife wound, or blunt force trauma, but I don’t think a man would commit suicide or die a natural death all trussed up like that.”

  “Right,” I murmured.

  He looked at Jane sitting in the car, bouncing to the music. “Are you dropping her off somewhere?” he asked.

  “No, she’s riding with me,” I said, “but she needs to tell you something.”

  He went to Jane’s side of the funeral coach and knocked on the window. I saw her jump, but when he called her name, she lowered the window. I busied myself opening the back of the hearse and getting out the collapsible gurney. I opened it, locked the legs upright, and then placed two extra-large body bags on its top.

  Jed Amick, Jade County’s coroner, walked over and stooped under the tape to join me.

  “Hi, Callie,” he said. “I want you to transport him to the MUSC morgue inside the plastic bag just as you found him. I’m hoping the team of Charleston’s forensics pathologists will let us know what happened to him and find some evidence in the bag.”

  “Any idea who he is?” I asked.

  “Not yet, but the sheriff and I will both work on that.” A tech motioned toward Amick, and he took one end of the gurney. I had the other. A deputy lifted the yellow tape high enough for us to pass through. I could see that the coroner had repositioned the body slightly, but the man was still basically like when I first saw him. We used both of my body bags, one on top of the other, over the black plastic trash bag.

  We completed the paperwork and loaded the decedent in back. I was ready to pull away before I remembered to call Mike and ask him take care of picking up my car and the van.

  “What did Wayne say?” I asked Jane as we headed toward Highway 17.

  “First he checked caller ID on my cell. The call is shown as ‘unknown number.’ He made some notes and said he would look into it. I know you think the sheriff is wonderful, but I got the idea he wasn’t concerned at all, and I can understand that. He’s got a fresh murder case, and I’m complaining about a phone call. He seemed to kind of think being a fantasy actress was inviting trouble, but you know how long I’ve been supporting myself this way, and really, all I do is talk.”

  From the moment I met Jane, I’d been impressed with her. As a child, she’d lived in a residential home for the visually handicapped. I met her when her mother brought her home to St. Mary in the ninth grade. Self-sufficient— that was Jane. Completely blind and with no family except that my dad and brothers had accepted her as one of us, Jane was the most independent person I’d ever known.

  “Did he tell you to stop being Roxanne?” I asked.

  “No, he wants me to record Roxanne and see if any of the voices could be the caller.” Her lip quivered. “Callie, it’s one thing to talk to men as Roxanne in private. I don’t think I want the sheriff listening to what we say. You don’t think he’d let the deputies hear the recordings, do you?”

  “Not to embarrass you, but it could be necessary if a deputy works the case.”

  Jane let out a string of words that would have made a sailor proud. Thinking of sailors made me think military, which led to thoughts of Jim and the clock. We had enough time to go by our apartments
and get Jane’s cane before heading to Charleston.

  At the apartments, both of us changed clothes. Me, into a sundress less formal than my black dress; Jane, into slacks and a blouse more appropriate than her flannel bottoms and tee.

  Most of the ride was silent except for the radio. To make Jane happy, I’d changed the station from old rock to the Willie Nelson’s Road House show. Jane grinned and sang along when they played “I Fall to Pieces” by her favorite singer—Patsy Cline.

  When we reached the MUSC morgue in Charleston, Jane sat patiently while I completed the transfer and the paperwork. The minute we drove away, she said, “I need the bathroom.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me back there? I would have shown you where it was.”

  “I’m not going into that building full of tragedy.” “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, people who live to be ninety and die peacefully in their beds don’t wind up on the Medical Examiner’s tables. Besides, I don’t like to think about cutting someone up.”

  “Wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “Don’t think of it as cutting; think of it as examining people to see what’s happened and possibly solve their cases if someone harmed them.”

  “Callie, you are full of . . . “ She didn’t say the word I expected. Instead, she said, “Euphemisms and sugarcoating. You’ve convinced yourself that you make people pretty and that there aren’t any ugly sides to it.”

  I could say what happened next was because I’d had a hard day finding the John Doe, watching Bill destroy his marriage, and being scared when Jane called. I could say that, but the truth was that Jane was always criticizing my job and I was sick and tired of it.

  “And there’s no ugly side to what you do?” I snapped in a rude tone. “There’s no ugly side to talking dirty to old men knowing they aren’t just listening to Roxanne while they fantasize about what they want to do to her?”

  During over fifteen years of friendship, Jane and I had seldom fussed, but I expected us to jump into a big argument over my words. She surprised me. Instead of barking back, she burst into tears and curled up into as close to a fetal position as possible without undoing her seat belt. We stopped at a McDonald’s where she refused to speak to me while we bathroomed and bought milkshakes—chocolate for me, strawberry for her. The ride to the airport was silent.