Death Notice

“When I passed by, I thought I would stop in and say hello. Since you’ve told me I never do that.”

“You don’t,” Deana said. “And thanks. That was sweet of you.”

Oddly, Henry felt more awkward chatting with Deana than he did telling Chief Campbell about George Winnick’s death notice. That was being helpful, a good citizen. This was something entirely different. This was, Henry guessed, flirting.

“I just want you to know,” Deana said, her smile radiating a kind patience, “that my offer is still on the table.”

“What offer?”

“Lunch. I think it might be fun, since we’re coworkers in a weird way.”

That was true. Henry talked to Deana more than anyone at the Gazette. And she seemed friendly enough, with no hidden agenda except to get to know him better. Plus, he thought it would be nice just once to break out of his safe routine.

“A great sushi place just opened up on Main,” Deana said. “We could try it out one day.”

Henry was on the verge of saying yes. He felt the muscles in the back of his neck loosen, preparing for the nod to follow. But then something on the wall caught his eye. It was a mirror—large and gilded—and framed in its center was his reflection.

Staring at his own image, Henry suddenly felt foolish. He was in excellent shape, yes. But his face—that was unacceptable. And the more that Deana smiled benevolently at him, the more Henry became convinced that her motives were suspect. She wasn’t interested in him. Just like the patrons of a freak show, she was interested in his face. Its lines and scars and deformities.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Henry said, breaking his gaze from the mirror. “But thank you for the invitation.”

He regretted stepping foot into the funeral home. It was a bad idea, he realized. And now he was eager to leave.

He turned and reached for the door, surprised to see it was already halfway open. Someone was on the other side, pushing the door so forcefully Henry had to hop backward to avoid being struck by it. That’s when Kat Campbell burst inside, riding a gust of frigid air.

With her was a man Henry had never seen before. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, Henry assumed he was a cop of some sort. He and the chief shared identical scowls as they passed, barely noticing his presence.

Henry nodded a wordless greeting and exited the funeral home. Crossing the front porch, he heard Kat through the open door ask, “Are Art and Bob here?”

“Arthur is,” Deana told her. “Is something wrong?”

Henry paused at the top of the porch steps, waiting for the chief’s response. When it came, he was surprised, intrigued, and more than a little fearful.

“I need to know,” Kat said, “how to go about embalming someone.”

TEN

In Kat’s mind, few places on earth were as depressing as McNeil Funeral Home. Arthur McNeil, the owner, tried hard to make it as calm and comforting as possible. Beige walls, classic furnishings, fresh flowers on a side table by the front door. Yet the sterile perfection of the place always unsettled Kat. The décor felt to her just like the corpses on display there—posed, painted, lifeless.

Her opinion of the place was colored by the terrible hours spent there during her parents’ funerals. Too uncomfortable to take a seat, she waited with Nick just inside the door. The position gave her a glimpse into the empty viewing room where her mother’s body was laid out eight months earlier. Memories of that time rushed into her head. Seeing James cry. Weeping herself. Sitting next to her mother’s casket, trying not to break down completely. The recollections were so painful that Kat sighed with relief when Art McNeil finally appeared.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, taking one of Kat’s hands in both of his. “Deana told me it sounded important.”

He was dressed in light blue scrubs, with a paper cap on his head and a surgical mask lowered to beneath his chin. Even out of street clothes, Art projected a benevolent calmness that was one of the tools of his trade.

When Kat introduced Nick Donnelly, Art flashed him the smile of a favorite uncle.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Lieutenant Donnelly.”

“We hate to bother you like this,” Nick said. “But there are some things we need to learn in order to investigate a recent crime.”

Art shook his head sadly. “Let me guess—George Winnick. Wallace Noble told me everything when I made arrangements to pick the body up from the morgue.”

On the one hand, Kat was annoyed that Wallace felt free to talk so openly about the case. But on the other, she was glad Art already knew the gory details of the situation. Since she still barely comprehended it herself, she had no idea how to go about explaining it to someone else.

“As you know,” she said, “whoever killed George also tried to embalm him. In order to understand how and why, we need to see the whole embalming process. From start to finish.”

She knew it was an odd request. So odd, in fact, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Art flatly refused. But he seemed to understand the strangeness of the situation. Without thinking it over, he said, “Certainly.”

He led them to the funeral home’s basement, guiding them to a small changing room under the steps. Kat went first, stripping down to her T-shirt and trousers and slipping on surgical scrubs that matched Art’s own. She topped off the absurd outfit with a blue cap over her hair and paper booties on her shoes.

As Kat left the changing area open for Nick, Art called to her from the embalming room, which sat to her immediate left.

“Come right on in.”

Kat wanted to leave the embalming room as soon as she entered it. The white-tiled space was cold, for one thing, the chill instantly forming goose bumps on her arms. It also was eerily immaculate, as clean and sterile as an operating room. As she looked around, the scent of ammonia and formaldehyde tickled her nose and stuck to the back of her throat.

In the center of the room was a body lying on a stainless steel table. Large lights hung over the corpse, casting a brutal, white glow onto it. Beneath the table, the concrete floor gently slanted to a conspicuous drain.

“This is where we do it,” Art said, standing next to the table.

Kat couldn’t take her eyes off the body. It belonged to an elderly woman with a white sheet draped over everything but her head and bare feet. It took Kat a moment to realize she knew the woman, causing her to gasp when recognition hit.

“That’s Barbara Hanover.”

Art confirmed it with a solemn nod. “She died in her sleep during the night.”

As a little girl, Kat had purchased candy from Mrs. Hanover every Saturday at the store she ran with her husband. She had been a jovial woman, quick with a smile and a free Jolly Rancher. Standing in the same room as her corpse, Kat felt like she was violating the woman in unspeakable ways.

She was grateful when Nick finally entered the embalming room. His new uniform of crisp scrubs gave her something other than Mrs. Hanover’s body to look at.

“I’m assuming both of you know very little about the embalming process,” Art said.

“Nothing at all,” Nick said, answering for both of them. “But I understand it’s very important.”

The mortician beamed. “Oh, it is. The most important aspect of my job is creating a memory picture for the family of the deceased to take with them. They find it helps with the grieving process.”

Kat recalled the way both her mother and father had looked in their caskets. Contrary to what Arthur McNeil thought, it didn’t help her one bit. The images were something she wished she could forget.

The door to the embalming room opened and Art’s son, Robert, emerged, also dressed in scrubs. Unlike the rest of them, he wore a rubber apron tight around his torso.

“What are they doing here?” he asked, his voice harsh in the hushed atmosphere of the embalming room.

Kat graduated high school a class behind Bob, and the intervening years hadn’t changed him one bit. The polar opposite of his father, he was without manners of any stripe. Kat knew part of Bob’s rudeness stemmed from his lifelong outcast status. He was an ungainly, unattractive boy, whose social life didn’t benefit any from living above a funeral home.

Things only got worse for Bob when he turned ten, the year his mother, no longer able to live among the dead, decided to become one of them. Wearing three layers of heavy clothes, a brick shoved into every pocket, she threw herself into Lake Squall, the water quickly consuming her.

Leota McNeil stayed underwater for three days. When she finally floated to the surface, Kat’s father was unlucky enough to find her.