CHAPTER TWO

 

"Promise me that if I die, you won't bring me here," Irene said an hour later as we stood in the lobby of Gordon's Mortuary. "Freeze me cryogenically, or just prop me in the corner like a broom. Anything but this. What was Barbara Bristol thinking?"

"Give her a break. She doesn't know the area," I said. "She probably picked it out online."

"You're being too kind," she said. "There isn't enough photoshopping in the world to make this place look appealing."

The dim lighting in the lobby was a blessing, given the dingy wallpaper and mismatched furniture. A grandfather clock stood silent to our right, having long ago stopped keeping time. A rickety side table practically creaked under the weight of a stack of generic Scenes Across America calendars, bearing the funeral home's imprint, and a few pamphlets, exhorting well-organized people with disposable income to preplan their "life celebration." A cheap-looking accordion style folding door stood latched closed to our right, probably concealing a viewing room. Across the lobby to our left was a closed door with a tarnished gold nameplate reading Private. No soothing background music, no hushed voices, and no evidence of good taste.

"Décor by flea market," I muttered.

"No kidding." Irene glanced around. "Where is everybody? This place is quiet, even for a funeral home. You'd think they'd at least be playing Muzak or something."

"Guess they didn't hear us come in," I said.

"They who?" she asked. "There doesn't even seem to be a staff. You could walk right in and steal the furniture, no problem."

We looked at the two ancient wing chairs pushed against the wall. Dust powdered the arms and lined the butt-shaped concavities on the seat cushions.

"Who'd want to?" I asked.

She smirked. "Okay, then you could walk in and steal a body."

"Touché." I paused. "Although, again, I still can't imagine why anyone would."

"Black market organs?"

"Those have to be harvested soon after death to remain viable," I said.

Irene shot me a look.

"What? I sat in on a class about transplant hepatology last month." One of the perks of my job as a barista on the Stanford campus was easy access to some of the world's brightest minds. Which I took full advantage of on a regular basis, even if crashing classes meant I didn't pay full tuition.

She wrinkled her nose. "Why would you do that?"

"One can never be too careful about one's liver," I told her. Especially when one, like me, enjoyed her occasional cocktail.

Irene shrugged. "Okay, well, maybe someone wanted Rebecca's liver."

But I shook my head in the negative. "Watson said he received Rebecca's body on Monday and it—she—had likely been dead at least 24 hours by then. Too much time had passed."

"Oh, right. So forget that angle. By then her organs would have spoiled like day-old fish."

I stared at her. "Maybe we could try to be respectful?"

She shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the mood. You think I don't know this is spooky stuff?"

It was hard to tell sometimes. I looked across the lobby. "Do you think we should knock on that door?"

"I think we should leave and never come back," Irene said. "Rebecca Lowery probably jumped out of her casket and ran off by herself when she got a look at this place."

"Can I help you ladies?" boomed a voice behind us.

Irene and I spun around as one.

Then I froze. I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open like a cartoon character as I stared at the man in front of me. He could have been an extra in a vampire movie. Black hair accentuated a pale, gaunt face with sharp cheekbones under intense black eyes. A chilly smile emanated from his lipless mouth. His black suit, draped on a skeletal frame, was standard issue mortician wear, as were the shiny black wingtips. I was fairly sure I'd seen an animatronic version of him holding a butler's tray in the local Home Depot Halloween display.

He extended a heavily veined hand. "Dominic Gordon. And you are?"

Terrified. "Martha Hudson," I said. His hand was dry and cold, as you would expect from a cadaver. I tried not to meet his eyes. Their blackness was unnerving, almost soulless.

"Charmed," Gordon said, completely without charm. He turned to Irene with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh, this is my partner, Irene Adler. We're private detectives investigating Rebecca Lowery's disappearance."

A little vertical crease appeared between his eyebrows. "Private detectives? I don't understand."

"Then you have something in common with our client," Irene said, having taken a moment to find her voice. I was pretty sure she was imagining him turning into a little bat and flying away, just like I was. "Ms. Lowry's sister doesn't understand either. She doesn't understand how her sister's body vanished from your funeral home."

His eyebrows shot up in alarm, and he did a not so loud gesture, patting the air with both palms. I couldn't imagine who he might fear would overhear us. His clients weren't the listening type.

"Maybe we should step into my office." He gestured toward the Private sign.

"I'm comfortable right here," Irene said.

Which was more than I could say, though standing out here was preferable to holing up in a small office with the Vampire Lestat.

"What can you tell us about Rebecca Lowery?" she asked.

He stroked his chin, thinking. "Redhead, rather corpulent, died in a car accident?"

"Blonde, thin, died from head trauma," I said. And I couldn't imagine what he considered corpulent, given that he probably topped the scales at 150, even with his pockets full of embalming fluid.

"Yes, of course." He smiled fleetingly. "Lovely woman."

Nothing creepy about that. My skin prickled like it was getting ready to crawl off.

"Are you sure about that?" Irene asked. "You might be thinking of the Jane Doe you tried to pass off as our client's sister."

His eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure insults are called for, under the circumstances."

"Mr. Gordon," I cut in, "Rebecca Lowery's body was positively identified at the medical examiner's office on Monday evening. We understand the body was released to you the following day."

He nodded. "We picked up the deceased at Mrs. Lowery Bristol's request and scheduled the cremation."

Irene gave a start. "Cremation?"

Another nod. "That's right. Her sister specifically requested that cremation be carried out as soon as possible."

I couldn't help but wonder why Barbara had neglected to mention that. Not that it was any of our business. It was entirely possible the sisters had no living relatives and therefore no need for a formal visitation. Or it might have been Rebecca's wish simply to be cremated. It might have even been an attempt at frugality on Barbara's part. There was nothing wrong with frugality. It was my life's guiding principle.

"But it wasn't done," Irene was saying.

Gordon shook his head. "The deceased's lawyer informed me that Miss Lowery's will specifically stipulated a visitation with an open casket and full cosmetics. We immediately rescheduled her for embalming." He drew himself up straighter. "We honor the final wishes of our clients here."

Clearly Barbara wasn't up on her sister's wishes. Then again, if they'd been estranged, I'd hardly expect her to know what her sister's will said.

"Regrettably," Gordon went on, "in the exchange of the necessary paperwork, the deceased…well…"

"Disappeared," Irene said.

"Quite." He ran a finger inside his collar to loosen it around his neck. "Regrettably," he repeated.

"Yeah," Irene said. "We got that part."

"I want to understand the timeline," I said. "You picked up the deceased on Tuesday morning. And you met with her sister when?"

He ran a hand down the back of his head. "She engaged our services by phone on Monday afternoon. Tuesday we received the body from the morgue. The sister came in on Wednesday to complete the paperwork for the change from a simple cremation to a viewing. And to make the necessary payment arrangements."

I could practically read Irene's mind. How much do you charge to lose a body? But she managed to stay silent.

"And did she see her sister at that point?" I asked.

"Regret—" He glanced at Irene. "Unfortunately, no. I mean, she asked to. We didn't have the body ready, of course, so we discouraged it. Such a shock to see one's loved ones in that sort of state, you know."

"Almost as much shock as finding out they'd been lost."

Dominic's eyebrows pinched together. "But she was quite insistent on seeing her sister."

"And that's when she realized you had the wrong body."

"Er…quite."

"Who was the other woman?" Irene cut in.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, blinking at her.

"The body in Rebecca's place. Who was she?"

"Oh, uh, er…we're not entirely sure."

I felt my eyebrows rise. "You're telling me that a random dead body showed up in Rebecca Lowery's place?"

"Uh, yes. I mean, no. She…well, she was tagged as Rebecca Lowery, so we're still trying to find her proper identification."

"So no other bodies are missing? This wasn't a simple mix-up?" I shot a look toward Irene. Unfortunately, our theory was carrying more and more weight—this wasn't a case of poor filing. Someone had deliberately taken Rebecca Lowery and left a Jane Doe in her place.

"No one else is missing!" Dominic said, looking over both shoulders as if hordes of prospective clients might be listening. "Look, we'll figure out who the other woman is. I'm sure it's a simple misunderstanding."

"Age? Coloring?" Irene jumped in.

"Excuse me?"

"Of the Jane Doe."

He paused. "If you're asking if she could be mistaken for Rebecca Lowery, the answer is yes. They looked very similar."

Funny, Dominic suddenly had an excellent memory when it came to what Rebecca Lowery looked like. I wondered how much of his act was trying to cover up the fact that his mortuary had lost a body.

"So Rebecca Lowery actually disappeared from this location," Irene said. "Not in transport. Who has access to this building?"

"No one who doesn't need access." His Adam's apple boomeranged in his throat when he swallowed. "If you're assuming we pass out keys like dinner mints, Miss Adler, you're mistaken."

"I'm not assuming anything," she said evenly. "Where do you put the bodies when you bring them in? You know, before the embalming and cosmetics?"

"Downstairs, of course." He plugged a finger into his collar again and yanked it around. "But I couldn't possibly take you there. It would be improper."

"As opposed to losing a body," Irene muttered.

If it was possible, Dominic Gordon paled even further.

She raised her voice. "What sort of security measures do you employ?"

He stiffened. "I'll have you know, we have a state-of-the-art security system."

She pointed to the keypad mounted beside the front door. "Is that it?"

He nodded.

"No security cameras?"

"Why would we need them?" he asked.

Good point. His clients didn't usually get frisky.

Irene walked over to the keypad and punched in some numbers while studying the readout. "That's what I thought." She turned to me. "I think we're about finished here." She glanced at Dominic Gordon. "We'll be in touch if we think of anything else."

"Fine." His tone suggested it was anything but. "You might find it more convenient to call. My card." He handed me a flimsy gray business card. "Let me see you out." He rushed past us to open the door, practically shoving us onto the sagging porch.

When the door closed behind us, Irene said, "He just made number one on the suspect list."

We had a suspect list? We'd only talked to two people. "Why?" I asked.

"You have to ask?" She shuddered. "You look up the word creepy, and that guy's picture is right there. I can just see him pulling a Norman Bates and keeping a dead body at his house for company."

"Thanks for that disturbing image," I said. "But it's not a crime to be creepy."

We got into the car.

"True enough," Irene admitted. "If it was, some of the guys I've dated would be in jail."

"What was that with the keypad?" I asked.

"Just seeing how easy it would be to bypass."

"And?"

"Child's play."

What was child's play for Irene and what was child's play for the rest of the world were two different things. Irene had started her computing career at age twelve by hacking into a government mainframe. She'd graduated MIT at fourteen, and she'd sold her first company on her twenty-first birthday, making her a multimillionaire before she'd ever bought her first beer. However, I tended to believe her when she said Gordon was skimping on security. He hadn't struck me as the overly vigilant type. Case in point—the missing body.

"So, anyone could have broken in?" I asked.

Irene nodded. "The real question is why. I mean, I get why someone would want to steal cash or jewelry. But why steal a body?"

"Medical research?" I offered.

"Totally great reason." She paused and shot me a look. "If this were the eighteenth century and you wanted to know how to cure the vapors."

I gave her a playful punch in the arm. "You have a better idea?"

She paused a moment, pursing her lips as she walked. "Okay, I can think of one reason," she said. "Necrophilia."

"That is not a better reason," I told her.

"I can easily picture Dominic Gordon propping Rebecca in a chair and going home to play Old Maid with her every night."

"Really disturbing," I told her.

"Tell me you can't see it happening."

Thing was, I kind of could.

"Okay, as ick as that is…but then why would he substitute another cadaver in her place? I mean, one body is as good as another, right?"

"Hmm." Irene mulled that one over. "You're right. I mean, the only reason to sub bodies is so the missing Rebecca wouldn't be noticed."

"Like at a viewing."

Irene raised an eyebrow my way. "Now you're onto something, Sherlock."

I flinched. "I wish you wouldn't call me that."

But she ignored me, her mental hamster having jumped on his wheel. "Rebecca was originally schedule for cremation. It wasn't until after the last minute change to an open casket viewing that she went missing. Someone didn't want Rebecca viewed. Instead, they broke in, took Rebecca's body, and substituted a similar-looking corpse, hoping to pass it off as Rebecca for the viewing."

I hated to admit it, but that was the best theory we'd come up with so far. "They might have gotten away with it too. I mean, it had been five years since her sister had seen Rebecca. And with the mortuary makeup and a little grief clouding Barbara's vision, it wasn't a half bad plan."

"If Barbara hadn't insisted on seeing her sister before she was made up, it's possible no one would have noticed," Irene added.

"So what about Rebecca did someone not want seen?"

Irene turned to me, her eyes shining. Uh-oh. I knew that look. It was the same one she'd gotten when she'd made Forbes 30 Under 30 list—glee mixed with just enough determination to be scary.

"Evidence of her murder."

"Murder?" I choked out. "Wait—we're only looking for a missing person here. Dr. Watson said her death was accidental."

"But what if it wasn't? What if she was pushed into that granite counter instead of falling?"

I paused. "That would be hard to prove. The wound would look identical whether it was from a fall or push."

"But it's possible."

I nodded. "Watson is thorough. I don't think he'd miss evidence of a crime."

"If he were looking for it," Irene cut in. "This was a simple slip and fall when it came to him. I mean, what if the evidence wasn't glaring? What if it was just enough that an open casket and visitation made the killer too nervous?"

"I supposed it's possible," I said slowly. "But we're being paid to find Rebecca…not find out how she died."

Irene grinned at me. "If we find out who killed Rebecca and took the body, it'll lead us to where the body was taken."

While I could point out a couple of flaws in her logic and I had my doubts that Watson would miss a murder, it was becoming more and more clear that Rebecca's body hadn't just been misplaced—it had been taken. Someone had intentionally left Jane Doe in her place. Not something innocent people did.

I nodded. "Fine. We can do it your way."

"You won't regret it," Irene said.

I already kind of did.