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Chapter 21
Karen
was waiting for me on the front porch. She peered at me over the top
of a package of Fudge/Marshmallow Pinwheels. I think she might've
scowled at me and said something snarky, but the pinwheel currently
stuffed into her mouth prevented her.
“Hiya!”
I said. “Sorry to be gone so long.” I stepped onto the porch.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I
don't feel so good,” she replied gloomily.
I
took the half-empty package of pinwheels from her lap and laughed. “I
wonder why?” I said. “Pinwheels are not a good precursor to a
healthy dinner, you know.” I smiled down at her. “Salad? Stir
fry? Fruit yogurt?”
Karen
rolled her eyes. “I think Rick's picking up KFC on his way home.
I'm eating all the mashed potatoes though.”
I
laughed. “Well then!” I exclaimed, and went inside, slamming the
screen door behind me.
“Grammy!”
both boys squealed together. “Grammy Grammy! We missed you! Beau
ran away again and we found him in the creek!”
The
evening was delightful. I cut up some fruit salad to accompany our
fried chicken. Since Rick declined to tell him what they were,
Jeffrey tried chicken gizzards for the first time. Karen and I ate
all the cole slaw. Then Rick pulled out the desserts – toffee
sundaes for the boys, and Oreo Krushems for the adults. By 7:00 the
boys were swinging on the tire hung from the oak tree in the front
yard while Karen, Rick, and I rocked slowly on the porch. Rick was on
his phone.
“I
have to go back to the coffee shop,” he said, closing his phone.
“We've got somebody coming to the B&B upstairs. I'm gonna go
welcome them and make sure everything's good there.” He stood up.
“Be back in a bit.”
Karen
and I put Jimmie to bed, and I helped Jeffrey with his phonics. Karen
was wiped out in bed by 8:00, so I returned to the porch and put Beau
in my lap. His little body shuddered in relief at being with me
again. “I'm sorry, big guy,” I whispered to him. “It's been a
rough month, I know. But it'll be better now, don't worry.”
The
scent of the blooming trees drifted past us on the porch
on a fickle breeze. Beau fell sleep. A chorus of spring peepers in
the creek added a dreamy, rhythmic feel to the evening, so I closed
my eyes. I don't know how long I was asleep before Rick's feet
clomped up the steps.
“Hey,”
he said.
“Hey,
yourself.”
“Is
Patty working tonight?” he asked.
“I
don't think so. She doesn't stay at the office past 5:00. She's
particular about overtime.”
He
sat down and lifted a beer from a cooler behind his chair. “Well, I
thought I saw somebody there. I couldn't tell who in the dark.”
“They
put in a surveillance system this morning, because of the break-in
before,” I told him. “I'm not going down there by myself. I'll
call the police, and then we'll watch the video in the morning and
see if there's anything on it.” I pulled out my cell phone. “Let's
hope it was nothing.”
I
told the police officer what Rick said and asked him not to call me
back that night unless he found evidence of a break in – a bashed
window or maybe a broken lock. I received no calls by 11:00, so I went to bed
and slept well. A steady rain all night long helped my rest. The
entire household seemed to sleep deeper, longer that night, waking up
groggy and befuddled in the morning. Jimmy stumbled into my room
rubbing his eyes. He collapsed onto my bed.
“Grammy,”
he mumbled.
I
rolled over. Thunder rumbled outside. Without bright morning light
streaming through my south window I couldn't tell what time it was. I
stroked Jimmy's tousled hair.
“What's
up, buddy? You sleep okay?”
“I
think it's late, Grammy.” He climbed into bed with me and curled up
sleepily. “The bus drove by.”
My
brain registered his words in about five seconds. The bus! It was
late. If I were a younger woman, I would've leapt out of bed. As it
was, I struggled with the bedclothes, cursed my arthritis, and tried
to get my feet in my slippers. Bus or no bus, I had to visit the
bathroom first.
“Jimmy!
Get ready for school, honey!” I called to Karen on my way to the
bathroom. “Karen! The boys are late! The bus has run already.
Jeffrey's still in bed!”
The
house erupted in its usual morning chaos. We were late for school
more mornings that we were on time. Beau barked at us. Rick ran out
the door to the coffee shop. Karen moaned with a head-ache while the
boys shoveled Cheerios into their mouths.
“I'll
drop them off,” I offered. “I'm heading to work anyway.”
The
office was quiet when I arrived. Southern summer heat was beginning
to work its way into the hours of the day, and I was glad for the air
conditioning. I plopped Beau down by his food bowl and poured some
Purina in. When I checked my phone, there was a message from Patty.
“Headache,”
it said. “Be a little late.”
After
Rick's warning the night before of an intruder on the premises, I
carefully inspected Patty's office, my office, all the adjacent rooms
and work rooms, the chapel, the crematory, and the morgue. Nothing
looked disturbed. The locks were secure. Even the stoop at the back
door, surrounded by cedar trees and deep shade, was as green and
mossy as ever. No one seemed to have stepped there.
I
opened the morgue and slid Anita's body from its positive temperature
cabinet. Decomposition had proceeded, albeit slowly. She no longer
looked like her sister. Changes in skin tone and tissue structure
were significant. I would cremate the body later in the morning; this
was my last chance to view it, to study it. It seemed, at last, to
want to give nothing away. As I rolled Anita's body away from the
cabinet, I glanced at the bottom of the feet, at the offending tattoo
that had caused all this trouble. Such a simple thing – a heart,
two letters. A loving symbol, but hidden where no one would see it. A
secret symbol of affection between aunt and niece – why? Then I
wondered, did Desiree have a matching tattoo on her foot?
Wouldn't that make sense, especially for a secretive, private
expression like this, that both parties would have one? I shrugged my
shoulders and assumed that was one fact I'd never be able to find
out.
It
seemed a good time to cremate the body at last, to put an end to all
the questions and frustrations. Anita Wagner had not specified the
container she wished to be placed in for cremation, so I selected the simplest
cardboard cremation container. Before placing the lid on the
container I looked at the tattoo one last time, as if to imprint it
on my mind. Ashes to ashes, they say. Dust to dust. What does one
tattoo matter on a body, when we're all reduced to dirt sooner or
later?
Anita
Wagner's remains entered the flames at 9:45 that morning. I returned
to my office and made a record of the event, adding it to all the
notes I'd written on Anita Wagner's funeral arrangements from the beginning. I intended to add to it the
photographs I took of the tattoo, once I had hard copies made at the
local CVS. I closed the file. It was done. What had Emery said to me
that day?
“Do
not return until you have some sort of satisfaction concerning that
tattoo.”
He
also said, “You know that the only person who would've had cause
to tamper with the body was Desiree Steele. She must be compelled to
answer you on the subject.”
I
looked at Emery's urn, sitting small and elegant on its ledge in its
niche, glowing under a small recessed light that also fell beatifically on
Beau's head.
“I
failed, Emery,” I said aloud. “You would've been tougher. I let
her hide behind her mother, and I got no answers.”
“You
did not fail, Ivy,” he
answered clearly. “You were fabulously successful. You
returned with something better than answers from those recalcitrant
women.”
I
was baffled. What had I returned with? I'd brought back nothing and
the body was in the crematory. The tattoo had disappeared, and I'm
sure Angela and Desiree would be thrilled to know it.
“The
stone,” he said softy. The
stone.
Where
had I put that tiny gemstone? I'd forgotten all about it.
Instinctively I felt my pocket, but of course I'd changed clothes
this morning. Where had I put it? I'd worn my green slacks the day
before. They were in the laundry now, which I knew Karen had not
thought of, much less made an attempt on. I stood up, about to return
home upon Emery's suggestion when I remembered: I'd put the stone in
the car, in the change holder in the console between the seats. It
should be there now, where I'd parked out front.
“Go,”
he said. “Go now.”
I'd
locked the car, a habit I'd yet to change from all my years in
Atlanta, although no one else in Peace Valley ever seemed to lock
their cars. The stone was still there, and I held it in my palm
again. This little gem stone had stunned Angela Steele as she stood by my car window. This stone had canceled her anger and made her afraid. I turned it over in my palm. Anita Wagner's personal effects remained in a plastic bag in a
storage closet near my office. No one had come to claim them. I
returned to my office with the stone in one hand, the bag in the
other. I opened it and dug through her clothes – the black leggings and orange
shirt, and found the shoes. I set them both on my desk. A double row
of fake, clear gem stones ran in a band across the top of each shoe.
The right shoe was missing the last stone on the outside, the prongs
that would have held it in place pried open and splayed out. I placed
the gem stone from my hand in the middle of those prongs. It was a perfect
fit.
I
disliked this development intensely, as I'd just congratulated myself
on finishing this distasteful death. “This means nothing,” I told
myself. “I'll forget it.” I dropped the gem stone into the pencil
tray in my desk, slid Anita's shoes into the bag, and put it back in
its dark storage closet, from whence it would be tossed into the
trash dumpster next Friday by Patty, never to be considered by me
again. I wanted badly to dust my hands together in a movement of
finality and self-congratulation.
“Ivy,”
he said.
“Shut
up, Emery,” I replied.
Patty
had left the instructions for the surveillance system on my desk, so
I spent the next hour reading its headache-inducing complications.
This seemed a good activity while Patty was recovering from her
head-ache. She'd written a note to me about my responsibility, which
was simply to view the tape on my desktop computer when I needed to.
The software had been installed and it was ready to go. I made a cup
of coffee, dug into Patty's snack stash, and settled into some light
morning viewing of nothing at all – nothing at the back door, and
nothing in the morgue.
The
surveillance cameras were set up with motion-sensing technology also,
which assisted by noting on the video stream the moments when motion
occurred. In the morgue – hopefully – this was not an issue, as
nothing at all should be moving in there. But by the back door, in
the dark of a summer night by the trash dumpster, the activity was
higher than in day time. I saw a few raccoons, a few possums, and one feral cat creeping across the steps.
Bored
to tears by this activity at 10:30 a.m. in a quiet office, I drank
three cups of coffee and listened to Led Zeppelin while the footage kept rolling. I don't listen to
Led Zeppelin in front of other people because it destroys their
perception of me as a ditsy old grandma. But the truth is that Led
Zeppelin was important in the music of my youth, and in moments of
private boredom, it keeps me going. I was returning to my desk with
my fourth cup of coffee doused with vanilla creamer, rounding the desk corner to view my computer screen, when something caught my eye. A
shadowy figure was crouched over the back door, fiddling with the
lock. He was there a long time, his entire body obscured by a huge
black hoodie, long pants, and dark gloves. After several minutes in
that position, finally he stood up, gingerly opened the back door to
my funeral home, and stepped in. It was 10:02 p.m. the night before.
I
stood there, cup in hand, shocked. I felt invaded, violated. I was
instantly angry and slammed the coffee cup on the desk, causing a
horrible mess. This was too much! This would try the nerves of the
calmest funeral director on the planet! My hands were trembling, but
I sat in the chair and switched to the second camera, the one in the
morgue. I had to know. I forwarded the time to 10:05, assuming the
intruder would need a couple of minutes to finagle the lock on the
morgue door. Sure enough, at 10:08, the same dark figure entered the windowless room, switching on the light. He walked to the
wall of cabinets and tried one after another, searching for Anita's
body. Was this Myron, I wondered. Was he enraged that he was
prevented from managing his wife's remains? What would he do?
The
intruder found Anita's cabinet at last. He unlatched it, rolled the
stretcher out, and tenderly lowered the plastic sheet from her face.
From the gentleness of movement I felt it could not be Myron, not
from what I'd heard of him. Was this someone from the Gillespie
family? His hands moved down slowly and then lifted the plastic from
Anita's feet. He lifted the plastic there as well and cradled her
right foot in his hands, the foot with the tattoo. This was what he
came to find, to see, to touch. His hands were small, delicate, and
then I realized it was a woman. It must be Desiree, come to say
good-bye one last time.
Her
shoulders began to shake in weeping, and she put her hands to her
face. Even on a surveillance video, the wrecking emotion in the
woman's form was painful to observe. She leaned forward against the
cabinet wall, placed her hand on the body, and then jerked them away.
She covered Anita's body again in its plastic sheeting and, covering her mouth
with one hand, slid the stretcher in and closed the cabinet. She lay
one hand on the door in a gesture of good-bye. Then she cried much more, and the
hood fell from her head. The bright auburn hair was unmistakable. It
was Angela Steele.
I
gasped. This, I had not expected. The hardened woman, the angry
woman, had been weeping in my morgue only twelve hours before. She
followed me here – drove those miles simply to see her sister's
body. Why didn't she come before? Why didn't she come with Desiree
and take charge of the funeral, plan a memorial, pay her respects in
a proper way? Why this breaking-and-entering in the dark, this
private grieving in a cold morgue? It made no sense to me. As with
all this family's behavior, it made no sense at all.
On
my computer screen, Angela Steele turned around, her face red and
swollen with crying. She wiped it with her hoodie sleeves and stood
clearly in front of the camera lens, unaware I would be watching her. Her
shoulders and chest shuddered with grief and loss that had in no way
been assuaged by viewing the body moments before. Her expression –
how can I describe it? – was not what I expected. It was the face,
not of a woman ending something, but of a woman only beginning. She
was beginning something long, exhausting, unwanted, but necessary.
She was setting her stubborn self to the terrible task and moving forward. I
recognized that face; I'd worn it myself after I left Sam, after I'd
decided to start a new life for myself away from him, away from
Atlanta.
Suddenly
the room went black and I heard the morgue door shut and lock. The
remainder of the video was blank. I sat at my desk pondering this
woman's actions: her anger in Maude's room at the nursing home, her rage at my car
window, the sudden deflating of anger when she noticed the gem stone
in my car, the long drive to Peace Valley, the risky
breaking-and-entering at the morgue, the overwhelming passion of
grief at her sister's body. There was one more emotion I'd seen in
her face, simmering low under the rest. She felt guilt. Somehow, she felt
guilty about Anita. There was a look of weary responsibility in her
eyes that was misplaced for a woman who had nothing to do with
Anita's death and was not responsible for the funeral arrangements.
A
tiny thought struck me then, as I sat musing in my office. Why
exactly did Anita Wagner leave her niece in charge of her funeral? If
she had a sister, a sister that devoted to her, why choose the niece?
Why had Angela Steele been so absent in the entire event, until last
night in the morgue? Had Anita Wagner considered her twin sister so
inept as to overlook her for the task, choosing instead a niece who
was utterly negligent? Again, I felt frustration rising inside me.
The
front door opened. I heard Plato meow. He scurried into my office to
sniff Beau and say good morning. He ignored me, of course, as cats
always do because I wish they wouldn't.
“Good
morning, Patty,” I called. “I hope you're feeling better?”
She
coughed. “Not much. That Myron Wagner gave me this headache
yesterday.”
“I'm
sorry,” I said. I walked to her desk. “Pull up the surveillance
video from last night, Patty. I've got something to show you. Put it
around 10:00 last night.” I perched on the edge of her desk. It
groaned a little and I shifted my weight. “We had a visitor.”
Patty
shot me a look and quickly pulled up the video. We watched together
as Angela Steele jimmied the back door lock. Patty was stunned.
“We're gonna need an alarm system next!” she exclaimed.
“Switch
to the morgue camera now,” I said, “and watch this.”
Patty
was silent as Angela Steele broke into our morgue, handled a dead
body, and wept her agony all over again against the hard metal of the
cold chamber. I could feel the resentment and disgust wafting off my
secretary's body as I hovered over her shoulder. Then Angela turned
to face the camera, wiping her face again, looking up. For a few moments her face was clear on the screen. Patty gasped. She clicked the keyboard to pause the video, and Angela's face froze on the screen.
“That's
not --” Patty said, startled. “That's – I don't know.” She
shook her head. “That's not what I expected.”
“I
know!” I responded. “I thought it would be Desiree! But it's
Angela, the twin sister! She never even came up here after Anita's
death, and now she shows up on our surveillance video!”
Patty
swiveled her chair around and looked at me. “No,” she said.
“That's not what I meant.” She pointed to the screen. “I can't
be sure, I really can't be sure,” she said, “but that woman in
the video, the woman who broke into the morgue, I think that's Anita Wagner!”
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Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen
