TheCart Before the Corpse (12 page)

“He told me he followed the advice of his rich employers over the years. On a smaller scale, of course, but when they made money, he made money.”

And they definitely made money. Pots of it.

When I thought of how hard I’d fought to persuade my ex-husband Vic to help with my daughter Allie’s tuition payments at the University of Kentucky, I got mad at Hiram all over again. Allie should have gone to an Ivy League School. She had the grades and had been accepted at Johns Hopkins and Brown, but we weren’t quite poor enough for grant money, nor rich enough not to need it. She’d been smart enough to land an internship and then a job at her brokerage firm, but she would have had a much easier time if she’d gone to a school in the east.

I had never asked Hiram for money for her, but that was because I assumed he didn’t have any. He sure didn’t volunteer the information.

Why did that not surprise me? He seldom paid child support for me even before my mother married Stephen. I’ve never understood why so many men feel no compulsion to support their children.

“Having brokerage accounts does not necessarily mean there’s money in them,” Peggy said. “The way the stock market’s been going lately, he may be down to his last fifty cents.”

True. I’d have to hold off my anger until I knew for certain. One minute I grieved for him, the next I was ready to kill him myself. If we’d met, we could have hashed out our differences. Now, I felt as though I was stuck in an elevator with either Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, and I had no idea which.

“He wanted you to have a good life after he died,” Peggy said. “Seems like bad manners to cry po-mouth when he’s just made you an heiress.”

“He’s also made me a murder suspect!”

*

Peggy had made an appointment for us at the Mossy Creek Funeral Home. I had no problem with her taking the lead. I was happy to defer to her as much as I would have deferred to my mother in similar circumstances. I answered questions to the best of my ability, but the whole process was a blur.

“Hiram was nominally an Episcopalian,” I said to the funeral director, Mr. Straley, “but I don’t think he went to church.” Actually, he could have haunted the local church or turned to Buddhism or Scientology for all I knew. “Can’t we have a simple Episcopal graveside service? Can’t he be buried in your cemetery?”

I didn’t want him cremated. I know it’s not supposed to matter, but I couldn’t bring myself to consider it. That opened up a whole list of decisions. I had to pick out a coffin and a vault to put the coffin in, choose a gravesite, and ask the funeral director to check with the Episcopal rector to see when or if he could do the service.

“I’m afraid we don’t have an Episcopal Church in Mossy Creek, but I’m sure the rector at Saint Stephen’s in Bigelow would be happy to officiate at the graveside service.”

Great. Somebody else to worry about.

“Now,” Mr. Straley said as he shoved a sheet of paper across his desk at me, “These are the standard charges for a single plot, although I would recommend a double.”

“He wasn’t married.”

He smiled sweetly. “Nor are you.”

“Oh.” Talk about stuff you don’t want to think about! “No, I think at this point a single will be sufficient, than you.”

He took a printed form from his desk and began to write numbers on it. “Let’s see. Plot, yes. Opening and closing the grave, yes. Setting up a tent for the mourners at graveside and folding chairs, yes. Hiring the minister.” He stopped. “Usually the family does that and pays him directly, but in this case, we will be delighted to schedule him for you. Shall we check on Friday morning for you?”

“Sooner, maybe?”

He sniffed. “You’ll find Friday is soon enough. No doubt you will need time for family and mourners to make their ways to Mossy Creek. Standard fee?”

I nodded. I’d ask Peggy what a constituted a standard fee in Mossy Creek.

“Episcopalians do not approve of flowers on the coffin itself, but prefer the church’s pall, a heavy tapestry cover. They will no doubt allow us to borrow it for the viewing, but there may be a charge for cleaning and so forth.” Notation.

“Putting the obituary and death notice in the
Mossy Creek Gazette
.” Notation. “We will need information about your father and a recent photograph if you have one.”

I said the only pictures I knew about were the ones from driving shows that I had seen stacked against the wall in the clients’ lounge. They might do for obits in the horse magazines, but not in the
Mossy Creek Gazette
.

“I have some snapshots that should do,” Peggy said.

“Excellent,” Mr. Staley said. “Charge for collecting deceased from the medical examiner in Bigelow, transporting him to us, embalming and preparation.” Notation. “Charge for viewing room the night before the service.” Notation. He looked up at me. “Will you be furnishing a burial suit or should we provide one?”

I had no idea.

“We will provide clothing,” Peggy said, and reached over to take my hand. She could see I was getting really frazzled. It might not matter how much money he had in his bank account if all those notations added up the way I was afraid they would. Somehow I’d manage to find the money. This was my daddy we were talking about.

“The book for mourners to sign at the viewing and the service.” Notation. “We furnish one hundred thank-you notes and envelopes free of charge.”

I could remember all the women in my family sitting around the dining room table after my grandmother’s funeral drinking quantities of wine, writing notes and telling funny stories about her. I looked up. He’d asked me another question. I had no idea what.

“Do you wish the casket open or closed for the viewing?”

“Closed.” Peggy said before I had a chance to answer.

“Fine.” Notation. “Now, before we repair to the casket display room so that you can choose the casket of final repose for your father, Mrs. Abbott, just a few more questions. Since you are a stranger in town without a church affiliation, shall we prepare a light repast with punch and wine in the viewing room after the interment for the mourners?”

“I’ll bet Hiram would prefer a steamship round of beef and a vat of Artillery punch.” I heard my voice ascending into coloratura range, but I couldn’t seem to control it.

Mr. Staley gaped, Peggy squeezed my hand hard, but it didn’t help. I had an attack of Chuckles the Clown. I tried to head it off at the snickers stage, but it got away from me and morphed into full-blown donkey brays.

That’s when Peggy caught it. Her shoulders began to shake. She snorted a couple of times and sailed off into howls of laughter.

At one point we nearly calmed down, but one look at the funeral director’s horrified face and we were off again.

I couldn’t breathe. Tears streamed down my cheeks. My chest hurt. I was in danger of wetting my pants.

Peggy was as bad off or worse.

The poor man had edged his chair back against the wall behind him. His fingers were searching under the lip of his desk. No doubt he had a panic button to bring on the bouncers to rid him of lunatics.

The door behind us opened and a male voice asked, “Mr. Straley, do you need assistance?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth and managed to choke myself off for a count of five before I exploded again. Peggy gulped and snorted beside me.

To give him credit, Mr. Straley smiled and waved off the man. He folded his hands on his desk and waited us out.

Eventually, of course, we subsided. If we’d kept up much longer I have no doubt the funeral director would have taken his chances and bolted past us out the door. As it was, the knuckles of his folded hands were snow white.

“Oh, my, that felt good!” Peggy said. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the funeral director’s desk, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I need a drink.”

My stomach gave an ominous rumble. We hadn’t eaten lunch and it was well past noon.

“Come on, Merry.” She pulled me to my feet.

“But we still haven’t picked out the casket and . . . ”

“We’ll come back tomorrow morning at nine,” Peggy said as she slung her handbag over her shoulders. “It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

*

“That poor man,” she said as she slid behind the wheel of the car. She gave a sort of yip. I clamped down on her wrist. She wasn’t talking about Hiram.

“Don’t start. You’ll wreck the car.” I giggled. “We were awful. I’m so sorry. None of that was funny.”

“I doubt it’s the first time he’s dealt with hysteria. It will be all over town before nightfall.” She pulled into traffic. “But oh, how Hiram would have loved it.”

“If Hiram had his way, he’d be buried like one of those Neolithic nomads in a marathon carriage.”

“Surrounded by the corpses of his slaves, his mistresses, and his horses.”

“That’s going a little far,” I said, but the thought gave me pause. “They wouldn’t actually let us bury him in a carriage, would they?”

“No doubt there are strict health regulations about that sort of thing.” She pulled into a space in the lot behind Bubba Rice Lunch and Catering. “Besides, the hole would be too big. You can’t afford it. However, I see no reason he can’t be buried in a top hat with his whip beside him.” She glanced at me. “Oh, dear, it’s not my choice. I am butting in.”

“Butt on. I think it’s a great idea. He loved wearing his top hat,” I said and began to snuffle. “He had a beautiful handmade English holly whip that he only used for formal occasions. I wonder where it is.” I turned in my seat to face Peggy. “We have to find it. He has to be buried with it.” I choked. “He loved that whip. Oh, God.”

She wrapped her arms around me and patted my back. When I subsided into gulps and hiccups, she said, “Let’s get some food into us before we both collapse.”

This late we found a table and ordered a pair of chicken salad plates and iced tea. While we waited for it, Peggy reached across and laid her hand on mine. ”I know how terrible this must be for you.”

“It’s horrible, all right, but I’m worried to death about how I’m going to pay for it all. I don’t imagine many people will show up from Aiken or Southern Pines or Wellington or Ocala, but I don’t want him to feel slighted.” I took a gulp of my iced tea. “That is about the dumbest thing I’ve said recently. He’s not around to care.”

“The thing about funerals,” Peggy said as she stirred a couple of artificial sweetener packets into her tea, “Is that they are an awful lot of fun.” She caught my expression and smiled. “The only difficulty is that somebody has to die before you can have one.”

I started to say something, but she held up a hand. “Think about it. The only other ceremony at which you see friends and kin you seldom see is at a wedding, and they are generally frantic and nobody gets to talk to one another. That’s why God invented wakes. We get together, eat, drink, toast the deceased, remember our lives with him or her, remember how much we love the people we seldom see, do a fair amount of weeping and a lot of laughing, and hang onto one another literally for dear life.”

“It’s a woman thing, isn’t it?” I asked. I remembered listening to the women in my grandmother’s kitchen laughing as they cooked and served and cleaned up. As a child, I listened to tales of making wreaths at Christmas, and how she crocheted amazingly ugly dolls to fit over the toilet paper rolls, and the ambrosia she made every Christmas that nobody else knew how to make. At Hiram’s wake I’d be surrounded by strangers. Even worse, I might be completely alone.

“Most of the ceremonies of life and death are women things, Merry. It is a skill the generations pass along to one another.”

Suddenly I wanted to talk to Allie and my mother.

Chapter 17

Tuesday afternoon

Merry

“Mom, I can’t come to the funeral,” Allie said. “We’re launching an important IPO on Friday.”

She had finally returned my call, as I was driving out to Hiram’s to feed the horses their afternoon hay and check on Yoder. I heard voices in the cell background. “You’re still in the office. Can you talk?”

“Actually, We had such a crappy day that we took off early. I’m in a bar. I am drinking my first and only white wine and I’m with two girlfriends. I am not trolling for Mr. Goodbar.”

“Glad to hear it.” She was old enough to drink in bars if she wanted to, even New York bars, which television and movies always made out to be strictly for hook-ups with serial killers. I should talk. “Hey, I’m a mother. I get to worry.”

“Don’t. I’m much choosier than you were.”

Ouch.

“Sorry. And it’s not just the IPO. I’d just get in the way. I
so
did not know the man. Or how to talk to his friends or even tell stories about him. How embarrassing is that?”

Steve, my mother’s husband, was the grandfather she loved and who adored her.

She knew Hiram only from an occasional photo or article in a horse magazine, and checks on her birthday and Christmas when he remembered. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d learned to equate money with love. She hadn’t learned it from me. I never had any money, although that in itself may have driven her to want wealth above all else.

“Relax. I wasn’t really expecting you to come,” I said and hoped I’d kept the disappointment out of my voice. “I was feeling a little overwhelmed and needed to hear your voice.”

The thing that keeps me from smacking her upside her head is that she does get it eventually. “I could fly down to Atlanta on Saturday and stay until Sunday afternoon. Would that help?”

Go and pat needy mother on the shoulder.
As if. “And miss an April weekend in Manhattan with your friends? No way would I do that to you. A simple graveside service. No biggy. I’ll report afterwards.”

“Maybe we can do an FTF next weekend, okay?”

I smiled. I always did when she went all acronym on me. “A face-to-face might be just what the doctor ordered.”

“I’ll send you a time when I know my schedule. You can tell me all about it then. Mom, did somebody really kill him? I mean, nobody you actually know gets killed, much less family.”

“Somebody actually did.” I didn’t add that at the moment I was at the head of the line as First Murderer, at least in the eyes of law enforcement.