Grave Intent (8 page)

Janet’s Caravan wasn’t in the garage, so
Michael parked the Buick in the empty slot, then hurried over to
the funeral home on foot.

When he reached the parking lot, Michael
cornered a stout, middle-aged man dressed in a rumpled brown suit.
“Excuse me, but are all of you here for the Stevenson viewing?”

The man’s caterpillar brows knitted, and
without a word, he pointed to a woman who sat crying on the hood of
a nearby Oldsmobile.

Michael took a step toward her, thought
better of it, then hurried over to the service entrance of the
funeral home. He half expected to find Chad cowering in some corner
in desperate need of Prozac.

The side door swung open just as Michael
reached it, and a young man in a Lee’s Florist uniform bustled
out.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” the man said. “Did I
hit you?”

“No. What’s—” Michael began, but the guy spun
away, already heading for the back end of a delivery van, which was
tucked tightly against the side of the building.

“Hey,” the man called out before disappearing
into the back of the van. “Can you hold that door open for me?”

Michael propped the door open with a foot,
and the delivery man hurried back inside with two floral
stands.

“Who died?” the man asked. “A governor or
something?”

“A teenage girl,” Michael said, closing the
door. He stared at the multiple rows of flowers and plants lined up
against the walls, their nauseatingly sweet fragrance nearly
palpable. Many of them had Savoy’s Florist salutation cards
attached to them.

“Yeah? She a local?”

“From out of town.”

The man placed the stands near a large wreath
of white carnations that had OUR SYMPATHY written on a wide red
ribbon across its middle. “Well, whoever she is, her family must
sure have the bucks ‘cause Lee’s and two other shops’ve been
deliverin’ here pretty steady.” He swiped his forehead with an arm
and hustled out the side door again.

Michael picked up the floral stands and was
heading for the viewing rooms when Chad burst out of the men’s
bathroom, his hand still on his fly.

“Can you believe it?” Chad said nearly
running into Michael. His eyes looked the size of salad plates.
“There’s gotta be a thousand people outside!”

“I don’t know about a thousand, but it’s a
hell of a group that’s for sure. Everything ready?”

Chad nodded while buttoning his suit coat. “I
just finished cosmetizing.”

Michael started down the hall again, and Chad
quickly fell into step.

“Where’s Sally?” Michael asked.

“In the viewing room, setting up
flowers.”

“We’re going to need extra help—”

“I already called Mr. Mason. He’s on
standby.”

Michael glanced over at him. “You already
called Richard?”

Chad’s eyes grew wider . “Shouldn’t I
have?”

“No . . . I mean, yes, you should have,”
Michael said, impressed by Chad’s efficiency. “Good job.”

Richard Mason was a semi-retired funeral
director whose help was an occasional blessing and a frequent
curse. From the old school, Richard used embalming techniques that
turned bodies into concrete statues. He also pasted enough makeup
on a corpse to make a whore blush. Michael only called on him when
absolutely necessary, and this service promised to accurately
define necessity. Even with Richard’s help, Michael still worried
about how they would manage a crowd of this size.

“Well it’s about time,” Sally said as she
stormed out of viewing room A and spotted the two men.

Michael lifted the flower stands.
“Reinforcements are here.”

Sally scowled, and Michael read, “where the
hell have you been?” in her eyes, but she said, “I’ve got the front
doors locked for now, but I need somebody to stand guard until
we’re done setting up. Some weird old lady’s already snuck in here
twice.”

“Was it the girl’s mother?” Michael asked,
following her into the viewing room.

“How the hell should I know?” Sally plopped a
fist on her hip. “I tried asking her, but she talked so funny I
couldn’t understand a doggone word she said. And it wasn’t like
anybody
else
was around to help me figure her out.”

Blowing off Sally’s snippy mood, Michael
surveyed the room. “You did a great job in here, Sal.” The accolade
was said more in truth than to appease her frustration. She really
had done a terrific job. The retractable wall that normally
separated the fifty by forty foot room into two smaller rooms had
been opened, and wooden folding chairs with tan leather cushions
filled the wide space in tight, neat rows. The casket sat on an oak
bier at the front of the room with a kneeler placed along its right
side. Behind the casket hung a two-foot crucifix with a thick,
mauve curtain serving as its backdrop. Flowers and plants of every
shape and size stood in vases, pots, or on easels four rows deep
along either side of the casket and extended down the length of the
room along both walls.

“What’d you expect?” Sally snapped. “I always
do a good job.” She let out a little harrumph, then turned on her
heels and left.

Michael shook his head and placed the floral
stands he’d been carrying beside a parade of wreaths. He signaled
to Chad. “Let’s see how you did with the body.” He heard his
apprentice draw short, nervous breaths as they neared the
coffin.

The girl’s heart-shaped face was flawless and
framed by long black hair. Thick, dark lashes lay against skin
almost golden in color, and her lips, which had been shaded with
the slightest bit of lipstick, were full and supple to the eye. She
wore a white silk blouse scooped low at the neck and an
ankle-length skirt to match. White satin slippers with intricate
embroidery covered her feet. The overall effect against the royal
blue velvet interior of the casket was breathtaking.

“Any problems with the removal at Riverwest
last night?” Michael asked.

“Not really. Had some big guy follow me here
from the hospital, though. He didn’t speak English that well, but I
got the impression he was acting like a bodyguard or something. I
had a little problem getting him to sign the release forms so he
could go into the prep room, but once we got past that, the guy was
a kitten. Just hung out in the back and watched me. He left about
twenty minutes ago.”

Michael nodded. “What about the incision? You
use the femoral?” He moved the girl’s hair away from the right side
of her face and neck. No sign of sutures.

“Yeah,” Chad said, polishing a smudge off the
bronze casket with his jacket sleeve. “There’s no way I could’ve
hidden a carotid with those clothes.”

“Excellent work, Chad.” Michael straightened
the girl’s hair, then closed the bottom half of the casket, leaving
her exposed only from the waist up. “You’re going to make a great
funeral dir—”

“But, Ma’am!” Sally’s voice boomed from the
hallway.

A woman, who looked to be in her eighties,
appeared in the doorway, a small brass bowl balanced in one hand.
She wore a white blouse with long, puffy sleeves and a cardinal
red, ankle-length skirt embroidered with small black and gold
squares. A bright red kerchief was tied tightly about her head like
a skullcap. It accented a face drawn and wrinkled and a nose and
brow splotched with scabs. Her back was bowed, her walk slow and
deliberate as she made her way across the room.

Sally followed her and mouthed to Michael
when she passed him, “I tried to stop her!”

The old woman waved a gnarled hand. “All
move. I am grandmother.” She dipped her fingers into the brass bowl
and flicked what Michael hoped was water into the air.

He signaled for Chad and Sally to leave,
which they did, quickly.

“We’re not quite finished here, but you’re
welcome to stay, Mrs. . . .uh—” Michael stepped aside as the woman
approached the coffin. “Is it Mrs. Stevenson?”

Ignoring him, the woman placed the bowl on
the kneeler, then gripped the edge of the casket. She spoke softly
to the girl in a voice choked with emotion and in a language
Michael didn’t understand.

He moved away, deciding to leave the woman to
her grief and help with the rest of the flowers.

“I am Stevenson,” the woman said suddenly.
“Lenora.” She turned to him slowly. “Now I must see. You open.”

Michael looked at her, puzzled.

“You open,” she said again, and pointed to
the closed portion of the casket.

“Oh.” Michael walked around the woman to the
foot of the coffin and opened the lid.

Lenora wiped tears from her face. “You are to
keep open, yes? Now dress.” She pointed to the girl’s legs. “Dress.
You move dress, yes? I must see.”

Michael frowned. “Something’s wrong with the
dress?”

“You move,” Lenora said. She made a hooking
motion with a crooked finger. “You move.”

“You mean straighten it?” Michael tugged
lightly on the hem of the girl’s skirt.

Lenora shrieked, “Naught! Naught!”, which
caused Michael to jerk back in surprise.

“What?” he asked.

She glared at him, her face twisted with
disgust, then moved her hands over the girl’s skirt without
touching it. She mimed pulling up the hem.

“You want me to
lift
her skirt?”

Lenora nodded hesitantly.

Michael had heard a lot of strange requests
from grieving relatives before, but this one ranked in the top ten.
He pulled the skirt up to mid-calf. “Here?”

She held onto the edge of the casket, cocked
her head for a closer look inside, then mumbled something that
sounded like, “Me aster.” She fluttered a hand over the girl’s
legs. “Me aster,” she said louder.

Dreading another outburst, Michael carefully
moved the skirt up to the bottom of the knees. He glanced over at
Lenora, who nodded, then exhaled slowly.

“Now turn,” she said, rolling the word off
her tongue. She planted her feet flat on the floor, held out a
hand, then moved it so her palm faced him. “Turn.”

Perplexed, Michael asked, “Turn the
dress?”

Lenora stared at him quizzically.

He pinched a fold in the dress. “You want me
to turn this?”

With a vigorous shake of her head, Lenora
leaned over and slapped the calf of her left leg. “Turn. Turn.”

Michael felt like he was trapped in a macabre
game of charades. “You want me to turn her leg?” He touched the
girl’s left leg. “This one?”

Lenora straightened and nodded.

He wanted to ask why but figured it might
well turn into a two-hour

translation marathon. He leaned over the
casket, grasped the left leg, and turned it carefully, keeping a
cautious eye on the rest of the body. The head and hands stayed set
in their mimic of deep slumber as he pulled the calf into view. In
the middle of the calf he saw an odd patch of dark skin that looked
like the silhouette of a prehistoric bird.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” Michael
asked, studying the strange shape. When he heard no response, he
glanced back.

Lenora no longer stood beside him. The brass
bowl she’d carried in earlier still sat on the kneeler to his
right. Only now it belched skinny tendrils of blue smoke that
smelled faintly of burning flesh.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“There ain’t no way we’re going to be able to
keep up like this,” Bertha Lynn said, blowing a strand of gray hair
out of her eyes. “Think Theresa would come over and give us a
hand?”

Janet clipped a Savoy Florist card to one of
the fifteen rose bouquets she’d completed since opening shop. The
first indicator that business would
not
be as usual this
morning was the cars and trucks parked along every roadside she
passed on her way to work. The second was the funeral home parking
lot filled to capacity even at that early hour. Janet hadn’t had a
chance to talk to Michael since Wilson’s visit last night, and with
Michael leaving the house before she woke this morning, she didn’t
have a clue about what might be causing the hoopla at the funeral
home. Whatever it was had forced her to find backup quick.
Fortunately, Bertha Lynn had been able to get her cousin, Pauline,
into the shop to answer the phone, and Janet had talked Laura
Trahan, Ellie’s sitter, into making deliveries. Even with two more
people, Janet still felt like she was swimming through a tsunami
with one arm.

“I doubt it,” Janet said, snipping through
another bundle of carnations. “She told me yesterday she’d be
shopping this morning with Heather, who’s supposed to be coming
with us to the cabin—which we’ll probably have to cancel
anyway—then she had a carpet cleaning service coming over to do her
rugs. Theresa wouldn’t be much help anyway. All she knows to do
with flowers is smell them.”

“We’re not going to the fair?” Ellie asked.
She sat on a stool beside Bertha Lynn, holding a block of green
Styrofoam and discarded stems and stalks. Her expression went from
one of idle contentment to shock.

“Honey, I don’t see how we can,” Janet said.
“With all those people at the funeral home, I’m sure Daddy won’t be
able to get away. And I can’t leave Miss Bertha Lynn to handle all
this by herself.”

Ellie’s lower lip trembled. “But, Mama—”

Bertha Lynn tsked. “Don’t you worry, baby
girl. We’ll figure out a way for ya’ll to go.”

Ellie gave Janet a doleful look.

“Even if we get someone to cover for me here,
Bertha, I’m sure there’s no way Michael’s going to be able to get
away.”

“Then go on up there just you and the girls,”
Bertha Lynn said. “You know he’ll drive out there to meet you as
soon as he’s done.”

“Driving up there alone with the girls is one
thing, leaving you alone with this mess is another.”

“Oh, good Lord, I’ve handled a lot worse than
an overload of plants,” Bertha Lynn said. “I’ll call the women I
play pinochle with on Tuesday nights. I bet they’ll be glad to have
something to do. Lydia does a decent job with her own flowerbed at
home, and Flo can do miracles with ribbon. Gina can’t do much but
gripe about her rheumatism, but we’ll keep her busy doing
something. And with Laura running deliveries, there ya go, we’re
all set.”