The Undertaker's Daughter

by Debra Webb

  Uneasiness slid through her. Maybe she was the intended victim.

  All the more reason to find him quickly.

  Chapter Three

  Savor Bar & Kitchen, 1:00 p.m.

  Rowan ignored her salad and stared out at the lake that bordered the hotel property. She couldn’t shake the comment Detective Bennett had made.

  …he’s killing you.

  Obviously she had considered the idea. With her blond hair and blue eyes and the ages of the victims, of course she had. She wasn’t oblivious to the possibility. Beyond those similarities there was absolutely no reason to believe this case had anything to do with her. Until the detectives discovered some piece of evidence that linked her personally to the murders, she had no intention of borrowing trouble.

  She’d done enough of that for one lifetime before she was twenty.

  “This case is getting under your skin, Dr. DuPont.”

  She blinked away this nagging thought and focused on the man across the table. Dr. Julian Addington, her longtime friend and a renowned psychiatrist with multiple critically acclaimed publications to his credit, had invited her to lunch. A much needed distraction. It was rude of her to ignore him or the lovely restaurant he’d chosen. The view, the atmosphere and the company were pleasant. She had no excuse save her inability to fully extract herself from the case—an ongoing problem lately.

  “I’m sorry.” She picked up her fork and stabbed a lettuce leaf. “I keep thinking about the way he prepares the bodies as if he is well versed in the steps of a funeral preparation.”

  “His efforts are that detailed?” Julian searched her face, a frown marring the familiar features of his.

  Like her, he was a natural blond though his hair was more a grayish white than blond these days. His eyes were a darker shade of blue. Even at sixty-six, he remained quite handsome and most distinguished looking. Like her father, he was tall and lean, though unlike her father, Julian worked out religiously. He believed a strong body was part of maintaining a strong mind. The man still ran in marathons. More important than all those things, he was a good and caring friend. He was the one to turn her life around at a particularly dark moment.

  “His work is very detailed,” she confirmed. “The soap and shampoo are common ones utilized by funeral homes across the country. Rather than suture, he uses super glue for the eyes and lips—many morticians do the same. Even the cotton he selects to fill the various orifices is a common trade brand. He wants us to understand that he knows what he’s doing. For some reason, he feels that knowledge is relevant to achieving his goal.”

  “It’s as if he is speaking directly to you.”

  Funny, how that theme appeared determined to echo today.

  “Yes.” The confession made breathing marginally easier. She’d picked at the idea like an irritating scab that wouldn’t heal for the past two days. Part of her had wanted to put the theory out there for the detectives to debate, but another part of her wanted to ignore the signs.

  “That said,” she qualified, “I’m not prepared to conclude that these murders are about me—not at this time, anyway. The unsub has made no contact with me directly and he’s left no tangible suggestion that I’m his intended target. Frankly, there are far too many other, more viable avenues to explore first.”

  No matter how rational her declaration sounded and how solid the reasoning behind it, the words still felt hollow. Too early to go there. Not enough evidence. If she repeated the crucial phrase enough times, perhaps it would sink in and stick. Though she was not a detective, she was still a part of the investigative team. Making a case personal was never a good thing…unless the unknown subject left no choice. As she just told Julian, the unsub had not communicated directly with her or addressed any communication to or about her. Arriving at that conclusion was simply premature.

  “The book has made you an even more high profile figure.” Julian sipped his tea, then settled the delicate bone china cup onto its saucer. “Growing up in a funeral home, the daughter of an undertaker, as well as the painful loss of both your mother and your twin sister have now been shared with the world. It’s possible you have an admirer. Someone who commiserates with you, who feels as if he knows you better than you know yourself and he wants you to feel whatever he’s feeling. Perhaps the victims are a gift—part of a courtship ritual, of sorts—to get your attention.”

  Rowan drew in a deep, cleansing breath and admitted—to herself if to no one else—that her old friend had a valid point. One she’d already made to the team, leaving out the idea that she may be the target of the unsub’s devotion. “He’s not looking for attention, he wants some sort of revenge. The victims are nothing more than a catalyst. With all due respect, I can’t see this as any kind of courtship ritual in the usual sense. He’s courting the end game, preparing his target for what’s coming. Trying to get her attention.”

  Though she had used that same term loosely in today’s briefing, the context had been completely different.

  “You know as well as I,” Julian countered, “that anger—the need for revenge or to punish—goes hand in hand with passion. The worst one human can do to another is often done by the spouse or the lover of a victim.”

  Rowan laughed in spite of the dire subject. “Well, then, we can eliminate me as a potential end game victim. I have no significant other, much less a spouse and I’m afraid my work is my lover.”

  Despite the concern furrowing his brow, Julian’s lips quirked the tiniest bit. “What about any other aspects of the murders? The drug he uses? Is there anything else about the cause or manner of the deaths that relates to your life?”

  A quick mental review of the autopsy and lab results sent ice slipping into her veins. “He used a similar drug to the one…I took all those years ago.”

  Julian’s eyebrows lifted. “But not the same one.”

  “Not the same name, but the same effects. It works quickly and basically renders the victim incapacitated.”

  She’d swallowed a handful of a similar drug her freshman year in college. Her throat tightened. Since it wasn’t the same one, she really hadn’t given any weight to the drug in terms of a personal connection. Had she purposely been blocking a similarity that hit too close to home? It was completely unlike her to allow her objectivity to slip so badly. “There was water in the first victim’s lungs. Not a significant amount but some.”

  “Again, the same as what was found in yours,” Julian suggested. “Except you survived.”

  She nodded, the move jerky. The doctors had said Rowan was extremely lucky. Her hair had been soaking wet when she was found in that tub. After the sedative had done its work, she had slipped under the water. Somehow, she’d beaten the odds and rose back to the surface before it was too late. Her father had insisted she’d had a guardian angel watching over her. Maybe her mother or her sister had reached down from heaven and saved Rowan. But Rowan hadn’t believe in angels, still didn’t.

  “Or perhaps” Julian went on, “he only wanted the lab to find enough water in her lungs to remind you of the sister you lost.”

  Images and voices whispered through Rowan’s mind. Before she could respond, he continued, “And what about the wounds on her wrists? They were slashed and then sutured, another common denominator between you and the victims. Perhaps, his interest is more focused on you than you are prepared to concede.”

  Her fingers instinctively tugged at her sleeves to ensure her own scars were covered. She hadn’t shared that aspect of her past with the team, but like the rest of the world they had likely read about it in her book. Frankly, she didn’t want to see any of this, didn’t want to have to face the fact that her being the target was a viable possibility. She felt suddenly uncomfortable, even with her old friend. Her careful focus on her work generally grounded her. If she were completely honest with herself, her work was her life. To have any aspect of work complicated with her personal life was not something with which she was prepared to deal.

  An
d yet she had bared herself in the book. That decision would haunt her the rest of her days, she feared. Why oh why had she allowed her editor to lure her into that tell-all trap?

  Baring one’s soul sells books, Rowan.

  Rather than confess the gale of uncertainty currently spiraling inside her, she produced a sad smile for her dear friend. “I’m afraid that most people would have trouble finding me interesting by any distortion of the definition. Besides, these are not particularly unique characteristics amid the population of a metropolitan area the size of Nashville.”

  This was statistically accurate no matter that her instincts were sounding off warning bells—the same ones she had been purposely ignoring for approximately two days.

  Of all people, you know better than to ignore your instincts, Rowan.

  “But those are characteristics unique to you.” Julian leaned forward and put his hand over hers. “The time for plausible deniability is over, Rowan. You cannot allow your need to save professional face any level of priority over your personal safety.”

  His words haunted her the rest of the afternoon.

  North Avenue, 11:10 p.m.

  Clad in her robe, her feet bare, Rowan padded down to the front door to check the locks a second time. The expansive windows that made up her mostly glass and steel home had captivated her at first. She had loved the straight lines and gleaming surfaces…the feeling of infiniteness. Of late, all that openness—especially like now, to the dark night—had become imprisoning. More and more she found herself hiding in areas of the house that had walls impenetrable to the eyes of the night.

  The case. This case. The one the detectives in the SCU had dubbed the Undertaker was getting to her. She shook her head. Even when the team had given the case that moniker, she’d ignored the correlation to her history.

  Freud, her German Shepherd, had faithfully followed her down the stairs. When she was home, he stayed close. His need to do so had crowded her at first, now she appreciated his nearness. Freud was a good and loyal companion with few demands. Like her, he had a past that had left him damaged and broken beneath the surface where no one else could see. That same past had permitted a bond between them—the kind of bond she rarely allowed in her life.

  She checked the double set of deadbolts she’d had installed on the front door in addition to the door’s locking handle, then leaned forward to peer at the keypad to verify that she’d set the alarm. She’d left her glasses upstairs on the bedside table. The aging body’s growing dependency on things like prescription eyewear was subtlety terrifying. Thank God for contacts. At least the rest of the world didn’t have to be privy to her weaknesses. It was as if the closer she drew to forty, the more she fell apart.

  Eight months to go until the big four-oh. She groaned and hugged herself as she stared out at the darkness. Street lamps fought valiantly to light the night but failed miserably beyond a pale circle of gold around their bases. She’d been so excited when the contemporary home that could only be called a masterpiece of progressive architecture came on the market. The West End location was mere steps from coffee shops and restaurants and Centennial Park. West End Avenue provided a major transit corridor for easy access to anywhere in or beyond the city.

  What more could a single, unburdened with children woman ask for? A hip neighborhood as well as the perfect home for someone who wanted to bring the outside in and who had nothing to hide.

  Except she had lied to herself and recently those lies had started to fester, and now they were erupting to the surface.

  The scars on her wrists stung as if the wounds had only been inflicted yesterday instead of when she was thirteen and certain she wanted to die—to be with her mother and her sister who had died the year before.

  Not just her sister, her twin. She and Raven had been mirror images, best friends. They had done everything together. Or at least they had until their twelfth summer. Raven was suddenly popular with the other kids while Rowan remained the outcast. The more popular her sister became, the more condescending her attitude had become. Suddenly Raven was one of the in girls; the snobbish, mean girls. The invitations came to Raven—like the one to the party at the lake house of one of the wealthy families in town—but not to Rowan. Rowan had begged her sister not to go. Not just for purely selfish reasons either. She’d felt a suffocating dread; a panic that had bordered on hysteria.

  Raven went anyway and, for a very long while, Rowan had hated her for it.

  Three hours later the phone rang with devastating news but Rowan had known her sister was gone before the call came. Her father stoically identified Raven at the morgue, yet when the body was brought to the funeral home for final disposition her father had been inconsolable. He had refused to allow anyone to touch her, and insisted on preparing her himself.

  Rowan vividly recalled hovering at the door of the preparation room, her own devastation barely contained and survivor’s guilt eating her alive. She had watched as her father attempted to do what he must, the steps as familiar to her as breathing. She and Raven had been assisting their father since they were seven years old. Four generations of DuPonts had owned and operated the funeral home, each one passing the business down to the son or sons in the family.

  Without any sons, Edward taught the family business to his daughters. By twelve, they were well versed in the family business. She and Raven knew the steps by heart even if they weren’t physically strong enough to complete certain ones that involved lifting the bodies. That day, the day Raven died, Rowan went to her father’s side when he broke down completely and helped him to prepare her sister. It was the least she could do. It was the last time she would touch the sister who was as much a part of her as the heart beating in her own chest.

  The circumstances of her birth and her childhood ensured that Rowan was intimately acquainted with death from the very beginning of her life. Her grandfather DuPont had died the day before she and Raven came into the world. Edward insisted on taking a family photo before his father was buried. The twins were ensconced in the deceased DuPont’s lap, with their mother and father on either side. It was the way of things during her formative years. Living had always been far more mysterious and fearful to her than death.

  Not quite five months after Raven’s death, their mother, Norah, hung herself. More guilt piled onto Rowan’s shoulders. If she had been the adoring daughter Raven had been, perhaps her mother would have wanted to stay rather than to follow the daughter she lost to death.

  Rowan forced away the painful memories and drifted up the spiral staircase to her loft bedroom. Despite the teasing from the other children at school and in the neighborhood, growing up in the house that was also a funeral home never bothered her—not until Raven and then their mother died. Everything changed then. Rowan no longer felt whole. She became more withdrawn. Two attempts to commit suicide before she was twenty only added to the tragic history of her family. Looking back, she deeply regretted the hurt she had caused her father.

  But those painful years were far behind her now. She had chosen a path in life that made her feel whole. She loved her work. Felt purposeful and productive.

  Rowan climbed between the sheets and forced her eyes closed. Freud curled up on his own bed right next to hers. She refused to consider for another second the idea that this case was personal. Until she had evidence to support the theory that the unsub had targeted her, she would not waste time and resources acting upon the scenario.

  Odds of this being about her or her book were remote at best.

  Slowly she slipped into a fitful sleep, dreams of her sister and of walking the halls in the house where she grew up streamed through her restless mind. By two a.m. she was wide awake, her childhood still rambling through her brain. The second and third stories of the massive Victorian style house where she’d grown up served as the living quarters while the public part of the funeral home was on the first floor. In the mid 1950’s a chapel was added, extending the first floor out from the east side of the ho
use. For symmetry, a portico was built on the west side, allowing for more expansive covered parking for the hearses and family limousines.

  The mortuary was in the basement. Her father had completely renovated that space and added the latest, state-of-the-art equipment when Rowan was a teenager. On the first floor the hardwood had been refinished, new paint and wallpaper. New, more welcoming and comfortable furnishings.

  Only the best for the families who chose DuPont Funeral Home for their deceased loved ones. The renovations had no doubt been in part prompted by the upgrades done at Gardner’s, the only other funeral home in town. Edward DuPont was nothing if not a savvy businessman.

  Rowan tossed and turned until four, her eyes closing for the last time as the digital numbers slipped to four oh one. Images of the house and the meticulously manicured grounds that had been her childhood home slipped from her dreams only to be replaced by vivid, color imageries of Raven. She and Raven had often stood face to face, staring at each other as if peering into a mirror. After her sister’s death, Rowan continued to talk to her reflection for years. Talking to her sister as if she were still there had been a useful coping mechanism at first. But then the nightmares began.

  In those heart-pounding dreams Rowan would find herself on the banks of that lake—the one where her sister had drowned. The dark water would lure her like a beacon. Raven would beg her to come into the water.

  Raven’s cold, lifeless arms reached for Rowan. Her pale face looked sad, her eyes pleading. “Come into the water, Rowan. Come and play.”

  The voice echoed through Rowan’s soul, had her fighting to withdraw from sleep. She told herself to wake up but the dream refused to let go.

  “Hurry, Rowan! Come into the water with me. Daddy’s coming soon.”