by Leonie Gant
“That is what I want” Griffin said softly as his thumb stroked my cheek. “I want you looking at me like that, every day.”
With that he walked out the door. I closed it and leaning my back against it, I sank to the floor, trying desperately to control the raging fantasies going through my head. Jake Griffin may annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but man could he kiss.
Chapter Seventeen
Standing in the foyer of the funeral home waiting for Tomas, I tried desperately to rein those fantasies in as I contemplated the floral arrangements dotted around the room. The colors were a light pastel cream which looked a lot more tasteful than I would have expected, in fact I had to give Tomas points for the entire place. It was out of the way and looked like a small stately home on acreage at the end of a long driveway. There had even been a security guard at the gate to the property. I don’t think we would have been able to find a more discreet place to hold the funeral. Bustling in, Tomas came up to me and hugged me, kissing me on the cheek.
“Trudie, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”
“That’s okay” I said. “Where did you find this place? It is absolutely perfect.”
“You wouldn’t believe the places that are around for funerals” Tomas said. He grabbed my hand.
“Now I need you to have a look at Eric to make sure that he is acceptable for the viewing tomorrow.”
I stopped short and Tomas who had my hand and was obviously lighter than me got yanked back.
“Nuh, uh” I said shaking my head. “I am not looking at a dead body.”
Tomas looked at me patiently, “Sweetie” he said, using that calming voice which really just has a tendency to put me on edge. “Weren’t you the one who found the body?”
I nodded.
“In that case you’ve already seen the man dead.”
“Yes I have, and that image is one that I would be very happy if I could remove it from my brain. I really do not need to have a reinforcement with several days of decomposition added on top.”
“Oh honey” Tomas said, grabbing my hand again and dragging me forward. For a little guy he sure had some strength to him when he got going.
“Trust me, Helena is a genius. You won’t believe what she has managed to do.”
He dragged me through the building pointing out flowers and colors, accepting my murmurs as approval until we got to the morgue. As Tomas opened the door I stopped breathing through my nose, expecting a horrendous smell, but was instead greeted with a mixture of herbal scents. Underneath you could still smell the sharp antiseptic odor that I would have anticipated. Covering it was a riot of different aromas, seemingly fighting each other for dominance. Walking into the morgue it looked like I had stepped into a greenhouse. There were plants all over the room. In the middle of the room was a table with a body on it and standing over him was a woman wearing a long flowing dress, her platinum blonde hair cascading down her back. There were a multitude of bracelets running up her arms that clinked together with every movement she made. She looked ethereal, like the ultimate hippy child. I will admit that when Tomas had said the name Helena I had been expecting someone Goth like and sullen. The look on Helena’s face was one of unmitigated joy and it looked completely out of place in a funeral home. I hung back as Helena and Tomas air kissed each other without actually touching. Tomas waved me forward.
“Helena, this is Trudie. She was a friend of Eric and she just wanted to thank you for doing such an amazing job with him.”
I stepped forward and was immediately engulfed with the scent of citrus and lavender.
“I should be thanking you” she gushed. “Eric has been so wonderful to work with. His spirit is so calming. I could see he was a beautiful soul. You must miss him dreadfully.”
I thought that missing him may have been an overstatement and I was distracted by how friendly Helena was being. She continued her talking, all the time stroking my hair.
“He is so beautiful. It was an honor to work on him, like working on a Van Gogh.”
I looked at Tomas a little confused. Sure, Eric had been gorgeous in life, I wasn’t going to deny that for a second. That being said, despite my albeit brief glance at Eric on the morning he died, I was pretty sure that beautiful did not exactly cover how he looked after death. I had also recommended a closed casket, because I didn’t think Adele would be able to cope with what had happened to Eric, and the aftermath. Helena pointed to the table and I got my first glimpse of Eric.
“Holy cow” I blurted out because the Eric lying on the table was not the one I saw in the bed three days ago.
I didn’t think that I had been traumatized that much, but my memories of that morning had blood matting his hair and too much damage to ever be seen again. Combined with the autopsy, I was sure there would be no way he would have been presentable for an open casket. This Eric looked like he had been sleeping and would get up at any moment. He had barely looked this healthy when he was alive. I looked at Helena and Tomas dumbfounded.
“He looks amazing” I said.
Helena jumped up and down and clapped her hands. She then gave me a quick hug and rushed out of the room.
I looked at Tomas. “Seriously, is this really him or is it one of those wax dummies?”
Tomas nodded “It’s him. I’m telling you Helena is a genius. I have brought her some really bad ones before and she seems to be able to fix them up.” He coughed. “She is a little eccentric so we don’t usually let her speak to the families, but she is a real artist, I mean you should have seen the size of the hole in the side of his head.”
“What do you mean hole?” I asked.
“From the bullet.”
“Eric was shot?” I asked.
“Yes, went in the right temple with a nice little hole, came out the left side with a hole the size of a golf ball. You didn’t know he was shot?”
“No, I was only in the room for a few minutes when I found the body. All I saw was a lot of blood on the pillow. Why would someone shoot him but leave Adele alive?”
“Maybe Adele did it” Tomas offered.
“And then went to bed and fell asleep beside the dead body of her husband” I said doubtfully. “I can’t see many people doing that, and I have to say that I really don’t believe that Adele could be that callous or crazy.”
Looking at Eric, I was simply amazed that he looked so good. “Where exactly was he shot?” I asked Tomas.
Tomas looked at the head. “The bullet went in here” he said as he pointed to the right temple. “And it looks like the bullet came out here.”
“How can you tell?” I asked looking at where he was pointing.
“If you look really closely you can see where Helena has grafted on some hair from other parts of his head.”
I looked closely. No, I couldn’t see it. Helena was truly gifted, but I would take Tomas’s word for it. Helena bustled back in the room.
“You have negative energy around you” she said as she waved a burning incense stick in my direction. I looked at Tomas in panic. I’ll admit the woman was an artist but she was beginning to worry me. Tomas stepped in front of me and cut Helena off as she started chanting.
“Trudie is fine Helena” he said.
Helena kept chanting and waving the smoking stick at me. It wasn’t a small stick either. This thing looked more like a tree branch with greenery tied to the end of it. This greenery was on fire and was putting out a lot of smoke. I could feel my eyes beginning to water. As I breathed in I started coughing as the smoke went into my lungs. An alarm started blaring loudly and another man came running into the room.
“For God’s sake Helena” he yelled as he grabbed the burning stick and doused it in the nearest sink. “I’ve told you no burning things in this room.”
He pulled out a small step ladder and turned off the smoke alarm. Helena stamped her foot and pouted.
“I hate you” she said before storming off.
“Tomas, why do you let her do things like
that?” the newcomer said.
“Don’t blame me Rico,” Tomas said. “I was trying to stop her. I thought you’d taken away anything that she could use to light a fire after the last incident.”
“I did” Rico said morosely, “but it’s a full time job trying to keep her from doing her earth witch thing.”
Rico turned his attention to me. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Not a problem” I said tears streaming down my face. I gratefully accepted the tissue Tomas passed to me and started to wipe the tears away. “I think she was trying to help me with some negative energy that I have.”
“Do you really have negative energy?” Rico asked.
“Well in the last few months I’ve stumbled over a couple of dead bodies and I’ve been shot. I’m guessing Helena was pretty much spot on about the negative energy. Thinking about it, you may have stopped her a bit early. I think I may need her to start up again, maybe with a burning tree trunk.”
“Fine” said Rico, “but next time do it in your house. Hopefully there’d be a few less ignition sources in there.”
I looked around and noticed the bottles of chemicals dotted around the room, mostly obscured by the plant life that seemed to have taken over the area.
“Getting your point” I said still dabbing at my eyes. Turning to Tomas I asked, “Is there anything else that I need to do for tomorrow?”
“No” said Tomas. “The viewing will happen first, the service straight after. As it is only a small function we have tea and coffee and some food in the reception room after the funeral. That should be everything.”
“Thank you so much” I said. “You have no idea how much this has helped.”
“Oh by the way” said Tomas, “did you manage to find any family that I need to talk to regarding any special requests.”
“Ah yes” I said looking at Tomas and Rico. “His mother won’t be attending the funeral and doesn’t really have much of an interest in anything happening with it.”
“Any reason?” asked Tomas.
“Other than her being the mother from hell, chances are she will still be in jail tomorrow.”
“In jail?” Tomas queried.
“Yes, she didn’t take the news of Eric’s death and not leaving her anything too well. Decided to take it out on a friend’s car with a baseball bat. I’m pretty sure he decided to press charges.”
Tomas and Rico looked at me in shock. Tomas recovered first.
“Very well, in that case we go with standard service, no frills, I’ll pass the information you gave me on to the funeral celebrant and we should get it done easily.”
I felt a little bad that I was looking at Eric’s funeral as something that I needed to get through with as little effort as possible. It seemed wrong to me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had tried to find someone who would truly mourn for Eric but he obviously hadn’t led the kind of life which provided for that. It wasn’t my fault I kept telling myself, but there was still a part of me that felt guilty.
Chapter Eighteen
Sitting on my couch later in the evening that guilt was still eating at me. My cell rang and I picked it up.
“Hey Trudie” Griffin said.
I smiled. “Hi Griffin.”
“I just wanted to see what you were doing this evening.”
“Just sitting on the couch trying to find a show that doesn’t have me cringing at what people are willing to do for their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Not a fan of reality television?” Griffin asked.
“Not even close.”
“Thought you might be working at Adele’s house.”
“No, not tonight, I’ve got to go pick up something for Adele but I think I’ll do it tomorrow after the funeral.”
“That’s good” Griffin said. “I was hoping to come over and see you tonight but I’ve got work so I may see you tomorrow.”
“Okay” I said. “I’ll see you then. Be careful.”
“Thanks” said Griffin. “Sleep well. Wish I was with you.”
He hung up and I smiled. I had to admit it, I was enjoying this, whatever it was with Griffin. I couldn’t really categorize it as a relationship, but it was something. It was definitely something.
The next morning the sun was shining brightly as it usually does in LA. Arriving at the funeral home early I found Tomas rushing around organizing things.
“Is everything okay” I asked as I grabbed the massive vase of flowers that he was trying to balance on top of a pile of paperwork.
”Everything is fine” he said nodding to Rico as he raced past us.
“Are you sure?” I said. “You both look a little tense.”
“Tense?” queried Tomas.
“Yes, tense is the word that I’m going for” I said smiling.
“If you must know we’re not tense” he glared at me. “Helena decided that the funeral we had planned today was not good enough for Eric and that his spirit wasn’t at peace. She decided to perform a séance last night to try to talk to him. She kind of made a bit of a mess but we are dealing with it.”
Inwardly I groaned. Even dead, women were falling for Eric and making my life difficult.
“What do you need me to do?” I said following Tomas into the room where Eric was now peacefully laid out in a coffin. Next to him was a chalked circle on the floor with all kinds of symbols written on it and melted wax candles.
“What was she trying to do?” I groaned.
“How the hell should I know” Tomas growled obviously past the time when he should have had his morning coffee. “She thinks his spirit is not at rest for some reason.”
“Maybe the fact he was murdered” I ventured as I got down on my knees to try to scrape some of the melted wax off the floor.”
“She keeps going on about him having a beautiful spirit.”
I wondered if she meant that metaphorically. The Eric I knew had a beautiful body. Spirit though, that was a little less attractive. I reached into my bag and found the small Swiss Army knife my brother had given me when I left home and pulled out the blade to start scraping the worst of the wax off the floor. Tomas looked at me dumbfounded.
“What?” I asked.
“You have a knife in your bag” he said quietly.
“I have a Swiss Army knife, it is a tool. See, it even has tweezers” I said pulling out the tiny tweezers and waving them around.
“In case you have a hair plucking emergency” Tomas ventured.
“In my line of work you would be amazed at what I am required to do at times” I grumbled. “For example at times I am required to be on my hands and knees next to the coffin of my employer’s murdered husband, while scraping the candle wax off the wood floor from the séance performed by the funeral cosmetologist, who has developed a somewhat disturbing attachment to the dead husband.”
Tomas stared. “Point taken,” he said as he went back to washing away the chalk marks on the floor.
Rico walked in. “I am going to fire her” he growled.
“No you’re not” said Tomas.
“What if the family finds out?”
“I’ve met the family and frankly as long as Helena was able to get some bank account details out of him they’d be cheering her on” I said still concentrating on the wax.
Rico’s exasperation at the situation was obvious to both Tomas and myself. He sat down heavily on the ground just watching Tomas and I as we continued to clean the floor.
“I don’t know what to do with her” he said quietly. “I promised our parents I’d take care of her, but if she starts destroying the business I’m going to have to do something.”
Tomas leaned over and put his arm around Rico’s shoulder.
“We can deal with that later. For now we clean up and get this funeral done to the best of our ability. She didn’t do anything illegal, just thoughtless. That’s fine, thoughtless we can deal with. Trudie’s here and she is going to help us.”
I nodded encouragin
gly as I kept working.
“We can pull this off Rico, we just need to work together.” Tomas squeezed Rico’s shoulder encouragingly and I could see Rico’s resolve strengthen.
“Thanks” he said, “and thank you Trudie. You shouldn’t have to do this.”
I waved. “Not a problem, we’ll have this sorted in no time. One question though, where is Helena now?”
“My aunt is taking care of her for me. She was pretty tired out after last night” he gestured to the mess around us.
Tomas and I went back to work while Rico continued rushing around. Within a half hour we had managed to clean away the chalk residue, candle wax and some substances which I didn’t look at too closely, until the original deep brown floorboards shone through. Putting out the chairs I was surprised to see Griffin in the doorway dressed in a dark suit that highlighted the breadth of his shoulders. In that moment I decided that as much as I liked Griffin in jeans, I really liked him in a suit. I smiled at him but was surprised when I didn’t get an answering smile back.
“What are you doing here?” he blurted out.
“I’m working” I said shortly, a little confused by his greeting. Admittedly I hadn’t been expecting him to sweep me into his arms and give me a passionate kiss, especially with Eric’s corpse lying only meters away. But I had hoped we’d progressed to a much better greeting than that.
“It’s just that the funeral doesn’t start for another hour” he said. “I expected you to be helping with preparing Adele.”
“Miranda and Elliot Powell are taking care of Adele. My job was to organize the funeral and I just came to help Tomas and Rico.”
“Oh” Griffin said.
“Now that we’ve established why I’m here” I said slowly, “why are you here?”
“Cops always attend the funeral” Griffin said hurriedly. “It is a murder after all.”