Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  “Well, we’ll have to do something,” I admitted. “Can I use the phone? I’d better call my mother.”

  “Sure. Tell her I’ll run you home. Main Street ought to be plowed by now.”

  As I dialed from the wall phone at the rear of the shop, I watched P.J. and my dad framed against the bright whiteness outside—two boyhood friends: one sat falling into shadow, the other still stood in the light.

  Mom met us at the back porch with dry slippers for Dad and a mug of black coffee for me.

  “Did you let the neighbors know?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I notified the Sheriff’s Department everything was all right. A man telephoned a few minutes ago. Wondered if we found your father.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I’m not sure. Hard to hear because he was talking beside a highway. Do we know a Joshua?”

  I eased Dad into a kitchen chair and pulled off his wet boots. He hadn’t bothered to wear socks and his feet were like ice cubes. “Drives a Pepsi truck,” I said.

  Mom dabbed melted snow from my father’s hair and neck. “He told me P.J. must give a good haircut and that he’d have to try a store-bought one sometime.”

  I was touched by the stranger’s concern. “Joshua’s a nice guy. I met him on the road out front. I think we should start stocking Pepsis to offer families.”

  “I think I’d better take your father up for a hot shower,” said Mom. “Then I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  “Don’t bother. I can fix myself an English muffin.” I looked at the clock. Five minutes after nine. “I’m going to work on year-end inventory and I’ve got some calls to return.”

  Mom led Dad upstairs. I locked the deadbolts on the front and back doors and set the keys where Mom and I could easily find them. An invisible fence was out of the question, but something needed to be done. The morning episode had been an adventure I didn’t want repeated. Perhaps Ted Sandiford offered a solution.

  I closed the office door behind me, laid the magazine with Sandiford’s number by the phone and pulled a new legal pad from the drawer. Overhead, I could hear the shower running.

  “Good morning. Hoffman Enterprises.” The woman’s voice was crisp and pleasant.

  “Ted Sandiford, please.”

  “May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Barry Clayton, from Gainesboro, North Carolina.”

  “Yes, Mr. Clayton. Mr. Sandiford told me to put you right through.”

  Everyone likes to feel important, and the idea that I was being given preferential treatment gave my ego a boost.

  “Barry, Ted Sandiford here. Thank you for returning my call, especially since the Weather Channel says the sky fell on you.”

  “Looks like we’ll have a white Christmas.” I jotted Christmas on my legal pad as if it were some significant point. Writing down my own words only happened when I was nervous. “My uncle said you called.”

  “Yes, a delightful gentleman.” Sandiford sounded like he was in his late fifties and his mellow southern accent had overtones of an Eastern education. “I’ll get straight to the point, Barry. You know anything about bird dogs?”

  “Bird dogs?” I asked. I scribbled the word under Christmas and wondered if Uncle Wayne had gotten the message confused and this man was trying to sell me something.

  “Yes sir, because that’s what I am. Hoffman Enterprises pays me to spot what they’re hunting. I’m a pointer. When I see something I like, I point it out to them.”

  “So they can shoot me?” I laughed, although being in the funeral business had already gotten me shot once.

  “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I know a little bit about your situation. Four years ago, we looked into bringing Clayton and Clayton into our company. I was the bird dog and I liked what I saw.”

  “I never heard about it. Did you speak with my father?”

  “No, it never went that far. At the time, we had just come through a major expansion and capital funds were tight. We had to get the operation phase of our new acquisitions under control. And, frankly, the situation in Gainesboro worried us.”

  “Too small?”

  “Too unstable. We knew about your father’s illness, and although we could have approached you with a price favorable to us, the management team was leery of picking up a property with uncertain operational variances.”

  The phrase was so corporate sounding I didn’t bother to write it down. “What’s that mean?”

  “Barry, Hoffman Enterprises is a business. We utilize all of the strategic and managerial tools available to operate at a fair profit.”

  “Right, so why didn’t you make a fire-sale offer when you learned my father had Alzheimer’s?”

  “Because that wasn’t the issue. You were the issue.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I may have a string of degrees and years of business experience, but I also understand the uniqueness of our industry. I’m a second son.”

  “Second son?” The man was losing me in a conversation of meaningless phrases.

  “You’re an only child, Barry. You’ve probably never heard of what I call second son syndrome. My family ran a funeral home in Irondale, Alabama. I was the second son, and there wasn’t enough business to support two families, even though at the time I wanted the home more than anything. My brother was older by ten years, he made a buy-sell arrangement with my father, and I got tuition money for Harvard Business School instead.”

  Want more than anything went on my pad.

  “So I know a funeral home is about relationships with the community,” continued Sandiford. “There was no continuity we could see at Clayton and Clayton. You had taken a different path.”

  “And that made a difference?”

  “Absolutely. Our business model is to buy family funeral homes, keep the family as employees, and run the business with the efficiencies of a large corporation able to buy equipment, supplies, and services at discount volume.”

  Wal-Mart has come to the funeral business, I thought, except the people saying “Welcome to Wal-Mart” are all kinfolk.

  “Without that family link,” said Sandiford, “we decided we couldn’t afford to take a chance on re-staffing while we had so many other operations in transition.”

  “What’s changed?” I asked. I drew a line across the page, figuring we were getting to the heart of the matter. There was a knock on the door behind me. “Hold on a second,” I told Sandiford. I tore off the sheet and stuck it in the magazine just as Mom came in with a plate of toasted English muffins.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were on the phone. You never made your muffins.” She set the food on the magazine beside me and retreated. I waited until her footsteps faded down the hall.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Sandiford.”

  “Ted, please. A couple things changed. Four years have passed and our operations are running smoothly under the Hoffman umbrella. We’re profitable and we need to re-invest in our own company. Otherwise, certain tax advantages will be lost. And then there’s you. You’ve returned and from my conversation with your uncle, I gathered you’ve done an outstanding job interfacing with your community.”

  “Interfacing?”

  Sandiford laughed. “Now that’s a word that’s just full of it, isn’t it? I mean people think highly of you, Barry. You provide a good service. Clayton and Clayton is in good hands and I’d like to know if you’re interested in joining hands with us. We have a lot to offer each other.”

  “Maybe, but I need more information.”

  “Of course. So do I. There is one consideration about the timing.”

  “What?”

  “Our fiscal year ends December 31st. If we can fast-track this thing, it helps our bottom line, and some of that help can be passed on to you.”

  “You mean the sooner the deal, the better the deal?”

  “Exactly.”

  I looked at the calendar hanging above my computer screen. Today was the 9th. Ted Sandiford was talki
ng three weeks with Christmas thrown in the middle. “That’s awfully fast, Ted. I don’t see how we can get everything worked out.”

  “We don’t need everything worked out. If we have some key documents completed and notarized by year end, our team of accountants and lawyers can massage the details.”

  I didn’t have a team other than my archery buddy Josh Birnam who did our taxes and Carl Romeo who had drafted my parents’ wills. I was David with an abacus going into negotiations against a massaging, interfacing Goliath who had invented his own syndrome. Ted Sandiford heard the silence.

  “Barry, I want you to think what’s best for you and your father. You’ll come out with cash and a job. We offer corporate health care, a 401-k profit-sharing plan, administrative support, and you don’t even have to change your commute.”

  “What about my parents?”

  “You can use the money to get them into a proper home or a facility that handles special needs. I know this has hit you out of the blue. Like I said, I’m a bird dog. The corporate tax lawyers let me off my leash and I’m looking for the best game I can find. I hope we can at least go to the next level.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Meet face to face. Bring you down to the Atlanta office. You can get some numbers together for me and I can give you more specifics and start to hammer out a potential deal. What do you say? Is Thursday or Friday better for you?”

  The dates on my calendar were as empty as a roadside wine bottle. “You know this business,” I said. “Hard to say. Right now I could probably swing Friday.”

  “Great. I’ll keep both days open in case you need to adjust your schedule. Now here are some things you should pull together.”

  Sandiford spent the next fifteen minutes listing the information I was to bring. In essence, he wanted our company books with the expense and revenue figures for the last three years. He also wanted purchase details of all our funeral supplies, furniture, embalming equipment including serial numbers, and company vehicles. His team would do a depreciation analysis which would affect the categories of the financial package Hoffman might offer. I hung up the phone with a head and legal pad swirling in numbers.

  My first concern was explaining to Mom why I would be going to Atlanta. I didn’t want to lie but I didn’t want her to worry about a deal that might go nowhere. I decided to call Uncle Wayne. To my shock, he picked up the phone after two rings.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “You’re right by the phone.”

  He laughed. “Getting ready to telephone you. See if you need any help. People always die when it’s least convenient.”

  “Nobody’s died, but we did have a problem.” I told him about Dad’s pursuit of a haircut.

  “Well, no two ways about it,” stated my uncle, “we got to figure a way to keep your dad from wandering off. Come springtime some tourist will run over him.”

  “There might be an answer before then,” I said. “I just talked to Ted Sandiford in Atlanta. I think Hoffman is going to make an offer for the funeral home.”

  My uncle said nothing for a few seconds. All I heard was shallow breathing.

  “Uncle Wayne?”

  “Could be the best thing, Barry. It’s up to you and your mother.”

  “I want your say in it too, Uncle Wayne. And they want us to stay on.”

  “An old coot like me?”

  “Come on. You know more than any of us. And you have to admit most of our business is old coots.”

  That got a chuckle out of him. “You told your mother yet?”

  “No, and that’s a problem. They want me in Atlanta Friday to talk about a deal. What do you think? Should we have a family meeting?”

  “Yes, when we’ve got something specific to discuss. But give your mom credit, Barry. She lives every day with the uncertainty of your father’s condition. She can live with the uncertainty of a business deal. Tell her you got a call and you’re going to at least listen to what they have to say. You’re the one with the future stake in all this. We’re here to support you.”

  I thanked him and hung up. His advice made sense. Lunch would be the time to bring it up. Family decisions were always best discussed around the kitchen table.

  I spent the rest of the morning compiling the figures for Ted Sandiford. Most of the information would be required for our business tax return anyway. Over tomato soup and turkey sandwiches, I told Mom about my Friday trip. She seemed more concerned about road conditions than the actual meeting. I suspected she didn’t want to discuss the implications of a sale as far as what she and Dad would do. Like Uncle Wayne, she kept deferring to whatever I thought best for me. I wanted to say what’s best for me is to know what’s best for you, but I held my tongue. Uncle Wayne was right. We needed more information.

  At three o’clock, I was cross-referencing purchase records for embalming fluid and reconstructive cosmetics when a loud rap shook the office door.

  “Wake you up?” asked Tommy Lee. He came in and eased into the red leather chair beside my desk.

  “Why? Is this normally nap time in your department?”

  “Not today. We had to work. Too many crazies out in the snow.” As he spoke the last words, his rough face reddened as he remembered Dad’s escapade.

  “Present company included?”

  “You know I didn’t mean that. One of the reasons I dropped by was to see how he’s doing.”

  “He’s fine, but it looks like Mom and I have to become jailers. Any tips?”

  Tommy Lee shifted in the chair, catching his holstered gun on the armrest. “You might consider installing inside electric locks. They work with a magnetic plate and a keypad. Punch in the code and the door opens. Then you’re not worrying about using a regular key to lock and unlock the doors.”

  “Beats P.J.’s suggestion of an invisible fence,” I said.

  “You could put a fenced area in the backyard. Give your dad a little roaming room without being able to wander off.”

  The idea had merit, but not if we were moving. Although I wanted to talk to Tommy Lee about selling the business, I decided to wait till after my Atlanta trip.

  Tommy Lee unbuttoned the chest pocket of his uniform jacket and withdrew a postcard-sized piece of cardboard and handed it to me. A color photo of a young blonde girl was on one side and descriptive information and phone numbers were on the other. The girl’s name was Tammy Patterson. Her picture looked like it had been taken for a high school yearbook.

  “This girl’s gone missing,” said Tommy Lee. “Two weeks now. Everybody but the parents is convinced she ran away to Atlanta with her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend. Her father had these printed up and distributed to law enforcement offices in five counties.”

  I knew where Tommy Lee was headed. “If Dad wanders off, you and your deputies could have them all ready.”

  “Right. All of my deputies know your dad by sight, but the cards are also good for showing other people. I could keep them in the patrol cars. Take this one. The company’s name is on the back.” He shifted again, edging forward in the seat.

  “You want to move into the front room? That chair’s pretty uncomfortable.”

  “No, I’d rather talk here,” he said, and glanced at the door.

  I realized he had closed it behind him.

  “There’s something else,” he said, dropping his voice. “I have a friend in Sheriff Ewbanks’ department. I asked him a few questions, unofficially. He’s taking a chance for me so none of this can get back to Ewbanks.”

  “I understand.”

  “Seems like Hard-ass Hor-ass was livid last night that someone leaked Sammy Calhoun’s name to the TV station. I figured you told Susan and I know her aunt works at NEWSCHANNEL-8.”

  “I told her not to tell,” I said. I wished I felt more confident she had listened to me.

  “Sure,” said Tommy Lee. “The information could have come from any number of sources. Ewbanks is als
o pissed at the D.A. for making this case a showpiece. That just ratchets up the pressure and the media coverage. Suspects get dragged into the spotlight before a case has been built. I’m sure the same thing happened in Charlotte.”

  Tommy Lee was right. Although I had only been a patrolman, I had heard the detectives complain about how too much pressure on high-profile cases created leaks that undercut their investigations.

  “They’ve got something already?”

  “They found the slug in the dirt. Must have stayed in the skull and fallen out when the backhoe uncovered it. Ballistics report came this afternoon. The Colt twenty-five fired the fatal shot.”

  “They pull a number from the gun?”

  “Yeah, and believe it or not prints were on the clip, but nothing’s been matched yet. They got lucky with the serial number too. The gun’s owner registered it. My contact says Ewbanks plans to drop by his house unannounced this evening. After the newscast and after most of the reporters have gone home. He doesn’t want any press tailing him.”

  “You know who owns the gun?”

  Tommy Lee nodded. “Walter Miller. Susan’s father.”

  Chapter 7

  When it rains, it pours. Or in this case, when it snows, it dumps. Tommy Lee had no sooner stunned me with his revelation about Susan’s father than Mom knocked on the office door.

  “I hate to interrupt,” she said. “The McBee family or at least a goodly portion of them are in the front room.”

  “Who?”

  “Claude McBee. He died this morning at the Springhaven nursing home and four grandchildren have come in a four-wheel-drive pickup to make funeral arrangements.”

  “I think we’re done here,” said Tommy Lee. He stood up and Mom backed into the hall.