by Sara Blaedel
They must have changed their minds, Ilka thought as she walked in. The row of family portraits of former owners hanging in the long hallway had been taken down, the wallpaper torn off, the floor covered with plastic, and the walls puttied and primed. The portraits lay scattered in a pile among strips of wallpaper and metal buckets.
Ilka shook her head and trotted up the few steps to where the nun working for the Oldhams once received visitors. She was gone now, replaced by a young, blond woman behind a glass window who asked Ilka if she had an appointment.
Ilka gave her name, and the woman told her to take a seat. She was five minutes early. Don’t look too nervous, she told herself. She politely refused an offer of coffee and brought out the list of her demands in connection with the sale. Sister Eileen was to be allowed to stay in the apartment rent-free for as long as she wished, the same agreement as existed now. Then there was Artie. If the American Funeral Group couldn’t guarantee him work, he might not get anything out of taking over the house, she thought. In his will her father had specified that Artie and Sister Eileen had first refusal rights to it if she decided to sell, which was fine with Ilka. All she cared about right now was breaking even on what she had inherited.
Her final condition was that all her father’s personal belongings would remain in her possession. She was thinking of everything up in his room, where she now slept. Some of it she’d managed to look through, but there were still several boxes she hadn’t opened.
She checked the time on her phone. Twenty minutes she’d been waiting now, without a word from them. At last a door opened, and the arrogant bastard she’d almost kicked out of the funeral home approached her. His aftershave smelled sweet and slightly nauseating. He greeted her curtly and handed her what looked to be a long standard contract. All they needed was her signature, he told her.
Ilka hesitated before taking it. She was about to stand up to follow him into the office, to discuss her conditions and have them added to the contract, but when he reached into his suit pocket and brought out a pen, she realized the negotiations would take place there in the reception.
She sat with her notes on her lap and read through the contract to find where her conditions could be inserted.
“As you can see on the first page, we’re offering you an immediate takeover.” He jerked the contract out of her hand, leafed back to the first page, and pointed to a date.
Ilka nodded. She was relieved, knowing it would all be over this week. She grabbed the pen he was holding out. “About my two colleagues, Artie Sorvino and Sister Eileen O’Connor, I’ve written down the conditions of their employment after the transfer. Of course, that can be negotiated, depending on if the funeral home will be run as it is or if the two funeral homes will be merged.”
Before she could mention Sister Eileen’s apartment, he said, “It’s going to be shut down. We’ll take over your portfolio. Your employees will not be needed.”
After a quick glance over at him, she steadied herself without him noticing her clutching the paper in her lap. In short, concise sentences he explained to her that the American Funeral Group would take over her prepaid funerals, including the obligations concerning them. And they would also take over all their customers.
“So the buildings aren’t included in the deal?”
He cut her off before she could mention Artie’s plans for embalming and reconstruction. “No.”
Ilka had a good feeling about this. It seemed like the perfect arrangement. She would be rid of her debt, and Artie and Sister Eileen could do what they’d planned to do all along. This was close to the deal she had said no to earlier. She relaxed and smiled up at the man.
He grabbed the papers again and turned to the next page, where he pointed at a number. Forty thousand. His hand covered the rest of the text. With a down payment of forty thousand dollars, she could pay off all their suppliers. That would leave her with the two hundred thousand dollars she owed the bank.
“When will the rest be paid?”
He didn’t even look at her when he said that forty thousand dollars was the entire amount.
Ilka fell back in her chair. The population of Racine was approximately eighty thousand. Three hundred eighty-six people had an agreement with the Paul Jensen Funeral Home covering their final journey. Most people had deposited $7,000 to $10,000 in the account, and the last time she’d checked the balance was $2,272,000. The amount grew every month, even though money was withdrawn when people died.
The man stood waiting; Ilka was nearly gagging from the smell of his aftershave. She obviously hadn’t expected to be paid the entire two-million-plus, but she’d thought they would pay at least ten percent. That’s what the agreement with Golden Slumbers would have given her.
She stood up slowly, folded the paper, and walked off. During the time she’d sat in the reception, half of the long hallway had been painted eggshell white. Loud music seeped out of the painter’s headphones, and he didn’t even glance at her when she stooped down and grabbed the portraits of Phyllis Oldham and her husband. She’d have Artie drive them over to her.
Ilka laid the portraits in the trunk of the car and slammed the lid. Her phone rang.
“We’ve got a pickup,” Artie said. A woman in the morgue. And he needed her help.
She sighed. There’d been no time to think about how to say it. “We’re going to have to shut down.” Immediately she felt like a coward for not telling him face-to-face. “This is it, you’ll have to call another funeral home to do the pickup. Just not the American Funeral Group,” she added, holding back her anger.
“Would you cut this shit out! We’re leaving in five minutes!”
Later, in the hearse with Artie, she felt her life was in free fall. She had no idea what would happen now. On one hand, she felt ashamed about not even trying to haggle with the guy; that was childish of her. On the other hand, her neck tingled with rage and humiliation. “It didn’t work out, at all, not even close.”
The bastard had crushed her, and she was absolutely sure he’d enjoyed it. On the way back to the funeral home, she’d realized that was the reason they’d agreed to a meeting so quickly. Of course! They hadn’t needed time to prepare, hadn’t needed lawyers, because all they cared about was destroying her. And savoring every minute of it. She could still smell that sickening, nauseating aftershave.
“They didn’t go along with any of your demands; not even one?” Artie said.
She stared straight ahead and explained that she hadn’t been given the chance to present them.
“Listen,” he said, “they’ll be back. He just wants to see if he can intimidate you. If it works, it works, and they save a little money. What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I just left. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re right, he’s not interested in us. They run over everybody, and they don’t need us or our business.”
“Maybe they don’t need us, but they want our customers. He’ll be back.”
Ilka shook her head. She doubted that. And she had the feeling the national funeral home chain had been one step ahead of her at every turn. “He knows we’ll have to close if I don’t find another funeral home to take over. And we’ll have to return all the money in the burial account. It will be a lot of work, and it’ll be expensive too; I’m sure the bank will charge for every person we pay back. The hole we’re in will be that much deeper. And believe me, he’ll welcome them with open arms when they need a new place to go. We mean nothing to him, and he doesn’t need our business.”
“Anyway, let’s see how it goes. They know their offer is an insult. He’s set his trap, he just wants to see if you fall in it.”
The hearse creaked as it pulled into the morgue’s parking lot. Before they got out, she turned to him. “He won’t be back. He’s going to the bank to open a new account, for all the customers we’re going to lose. It will be one fucking great start for them here in town. I’m closing the business and going home.”
Artie leaned ove
r and put his arm around her. For a moment she appreciated his sympathy, but then she remembered she was the one who would be left with the debt. The only one.
She got out to help him with the stretcher. They pushed it up the ramp to the rear entrance, and she held the door for him. The walls inside were damp, and the air smelled musty. Ilka shivered as the stretcher rattled over the concrete floor.
The automatic double doors slowly opened. “Who are we picking up?”
“Female, fifty-four years old, gunshot victim.” They walked into a hallway with cobalt-blue walls. Farther down a guard sat reading a paper beside a small reception counter.
“We’re here to pick up Margaret Graham,” Artie said when the guard looked up. A sign on the wall said they needed to show an ID, but Artie had been there so many times that it wasn’t necessary. He signed and jotted down the time. Ilka stood by the stretcher and nodded at the guard when he gestured for them to continue down the hallway. All the doors along the way had frosted glass. Another automatic door opened, and after rounding a corner Artie parked the stretcher along the wall and locked the wheels.
A man approached rolling a steel table with the woman’s body, which was covered by a white sheet. He smiled at Artie. “Hey, man.” He looked in curiosity at Ilka, and she nodded politely. She was freezing in her too-thin jacket. Artie introduced them. She regretted coming along; she hated to be reminded that she’d taken over Paul Jensen’s funeral home. And it wasn’t worth it, now that she was done with the business. She stepped back while Artie signed again for the deceased and her identification papers.
“This one was shot in her home early yesterday evening,” the man said. “They did the autopsy this morning, the cops are finished with the body. Thanks for coming in so quick, we’re full up right now. The husband wanted us to contact you guys, by the way.”
Artie unlocked the wheels and pushed the stretcher away from the wall. “Is he the one who shot her?”
“That I can’t answer. He was a free man when we talked to him, anyway. He asked if he ought to be here when she was picked up. We got lucky on that one, it’s a hassle when family shows up and gets in the way. Like we don’t have enough to do anyway.”
“How did it happen?” Ilka asked. She didn’t care for his annoyance with families. The three of them lifted the woman’s body over onto the stretcher without the white sheet slipping off.
“Can’t tell you that either, ma’am.” The man didn’t even glance at her. “Down here we just bring ’em in and send ’em out when they’re done upstairs. All we know is what’s on the ID papers and the note telling us who gets the body.”
She nodded, and Artie started pushing the stretcher back down the hallway. She walked beside it. Out on the ramp she grabbed the front end, and they carefully rolled it down. She lifted the sheet a bit to keep it away from the wheels, but when they stopped at the hearse, the sheet fell off to the side. She stared into the body’s face.
The woman looked younger than fifty-four. Her face already had the waxy, unnatural color Ilka was slowly getting used to, but her skin was smooth. The bullet hole was about an inch above the nose. A modest hole. When Ilka noticed the bloody mass that once had been the back of her head, though, she turned away.
She was reminded of the day before, the shock she’d felt when Mary Ann suddenly started shooting. For a moment she felt homesick; in Denmark it was still breaking news when someone fired a gun. And thank God for that, she thought. It was hard to imagine shooting homicides as everyday fare.
“Do you know her?” she asked as Artie grabbed the other side of the stretcher to roll it in.
He glanced at the woman’s face, then shook his head and covered her up. Ilka assumed it had become so routine for him that he didn’t think about the person a deceased had been. His sole concern was making bodies look presentable if the family wanted to see them.
She turned and got in the front seat, leaving him to shut the door in back.
“You could talk to Paul’s father-in-law,” Artie said as he pulled out onto the highway. “He might help if you explain our situation.”
He told her that Raymond Fletcher had paid for a local school’s new swimming pool, and he’d also sponsored the mosaics in the church down by the harbor.
“But the family doesn’t want anything to do with me, remember?”
He glanced over at her. “He helped Paul without Mary Ann knowing about it. Maybe he’d help you too. She doesn’t need to know.”
“But from what Karen Conaway told me, my father owed him quite a bit of money. It seems like a lot to ask him.”
Artie slowed and parked the hearse on the side of the road, then turned to her. “I still have some money left. I think we can get the business back on track, and I’m willing to invest what I have to make it happen.”
“Are you crazy? It could be years before the funeral home makes a profit. You’ve already put sixty thousand dollars of your own into it. Surely that’s more than enough.”
“I believe in it. And in all the years I worked for Paul, I spent my money on fishhooks and cigarettes and not a whole lot else.”
Ilka knew that was a lie. He had expenses with his Lake Michigan house, even though he’d inherited it from his father. Property taxes, heat, electricity, water. And back in the office she’d seen in his eyes how having a job was important to him. His offer touched her, and she felt even more ashamed that she hadn’t even tried to work out a deal.
She nodded; after all, what did she have to lose? “I’ll try.”
“Paul’s debt is a drop in the bucket to Fletcher. He wouldn’t even notice it was gone. We could start off by asking for a smaller loan, just to buy some time while we make plans.”
“While we wait for the American Funeral Group to come crawling on their knees!”
He smiled at her. “Or more so we’re not forced into making hasty decisions.” He offered to meet with Fletcher. “Not that I know him really well, but I have met him a few times. And I don’t mind at all having a talk with him.”
“No, I have to do it, it’s my family and my problem.”
Not that she wanted to run into Mary Ann and Leslie when she showed up with hat in hand, but she wasn’t going to be a coward and send Artie out there.
Ilka grabbed a half-full bag of peanuts from between the seats and began stuffing them into her mouth. Artie pulled back onto the highway. They drove home in silence. Nor did they say a whole lot while they pulled the dead woman out of the hearse and laid her on a shelf in the cold room.
Artie folded the white sheet and pushed the stretcher up against the wall. “Is it okay if I run home now?”
Ilka nodded. A few minutes later he caught her on the way to her father’s office and handed her Raymond Fletcher’s address.
She wavered again as she watched him walk away, but then decided to leave at once. What did she have to lose, other than her dignity. And what difference would that make? She’d lost so much already in her short time in Racine.
She opened the refrigerator and made herself a sandwich from what Artie had left behind. After eating she grabbed the keys to her father’s car. Hopefully there was enough gas. She didn’t want to think about being stranded out in the sticks.
After Ilka turned off the highway, the roads kept getting narrower. The flatlands stretching out on both sides were broken up by horse pastures with white fences. She drove fast, as if that could keep her from regretting what she was about to do.
Right after a curve that according to the GPS was close to her destination, a horse trailer pulled by a truck appeared, headed in her direction, followed by a black four-wheel-drive with tinted windows. The same kind of vehicle that had driven up to Mary Ann’s house. When the truck was only seconds from her, Ilka realized it wasn’t going to slow down or give an inch on the narrow road. She jerked the wheel and slid over into the ditch, and as it thundered by, she shut her eyes. As Flemming would have said, it missed her by a whisker. She yelled and gave the driver t
he finger, but he was already long gone. Only the man driving the black SUV noticed.
Her hands gripped the wheel, her heart hammering as she sank in her seat; she could have been killed! But as the shock faded and she wondered what to do, she realized she had to go on. Persuading her father’s second family to assume his debt certainly made more sense than watching Artie ruin his future by throwing away his money. On the way out here, she’d put together a plan. To begin with she would try to borrow the sixty thousand Artie had paid to cover her father’s back taxes. And when he got his money back, she could close up shop in good conscience. Artie could either freelance as he’d planned or get out of the undertaker business. The $240,000 she owed was another thing.
When she’d finally recovered enough to drive again, the car wouldn’t budge from the ditch. Clumps of dirt and grass shot up and clipped the side window. She pounded the wheel; just what she needed, walking up to Fletcher’s place and having to ask to be pulled out of the ditch. After cooling off a few seconds, she put the car in reverse and began rocking it free. A minute later she was back on the road.
After taking two more curves she drove up to the broad drive leading to the ranch. The white gate stood open, and a large, impressive house loomed behind several low white stables. It looked as big as a Danish manor house. And grandiose, Ilka thought. Something like Dragsholm Castle, where she and Flemming had stayed once.
The place distracted her so much that she’d almost reached the house before noticing the spooked horses running around loose. She slammed on the brakes and pulled over. Seven or eight horses, it looked like. An old man leaned against the house, maybe catching his breath. Old, or even elderly, seen from a distance. An undershirt hung down over his thin, sunken body, and his arms were pencil-thin. When she saw him struggling to kneel beside a curled-up figure at one end of the house, she jumped out of the car and started running over to them. Though dark hair covered the figure’s face, Ilka was sure it was Amber, her younger half sister.
