Tragic Magic (35 page)

Gripping the pie tighter, Suzanne struck off to her left and peered through the open doorway into the smaller of the
two chapels. The room was tastefully furnished in shades of dove gray and mauve. And it was empty, except for a nondescript sofa and a semicircle of black metal folding chairs that looked like a cluster of skinny crows.

“Ozzie?” Suzanne called out again. “I brought your pie.” But there was no answer, save the ticking of the staid grandfather clock.

Suzanne re-crossed the entry hall. Maybe Ozzie was scurrying about in the other chapel. She touched fingertips to an ornate brass pull and slid open a heavy wooden pocket door. As she glanced in expectantly, a bronze coffin met her eyes. Lid propped up, resting on a wooden bier, the coffin was flanked by two pots of slightly drooping irises.

Oops, this room is
ocupado
.

Suzanne caught a quick glimpse of cream-colored satin brocade as well as the coffin’s occupant lying in still repose. Letting out a quick breath, she quickly turned her gaze to a brass candle holder that held six white tapers. And couldn’t shut the door fast enough.

Shifting uncomfortably, a little unnerved, Suzanne stared at the double doors that led to the back of the funeral home. The room where Ozzie did his sad business.

“Hey . . . Ozzie?” she called out again, drumming her fingers nervously on the underside of the tin pie plate.

No answer. Nada. And the insistent ticking of the grandfather clock was beginning to seriously grate on Suzanne’s nerves. Glancing at the offending antique clock, she suddenly recalled fragments of a long-ago childhood story, whispered at night around a flickering campfire. Something about a grandfather clock that stopped dead the exact moment its creaky old owner drew his final, rattly breath.

“Silly,” Suzanne murmured to herself. She wasn’t a big believer in legends or signs or portents. Suzanne was a woman who believed in living fully and wholly in the present and not fretting unduly about what might be coming down the road. That didn’t mean Suzanne hadn’t noodled a five-year
plan or even a ten-year plan, because she had. But that was for business. Mostly, in her personal life, she just tried to keep things on an even keel and obsess as little as possible. She found this approach helpful in retaining positive mental energy. It wasn’t a bad way to keep crow’s feet and wrinkles at bay, either.

Shifting the pie to her left hand, Suzanne smoothed the front of her blouse, then placed her palm flat against one of the double doors. They were swinging doors, of course, similar in design to the service doors restaurants installed between dining room and kitchen. Except, in this case, there was no eye-level window to peek through. Because who in their right mind wanted to see into the back of a funeral home, anyway?

Suzanne pushed lightly, felt the door move inward.

So not locked, she told herself. Which meant Ozzie was probably puttering around in back. And since there was a body out here, there probably wouldn’t be one in back. At least she hoped there wasn’t. Suzanne couldn’t recall any recent obituaries in the
Bugle.
Could only think of the one last Thursday for Julius Carr.

And she’d just encountered
him.

But as the door continued to swing inward, it clanked hard, hitting a rolling metal cart. Suzanne did a double take. The cart lay wheels up, half blocking the door. To either side of her, stacks of blue and white pharmaceutical boxes, no longer lined up nice and neat on their grid of shiny metal shelving, were tumbled haphazardly on gray linoleum. Suzanne could read the labels on the upended boxes: Hizone, Lynch, ESCO.

What just happened here?
she wondered.

And suddenly heard a faint clink.

What was that? The snick of a metal door, the click of an instrument being set down?

Sure it was. So Ozzie was back here. Probably.

“Ozzie,” Suzanne called, rounding a corner. “What the heck hap . . .”

Suzanne stopped dead in her tracks, her words segueing to a sputter, then a dying gasp. Her mouth opened reflexively, snapped shut, then opened again. But no sound issued forth.

Because Ozzie was back here, all right. Splayed out on an enormous metal table like some sort of medical experiment gone horribly wrong.

Suzanne’s eyelids fluttered uncontrollably as she took in the ghastly scene. Plastic hoses kinked around Ozzie, his right arm stuck rigidly out to one side. And there, sticking into that arm, his very white, waxy arm, was a large needle attached to a length of tubing.

Suicide?
The word exploded in Suzanne’s brain like a thousand points of light.
Oh no, not Ozzie Driesden. He wouldn’t do that, would he?

Suzanne’s stomach lurched unsteadily and the beginnings of bitter, hot bile rose in the back of her throat.

Struggling to force her mind to work, to reboot her brain’s frozen hard drive, she thought to herself,
Got to get help.

As that thought popped into her head like a bubble above a cartoon drawing, there was a sudden, sharp snap, like a freshly laundered towel jerking on a clothesline. A soft shuffle sounded behind Suzanne, then a cold, wet, foul-smelling rag was clamped viciously across her nose and mouth.

Throwing up her hands in protest, the pie flipped end over end and crashed to the floor. Struggling blindly, not thinking clearly now, Suzanne inhaled sharply and involuntarily breathed in the prickly chemical that soaked the rag. Her heart lurched painfully in her chest and her lungs burned like hot coals. Staggering drunkenly, Suzanne’s spinning mind spat out a single word:
Camphor?

Then her head was filled with the drone of a thousand
angry hornets and her knees began to buckle like a cheap card table.

No . . . chloroform,
was Suzanne’s last semi-lucid thought as blackness descended and she crumpled atop the ruined cherry pie.

 

“Breathe deeply,” urged a voice from above her. Suzanne’s eyes fluttered wildly for a few moments, then peeped open. And Suzanne found herself gazing up into the face of a kindly-looking EMT wearing a blue uniform with a red-and-white patch. He was young and good-looking, with an olive complexion and curly, dark hair.

When did EMTs get so young?
Suzanne wondered to herself.
And when did I start thinking guys in their early thirties were young?

That brought a semblance of a giggle mixed with a few hiccups.

“She’s coming around,” said Petra.

At hearing her friend’s calming voice, Suzanne lifted her head. Not a great idea. Her brain was still spinning like a centrifuge even though her body was laid out flat on the floor, right where she’d fallen.

Cotton in my head,
Suzanne thought, crazily.
And bright red cherry pie all over the floor.

The EMT, whose name tag read J. Jellen, held a plastic mask to Suzanne’s mouth and smiled encouragingly. “Breathe,” he instructed.

Suzanne fought to bat the mask away.

“It’s only oxygen,” Jellen told her, calmly. “Help clear your head.”

“Breathe the Os, honey,” Petra pleaded, kneeling down next to her.

Suzanne breathed in deeply and, a few moments later, really did feel better. She relaxed, inhaled a few more Os, then
raised a hand and pushed the mask aside. “What happened?” she asked Petra. “How did you get here?”

“When you didn’t come back right away, I sent Sheriff Doogie over to check on you,” explained Petra. “He’d been hanging around the park, snarfing down hot dogs and cookies. After he left, and when I saw the ambulance heading over there—Doogie must have found you and called for it right away—I came running. Like the proverbial cavalry.” Petra put a hand to her ample chest. “Well, a cavalry that walks awful darn fast, anyway.”

“Doogie’s here?” asked Suzanne, struggling to sit up.

Petra nodded. “And a deputy.” She peered anxiously at Suzanne. “How much do you remember, honey?”

It was starting to come back to her now. Suzanne touched a hand to her head and sighed deeply. “Oh man. Ozzie . . . ?”

Petra gave a solemn shake of her head.

“Dead?” asked Suzanne. Her mouth felt parched and dry.

“Afraid so,” Petra whispered.

Suzanne pushed herself into a sitting position, gritted her teeth as her head spun wildly, then struggled to get her legs under her. The paramedic, Jellen, curved an arm around her waist and asked, “You sure you want to do this?”

Suzanne nodded and suddenly found herself being lifted with ease by the helpful paramedic. She continued to stare down at the floor for a long moment, noting the sticky smear of cherry pie and a flattened hunk of golden crust that seemed to carry the partial imprint of a shoe. Then she raised her eyes.

Ozzie was still lying there, of course. That harsh reality hadn’t changed one iota. But now Sheriff Roy Doogie and his young deputy, Wilbur Halpern, were circling the metal table like coyotes surveying roadkill. Another fellow, George Draper, the Draper of Driesden and Draper, was standing there with them, making nervous, futile hand gestures. Obviously, Draper had been summoned posthaste.

“Killed himself,” said the deputy. He shook his head even
as he hooked both fingers in his belt in a kind of postmortem show of disapproval.

Sheriff Doogie, a big bear of a man in rumpled khaki, turned toward George Draper, Ozzie’s partner, now the sole owner of Driesden and Draper. “Had he been depressed?”

Draper, who was tall, gangly, slightly stooped, and looked like
he
might be suffering a mild bout of depression, gave a slightly furtive shrug. “Maybe. A little bit.”

“What are you talking about?” Suzanne suddenly croaked as she staggered toward them. She was fighting mightily to get her feet and legs to coordinate with her brain. But walking a straight line wasn’t easy.

Sheriff Roy Doogie shifted his bulk and bobbed his head at Suzanne. He was the duly elected sheriff of Logan County and had been in office for more than a dozen years. With his meaty face, cap of gray hair, and rattlesnake eyes, Doogie only looked slow-moving. Truth was, not much got past him.

“You feeling better now, Suzanne?” Doogie asked as she continued to wobble toward him. “You must’ve had quite a start, seeing poor Ozzie like this. No wonder you fainted dead away.”

“I didn’t faint,” Suzanne protested. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

The young deputy let loose a slightly derisive snort. “Then how come you was sprawled on the floor?”

“If you give me a minute, instead of jumping to conclusions,” snapped Suzanne, “I’ll tell you.”

“Tell us what?” asked Doogie. A frown and something else . . . curiosity? . . . had insinuated itself on his lined face.

“Someone attacked me!” Suzanne told him in a rush. “From behind. Clamped some kind of damp cloth over my mouth and . . . and . . .
drugged
me!” She touched the back of her palm to her head, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. But everything was still fuzzy, like a long-ago dream that could only be remembered in disjointed fragments.

“Huh?” said the deputy.

“What are you sayin’?” asked Doogie. His jowls sloshed vigorously as he stared at Suzanne, his eyes suddenly wide with surprise.

“I came back here to deliver Ozzie’s pie,” explained Suzanne, “and that’s when I saw him. Just . . .” Suzanne grimaced as she glanced past Doogie. “ . . . just lying there.”

“Was he dead?” Sheriff Doogie asked.

“I don’t know,” said Suzanne. “Well, I
suppose
he was. I mean, he must have been. He was all white and waxy-looking, just like he is now.” She felt hot tears prickle her eyes, but fought to keep them back. Men were funny about tears. Disdainful really. If she could keep the waterworks under control for the time being, her story would carry far more credibility. Suzanne tried to emphasize the chain of events with another hopefully cohesive statement: “Before I had time to react and really get a decent look, someone grabbed me from behind and slapped a rag across my face. Drugged me,” she added again, for emphasis.

Sheriff Doogie seemed to be having trouble comprehending all this. “You mean they chloroformed you?”

“I don’t know if that’s the technical term,” said Suzanne, starting to feel a little frustrated, “but yes. Someone chloroformed me. Like a friggin’ bug dropped inside a Mason jar for biology class.”

Doogie snatched his modified Smokey Bear hat from his head and slapped it against his knee. “Heck you say!” Doogie still seemed reluctant to buy into Suzanne’s story.

“Sheriff Roy Doogie!” said Petra, in her sternest, steeliest voice, “you listen to Suzanne. She doesn’t make up stories!”

Sheriff Doogie ushered them all into the small parlor, the unoccupied parlor, where they sat on lumpy couches and love seats and Suzanne told her story again. Slowly, filling in the details.

Doogie went over a few parts with her. “So when you
came in carrying the pie, the boxes were spilled all over.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” said Suzanne. “Like maybe there’d been a struggle.”

“And then you saw Ozzie. With the . . .” Sheriff Doogie pointed an index finger at his own forearm. “ . . . with the thing . . . the needle . . . stuck in his arm.”

“Yes,” Suzanne said again.

Doogie’s lined face sagged. “Well, shit.”

Suzanne glanced around the semicircle of somber faces. “He was murdered, wasn’t he?” she said. But she really wasn’t asking a question, either.

“We don’t know that for sure,” said Doogie, still hedging.

“Whoever attacked me had probably just murdered Ozzie,” Suzanne said, forcefully this time.

Petra, who was perched next to Suzanne, gripped her forearm tightly.

“Wilbur,” said Doogie, glancing at his deputy. “Go out to the truck and fetch my kit.”

Wilbur rose hastily and left the room.