Funeral Hotdish (4 page)

He didn’t want that. But he wouldn’t blow all this hard work, either. Jesus, they’d pulled him off homicide to work this case because he was such a good investigator—that reputation would be shot to hell if she spilled the beans. The only way he’d save the case was to save his relationship, because if he walked out, she’d work night and day to get that story into the paper.

Shit, he consoled himself, she’d probably figure it out by herself anyway. She’s such a bulldog—and she’s got this streak of dumb luck—she’d probably stumble onto the rest of it, too.

If he were to save one of the biggest cases he’d ever worked and save the best relationship he’d ever had, Rob Stiller had to own up. The best he could hope for was a deal with his girlfriend that would give him and the DEA time to finish their work.

Joya’s mind was jumping through hoops, too—thinking on your feet was a must for an investigative reporter—and it was very clear that the real story here wasn’t that Sammy the Bull was in Arizona. The real story had something to do with the Phoenix Police Department and its homicide detective sitting across from her. She was seeing only the tip of this iceberg. What was everything below? She didn’t know, but she knew who did, and now she had to get it out of him.

Rob took a deep breath and started his plea. “Right now, this has to be under a cone of silence,” he demanded. “I’m not kidding, Joya. I’m going to tell you something that would ruin my career. You’ve got to promise me, you won’t fuck me over on this.”

Joya felt a twinge of guilt as she reached over and touched his arm. “Of course I wouldn’t fuck you over.” She used her most reassuring voice and told herself she really meant it. Then, using the same silence-is-golden rule that police themselves often used, she sat there staring at him, not saying a word, waiting for him to continue.

“If I tell you what’s going on, you’ve got to promise not to write anything until the right time,” he declared. “I mean it. Promise me. I’ll help you. You’ll be the only one with the inside story. But for that, I need your promise that this story doesn’t break too soon and screw things up.”

Joya Bonner had a long-standing policy that she didn’t negotiate for stories. Nobody got to dictate terms or times. You make a deal and you’re dealing with a devil, is how she always thought of it.

But on the other hand, without revealing a detail, her boyfriend had revealed there was a much, much bigger story here than simply a Mafia guy ending up in Arizona. She’d only see the rest of this iceberg if she cut a deal with a guy who already knew how wide it was and how deep it went.

She laid down some tough, non-negotiable terms: She had exclusive access to the investigation. She would see everything. She could interview anyone she wanted. She’d eventually get access to Sammy. He agreed to every one.

Rob was so relieved that she was pulling back, he’d have promised her anything. Both of them thought they’d won.

Over the next hour, Detective Rob Stiller laid out an incredible story that would one day knock Arizona on its ear. “A new Arizona Mafia,” he’d said. Those words kept bouncing around Joya’s mind.

She clearly saw why this story had to wait. Revealing that Sammy “the Bull” Gravano was in town was nothing. What he was doing would blow the doors off. But they’d never stop him if the story came out too soon.

“I have the exclusive,” she emphasized to Rob when he was done. It wasn’t a question, but a declaration of their agreement.

“Absolutely.”

“Robbie, this is like a bad movie.”

“Yeah, a bad movie where a lot of people can get hurt.”

What a day, Joya mused, as she and Robbie went off to bed and fantastic sex.

It was Friday, October 15, 1999.

Chapter Three

Monday, October 18, 1999

K.C. Franken had never been more aware of his responsibilities as the town’s funeral director than when he waited for his son to bring Amber’s body from the Breckenridge Hospital.

He’d had the biggest fight of his marriage over this, his wife spitting at him that it was inhuman to send Kenny to fetch the body of his classmate—the girl he’d watched die on that loft floor—while his best friend still lay in a coma.

“Your own son could have died,” Margaret yelled at him. “He’s grieving. He’s been through enough. I’m already afraid he’ll do something to avenge this. Don’t push him. Let him alone!”

But that was the point, K.C. told her. It could have been Kenny. It could have been any of them. It could have been all of them. It was the luck of the draw that it wasn’t. Their firstborn had to learn that when you take dangerous risks, sometimes you pick the short straw. Margaret didn’t understand that sending Kenny in the funeral coach to pick up Amber’s body was his way of teaching their son that lesson.

Her only words that worried him were the “pushing-the-boy” part. It wouldn’t take much, and there were thirteen other boys in that Class of 2000 he had to worry about, too.

He could still hear Ralph Bonner’s words after mass yesterday. “You guys keep an eye on your boys, because no telling what they’ll do to him. And there’s no sense this gets any worse. Let the law handle it.”

Heads had bobbed in agreement because Bonner was a town leader known for his level-headedness.

“I’m worried about her uncles,” Bernard Stine said. Everyone considered his words, since the former grocery-store owner was a man whose words were always sparse.

“I’m worried about LeRoy,” someone else offered, but then, everybody always worried about crazy LeRoy Roth and his right-wing conspiracy theories.

“If I were you, I’d worry about me because I want to take care of that piece of trash myself.” That was Earl Krump, and everyone knew this retired farmer wasn’t kidding.

“Take it easy. Take it easy.” Ralph Bonner wanted to quiet things down.

“Do you think they’ll send someone from Fargo to investigate?” The men looked to one another, waiting for reassurance that professional lawmen would be in town soon.

Instead, they got the answer they dreaded. “Naw, I hear Sheriff Potter has already been to the hospital and declared the body a ‘crime scene.’ That son of a bitch.”

“Sure,
now
he comes, like he didn’t know what was going on. We told him we had a drug dealer in town. The bastard wouldn’t listen.” That was Earl Krump again.

“The sheriff’s as worthless as a tit on a hog.” K.C. couldn’t remember who made that salient point, but the words could have come out of his own mouth.

He hadn’t said much, but his own fury matched Earl’s. Sure, he was worried that Kenny and the boys would go after the pusher, but he worried about himself, too. If he were given the chance to make this right, K.C. Franken knew he could beat that kid within an inch of his life.

But he couldn’t think about that now. He had too much ahead of him. Too many responsibilities. Too many memories.

It wasn’t just his boy he thought about as he waited in the Franken Funeral Home on Main Street. He remembered his own classmate from years ago, the man who’d never known the beautiful daughter born after a drunk driver took his life.

K.C. hung out with Richard Schlener when they were going to Northville High School, Class of 1979. Richard was dating Nettie Hastreiter then. K.C. had yet to meet Margaret. Richard was the basketball captain, K.C., the football captain. When K.C.’s dad sent him to fetch a body in another town, sometimes he took Richard with him—it was a legitimate reason to ditch classes, and teachers didn’t ask many questions when you said you needed help for this particular errand. Richard had drawn the line, though, on K.C.’s regular job for the family business. So K.C. dug graves by himself and would eventually joke that he worked his way from the ground up.

K.C. was one of six groomsmen who stood up when Richard and Nettie got married, and a couple years later, all those guys gathered at the Corner Bar to toast the father-to-be. That’s the same bar where they got wasted the night after Richard was killed.

When they released Richard’s body after the accident—or the mangled mess of a body left when a drunk plowed into him at eighty miles an hour—K.C.’s dad stepped aside. “Son, I want you to handle this funeral.” He walked out the door.

K.C. stood there, shocked and dismayed, for the longest time, hating his dad for half of it, thanking him for the other half. Then he went to work. That was the day he knew he was meant to be a funeral director, because if you can embalm your best friend; if you can guide his grieving family through the painful decisions; if you can manage the details for his funeral, then you can handle anything. His dad was sure, too—this was the test that told Mr. Franken he could safely pass down the family business to K.C.

But now, thinking about preparing Richard’s daughter, Amber—and knowing it could have been his own son—K.C. shuddered for the first time in years.

He set the thermostat to sixty-two degrees in the Preparation Room. “Physicians and Licensed Personnel Only” said the antique sign painted on the door fifty years ago when his dad built this place. Even when he remodeled, K.C. painted around that sign.

Kenny drove into the garage and K.C. couldn’t tell if his red eyes were from crying or from rage. But those eyes also held a defiance. He shrugged off his dad’s hand on his arm as they opened the back of the limousine.

For a second, K.C. thought the body bag contained Richard all over again. But only a second. They wheeled Amber into the preparation room, where Kenny put his foot down.

“I’m not staying for this,” he screamed at his dad. K.C. knew this wasn’t the son who’d carry on the family business.

Pretty Amber wasn’t pretty anymore. Her chest wore the “Y” incision of the autopsy. Her hair was a mess. Her skin was gray and blotchy. Although he’d never admit it to Margaret, K.C. was glad Kenny hadn’t seen her like this.

Her hysterical friends had picked her up off the loft floor and rushed for help. The boys half-carried, half-dragged Johnny to a second car, jamming his right leg in the stairway and breaking it below the knee. They angrily debated if they should speed to Fargo and the best hospitals in the state, or stop closer to home in Breck. The we-have-no-time-to-waste argument won, and the caravan blared their horns as they screeched into the emergency entrance. It made no difference. The girl was dead on arrival, regardless of where they’d taken her. She was dead before they got down the hayloft steps. Her friends just wouldn’t believe it.

But their decision to go to the nearest hospital saved Johnny’s life. At least so far. The medical care he got there made the difference. He was still in a coma, and his folks had him transferred to Fargo, but it was the hospital in Breckenridge, Minnesota—the twin city to Wahpeton, North Dakota—that saved him.

K.C. carefully draped a white sheet over the body on the embalming table—that’s how he had to think of this for the next couple hours—not Amber, not the daughter of his friend, not his son’s classmate, not one of the town’s favorite basketball players—he had to think of this as “the body,” and that was all.

He took a couple deep breaths, all professional now. He started the process to replace the blood in the body with a formaldehyde mixture. He opened the carotid artery and the jugular vein in the neck so he could pump the embalming fluid in the artery and the displaced blood would flow out the vein. It took over two hours for the body to be preserved and disinfected. Now it could be made presentable for the last viewing.

K.C. would do that later. Over the years, he’d perfected his skills so the person looked natural—asleep but peaceful. That’s what his dad had promised when he ran the home, and that’s what K.C. promised now.

He looked silly in the drugstore, inspecting the makeup jars and tubes, but he needed foundation makeup in every hue to match any skin. He was even more self-conscious when he bought up tubes of lipstick on sale that ran from pink to red. His nail polish selections all went to the pale side—clear, pink, beige. No one ever wanted red polish on the nails of their loved one.

He’d do the makeup tomorrow. Normally his mom would style the hair, but because this one was so young, K.C. hoped he could get the new beautician in town to do it. Just out of beauty school, she knew the latest styles. He’d never asked her before—some beauticians couldn’t handle doing the hair of a corpse—but he was going to ask now.

He finished cleaning up the Preparation Room. Its green linoleum floors shined and the white porcelain sink was spotless. He changed his shirt. Time to meet the family to plan out the final details.

As he walked out of the Preparation Room, “the body” became Amber again. The technical part of his job was done. Now the important part was starting—the part that made K.C. so trusted and respected. In the next couple days, his entire focus was to make this final journey as easy as possible on the family. Anyone could be trained to do what he’d just done in the Preparation Room. The real test of a mortician was how he could do this next part.

Nettie Schlener fell into K.C.’s arms as she walked through the front door of his funeral home. He held his longtime friend and classmate, whispering, “I’m so sorry.” Behind her came one of her brothers, her three sisters, and two of Amber’s cousins. While the family resemblance was strong in each face, even stronger were the red eyes and solemn, sunken cheeks of grief. K.C. noted the fury of revenge in the face of Dennis Hastreiter. The men were right to worry about Amber’s uncles.

K.C. led them into the office/conference room with its large wooden table and chairs for ten. He knew this family as well as his own, which helped him anticipate what they’d want and need at this terrible moment.

Father Singer was running a few minutes late—the priest always sat in on these sessions for the Catholics—and so K.C. began at the top of his checklist.

Date of birth: August 1, 1982.

Place of birth: Fargo, North Dakota

Social Security number: 502-67-3730

“Does someone want to write Amber’s biography for the obituary and the mass card?” K.C. asked. He knew it wouldn’t be Nettie, but probably one of her sisters would take charge.

“I could,” one of her cousins offered, looking to the other for support and help. But when the second cousin frantically shook her head “no,” K.C. jumped in. “Or I could take care of it with your help. I’d be honored to do it.” Nettie nodded to him and the cousins both looked relieved.

“What were Amber’s activities and accomplishments that you want everyone to know?” he gently asked so he could fill in the “life history.”

“Her basketball,” Nettie said. “She was captain of the team.” And then she dissolved into tears as her sisters rushed to comfort her.

Dennis cleared his throat to overtake his own emotions. “She’s on the poster that the booster club put up all over town. It’s a picture of her laying up for a shot.”

“We Love our Buccaneers,” one of the cousins said, as though K.C. didn’t know the poster that graced almost every business window—not his, of course, because that wouldn’t have been proper.

“Her 4-H work,” her Aunt Arlene offered. “She was doing a history project on the Bagg Bonanza Farm over by Mooreton. Getting old pictures, telling the story.”

Everyone turned their attention to Arlene, like this was the most important story she’d ever tell, and she got the hint to continue: “You know, hardly anybody knows about the Bonanza Farms—they were the largest farms in the world, right here in Dakota Territory in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Some were two hundred thousand acres. They were the nation’s first corporate farms. The Bagg Farm is one of the few left. Amber told me she thought that’s why North Dakota outlawed corporate farms and said every farm has to be family owned. She thought the bonanza farms taught us that corporate farming isn’t the way to go.”

Everyone in the room hung on Arlene’s words. K.C. had seen this happen countless times before. Give a family something to think about, anything besides the fact that their hearts were broken and they could barely breathe.

One of the cousins—the one a year behind Amber—asked timidly, “Do you think it would be okay, Aunt Nettie, if I took that on as my own 4-H project and finished it in Amber’s honor?”

“That would be wonderful, darling. Amber would have loved that. Thank you.”

Another aunt suggested they mention that Amber was on the Honor Roll.

“What about her acting?” the youngest cousin asked, remembering when she had played a munchkin to Amber’s Dorothy in the children’s play last summer. Amber had been in every play since she was in the third grade. She was one of the crabs in
Blackbeard the Pirate
, a mouse in
The Pied Piper
, the genie in
Aladdin,
and ended her acting career as the lead in
The Wizard of Oz
.

“That summer program is the best thing that happens to this town,” Aunt Mary Ann said, and everyone knew she was right. Northville wasn’t the kind of town that had money for arts programs. Its public library had such a tiny budget it barely held on, and if it weren’t for donated books, there wouldn’t be a library at all. So the Missoula Children’s Theater program was a godsend. For one week every summer, two actors in a red truck full of costumes, makeup, lights, sets and scripts drove into town to put on a play with local kids. The town provided their lodging and food, the talent, a stage, and an accompanist. Local businesses coughed up donations.

“She loved those plays,” Nettie said. “Be sure to mention that.”

Father Singer finally arrived, carrying his black leather appointment book as though he couldn’t remember the only thing on his plate for the next couple days. He’d already been out to Nettie’s house to pray with the family, so it was the business of the funeral he was here to schedule.

“The mass will be at ten a.m. on Wednesday,” he announced, as though this were news. He’d moved these masses back an hour when he came to the parish ten years ago, and everyone was grateful. By ten a.m., chores are long done and there was a chance to get in some serious field work. Any earlier cut into the heart of the farm day. A lot more men had been able to make funerals since Father Singer instituted the civilized hour.