(2012) Colder Than Death

by DB Gilles

  I was curious that she didn't refer to Suzanne's husband as her father. “You mean your father?”

  “My father lives in California. He's a jerk. I hate him. Alan is my stepfather. He's only half-a-jerk and I hate him too. I can't wait for them to leave. I'll be alone for fourteen days and have some peace and quiet.” She bit her lower lip. “My mother didn't even cry. And when Cobb called her she didn't even ask him about what he's gonna do to find out who did it. That's why I'll be the only one who does anything about finding out who killed my aunt.”

  “What will you do?” I was fascinated by her tenacity and not for one second did I find her passion false.

  “I haven't figured that out yet.”

  “Look. I have a professional relationship with Perry. I can find out if he's doing anything.”

  “I can find out too,” she almost barked. “I have a relationship with Greg.”

  “Greg's not somebody Perry would tell crucial facts to.”

  “And like he'd tell things to you--a mortician?” she snapped.

  “Perry and I go way back. I'll set up a meeting between you two. You can tell him everything you know about your aunt, starting with the fact that you have her things and that she has notebooks.”

  “He'll want to read them. I don't like the idea of him knowing her thoughts.”

  “You can't think like that. Whatever piece of her that you possess, no matter how personal and intimate, if it'll provide a clue to her killer, you have to turn it over.”

  She paused for a few more seconds. “Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, it's almost like you really give a damn.” She arched her eyebrows. “Or is this all part of the Funeral Director act?”

  “You're not the typical grieving person I deal with.”

  “There's something more going on, isn't there? You don't come off like some perv child molester who's acting like you feel sorry for me so you can get in my pants. It's just... your motivation confuses me.”

  “I'm touched by your love for your Aunt. It makes me want to help you.”

  “But why? I keep getting vibes from you that, like, this is somehow personal to you.”

  I averted her eyes. Her perception was alarming. At fifteen she had the ability to pinpoint truth or the lack thereof. It made me uncomfortable.

  “I understand loss,” I said. “And the importance of closure. I never got it with Alyssa.”

  “I know all about closure. I've been waiting for it nine years. I got it yesterday.”

  “Not completely. You won't have full closure until you find out who killed your Aunt.”

  Quilla was silent for a moment. “Do I have to wear a dress when I come to the Funeral Home tonight? And does it have to be black?”

  “Wear what you think your aunt would have worn.”

  Quilla shot me a smile. “Cool.”

  After dropping Quilla off, my next destination was the Coroner's to pick up Brandy Parker's remains. I didn't tell Quilla where I was going.

  From my iPhone I called the Home to let Clint and Nolan know that we had another body coming in. If it hadn't been such a hectic week I would've had Clint come with me to pick up the remains. He only accompanied me, or I him, on removals when the corpse was inordinately heavy and difficult for one person to manage alone.

  Nolan took the call. The words weren't even out of my mouth before he asked if it would be a full service.

  “No,” I said. “Closed coffin. It's the corpse found in the mausoleum. There's not much.”

  I heard Nolan sigh in disappointment. Just like me, he gets restless when he's not busy. Even though he'd been occupied the last few days, he was again at loose ends.

  ******

  Ray, the same pathologist on duty when I dropped off Brandy Parker's remains, was there to release the body. “Tough one,” he said as he wheeled a gurney out of the lab along the corridor to the loading dock.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Simple blow to the head. Could've been done with anything. What with all the moisture inside that mausoleum, insects doing their thing and the desiccation of the body, especially around the wound, it was impossible to get a handle on the weapon or anything else. About the only thing that could be established is that she probably died fast. Perry's gonna have his hands full.”

  Ray's comment haunted me for the entire drive back to the Home. I wanted Perry to solve this case, if for no other reason than Quilla's peace of mind.

  It was my nature not to get even remotely involved in situations where the stakes were high. It was part apathy, part not wanting to be bothered and partly being petrified of getting too close to people. I was very good at watching life go by. If it didn't touch me in any way I was thankful. Let it ram into everyone else. Had it been anyone other than Quilla, I would've steered far and wide from this mess, but there was something about her that sucked me into it with a ferocity that scared the hell out of me.

  I beeped the horn as I pulled up to the rear entrance of the Home. Within thirty seconds Nolan appeared, a warm smile on his pink face. He was wearing a T-shirt--black with the following words in Gothic lettering:

  Take An Embalmer To Lunch

  Nolan enjoyed going to industry conventions to learn of new advances and exchange embalming tricks. Three or four times a year he would take off for two or three days. A couple of years back he'd gone to a Seminar in Chicago on the latest tricks on restoring mangled bodies and come back with four T-shirts. One for me, Lew, Clint and himself. He'd done it as a gag, but one morning I saw him walking along Dankworth's main business district wearing it.

  I'd given him permission to wear the T-shirt only at the Home and only when the public wasn't around. Most people are fairly ignorant about what goes on behind the closed doors of a Funeral Home. Embalmers engender mystery. Many people are aware of their existence and that he, or she, does something to the bodies once they've been brought to the Funeral Home, but they're not sure what.

  Other than friends and families, a good-sized number of embalmers go through life without revealing the truth of how they earn a living. I'd say with great certainty that most people in Dankworth under forty who pass Nolan on the street, sit near him in church or stand behind him in line at the supermarket don't know that he embalmed the bulk of the bodies buried from Henderson's Funeral Home for the last thirty-plus years.

  If they did, it might be extremely unsettling. Not because of any monstrous physical appearance. Nolan was actually quite nice-looking or could have been if he stopped wearing his hair long like an aging rock star. Plus he had a goofy-looking goatee that gave him an almost satanic aura. Not like the classical interpretation of the devil, but more like a cartoon caricature.

  ******

  Nolan was cranky because his trocar wasn't working properly. The trocar, one of the most important tools for an embalmer, is a long, hollow needle attached to a tube that comes into play near the conclusion of the embalming process. What most people don’t know is that embalming consists simply of draining blood from the veins and replacing it with fluid pumped in through the arteries. Between three to six gallons of a dyed and perfumed solution of formaldehyde, glycerin, borax, phenol, alcohol and water is injected into the body, primarily for disinfecting and preservative purposes.

  The next step involves the trocar, which is jabbed into the abdomen and poked around the entrails and chest cavity, the contents of which are pumped out and replaced with cavity fluid. Once this is done, the hole in the stomach made by the trocar is sewn up, the body's face is heavily creamed to protect the skin from burns which may be caused by leakage of the chemicals and the corpse is ready for restoration.

  If a lip or lips, a nose or an ear is missing, the embalmer possesses a variety of restorative waxes with which to model replacements. Pores and skin texture are simulated by speckling with a little brush, and over this cosmetics are applied. If the mouth is swollen the embalmer cuts out tissue as needed from inside the lips. If too much is removed the surface contour is
restored by padding with cotton. Swollen necks and cheeks are reduced by removing tissue through vertical incision made down each side of the neck. In instances of emaciation, a hypodermic syringe loaded with massage cream is injected into the hollowed and sunken areas.

  Once the body has been properly restored, it’s washed, dressed and shaved if it's a male. Cream-based cosmetics available in pink, flesh, suntan, brunette and blond are applied to the hands and face. Hair is shampooed, combed and, if necessary, set and the fingernails are manicured. Then the body is placed in the coffin and wheeled to the Viewing Room.

  I'd known Nolan since the first day I began working at Henderson's Funeral Home, and I liked him. He was kind to me, but I couldn't stand to hear him talk. His voice was the most grating sound I'd ever heard. A tad high pitched with a slight scratchiness to it, almost as if he were talking through the speaker in a drive-thru restaurant. And he loved to talk.

  He spent so much time alone with bodies that he cried out for human contact. Because I was always around, I was usually it. And before I came along, Lew was his primary target. Or Lew's wife. Since I'd hired Clint two-and-a-half years ago, he took on a large chunk of Nolan's yakking as well. I'd learned long ago that the best way to avoid spending too much time with Nolan was to act as if I were in a rush or very pre-occupied.

  “Good to have all this business, eh, Del?” He opened the back door of the hearse and waited for me to join him. “You just missed Clint. He took the silver hearse for a lube job.”

  We each grabbed an end of the body bag containing Brandy Parker and, as we made our way to the Embalming Room, Nolan tried to get at least five conversations going about different topics. Each time I interrupted him or pretended not to hear or feigned ignorance of the subject. After all these years I still felt guilty about not being friendlier with Nolan. In the beginning, though, it was much harder. Nolan was forty-three. I was a Senior in high school. I didn't view him as a father figure, but I viewed him as an older man and therefore felt I owed him enough respect to listen to his non-stop rambling.

  He sent me a Christmas card every year, gave me a present, always something nice. He never missed my birthday. Always sent me postcards from his travels to trade conventions. When I was in the hospital having my appendix removed he came to visit me. Because I spent so much time avoiding him, I never got to learn much about him. And I never gave him the benefit of finding out much about me.

  We shared no secrets. I knew more about Perry Cobb's personal life than Nolan's. I'd never been invited to his home. I knew that he was married once, when he was in his Twenties, and that his wife had walked out on him, and that he had never remarried. Lew told me that in all the years he'd known Nolan since his wife left, he'd never gotten serious with another woman. I got the implication from Lew that Nolan's wife had broken his heart.

  For that reason alone I felt an odd kinship with Nolan. The woman he loved had walked out on him. And my first love had pretty much walked out on me.

  Glancing at Nolan, I could see he was anxious to get to work so I started for the door and mumbled a “Good-bye.”

  Nolan said, “See ya, Del,” then, as I closed the door, I heard him unzip the body bag and immediately start talking to what was left of Brandy Parker.

  Chapter 10

  While Nolan did his part in the burial of Brandy Parker, I continued to do mine, which consisted of a handful of tasks that could be taken care of over the phone. Getting the obituary to the newspaper. Contacting the crematorium. Ordering flowers. Because the coffin wouldn't be leaving the Home for a church service and as I would be bringing the remains directly to the crematorium, pallbearers wouldn't be an issue. And there was also the issue of whether or not the body would be wearing any clothes.

  Despite the fact that it would be a closed casket ceremony I had an obligation to ask Suzanne Worthington what her wishes were regarding the clothing issue. As with most aspects of the funeral and burial process, the typical person doesn't consider certain areas until the situation arises.

  The dressing of the corpse is always a touchy issue. Should a man be dressed in his underwear or not? Just a T-shirt or only his shorts or both? Socks and shoes or barefoot? Should a female wear a bra? Pantyhose? One would think that with closed casket viewings any clothing at all would be a moot point. Why bother dressing a corpse when no one would be seeing it? The same question could be asked about the logic of putting shoes on a corpse in an open coffin. Why? The body isn't going anywhere. But considering the decomposed state of Brandy Parker's remains, it would be natural to question the wisdom of dressing the corpse in conventional clothes. I decided to suggest a traditional burial shroud. I called the Worthington home. A man answered. I introduced myself and asked for Suzanne.

  The man blurted an abrupt, “Hold on,” and roughly set down the receiver on a hard surface. What seemed like close to a minute later, Suzanne picked up. She had the same pre-occupied, disinterested attitude she displayed in our earlier meeting. I presented her with the choices. She opted for the shroud, but before committing to it said, “I'd better discuss this with my daughter. Let me call you back.”

  Less than two minutes passed. It was Suzanne with the news that Quilla would chose the clothes that Brandy Parker would wear. We also discussed the matter of the photograph of Brandy which would be placed atop her coffin. They had a framed 9x12 color picture of her. I said I would stop by in an hour to pick it and the clothes up. When I got to their house, a basement-less, oversized ranch that looked larger than it really was because of an attached garage, I found that neither Quilla nor Suzanne were home.

  Alan Worthington answered the door, a Blackberry to his right ear. As he talked he raised his left hand, palm up, which I took to mean that I should wait. I expected him to step back a few feet and continue talking, but he stood there in front me, as if I weren't even there, separated only by the screen door.

  He looked to be in his early Forties and had a thick black mustache that made him look like a Seventies porn star. He was about five feet five, a good eight inches shorter than I. He wore an expensive, but still noticeable hairpiece. I didn't like his eyes. They seemed to be always moving, darting back and forth like a neurotic rat in a maze. After a minute or so he turned to me. “You here for the clothes and picture?” His voice had the same abrasive impatience he'd had on the phone earlier.

  “Yes.”

  “Wait here.”

  He disappeared into the house for about thirty seconds, returning with a plastic bag from a grocery store.

  “Here,” he said, handing the bag to me as if it contained garbage. “I'm supposed to tell you to hold it on the side so the stuff doesn't get wrinkled... as if it matters, right?” He rolled his eyes. “The kid put a pair of shoes in there too. Why I don't know. It's not like Brandy's going out dancing.” He laughed cruelly.

  “The fact is,” I said firmly, in a tone carefully measured to make him feel stupid. “Most people put shoes on their loved ones. And most people also insist that underwear and socks are placed on the body.

  He glared at me with a genuine sense of disgust.

  “That's sick,” he said. “When I die I want to be cremated and I want my ashes put in a bottle of Dom Perignon and dropped into the Caribbean. Look, between you and me, if you want to give these shoes to some charity, fine. We're done, right, chief?”

  “Yeah.”

  As I headed back to my car I understood why Quilla couldn't stand this guy. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him later that night when, he, Suzanne and Quilla would arrive for the viewing. A part of me hoped he wouldn't come.

  Someone representing the Home has to be present when bodies are on view. Lew and I alternated. Sometimes Clint filled in.

  We weren't crazy about having Nolan greeting people at the door. All you had to do was have a kindly expression on your face--which Nolan possessed naturally--and be ready to direct people towards the Viewing Room in which the body of the person they were coming to see was laid out. Th
e problem was that Nolan wanted to talk to people, oftentimes people in mourning or deep distress. If he engaged in minor chitchat it might've been acceptable, but Nolan would occasionally forget himself and reveal that he had done the work on the body.

  *****

  Because Brandy Parker would be the third body on view and since Lew was out of town, Clint would have to be on hand to help with the greeting. The Viewing was scheduled from 7:00-to-9:00 p.m. At my suggestion, the family arrives first, anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes earlier, to have the first look at their loved one in private and to check over the appearance of the body. Sometimes there's an inappropriate amount of make-up on a female. The plain Jane in life shouldn't look like a Vegas showgirl in repose. Sometimes the hairstyle is all wrong, curls instead of straight hair, bangs instead of a bun. Sometimes the lips have been arranged in an uncharacteristic smirk or snarl.

  By coming early the family can point out errors and Nolan can correct them.

  I looked at my watch--6:35. No one from the immediate family had arrived. I stepped outside the front entrance onto the veranda and looked at the parking lot. Nothing. Not even the other two bodies on view had callers yet. I glanced towards the entrance to the lot. No cars were visible. The warm October evening seemed more like June. I decided to stay outside until someone came. I gave the building a quick once-over. It could use a paint job and work on the roof. I would wait until Spring.

  Our Home is small by traditional standards and quite normal-looking. Rather than a Victorian or Gothic design, ours is more Colonial, painted white with a cheery yellow trim, with abundant windows. I've been kidded it looks more like an International House of Pancakes than a Funeral Home. DiGregorio's, on the other hand, is straight out of The House On Haunted Hill with arches and gables and turrets. Built with a dirty, reddish brown brick that hadn't aged well and hadn't been cleaned since I'd come to Dankworth, the structure was a sad, depressing reminder of death.

  For Quilla's sake I hoped she and her parents would pull in then and there. This part of the service is always the most painful for the family because it's the first look they have at the deceased and they must acknowledge for the first time that their loved one is gone.