Death Perception

by Lee Allen Howard

  She would slowly bleed him financially and ruin his chance to purchase another funeral home and expand his business.

  If he only knew who her friend was. Was it a man or a woman? He’d never met anyone she knew, and if she had ever mentioned any friends to him during their lunchtime trysts, he hadn’t listened. If only he knew where the lock box was.

  Was it a safety deposit box in a local bank? A locker at a fitness center? A bin at the Pittsburgh airport? Too many possibilities, and not a single clue.

  Mary Grace rapped on the door jamb, handed him the mail, and then retreated to her desk without a word. That’s why he kept her on: she knew when to keep her mouth shut and leave him alone.

  He leafed through the bills, the flyers, the letters that he hoped contained final payments for customer’s arrangements. He set it all aside except for the orchid-colored greeting card envelope that had been addressed on a laser printer. He sliced it with his letter opener and withdrew the contents.

  It was a single four-by-six-inch photo. A close-up of a small brass key. The key to the lock box, no doubt. Printed on the back was the single word Friday.

  “Bitch!” he spat and slammed the photo down.

  When his rage lost its edge, Grinold studied the photo more closely. The paper wasn’t Kodak or Fuji, but some computer printer stock. This meant the picture probably was taken with a digital camera. In fact, he knew it was. The key had a number that had been digitally smudged with image processing software. Aside from this unique identification, it was a key like ten thousand others, with no further characteristics that afforded any clue as to what lock box it belonged to.

  He pulled a magnifying glass from his center drawer and peered at the photo through it. The grainy background that at first glance looked like a slab of stone was actually the plastic surface of that witch’s work table. And the curve of black ribbon in the corner had a pattern also. Marbled. No, textured. Like skin. Hide.

  Leather. A belt? A purse strap.

  Did she keep the key in her purse? Grinold’s heart skipped a hopeful step. He slipped the photo into his inside coat pocket and made for the door.

  • • •

  At her trailer, the driveway stood empty. Her rust-bucket Impala was gone and so was Mabon’s van. Thank God for that.

  Grinold was about to turn around when something moving on the storm door caught his attention. He threw the car back into park, then sidled out of the Town Car and approached the aluminum steps. A note was taped to the door. Addressed to Mabon.

  Gone to a friend’s for the week. If you must, leave a message on my cell phone. D.

  The note wasn’t for Mabon, it was for him. That horrid, conniving bitch! He spat into the bushes, something he never did, but it felt good. Then he climbed back into the Lincoln.

  The crumpled supply catalog lay on the passenger seat, the catalog he’d left the trailer with just an hour ago. He picked it up and fanned the pages through dozens of items for floral arranging: flowers and weeds and wire and snips and glue guns and spray glitter and vases. He stopped at an advertisement for dried plants in bulk.

  Jimson weed. . . . Delores once told him that it could dope you up, even be poisonous. Especially to people who took asthma medication. The note fluttered on the trailer door.

  If that straw-haired whore hadn’t thrown herself at him, he wouldn’t be in this predicament. Who could blame her—blame any woman, for that matter—for wanting him? But she’d been shrewd and fawning and, thinking the best of her motives, as he tried to think the best of everyone, he had fallen for her ruse.

  Never again would he be so careless with his affection. Yes, he had learned an important lesson, and he was wiser for it. But she needed to learn a lesson, and he would teach her that lesson in a way that would solve his problem for good.

  He ran his fingers over the advertisement. Visit our Catalog Shop in Winston-Salem, NC. Pulling away, he decided that was just the thing to do.

  • • •

  “Hi, Mary Grace.” Kennet lifted the old-fashioned skeleton key off the rack in her office.

  The middle-aged woman with carrot-colored hair looked up from the computer. “Hello there, Kennet. What are you up to?”

  “Cleaning.”

  “Something I avoid like the black death.” She resumed typing.

  Kennet chuckled and carried the key to the janitorial closet. He unlocked the door, located the institutional-size jug of floor cleaner, poured some in the yellow mop bucket, then wheeled the bucket using the mop handle down the hall to the annex. The cleaner was pungent in his nose.

  When Kennet opened the annex door, Grinold stood by the work table with his briefcase in one hand and suit coat draped over his other arm.

  “There you are,” the funeral director said, sounding perturbed, as if he’d been looking all over for him. “I’m taking the next two days off. Mary Grace will handle any emergencies. Take care of the customers in the cooler. I’ll call you when I get back.”

  “I’m going to clean up around here, if that’s all right.”

  “Expected. A professional always cleans up his own mess.” Leaving Kennet wondering what he meant, Grinold turned and abandoned the annex for the driveway.

  Kennet filled the bucket with hot water from the hose at the embalming sink and began mopping the expanse of concrete floor.

  Chapter 17

  “Come back here, Helen. . . .”

  Helen Streider evaded Flavia’s grasp and scooted down the dark upstairs hall as fast as her chicken legs could carry her. Flavia followed briskly, but Helen was really moving, muttering something about murder and escape.

  “Helen!”

  Skirting the folded stairwell lift-chair, Flavia chased the old woman down the stairs, amazed at how fast a ninety-six-year-old could move. Helen rounded the newel post at the bottom of the steps, her iron-gray hair lashing. She didn’t look up as she hustled down the front hall toward the back of the house.

  Where could she be going at this hour? Everyone else was asleep, or at least in bed, and Alex had left over an hour ago, just after lights out. Growing winded, Flavia reached the foyer and bustled down the hall.

  The back screen door banged, and she stopped at the hallway entrance to the kitchen. The room stood empty, the light over the sink casting shadows across the clean tile floor.

  Decision made, she grabbed her seasoned rolling pin from the pegs on the wall and barged out the side door to the driveway. She caught a glimpse of white nightgown flitting through the backyard. She took off in pursuit.

  The yard was dark, and filled with the fragrance of flowers Hector Ramirez had planted. The wooden gate at the far end clacked shut. Flavia headed toward the sound, hefting the rolling pin. She kept a tight grip because her hands were shaking.

  On the other side of the gate she broke into a run, despite her side aching. “Helen Streider, you stop this instant!”

  The old woman didn’t stop, but continued to mutter as she charged through the back field in the direction of Alex’s house. Did she know where she was going?

  “Helen!” Flavia wanted to scream at her, but she dared not draw any attention, and at this pace, she hadn’t the breath. She pounded the weeds and kept after the eloper.

  Flavia’s short legs and heavy breasts were too much for her, and Helen started to slip away, her nightgown fading in the darkness. Then the woman stumbled and fell headlong, letting out a sharp cry.

  You. Are. Mine. Flavia caught up as Helen clambered to her feet.

  “Murderer. Murderer!” Helen pointed at her, eyes wide with horror. “Killer!”

  “Shut up, damn you, shut up!”

  “Killerkillerkillerkill—”

  Flavia swung the rolling pin like a batter going for a high outside pitch. She connected with Helen’s forehead. The old woman’s head snapped back like a Pez dispenser. She dropped over sideways and sprawled in the grass, now damp with dew. Flavia raised the rolling pin again and planted it squarely on the crown of Helen�
��s head, which collapsed with a definite crunch. The old woman stopped struggling.

  Flavia’s gasps turned to ragged sobs. She dropped to her hands and knees, straddling the old woman’s still form.

  “Why, Helen, why? Why’d you have to run? Why’d you have to open your goddamn mouth?” She pushed the bloody rolling pin aside and cradled Helen’s ruined head in her hands. “Why’d you make me do it? I didn’t want to do it. . . .”

  She sobbed until she was played out, stroking dead Helen’s iron-gray hair. Then she stood and brushed herself off, wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

  It was time for Plan B.

  She took a deep breath that smelled of sweet grass and started trudging across the field in the darkness, oblivious to the sound of insects and the witness of the moon.

  • • •

  Alex hit the bong again. He held in the smoke while the Marilyn Manson tune crashed to an end and Rob Zombie’s “Meet the Creeper” started on his iPod. He groaned on the exhale, coughing raggedly. He set the stinking bong aside and crawled to the next planter to continue working on the watering system.

  Yards of thin black hose connected each of the thirty-six washtubs that were home to yard-tall marijuana plants. Since the last time he’d pinched the plants, branching and leafing had doubled, and the plants required more water. He needed to scour the scale off the metal tips of the sprayers to keep the water flowing freely. Six weeks from harvest, he couldn’t afford to have a plant wither and die, especially when the first buds were starting to form. He should invest in a filtration system, but the expense would nip his profits.

  He worked the steel brush across the crimped end of the sprayer, occasionally stopping to use the emery cloth instead. Some sprayers needed a good routing with the point of a safety pin. When he finished making his first pass, he would override the timer at the flow-meter and test the sprayers to see if they all worked correctly. If not, he would have further work.

  He crawled from plant to plant, not bothering to stand up because he didn’t want to bash his head on the low-hanging light fixtures, something he’d done too many times while stoned. The lights were suspended using a system of lightweight chains and pulleys so he could adjust them to the proper height as the plants grew, but it was a bitch to do it, so he didn’t until it was necessary to accommodate growth.

  The floor shook, and he instinctively jerked around to see what caused it. Flavia stood in the door to the hall, hands on her hips. What the hell was she doing here?

  He yanked the earbuds from his ears. “How did you get in?”

  “I always knew you were up to no good back here.” She sauntered closer, avoiding the hot lights. “Last fall I peeked in your windows and saw they were covered with plastic inside. I wondered what you were hiding and figured it had something to do with drugs. I know when you’re on something. And you’re always on something, aren’t you, Alex? But I had no idea you were in this deep.”

  Alex scrambled to his feet, feeling as if he should hide something—everything—but she’d already seen it, continued to take it in with dismay. “How the hell did you get in here? I locked the door. I always lock the door!” He bore down on her, flexing his arms.

  She didn’t budge or even avert her gaze. “I took your key off the ring and made a copy months ago. Just in case I needed it.”

  “But the alarm—”

  “The same combination as the meds locker. You’re not very creative.” She sneered.

  He was hyperventilating. He squeezed his hands into fists. “I asked you, what the hell are you doing here? You’re trespassing!”

  “I need your help.” She stepped into the light.

  Then he noticed the trails of mascara on her face, her soiled skirt, and all the blood on her blouse.

  • • •

  Grinold zipped the garment bag and then hung it on his bedroom door, next to the overnight case, still open and waiting for the toiletries he would add tomorrow morning.

  I should get to sleep. His plans required an early start tomorrow. It was a long drive to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But he was feeling a little unsure of himself. And on such occasions he needed a special pick-me-up, something to set things in perspective.

  He undressed, hanging his clothes in the walk-in closet, then padded across the thick taupe carpet and unlocked the mahogany chest at the foot of his bed. He lifted out a package, laid it on the burgundy-chocolate coverlet, and carefully spread the tissue paper. Crinkled with age, it crackled as he smoothed it open. Daintily, he lifted the garment of thin cotton and stepped into it, drawing it up high on his paunch.

  Mother’s panties always do the trick.

  She’d been a strong and powerful woman, a woman with backbone. His father was taciturn and withdrawn, rarely speaking or smiling, and had no hand in Cecil’s upbringing. Ralph Grinold was an impotent, ineffective man. “A waste of good flesh,” Mother had often remarked.

  Mother was the strong one. She had no time for warmth, but she needed to be nursed when she got low, and Grinold understood exactly how she felt. Father never gave her the adulation she demanded. He didn’t have it in him. So she turned to her “little Cecil.”

  Mother raised her boy right. Raised him to be a hero, a powerful man with ambitions that would lead to wealth and fame and admiration. A respectable man he was, and always would be. Had she not died of an embolism while Grinold was in mortician’s school, she would be proud of his accomplishments, satisfied to see he had become the man his father never was.

  “Yes, Mother,” he whispered, modeling the undergarment first this way and that. “Who’s wearing the pants now?”

  Chapter 18

  “. . . I want him out of here.”

  Kennet stopped short of the side door to the basement landing when Ms. Costa’s spoke from inside. He’d just jogged from the funeral home to fetch the newspaper he forgot to bring to work with him. It was 9:41 a.m.

  “Whaddaya want me to do about it?” Alex replied. “He’s not sleepin’ on my couch.”

  “I don’t care what you tell him. Just put the pressure on. He’s got to be gone in two weeks, or else!”

  Kennet’s heart sank. He knew she wanted him out, but now he realized just how badly. She seemed desperate. Why?

  He backed away from the door, rounded the corner to the driveway, and entered the house through the kitchen door. The room smelled faintly of bleach. He crossed the tile floor and stopped in the hallway that led to his old room and the door to the basement steps. They were both still standing there.

  Flavia descended the stairs quickly. Alex stepped from the landing into the hall. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. His square face was pale with dark smudges under his eyes. His features hardened with disgust. “What the hell do you want, loser?”

  Kennet forced himself to maintain eye contact. “To get something from my room, Frankenstein. You mind moving out of my way?”

  Kennet tried to squeeze by, but Alex’s bulk took up most of the narrow passage. Alex knocked him against the wall on his way to the kitchen. So high school. Kennet straightened himself, checking his anger. There was no point in being sucked into a physical confrontation with someone as belligerent as Alex—and who outweighed him by thirty pounds of muscle.

  He descended the plank stairs. Flavia faced the dryer, folding sheets. She said nothing, back stiff, and refused to acknowledge him. He sensed tension radiating from her. What did I do that you can’t approach me? He paused for a moment, biting back words he felt were pointless to say.

  He retrieved the newspaper from his room and went back upstairs. Flavia remained silent yet hostile, snapping the clean-smelling sheets.

  In the driveway, Kennet glanced in the back of Alex’s truck. A long white box protruded from beneath a sun-bleached plastic tarp. He looked back at the house. No one stood at the windows.

  He peeked under the tarp. The box contained four forty-eight-inch fluorescent grow bulbs. Another carton held an electric ballast, whate
ver that was. It was too late to start indoor flowers. Maybe Alex had a fish tank. Filled with piranhas. Or electric eels. That would fit him. No. Kennet didn’t know why, but seeing this equipment made him think of smoke and fire.

  • • •

  During cool-down on his first and only cremation of the day, Kennet pored over the apartment ads once more. He’d seen a couple of promising newspaper entries last night but had been too tired to circle them. He needed to find them again and make some phone calls.

  He located the first one right away: Room to Rent. He circled it with the black ballpoint embossed with GRINOLD FUNERAL HOME on the barrel.

  Flavia wanted him out of the house in a bad way. But he was puzzled and hurt by her attitude. Why couldn’t she explain things openly to him? And why is she griping to Alex about it? Alex had nothing to do with it. Or did he?

  Kennet spotted another ad for an efficiency apartment in the Tenley Farms complex, which was near Grant’s Texaco and the Foodland. He circled it and continued to scan the columns.

  On one hand, Alex’s icy treatment now made sense. Alex was laying the pressure on him because Flavia had put him up to it. On the other hand, it made no sense at all. What’s in it for her, other than getting another resident in the house? Surely she wasn’t planning to house someone in the cellar. Then again, with the way she was acting lately, he wouldn’t put it past her.

  Kennet located the third ad:

  TENLYTWN Garage apt, eq kit,

  elec + water incl.

  He circled it twice and then headed for the phone extension in the embalming area. The only positive thing he could do about Alex’s and Ms. C’s treatment was to get out of the house as soon as possible.

  • • •

  That afternoon, Kennet pulled on his cutoffs and work boots and hiked from the home to the cemetery in the afternoon humidity. He oiled the hedge trimmers, loaded the Weed Wacker with a new spool of nylon line, and scraped the underside of the walk-behind mower deck with a putty knife, finally hosing it clean. After straightening up the equipment shed, he washed his hands, slurped a drink from the green hose, and then coiled it neatly on its post at the side of the shed.