Death Benefits

by Jennifer Becton

  “As the owner of Eternal Rest,” Vincent said, looking plainly at Morton, “you are responsible for the ultimate care of all the bodies in your charge. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir. I take full responsibility for Merle Cummings,” Morton affirmed.

  “Then you’ll be willing to come downtown to help us figure out what happened to her,” I said. It was not a question.

  Morton stood. “I will.”

  “We’ll wait while you get the pertinent files and then take this to a more official location,” Vincent said.

  “You can’t arrest Daddy,” Andrew protested. His face began to twitch in agitation. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

  “This isn’t an arrest,” I assured them. “But we do need to talk to the person in charge and figure out what happened because someone here is lying.”

  “No!” Andrew cried, but Morton held up an authoritative hand.

  “You boys go back to work and keep our business running, and I’ll take care of this.”

  “But Daddy,” Calvin said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his father’s shoulder. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “No, and that’s why I’m going to go with them. I’ll prove that we are not engaged in the selling of bodies, murder, or any other illegal venture.” Morton looked at us. “If that body was Merle Cummings, we had no part in her desecration. And we did not kill Theodore Vanderbilt.”

  Vincent ejected the younger men from the office while we waited for Morton to gather his information.

  Bringing Morton Ivey to the DOI for questioning had not been our original plan, but maybe this would shake something loose. Either Morton would crack, or one of his sons might.

  Vincent left his card on Morton’s desk in case the brothers thought of anything they wanted to share.

  As if that were going to happen.

  And I called the Cranford County Sheriff’s Department to request another car. We couldn’t all ride to Mercer in the cab of Vincent’s truck. At least, I didn’t like the idea of being sandwiched between Vincent and Morton.

  The three of us walked out of the Eternal Rest Funeral Home, and Vincent shut our charge into the back of the waiting sheriff’s department cruiser for transport back to the DOI.

  Before getting into the GMC, he pulled me aside and ran a hand along his stubble. “We’ve got enough for a warrant to search the properties out on 403.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Something is definitely hinky out there.”

  “Did you get the feeling that they were covering something?”

  I nodded. “Maybe it was Morton himself who sold the body. Or he could be covering for Andrew, the golden-child mortician.”

  “Of course, Calvin runs the crematory,” Vincent said, “so he could have been the person who substituted cement powder for the ashes.”

  “True, but Calvin claims he doesn’t even remember Merle Cummings. His father could have done it all himself. After all, he knows how to do all the jobs at the funeral home.” I paused. “Do you think they were part of Vanderbilt’s fraud? Did they sell him the body of Merle Cummings?” I shuddered. “Was he going to pay them out of the insurance money? Did they kill him?”

  Vincent shrugged. “One thing is certain: we need to find out exactly what is going on out there on Highway 403.”

  Twenty-seven

  Investigators were getting too close now, and he couldn’t afford to wait and hope anymore. He had to act, even if it risked revealing himself completely.

  He remembered Merle Cummings, just as he remembered them all, and now that he knew it had been her body that went missing, he knew exactly what needed to be done.

  There was no choice but for him to clean up as many loose ends as he could, and the loosest of all was Charlene Twilley, the old biddy’s next of kin. She had the only evidence that could tie him to the old lady: the “remains.”

  He had to get those back.

  Finding her address in the computer records had been a snap, and now he stood outside her house in a suit and tie, trying to look official and clean cut.

  He approached the door and knocked, hoping the right words and actions would come to him as they had with Theo and Fred.

  He smiled as the door opened slightly and a woman’s face pressed into the gap.

  “Who are you?” the woman demanded.

  “Mrs. Twilley?” he asked.

  Her watery blue eyes narrowed. “No, that’s not your name. Who are you?”

  “I’m from the Eternal Rest Funeral Home, Mrs. Twilley,” he said, trying to be smooth. “May I come in?”

  The eyes narrowed to slits. “Why?”

  “It’s about Merle Cummings,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s been a mix-up—”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Mrs. Twilley interjected.

  Did she already know?

  No matter. He tried to appear ashamed. “Well, ma’am, can I come in and explain what’s happened?”

  The old woman began to grumble, and he managed to make out some of her words. “Damn right, someone should explain. Everyone’s coming here about Great-aunt Merle. It don’t make any sense. I’m calling the cops.”

  No. No goddamn police!

  He hunched forward like a linebacker and hit the door as hard as he could. Pain exploded in his shoulder, and he felt the thrill of the agony all the way to his bones.

  He wouldn’t stop.

  He hit the door again and again until finally the chain broke.

  Half-crazed by the pain in his shoulder, he paused in the doorway to take in the whole scene.

  The old lady had been thrown to the ground when he’d broken the door chain. He stood over her now, enjoying the dazed look on her face.

  Good.

  He grinned down at her as he closed the door behind him, but he couldn’t kill her yet. He might need her to help him find the remains. The files said the urn was made of wood, and while the old woman languished on the floor, he took a quick look around the small house, hoping it was on display.

  It wasn’t.

  “Where is she?” he demanded as he reentered the front room, thinking to find Mrs. Twilley still prone on the ground.

  But she was gone.

  “Where’s the urn, Mrs. Twilley?” he repeated, heading toward the kitchen and fingering the knife tucked at his waist. “I’ll just take care of the little mix-up and bring her right back to you.”

  “The hell you will,” Mrs. Twilley said, standing in the kitchen with phone in hand. “I’ve already dialed 911. They’re coming here. That’s how it works.”

  “That ain’t how it works,” he said, reaching over to cut the cord in one swipe. He pointed the knife at the old lady. “Now, tell me where the urn is.”

  “I gave it to the big insurance cop,” she said, sounding totally unafraid even though he towered over her and had a knife pointed at her throat.

  Could she not feel his power? Sense it as it radiated from his fingertips?

  He could kill her now, but she’d already called the police. He might not have time. And the big cop had the evidence. This was worse than he’d feared.

  Now he’d have to kill both the old lady and the big cop.

  “You’ll have to come with me, Mrs. Twilley,” he said, leaning down to grasp her elbow. He propelled her down the hallway and through the front room toward the door, but suddenly she stopped.

  “The hell I will!” she proclaimed. And then, though she was a little thing, she yanked herself free and spun.

  As he reached for her again, he felt something crash into his head.

  He blinked. Something was dripping on him.

  He felt another blow land and saw Mrs. Twilley rearing back with a cane to whack him again.

  Whack.

  Whack.

  She was beating the shit out of him, and he was just standing there like an idiot. Blood was dripping everywhere. There was no chance of making her just disappear. They’d know there was a struggle and find him easy now.


  He thought of killing her where she stood, but he couldn’t see straight with all the blood in his eyes.

  And she had dialed 911.

  He had to run now if he had any chance of getting the big cop.

  So he turned, his face dripping with blood, and ran.

  Twenty-eight

  Back at the DOI, Vincent and I collected Morton Ivey from Deputy Marston, put him in the conference room, and then stepped outside to speak privately. “You take care of Ivey,” I said with a nod toward the closed door. “And I’ll see if I can get Ted to start the search warrant paperwork for all the funeral home properties, including the crematory.”

  Vincent leaned against the wall. “This case still doesn’t make any sense. If we’re right and one of the Iveys sold Merle Cummings’s body, why would they kill Theodore Vanderbilt?”

  “Maybe he reneged on the deal,” I offered.

  “But butchering him and leaving him in the middle of a shed seems extreme when they could just make him disappear. They could have run him through the cremator and scattered his ashes.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t have time. What bothers me is the idea that the funeral home lost the body. They might be desperate to hide their negligence, but murder?”

  “And if Theo just flat-out stole it, why didn’t they report it to the police? It wouldn’t reflect poorly on them.”

  “We’re still missing something,” I said.

  “Yeah, hopefully one of the Iveys will crack.”

  We parted in the hallway. Vincent joined Morton in the conference room, and I went to Ted’s office. “I need a favor,” I said.

  “Name it,” Ted said, looking up from his desk.

  “I need you to get the paperwork started on a warrant for two pieces of property out on Highway 403 in Cranford County. We’ve got things in motion, and we’ll need to get in there quick to see what’s going on.”

  I relayed the pertinent information, and Ted began tapping away at his keyboard. By the time we were finished, he had promised to expedite the warrant, so I decided to see how Vincent was doing with Morton while I waited.

  But as I put my hand on the doorknob, my cell phone rang.

  “Special Agent Julia Jackson of the Georgia Department of Insurance?” a voice asked.

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “Who’s this?”

  “Denise from 911 dispatch. Do you know a Charlene Twilley?”

  “Yes,” I said as a feeling of dread descended on me.

  “Mrs. Twilley called to report a break-in at her home on Griswold Drive, but when the sheriff’s deputies arrived, she wouldn’t open the door. She said she was attacked by a young man who was carrying a knife and saying something about a body. She kept demanding to speak to those ‘idiots from the Department of Insurance.’”

  “Idiots?” I repeated.

  “Her words, not mine, ma’am. I finally got your name and called.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about my partner and me being identified as “those idiots,” but I knew we had to get to the city of Cranford to find out what had happened to Mrs. Twilley.

  I burst into the conference room.

  “Someone attacked Charlene Twilley,” I said. “We’ve got to go now.”

  Vincent stood up, but instead of turning for the door, he leaned across the table. Placing his hands wide on its surface, he stared at Morton Ivey.

  “If this was one of your sons,” he said, “and we find out you even suspected one of them was involved in this mess, we’ll charge you as an accessory to murder.”

  Morton fidgeted.

  “And you’ll lose everything. Your family business. Hell, even your family.”

  Morton looked up into Vincent’s face. “It had to be Andrew,” he said. “Calvin was a terrible embalmer. He couldn’t have killed that way.”

  As Vincent propelled himself to the door, he shot over his shoulder, “Wait here.”

  With a quick stop in Ted’s office, I made sure Morton would be supervised and that we would have all the warrants we needed to wrap up this case as soon as possible. “And put a APB out on Andrew Ivey,” I added on my way out the door.

  A sheriff’s cruiser idled in Mrs. Twilley’s driveway when Vincent and I arrived.

  “She won’t talk to no one but you,” the deputy explained.

  Her voice rang out just as our feet hit the steps. “Get the hell off my porch!”

  Even through the closed door, Mrs. Twilley’s tone was loud and clear. Her low-pitched voice was so angry that I almost obeyed her command to leave. There was no telling what kind of weapon she might have in there, and I knew she was capable of using whatever she had, but as I looked at the splintered wood of the door frame, I knew I couldn’t just leave her alone.

  “Mrs. Twilley,” I forced myself to say with calm confidence, “it’s Special Agent Julia Jackson with the Georgia Department of Insurance. I’m here to help you.”

  The door opened a fraction of an inch, and Mrs. Twilley peeped out. “Show me some ID.”

  We produced our badges, and I angled them so Mrs. Twilley could see them through the crack, thinking of Vincent and making sure to keep my fingers clear in case she slammed the door again.

  This time, the door opened wide, and Vincent and I got our first real look at Mrs. Twilley. She stood with a cane clutched in both hands and held aloft like a baseball bat.

  “Mrs. Twilley, put the cane down so we can talk,” I said.

  I walked into the entryway slowly, with Vincent close behind.

  “Hell, no, not after what I’ve been through today,” she said. “I’m thinking of keeping this thing with me at all times. It works real good.”

  I nodded, stopping short of her reach. I glanced over my shoulder at Vincent, who looked like he feared she might unleash on him. “Well, why don’t you at least hold it so that the bottom is on the floor? That way we can talk better.”

  “I can talk just fine like this,” she insisted.

  I sighed. “Put the cane down, or else the police are going to think you’re threatening me.”

  “I am threatening you,” she said, eyes wild.

  “Well, now would be a good time to stop,” I said softly, “so we don’t have to arrest you.”

  The older woman considered this. “Fine,” she said, lowering the cane to the floor with a thunk.

  “Okay,” I said, still not fully comfortable with the situation. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “Some bastard came up in here, ringing my doorbell. I kept the chain on and asked just what in the hell he wanted. He said he was from the Eternal Rest Funeral Home.”

  “Did you recognize the man?” Vincent asked.

  “No.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Young guy. Dark hair. Wore a suit and tie. Dirty fingernails.”

  That wasn’t Andrew.

  “It’s Calvin,” I said to Vincent, who quickly disappeared out the front door. I figured he was heading to put an APB on Calvin too.

  “What happened next?” I prompted Mrs. Twilley.

  “Well, I slammed the door in his face.” Given that she’d slammed Vincent’s hand in the door, I could well believe she’d done the same to Calvin. “And I told him I was calling the cops.”

  “And then?”

  “He didn’t like that too much, so he busted down the door, knocked me over, and walked in like he owned the place. He came right up to me and started demanding to know where Great-aunt Merle was.”

  “He asked for your Great-aunt Merle? By name?”

  “Yeah, he wanted the ashes,” Mrs. Twilley said as she sat down and put the cane within easy reach. “He said there had been a mix-up at the funeral home.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’”

  I almost laughed, but given the seriousness of the situation, funny lines from little old ladies were low priority. “What next?”

  “Well, he got real mad and cut the phone line wit
h a great big knife, and then he had the gall to point that thing at me. ‘Where is she?’ he asked. I told him she wasn’t here anymore. That I’d given her to the big guy, your partner.”

  “You told him that Special Agent Vincent has the remains?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did, and that’s when he got real quiet and his eyes got all squished up. He tried to kidnap me, but I knew what he was going to do to me with that knife. If I left with him, I was a dead duck. So I grabbed Great-aunt Merle’s old cane from the umbrella stand beside me, and I whacked him good right in the head a few times.”

  Given what I knew about her deceptively strong body, Mrs. Twilley had enough force to disable a man momentarily.

  “He lit outta here after that and then those cops showed up.” She shook her fist at the door as if the deputies were her enemy. “You can all go home now,” she called. “I got things taken care of.”

  And by God, Mrs. Twilley had taken care of things.

  I didn’t let Mrs. Twilley dismiss the Cranford County deputies just yet. Instead, I set them to writing the report and collecting evidence like fingerprints and blood samples while Vincent and I discussed our next move.

  “We have probable cause to arrest Calvin Ivey now,” I said. “He’s running around out there, desperate and careless, and he’s putting people in danger. And by now, Ted should have the search warrants finished, so we can have a look at the Iveys’ properties.”

  Vincent nodded. “We need to send a car to the funeral home, but I think we need to have a look around that crematory ourselves.”

  Twenty-nine

  They would come for him now, those two insurance cops. The old lady had called the police, and they would know exactly who he was.

  They would be all over his property within the hour, he guessed, and that meant they’d find Fred Thomas’s body where he’d shoved it in the crematory building.

  They’d find his pit and his septic tank.

  They’d figure out that he had killed Theo.

  They’d figure it all out, if they hadn’t already.

  And that meant they had to die.