by Hank Edwards
“Oh no, not another one,” Michael said. “Who is it now? We already have Grace Murray here.”
“I’m afraid it’s Ruth Blankenship. She was found in her apartment this morning. Looks like she died in her sleep.”
When it rains it pours. Michael sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. She’s one of Jazz’s clients. She missed an appointment with him yesterday.”
The mention of Jazz and his clients made Musgrave flinch, and Michael figured he was feeling a twinge of guilt for confronting Jazz earlier about his daughter’s haircut. Good. Maybe it would make Musgrave think twice in his future dealings with both Jazz and his own daughter.
“So many dying over at the Bluffs lately,” Michael said with a shake of his head.
“Kind of expected, isn’t it?” Musgrave grumbled. “I mean, it’s an old-folks home.”
“It’s a retirement community, not heaven’s waiting room.” Kitty threw her brother-in-law a cool glance.
“Any chance we can get the van out to pick up the body?” Michael asked Musgrave before the man could fire off a sharp retort.
Musgrave turned his glare from his sister-in-law to Michael. “After my deputies get here, dust for prints, and photograph the scene, yeah, you can take it out. Shouldn’t take that long.”
“That’s fine,” Michael said with a nod. He looked at his staff. “Everyone, back inside. There’s work to be done.”
Musgrave turned away to bark into the radio on his shoulder, “Tanner, where the hell are you already? There’s been a murder!”
“I’m here, sir!” Tanner answered in person, stepping inside the garage. He was a polite young ginger-haired man, and had been a part of the team who’d rescued Mr. Pickles. It felt reassuring having him there, though he was sure Jazz would have something snide to say about that.
While Musgrave filled Tanner in and Michael’s employees left, Michael looked over the man in the hearse.
Norbert’s old lover, a jilted one apparently. Had Norbert killed him? If so, for what reason?
And why kill him, then prop him up in Michael’s hearse? To frame him?
Norbert had seemed shocked to see his old lover, but was there more to their history? Something so sinister it was worth killing the man? What’s his name again?
This appeared to be a case cut out for someone like Michael’s fictional hero, Brock Hammer. The thought was exciting, but also made Michael’s insides twist with guilt.
He had not yet told Jazz he was rereading the Brock Hammer series from the beginning. It felt dishonest, but he couldn’t help loving the books all the more after he’d had a hand in solving one horrendous murder. It was like he was reading them for the first time, Russell’s words laying out even more subtle clues toward Dylan’s death. Michael had been keeping a file of everything within the pages similar to the way Dylan had been murdered, and he hoped to present it to the prosecution to see if it would help their case.
The sharp whine of police sirens announced the arrival of more deputies, startling Michael from his thoughts.
“The rest of the team is here, sir,” Tanner reported. He smiled, like an excited puppy, eager to please.
“I have ears,” Musgrave muttered, then followed that up with, “Tanner, check the victim for ID.”
Tanner went a little pale, but he pulled latex gloves from his pocket and approached the hearse. Michael watched the deputy carefully check the victim’s pockets before straightening up and shrugging. “No wallet or phone.”
Musgrave turned to Michael. “All right. Looks like we should start with Farthington. Any idea where he might be?”
“I have absolutely no clue,” Michael assured him. “But apparently the victim’s band was scheduled to play at the festival sometime this weekend. Perhaps examining the list of acts will provide a name to our John Doe, and a clue as to Norbert’s location. Right now, I should retrieve my kit and have Steve bring a gurney for the victim.”
“Yeah, go ahead. My team will get started collecting evidence.” He met Michael’s eye. “Looks like we have another murder, Fleishman. Let’s hope it’s less high-profile than the last one, eh?”
“Indeed.”
Halfway back to the funeral home, Michael spied a small group of onlookers. The police activity at the funeral parlor had piqued his neighbors’ curiosity and brought them out to gawk already.
Michael really disliked the negative light a murder might land on his business, and he made his way over. The group consisted mostly of his neighbors, with a few people from town and some strangers interspersed. A particularly tall man with blond wavy hair and a bold yellow hawaiian shirt caught his eye. He seemed to be staring right at Michael rather than all the police activity. Michael had never seen him before. A tourist maybe?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Michael began, approaching the onlookers with his hands raised in a placating manner. “This is a police matter. Please let our deputies take care of it and go about your business.”
“What’s going on?” Rob Wilkerson asked. He lived in the bungalow on the alley directly behind Michael’s house, with Michael’s upper deck overlooking the back of his garage.
“I am not at liberty to say.”
“I heard on my police scanner that there was a murder,” Rob insisted. “Someone was strangled.”
Startling Michael a bit, the tall man in the yellow shirt spirited away, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket.
How bizarre.
Michael dismissed him and turned back to his gawking neighbors. “I’m not at liberty to say,” he repeated.
Mrs. Merriweather grumbled, clutching her Pomeranian, Reginald, which always barked like a savage beast when Mr. Pickles sat in the window. “Lacetown used to be a nice place. All that riffraff coming in from Chicago and Detroit is ruining it.”
After a few more minutes of discussion, Michael managed to calm and corral his neighbors to return home. Then before he headed inside, he stopped by the garage and asked Musgrave to have a deputy keep the pedestrians away.
Musgrave cursed. “Damn rubberneckers. Tanner!”
The ginger deputy snapped to. “Yes, sir?”
“Why aren’t you keeping the civilians away from our crime scene? Use your head!”
“Yes, sir!” The man scurried away, and Michael resisted the urge to make a comment about Musgrave’s less than polite management skills.
With a wave to the sheriff, he returned to the funeral home, hoping examination of the body might provide a clue as to why the man was killed and left in Michael’s garage. In his hearse, specifically, propped up like he was driving somewhere. Randomly, he thought of the religious pamphlet handed to them at the diner.
The road to hell, indeed.
He had to agree with Mrs. Merriweather. What on earth was happening in Lacetown?
CHAPTER SEVEN
HAVING SUCH a gruesome body left inside Michael’s hearse felt like a warning. But a warning of what?
During their investigation of the crime scene, Musgrave’s deputies had circled the outside of the garage and discovered some disturbed mulch and broken petunias beneath the garage window. That was the most likely point of entry, but they’d found no prints—not even Steve’s or Michael’s—which meant it had been wiped clean. But how did the murderer get a body inside? Did he drag it? Was there an accomplice? Or had the victim followed his killer willingly?
As expected, Musgrave had been overbearing to Michael and his staff, telling each of them “Everyone’s a suspect until Sheriff Musgrave says they’re not.” They all cooperated—although Kitty had some choice words for her brother-in-law—and overall Michael chalked the whole thing up to typical dealings with their county sheriff. But he didn’t think Musgrave believed any of them were involved.
At least he hoped not.
Naturally, Norbert was a prime suspect until they had more information on the victim and his life. Some people had a morbid fascination for death and everything around it, and outwardly Norbert fit the profile of
someone with a death kink. Had Norbert lured his former lover here, maybe to have sex in the hearse and then kill him? Was this an illicit tryst gone wrong?
All of it was speculation at this point.
Michael shook his head, trying to focus on the task at hand. He had three bodies to attend to. Grace Murray was already in the cooler, and Ruth Blankenship would be arriving soon. Thankfully, his facility was large enough to handle the sudden influx. Most funeral parlors subbed out embalming, but Michael still ran an old-fashioned business. A “one stop shop” as Grandpa often said. In the parlor’s basement, he had a large storage room with traditional caskets—some people liked to custom order one, but most were content with classics—a preparation room for embalming, and a separate area specifically for autopsies. In order to keep the chains of evidence intact and to isolate the criminal or unusual cases requiring an autopsy from the day-to-day functions, the two work areas were divided by a locked door.
The man from the hearse lay on a gurney in this secured area, contained within a body bag. As he washed up, Michael looked over his shoulder at the black bag. Just yesterday this man had been living and breathing, having dinner with those two women. He was a member of a band, and he harbored bad blood over an old relationship with Norbert.
Norbert Farthington was still managing to be a pain in the ass. Jazz had insisted yesterday he was fine, but Michael knew seeing Norbert again had rattled him.
Hell, it had rattled Michael too.
Even though he’d had an epiphany last night that he was in love with Jazz, his dreams had been a swirling mix of blood, gunfire, Russell’s airy laughter at the signing, and poor Mr. Pickles in that goon’s grip.
Maybe Michael should lay off the Brock Hammer novels before bedtime. Listening to Frigid Forensics and tweeting professional tips to the host probably didn’t help his overactive imagination either. But he really did love hearing about those left behind receiving some kind of closure.
After drying his hands, Michael pulled on a pair of gloves and solemnly approached the gurney. He eased the zipper open and spread the flaps apart to look at the man’s face. Blue eyes clouded by death, a Roman nose that appeared to have been broken at least once in the past, maybe twice. Blond hair threaded with silver. He had been handsome, something Michael had overlooked during the commotion at Gruff’s.
“I wish I knew a name to call you,” Michael said and crossed his arms. “This feels very strange. I feel as if there is some kind of connection between us, yet I don’t know who you are and have no idea how to refer to you. Therefore, my apologies if this feels impersonal. But I’ve been thinking about you. Well, thinking about you since yesterday evening. Or more specifically, since about two hours ago when you were found dead in my hearse.”
He started to pace alongside the table as he continued to talk.
“There are a lot of possibilities for the reason you were left in my hearse. I can’t help but take it personally of course, even though it could have merely been an act of convenience. Perhaps you were murdered nearby and the window in my garage provided an easy way to quickly get you out of sight.
“Then again, it may be more personal, a kind of vendetta if you will, against myself or the business. Either way, you were discovered on my property, and, though it pains me to say this for several reasons, I feel it’s only fitting that I recuse myself from performing your autopsy.”
With that finally said, Michael stopped pacing and looked at the man. “This is nothing personal against you, so please do not take it as such. I would rather be the one to uncover the identity of whoever did this to you. But instead, I will turn you over to Parker Trevino from Bridlestop.” He held up a gloved hand as if to stop the corpse from protesting. “I know you may have heard that Trevino and I have a bit of bad blood between us, but do not let that concern you. He is a skilled coroner for the neighboring county, and he will treat you well and work with law enforcement to solve your murder.”
Michael zipped the bag closed and rolled the gurney across the room to the double storage cooler, confident in his decision. With careful movements, he transferred the body to the stainless steel drawer, slid it into the cooler, then closed the door.
After peeling off his gloves and washing his hands, Michael headed upstairs to call Trevino, already dreading the anticipated smug tone of the man’s voice.
Parker Trevino was the Ottawa County coroner. He also ran a funeral home and crematorium, and while Michael referred his clients to Trevino for cremation, he really disliked the pompous man. He should have been a peer Michael could bounce ideas off, but Trevino deigned to dislike Michael the day he’d taken the Harbor County coroner position after Michael’s grandfather had retired. Grandpa despised Trevino as well, and after years of dealing with the petty man, Michael had to agree.
But personality aside—like he’d told Norbert’s old lover—Trevino did know his way around an autopsy.
As Michael dialed Trevino from his office phone, Mr. Pickles leaped up on the desk, seeking attention with curious meows.
“It’s been a hectic day,” he said. “I know you didn’t like the sheriff in here, blustering, did you?”
Michael stroked his fat kitty’s back while he waited for the phone to be answered, the rings grating on his nerves while Mr. Pickles’s contented purrs soothed the irritation. He always brought his cat to work. Naturally reticent like most cats—except around his preferred humans—Mr. Pickles was a staple in the business, and clients found his presence calming. He always seemed to know which person to befriend during arrangements or showings, and Michael just adored him.
“Trevino Funeral Home, how may I assist you?”
Michael rolled his eyes. Even the woman answering Trevino’s phone sounded smug.
“Hello, this is Michael Fleishman, the Harbor County coroner. I need to speak with Parker Trevino, please.”
Perhaps his own tone carried some annoyance, as at the sound of Michael’s voice, Mr. Pickles jumped from the edge of his desk onto the kitty condo. Once there, he meowed, swishing his tail from the curved perch he’d taken, big green eyes watching Michael.
“He’s with a client at the moment, Mr. Fleishman…,” the woman started, but then stopped. “Oh, wait, I hear him coming down the hall. Can you hold?”
Without waiting for a response, she put him on hold. Soothing classical music began to play, marred by some kind of staticky interference. Michael’s nerves tightened even more with each burst of static, and when Trevino finally picked up, it almost pushed him over the edge.
“Michael Fleishman. What can I do for you?”
Trevino’s voice was deep and smooth, lacquered, it seemed, to a honeyed tone from years of dealing with the grieving public. For Michael, the sound of Trevino’s voice invoked thoughts of used car salesmen and insurance agents. He really hoped he never sounded like that. If he ever did, he supposed Jazz would call him out on it.
There’s that anticipated domesticity again.
“Find a job too taxing for your older equipment?” Trevino asked.
“No,” Michael said, unable to keep the competitive edge from his voice. He hated the fact that Trevino knew all the buttons to push when it came to him too. Bastard.
“I’ve come into a murder case that I need to recuse myself from.”
“You’re suspected of murder?” Trevino’s voice went up at the end, and Michael desperately wished he’d phrased things better.
“Not in the least, thank you very much,” he said with a sniff. “But a body has been found on the property of my funeral home, and I feel the right thing to do is for me to step back and have someone else take over.”
“Oh, my, my,” Trevino said. “I’m sure it galls you to have to ask me, doesn’t it?”
“Parker, I don’t know why you think there’s some kind of competition between us,” Michael said with a sigh. “I respect your work and was devastated to learn about the recent fire in your crematorium.”
Trevino blustered, a
nd Michael buried a smile.
The fire had been a blunder on Trevino’s part. Michael might not have a crematorium of his own, but he knew better than to stuff a five-hundred-pound man into an oven without allowing for proper air circulation.
“Yes, thank you for your concern,” Trevino snapped, his cool shattering for just a moment.
Michael spun in his chair, very much enjoying the flustered sounds on the other end of the line. Taunting the man was almost fun. He waggled his brows at Mr. Pickles, but his cat merely licked his paws, not amused by the funeral parlor gossip chain. Their industry was a small community, and the story had managed to make its rounds, and Trevino had definitely been the brunt of a joke… or ten.
“We’ll be completely rebuilt soon,” Trevino finally said, obviously having gotten himself under control. “The smoke damage meant our display rooms will be updated as well. We’ll soon have the premier location for families celebrating the lives of their loved ones.”
A thought whipped through Michael’s mind, and he sat up straight. Had Trevino intentionally stuffed poor Mr. Jones in the furnace, hoping for a fire in order to have insurance remodel his outdated parlor?
How utterly disgraceful!
“And convenient,” Michael muttered. His display rooms were circa 1995. But still… at the expense of treating a body with such disrespect? Totally unthinkable!
“What was that, Fleishman?” Trevino demanded.
“Nothing,” he quickly said. “So do you think you can come over to my facility and perform an autopsy, or should I call U of M?”
“No, no,” he spit out. “Don’t call the university. I can be there later today. Will seven work?”
“Yes, that will be fine,” Michael said. He bit back his irritation and spoke in a serious voice. “I’ll be assisting with the investigation where I can, so I appreciate your assistance in keeping everything on the up-and-up.”
“You simply need to say thank you,” Trevino quipped, smug once more. “But I’ll be there. No need to worry now. My work is without equal.”