I turned on one of the map lights and used my phone to take a picture of the front of the envelope. The whole front, showing not just the return address, but also the fact that it had been sent to Dr. Womble at Trinity, and was postmarked six months ago. Dr. Womble had retired several years ago—had Archie not heard about that?
Of course, it was always possible that Dr. Womble wasn’t too keen on giving his home address to a convicted felon.
Chief Burke would figure it out. I emailed the picture to him. I didn’t wait for a reply—after all, he was presumably still talking to Chuck Hagley—and I needed to get over to the funeral home before he finished.
On the way to Morton’s Funeral Home, it occurred to me to wonder what went on in an arrangements room. Doing flower arrangements, perhaps? Surely most of that would happen at the florist. I hoped it had nothing to do with arranging the dear departed for the viewing. I’d learned to cope with Dad’s passion for sharing what he considered interesting medical details about his patients—or, worse, his autopsies. But behind-the-scenes mortuary knowledge was something I could live very happily without.
Even without the prospect of finding out just what went on in an arrangement room, I had to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to visiting the funeral home. If you walked into one of the rooms there without knowing it was a funeral home, you’d look around and find the surroundings pleasant and peaceful, if a little on the conservative side. Rather like a hotel that wasn’t trying to be trendy. I liked Maudie Morton herself, especially when I ran into her outside the funeral home—doing her shopping, or attending her grandson’s baseball games. And the several times I’d been there to help friends or relatives with funeral plans, Maudie had always been brisk, no nonsense, and reassuringly calm.
But still. Funeral home. Not a place where I wanted to be in any capacity.
I was relieved to find Morton’s parking lot almost empty. I’d had a brief vision of arriving to find myself in the middle of a visitation for someone I knew whose death I hadn’t heard about. Or worse, in the middle of the funeral of someone I knew—someone who, not being a churchgoer, had opted for whatever kind of nondenominational or secular services they would hold at the funeral home. Of course, there was still the chance Maudie might want to show off one of her success stories—someone on whom they’d had to do a lot of work to get the body suitable for an open casket—for example, Mr. Hagley. She’d definitely done that a time or two with Dad—who didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he probably found it fascinating, and having autopsied the people in question, he was in a better position than anyone to marvel at the transformation. Sometimes people assumed that being Dad’s daughter I shared his interests and his imperturbability in the face of medical trauma. I only hoped Maudie’s people skills were sufficiently well-developed that she’d figured out there was a reason I’d gone into blacksmithing rather than medicine.
When I walked through the door I found her sitting behind the reception desk.
“Meg, dear.” She rose and gave me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re in plenty of time. The chief is still visiting with Mr. Hagley.”
I was startled for a moment until I realized that by Mr. Hagley she meant the son.
“Would you like some tea or coffee? It’s late, I know, but we have decaf.”
“Tea would be nice,” I said. “With or without caffeine, whichever’s easiest. After all, I need to stay awake to talk to Mr. Hagley and then drive home.”
I took a seat on a prim-looking but surprisingly comfortable sofa in front of the fireplace, in which a gas fire was doing a reasonable job of pretending to be real logs. Maudie went over to a sideboard that held two gleaming coffee carafes and two teapots under quilted cozies. She poured two cups from one of the teapots and brought them over on a silver tray with a full complement of the usual supplies—napkin, teaspoon, cream, sugar, non-dairy cream substitute, and three kinds of artificial sweetener. I began to feel soothed and pampered. I could well imagine how comforting the bereaved found these little luxuries. My own shoulders began to release the tension of the day.
“Thanks.” I took my cup and inhaled the steam while Maudie stirred a tiny amount of sugar into hers. “How long have they been talking?”
“Nearly an hour now.” She glanced at a Dresden china clock on the mantel. “I called the chief as soon as Mr. Hagley arrived, and by the time he came, Mr. Hagley and I had mostly finished discussing the cremation and burial arrangements.”
“Oh—so that’s what the arrangements room is for,” I said. “I was thinking flowers. Look, if you talked to him about arrangements for his father, you probably have a good idea what he wants done with his mother as well. That’s really all I need to talk to him about—well, that and expressing Trinity’s official regrets over what happened.”
“He wants a small, intimate funeral,” Maudie said. “Followed by interring his father—and reinterring his mother—in the columbarium at Trinity.”
“Interesting,” I said.
Maudie cocked her head as if to ask why.
“Mr. Hagley had been badgering Robyn to get his wife’s ashes back,” I explained. “Didn’t seem to grasp that there was a process, or was too impatient to follow through with the process. We were under the impression that the reason he was out there with a crowbar was to take them back himself.”
“But why?” Maudie looked puzzled, and perhaps a little shocked. “Did he have some quarrel with the church?”
“He was always quarreling with the church and everyone in it,” I said. “So maybe that was it. But informed sources say he needed money and was planning to sell their niche.”
“Ah.” She frowned slightly. “Perhaps it’s a good thing that the funeral and burial can’t go forward immediately. That will give young Mr. Hagley time to assess his father’s situation.”
“You mean, figure out if he can afford to bury his parents in their niche or if he needs to sell it to help settle their debts.”
“Precisely.” She sighed. “And if there really is financial need, I could arrange to offer a discount.”
“That would be nice,” I said. Nice, and very typical.
“It’s only fair,” she said. “After all—”
Just then the door of the arrangements room opened. Chief Burke appeared, nodded to me and Maudie, then turned back to the man who had followed him to the doorway.
“I appreciate your time,” he said. “If you think of anything else that might be relevant, don’t hesitate to give me a call. You’ve got my card.”
“Yeah, right.” Chuck Hagley’s tone suggested that he didn’t much expect to need the card. He took the chief’s extended hand and shook it with the sort of facial expression that suggested he was graciously overlooking some shortcoming in the way he’d been treated.
I studied him with interest. I didn’t see much of either parent in him. Dolores Hagley had been a short, plump, motherly, self-effacing woman. Junius Hagley had been bony and angular and gave such an impression of disjointed height that I was always vaguely surprised to stand next to him and find that we were eye to eye at five ten. Chuck Hagley was at least two inches over six feet and rather beefy. He didn’t appear particularly sad or stricken—more like someone who’d really rather be almost anywhere else.
The chief had pulled out his phone and was studying it. He glanced up at me and held up the phone.
“Where’d this come from?” I assumed he had just found the picture I’d sent him.
“A box of Dr. Womble’s stuff that Robyn asked me to take over to him.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Thank you.”
“So is there anything else?” Chuck Hagley’s gaze drifted from the chief, over to me, and on to Maudie.
“Mr. Hagley, this is Meg Langslow,” Maudie said. “She’s with Trinity.”
“Not in the mood to be prayed over,” Hagley said. “Thanks all the same.”
“I’ll be running along.” The chief looked as if he was dashing away to avoid bursting out laughing.
“Praying’s not really my line,” I said.
“Aren’t you the minister?” Hagley looked confused.
“Robyn Smith’s the minister, and she’s out on maternity leave,” I said. “I’m just filling in for her on a few practical things.”
“Practical things?” Hagley allowed Maudie to herd him back into the arrangements room and ease him into a chair. She set the tea tray down on the mahogany conference table that filled most of it and refilled Hagley’s coffee cup. I trailed after them with my teacup.
“Well, I was supposed to find out how you wanted Trinity to handle arrangements for your mother as well as your father,” I said. “Though I gather Maudie’s already taken care of that.”
Maudie nodded and beamed at me as she slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving me face-to-face with yet another next of kin.