“Come on,” I told Eve as she was turning to enter the kitchen. She followed my lead as I rushed back to the entry of the viewing room, where Detective Wilet stood with his back against the wall to watch everyone.
I tapped his arm to get his attention. When he looked, I motioned for him to follow. He went with us into the hall.
“The man who was in Edward’s house arguing with him is back there. Carl. He’s standing alone behind the judge.” I spoke in a low tone and nodded toward where Judge Callahan stood.
“I hadn’t realized that’s who he was,” Eve told me. “If I had heard his voice, I would have known right away.”
The detective gave us a level expression, his gaze sliding toward one and then the other of us. As always, I couldn’t make out whether he believed me or not, but then he stepped toward the rear section of the hall where I had suggested he go.
Some in the clump of attorneys back there looked at him coming and started talking to him. Surely he’d only speak with them briefly and then move on toward the man I told him about. Maybe the detective had already found out who the fellow Carl was and interrogated him, but it didn’t seem likely. Now he certainly would. I didn’t expect him to give Carl the third degree in this place, but he could gather other information from him and do further questioning at a more appropriate place—unless the man made incriminating statements or actions now.
“I’ll ask those of you who would like to, to please come up and say your final good-byes to the deceased,” a loud male voice announced from the viewing room.
Eve and I stepped to the doorway to see. The person who had spoken was surely the man now standing between our mother and the casket in his gray suit, his expression a blend of bland and concern practiced over years of selling coffins and then doing what he was doing right now. Waiting for people who might cry or those who were friends of someone in the family, like many of the people from the manor and the attorneys. Some were merely curious or had nothing else to do at this time, so funerals and wakes helped fill the void in their days. Others found funerals an excuse to miss a few hours of work.
Elders with walkers and wheelchairs pressed into the viewing room. Some came from small side rooms and others pushed against us from behind, pressing us farther into the room with the body. The room also held Mom and the mortician I’d once had a run-in with moving near her. I didn’t know he also worked here. He might spew angry words at me or at least throw angry glares if I approached. Mom had reacted toward us like our loving mother again. This wasn’t a time to add any stress to our relationship.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told Eve.
“Yes. We don’t need to be up there again.” She squeezed through the crush of people who had pressed in behind us, and I followed close behind.
Reaching the hall, I tried to make our way to the rear, but people jammed together, blocking the way. Some who must have been in sitting rooms across the hall and others who’d probably been talking outside created an almost solid wall. Maybe some had come because in our small town, it was rare to see a dead body exposed that would not have a funeral service to accompany it, normally one in a Catholic church. Instead, this person’s casket would be closed soon after everyone paid their final respects and left. Then he would be brought to the crematorium, where his body would return to ashes and his casket would return to the funeral home. It was being rented, Mom had told me, something Eve and I and surely most people in town had never heard of.
What would they do with a used casket? Eve and I had asked each other, but I hadn’t asked Mom. Her time speaking to me when she’d called to tell us about the service had been brief. Loving, but brief. When she’d mentioned this casket rental that her alleged fiancé had ordered for his nephew, we couldn’t believe it. But she was talking to us again, and kindly once more, so neither Eve nor I was going to question her about anything that might interfere with our renewed happy relationship with her.
Probably like we’d expected, the man she told us she would marry had little money to pay for a proper funeral and casket for his nephew. A rental would certainly be cheaper.
“I won’t look at another casket holding a body in the same way,” I said to Eve, as I’d said before, but this time we had walked out the front door and stepped away from everyone.
“I know. I might start checking them to see if I spot any signs of previous use now that we’ve learned about that practice.” She spoke while we stepped across the porch and down the steps. “I didn’t see Detective Wilet in the hall again, did you?”
“No, it was too crowded. I didn’t see that other guy Carl, either. Maybe Detective Wilet took him out the backdoor. Let’s go back there and see.”
“Good idea.”
I smiled as we walked around the pathway that ran alongside the building and to the rear. So many of my early teachers and classmates had made me feel dumb because I was slower than most in my classes. Testing revealed my dyslexia, and then tests were modified for my condition. I had gotten over some of the pain from being behind then, but still, whenever Eve or anyone else made me feel like I was bright, it felt exceptional.
My smile, though, felt out of place when we reached the rear of the building where some people were exiting. One elderly woman being pushed in her wheelchair down the ramp by a man about her age gave me a prune face, making my smile wipe away. She’d possibly heard us arguing with the deceased at the manor. Another in a wheelchair came out the door and behind her came the administrator and other staff members from the manor. Either they all had known Edward or more probably, had come to support his uncle, who lived there. Possibly they also wanted to show concern to our mother because of her relationship with Edward’s uncle.
Mainly elders and those who worked with them came out the back door. They hobbled and rolled and otherwise got into cars and the manor’s van. Detective Wilet and the man who might have killed Edward were not around.
Not wanting to wait for every person to come out the funeral home, especially Mom and her male friend, I nudged my head toward the front where I had parked. Eve and I waited until I was driving away before we spoke.
“Did you see anyone who could have been that man’s daughter?” Eve asked me.
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe she’d be about our age.”
“Or older. Younger? Who knows that or what she looks like?”
“I didn’t notice any female who resembled him.” She stopped talking while I considered the same thing. I had searched faces I wasn’t familiar with from town.
“Sunny!” Her yelling my name made me hit the brakes. “She might become our sister.”
Returning my foot to the accelerator, I glanced in the rearview mirror, grateful to find no car or truck right behind me when I’d stopped so suddenly. Eve’s words filtered into my mind when I recalled with clarity the sister we had lost, the one we’d adored who had been killed beside me. A tear escaped my eye.
And then I considered another female, one we had not seen or met. “We’ll need to make certain that doesn’t happen. No one could replace Crystal.”
Eve nodded, her gaze distant. “I’m really sorry Edward died. He could be a nice man, and even when he wasn’t, he was a person with a right to live.”
“I know. We didn’t know him that well but saw his darker side when he yelled at us that he would get them to rush and get married faster than they had planned. Why would he want to do that?”
“His uncle must have been in agreement with him. Possibly he’s a lot like Edward.” She sucked in a breath. “Maybe all of this commotion with Edward’s death