by Sara Blaedel
She pulled away and stood up.
Slowly he got to his feet. “A black car with Wisconsin plates is on your tail, all the time. Ever since they came here and attacked Fletcher. And I want to know what you’re up to.” He explained they’d been tracking the car, which they’d discovered had been rented with a false ID.
“I’m not up to anything.” She’d stop yelling, though she was still mad. “I’ve just been at the hospital, visiting Amber. You should know that if you’re watching me.”
“Yeah, we know. And we know they were there too, parked just behind you.”
Ilka grabbed onto the stall door, short of breath again. She hadn’t noticed any car, but then, she hadn’t been watching either. Hadn’t thought about it. Again, she felt vulnerable; she noticed her hands trembling. “I don’t know who it is. I’ve spotted a black car following me several times, but I was never sure it was the same one.”
Finally, Jeff seemed relatively calm. “You went out to Frank Conaway’s wife. Keep away from that family.”
“Stop telling me what to do! I have every right to visit my father’s friends.”
“The black car was out there too. What’s your connection to Scott Davidson?”
“I don’t know anything about Scott Davidson.”
He stepped close to her again, so close that she felt his breath on her face. “Was it one of his people on the boat that night?”
Ilka’s heart hammered away, and she felt short of breath, but she stared him down. “You mean that night that never happened? How could you tell the police I lied about that?”
They stared at each other a moment, then he tucked his shirt into his pants and brushed the dust off his clothes.
“I don’t know Scott Davidson,” Ilka repeated. “I don’t know what he looks like or who he is.”
“And you don’t know who’s following you?”
Ilka shook her head. “I told you, a few times it felt like someone was watching me. Like when I walked out of the police station. I didn’t spot the car, though, just a man walking toward me. Was that one of you?”
Jeff snorted. “Believe me, you’ll never see us when we’re trailing you.”
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on finding Amber’s horses?”
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on your funeral home? I hear the American Funeral Group made sure no crematorium in the state will do business with you. And they’ve sicced the undertaker association on you, too.”
“What for?”
“Because you don’t have the training to run a funeral home, it’s the law. They say you don’t have a certificate or the skills or experience to live up to the association’s high standards.” He seemed to be enjoying every word he spat out at her.
“Artie Sorvino does. And all our paperwork is in order.”
“But you’ve been driving the hearse. You’ve even been inside the morgue.”
Ilka spoke quietly. “How do you know that?”
“Because we know everything about you.”
“Is it the American Funeral Group following me?” She’d had enough. “What have I ever done to you people? I’m just trying to sell my father’s business, so I can go home and get back to my life.”
“Then you’d better get going, the sooner the better.”
“But what have I done wrong?”
His eyes showed a hint of sympathy. “You’ve started something you shouldn’t have.”
“Is this about Frank Conaway and Fletcher’s false accusations against him? Or is it this Scott Davidson I don’t even know?”
He grabbed her shoulder again and shoved her toward the stall door.
“Has something happened to the horses?” she said.
Jeff glanced quickly around before leaning in close to her. “Go back to your car and go home. No more questions, got it?”
“If you’re not going to tell me anything, let me talk to the foreman, Tom, and then I’ll leave. The horses are Amber’s life, she needs to know what happened to them.”
He led her over to the old Chevrolet.
She twisted free of his grip and unlocked the car. “Are the horses back yet?”
“We haven’t managed to find them yet,” he finally admitted. “But don’t tell your sister. We’ll get them back.”
So Amber was right after all, Ilka thought. She wanted to ask about Tom, but Jeff opened the door and shoved her inside. “No more questions. Do a deal with the American Funeral Group and go home.”
Minutes later, after Ilka had driven through the series of curves, she pulled over and gazed out over the pastures. What should she tell Amber? She had no idea, but she had to tell her something. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the headrest, and breathed out. Then she pulled out her phone and sent a text: Just left the ranch. All horses are okay. Love Ilka.
She shut her phone off so Amber couldn’t call back and ask for details.
Ilka was almost back to the funeral home before she suspected the metallic blue SUV was following her. She’d noticed it after turning off the county road onto the highway. And now it was the only car that had stayed behind her for several miles. Downtown she almost ran a red light from watching it too closely in her rearview mirror.
She turned just before Oh Dennis! and began weaving through the streets to show them she knew they were there. Soon it became obvious they didn’t care whether she knew or not, though the driver never got close enough for her to see anything other than his cap pulled down over his head. Pathetic, she thought, as she pulled into the funeral home parking lot.
The SUV slowed down but didn’t stop, and soon it was out of sight. Even though Jeff claimed two people were having her followed, Raymond Fletcher and someone else, this car was the only one she’d managed to smoke out. She stood for a moment. The parking lot was deserted except for her car, Artie’s pickup, and a station wagon probably owned by the parent of a student in the school across the street. Her arm still hurt from Jeff’s rough treatment, but at least her heartbeat was back to normal. At least she could breathe.
She ran into Artie when she walked in through the rear door. Maggie’s body was finished now, and he’d cleaned the prep room. And Michael Graham had called; his daughter’s plane had landed that evening, and she wanted to stop by the next morning to view her mother.
“They asked if they could hold a small memorial here for the immediate family, when they get the urn.”
Ilka nodded and asked when.
“Monday,” he said.
“We can’t, we won’t be ready by then. I just found out none of the crematoriums will take our business.” She walked by him.
He followed her into the office. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She sat down. “We’re going for a little drive.”
“But you just got here.”
Ilka nodded. She decided she’d better bring him up to date, since he’d be smuggling her out of the funeral home. She told him about her run-in with Jeff.
“That bit about the crematoriums is true enough,” Artie said. A friend who worked for one on the outskirts of town had called earlier that day; his boss had told him they’d blacklisted the Paul Jensen Funeral Home. And his friend had heard from someone else that every crematorium in Wisconsin had been told to do the same. The message was clear: If the crematoriums didn’t toe the line, the American Funeral Group would take their business elsewhere.
“Those assholes,” Ilka said. “They’re acting like some sort of undertaker mafia.”
“We’ll handle it.”
Ilka understood. Now was the time they needed Dorothy out at the former crematorium.
“After the daughter and her family leave tomorrow morning, we’ll drive Maggie out to Dorothy,” Artie said. “Then I’ll pick her ashes up the day after tomorrow, and we can tell them it’s okay to hold the ceremony the day after. They won’t need catering, they just asked for some music while they say their goodbyes.”
Artie made it sound so simple, which w
as exactly what she needed to hear. But then he frowned deeply and tilted his head while eyeing her skeptically. “You really think someone’s following you? Sounds a little fishy to me.”
“I know, but yes, I really think so.” She told him about the black cars, the metallic blue SUV, and all the times she’d sensed someone watching her.
“A light-blue four-wheel-drive, now that’s original! What do they think you’re up to?”
“I don’t know. But it must be something to do with my father’s battle with Fletcher. It’s like they know exactly what I’ve been doing, and I don’t like that.”
She felt the worst might be that they’d watched her every pathetic, embarrassing attempt to get rid of the funeral home. Also, it aggravated her that Raymond Fletcher was trying to run her out of town while pretending to be on her side.
“But why?” Artie still looked puzzled.
“I really don’t know.” The quarrel was the only explanation she could come up with. There had to be a lot at stake for Fletcher, since he was accusing Frank in the fraud case.
“I need to go out to Hollow Ranch. It’s just outside of town, and you have to drive. I don’t want anyone to see me or know where we’re going.”
“What for?” he said, setting aside her asking to be smuggled out of the funeral home.
“To visit Scott Davidson. But you don’t need to go in with me. All I want is my father’s urn.”
“Weren’t you just told to stay away from him?”
Ilka tipped her chair back. “Don’t you start telling me what to do.” She sounded braver than she felt. Everything was beginning to get to her again—Maggie, the funeral home chain, Frank Conaway, Scott Davidson. She was caught in the middle of all this tangled-up, confusing mess, and she couldn’t escape without somehow getting rid of the funeral home.
“Like I said, all I want is my father’s ashes.”
“Okay.”
“Right now I don’t know what to do about the business. Maybe we should talk to the IRS and the bank and hand it all over to them, so the house doesn’t get auctioned off. Then you can take it over if you want.”
She was well aware it made no sense for Artie to start up a business reconstructing bodies if no one was going to hire him.
“You mean, just throw in the towel.” He smiled, thinking she was just kidding.
She nodded.
“C’mon, don’t make everything out to be worse than it is,” he said.
“I think Sister Eileen has lost faith in me too. I think she’s avoiding me. I hardly ever talk to her; every time I see her she’s busy. Has she said anything to you?”
Artie looked out the window and shook his head. “Don’t worry about Sister Eileen. She’s sort of closed up sometimes.”
That might be, Ilka thought. But what about all the times Sister Eileen had knocked on her door upstairs and offered her tea and cookies? Ilka was sure the nun had been concerned. Not anymore, though. She wasn’t really there, at least when it came to the teamwork Ilka had tried to build among the three of them.
“She’s keeping me at a distance.”
“Forget about her. You really think we need to smuggle you out of here? And what, you’ll hide on the floorboards all the way there?”
“Yes.” She asked him to back his pickup beside the hearse in the garage, so she could crawl inside.
He fished his lighter out of his pocket. “You’re sure no one’s keeping an eye on me too?”
She shook her head. “No, but we’ll take the chance. I need to go out to Davidson’s, and the only thing I know for sure is that someone’s following me.”
Artie seemed to accept that. She went upstairs for a sweater while he got the pickup.
Her father’s room looked like a battlefield. She was still busy sorting his papers, dividing everything up into two piles: keep and toss out. She’d emptied the desk drawers, leaving only the boxes along the wall. At first, she’d planned to throw most of it out, but now she was thinking about giving it all to Karen Conaway. It might be useful for her husband’s defense.
Outside Artie started his pickup, and moments later she heard the garage door open and the pickup backing in. She grabbed her sweater and hurried downstairs.
They drove through a wooded area, and Ilka was about to google Hollow Ranch to bring up a map, when Artie pointed ahead. “That might be it; I see guards at the driveway.”
Ilka still lay curled up on the floor on the passenger side. It felt like she’d never get her long legs straightened out again. First, they had stopped by Artie’s, where he threw some fish he’d caught that morning into the freezer. She’d insisted on staying inside, even though her legs were starting to cramp. His house was the last one on a dead-end road, no one could drive there without being seen, and it wasn’t visible from the highway; Artie thought she was being paranoid. He’d asked her if she was going to play this game everywhere they went, but she’d ignored him.
She looked up at him. “What do you mean, guards?”
“Guards with guns. One on each side of the gate.”
Ilka crawled up onto the seat. Her legs stung when her blood began circulating again.
HOLLOW RANCH was elegantly written on a large sign beside a shiny cast-iron gate, and as Artie had said, two uniformed men stood with guns in their holsters.
“What’s going on?” Ilka was scared for a moment, thinking the men were police sealing off the area—had the feud between Fletcher and the young Davidson escalated into another shootout? Then she noticed the printing on their uniform jackets: SECURITY GUARD. “Is that legal?”
Artie pulled over. “Is what legal?”
“Carrying weapons out in the open like that, when they aren’t police.”
His look told her to stop comparing everything with Denmark. She dropped it.
“Drive on up,” she said.
The two broad-shouldered men were already staring at them, their hands on their weapons, alert and ready to act.
“What should we tell them?” Artie said.
“Let me take care of it, just drive.”
He inched forward and signaled to turn, even though there wasn’t a car in sight for miles. Both guards stepped forward, and Ilka rolled down the window and leaned out.
“We’d like to speak to Scott Davidson.”
The guard on her side simply shook his head, not even bothering to ask if they had an appointment.
“I’m Ilka Nichols Jensen. Please tell him I’m here.” She guessed they might react to hearing her name if Davidson had ordered his men to keep an eye on her.
“He’s not home,” the guard said.
Ilka gazed down the length of the fence, which extended beyond her sight. “I’m here to pick up my father’s ashes.”
Artie didn’t say anything, but he grabbed her when she opened the door to get out. She broke his grip and walked over to the guards, then pointed at their walkie-talkies and offered to deliver the message herself. She repeated her name and added that she came from the Paul Jensen Funeral Home. “I came for the urn with my father’s ashes.”
The walkie-talkies came to life, and the gate began to open.
“Out of the way!” both guards yelled, signaling to Artie to move his pickup. They pushed Ilka to the side, and two black four-wheel-drive vehicles appeared, barreling down the highway. They looked like the ones she’d seen earlier. She tried to wrestle out of the guard’s grip, and when the car slowed down to turn in, she waved her arms. Before the guard could react, she ran after them through the gate, yelling at them to stop. He caught her several feet down the driveway, but she kept yelling, even though the cars sped toward the house. The safety on a gun clicked behind her, and she doubled over when the guard twisted her arm and shoved her back toward the road. Her hair hung in front of her face as she stumbled along. Artie came running, and when she heard one of the cars backing up from behind, she tried to straighten up, but the guard held her down. Pain shot up her arm as she flashed on what her mother had to
ld her: It’s America, it’s not like back home in tiny Denmark, it’s dangerous, and you’re naïve if you think nothing will happen to you, because anything can happen over there.
Artie was saying something, but her ears were ringing. She didn’t dare raise her head until a man behind her spoke up. The guard loosened his grip, and Ilka winced as she slowly straightened up and turned.
Scott Davidson was in his late twenties. Stocky, with an angular face. Not nearly as intimidating as she’d imagined, knowing what he was capable of. He asked what he could do for her.
“I’m Ilka Jensen, and I—”
Suddenly she was startled to see who was getting out of the backseat of the nearest car. Karen Conaway had been crying, and the man at her side smiled hesitantly as he held his hand out and introduced himself as Frank Conaway. He also said hello to Artie, but he turned back to her abruptly and said he’d been good friends with her father.
Ilka nodded, though she was staring at Karen, trying to read her expression. What was going on, were they scared? What had Davidson done? The guards retreated, and the cast-iron gate closed behind them, cutting her and Artie off from his pickup.
A few moments later Ilka understood that Karen was crying from relief and joy; she kept repeating that it was finally over.
“What’s over?” Ilka asked quietly.
“Scott has offered to help us, and he posted Frank’s bail.”
Davidson turned to her. “You’re Jensen’s daughter, I’ve been told. And I understand you three already know each other.”
He asked Ilka and Artie to go along with them to the house. Ilka crawled in the backseat of the car with the Conaways. She was sore and still shocked by how the guard had handled her, and she felt guilty about not asking Artie what he wanted to do, but she had to find out what the hell was going on. To her relief, Artie got into the lead car with Davidson. She shut the door and they took off.
“So what’s going on?”
