Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

KEIR

First thing Monday morning,I got a call from Joaquim Arroyo, the Sacramento County Coroner who Jonas worked for. "Hi, Joaquim."

"Keir, good morning. Jonas told me you’re back to work. I wonder if you could do me a favor? Your memorial garden in the back of your funeral home, does it have room for another unclaimed soul?”

“Sure. Do you want me to pick them up?”

“It’s actually just the torso of a male child we’ve been unable to identify since he was found five years ago. As you know, I’m responsible for interring the indigent and unclaimed bodies in a local cemetery, but an unmarked grave seemed heartbreaking to me. I sent the remains to be cremated on Friday. I’ll have Jonas drop the urn off at Dearly & Son tomorrow. I thought in your little memorial garden, he’d be remembered by someone. Thank you, Keir. I’ll let Jonas know when he returns from the crematorium.

“Thank you, Joachim. I’ll take care of it.” I ended the call and walked downstairs to the office to see the light was already on, which meant someone had already arrived.

Dash had gone to Clegg Cycles to work on the bike chassis—a vintage 1947 Harley Davidson Knucklehead—that I’d bought him for Christmas, and Amelie wasn’t back to work until Tuesday, according to a text she’d sent me the previous night.

“Hello?” No one responded.

The lights were also on in the mortuary, which was unusual. Nobody had been down there since before we left on our honeymoon.

I headed over to the walk-in, taking a breath before I pulled the door open. The compressor cover was glowing, which wasn’t good news at all. No one was inside, but that fiery orange grid was a beacon that things were heating up in the underworld.

I hurried out of the cooler and closed the door, stopping at my computer to see the lights on the tower were illuminated. I woke the mouse, and when the screen came to life, an order form for Titan Caskets, my regular supplier, appeared on the screen.

I scanned the form to see an order for two boxes—one from the high-priced Orion line with a navy shell with elaborate silver sculpted hardware, a white crepe fabric interior, and an adjustable bed.

It was one of the more expensive caskets in their line. I generally tried to steer the families of my guests to a more economical choice due to the very nature of the casket’s job—to hold a decaying corpse. Most of my guests wouldn’t want their families to pay such a high price, contrary to what the families usually believed in their hearts and minds.

The second page was an order for the Titan Virtue, a cardboard casket we used for cremations. It was the cheapest box in their catalog, but I couldn’t imagine why one was being ordered. In fact, I couldn’t fathom why either casket was being ordered. We hadn’t performed any funerals since before Dash and I went to Mexico.

Scrolling up to the information sheet to see who was ordering caskets from opposite ends of the spectrum had my teeth on edge. The sheet was filled out with dates and shipping requirements, along with our account number. Why would Amelie come down to the mortuary to fill out the form when we have the same software on the laptop in the office? Why would she order these boxes in the first place?

I continued scrolling to the top until I got to the departed’s information. Mine and Dash’s names were in the reference boxes with a note on the memo line: You’ll need this sooner than you think.

Is this a threat? Maybe it’s a joke?It was a sick one if that was what it was, and who the hell would do something like this?

I used to be a tech guy, but I didn’t have the patience to figure out when it was created or by whom, what with everything going on. I’d need to wait for Amelie or Vale to check it for me, and then a thought crossed my mind. Did I want to freak them out with this? Had one of the neighborhood teens gotten inside while we were gone?

After considering the options for a few seconds, I deleted the forms and went to the supply closet to look around for anything missing. There were no drugs in the mortuary—well, that wasn’t exactly right, was it? There was formaldehyde in the embalming fluid, along with ethanol and methanol.

I’d heard that drug dealers and people with an addiction abused it for its hallucinogenic properties. Like PCP, they dipped other drugs—mostly marijuana—in it to produce an unmatched high, according to the trade publications I’d read that had alerts for those of us in the industry to be aware of possible break-ins.

I went through the receiving bay to check the doors and windows, finding everything as it should be. The hearse was parked in its usual spot and hadn’t been disturbed.

Would it be prudent to call the police anyway? Maybe Jay’s friend, Dean Lester, could come take a look for any signs of a break-in?

I headed back inside when I heard humming coming from the embalming suite. I seriously had nothing at my disposal that remotely resembled a weapon, so I grabbed the only thing I could find... the shop broom I used to sweep out the garage on occasion.

Which end was more deadly? I was guessing the broom end since the handle would probably break if I tried to hit someone with it.

Was I going to charge in there to confront god knows what with a damn broom? Well, there was nobody else there to help me, was there?

I’d asked and answered my own question, so I grabbed the broom and used it to push the door open. There was no one in the walk-in, so I went through to the embalming suite, and saw the supply closet was open. I slowly approached the door.

Just as I was about to go through, Lake came out carrying the cosmetic case—well, screaming and dropping the cosmetic case when I shoved a broom into her chest.

I immediately dropped my makeshift weapon and grabbed her as she started to fall to the floor. “Oh, god, Lake. I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you’d be in today since we don’t have any guests.”

We both knelt to clean up the spilled makeup when the lid popped open. Much of it was broken and the floor was a mess. When she started crying, I reached for my wallet.

“Please don’t cry. That stuff has been around for so long. My mom picked it all out a long time ago. Hell, it’s probably time to replace it anyway. Here, take my card and go get us some new cosmetics. You know what we need better than me.”

“I’m so sorry I’ll pay for this, I promise. It’s my fault⁠—”

“Lake, I came at you with a broom because I thought someone had broken into the place. How could that be your fault?” I was such an idiot.

“I’ve been coming down to the mortuary so I can get used to being here alone without jumping at every little noise. I was going to check whether we were low on anything. I have to go to the beauty supply store for a school project, so I was going to make a list of things we need.” She went to the supply closet and grabbed the broom and pan we kept in there.

I took the shop broom back to the garage and returned to find a spirit standing next to Lake. It was an older woman gazing at her with a fond smile. I knew Lake’s mother was still alive because she’d watched Jamie when Lake had worked at the Tip Top Club as a dancer. It seemed like many years ago, and I could see how much Lake was changing. If the woman was a relative, she must be quite proud of Lake for turning her life around.

“Is your grandmother still alive?” I held the dustpan while she swept the debris into it. When she had everything cleaned up, I took the mess to the trash can and tossed it.

“No. Both died when I was young. Grandpa Griner is still alive, but he lives in Seattle. He got remarried a few years ago to his next-door neighbor.” Lake walked to the trash can and finished cleaning out the cosmetic case.

She closed the lid and handed it to me, but one of the latches was busted, so I tossed it into the trash can as well. “Get a new one of those too. I know how to use that stuff, so if you get anything fancy, you’ll have to show me how to work with it. How’s school?”

“Good. Just four more months to go. How was your honeymoon? Where’s Dash?” Her smile was a mile wide. I knew she and Dash had a special relationship, and I was grateful he’d talked her into letting us help her.

“He’s at the shop working on his new bike. He’ll be home in a while for lunch. Have you thought about what you want to do after you graduate?” I was sure she wouldn’t stay at Dearly & Son forever. She was quite talented and deserved much more.

“Are you...? Am I not doing a good job here?” I took the bag out of the trash can to take out to the bin, and when I turned to her, I saw her face had gone pale.

“Don’t you dare fire my granddaughter!” The spirit next to her roared before giving me a dirty look. I was betting she’d been feisty when she was alive.

“No, no. You’re doing a great job, and I’m happy to have you working here. I just thought you’d rather work at a salon or something.” Again, I’m an idiot.

“At a salon? You only get to work when there’s a wedding or picture-taking occasion. I mean, I could do hair, but those are long days and trying to build a client list is a nightmare. I like working here. I was hoping I could stay here after I graduated. I had no idea I’d be drawn to a job like this one. You’ve taught me what real compassion is with the way you treat the guests. They’re real people to you, Keir. I want to be that kind of person too.”

I was quite touched by her words. “I don’t think I’ve had such a compliment before. Thank you. And yes, of course, you can stay working here. It was part of the job I wasn’t very keen to do because I was always afraid that I had a heavy hand with the makeup, and I had to hire someone to come in and do hair for our female guests because if it was more than a combed style, I was lost. If you’re sure you want to stay, that means Dash and I can move forward with our plans. It’s quite a relief.”

If Lake was sticking around, I might ask Amelie to get her funeral director’s license. She had a wonderful way with the families that reminded me of my mother. Dash was more than happy to help out when he could, but if Amelie was willing to get her license, then we wouldn’t need to close to take time off. We’d be able to rotate so everyone had adequate time off, and we’d still be covered in an emergency.

And if Dash and I had kids, we’d be able to be with them all the time. How wonderful would that be?

“What are your plans? If I may ask.”

I grinned immediately. “We want to have a baby. We’re going to start down the surrogacy road. We discussed it on our honeymoon and decided we’re ready.” It made me giddy to even think about it.

“Oh yeah? How are you going to go about that?”

“Well, we’ll have to find an egg donor and a surrogate. We haven’t ruled out adoption if surrogacy ends up not being for us.” That had been the discussion we’d had the previous night after our guests had left. We were both in agreement that we would consider adoption, but we wanted to pursue a child of our own first. Then we’d made love.

“That’s sweet. Do you know someone willing to donate an egg?”

“No, but I called an agency specializing in anonymous donors, which is how we want to go. The surrogate will be tricky because we want someone nearby so we can easily check in with them, and we want to be sure they know it’s our baby, not theirs.”

Lake’s phone buzzed. She pulled it from the pocket of her yoga pants and smiled. “I gotta go pick up Jamie. School was only a half-day today. She and I can go shopping for supplies, and I’ll bring them over tomorrow. Anything lined up yet?”

“No—uh, wait. Yeah. We have a special service and internment for a cremation. We’re going to put him in the memorial garden one afternoon this week.” I told her some of the story Joachim had told me. I didn’t want to completely bum her out since she was leaving to pick up Jamie, so I left out the information that the boy had been only a torso. That would be my secret. It was painful enough for me. I didn’t need to burden anyone else with the information.

“Let me know the details. I’ll come to it. That’s so sad.”

I agreed, and she left through the receiving bay side door. I then went upstairs to do paperwork.

By the time Dash got home around two in the afternoon, we had three funerals scheduled for the rest of the week. Business was always booming.