by Sara Blaedel
“Someone beat him to death,” Artie said after they had rolled the stretcher to the hearse. “He might as well have been hit by a train.”
Ilka nodded at the police car. She was still shaken by the anguished screaming, though the woman had stopped and now was sobbing deeply. “Is that a relative?” she asked after the police car drove off.
Artie shook his head and nodded toward the morgue. “She’s the mother of a little girl in there who drowned earlier today on a class trip. They just got hold of her; she works at the pharmacy in Racine, but today is her day off. She was in Chicago visiting her mother. The lake is a big part of people’s lives here, but it’s dangerous. It looks peaceful enough, but it’s cold and it’s deep, and it’s windy once you get away from land. It takes a seaworthy boat to sail out there.”
Ilka watched the police car drive off. “Is he from town too?” She glanced at the stretcher, which Artie was sliding into the hearse.
He shrugged. “Looks like he’s been living on the street; he only had a few clothes in a bag. The police are trying to locate his relatives. A security guard found him behind one of the empty factories at the edge of town, lying in the grass. The police report says he died at the crime scene; maybe he’d been sleeping there and someone attacked him.”
He shrugged again and closed the back door. “Usually the funeral homes in town take turns handling the homeless. Sometimes we get a small fee from the state, but it hardly covers the cremation, not to mention the cost of a coffin.”
“So it’s not something you’re crazy about doing,” she said.
He shook his head. “When you become an undertaker you take this oath, that everyone has the right to a dignified departure from this world. And that includes the people who can’t pay. But you’re right; we don’t fight over these jobs. Like I said, we take turns.”
They pulled out of the parking space. Ilka’s phone rang. “No one can do your jobs,” her mother said. She sounded tired and irritable. “I’ve tried everyone, but now I would really like to go to bed.”
“Shit! Would you please try again tomorrow? I’m sitting in a hearse; we’ve just picked up a homeless person in a morgue. I’m tired and I’m hungry and really, I don’t know what to do—”
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, her own warm voice on the edge of breaking from anxiety. “We’ll find a solution.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ilka said, quickly adding, “Say hi to Hanne.”
Ilka hung up before her mother could say anything more. She sank in her seat and sighed deeply.
Artie glanced over at her. “Problems?”
Ilka shrugged and stared out the window, letting him know she didn’t want to involve him in something he wouldn’t understand anyway.
* * *
“Is it okay with you if we stop to get something to eat?” Artie asked when they reached the town square. He parked the hearse across from Oh Dennis!, the saloon where Artie had met her father, Ilka remembered.
“Yes, it’s very okay.” As she stepped out of the car, she glimpsed the body behind the curtains in back, packed under a blanket and strapped in place. Before shutting her door, she said, “Shouldn’t we deliver him first?”
“It’ll only take a minute,” he said. “They have the best chicken wings in town, and the ribs are good too. What would you like?”
“Chicken wings and ribs; that’s fine. Anything.”
Loud music was playing when they walked in, and sports channels blazed out from two televisions on both sides of the bar, just under the ceiling. Artie obviously knew the young woman behind the counter, who was juggling several enormous glasses. The diner smelled greasy and a bit sour, the floor felt sticky, but Ilka couldn’t care less. All she wanted was something to eat. Two older men sat across from each other in a corner, their eyes glued to the two televisions. One of them had hair combed forward from the back of his head.
She heard Artie order at the counter, and she shook her head when he turned to her and asked if she wanted a beer. She went to look for the bathrooms. On her way to the door at the back of the diner, she stopped and put a few coins in one of the slot machines hanging on the wall. One-armed bandits, her father had called them. Nothing happened, and she put a few more quarters in. Ten quarters tumbled out. The machine’s reels clicked every time they came to a stop. Artie and the woman were talking and laughing together. A couple came in and sat down by the window.
Ilka won five more quarters and fed them back into the machine; then she went into the bathroom. Their food was ready when she came out. Artie had drunk his beer and packed the food into two large paper sacks. Ilka nodded at the waitress and followed him to the car. The odor from the paper sacks seemed out of place in the hearse.
“There’s also curly fries and sliders,” he said. He handed her the bags, which felt heavy enough to feed an army. “I’ll probably be working late this evening.”
He explained he was repairing a face that had been caved in on one side. “He lived in senior housing, and he fell against the edge of a table and hit his temple. It keeps collapsing. The family is coming tomorrow, before I drive him over to the church, so I’ve got to get going on the makeup and then dress him. They just sent me the clothes. His grown-up daughter wanted to choose them, and she just got in from Minneapolis this afternoon.”
Artie backed the hearse under the carport next to the house; then he punched the code to the door. Ilka grabbed the sacks of food, and after getting out she remembered the bucket of fish in back. She didn’t want to look in there.
Artie pulled the stretcher out of the hearse. He’d obviously had much practice locking the wheels down and pushing it into the passageway. Ilka followed. The pungent odor of formaldehyde rammed into her. The first time she’d held her breath and rushed through so fast that she had barely registered it; now it seemed to cling to her skin, the inside of her nose, her eyes. She eyed the sacks and retreated a few steps to keep them away from the odor while she waited for Artie.
A cat meowed, then sauntered over and rubbed against her leg. It had white markings on its chest and down over its stomach; otherwise it was coal black. A second later it was on its way into one of the sacks. Ilka lifted it up and set it down off to the side. She was ready to eat straight from the sacks herself if Artie didn’t hurry up. She heard him open the refrigerator in the garage and glimpsed him setting the fish bucket in the bottom. After locking the garage behind him, he walked into the preparation room and turned on the powerful fan; a glaring light streamed down from the ceiling.
“This’ll only take a sec,” he said.
Ilka noticed a long steel table over by the wall, where in place of the countertop was a grating over a drain in the floor. In the middle of the room, another table stood under a large, broad operating room lamp.
He walked back and stood in the hallway, as if he didn’t notice the stink. “What do you want to drink? Beer, water, iced tea?”
“Water is fine.” She followed him into the office and started emptying the sacks. Two small mountains of meat soon lay on the table. Ilka suppressed any thoughts of death and formaldehyde and dove into the food.
“Why in the world do you want this house?” she asked after wolfing down five enormous chicken wings and noting that even though the doors to the hallway were closed, a whiff of death and formaldehyde still hung around. Who would want a house that had been a funeral home? she wondered. She looked around.
Shelves of urns lined the walls, and a poster demonstrated how a large machine could thaw the ground if a coffin had to be lowered in the winter.
He laid his spareribs down and wiped his hands on a napkin; then he looked at her. “When your dad was alive, he did the talking with the relatives. I did it occasionally, after he was gone. But for the most part it was his job. I took care of the deceased. We did the pickups together.”
She started eating again while he spoke. “And when we get out of this mess, hopefully, I’m going to start working for the Oldhams. But as a f
reelancer, so I can help the other undertakers around here, too. That way I’ll only be doing the embalming, reconstructions, preparation, makeup. I’ll make sure the deceased look the way they’d want to be remembered.”
Ilka nodded. She wasn’t all that surprised to hear he already had a deal in place. But if he wanted to take over the house and had arranged things to his advantage, that was fine with her too. “And Sister Eileen, what about her? Is she also an employee? And what does she actually do?” Her mouth was half-full of coleslaw.
Artie smiled briefly. “She’s from a parish west of here. A lot of nuns work voluntarily in different places, in daycare centers, schools, nursing homes, funeral homes. Some nuns are supported by the parish; other places pay for their services. That’s the way it is here. Your dad always took good care of Sister Eileen. She lends a hand; she gives our clients a sense of peace. It’s her calling to help wherever she can, wherever she sees it’s needed. She wants to work where it’s cooler than down south. The heat bothers her.”
Ilka was getting full now, and it was hard to ignore the stink of death in her nose. They could have it all, lock, stock, and barrel, as far as she was concerned. Really.
“I just don’t want to get dragged out of bed in the middle of the night anymore, when someone dies. And I don’t want to scrape people up off the highway, either. You know what? Crushed bones feel like jelly when you lift them over into a coffin. And I won’t have to pick up anyone dead so long that their skin slips off like overcooked chicken. I just want to do the creative work; it’s what I’m best at.”
Ilka nodded. She was finished eating now, and an image of the chickens she cooked for soup was not something she wanted stuck in her head. She always covered chicken bones on her plate with a napkin; it was instinct. “So you want to keep the house as your workshop.” That made sense.
“I can take on customers from the entire area. When a funeral director gets severe accident victim cases they can’t do anything with, they can send them to me. Just like we pay the Oldhams for using their crematorium.”
Artie stood and began picking things up. There was still food left in the sacks. When he walked into the preparation room, she went to look for the cat. It was right outside, and it made plenty of noise when Ilka opened the door. She squatted down and gave it some chicken; then she stroked its back. She turned around and jumped at the sight of Sister Eileen in front of her.
“I made the reservation at the hotel. I’m very sorry about the misunderstanding, but now it’s taken care of. Your room is ready, and you can use your father’s car.” She held out a set of keys. “You won’t have to pay for your stay at the hotel, of course.”
Who will? Ilka wondered. Artie walked out pushing a stretcher holding the old man who had fallen. Music from the room streamed out: “California Girls.” The Beach Boys. He hummed along as he slipped his arms into a long white lab coat and covered his loud shirt. She couldn’t care less if they turned her father’s funeral home into a beauty salon for the dead. She just wanted out. Now that she’d eaten, her exhaustion returned.
“But I don’t mind staying here,” she said. “In fact I’d rather sleep in my father’s room. I go to bed early anyway.” She walked over to Artie’s door to say she was on her way up. She’d stopped holding her hand over her mouth, but the embalming fluids still seemed to line her throat, all the way down.
He promised to gather up all the papers dealing with her inheritance and the upcoming sale, so she could mail them back to her lawyer. Then he walked inside and closed the door.
“I’ve already moved your belongings,” Sister Eileen said, behind her now. “Everything’s ready, and your father’s car is outside, parked in the large space.” She pointed down at the asphalt behind the trees.
“You’ve already been up and packed my things?” Ilka asked.
“Yes, everything’s at the hotel, but I didn’t unpack for you. I thought you’d rather do it yourself.”
Ilka could see the pile of clothes on the bed, the empty potato chip bag. What else had been lying there? “I’d rather stay here.” She tried to smile. “I also have to go through my father’s things and decide what to take home with me.”
“We can do that together. Do you know where the hotel is?”
Ilka’s head began to spin. She needed to lie down, be alone.
“When you pull out, just drive straight ahead and then to the right,” Sister Eileen explained, but before she could continue, Ilka raised her hand.
“I’m staying here. I’ll pick my things up at the hotel, and please make sure I’m not locked out when I return.”
The nun stood for a moment, looking like a child who had just been bawled out, but then she nodded. “Of course. You’re quite welcome to stay. I just thought it wouldn’t be nice for you sleeping upstairs while Artie works. We’ve all gotten used to that, also to the smell. But you are more than welcome if it doesn’t bother you.”
7
“No,” Ilka told the receptionist. “I won’t be needing the room. I’m just here to pick my things up.”
“But we can’t cancel a reservation when the room has already been occupied,” he argued. He was so big that Ilka couldn’t see the chair he was sitting in. His arms filled the sleeves of his blazer, and when he moved them, she smelled stale sweat and something else she couldn’t put a finger on.
“Yesterday you didn’t have a room, even though we’d reserved one, so doesn’t this even things up?” Ilka didn’t care if it cost her a night’s fee, or rather, if it cost Artie and Sister Eileen.
There was a small coffee bar across from the reception desk. Unmanned. Ilka could stand a cup of coffee, and she looked around for someone to serve her while the receptionist conferred with a coworker. Several minutes passed, and she couldn’t hear anything from the back room, only the insistent whining sound she’d heard the day before, like a telephone ringing somewhere.
At last she gave up and walked through the hotel lobby. The nun had given her the room card along with the car keys. When Ilka walked past a wide ice machine, the humming drowned out the monotone whining sound for a moment. The room smelled of cigarettes when she walked in; she was glad to know the embalming fluids hadn’t ruined her sense of smell. Sweat and smoke apparently trumped the scents in a morgue.
Her suitcase lay on the bed beside her neatly folded coat.
The reception desk was still empty when she returned. She laid the room card on the desk, walked outside, and threw her suitcase into her father’s silver-gray Chevrolet. She got in behind the wheel and sat for a moment with her eyes closed. Again, she felt as if he were with her, though not because she recognized anything in the car. It was more a presence.
Inside the pocket on the door was a package of gum, an empty water bottle, a Post-it with an address, and a receipt from a parking machine. Ilka leaned over and opened the glove compartment. A pile of papers lay under the car manual, and she glanced at them. A questionnaire from a car wash—how was the service? A reminder from the dentist; a chimney sweep was coming. Things that come in the mail, but nothing about him. She stuffed the papers back in, but then she had second thoughts.
She brought out the reminder from the dentist and punched into the GPS the address it had been sent to. It would take ten minutes to reach the destination, she was told.
Ilka headed toward the harbor. A large, open area behind the hotel looked like a construction site that had been deserted for years, from the way the weeds and small trees had taken over. The windows of enormous warehouses closer to the city were boarded up, but a new park had been built in the southern part of the harbor area. It would have looked nice had there been people around. Someone here must have been ambitious, had wanted to accomplish something, she thought, but likely had failed. For a moment, the sense of emptiness and abandonment overwhelmed her. She looked at the GPS. Who knew what she’d find at that little black-and-white marker?
The residential street looked like the ones she’d driven around o
n earlier. But behind the house where her father had lived with his new family, the ground sloped down to a river with large trees leaning out over the banks. It wasn’t hard to see that this was one of the town’s better neighborhoods. Ilka approached the house slowly. She took in everything around her, tried to imagine how it had been for him to come home to the life being lived here. It was far from Brønshøj Square, in every way.
She parked in front of the large, square, white wooden house with a porch extending all the way across the front. It took her a moment to notice someone on the porch, a woman in a wheelchair moving toward the front door. The small, frail woman’s light hair was pinned up on her head. Her father’s wife; Ilka was sure of it. The front door opened, and a blond woman appeared carrying a tray. The two women spoke; then the younger woman looked over toward the car. She took the tray back into the house. The woman in the wheelchair stayed outside, but she didn’t look Ilka’s way.
Suddenly Ilka realized she was clenching the wheel. The engine was still running, and the car jerked when she stepped on the gas and drove away. Obviously, they had recognized the Chevy.
She reached the end of the street before noticing it was blocked, leaving her no choice but to turn around and drive back. This time she drove past the house without slowing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other woman in the doorway, this time without the tray.
8
Ilka blinked as the bright sun shone directly in her eyes. Mentally, she felt dead tired, and she was thirsty. Annoyed by the sunlight, she turned her head to the side. After her little excursion to her father’s house, she had tiptoed up to his room and closed and locked the door. She’d sat on the bed for a while before pulling out the drawers in his desk one by one, first carefully, then with greater impatience. She wanted answers. She felt his presence strongly, all the time, not only there in the room but when driving his car. At his enormous box of a house, with the charming front porch and the lawn that looked as if it had been trimmed with nail scissors, she hadn’t sensed him at all.
