by E. A. Copen
I shook my head. What’d she want me to do? Punch the guy? She was the cop. As far as I knew, I was just along for the ride.
“Give me just one second.” She held up a finger before stepping away and grabbing me. We turned our backs to Silas, who waited with arms crossed and a tapping foot. “Help me out here,” Emma whispered. “We need this guy to talk.”
“So get a warrant. You know they brought Brandi’s body here, right?”
Emma clenched her teeth and winced. “Thing is, I’m not supposed to know that.”
Oh. In other words, she had no real reason to be there on the record, and if she went trying to get that warrant, someone was going to get screwed, and it wouldn’t be the bad guys.
“What do you want me to do?” I gestured to the empty coffins. “It’s not as if this place is teeming with bodies.”
“It’s a funeral home! Improvise!”
She stalked away to try and play more hardball with Silas Jensen.
Improvise? I snorted. What exactly was she expecting? She must’ve had the wrong idea of what exactly I could do. Still, she was counting on me for help, and if I screwed up with her one more time, she’d quit asking, and Brandi and Grace’s murderer would get away with it.
I scanned the room slowly, looking for any sign of spirit activity. Ghosts tended to haunt places that were significant to them in life rather than death, which meant very few hung out in funeral parlors. Sometimes, they’d follow their bodies around, but they’d usually leave once the body left for the cemetery. There was nothing to hold them in the funeral home.
I might have better luck if we wandered close to a funeral in progress, I thought, but Silas didn’t seem like he wanted to leave the showroom with us. My eyes stopped on a display of pamphlets with a sign that said: ASK ME ABOUT PRE-ARRANGEMENTS. Bingo.
“How about it?” I pointed to the pamphlet, interrupting whatever argument Silas and Emma were having.
Silas’ nose twitched. “About what?”
“Pre-arrangements,” I said and waved my bandaged hand. “Working with Detective Knight is kind of dangerous.”
She sneered at me, but Silas’ face brightened.
“Why, yes. We can discuss that if you’re serious.” He tugged his suit jacket down. “But the detective will have to wait here while we discuss this in my office. Funeral arrangements are a private matter, and discussing other clients with her has left a sour taste in my mouth.”
Yeah, I bet.
Emma shook her head.
I shrugged. “Sure. You mind pulling up the car, Emma? Won’t take long. I’ve got a pretty good idea about my last wishes.”
“Sure.” She said it pleasantly but through gritted teeth. I was going to pay for that later.
Silas grinned ear to ear, bowed, and gestured behind him. “Right this way, sir!”
We stepped into the gaudy hallway and started further down it with Silas waddling on ahead to lead the way. About ten feet down from the showroom on the right, there was a viewing going on that had attracted about a dozen people. The door was wide open, and the sign out front of it announced it was the showing for August Timmons III.
I paused to peer in. The family stood in two groups, one on either side of the room. While to the untrained eye, they looked like they’d all dressed up, I spotted shoes and jackets two sizes too big on some of the younger men. The group closest to me had three such young men. The coffin on display was one of the nicer mid-range models from the showroom, probably more than a family wearing hand-me-down suits and shoes should’ve paid for.
“Damn fools,” said a voice next to my head.
I turned and saw an old man slouching, hands in his pockets floating about six inches off the ground. Or rather, I saw the spirit of an old man, a carbon copy of the corpse on display.
“Problem?” I spoke quietly so as not to disturb the mourners, but my voice still attracted the attention of Silas, who turned around.
“Yeah, I got a problem,” said the ghost, scowling. “They gonna put me in the ground in a fancy box instead of the one I had picked out. Bastard’s upselling his package deals. My poor Di-Ddi. Whatever’s easiest, she said. Ain’t nobody want to think about saving money when they grieving, but they wasn’t supposed to go into debt buryin’ me. If I’d have lived to see it…” He shook his head.
Wasn’t much I could do for the old man—I seriously doubted I could get Silas to refund the money or give them a discount at this stage. But maybe I could use the information as leverage.
“Sir?” Silas’ big feet clomped against the carpet as he came closer.
I eyed the two groups of people in the viewing room. People didn’t move between the two groups, and they kept looking at each other, punctuating the look with a sneer or a whisper.
Silas’ hand came down on my arm. “I’ll have to ask you not to disturb the mourners. They’ve been through quite a lot already.”
“And you’re ripping them off on top of it.” I made sure I raised my voice loud enough that both groups of mourners heard me. Heads perked up and turned in my direction.
Silas put a finger to his lips. “Please, if you don’t lower your voice, I’m going to have to insist you leave.”
I carried on without lowering my voice. “Why, Mr. Jensen, that package price is clearly marked up. How dare you take advantage of me!”
“What’s going on here?” One of the women mourners, an older lady in a black shawl frowned from the doorway.
“Nothing.” Silas waved his hands and offered a plastic smile. “Sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Timmons. My deepest condolences.”
“Nothing?” I waved one of the pamphlets I’d picked up at him. “You’re scamming grieving people out of their hard-earned money by upselling them to package deals they don’t need, not to mention totally ignoring the wishes of the deceased. Old Uncle Ben would roll over in his grave if I paid this much. I’ll have you know, he knows I loved him just fine, whether I buy him a titanium plated coffin or not!”
“Augie wouldn’t have wanted all these flowers,” one of the male mourners from the other group shouted. “But you said they came with the package.”
“They do.” Silas’ smile wavered. “I’m happy to go over an itemized list with your family Mrs. Timmons, once the service has been concluded.”
Mrs. Timmons’ face soured. The young man next to her supported her with an arm. “You mean once you’ve milked my mother’s savings dry. This man is right, and I’ve been saying it all along.”
“You ought to be ashamed!” someone else shouted.
I stepped back. At a funeral, everyone’s looking for someone to blame, and I’d just thrown Silas to the wolves. If he didn’t find a quick escape soon, the Timmons family would rip him apart.
“Now, now,” he said raising his hands in a surrender gesture. “I’m sure we can work this all out, right as soon as I’ve finished going over some things with this young man. Death is very stressful for everyone. I’m sure someone’s just made a mistake somewhere.” He shot me an angry glare before shoving me back toward the showroom and stuffing me through the door.
Emma was still there, examining the inside of a pine coffin with daisy blue trim. She spun around when Silas slammed the doors to the showroom closed. I strode over to stand with her. She gave me a “what did you do now” sort of look, and I tried to put on my best innocent face.
“All right, you.” Silas turned away from the locked doors, his face redder than ever. “You win. What is it you want to know?”
I crumpled the brochures and stuffed them in my coat pockets. “Brandi Lavelle. We know her body was brought here. Did you cremate her remains?”
“Not me personally, no. That’s not my job.”
“But it was done?” Emma chimed in.
Silas tugged on his suit jacket. “First thing this morning.”
“And who claimed the ashes?” I asked.
His fat lips turned into a frown that looked far more natural on his face than
the fake grin he’d been sporting in the hall. “There are laws, laws that say I’m not supposed to share this information with you.”
“There are also laws against taking grieving widows for a ride too,” I pointed out. Okay, true, I didn’t know what they were, but I did know the funeral industry was very heavily regulated. Silas himself had been nice enough to tell me that earlier. And there was a reason for that. They were shady institutions. It stood to reason that at least part of that regulation prevented him from defrauding his customers.
“Well, you didn’t hear it from me,” he said, wringing his hands. “Ms. Vesta Hogarth claimed the urn and paid for the cremation services.”
Emma and I traded glances. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the crazy purity woman who’d been Brandi’s benefactor and also the owner of the house that’d been on fire had destroyed her body once I started poking around. It wasn’t enough evidence to convict her of murder, but it was a documentable paper trail.
“That enough to get a warrant?” I asked Emma.
“Close. I’d like to question her one more time at least.”
Silas crossed his arms. “Yes, very good. Will you two leave me alone now? I have a very angry family to placate.”
“We’re done here,” Emma agreed.
Silas opened the doors and stood aside to allow us to pass, a scowl fixed on his face.
I started to go through the doors but stopped next to Silas, turning to poke him in the shoulder. “Quit overcharging your customers, or I’ll be back.”
He rolled his eyes. “And do what? Cause another scene? I’ll have you escorted from the property by the police.”
I drew myself up in front of him and narrowed my eyes, trying to look as foreboding as possible. “Detective Knight, tell this man what I do for a living.”
“You’re looking at New Orleans’ only openly practicing necromancer,” Knight said, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Silas blanched.
“That’s right,” I continued, “and if you don’t straighten yourself and your crooked business practices out, the living will be the least of your worries.” For effect, I snapped my fingers in front of his face. It’d never been so satisfying to see a man flinch before.
I turned and followed Knight from the funeral home.
“You know, you’re not half bad at this,” she said as we descended the stairs outside.
I smiled to myself. “Yeah, it was kind of fun watching that sleazebag shit himself.”
“I meant the investigative work, not the bad cop routine.”
“That too.” I pulled open the passenger door of the Escalade. “To the Hogarth house?”
Emma flashed me a winning smile and agreed. “To the Hogarth House.”
Chapter Seventeen
On the way back over to Vesta’s place, Emma called Moses and told him to meet us there. We’d gotten an early start to the day being up before dawn, and hit the funeral home early, so it was just before midday when we pulled in behind Detective Moses’ car… Which had pulled in directly behind my car.
My car, which now had several colorful slips of paper tucked between the wiper and the cracked windshield. Great. Parking tickets were all I needed.
I hopped out of the Escalade and went to examine the damage. At least the city hadn’t put a boot on it or towed it away yet. The front bumper would probably fall right off as soon as they hooked it up to the tow truck anyway.
While Emma and Moses got caught up, I peeled the handful of parking tickets from the car and waved them. “Don’t suppose either of you can do anything about these?”
Emma frowned. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me for another favor.”
“Hey, you owe me after what just happened.” I jammed the parking tickets into my pocket along with the crumpled funerary brochures.
She crossed her arms. “Really? Because I’d say we’re about even considering I still haven’t arrested you.”
Never mind the fact that I’d saved her life and gotten Silas to talk to her, but I didn’t point all that out. She’d already put her tough-chick cop face on and looked like she was ready to mess up the next idiot who crossed her path. For his part, Moses retained his air of casual uncaring. He swaggered up the walk, the straw boater hat he wore tipped slightly to the right. Moses let Knight take the lead while I brought up the rear.
My role this time around wasn’t to question Vesta but to poke around the house like I’d intended to do earlier, see if I could find evidence that Vesta was using magic. I already knew someone had used a spell to kill both victims, and having been on the receiving end of a nasty psychic attack, I was fairly confident in my ability to identify the same magic if I encountered it again. As far as I’d been able to deduce on the first visit though, Vesta was a norm, utterly ungifted in every way. She wouldn’t be the first norm to successfully cast a spell—there were ways it could be done—but I should’ve sensed the stain on the house. Unless, of course, she had some uber-powerful wards up somewhere.
Emma knocked on the door. Moses hung back, pretending to study some flowers growing in a vase on the steps. I looked around for something to do that’d convey I was a threat when one of her goons opened the door, but didn’t see anything useful so just wound up standing there.
Gaston, the big, ugly thug in a suit from earlier jerked open the door, the doorknob appearing particularly tiny in his meaty palm. He scanned Emma, moved to Moses, and then scowled at me. “Miss Hogarth isn’t receiving visitors.”
“She’ll receive us.” Emma flashed her badge.
“Who is it, Gaston?” Vesta’s voice called from deep in the house. “Do close the door. You’re letting out all the air conditioning.”
Gaston’s response was a grunt. His bicep flexed, straining against the fine threads of his suit as if he were about the swing the door shut in our faces, but he thought better of it. “Don’t touch anything,” he snapped and stepped aside.
The three of us filed into the foyer, sliding past Gaston’s huge body. He swung the door closed promptly behind us and started walking toward the back of the house. “She’s in the gallery. This way.”
He led us in a different direction from the way I’d gone with Vesta before, going further down the hall and making a right. I took note that we passed a stairway. If I was going to find any dirt on Vesta, it’d probably be upstairs. Of course, I’d have to ditch the goon first. Somehow, I doubted he’d let me run off to the bathroom without an escort.
The gallery turned out to be more of a studio. Oil paintings lined one wall depicting old ruins in one and a vibrant marketplace in the next. Another section of wall recreated a dazzling mosaic I’d seen once on a late night History Channel broadcast. Several marble statues stood around with tastefully missing or censored body parts.
Vesta stood in front of an easel with a big canvas in front of her, a palette of colors in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. She dipped the brush into a mixture of vibrant orange and white, mixing them before drawing the brush widely over the canvas. A smile crossed her lips in time with the movement of the brush. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Kerrigan. Detectives. Forgive me for not offering you drinks this time. When the muse calls, it’s best to answer.”
“We’re not here for a social call,” Emma said. “We just came from the Smith and Jensen Funeral Home where we learned you’d claimed Brandi’s ashes and arranged for her cremation.”
Vesta carefully lowered the brush to the holding tray and clipped the palette to another, larger holding tray. “She had no family interested in taking care of matters. I felt it wrong to leave her frozen in the morgue, awaiting collection that would never come. Brandi was like a daughter to me, Detective. It only seemed fitting that I see to her body.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that the last time we were here?”
Vesta pushed a stray golden strand of hair away from her face and smiled. “You didn’t think to ask if I had plans to claim the body.” Her sm
ile faded, and her eyes danced between the two detectives. “Why are you here?”
“Just a few follow-up questions,” Moses offered, casually pulling a notebook from his brown coat. He tapped a pencil on a blank page, pretending to read from it. “I’d like to go over the timeline you gave us for the day of Brandi’s murder, if you don’t mind. Just a few minor discrepancies we’d like to iron out. I’m sure it’s nothing, but we’d sure appreciate it if you could help us keep our paperwork in order. The department as a whole would be grateful.”
“Of course.” She kept the façade of being unperturbed, but the raised octave was a dead giveaway she wasn’t happy.
Emma turned her head and gave me a knowing look. That was the sign I was waiting for. I doubled over suddenly, clutching at my stomach and groaning.
Vesta widened her eyes in surprise. “Are you ill, Mr. Kerrigan?”
“Too many fast food burritos,” I muttered and raised my head wincing. “Bathroom?”
Gaston’s heavy hand encased my shoulder. “This way.”
Crap. Looked like I was getting an escort after all. I’d have to figure out a plan B once I got to the bathroom.
He led me from the gallery back to the hall, but instead of turning toward the stairs like I’d hoped, he went further into the house. The smell of slow-roasting pork in a savory sauce of some sort wafted through the hall. My stomach complained for real this time, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since Paula fed me. Gaston glanced back at me, and I had to work to keep myself from drooling at the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen.
He stopped in front of a small, unassuming door next to what I guessed was the entrance to the kitchen. It looked more like the door to a closet than a bathroom.
“Can I assume you’ll be here to show me the way back when I’m done?” I asked the big thug.
He crossed his arms and snarled at me like a bulldog.
My stomach protested again, this time louder. “Might be a while.”
“Good thing I get paid by the hour then.” He jerked his chin toward the bathroom. “Go.”
I pulled the door open on the tiniest bathroom I’d ever seen. A miniature commode sat on the other side of a slender porcelain sink. There wasn’t any shower or tub, or even a medicine cabinet. There was a narrow window about three-quarters of the way up the wall, but that was it. Nothing useful.
