Chapter 1

A certified home stager will help you sell your home quickly and for more money.

“There’s a body in Hendricks Funeral Home!”

I looked up to see my friend, Nita Martino, racing toward me. Her face was flushed and her voice raspy and breathless. Minutes before she had been handing out pamphlets about our business, Staging for You, and laughing as she talked to people gathering in the town square for the Louiston Small Business Fair. Now her smile was gone and her eyes looked wild and confused.

Grasping the table for support, she gulped for air and sputtered, “In the home—a body.”

“Well, it is a funeral home.” I tried not to laugh, knowing how Nita avoided them ever since two of her brothers had locked her in a viewing room during a family funeral.

Our position in front of the old Victorian building wouldn’t have been my first choice to place our table at the fair, but it had the advantage of shade from large trees fronting the funeral home and a restroom inside, where Nita had slipped away to visit.

“This one has a knife in its back.”

I stared at Nita, wondering if my friend, who possessed a wicked sense of humor, was trying to pull me into another one of her zany escapades. Seeing the look of shock and disbelief on her face convinced me otherwise.

Shaking myself, I turned to Mrs. Webster, who helped occasionally with my home staging business. “Can you stay with Nita while I check on this?”

“Not on your life, girl. I’m coming too.” The spry older woman jumped from her chair with more vim and vigor than would be expected of an elderly grandmother. Nita followed right behind her.

We dashed up the steps to the large Victorian home that had been a funeral home for more years than anyone could remember. Once inside, I paused in the foyer long enough for my eyes to adjust to the dim light and then scanned the large rooms on either side of the hall, looking for a body. The fragrance of carnations permeated the building, even with no flowers present. Every time I smelled carnations I thought of funerals.

Seeing nothing, I continued down the center hallway, stopped, and stood rigid—Mrs. Webster plowing into me at my sudden stop.

At the end of the hall lay a man prostrate on the floor with a long-handled knife encased in the middle of his back. Nita hadn’t been playing a joke on us.

When we reached him, Mrs. Webster, a retired nurse, leaned over and placed her fingertips along the man’s neck, while I dug in my pocket for my cell phone. After a few seconds, she shook her head—a sure sign the man was dead. I didn’t know how anyone with what looked like a large kitchen knife in his back could survive, but people have survived worse. Unfortunately, in this case he hadn’t.

I felt numb. Nita came up behind me. “Is he dead?” Her voice wavered. It wasn’t every day you stumbled on a body, much less one with a knife in its back.

I nodded and punched 911 on my cell phone and waited for someone to answer. Remembering how I had fallen apart when faced with a recent death, I forced myself to speak calmly.

“This is Laura Bishop. I’m at Hendricks Funeral Home. We’ve found a man on the floor. He’s been stabbed in the back.”

“Are you okay, Laura? Is there anyone with you?” I easily recognized the voice of Patty Charles, Louiston’s senior dispatcher, and put her on speakerphone so the others could hear her.

“Nita Martino and Mariah Webster are here with me.”

“Good. Is the man breathing?”

“No. Mrs. Webster checked his pulse, examined him, and said he’s dead.”

“Can she start chest compressions until the EMTs get there?” Patty asked.

Mrs. Webster leaned closer to my phone. “Patty Charles, I said he’s dead. No EMT is going to revive him. He’s got a large knife dead center of his back.” We all grimaced at her unintended pun.

Mrs. Webster had cared for dying patients in their homes over a number of years and could recognize when a person was dead. Though probably not many of them had been murdered. I gave Patty the address of the funeral home and my callback number, thankful I’d recharged my cell phone that morning.

“Police and an ambulance are on their way. Stay on the line with me until the team gets there.” Her use of old phone terminology made me smile, in a situation that didn’t warrant any smiles.

“Thanks, Patty.

“You said the man was stabbed. Do you feel safe?” Patty asked.

We had been focused on the victim and hadn’t given any thought to his attacker. Could that person still be in the funeral home? Unlikely, but I didn’t plan to look around to be sure. How long would it take for the police to arrive?

“We haven’t seen anyone else,” I said.

I heard footsteps behind me, and my heart leapt into my throat. “Hold on, Patty, someone’s coming.”

“Well, hello, everyone. Come in from the heat to cool down?”

We all turned in unison to see Warren Hendricks, director of the funeral home, ambling down the long hall from a side entrance, looking as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

When none of us answered, he raised his eyebrows. “Anything wrong?”

Mrs. Webster, the calmest one of us, pointed behind her. “You have an unexpected guest.”

Warren peered behind us, gawked at the man on the floor, and dropped the white paper bag he’d been carrying. “Have you called for an ambulance?”

“Hold on, Patty, we’re okay.” I waved my cell phone at Warren. “I’m on the phone with Patty at the dispatch center. She’s sending police and an ambulance.” Seconds later, the front doors to the home flew open and two EMTs rushed in, quickly followed by a uniformed policeman.

“They’re here, Patty. Thanks for your help.”

Experience gained from reading mystery novels made me realize we should move away from the area. We’d probably already messed up the crime scene just by being there. I motioned to Nita and Mrs. Webster for us to go into one of the empty viewing rooms to stay out of the way. We took seats in the ornately carved wooden chairs lining the walls.

Thinking of the body made me wonder. “Did either of you recognize the man?” From the little I could see of his longish blond hair and the side of his deeply suntanned face that wasn’t pressed into an Aubusson carpet, he didn’t look like anyone I knew.

Nita took a Kleenex from her pocket and wiped her sweaty face. “It was hard to get a good look at him, but he didn’t look familiar.” Her eyes were still wide from shock.

“How old would you say he was?” I asked.

Nita shrugged. “Somewhere in his late thirties or older. It was hard to tell with that deep suntan.”

Mrs. Webster shook her head. “Dang, it’s a sad thing when someone can’t even go into a funeral home without getting murdered.”

Warren came into the room, perspiration running down his forehead and into his graying beard. He removed a folded white handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. A ceiling fan high above us did little to cool the room, which was becoming warmer by the minute. It was surprising since funeral homes were usually cold.

Over the years, I’d seen Warren under a number of trying situations, but this one seemed to unnerve him.

“Did you recognize the man, Warren?” I fanned my face with a pamphlet outlining the history of the funeral home.

“Unfortunately, I did. At least I think so. I haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years.”

“Can you tell us who he was?” The voice of Detective Alex Spangler made me look up in surprise. I had dealt with him before, and seeing his tall figure looming in the tall archway didn’t give me warm fuzzy feelings.

Before Warren could answer, Detective Spangler scanned the room and stopped when he got to me. “You again.” Obviously, he didn’t have warm fuzzy feelings about me either.

That morning all I’d wanted to do was promote my home staging business—so I could make a living and save enough money to someday travel to places I yearned to visit. Instead, I was going to be questioned by police about a murder victim I didn’t know. And by a detective I didn’t want to be interrogated by again.