Death Perception

by Lee Allen Howard

She rose from her chair and leaned over the cabin table, wheezing. “You already got yours, fatso. Now it’s time to pay up!”

  He chuckled and cradled the satchel in his arms. “Uh-uh-uh. Temper, temper. . . .”

  “What. What do you want?” Her gaze wandered to the quilt-covered bed in the far corner of the great room. She groaned. “Oh, God, not that.”

  He laughed long and hard. “No. No. Definitely not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting our deal? They’re your terms, for pity’s sake.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.” She sat and dug through her handbag. She withdrew her cell phone and then thumbed the keypad.

  It gave him just enough time to do what he needed to do.

  “Hello, my friend.” Delores looked at him with coldness as she listened to the phone. He could hear a faint voice on the other end of the line. It sounded like a woman.

  “Mm-hmm. Everything’s all right. . . . Oh, yes. Hang on to the key then. That’s right, don’t use it. I’ll talk with you when I get there, to pick it up.”

  She switched off the phone and dropped it back in her purse. “Are you satisfied?”

  Grinold shrugged. “I’ll be satisfied when you move far, far away.”

  She sneered at him. “No matter how far I move, I’ll be in touch.”

  This time, he rose from his chair and planted his fists on the table top. “If you ever contact me again for any reason, Delores Swann, I will track you down and kill you. It’s the only thing that will satisfy me, should I happen to lose my reputation—or another cent of my hard-earned money.”

  Her nostrils flared, and the spark of fear returned to her eyes. “Give me the money, and I’ll be gone.”

  “For good?”

  She took a few shaky breaths and averted her eyes. “For good.”

  “Excellent.” Grinold handed her the closed satchel by the zipper tab. She accepted it with shaking hands. “Now let’s leave.”

  He needed to get her into the car as soon as possible for the next phase of his plan. It all had to work for him to pull it off. And he wasn’t about to fail.

  Grinold tried to appear nonchalant, but he scoured the place with his gaze for anything that would betray their recent presence. He followed her out the door and caught up with her at her worn Impala. He held the door open as she got behind the wheel and then fished in her purse for her keys, which she found and inserted in the ignition. Then she touched her temple and blinked her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. You’d damn well better be. You WILL drive home. You MUST drive home.

  She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m fine.”

  “Then good riddance, Delores. Drive safely.”

  She glared at him. “Fuck you.”

  He shut the car door. She started the engine. Then she shifted into drive and pulled away without looking back.

  Grinold rushed back inside the cabin, grabbed the tea mugs and the garbage, took a final look around, locked the door, and then climbed in his car and followed her to the main road.

  Ten minutes later, they were traveling down PA-155 through mountainous terrain and the massive trees of Elk State Forest. Below the don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it village of Keating Summit, the road turned into a long, downhill stretch that led through Sizerville State Park. Much of it overlooked a tree-spiked gorge on the left side of the highway, road that was protected by guard rail.

  Except for one place.

  Grinold followed Delores, leaving no more than two car lengths between them. She weaved a bit, no doubt from the double dose of jimsonweed and asthma medication. A car whizzed by, heading the other direction, and Delores compensated, almost running off the right side of the road.

  Just keep going. . . .

  They started down the mile-long slope, and Grinold’s heart beat faster, jarring his vision with each throb. Sweat moistened his forehead. He turned up the air conditioner. They were picking up speed down the hill, and Delores’s car pulled to the right when she applied the brakes.

  Don’t stop. Don’t you stop, you stupid twat!

  She let off the brake and continued, weaving all over the right lane. As they picked up speed again Grinold spotted the place where it needed to happen. An embankment on the left side of the road dwindled to a drop-off, but there was an area twenty feet wide before the guard rail began.

  Nearer, nearer. Come on. Grinold leaned to the left to see if there were any oncoming cars. Nothing. Good.

  Delores’s brake lights flared, and the car yawed to the right as if she were pulling over.

  “No, damn you. Don’t stop!”

  She let off the brake and veered left, overcompensating for the pull of the brakes. Grinold saw his chance. He gunned the Lincoln and came up on her right, jamming his fat hand against the horn pad. The horn blared, and he fought to keep control of the wheel with one hand as he paced the Impala on the right.

  She swerved left wildly, and as he passed her, he inched the honking Lincoln toward her, sending her into the opening between the dwindling embankment and the start of the guard rail. Her right front tire caught the galvanized sheathing where it met the ground, tipping the car up.

  For a moment, he feared the wheel would catch and merely flip the car over on its side. But the Impala vaulted over the guard rail and across the grassy berm, continuing into the trees, until it disappeared over the edge of the precipice.

  Grinold stomped the brake and brought the Lincoln to a stop. He glanced up the hill and down to make sure no cars were coming and then wrangled himself out of the car. It smelled like peat and pine. He hustled across the road, rounded the guard rail, now smudged with black rubber, and grasped a tree to keep from pitching into the gorge.

  The red Impala was still crashing through the brush below. It caromed off tree trunks, tipped end over end over end, and finally connected with a stout oak that brought it to a crunching halt. Delores’s blonde head shot through the windshield, over the crumpled hood. He glimpsed a swatch of blue dress. Like a rag doll, she’d been thrown from the vehicle.

  Was she dead? She better be dead. When the spots of blue and blonde turned crimson, Grinold was quite sure she was dead.

  He got back in his car and with a shaking hand pulled the satchel of money from his inside coat pocket. Down in the broken vehicle lay an identical satchel, filled with manufacturers’ coupons.

  He soughed out a breath and took off down the road. Instantly, it began to rain.

  Chapter 23

  After breakfast Monday morning, Kennet reclined in an Adirondack chair on the front porch of the care home between Albert Putterman and Gladys Wilson. It was sunny and warm and not too humid after last night’s shower.

  “What, don’t you like the arrangements here?” Putterman asked sarcastically as he rocked.

  Kennet had just told them that he needed to leave, find a new place to live. He didn’t share with them how Flavia, and Alex especially, were treating him. His chest still hurt from the orderly leaning on him the other morning.

  “It’s time for me to go. My mom’s gone.”

  “God rest her soul,” Gladys interjected.

  “Amen,” Putterman added.

  “It’s high time I moved out on my own.”

  A long silence hung between them until Gladys spoke. “Well, young man, we’ll surely miss you.” She patted his arm with her plump hand.

  Putterman only nodded, but Kennet saw he was choking back tears. “You’ve been like a son to me,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, I woulda given up the ghost years ago.”

  “Oh, pshaw, Albert,” Gladys said. “You’ve got some good years left in you.” If she could reach him, Kennet was sure she would pat his arm too.

  Putterman stopped rocking and looked at Kennet, tears streaming down his pink face. “You’re a good boy, Kennet. No matter what your father did, you’ve always been a good boy.” He took hold of Kennet’s hand and squeezed it harder than Kennet though
t possible. He squeezed back.

  Gladys was tuning up to cry, too, and though Kennet was touched, it was best to draw the conversation to a close. “You’ve been good friends to me. All of you. It would’ve been nice to have a normal home with two well-adjusted parents, but I can’t say I’ve been unhappy here. You’ve made my growing up special. I’m grateful for that.”

  Kennet rose and put on a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t be a stranger. I’ll be back to visit, see how you’re doing.” He left them rocking in the sun and started up the lane toward Smithfield.

  • • •

  When Kennet entered the funeral home annex, soft classical music drifted from the embalming area. He was about to greet the funeral director when Grinold called: “Kennet, is that you?”

  “Yes, sir. Welcome back.”

  “Glad to be back. Come here, please.”

  Mr. Grinold never wanted him in the embalming area while he was working on a customer, which was fine by him. Why now? Kennet approached the beige curtain hesitantly.

  “Yes?”

  “Come in here.”

  Kennet stepped around the curtain and avoided looking at the corpse on the table.

  “Do you know this young man?” Grinold asked from behind his face shield.

  Kennet forced himself to look only at the deceased’s face, avoiding the tubes and trocars inserted in the body. It was, as the boss said, a young man, tall and thin. His skin was bluish. His right shoulder and forehead were horribly bruised, almost black. Long, dark hair lay in snarls around a pale face.

  It was Rick Hannah, Alex’s friend. Or cohort? Enemy, perhaps. Kennet wasn’t really sure. They certainly weren’t friendly at the party a few weeks ago, when Rick spilled his beer in the fire and Alex started whaling on him.

  Kennet’s stomach turned, and blood drained from his face. “Yeah, I know him. What happened?” Grinold continued to work, work that Kennet didn’t want to watch.

  “Drug overdose. He was only twenty-three.”

  “Damn. That’s far too young to die.”

  “I completely agree.”

  Where did Rick get the drugs? Alex probably knows. But did Alex know that Rick was dead? As much as he hated to face the brute, he wanted to tell Alex about Rick.

  “That’s all,” Grinold said. “I just wondered if you knew him.” Without looking up, the funeral director continued to work, rooting with the trocar to suction fluids from the body cavity. The tool made an awful snoring gasp.

  Kennet stepped outside the curtain and took a deep breath. He dared not watch any longer, unless he wanted to see again the waffles and bacon he ate for breakfast. Cremation, he could handle. Embalming, he could not.

  “There are two in the cooler,” Grinold called. “Preheat the crematory and get started.”

  “Sure thing, cap’n.” Kennet pulled the manila envelope from the plastic pocket glued to the leftmost of the three cooler doors.

  “The first one . . . Simons,” Grinold said, his voice tight from performing some strenuous and grisly operation behind the curtain, “had steel rods in his spine. I . . . removed them, but beware of any screws I might have missed.”

  Kennet started the preheat cycle and then entered the funeral home to splash his face with cold water in the restroom. In the mirror he looked pale, but not as pale as Rick. Although Rick had been a doper, he wasn’t a bad sort. He was friendly enough. He just hung out with the wrong people, and Alex was one of them. Alex . . .

  Jerk. Coming into my room, making threats, and throwing his muscle around. What does he care how long I’m there? What did Flavia have on him that he was playing henchman for her? Kennet dried his face and then headed back to the annex, pondering this question. They were turning up the heat.

  When the oven was ready he opened the cooler door and maneuvered the hydraulic lift under the shelf where the body lay. Cold reached out for him, groveling at his feet. He withdrew the bagged corpse and then guided the lift across the smooth concrete to the oven. He donned the face shield and gloves, raised the door, and slid the body into the unforgiving heat.

  Goodbye, Mr. Simons. Farewell.

  • • •

  Kennet stood outside, hoping the sunshine would lift his spirits. Nathan’s truck sped by, screeched to a halt, then backed into the annex drive. Nathan threw the battered Toyota into park and jumped out.

  “You hear about Rick Hannah?”

  “Yes,” Kennet said, “he’s inside.”

  “Box or can?”

  “He’s being boxed.” That meant he was being laid out instead of cremated. Kennet didn’t find this kind of talk very funny today. “Grinold said he died of a drug overdose, but he was all beat up.”

  Nathan ran a knuckly hand through his blond hair and peered up Smithfield. “He ran his car off the road. I heard there was weed all over it. Must’ve spilled his bag.”

  Rick was stoned enough to wreck his car. But Grinold said he died of an overdose. Rick must have been on something else, something toxic in high doses. In any case the guy was dead, and Kennet felt he should pay his respects publicly.

  “You going to the viewing with me?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I didn’t really know him that well.”

  “Me neither, but I’m going.”

  “All right. Let me know when.” Nathan climbed in his truck and took off toward the bridge to McKeesport.

  Kennet trudged back inside to check the timer and make himself useful. He needed to keep busy today.

  • • •

  Rolling down his sleeves, Grinold entered his office. He had finished embalming young Richard Hannah. How unfortunate. He hoped Kennet didn’t run in the same crowd. He couldn’t understand what young people saw in drugs. What was wrong with the old fashioned vices? Cigarettes and liquor were at least legal.

  Mary Grace stuck her head in the door. “Mr. Grinold? Someone here to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He didn’t give his name.” She stepped in farther and whispered. “Very emotional, broken up.”

  A crier. Always worse when they were male. “Give me a moment and then send him in.” Grinold slipped on his suit coat and cleared his desk blotter.

  A defeated, withered man shuffled through the door, worrying a grimy trucker’s cap in craggy hands. His eyes lay sunken in a face the color of processed cremains.

  “Welcome to Grinold’s Funeral Home. I’m Cecil Grinold, the funeral director.” He bustled from behind the desk to gently escort the man to a chair. “And you are . . . ?”

  “Mabon Swann. I’m here ’bout my wife.”

  Chapter 24

  At lunch, Gladys Wilson spilled warm tomato soup in Kennet’s lap. It was an accident and nearly brought her to tears—what didn’t?—but Kennet soothed her worries and finished eating before he got up to change and return to the funeral home.

  On his way back from the upstairs bathroom, he nearly collided with Alex in the hall. He was about to step aside but remembered what he’d promised himself.

  “You hear about Rick Hannah?”

  “I heard.” Alex’s square face was hard, but Kennet sensed anxiety in his dull, yellowed eyes. In that instant, he also knew that Alex was afraid, afraid to death of dying.

  “He’s being laid out over at Grinold’s. Tonight, seven to nine. Funeral’s tomorrow at eleven.”

  “So?”

  Kennet wasn’t sure whether Alex was trying to project indifference, or this simple word was a preamble to something deeper he wanted to discuss. If the latter, it would be a first for Alex.

  “I just thought you’d want to know.” Kennet stood there for a moment, giving the orderly a chance to reply, but when Alex said nothing, entered Sylvia Kryszewski’s room, and then began stripping the soiled linen off the hospital bed, he let it go. Flavia avoided eye contact with him as she wheeled the old woman out of the room to the bathroom to clean her up and put on a new adult diaper. The smell of excrement followed her out.

  Kennet was about t
o head downstairs but couldn’t shake what had bothered him since yesterday. He stuck his head in the door. “Heard there was weed all over the car.”

  “That’s a shame,” Alex said with a smarmy sigh and then spread clean sheets over the bed.

  “Any idea where he got it from?”

  Alex paused but didn’t look at him.

  “He died of an overdose,” Kennet said.

  “Any moron knows you can’t overdose on smoke.”

  “Unless there was something in it.” This had occurred to him after contemplating what else Rick could’ve taken that was deadly.

  Alex turned toward him, seething with disgust. “What are you getting at, Singleton? I had nothin’ to do with it. He was a jagoff—on his way out. It just happened sooner than later.”

  Unbelievable. “That’s cold, Alex. You hung with him. I thought he was your friend.” They seemed to be until their recent scrap. “What were you guys fighting about at the party the other week?”

  Alex’s eyes glazed as he traveled somewhere in thought. His mouth worked as if mincing something sour. “Doesn’t matter now.” He focused on Kennet. “Interrogation’s over. Get the fuck outta my face before I bust yours in. And remember, the clock’s ticking. Time for you to get the hell outta this house.”

  Kennet ignored him and trudged downstairs.

  • • •

  That evening, Alex followed the line of visitors into the east room of Grinold’s Funeral Home. The sign beside the door announced RICHARD HANNAH in little white plastic letters. The place was packed with former high school classmates, friends, and family. Dressed in black.

  Alex had no black slacks, but he’d worn his best jeans and a silk shirt. He spotted Singleton and Springer in cahoots across the room. If Kennet were alone, Alex would have sneered at him to remind him he needed to get the hell out of Costa’s place. But with Nathan beside him, it wasn’t a good idea.

  He skirted the mahogany stand with the guest book and slipped through the crowd to the dais where the gunmetal blue casket lay. A drape of orange roses cascaded over the lower half of the coffin. The torchiere lamps at both ends illuminated Rick’s pasty face. His lips were stretched, painted cotton-candy pink, and his hair was slicked back too straight. Alex could still see bruises on Rick’s forehead that the makeup couldn’t hide.