by Sara Rosett
“The selection room.” At Mitch’s puzzled frown, Aunt Christine added, “The rooms where they display all the different caskets and urns.”
“Oh,” Mitch said. “And . . . ?
“Empty. All empty, according to Mr. Grisholm.” Aunt Christine’s hands fluttered up to pat her mouth and she got a funny look on her face.
“Are you feeling all right, Aunt Christine?” I asked. She’d held up remarkably well, considering the situation. From some of the things Aunt Nanette had said about Aunt Christine, I’d had the impression that she was ditzy, but she hadn’t gone all spacey and helpless. She was the one who took charge and demanded the police be called in. And now that I thought about it, I doubted you could be silly or ditzy and survive as a teacher for thirty years. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, her eyebrows lowered and a frown on her face. “Where’s his casket?”
I looked at her for a moment, then realized what she was asking. “That is an excellent question. Where is the casket?” I turned to Mitch to explain.
“The viewing room where Grandpa Franklin was supposed to be was empty. It’s not just his body that’s missing . . . it’s the casket, too. The coffin.”
“Casket,” corrected a voice from the doorway. “We call them caskets,” Rosanna said. She still looked shaken and pale as she stepped in the room. “Mr. Grisholm wants me to let you know we are double-checking everything right now.”
“Rosanna, did the funeral home have any burials or cremations scheduled for today?” I asked.
Aunt Christine let out a little gasp. “Oh, Ellie, you don’t think—”
“Sorry, Aunt Christine, but we have to ask.”
As comprehension dawned, Rosanna grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. “No, we don’t have anything on the schedule until tomorrow.”
“Thank goodness,” Aunt Christine said as I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Where’s Jake?” Mitch asked.
Rosanna seemed to get back a little of her warmth as she asked, “Oh, do you know him? He’s helping his father look, I’m sure. Although, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“I’d like to speak to him,” Mitch said. “I’m an old friend from school.”
“How nice,” she said uncertainly, and picked up a phone mounted on the wall. She dialed and listened for a moment, then replaced the phone. “He’s not at his desk. Let me look outside,” she said, and glanced out the window that looked over the front parking lot. “No, his car is gone. He must have stepped out.”
“That’s convenient for him,” Mitch said. “Do you know where Mr. Grisholm is?”
“Yes, he’s in the garage, checking the cars.”
“Then let’s go.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she gave a small nod and led him out of the room.
Out the window, I saw a dark blue four-door sedan pull into the parking lot. I looked closely and saw the light bar mounted inside the car. It was an undercover car. I went out to meet him, since the entry area would be empty. I pushed open the heavy door and squinted in the glare of the sunlight. Detective Rickets was about my height. His head was shaved and he had close-set, gray-blue eyes. His dark suit was blue and would have fit in perfectly at the funeral home, but there was something about him, a confidence in his walk and a command in his gaze, that conveyed he was in charge. I walked toward him and we met on the sidewalk.
“I’m Ellie Avery,” I said as I put out my hand.
“Detective Rickets,” he said as he shook my hand briefly, then pulled a small notebook and pen from his pocket. He flipped it open and had me spell my name and give him my contact information. After he’d written down my address, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Georgia?”
“Yes. We’re here for Franklin Avery’s funeral. He’s—was—my husband’s grandfather.”
“Okay. So, you say the body’s missing?”
“Yes.” I told him everything that had happened from the moment Aunt Christine and I had discovered the viewing room was empty. “My husband, Mitch, is here. He had one of the employees, Rosanna, take him to find Mr. Grisholm. I think they’re in the garage area—oh, wait. Here they are,” I said as I saw a group of people in dark suits flow out of the building. Mitch was at the back of the group, talking with a man who I thought was Jake’s older brother. He had the same reddish tinge to his face and dark hair. The differences were that this man was taller, had a slightly slimmer build, and instead of having the unfortunate corkscrew curls his brother had, his dark hair only had a slight wave to it. He and Mitch were in conversation and walking quickly behind another, older man who had to be Mr. Grisholm. The family resemblance was there in the ruddy cheeks and dark hair. He was tall, much taller than Detective Rickets. “I can assure you there’s no need for you to come inside, Officer . . . ?”
“Detective Rickets. You’re the owner.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
“Thomas Grisholm.” He spoke in the same low, soothing tones that Rosanna had used earlier in the morning. “Now, as I was saying, we’ve had a slight error and don’t need—”
Detective Rickets bounced on his toes and said, “Found him, did you?” There was a moment of silence, then Detective Rickets asked, “The missing body. You found it?”
Mr. Grisholm cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, we haven’t located Mr. Avery. But I assure you it’s only a matter of time—”
“So then the answer is no. If a body is missing, Mr. Grisholm, then you do, indeed, need me here. It is a police matter.” A small group of people exited the funeral home and looked at us curiously as they walked to their cars. The unmarked police car also got a few long glances from the group.
Mr. Grisholm again explained how everything was just fine. I took a few steps to where Mitch was standing. “Did you find anything?”
“No,” Mitch said, shaking his head. “This is Dermont,” he added.
Dermont stepped forward and shook my hand. “Ellie, so good to see you again. We met at your wedding, but I’m sure you don’t remember me. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this. We’ve looked everywhere.” Dermont’s voice didn’t have that smooth veneer that Rosanna and Mr. Grisholm spoke with. He looked genuinely distressed. “If Jake has anything to do with this—and this has his fingerprints all over it—well, then, there’s going to be hell to pay,” Dermont said, glancing at his dad. It seemed Mr. Grisholm was wearing down. He was telling Detective Rickets that if he had to stay, then to please move his unmarked car around back.
Mitch leaned toward me and said, “Dermont has checked every room in the funeral home. No sign.”
“What about the garage?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s so strange,” I said, looking out over the parking lot. With the sun shining, you could almost forget it was winter, except for the bare trees and faded monotone brown of the grass. The branches creaked and stirred as the wind whipped through them.
The group of people who’d left the building were getting in their cars, which were parked in the row nearest to the funeral home. It was also the row where I’d parked Aunt Christine’s car. A clump of cars filled some spaces down at the end of the building and I assumed that was where the employees parked, because Rosanna had looked in that direction to check for Jake’s car. As the trees danced in the wind, I saw a flash of white through the shifting branches. There was a lone vehicle, a white van at the farthest corner of the parking lot. A swell of landscaped grass and evergreen bushes blocked out the traffic from the busy road a few feet away and another island of landscaping partially shielded it from view. I stepped to the side so I could see around the cluster of trees and stared at the van.
“Ellie, we’re going inside,” Mitch said.
“Just a second,” I said, and set out across the parking lot at a brisk pace.
I heard Mitch call to me, but I kept moving. It would only take a few seconds . . . I dodged around the landscaped islands of trees and bushes that were spaced across the
parking lot. The sides of the van were solid, no windows. I hurried to the back doors and leaned close to the tinted window.
I turned and shouted, “I think I found him.”
Ellie Avery’s Tips for Preserving Family Treasures
Organizing School Papers and Artwork
One of the biggest organizing challenges families face is organizing all the paper and artwork that comes home from school. Here are a few ideas to help:
• Enlist your child to help you decide what to keep. You may be surprised at which items are special to your child. If you don’t ask, you won’t know what they value. If your child wants to keep everything, then you’ll have to explain that they don’t need to keep everything, only the things that are the most special. It’s an opportunity to help kids learn how to sort and thin out their belongings. It may be a lot of work in the beginning, but you’ll be teaching them a skill that they’ll use again and again.
• Three-ring notebooks with plastic sleeves are an easy way to save special papers and awards. Accordion files are another good way to store paper. You can label each slot by year or activity.
• Plastic bins or cardboard office storage boxes are great for holding nonpaper items like ballet shoes, T-ball pennants, hand-knitted baby blankets, and sports trophies.
• Decorate with artwork. Frame those watercolors or finger-paint drawings and hang them on your child’s wall. The clay pot your child brought home from art class might be a good place to store pens or paper clips.
Chapter Eight
The van wasn’t locked, but I hung back. Mr. Grisholm wrenched the doors open and climbed inside. Detective Rickets followed him. With two people in the modified interior and a casket, the back of the van was full and I had no desire to cram myself in there with them. The casket was a dark wood with simple hardware.
Mitch, Dermont, and I looked on as Mr. Grisholm folded back the lid, revealing the padded and ruched white fabric inside. Mr. Grisholm and Detective Rickets looked back to us, questioningly. Mitch stepped on the bumper, took a quick look, then nodded his head. “Yes, that’s Grandpa Franklin,” he said. His voice sounded funny, almost compressed. I stepped on the bumper and looked into the casket. Grandpa Franklin’s body had been jostled to one side of the casket and the pillow was angled under his shoulder. I stared for a moment before Mr. Grisholm quickly closed the casket. The lanky body gone frail and the thatch of thick white hair did look like Grandpa Franklin, but the face was so blank—no sharp gaze, no quick smile after I fell for one of his tall tales. I stepped down and moved away from the van, thinking that he was truly gone and I’d miss him so much.
Dermont was talking quietly to Mitch around the side of the van and I moved in their direction. “We use it to transport remains from the hospital or coroner’s office to the funeral home. Again, Mitch, I’m so sorry.”
“So the van is kept in the garage, unlocked, with the keys available?” Mitch asked in a tight, controlled voice.
“Yes. There’s never been a need to lock anything down,” Dermont said, and I wandered to the driver’s door and peered inside. The keys were still in the ignition. The interior was spotlessly clean except for a small piece of paper on the driver’s seat and a pair of work gloves. I opened the door, setting off the dinging sound that warned the keys were still in the ignition. I pulled the paper, which was folded into a small square, out of the crevice where the seats came together. I opened the creased paper. It was a flyer for a spin class at Smarr Fitness Center. I felt a presence looming at my shoulder and realized Mitch was behind me. He took the paper from me and shoved it into the pocket of his leather jacket. “What are you doing? The person who took Grandpa Franklin’s body could have dropped that by accident.”
“I know,” he said, grimly.
“You have to give that to Detective Rickets,” I said as I looked over his shoulder and saw the detective approaching. Mitch took my elbow and moved us a step back from the van. As Detective Rickets glanced inside the van, Mitch casually looked away and said so quietly that only I could hear, “Felicity works at Smarr Fitness Center.”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean she’s involved. Besides, she was at Bill and Caroline’s house with the rest of the family this morning.”
“She got a call and left right after you did,” Mitch said.
“You’ve got to give that . . .” I trailed off when I looked at his face.
“If she’s involved, the family will deal with it.”
The driver’s door was still open. “Looks like there won’t be any prints because of the gloves,” Detective Rickets said, then shouted toward the back of the van, “You can take it back to the garage.” Mr. Grisholm closed the back doors with a thud and came around to climb into the driver’s seat.
“Is it going to be searched for fingerprints and hairs . . . all that CSI stuff?” I asked.
Detective Rickets placed his hands on his hips as he said, “Afraid not. The sheriff’s department only has so many resources. Right now, we’ve got a vehicle theft, a home burglary, and a report of a man trying to lure a kid into a car at the convenience store out on Highway Twenty-seven. Those things have to take priority over this situation.”
“I’ll send a car back for the rest of you,” Mr. Grisholm said, and I could tell he was focused on getting the van back and fixing what had happened. There was a tension in his expression and I wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed or furious. Probably both, I decided.
“I’ll just ride along with you,” the detective said easily and went around to the passenger side.
“We’ll walk. It’s not far,” Mitch said, and we turned back to the building. The van gave us a wide berth as Dermont fell into step beside Mitch.
I heard a car approaching. A silver Honda Accord had driven into the parking lot. It pulled alongside of us and Jake’s curly head appeared as the window rolled down. “What are you doing out here?”
“Where have you been?” Dermont asked. “I can’t believe you left—you knew what happened and you left?”
“Well, Rosanna said you and Dad were on it and I had to pick up those envelopes at the printer.”
“You left to go to the printer?” Dermont stepped away from the car and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “God, Jake, I can’t believe you’d be that stupid. Even you should see that—” He broke off, stared at Jake for a moment, then lunged to the car and gripped the door frame. “You know something. What is it? What’s going on?”
Jake rotated the wheel and let the car roll a few feet as he said, “Nothing. Don’t know what you mean.”
Dermont didn’t let go of the car door. “Jake,” he said warningly, as he walked beside the car. Jake broke eye contact and glanced in the rearview mirror before bringing the car to a stop.
Mitch and I exchanged a glance.
“Okay. Okay.” Jake held his hands up. “Calm down. I don’t know anything for sure, but I . . . might . . . know what happened.” Jake’s gaze flicked back to us, then he looked at his brother questioningly.
“Go ahead,” Dermont said scathingly. “We lost their grandfather. I doubt it can get worse.”
“Oh. Well, last week, the English prof was late for class.” Jake ran his hand around the steering wheel as he talked. “We waited around for a few minutes, then some of us went over to the student union. One of the guys recognized my name when I introduced myself. He asked all these questions about the funeral home—stuff about the remains and other weird things. I didn’t think about it until today, but he asked about joyrides in the hearse, stuff like that.” He was still running his hand over the steering wheel as he said, “When I realized that a casket was gone, I checked the garage and didn’t see the van.” His hand faltered, then stilled on the wheel as he shifted so he could look at his brother. “Look, I don’t know for sure, but I think he did it.”
“And so as soon as you remembered this, you hopped in your car and took off?” Dermont asked, his voice disbelieving.
“Hey, I went
to look for the van. It’s not my fault—I went out the back way and didn’t see it parked in the front parking lot. It was here the whole time, wasn’t it?”
“We don’t know,” Dermont said, his grip on the car door still tight. He dropped his head for a moment, then looked up at Jake. “Who was it?”
“The guy who asked all the questions? I don’t know.”
“He’s in your English Lit one-o-one class.” Dermont released the car door and stood up. “It shouldn’t be too hard for the detective to find him.”
“No, he’s not in my class. It was just some kid that I talked to at the student union. I don’t know who he was.”
“Well, can you describe him?” Dermont asked.
“Sure . . . brown hair. Kind of long. Black shirt, baggy jeans, and I think Converse shoes.” Jake paused, then said, triumphantly, “And he had a skateboard.”
Dermont groaned. “That could be half the student body at Smarr Community College. You better get in there and tell Dad what happened.”
“Yeah, I should go tell them,” he said, and nodded. He drove off slowly as if he wanted to put off the event as long as possible.
Dermont turned back to Mitch and me. “Again, I’m so sorry.” He rubbed his forehead, looking as if he had a headache. “But you know Jake. He always was . . . ,” he glanced at me and amended what he was going to say, “an accident waiting to happen. I still can’t believe Dad’s making him work here. It would be so much better to keep him away from here. As far away as possible.”
I don’t think he actually meant to speak the last part aloud and looked a little startled when Mitch clasped him on the shoulder and said, “I know all about younger siblings—remember, I have Summer and she’s able to create chaos with a couple of words.” They began walking back to the funeral home. After looking back at the now empty corner of the parking lot where the van had been parked, I fell into step with them.
