by Morgana Best
Dad wasn’t around. He wasn’t a ghost and I knew he wouldn’t be one. The only people who stuck around were those who had been wronged or needed closure. My dad wasn’t that kind of man, and as much as I would have loved to see him now and speak with him, I was glad he had gone on.
Yet standing in that cold room, it was almost as if he were still here. “I don’t understand, Dad,” I said aloud. “I don’t know the business. I grew up in it, but I don’t know it. I don’t live here anymore. I don’t want to. I don’t want to live near Mom, or with her.”
I shuddered at that thought. My words echoed off the plain walls and the table, and there was no answer to anything I was saying. I knew there wouldn’t be, but it felt good to get it off my chest. I turned and headed back outside.
The expansive building that comprised the funeral home was tastefully furnished, designed to be open and to hold a lot of mourners. Out the back was our family home, and I made my way out there. I pulled a salad out of the fridge and sat at the small kitchen table. I felt more lonely than I had in a long time. I almost wished that the old man, Ernie, would come by, so that I’d have someone to talk to. I knew that wasn’t how it worked, though. I was always on the ghosts’ schedules, and they were never on mine.
I knew my mother was right. She had a nice sum of money now, but she couldn’t live off it forever. If I sold the place, could we get enough for her to be set for the rest of her life? I had no idea. As I sat there over an empty plate, nibbling on a tomato, I somehow knew I was going to stay. It dawned on me slowly, but I knew it to be true. I was going to stay, and as much as the thought upset me, somehow, a small part of me was excited.
Chapter 3
The morning of my first memorial service as the owner of the funeral home started just like any other day, but something in my stomach warned me that this wouldn’t last long. It was an awkward, funny sensation that kept bothering me, but I attributed it to the same nerves that I felt every time we held a service. I had never wanted to be part of the funeral business, and I wasn’t enjoying being part of it now. I forced myself to ignore the feeling, and finished the last of the paperwork. I then headed out to the chapel floor.
I stood off to the side, watching the guests as they entered and took their seats. There weren’t many people in attendance, but at least there were enough to fill most of the rows. As they filed in, another feeling came over me. It was almost like I was forgetting something, or someone.
With so much commotion going on around me that morning, I hadn’t immediately noticed that the pastor wasn’t yet at his podium to greet the guests. They were almost all seated, so I knew that I had to begin a frantic search to find him. As I skimmed every corner and crevice of the chapel, I noticed a slight ripple coursing through the large velvet funeral curtain.
I headed over to see what was going on, but when I slipped through the opening in the curtains and walked into the small area, I recognized the problem at once. Standing by the closed coffin were Pastor Green and a young man who was dressed in a tight-fitting, dark suit. He seemed to be holding back a stream of tears, and his voice was agitated.
“Please, Pastor, just for a minute or two?” he asked, fidgeting.
“I’m sorry, son, but this is supposed to be a closed casket funeral,” Pastor Green said, shaking his head firmly. “The body was displayed for viewing all day yesterday. Once the casket is closed, I cannot allow it to be reopened without permission.”
“I understand, Pastor Green, but I really just want to say goodbye one last time before I go out there and face everyone,” the young man said, rubbing his eyes hard. “It’ll make reading this eulogy much easier,” he added, holding up a small, worn sheet of paper.
By that point, I’d heard enough, so I walked over to them and cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Pastor Green,” I said, hoping the kindly man wouldn’t be upset by my intrusion. “I overheard your conversation, and even though it’s against our policy to allow the casket to be opened after viewing hours, I’ll allow it this time.”
The look on the grandson’s face went from one of devastation to that of relief and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. His tears didn’t dry up completely, but he sure seemed to be in higher spirits. “Thanks so much,” he said, his voice now less shaky. “Thank you.”
“I’ll go with you if you’d like.”
He smiled and gently grasped my hand. As we approached the casket together, Pastor Green shot me a worried look from his position behind the coffin, but it wasn’t that big of a deal, in my opinion. The grieving man only wanted to see his grandmother one last time. I couldn’t blame him for wanting such closure.
I looked at the pastor and nodded, signaling for him to raise the lid. As it slowly lifted, I tried to keep my eyes toward the floor. I wanted to be there for moral support, but staring at the body was something that I could do without. I had seen enough death over the years to last me a lifetime, and I was sure I would see plenty more in the months to come. Moving away as I had, had only delayed the inevitable. It didn’t stop this aura of death from surrounding me once more.
As my thoughts stayed focused on such things, I didn’t initially realize what was going on all around me, but then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. At first, I only felt the grandson’s hand release mine, but then I heard the screams as they quickly grew from quiet shrieks to deafening roars in no time at all. When the world around me finally came back into focus, I spun around, still uncertain what was happening. Pastor Green had a blank look on his face as he scratched his forehead.
“There’s a body in the coffin!” the man screamed again, stumbling backward toward the curtain as his hands flailed through the air. He took a few short breaths in quick succession before he hunched over with his hands on his knees.
“Of course there’s a body in there,” Pastor Green said in a calming tone. “It’s your dear grandmother. She’s departed this life, and that’s why she’s in the casket.” His attempt to soothe the man did not work at all.
The grandson lifted his hands as he sprang back up, covering his face. With his sight obstructed, he turned around too quickly and tripped, sending his body once more toward the curtain.
I watched everything unfold right before my eyes, but I lacked any real power to stop it. He fell into the curtain, entangling himself even more as he struggled to get free. Seconds later, the curtain flew open, revealing the startling scene to the entire chapel of guests. It was then that I noticed what he was reacting to at the very same time that everyone else did.
There was a body in the coffin all right, but not only the one that was supposed to be in there. The second body came with a large knife jutting from its back.
The sound of gasps quickly expelled all chatter from the room and then a dead silence engulfed the room. I turned around to see the shocked faces of every guest as well as staff member of the funeral home. They all stood in fright as the silence turned to sobs and gasps. The only person who didn’t look completely horrified was Pastor Green.
The poor man looked at me intently and threw his hands up in a display of confusion. “I think the boy is clearly stressed and that’s caused mass hysteria.”
Indeed, the young man was stressed, but for good reason. Pastor Green was standing behind the tall lid of the coffin as it stood raised, obstructing his view from the horror that everyone else in the room could see. I quickly extended a hand to the grandson, but Mom appeared out of nowhere before I even had a chance to assist him.
“Help me with this curtain!” she snapped, staring at me with fire in her eyes. I stood up, pulling the man to his feet as I did. I rushed over to the right side of the curtain and helped her pull it closed to conceal the coffin once more. “Pastor Green, did you not see the girl in the coffin that was right under your nose? I knew I should have overseen this service,” she added, her gaze making sure I knew that the comment was directed at me.
Pastor Green looked frustrated. “Thelma, let’
s just get everyone calm and figure out what happened.”
Mom turned and glared at me again, wagging her finger inches from my face this time. “You just came back into town and your very first funeral turns out to be a nightmare like this?” she said. Her voice was laden with suppressed anger.
“Oh my,” another voice said, chiming in. I looked over to see Janet, the funeral home’s cosmetician, her mouth agape as she pushed through the curtain and approached the casket. “That looks like the girl from the café in town. I wondered why I found a tray of cold coffee by the door this morning.”
“That might very well be the case,” Mom said, “but that’s hardly of any importance right now. Would you please call the police and let them know what happened here?”
“Of course,” Janet replied, pulling her cell phone from her pocket as she headed toward one of the back rooms for privacy.
“And Pastor Green, please close that casket already so more people aren’t horrified by that corpse. And why was it even opened in the first place? Isn’t this supposed to be a closed-casket event? Wasn’t the viewing yesterday?”
I stepped toward my mother with my hand raised in an attempt to quiet her so I could speak. “Yes, it was, and the coffin has been closed since, but the woman’s grandson wanted to see her one last time and I couldn’t just tell him no.”
“Well, you should have,” she shot back. “And I still don’t understand what took you two so long to realize that something was wrong.”
Not wanting to see poor Pastor Green berated any longer, I rushed over to help him close the casket. He glanced up at me and let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “How could something like this have happened here?”
“Does it look like she has any idea?” Mom said, her voice growing even more agitated. “If I hadn’t come up here when I did, every one of our guests probably would have run away screaming, traumatized for life!”
“Mom, it all happened so fast. I did the best I could,” I said, hoping to calm her down.
“Yes? Well your best clearly wasn’t good enough,” she said, before turning toward the grandson who had come back, his hand firmly clamped over his mouth and his eyes as wide as saucers. “I’m so sorry that you had to witness such a tragic sight.”
Mom exited the now-closed curtain followed by the grandson. Moments later, I could hear her speaking to the guests, but I chose to remain by the casket with Pastor Green and the victim. There would soon be a police investigation, so I wanted to make sure that nobody touched or moved the coffin until they arrived to secure it.
“What do you think happened?” Pastor Green asked in a subdued tone.
I think he was talking to himself more than anything, and I struggled for the words to answer him. When I finally was able to reply, my words were jumbled. “I don’t know, um, err. I, err, suppose someone must have followed her here or something. None of this really makes any sense, though.”
“It will in time, Laurel,” he said, patting my shoulder. “It will in time.”
Just then, I heard the sound of sirens. My mother was still speaking at the podium, but even her persona was drowned out by the noise of the incoming police. My chest tightened as the sirens got louder and closer. I had not signed up for any of this. I only wanted to be back in town for a month or so for my father’s funeral, but that had all gone right down the toilet. And now, everything seemed to be getting even worse.
Chapter 4
I remember how cold it was that morning as we stood there, waiting for the cops to show up to question us and provide some answers. The casket was now closed in an attempt to shield everyone from its gruesome contents, but the damage had probably already been done. I’ve been around death and decay most of my life, but for the guests there that day, it must have been an unforgettable experience. The horror in their eyes testified loudly as to how they felt.
When the police finally showed up, the crowd dispersed a bit, thinning out as the police sorted through the potential witnesses. To my relief, Duncan was one of two responding officers. Duncan was married to my best friend, Tara. I had only seen Tara over the years on the rare occasions I returned home, but we’d kept in touch on Facebook and email. It was amazing how little Duncan had changed since school. He was still angular and tall, and the features of his face, including his warlike nose, just a little too sharp.
“Hi, Laurel,” Duncan said, his smile as warm and friendly as always.
“Hi,” I said, smiling back at him. It was more of a partial, forced smile, but I wanted him to know that I wasn’t letting the situation get the better of me. Being back home was stressful enough. I had to stay as strong as I could regardless of what happened around me.
“We’re going to have to secure the scene and have the coroner come down to make a ruling on the death. He’s already been called, but the faster we can clear the guests out of here, the easier his job will be,” he said, pulling out a notepad from his pocket. He turned to the other officer. “Bryan, if you could go around and interview the mourners, I’ll start questioning Laurel and the others who work here.”
Bryan nodded and then headed over to the first group of funeral goers. I watched him carefully, hoping to overhear anything that was said, but Duncan pulled my attention back to him. “I know that some of these questions might sound a bit accusatory, but it’s all routine. I promise.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, pulling at a lock of my hair and twisting it frantically. I didn’t even notice at first until he pointed it out.
“There’s no need to be nervous, but I can understand why you would be. Let’s get these questions over with, though. First, where were you this morning between about seven a.m. and ten a.m.?” His voice was stern and official all of a sudden.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it didn’t do much to relieve the tension building up. “Uh, I was in the funeral home, in the office, getting the paperwork and everything ready for Mrs. Forrest’s memorial service. The casket was ready. No one had touched it since last night when Janet finished up with it. I checked on the elderly woman myself and there was no other body in there with her. I’m sure of it.”
Duncan showed no signs of emotion, his pen scribbling into his pad like nothing else in the world mattered right then. After several long seconds, he looked up and smiled again. “Okay, and did you hear anything last night or this morning?”
“Not a peep,” I told him, which was the complete truth. With the house being so close to the funeral home, it made no sense that someone would sneak in, dump a body, and then disappear without being heard or seen at all. Before I could say any more, I heard an unfamiliar voice heckling someone nearby.
When Duncan spoke again, however, I forgot about it. “Interesting,” he said. “Well, the victim is a young girl by the name of Tiffany Hunter. She works, err, worked, just down the road at the café. Her boss says she went on a delivery and never returned. I can’t go into too much detail, but we have reason to believe that she came here for that delivery, and then never made it out alive. Did you see her at all today, before the funeral procession?”
Thinking back to that morning, I couldn’t quite remember it as clearly as I had hoped. “Honestly, I don’t remember seeing her at all. I do remember that Janet said she found a tray of cold coffee this morning, though.”
Duncan sighed, and looked back up from his notepad. “Can you check to see if any of your carving knives are missing?”
I shook my head. “There are no carving knives here at the funeral home. We only use butter knives and cake knives, that sort of thing. We don’t serve meals here, just finger food.”
“So the knife you saw in the victim,” Duncan said patiently, “you have no knives of that sort?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Okay, so you and none of your workers have touched the body, correct?”
“That is correct,” I said, but just then a strange voice yelled out behind me. I turned quickly to see the face of a young woman inches from my own.<
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“Hello?” the girl said, walking over to Duncan and poking at him repeatedly with her finger. I had to do a double-take when I realized that he was completely oblivious to what she was doing.
“All right, well thank you for your time, Laurel,” Duncan said. “Bryan looks to be speaking with your mother now, so I’m going to help him finish that up, and then I’ll speak to some of the others.” He walked over toward my mother and his partner.
The young girl moved to follow him, but then turned back to me and scowled. “What about you? Can you see me?”
For a moment, my hands grew sweaty and my heart fell into my stomach. I swallowed hard, unsure of how else to respond.
“You can! You can see me, can’t you?” she yelled again.
The last thing I needed with the cops wandering around was to speak to someone that only I could see. Ignoring her as best I could, I made my way over to my mother to see how her questioning was going. When I stepped beside Mom, I wished I hadn’t.
“Yes, it is a shame, Bryan, but at least Miss Hunter is now in a better place. She’s in heaven with God, right where we all belong. I have the assurance of that as she always attended our church. Now, I haven’t seen you in church lately. Will I be seeing you there this Sunday?”
“Hey, you! Stop ignoring me! I can tell that you can hear what I’m saying,” the voice said, whispering in my ear.
I turned toward the girl, who looked beautiful and young, but right away I knew that was all just an illusion. Now she was ageless, a ghost, just like Ernie before her. “Yes, I can see you,” I whispered, shielding my mouth with one hand so my mother couldn’t overhear, and pretending I was stifling a sneeze, “but we can’t talk here.”
