2

Five restless nights later Emily lay awake watching the sky from her bedroom window in the house she’d grown up in. She couldn’t sleep. Hours passed, and mercifully the jet black slowly changed to midnight blue tinged with orange as the sun rose on the day of her father’s funeral.

Emily crawled out of bed to take a walk around the property, a fifty-acre farm and orchard. She wandered across the harvested wheat field that her father had rented out to a local farmer, and through the small orchard of apple and peach trees he had planted that were almost past their prime. The dew was heavy on the tall grass and soon soaked her tennis shoes and pant bottoms. She had a hard time following her thoughts, so she stopped fighting them and let her mind drift as her senses absorbed the earthy odor and the cool morning air, which had dipped to around forty degrees. Soon the swirl of thoughts presented themselves as a string of questions.

What did Dad mean by ‘meeting a woman’? Was he having an affair? Did Mom know? Why didn’t she tell me about the cancer? Did this other woman somehow contribute to Mom’s accident?

When Emily returned to the house, she found Cathy Bishop, Dad’s new wife of just six months and third-generation owner of Bishop and Schulz Funeral Home, in the kitchen boiling eggs for breakfast. Emily’s stomach turned at the thought of food, but that’s how people fed their grief here in Freeport. She would be expected to eat, or pretend to, anyhow.

“I know you’re not hungry, but you need to eat something,” said Cathy, correctly guessing the thoughts behind the look on Emily’s face. “It’s going to be a long day. Three bites.”

Emily nodded and sat at the kitchen table. Cathy brought her a mug of coffee and a hard-boiled egg. She sipped on the bitter black brew, so deadened inside that she did not even make the effort to add her usual sugar and a dash of cream.

“I want you to know that I’ve decided to move out of the house,” Cathy declared after Emily had taken her first bite of egg.

“No. No. You don’t have to do that. This is your house now.”

“Technically, it’s probably yours. We never got around to making a will together.”

Emily wasn’t surprised by this. Even Emily hadn’t known about her father’s marriage until recently.

“I’m not kicking you out. Besides, I don’t even know if I’m sticking around Freeport now.” She had arrived in Freeport less than two weeks ago to attend to her father after his first heart attack. She hadn’t intended to stay long, because she had a surgical residency in Chicago … and a fiancé, Brandon. Well, ex-fiancé. They had been engaged for a week before things took an odd turn. The same day she arrived in her Freeport home, Senator Dobson’s daughter, Julie, had been killed riding her horse and Dad had begged her to assist on a medical examiner case. Just like the old times when Emily was a teenager, assisting as junior coroner.

At first, Emily begrudgingly agreed to help him, but she soon found herself engrossed. It turned out to be a homicide case, and she quickly became bent on cracking it as the familiar, old passions for investigation kicked in from the years when she and her Dad had solved cases together.

Emily rubbed her healing ribs, a lingering reminder that the Dobson murder investigation had almost cost her her life. But she had found the killer. The Dobson case had invigorated Emily in a way she hadn’t felt since she had worked side by side with her dad in death investigations.

“It doesn’t feel right to stay. I’ll be out by the end of the week,” said Cathy.

“Back to the funeral home?” asked Emily. Cathy owned the large red brick Victorian home in downtown Freeport that served as a funeral parlor and upstairs residence.

“Yes. I rented it out, when your father and I got married, to a young couple. Fortunately, they understand my need to have the place back.”

“Cathy … please stay here. The place is huge, and there’s no reason we can’t both be here. Besides, I’ll be having to get back to Chicago sometime soon.”

“I just can’t. I need to move on.” Cathy wagged her head. “Fresh start.” She took a seat at the table, slid two hard boiled eggs onto a plate, and broke them with a fork. “My son, Ben, came into town last night,” Cathy said, taking a seat at the table. “He’s bringing the hearse by in a half an hour to take me to the funeral home. You’re welcome to ride with us.”

“Nick said he would pick me up. But thanks.”

Emily forced down two more bites of breakfast and went up to her room to slip on Jo’s black A-line dress. All of her stuff was still in Chicago. When her father had his first heart attack, she had rushed from her shift at the hospital, dressed only in jeans and a blouse, to drive four hours north to Freeport upon getting news from Jo. Since that horrible call, Emily hadn’t had a single moment’s time to return to Chicago, where she lived, to retrieve her things, which was now proving very unfortunate because Jo was tinier than Emily and the dress snugged her chest and hips. Emily had to wriggle the fabric into place to keep it from riding up. My own father’s funeral, and I don’t even have my own dress.

After things settled down, she would need to get to Chicago to pick up her belongings from the brownstone that Brandon, her ex-fiancé, had purchased for them. The bombshell engagement in the doctors’ lounge, complete with a two-karat diamond ring adorning the top of a peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcake (her favorite!) had come just moments prior to news of her father’s first heart attack. After checking in on him, Emily had launched into Julie’s death investigation. The week following she had been consumed with Julie’s case. Stepping into the coroner’s shoes after 13 years took up every ounce of her energy. When she surfaced, she realized Brandon had not exactly been the model of support. She had barely heard from him. He was consumed by his own burgeoning surgical schedule. How on earth would they be able to make a life together if he couldn’t even be there for her during her father’s crisis?

When Brandon did finally drive up to Freeport and meet her father for the first time—a few days before Dad’s second heart attack—she had been surprised at how different they seemed from one another.

In the short time she had been absent from their life in Chicago, Brandon had bought them a brownstone and moved everything from her city apartment into the new place without even telling her. And he had begun plans for their wedding reception with the help of his controlling mother. Again, without any consent from Emily. It was more than she could take. She didn’t want her life ordered and arranged. She wanted a say in it. She wanted an equal partner, a best friend, someone who would drop everything to be by her side, especially in her time of greatest need. Brandon was too little, too late.

Her feet had grown cold, and she’d given the ring back. Their breakup had been abrupt and hurtful for both of them. Now, in all the trauma over her father’s sudden passing, she hadn’t even thought to call Brandon to tell him her father had died.

How easy it was for someone who had been in her life every day for the past couple of years to slip her mind so quickly. Still, the pain tugged at her heart when her mind wandered to the good places their relationship had taken them. Emily decided she would chalk up her oversight to sleep deprivation and grief.

Emily brushed out her hair and twisted it into a smooth bun. She applied four bobby pins and a spritz of hair spray. From her mirror she could hear the hearse pulling into the driveway. Cathy’s son, Ben, exited and headed toward the front door, but his mother met him in the drive. When she saw him, she broke down and he gave her a long hug. Emily felt a lump in her throat. Despite their very short marriage, Cathy had really loved her father. She was now twice a widow and it just didn’t seem fair. After a moment, her son led her to the hearse and opened the door.

Emily turned back to her image in the mirror. She feared she looked stark and bookish with her hair pulled back, but she hadn’t had the energy to wash, dry, and style it properly. Everything about the last two weeks had drained her, including her own short hospital stay after being struck down during a chase to catch a killer. Thankfully, her shoulder, jaw, and rib injuries had been reduced to dull aches that required only a single ibuprofen this morning to relieve them.

Emily dabbed her lips with coral lipstick and searched for her red jacket. She headed downstairs to wait on the front porch for Nick, then sat on the same chair where she and her father had shared a slice of apple pie just a few days before he died. Emily thought about the house, the property, the home office. She wasn’t looking forward to dealing with it all.

Nick’s squad car pulled into the driveway, and she rose to meet it. When Nick got out of the car, Emily’s lips parted as she caught her breath. He looked handsome and dignified in his dress uniform.

“You look really stunning,” said Nick. “I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say on a day like this, but …”

Emily gave him a small smile. “You’re kind. I look like a tired library lady.”

Nick reached out to take her hand. She was grateful for the chivalrous gesture, especially as she maneuvered her way in the four-inch heels—another wardrobe borrow from Jo—that were two inches taller than she was used to.

Nick drove them onto the two-lane county highway that led toward Bishop and Schulz Funeral Home in the center of Freeport. Neither spoke for several miles until Nick’s radio scratched, breaking the silence.

“All units, I’m requesting a ten-thirteen at Pinetree Slopes. Please respond,” chirped a dispatcher on the other end.

Nick grabbed the radio receiver.

“What does that mean?” said Emily. “Is it urgent?”

“It means they need emergency assistance.”

Nick pressed the transmit button. “This is Sheriff Larson. Can you advise further?”

“Negative. Waiting on more information,” said the dispatcher.

“I need more info. What are we dealing with?”

After a moment, the dispatcher said, “They called in a nine-eight-oh-seven.”

“What’s that?” asked Emily.

“Suspicious situation.” Nick pressed his radio button down again to signal dispatch.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It’s code for a lot of things we don’t want to announce over the airwaves.”

“Like?”

“Like … like maybe a HAZMAT situation, or animal at large.”

She knew he was lying by the way his glance shifted out the driver’s side window as he said it.

The radio crackled and the dispatcher’s voice belted out, “We may have a ten-fourteen. Out.”

“A suspicious death,” Emily said with an air of confidence.

“I shoulda figured you knew that one,” Nick said as he nipped the cuticle skin off his left thumb with his teeth. There was one code Emily knew well. It was 10-14, request for a medical examiner.

“I’ll send a local police officer.”

“Nick, if you need to go there, I understand,” said Emily, remembering all the times her father, Freeport’s coroner for over thirty years, had been called to a death investigation case during the most inopportune moments and important events of their daily lives—band performances, the middle of a church service, and always, always during holiday dinners.

“I can’t. It’s your father’s funeral.”

“Drop me and come back,” she said.

“He was my friend, too. I’ll let some of the other guys handle it.”

“They’ll be calling for me next,” she mused, “and they’ll have to wait.”

Nick made the request for another officer, and they rode in silence. Emily’s thoughts started to drift to the call, and she wondered what they had found. How many bodies? In what condition? A small smile formed on her lips. How absolutely fitting that death would interrupt your own funeral. Nice nod, Dad. I get you.

“What are you smiling about?” Nick interrupted.

“Mom always joked that Dad would be late to his own funeral.”

Nick pressed on the accelerator pedal, and they sped toward Freeport.

“What is Pinetree Slopes, by the way? It wasn’t here when I lived in Freeport,” said Emily.

“Freeport’s hope for urban revitalization. They just broke ground.”

“No one’s actually living there yet?”

“No.”

“So, if no one’s living there, who’s dying there?”

Nick glanced over, and Emily met his eyes with a smug look.

“You are still definitely your father’s daughter.”