Casket Case

by Fran Rizer

  Otis returned before Odell.

  “A lady called and said that her husband donated his body to the medical university and they picked him up, but now they don’t want him. I’ve filled out the info on a pickup form.” I’d thought it probably wasn’t a new situation for him, and I was right.

  “Yes, that happens. I’ll take care of it,” Otis answered. He made three telephone calls. One to the medical university, one to Odell to tell him to pick up Amos, and the last one to Mrs. Valentine to assure her that Middleton’s would take care of everything. She agreed to come in the next morning.

  Otis brought in the lady from the nursing home and put her in his prep room, where he’d embalm her—pardon me, prepare her—before going home for the night. I followed him in there.

  “You don’t have to wait here, Callie,” he said. “Her family will be in tomorrow with a photo and clothing. You can go on home now.”

  “Um, well, I have a problem,” I told him.

  “What’s that?”

  “The reason John was with me when I came in is that he brought me to work. Sheriff Harmon has my car.”

  “Oh.” He transferred the body bag from the portable gurney to his worktable. “I need to get started here. Just drive one of the family cars home and be back tomorrow by nine.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I love driving those elegant vehicles. As I drove home, I thought about what a relief it was not to have to drive through rain. Then I remembered my birthday gift from Dennis Sharpe. I’d left those two squirrels sitting in the entry hall at the mortuary.

  What would Otis say about that?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The wreath on my door was even larger than the bouquet of flowers had been. I couldn’t miss it when I pulled into my drive—a tremendous wreath, as big as a casket spray. Who’d sent that? Had John come back by with it before he left for Atlanta? If he’d gone back. I didn’t know if Harmon had let him. Standing on the porch, I realized it wasn’t a gift from anyone who cared about me.

  The flowers weren’t just wilted. They were disintegrating and decaying. The ribbon was mildewed. It looked like a wreath a few weeks after a funeral if the cemetery doesn’t remove it. I snatched it off the hanger and threw it in the Herbie Curby on the side of the building. What kinda jerk thinks sending dead funeral flowers to a woman is funny?

  Jane was asleep on the couch, but Big Boy met me with a grin on his face, his tail wagging, and his leash in his mouth. When we came back in, Jane was stretching and yawning. “Hey,” she said, “guess what I learned?”

  “No telling,” I replied.

  “I was watching one of those court programs on television, and they had a woman who does the same job as Roxanne. She calls herself a ‘fantasy phone actress.’ I think I’m going to start using that instead of ‘conversationalist.’ Don’t you think it sounds better?”

  Jane went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. She was learning her way around with no trouble.

  “Maybe. When are you going to tell Frank what you do? It seems you two are mighty interested in each other. Don’t you believe he should know?”

  I walked to the bedroom to change clothes, leaving the door open as I dropped my black dress and panty hose in the clothes hamper and pulled on shorts and a shirt. Big Boy came loping into the bedroom and barked at the window.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Please don’t tell him. Let me do it,” Jane said, trying to talk louder than Big Boy’s howling.

  “Sure, but don’t wait too long. I’m not the only one who knows your occupation, and you don’t want Frank to hear it from someone else. He’ll probably be all right with it, but if you get serious, he’ll want you to give it up.”

  “I figured that, and I thought I’d see if we develop a relationship before I risk quitting my job. It’s the best money I’ve ever made.” She turned toward Big Boy. “Why is that dog howling and barking like that?”

  “I don’t know. There must be a squirrel outside near the window.” I stepped over to Big Boy and scratched behind his ears. He began to settle down.

  Jane rubbed her stomach. “I’m starving. Are you cooking?”

  “No, I’m going to pick up something. Wanna ride?”

  “How are you going? Did you get the Mustang back from the sheriff?”

  “No, Otis lent me a family car to drive.”

  “Limousine?”

  “No, a smaller one. A Lincoln Town Car like Ms. Lucas had, except ours are all black, not gray.” That reminded me. I wondered if the sheriff had determined where Ms. Lucas’s car was and how she’d gotten out to Jane’s place.

  “Do you mind if I don’t go? Frank said he’d call.”

  “Not at all,” I said, thinking we might just have subs again. Maybe Levi Pinckney would be working.

  Big Boy stopped barking. He seemed to sense I was going somewhere and wanted to go with me, but I didn’t dare let him ride in a mortuary vehicle. He’d get excited and drool everywhere.

  I felt better than I had in days as I drove toward Nate’s Sports and Subs. I fooled around with the radio and got a station of oldies but goodies. Growing up in a family of six left me a fan of all kinds of music, from the sixties tunes Daddy loves through the disco and eighties of my brothers’ youths to nineties and current cuts Jane and I like. Everything from eight-track to audiocassettes to CDs and back to some old LPs and even some 78s and 45s Daddy had saved.

  The Beatles were singing “I wanna be a paperback writer,” and I sang right along with them, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror. A black Tahoe with dark tinted windows pulled up behind me. I looked out my front windshield at the road in front of me and then back into the rearview mirror again.

  Dalmation! The Tahoe was bearing down on me, gaining speed. I slammed my foot on the accelerator to get away from him. The engine chugged as though it would stall from the sudden surge, then leaped ahead. The front of the Tahoe looked like it was in the backseat when I checked the mirror again, but I still couldn’t see the driver. Even the windshield looked opaque from the outside.

  I knew that Tahoe would hit me. I’ve been in fender benders, but I’d never before known that I was going to be hit. Going to be struck, careened into on purpose. I jerked the steering wheel to the right. Desperate to move off to the shoulder of the road and let the Tahoe pass me.

  Had I done something to trigger road rage in the driver? I didn’t think so. I yanked the steering wheel to the right as hard as I could. My foot floored the accelerator, but it wasn’t fast enough.

  The Tahoe smashed into my left rear fender with a loud bam, knocking me forward. Only my seat belt kept me from going through the windshield. My head banged against it, causing the glass to explode into a creepy web pattern.

  For a moment, I though I’d pass out. My head swam as I hit the brakes trying to stop the car. Through the crackled safety glass, I saw the Tahoe make a three-point turn and head back toward me, speed increasing every second. Its impact on the front of the Lincoln threw me back against the seat.

  The Tahoe pulled around me, then revved up and slammed into the rear of the Lincoln again. I felt my car leave the ground, go airborne, then slam into a tree. I heard the Tahoe speed away at the same time I heard the screech of an eighteen-wheeler’s airbrakes.

  “Are you okay?” a young male voice asked as he looked through the smashed side window.

  “I’m banged up, but I don’t think I’m hurt bad,” I answered, though my chest and head were agonizing.

  “Why didn’t your airbags go off?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, though I did. Odell had disconnected them after he read about an airbag going off unexpectedly when the car wasn’t involved in an accident. Odell claimed that as slow as funeral vehicles are driven, the airbags would never be needed.

  The young man yanked and yanked on each door in turn, but the sides of the Town Car were crushed and wrinkled.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I called 911 th
e minute I came over the hill and saw what was happening. I’ve got the tag number of whoever hit you, too. Wrote it down as he sped away.”

  Just my luck that when the law showed up, there was no one I knew on patrol. Same with the EMTs. I felt like I must be getting old at thirty-three. Everyone looked about fourteen or fifteen. A medical technician crawled through the broken window and said, “Be still. Stop moving. I want to stabilize your head until we get you out of here. It won’t be long. I called for the hearse.”

  “The hearse? I’m not dead.” I tried to shout it, but my words came out a whisper.

  “The Hurst. It’s one of those car can openers, like the Jaws of Life. We’ll have you out of here in no time.” As he talked, he wrapped my head in some kind of swaddling that held it still against a hard surface.

  When the man arrived with the machine, the EMT in the car with me laid a cloth over my face, explaining, “This is just to keep any glass that rattles loose from getting into your face.”

  For some reason, when I’d seen them use equipment like this on television, I’d always thought of it as gentle. It wasn’t. The car rocked back and forth violently as they tried to open it. I caught a faint whiff of something unpleasant.

  “Gas! Get her out of there before this thing explodes,” another voice called. The next thing I knew I was being pulled from the car onto a body board and wrapped snugly to it. I glanced around and saw two fire trucks, several Jade County Sheriff Department cruisers, and two ambulances—all of them a pretty far distance from the Lincoln.

  The guys carrying me on my body board slid me into the back of an ambulance, which drove off just as I heard the boom of Middleton Mortuary’s best family car explode.

  Inside the ambulance, a young technician unwound enough wrappings to take my left arm out and stabilize it on a smaller board. He took my blood pressure, then patted the inside of my elbow. He muttered, “Her veins are rolling like crazy,” but after several jabs, he succeeded in getting a needle in and hung an IV over me.

  “Can you call someone for me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “who do you want me to call?”

  “Middleton’s Mortuary.”

  “Honey, you’re going to be okay. You don’t need a funeral home,” he answered.

  “You don’t understand. I work there.”

  “Don’t worry about your job right now,” he consoled.

  “You still don’t understand.” Tears filled my eyes. “The car that just exploded belonged to my bosses.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Déjà vu. Back in the ER with handsome, smooth-talking Dr. Don Walters leaning over me, pointing his little flashlight into my eyes.

  “Callie,” he said, “the waiting room is full of Parrish men, the sheriff, your friend Jane, and some trucker who just wants to know you’re going to be okay before he gets back on his route.” He shined the light up my nose. I was glad I didn’t have a cold.

  “Of course,” he continued, “there are two undertakers waiting to hear about you, too. The bald-headed one is cussing, and I think the spiffy one is praying. They all want to see you, but I need tests before I let them. Scans of your head, chest, and back.” He straightened up.

  “Can you tell me how you feel?” he asked.

  “I hurt, but not unbearably.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  “Can you stand it until we get the scans? I had the nurse give you a little something for pain through your IV, but I’d rather hold off on anything stronger until after the scans. If we need to call in a neurosurgeon, I’d like for you to be able to answer her questions.”

  I grinned.

  “Yes,” he said, “I said her. The best in this area is a female, and if you need one, we’ll get the best.”

  Don hadn’t said what he was looking for, but I knew. Damage to my brain or spine. He hadn’t unbound me from the board. The transport personnel put me on the gurney still wrapped to the body board to go to X-ray.

  Up or down? I was too spacey to feel which direction we moved on the elevator or where we went when we got off. They lifted me onto a table similar to the ones we use in the prep room at the mortuary.

  “Take off her earrings,” the attendant said. I saw and felt hands remove my birthday pearl studs from my ears. Vaguely aware of being left in the room alone, I heard the mechanical voice say, “Breathe in and hold it.”

  What felt like eternity.

  “You may breathe out.”

  This occurred over and over as the equipment moved me backward and forward through an opening in the gigantic machine that seemed to groan and moan when not telling me how to breathe.

  The transporters had me back to the elevator before I remembered.

  “My earrings. They took them off, and I didn’t get them back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, they’re pink pearl studs.”

  “I’ll go check.”

  They wheeled me off the elevator, down the hall, and into a private room before the young man returned with my earrings. He put them back into my ears “so they won’t get lost.” He didn’t say stolen, but I thought it.

  I heard voices. Frank and Jane were talking to Don. I wondered if all the other people he’d named were there, but when I opened my eyes, only the three of them were in the room.

  “Callie?” Don leaned over me. I swear that man winds up over me every time I get hurt. Notice I didn’t say on top of me, just leaning over me. “I gave you some pain medicine after the scans were negative.

  “You have a couple of cracked ribs, but other than that, you’re fine except for bruises, some small cuts, and probably two black eyes,” he continued. “I’ve been letting your friends and family come in to see you two at a time. Now that you’re awake, they can speak to you for a few moments, then I want them to go home and let you sleep through the night. Your body needs rest.”

  Jane and Frank had little to say. Just, “We’re so sorry you were hit, but so glad that you aren’t hurt worse.” I could hear in Jane’s voice that she’d been crying.

  The trucker came in next. He’d been waiting to get back on the road. “Miss,” he said, “I’m glad you’re going to be okay. I gave the sheriff the license number for the Tahoe that hit you. I’ll check on you next time I’m through St. Mary.” I thanked him again and again until Don sent him away, saying there were others waiting.

  Don Walters lied to me again. He said two at a time, but Daddy came in with Bill and Mike. Even as drugged up as I felt, I knew that was three people, not two. They didn’t have much to say except that if they found whoever was driving that Tahoe, all of them might go to jail. Before they left, Daddy kissed me on the cheek.

  I lay there, drifting off, enjoying the sensation of my daddy showing me the feelings I’d always known he had but he’d never before been able to express.

  “They said she was awake.” I heard Odell’s raspy voice complain.

  “Well, she’s asleep, so don’t wake her,” Otis answered.

  “I’m awake,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Odell.

  “Your Lincoln. It has to have been totaled, as many times as it was hit, but then it burned.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s insured,” Otis said. “The important thing is that you’re okay. Lord knows, if you’d been in your Mustang, you’d probably be dead now.”

  “Don’t even think of Callie getting killed, Doofus,” Odell scolded. “Let her go back to sleep.” Danged if Odell didn’t kiss me on one cheek and Otis on the other.

  I’d been kissed more in the past few days than in a year, but they were all just affectionate family-type kisses. Except for that one sweet kiss from Levi. What did it matter? I felt so sore that if Levi Pinckney himself crawled in bed with me, I’d probably push him away, roll over, and go to sleep.

  “Wake up, sunshine, your breakfast is here.” The attendant was pleasant and smiling. She pulled a side table across
my bed and placed a covered tray on it. “Do you need help with eating or can you do it by yourself?” she asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, then added, “thank you,” as she left.

  Sometimes I react to situations like a child. I was hungry and the covered tray delighted me. I’d almost been killed, could even have burned to death, but here I was ecstatic over a breakfast tray.

  I hoped that removing the lid would reveal pancakes. I grinned and snatched the top off the plate. No such luck. Grits, scrambled eggs, and two slices of bacon. Not so good as pancakes, but as hungry as I was, I dug in.

  A saucer beside my plate had two slices of buttered toast and little plastic packets of strawberry preserves. I slathered the toast with jelly and put the bacon inside. One of my favorites—a bacon and jam sandwich. I ate that first with the little carton of milk, then stirred the grits and eggs together. I was finishing them off and ready for my coffee when Dr. Don Walters came in.

  I glanced down at my chest. Well, actually at my lack of a chest. Like the first time I’d ever met Donald Walters, I wore one of those little cotton thingies that hospitals use instead of gowns and pajamas.

  Oh, well, Don was a doctor. He wasn’t supposed to be aware of such things when acting professionally, was he? I wondered if he ever thought about why I looked and felt so round except when in the hospital.

  “Callie Parrish, you’re a lucky young woman. From what that trucker and Sheriff Harmon said, it’s almost unbelievable that your injuries are so minimal. I didn’t tape your cracked ribs last night because they’ll heal the same without it. If you want them wrapped, I can do it, but most patients say the taping is more painful than letting them mend by themselves.”

  “Don’t do anything that’s going to hurt more,” I said. I finished the last swallow of coffee. “When can I go home?”

  “As soon as someone comes for you. Who do you want the nurse to call to pick you up?”

  I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure who to request. I didn’t want anyone making a fuss over me and reminding me that, from what everyone said, I should have been dead. I didn’t want to think about it.