“There’s no need for shouting,” he said, suddenly cold and calm. “It caught my attention because it wasn’t yours and it wasn’t mine and I wondered whose it might be. Your reaction makes me wonder if you have something that you’d like to tell me though,” he said quietly, his eyes chips of ice.
Susannah stared at him. She’d always wondered if her mild-mannered, terribly introverted husband actually had a backbone, and his tone just then had shown that he did. In spades.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she growled, getting up from the table. She tossed her plate in the sink so hard that it shattered on impact.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Tim remarked, picking up his fork, determined to enjoy the rest of his meal.
Susannah shot him another glare and headed for the door. “It had better be cleaned up by the time I get back,” she said on her way out.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Tim commented lightly as the door slammed shut.
Once she was gone, he no longer had to keep up the pretense of being hungry, so he dropped his fork onto his plate in disgust, the utensil making a dull thud when it landed in the mashed potatoes. He stood up, took his plate to the sink and tossed it in on top of Susannah’s. It clattered, suffering a chip on the rim, and he looked at it with grim satisfaction. He’d avoided relationships his entire life because he generally found his fellow humans to be a dramatic, irrational lot, and his interaction with his wife had just underscored that belief. What had he gotten himself into?
CHAPTER 12
* * *
Goodbyes and Garlic
This was the part that Timothy Eckels hated about his job. His neck chafed under the understated blue and gray patterned tie that he wore with his standard charcoal-colored mortician costume. It was a viewing day, and there was a chance, despite the fact that this particular victim had been alone in the world, that someone might come in to pay their last respects, and he’d have to interact with them. The tears, the concerned faces, the hysteria – Tim was supremely uncomfortable with all of it - but was professionally obligated to play the part of the caring overseer of all things funerary. A buzzer sounded, indicating that the front door had opened, and Tim sighed, taking one last look in the mirror to check that no hair was out of place before trudging up to greet the guests of the dead.
Tim entered the viewing parlor that featured hunter-green plush carpet with matching drapes, and dignified burgundy wallpaper with touches of gold. He’d covered the rudimentary pine casket in black satin, giving the simple box a more upscale look. Even the indigent dead deserved to be presented with excellence, and this handsome corpse was showcased to the best of Tim’s abilities. The bottom half of the casket was closed, and a black satin sheet was draped over the body up to the elbow so that Jorge’s hands, or lack thereof, didn’t show. The precise laceration in his neck was hidden by a snow white shirt collar, making his olive skin look tanned and healthy. Tim was truly an artist, and regarded each body as a blank canvas that had a story to tell.
A large, imposing man was standing near the casket, his face looking more puzzled than sad.
“I don’t get it,” the man said, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Tim said, pulling out the standard phrase, hands clasped in front of him.
“We weren’t close, honestly. We worked together at Le Chateau. I was kind of his boss.”
“My wife works at Le Chateau,” Tim offered, feeling oddly unnerved.
“I’m Andre Guillaume, Head Chef,” Andre offered his hand and Tim shook it. “Who’s your wife?”
“Susannah Eckels. I’m Tim. She didn’t mention that one of her co-workers had died.”
Andre gave him a strange half-smile.
“Well, Jorge wasn’t exactly her favorite person,” Andre shrugged. “Everyone else on the planet, especially women, seemed to like him, but he seemed to just rub Susannah the wrong way.”
“Oh?”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, your wife is a bit of a perfectionist, and Jorge was somewhat haphazard in his kitchen habits.”
Tim nodded. “Yes, she wouldn’t have had much patience for that,” he agreed.
“I guess it doesn’t matter now, though,” Andre said ruefully.
“I suppose not,” the mortician said, at a loss for words.
“You did a good job. He looks like he’s just sleeping.”
“Thank you.”
“How did he die anyway? No one seems to know anything. I mean, Jorge seemed like a healthy guy…”
“I…uh…I’m not certain that I know…” Tim was interrupted by the arrival of his wife.
“Hello Andre,” she said quietly, approaching the casket. She and Tim hadn’t spoken since their disagreement the night before.
“Susannah,” the chef nodded.
She glanced at the casket, her face expressionless, then looked at her boss.
“Do we have a new prep cook yet?” she asked gravely.
Both men just blinked at her.
“Good god, Susannah, Jorge just died,” Andre frowned.
She nodded pensively. “Right, you haven’t had time to interview yet, I understand.”
She peered into the casket one last time, staring at the spot that Tim had artfully covered, where Jorge’s hair had been pulled out. “Goodbye, Jorge,” she said mechanically, then turned and left the parlor, with her husband and boss staring after her.
“People grieve in their own way,” Tim offered lamely, not looking at Andre.
“Yeah,” the chef grunted. “Nice to meet you, Tim. I’m heading out.”
“Thanks for stopping by,” the mortician replied, his mind elsewhere.
Susannah only came over to the mortuary when he specifically asked her to do something because he was going to be busy with a large funeral or something. The fact that she had come over of her own accord, while still not talking to her husband, was strange to say the least. Tim wondered if perhaps his wife had more emotional capacity than he did, and had just come to say goodbye to a co-worker. His heart softened a bit at the thought, and he made plans to talk things out with her after Jorge’s viewing was over.
“Alright, Eckels, wrap it up, it’s been an hour,” Sheriff Arlen Bemis drawled, ambling into the viewing parlor.
“Umm…no, Sheriff, it hasn’t. It’s only been twenty minutes,” Tim tapped his watch.
“Look here, Dr. Frankenstein, I don’t care if it’s been twenty seconds, we got a crew out at the cemetery waitin’ to put this boy in the ground, and they get paid by the hour, so you need to load him up and take him over, understand?”
“But the law says that…” he began, puzzled as to why the sheriff was in such a hurry.
Bemis interrupted him, stepping up and thrusting his nose squarely into the mortician’s personal space bubble.
“In case you ain’t figured it out yet, I am the law around here, and I say it’s time to go, so get moving and get this stiff outta here,” he ordered.
Tim stared at him, confounded.
“I…okay,” he sighed, not wanting to deal with any more hostility from the sheriff.
Jorge Hernandez had been just another body, but there was something about his death that stuck in Tim’s craw. Something was wrong, perhaps murderously wrong, and he just couldn’t put his finger on it.
**
“I just dropped your co-worker off at the county cemetery,” Tim said quietly when he came into the living room where Susannah was watching television.
“Andre?” she raised an eyebrow at him.
“No. Jorge. You didn’t tell me that one of your co-workers had died…I could’ve…I don’t know…hugged you or something,” he glanced away, embarrassed.
“What makes you think that I need a hug?” she asked, gazing down at the floor.
“I just…I didn’t know if you were…maybe, sad…or something.”
“I didn’t really know him.”
“Okay,” Tim stood there awkwardly, hands in
his pockets. “Do you want to go out to dinner or something?” he offered, not knowing how to comfort his wife when she didn’t seem to need comforting.
She looked at her husband as though weighing her options, and he was somewhat afraid of what she might say, though he didn’t know why. Seeming to come to a decision, her expression softened a bit.
“Can we just get take-out instead? There’s a movie coming on tonight that I want to watch. It’s about a girl with multiple personalities.”
“Okay, that sounds interesting,” he nodded, relieved that their storm had passed. “Pizza or Chinese?”
“Pizza, with extra garlic.”
“Do you want to come with me to pick it up?” he offered.
“No, you go ahead,” she waved him off. “I have some things to take care of around here.”
CHAPTER 13
* * *
To the Victor Go the Spoils
Susannah had seriously considered killing her husband after he confronted her about the hair on her blouse. She’d gotten careless, but fully realized that a temper tantrum which snuffed out the life of her mild-mannered mate would be ill-advised. Married people are normal people. Married people aren’t looked upon as potential perpetrators of mayhem and murder. Married people get along, and if she eliminated Timothy, she’d be just another single and suspicious female.
Andre had hired a plump, young Italian woman, Rosa Fenetti, to replace Jorge, and, as far as Susannah could tell, she and the new girl were going to get along just fine. While the young woman was a bit melodramatic, and far too talkative, her precise use of knives and measurement devices was commendable. A week after Rosa had started at Le Chateau, Susannah arrived at work to find the young woman in tears in the break room.
“Onions?” she asked, stifling her impatience. Susannah had no tolerance for weakness, particularly when it manifested in tears.
Rosa jumped, not having heard her coworker come in, and hurriedly wiped her eyes.
“No,” she shook her head, not making eye contact.
“Cut yourself?” Susannah tried again, forcing herself to sound at least marginally concerned.
She hadn’t seen any blood on the new girl, which unfortunately meant that Rosa was most likely blubbering about some wretched emotional thing that she didn’t want to deal with, and she’d be more than upset if it threw her prep schedule off.
“No…it’s my…Veektor,” she said, choking a bit on the name, and pressing a sodden tissue under her eyes.
“Victor? Is that your boyfriend or something?” It took a supreme amount of effort for Susannah to refrain from sighing.
Rosa shook her head again.
“No. Veektor…is my baby,” her face twitched with sorrow.
“Oh, your son?”
“No, he’s my little doggie. I love him so much and he’s very seeck,” she replied, her shoulders hitching.
“Your dog,” Susannah’s voice was flat and it took everything within her not to roll her eyes.
Rosa nodded.
“The vet say that he will get better with the supplements, but I been giving them to heem for two weeks, and still he gets worse. He looks up at me with the sad eyes, and I just can’t take eet no more.”
A gleam appeared briefly in Susannah’s eyes, and she sat down next to her coworker, taking the distraught young woman’s hand.
“I hate to ask such an awful question,” she began, quietly. “But, have you thought about…putting poor little Victor out of his misery. Sometimes it’s the best thing that you can do,” she patted the olive-skinned young hand in her palm, admiring the color.
“That’s just the theeng,” Rosa exclaimed. “I tell the vet that my Veektor, he need to be put down, even though I don’t want heem to go away, and he say no. He say the supplements, they will work in time, but they don’t, and I don’t know what to do. My Veektor, he suffering,” she sobbed.
“I may be able to help you,” Susannah soothed, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at her plan.
**
“But Timmy, this poor young woman is suffering, and so is her dog. What is she supposed to do?” Susannah pleaded, grabbing Tim’s hand as they sat side by side on the couch.
“What your coworker does with her sick dog is none of my business, nor any of yours,” he stared at her, unyielding, from behind his thick glasses.
“It does affect me. I have to see that sad face day after day, and when she doesn’t perform well because she’s upset, it directly affects my job,” she insisted.
“Then perhaps you should take up her performance issues with your boss,” he suggested, blinking at her.
“That’s your answer? Just forget about the feelings of this poor woman, and the suffering of an innocent animal, and tell her boss, so that she might get fired because she’s too distraught to work properly? What kind of human are you?”
“This isn’t about me,” Tim sighed, withdrawing his hand and turning off the television.
“Oh, but it is. You know how to stop this dog from suffering, you know how to ease this woman’s pain, and yet you refuse. This is entirely about you,” Susannah drew away from her husband, shaking her head in disbelief, her show of emotion baffling him.
“Why do you care so much?” he asked.
“Because I would like to think that if it were me in that situation, that some kind, compassionate soul would be willing to help me out, that’s why,” Susannah replied, standing, in a huff. “I’m going to bed, and I’ll probably be gone before you leave in the morning. I have an early shift tomorrow,” she shot him one last accusing look before heading down the hall toward the bedroom.
She heard a sigh, then heard the creak of the couch springs as Tim stood to follow her.
“Susannah, wait…” he called out, resignation coloring his tone.
She was able to wipe the smug grin from her face before he caught up with her in the hall to tell her that he’d help Rosa Fenetti with her dog, but that it would absolutely be the last time that he did anything like that. After he’d made his promise, she led him by the hand to the bedroom, and gave him a little something special to help him sleep. As he snored beside her, she stifled a giggle. Wouldn’t it be so much fun to start her mild-mannered mortician husband down the path of becoming a cold-blooded killer? She’d finally have someone with whom she could swap stories and be fully herself. She’d be free to talk about the activities that gave her the highest of highs. If Timmy was a murderer, they’d have so much more in common. Susannah Eckels began making plans in her head, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
Lhasas and the Law
“Have you seen this dog?” Sheriff Arlen Bemis thrust a photo of Rosa Fenetti’s dog, Victor, under Timothy Eckels’ nose as he was closing up the mortuary after a long day of body prep.
Tim stood, blinking at the sheriff, not letting his anxiety show.
“I haven’t left the mortuary today, how on earth could I have seen that dog?” he asked, irritated.
“I didn’t ask you if you saw him today, I asked you if you’ve seen him,” Bemis persisted, chomping on his omnipresent toothpick.
“No, I don’t get out much, and I don’t generally pay attention to dogs when I’m out and about. I’m allergic,” Tim shrugged.
“Uh-huh,” the sheriff’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Then why is it that Mrs. Truman, from across the street, seems to recall having seen this dog entering your mortuary?”
“She drinks.”
“Boy, you trying to tell me that an upstanding member of this community is seeing things because she has a drinking problem?” the sheriff tapped the end of Tim’s nose with the photo, standing very close.
“Your words, not mine, Sheriff,” the mortician gazed back at him impassively.
“Where’s this dog now?” Bemis demanded, looming over Tim.
“How should I know? Wouldn’t that be a good question to ask his owner?”
&n
bsp; “And who might that be?” the sheriff moved closer, trying to trip Tim up.
“I have no idea, but I would assume that it’s whomever you got that picture from.”
“You gettin’ smart with me, boy?” Bemis growled.
Tim stared back at the frustrated sheriff, somehow knowing that his best course of action was to remain silent.
“I’m watching you,” the sheriff said, finally backing off and tucking the photo of the dog back into his shirt pocket. “You better watch your step. If you commit a crime in my county, I’m gonna bust you so hard, you ain’t never gonna see the light of day, you got it?”
“Okay,” Tim blinked at him, maintaining his composure until the sheriff was pulling out of the parking lot.
The mortician took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing that the ashes of Rosa’s Lhasa Apso, Victor, would be coming out of the oven soon, to be placed in a small porcelain jar, which Rosa had inherited from her grandmother.
**
“You can’t bring me any more people who have sick animals,” Tim told Susannah at dinner. “The sheriff came by today, asking lots of questions, and he had a picture of Rosa’s dog.”
“Wow, that old country boy picked up a trail? I wouldn’t think he’d be able to find his way out of a paper bag,” she snickered, twirling strands of spaghetti around her fork.
“This isn’t a joking matter, Susannah,” Timothy stared at her.
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” she nodded, sobering.
“Has Rosa been happier?”
“Much. She’s doing a great job with prep,” his wife stuffed a forkload of pasta into her mouth. She’d made the sauce from scratch and it was perfect.
“That’s good.”
They finished the rest of their meal in relative silence, and watched television until it was time for bed.
**
“I’m telling you, Arlen, there have been two of my patients who have died recently, and there was nothing wrong with them that my supplements couldn’t fix,” Bradley Dobbins, the town veterinarian protested.
The Quiet Type Page 7