Return to Death (Mortician Murder Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  After two enlistments in the Army, she’d been traveling throughout the Southeast as a freelance nurse. Her latest stop had been Huntsville, Alabama, but she’d never stayed anywhere more than a year. When am I going to settle down? she wondered.

  As soon as her mind started down the what-am-I going-to-do-with-my-life? trail, she put the horse back on the shelf with the others and tried to shut down her thoughts. She had too many other things to worry about. Besides, she’d ridden over that road enough to know that the answers wouldn’t be found when she was alone in her bedroom at night.

  Chapter Two

  Lee wasn’t asleep when the phone rang after midnight. He’d been lying wide awake, trying to formulate a plan for talking his sister into giving him some time to turn the business around.

  “Lamberton Funeral Home,” he answered the phone by the bed.

  “Lee? This is Jerome. We got a body over here on Church Street. It’s Rick Bruhn.”

  “Seriously?” Lee sat up in bed.

  “No, this is a big joke. Yes, I’m serious, you fool. A neighbor saw him at the bottom of the pool.”

  “We can pick up the body?”

  “Doc Porter’s signed off on the cause of death.”

  “Okay. Give me half an hour. Will you help load him up?”

  “Yeah, you get here fast enough. My shift should have ended at eleven, but then this came up. I’ve been out here freezing for three hours.”

  “On my way.”

  Lee climbed out of bed, not worried about making himself look presentable. Pants, a shirt and shoes were all that was required to pick up a waterlogged body in the middle of the night.

  His stomach grumbled a bit as he walked out to the carport, having long digested the grilled cheese sandwiches that Ruby had made in honor of the prodigal daughter. Bet she wouldn’t have fed Kay if she’d known that the Judas is working to put us all out on the street, Lee thought.

  He bypassed the new Cadillac hearse that his father had bought just over a year ago and that Lee now saved for paying funerals. Instead he climbed into the old, dusty Lincoln model and said a little prayer that the engine would turn over. Needs a new battery or maybe an alternator. Probably both.

  “Good girl, Bertha,” he told the hearse as the motor grumbled to life. “Warm up fast.” He regretted not grabbing a coat on his way out of the house.

  The address Jerome had given him was on the north side of town, in a small neighborhood of upper-middle-class homes that had been built in the early sixties. Anyone with money who wasn’t a farmer or who didn’t live in the historic neighborhood around the town square lived there.

  The neighborhood streets were curvy and a few were dead ends, so Lee took his time in the dark. After a sharp left turn, it was clear which house was his destination. A police car and two patrol cars from the sheriff’s office were parked in front, lights flashing.

  Lee backed into the driveway with the help of Deputy Jerome Carter, who waved him in like he was parking a 747.

  “The meat wagon’s here. Time for me to go back to work,” said the cop, stepping on a cigarette butt that he’d tossed in the driveway.

  Lee recognized him from previous pick-ups. “Stockton.”

  “Lamberton.” Stockton gave him a curt nod and headed toward his car. The two deputies shook their heads as they watched the cop’s bowlegged gait.

  “That man should be riding a horse,” Jerome said, the dark skin around his eyes crinkling with laughter. He indicated the other deputy standing beside him. “Lee, you know Linnie?”

  “Sure. I picked up a body at an accident he was working a couple of years ago.”

  “That was a nasty one.” Linnie shook his head. “Y’all got this? I should get to that burglary they just called in.”

  “I’m done after this. See you tomorrow,” Jerome said, waving him on.

  “The body in back?” Lee asked, looking toward the house.

  “I’ll show you.” Jerome walked to a gate that led to the side yard.

  Lee couldn’t see much, but the ranch-style house looked like it sat on a large lot of at least two acres. He could see the houses on either side, though they were distant and dark. There was a concrete path leading through the side yard to the back where the pool was bathed in a green glow from its underwater lights. Around the pool were several lawn chairs and a couple of inflatable rafts.

  “Chilly night for a swim,” Lee said, shivering a little in his flannel shirt.

  “He probably went in the water around eight.”

  “Still would have been dark. Seventy degrees at the most.”

  The body lay on the concrete deck of the pool, sightless eyes staring up at the night sky. Bruhn had been wearing a pair of green, boxer-style swim trunks with black stripes down each side. A puddle of water surrounded the body.

  “You sure we don’t need to take him to the morgue in Gainesville?” Lee asked.

  “Nah. The sheriff and Dr. Porter are satisfied.” Jerome saw the expression on Lee’s face and explained, “Porter pushed water out of his lungs and said it smelled like pool water. You know, chlorinated. And we talked to the neighbors, who said Bruhn was staying here while his parents are away. One guy said he heard Bruhn swimming at night at least twice this week.”

  “If he was a regular swimmer, then why did he drown?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Jerome said defensively. “You want the body or not?”

  “Absolutely.” Even if he didn’t get the funeral, Lee would at least get paid for pickup and storage. He looked around, trying to judge the best way to get the body out to the hearse. The path they’d used had been too narrow for the stretcher and the grass to the side was thick and deep.

  “Guess we can carry it out to the hearse.” Jerome had helped Lee move enough bodies that he’d known immediately what the mortician had been thinking.

  Lee started to bend toward the body, then stopped and asked, “Where are his folks?”

  “They’re in Europe. According to the neighbors, he sent them on a trip to France and Italy for their fortieth anniversary.”

  “He rich?”

  “Yep. A big-time exec for an insurance company in Atlanta. Looks like his folks have some money too. The dad’s a lawyer.”

  “I met them once,” Lee said, causing Jerome to stare at him. “He dated Kay in high school.”

  “Your sister dated the dead guy?” Jerome asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah. They were pretty serious.” Until that moment, Lee hadn’t thought about how Kay was going to take this. He didn’t even know if she and Rick Bruhn had stayed in touch over the years. “I met his parents at Kay’s graduation.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Hey, it’s a small town. I’m used to picking up people I know.”

  This was certainly the truth. When Lee was a kid, it had fascinated him when the people he’d seen in town would end up in his dad’s embalming room being prepared for burial. When he was thirteen, he’d finally been allowed to help. By the time he was in high school, his dad had taken to supervising as Lee did some of the restoration. He’d heard his father talking about it one day with Buck Watson, the man who did most of the backhoe work for burials. Buck had asked if it was legal to let Lee work on the bodies. His dad had said no, and that he wouldn’t have done it if the boy wasn’t so damn good at it. The words had caused Lee to swell with pride and made him determined to go to school to become a funeral director like his father.

  “Nobody knows where his parents are,” Jerome grumbled, interrupting Lee’s memories. “Sheriff Pratt did get the name of the travel agent. He’ll try to track them down tomorrow.”

  “Did he hit his head?”

  “Who? Pratt?”

  “No, not the sheriff. Did Bruhn hit his head on the bottom of the pool?” Lee asked as they both leaned over to pick up the body.

  “Dr. Porter didn’t say anything about that.”

  “I’m still wondering how a man who was a good swimmer managed to
drown in his own childhood pool.”

  “Does it matter? ’Cause the sheriff and the doc have made up their minds,” Jerome argued.

  Lee just shrugged.

  Jerome and Lee had worked together for four years, so they were quick and efficient. In less than fifteen minutes, they were rolling the body into the back of Bertha.

  “You need me to follow you to the house?” Jerome asked as he closed the door.

  “Ride with me. I’ll bring you back after we unload him.”

  “Guess I don’t have to call shotgun.”

  As the hearse cruised through the dark and deserted streets of Lang, Lee looked over at Jerome as he settled back in the seat. “Kay’s home.”

  “When?” Jerome sat up straight and looked at Lee, who was satisfied that he’d surprised the deputy.

  “Today. She’s going to try to close down the funeral home.”

  “She can’t do that. You own half the business.”

  “Only half. She can force the issue.”

  “Folks just got to get used to your father being gone. ’Sides, you’re pretty young for a funeral director.”

  “All true. But what can I do? Kay thinks we’re headed into bankruptcy.”

  “Are you?”

  “How would I know? I never was good at all that business stuff. I do know that we’re letting too many funerals go to Gainesville.”

  “You’re the best embalmer in this part of the state.”

  “Doesn’t do me any good if I don’t get any bodies to embalm.”

  “Hire someone to front the place.”

  “What, like some old guy to be a kind of figurehead?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Someone who can help with the business side of things too.”

  “Who could I find that wouldn’t take all the remaining profit? I know enough about business to know you have to pay the people who work for you. Dad was barely making enough as it was. Even with a front guy, it might take months for us to get more business. Kay is never going to speculate on us making good in the long run.” Lee snapped his fingers. “Hey, maybe you could do it. Folks already associate you with the home. And you’ve told me you’re tired of working for the sheriff.”

  “You know better than that. The Hamilton Funeral Home is the black funeral home in town. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m a rich dark mocha color. You’d lose all your remaining white business.”

  “That seems stupid.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think all the laws in the world will ever integrate churches, barbershops or funeral homes. Now, I could ask Mr. Hamilton if he needs a good embalmer.”

  Lee sighed. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

  “Man, I’m going to miss the extra cash.”

  Lee parked the hearse and they rolled the stretcher into the cooler attached to the embalming room, where they transferred it onto a metal gurney. The refrigerated storage area was large enough that two gurneys would fit side by side, plus there were additional shelves if they needed to store more bodies. The room was large enough to hold six, but Lee was glad to have even one inside it.

  After taking Jerome back to his patrol car, Lee returned to bed, hoping that he could convince his sister to keep the funeral home open long enough for him to come up with a plan to save it.

  Chapter Three

  Kay got up early. Her mind was filled with all the tough conversations she needed to have with people she cared about. She wanted to get cleaned up and have a little breakfast before the arguing started. Just because she was right about this didn’t mean it was going to be easy to convince everyone else that it was time to sell up and move on with their lives.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she found Ruby cooking eggs and bacon while Lester leafed through the Gainesville Sun.

  “Do you live here?” Kay asked Lester, her voice still groggy with sleep.

  “I try to get here early in case Lee needs me,” Lester said with a grin.

  “He gets here early for breakfast,” Ruby said without animosity, holding her skillet and spatula and looking expectantly at Kay. “Now what would you like?”

  “Eggs and toast will be fine. And coffee.” Guilt tugged at her. Letting someone make her breakfast when she was planning to kick them out of their job and home seemed low.

  “Over easy or scrambled?”

  “Scrambled,” Kay said, following her nose to the coffee pot.

  Everything in the house was the same as it had been when she’d come down for her father’s funeral. The pain from his unexpected death was still raw, and made even worse because they’d never had the chance to breach the emotional gap created by her sudden departure from the family fifteen years earlier. Kay could barely recall the emotions and turmoil she’d felt when she’d been a teenager. Those feelings seemed like they’d happened to someone else. They did, she told herself. She was no longer the same person. Too many events, including her enlistment, two tours in Vietnam and her father’s death, had molded her into a person her younger self would not have recognized.

  “I left some of my bacon for Yin and Yang,” Lester said, getting up and putting the extra bacon on a napkin before he left the kitchen.

  “They’ll love you for that.” Ruby smiled at him.

  Kay remembered meeting the woman’s two portly cats when she’d been there three months earlier. The only difference between the two mackerel tabbies was that one had green eyes while the other had yellow. Kay couldn’t remember which was which.

  “They’re brothers, you know.” Ruby was looking at Kay as though she knew that Kay had been thinking about the cats.

  Kay nodded. “You told me that the last time I was here.”

  “That’s right. Yin was comforting you out on the porch. He’s very thoughtful.”

  “Yin has green eyes?” Kay had spent a long afternoon on the small back porch avoiding the mourners who had come to pay their respects to her dad. She had appreciated their thoughtfulness, but it was all too emotionally overwhelming. The green-eyed cat had sprawled across her lap, encouraging her to pet him while giving off a slow, steady purr.

  “He does. I find those green eyes calming. He has the most relaxing purr.” Again Ruby seemed to have read Kay’s mind. “Yang, on the other hand, is the one I go to when I need to come up with a plan. His yellow eyes inspire me to action.”

  Another pang of guilt hit Kay when she realized that she would be making the two cats homeless too. Am I prepared to fire her and kick them all out of their apartment? she asked herself. Of course, if the business fails then that will happen anyway. If she took care of things now, in an orderly fashion, then at least the funeral home could afford to give Ruby severance pay and let her and the cats live there for a while until they could find somewhere else to go. I know I’m right, Kay told herself sternly.

  “Who’s in the cooler? If we’re going to keep him, I’ll clean him up.” Lester came back to the kitchen, looking at Ruby and Kay with raised eyebrows.

  “I heard Bertha leave late last night and come back a couple of hours later, but I don’t know who Lee picked up,” Ruby said.

  “He’s lying in the cooler. Nothing on but a swimsuit,” Lester told them.

  “Lee didn’t call you to help?” Kay asked.

  “Nah. If it’s that late at night, it’s probably a call from the cops. One of them or one of the ambulance guys can help him load up.”

  “I remember when your dad ran the ambulance service,” Ruby said to Kay.

  “That was steady income.” Kay remembered her dad picking up accident or heart attack victims and taking them to one of the hospitals in Gainesville. Looking back on it, though, she realized how jarring it must have been for them to be picked up in a hearse.

  Upstairs, Lee was jolted awake by a burst of music from his clock radio. With a groan, he slapped around on his nightstand until he found the “off” button. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for another couple of hours, but then he remembered Kay and why she was there.

  I n
eed every minute I can get to derail this train, he thought as he rolled out of bed.

  Dressed, he headed downstairs where he found everyone still in the kitchen. Kay had just finished her eggs and turned to look at him as he walked through the door.

  “Who’s the body in the cooler?” Lester asked before she could.

  “A drowning victim. The sheriff’s office called for us to pick him up. We don’t know if he’s going to be ours or not.” Lee avoided the question of the man’s identity. Knowing that Kay was likely to take the news hard, he didn’t want to blurt out the name in front of everyone. Though Lee had been fairly young at the time, he remembered that Kay’s relationship with Rick Bruhn had been pretty serious.

  “I’ll leave him then,” Lester said.

  “The sheriff’s office will contact the next of kin. If we haven’t heard anything by four o’clock, I’ll call over there and see what’s going on.”

  Kay got up and put her plate in the sink. Holding her cup of coffee, she headed for the back porch.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” Ruby asked Lee.

  “Nothing right now,” he said over his shoulder as he followed his sister onto the porch.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said when they were out of earshot of the others.

  “I’m not ready for an argument. We’ll hash everything out later. Let me wake up first.”

  “Not about the home. It’s about the guy we picked up last night.”

  Kay put her coffee down on the wicker table. “Even if you get the funeral, one funeral isn’t going to turn your finances around.”

  “This isn’t about any of that,” Lee said in frustration. “The body from last night. It’s Rick Bruhn.”

  Kay stared at him for a moment as though she hadn’t heard him, then she said softly, “What?”