The Final Arrangement

by Annie Adams

  “Hello,” the male voice answered abruptly. “What?” He let out a huge sigh. “Why do I have to go?” He paused to listen. “What about Gaylen?" Another pause. "Fine. I’ll be there soon.” The volume of his voice changed. “That was Greg, he says I’ve got to go out on a call.”

  “Well, what about Gaylen? He’s supposed to be on call.” Linda's voice dripped with desperate disappointment. I knew as secretary, she did all of the scheduling of employees, check writing to vendors, appointment setting for Greg Schilling and pretty much managing the place for the guy who was called the general manager. She would know who was supposed to be where and when.

  “He was out doing that rural funeral and one of the hearses broke down," said the man. "I’ve got to cover for him until he gets back. Sorry babe. I’ll call you when I’m done. Maybe I can come back before the creepy twins get done in Fillmore.”

  Linda sighed. “You better go now. We can’t get found out. If you don’t get going, they’re gonna wonder where you are.”

  “Okay,” was the boyish reply, “but can’t I get a little sample before I go?”

  I had probably already started to blush, but now it felt like I had walked into an X-rated movie, waiting in the lobby for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I heard a sound like flesh being spanked and then a squeal of delight; from Linda I hoped. Then I heard some pitiful good-byes in baby talk. As I fought to keep down my breakfast, another sickening thought struck me. I stood in the middle of the path to the nearest exit.

  I fled through the door to my left, which put me in the garage of the mortuary where they kept two hearses and a backhoe. Today they also kept a gurney with a thick, black plastic bag with all of its space completely occupied by something.

  Dress shoes clacked on the linoleum floor of the flower room. The mystery man was coming toward me.

  I looked for the nearest thing to hide behind. I spun to my right and tried to make it to the nose of the nearest hearse.

  The footsteps were getting loud enough to be just outside the door. I was out of time. I wouldn’t be able to explain why I was where I was, when I was, and it would look like I had been doing nothing but listening in. Okay maybe I had just been listening in, but come on, who wouldn’t have been a little curious? Linda couldn’t find out what I had overheard. She would be embarrassed, and I would lose my golden gossip contact within the otherwise impenetrable fortress of silence of the Hansen mortuary.

  The only thing close enough to provide some cover was the gurney and black body bag. I took the turn a little too sharply and my pivot foot slipped on the concrete floor. I fell forward with arms locked straight out in front of me. Both hands landed dead center on the bag, the right hand sunk down into a soft area that didn’t give much resistance, the left felt like it landed between two rigid poles.

  I froze in place. Then I looked to my right to face my discoverer and I noticed the black bag hadn’t quite been zipped up all the way. I could just make out a mouth and a nose. Mr. Clark I presume.

  This was bad. Looking down at the placement of my hands, I surmised that not only would I be caught—a possible murder suspect lurking in the dark—after listening in on someone’s afternoon tryst, but I would be caught groping the private parts of a formerly eighty year old man, after listening in on said afternoon tryst.

  I heard screaming rock music at the entrance to the garage.

  “H’llo. Yeah I’m still here. Wuhl it’s a good thing I didn’t leave yet. Is it in the office? Okay I’ll bring it.”

  The sound of shoes scuffing the linoleum diminished, and I knew he was headed back into the hallway and toward the opposite end of the building. I whispered to Mr. Clark, “I don't think this is going to work out. It's not you—it's me."

  I tiptoe-ran into the flower room and out the back door. The H2 was still there, obviously belonging to lover boy. If he was headed toward the office, I had just enough time to jump in Allie’s car and drive up to the front of the building as if I were just arriving. Hopefully, if I timed it right, Lover Boy would be headed back to his Hummer as I arrived at the office to speak with Linda.

  My plan worked. As I entered the foyer of the mortuary main hall, the Hummer sped through the parking lot toward the road. I could see Linda making adjustments to her clothes as I approached.

  “Hi, Linda!”

  “Oh,” she let out a half shriek. “Quincy, you startled me.”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

  “No, no, you didn’t. I guess I was just distracted. What can I do for you sweetie?”

  “Well actually,” I lowered my voice, “I’m just going to get right to the point because I know I can trust you. I was wondering, with everything that’s happened with poor Derrick, what is the mortuary going to do about flowers?”

  Linda stopped the vigorous hair fluffing and smoothing.

  “Quincy, I am so glad you’re here. I need to talk to someone. I know you’ll keep this top secret anyway, but you can not tell anyone what I'm gonna tell ya.” Her mouth made a straight line, while her eyes seemed to bore holes into mine with her seriousness ray beams.

  “Of course. You know me, Linda.”

  “I do. It’s just that, things are crazy right now. I mean not just with Derrick and everything, but it’s been that way for at least six months and every day has gotten worse. There’s something going on around here, and I don’t know what it is. And that’s what scares me. I’m usually the only one who knows everything that’s happening in this place, but Greg Schilling’s been keeping something from me and it just feels weird.”

  “What do you mean weird?”

  She turned her head left and right, as if looking for any lurkers. "Let's go sit down in my office," she whispered.

  I followed her lead and we nearly snuck across the lobby to her office, which was in plain view of anyone who might enter the mortuary.

  Linda paused at the entrance and looked from side to side again. Then she closed the office door, which she had never done before.

  “Well first of all, you’d think they’d feel really bad for Derrick. I mean they dealt with him every day with his flowers and all. But it almost seems like they’re kind of relieved more than anything.”

  “Huh,” I thought out loud.

  I wondered why they would be relieved. He had to have been giving some great incentives like a percentage of sales. Maybe he had even been giving gifts to the morticians. Who wouldn’t want the flow of free perks to keep coming?

  “You said it’s been about six months. What started to be different six months ago?”

  “It was gradual at first, but Greg told me we should try to use Derrick’s shop for referrals. As you know, Quincy, I told him that you are the one I like to recommend because you’ve always done such a nice job for me and my family.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I did know this and appreciated it.

  “So for a while, when someone would call from out of state, or if I was here when a family would call and ask for a florist’s name, I would tell them yours. But Greg started getting kind of grumpy about it. Then about three months ago, he says that I was not to recommend anyone else but Derrick’s shop or I would lose my job. It made me so mad. That flower guy was an idiot and his arrangements were either dead or falling apart half the time. I didn’t want to give my personal guarantee on his crappy job. So I says to Greg, I should type up a memo telling everyone that it’s company policy, and that way when someone complains, I can quote the company policy and tell them my hands are tied.”

  “Well I know you still call me so he must have changed his mind on the firing part,” I said.

  “Oh no. I could still get fired. If they found out what we were talking about right now I would be in so much trouble. But I still tell people to call you when nobody else is around. Piss on him. I run this place and he has the nerve to tell me I can’t write a memo?” Anger smoldered in her eyes.

  “Why couldn’t you write a memo? That seems wei
rd. A memo would be a good idea.”

  “I don’t know why. But he went nuts about it. He said he didn’t ever want me to write any of it down. That it was important I didn’t.”

  “Well since we’re on the subject of Derrick, how much of a discount was he giving?”

  She leaned forward nearly jumping out of her seat. “That’s the thing, Quincy! He wasn’t giving them anything! I know, because I’m the one that writes the checks to you guys.”

  “What? No discount? For all those referrals?"

  Generally when a family goes to the mortuary, the mortician recommends a specific florist for whatever reason. They will say to the family, “I recommend Quincy. Go there and pick out the flowers and have her send us the bill.” So, I would then meet with the family, make the flowers and deliver them, then send a bill to the mortuary, minus the ‘discount’ that they get to keep for having advertised my business for me.

  "He’s got to be giving them something, Linda. They don’t just recommend him out of the kindness of their hearts. Greg Schilling hasn’t paid for a flower arrangement for his wife’s birthday or anniversary since I’ve been in the business. All those things were always given to him as incentives. There’s no way he’s not getting something.”

  “I know! That’s exactly it, Quincy. But it’s not a discount. There’s got to be something else.”

  “So you don’t know who’s going to be recommended from now on I suppose? Not… that I don’t feel very sorry for the horrible death of my colleague.”

  “Oh I know what you mean, but no, I don’t know who they’re going to go with. Maybe you could try asking at his shop. I think the gal that was working for him is there trying to make sense of the orders they still have.”

  “Maybe I will. Thanks for the info. And don’t worry; I won’t say a word of this to anyone. I appreciate you helping me out.” I stood and made my way to the office door. “Oh, Linda. Just curious, but is there a new mortician on staff?”

  “No, not that I know of. Why?”

  “I passed a Hummer on my way into the parking lot and I just wondered who it was. I didn’t recognize the car and it seemed to be coming out of the employee parking lot.” I may have fudged the actual timeline of who was where and when, but that was neither here nor there. “So I just thought that it must be a mortician because of the expensive car.”

  Linda turned red from the top of her forehead to the very lowest point of her plunging, very ample décolletage, which happened to be framed by a button-down shirt where the top button had been fastened into the second from the top buttonhole and likewise the entire way down.

  “Um—oh, that was Doug. He’s from another office,” she stammered. Her hand went straight to her neck and pulled the collar of her shirt closed. He’s just…one of our on-call people.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding my head nonchalantly.

  “He’s one of the guys on call in case they need to go pick up a body. He has to be ready night or day,” she offered without my coaxing.

  Yeah I’m sure he’s ready night or day. He’s on call all right. For a booty call, I thought to myself, trying not to giggle.

  “That’s probably a nice job for a young person,” I said. “Like a college student or someone just married.” Now I was just being mean.

  “Oh, he’s not married,” she said far too quickly. “He’s just out of college.”

  Wow Linda. She was middle-aged with at least two kids that age.

  “I’d best be going. Thanks again, Linda. Oh, by the way, I noticed your shirt is buttoned wrong. I would want someone to say so if it were me, so I thought I would tell you. Bye.” She turned almost purple; I turned on my heels and made it to the exit as quickly as possible, just making it into the car before the laughter bested me and exploded into the air.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A trip to Derrick's shop was next on my list. The half hour drive gave me time to reflect on things I had just learned at the mortuary. It didn’t make sense for someone to undertake this drive every day unless they were really making a profit on the flowers. From what Linda said, I knew he hadn’t been giving any piece of the profits to the mortuary, which was absolutely baffling, but might explain his willingness to make the drive.

  I remembered visiting the mortuaries when I first took over the shop. Greg Schilling looked at me with his reptilian, half-opened-eyelid gaze. “Well we have to go to quite a bit of trouble in advertising your product for you.” That’s how the conversation started; eventually he got to the matter of the expected discount. Not to mention the holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays when, about three days before hand, I’d get a call from him not specifically asking, but with the intent of me offering to give free flowers. Like clockwork, every time.

  I felt kind of wrong going to Derrick’s shop after they had just found his corpse in a coffin—before he was supposed to be dead, and in a coffin. But the window of opportunity had just been opened a crack, and I wanted to slip through before it was slammed shut by another of my competitors

  Upon first visiting downtown Ogden one is confronted by a spectrum of businesses and houses as colorful as the city’s past. The location of Derrick’s shop was no doubt one of the many speak-easies dotting the whole of downtown during prohibition. It was probably a drop-off site for the transport of bootleg spirits through the network of tunnels rumored to have connected a seedy, thriving underground scene. Now it was just a shabby hole in the wall next to a vacant furniture store and a dilapidated biker bar. Not exactly the cozy atmosphere one would think necessary for a nice flower shop.

  I parked at the meter in front of the shop, although I could have parked around the corner for free, but I didn’t dare risk getting mugged or worse. As I entered Derrick’s shop, I could see the sales counter about ten feet back from the front of the store, with a three-door reach-in cooler off to my right. The place was dark and gloomy, with nothing but yellow florescent bulbs casting a sickly pallor over the space.

  Posters of flower bouquets hung as loners on the walls, providing most of the color in the room. Two or three planter baskets with tropical houseplants sat on laminate-covered cubes, dotting the showroom floor.

  I walked up to an abandoned counter. The unlocked front door served as the only proof that someone might be there. I walked noisily, with a heavy step to the back room, hoping not to frighten someone who may have been working and didn’t notice the doorbell.

  “Hello?” I called out. I peered into the back workroom and found a woman sitting with her feet propped on the design table, reading a paperback. With the immediacy of drying paint, she glanced up without moving anything but her eyes. Her face had obviously been through some hard living, and the look on it signaled her annoyance at having to stop reading her book. She said nothing but continued to glare at me, her eyes saying, “What the hell do you want?”

  “Hi, my name is Quincy McKay. I’m from Rosie’s Posies in Hillside.”

  Her probably late forty-ish body, which looked more late sixty-ish, started to heave and rock, presumably in order to get her legs moving off of the table. I couldn’t imagine how she got them up there in the first place. She sighed heavily as she snapped her paperback shut and used her now free hand to grab the table after some major coaxing of her stomach muscles to lean forward. It wasn’t exactly that her body was that much overweight, at least not to the point of being morbidly obese, it just seemed to be quite underused. She exhaled loudly and I couldn’t tell if it was more a communication to me of her annoyance or a forcing of air out of her lungs as she rocked forward once and again in order to build up the inertia to sit up.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother you,” I stammered.

  “Djuh need a funeral arrangement or somethin’?” She asked, out of breath.

  “I um… No, I’m from another flower shop in Hillside and I thought I would come to offer my condolences.”

  “Oh. Yeah, okay.” She looked as if she were going to try and sit back down and kick up he
r legs, and while I would’ve loved to see how she could possibly accomplish that gravity-defying feat, I couldn’t ignore my mission.

  “So, do you work here all the time?”

  “Eight days a week,” she deadpanned with her ten-Camels-a-day voice.

  “I bet it’s been hard for you with all that’s been going on around here.”

  “Phew, you’re telling me. People have been calling almost non-stop. Yesterday I had to take the phone off the hook."

  She squinted and cocked her head to the side as if trying to retrieve a thought. A long pause ensued.

  “Oh my good hell!” She shouted, followed by a phlegmy, wheezy, cackle. “I guess I forgot to turn that damned thing back on!” She ambled over to the phone, where the handset sat on the counter next to the base. She hesitated, opting not to replace it, and instead walked back to the high-legged chair and gahlumped down again. “Yeah, it’s been quite a zoo around here. Except that I haven’t had a single order since then. Been able to catch up on some stories.” She picked up the paperback. “You ever read these romance novels? I quite like ‘em.”

  “Well actually, the reason I’m here, if I can be honest with you,” I changed my tone as if offering something in confidence, “I was wondering, do you know who the mortuary is going to call for flowers now that, well you know, Derrick and all?”

  “Oh hell honey, I have no idea. Absolutely none. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I showed up today. I just wanted to see if my paycheck would get here. I’ve been waitin’ for it for four days now. It’s late for the second month in a row. I’ve quit countin’ on Derrick to show up with it.”

  Especially now, I thought to myself. “Oh, did Derrick use a payroll service?” Unless he had, I didn’t see how she would be getting her check after her boss had been found in a box. Maybe she expected his ghost to bring it by.

  “He used one until about three months ago. Then they started calling everyday asking if he was here, which he never was of course. They finally said if he didn’t pay his bill, they weren’t going to send us any paychecks.”