“What do you mean?”
He tucked his hand between the buttons of his vest. “You’d just expect more, is all.”
“More?”
His demeanor changed back just as quickly. “Listen to me. You’re the doctor here. You’ll see for yourself, and probably find a lot more than I ever could.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s really good to have you back, Sara. And I want you to know that I’m real happy for you. Don’t listen to what anybody else says.”
Sara didn’t like the sound of that. “Happy about what?”
“Your new fella.”
“My new-”
“Whole town’s buzzing about it. Mama was on the phone all last night.”
Sara felt her face turning red. “Brock-Dan. He’s not really-”
“Shh,” Brock warned. She heard shuffling on the stairs above them. He raised his voice. “Mama, I’m gonna go to the cemetery now to help Mr. Billingham’s people. Sara’ll be downstairs working, so don’t you go and bother her. You hear?”
Audra Brock’s voice was frail, though the old biddy would probably outlive them all. “What’d you say?”
He raised his voice again, cutting to the chase. “I said leave Sara alone.”
There was something like a “humph,” then more shuffling as she made her way back to her room.
Brock rolled his eyes, but his good-natured smile was still on his face. “Everything downstairs is the same as when you left it. I should be back in an hour or so to lend you a hand. Should I put a sign on the door for your fella?”
“He-” Sara stopped herself. “I’ll do it.”
“My office is still in the kitchen. I spiffed it up a bit. Lemme know what you think about it.” He gave her a wave before leaving through the front door.
Sara walked to the back of the house. She had left her purse in the car so she didn’t have a paper or pen to leave Will a note. The Victorian’s kitchen had always served as the office. Brock had finally taken out the old sink and washboard, making the space more conducive to the business of managing death. The coffin display was built into the breakfast nook. Catalogues of flower arrangements were artfully spread out on a mahogany table. Brock’s desk was glass and steel, a very modern design considering he was the oldest soul she had ever met.
She took a Post-it off his blotter and started to write Will a note, then stopped herself. Frank was planning to make an appearance. What could she put on this small square of paper that would tell Will where to go without making Frank suspicious?
Sara tapped the pen to her teeth as she walked to the front door. She finally settled on “down stairs,” writing it as two words, each on its own line. To make it as clear as possible, she drew a large, downward-pointing arrow. That might not do any good, though. Every dyslexic was different, but there were certain characteristics that the majority of them shared. Primary among these was a lack of any sense of direction. It was no wonder Will had gotten lost driving down from Atlanta. Making a phone call wouldn’t have helped matters. Telling a dyslexic to turn right was about as useful as telling a cat to tap-dance.
Sara pressed the note to the glass on the front door. She had agonized over the message this morning, writing it six different times, signing it, not signing it. The smiley face had been a last-minute addition, her way of trying to let Will know that everything was okay between them. A blind man could’ve seen how upset he was last night. Sara felt horrible for embarrassing him. She had never been a smiley face person, but she’d drawn two eyes and a mouth at the corner of the note before sticking it in a baggie under his windshield, hoping that he would take it the right way.
It seemed wildly inappropriate to leave a smiley face on the front door of a funeral home, but she drew a small figure-two eyes and a curved mouth-thinking at least she’d get points for consistency.
The floorboards overhead creaked, and Sara trotted quickly back toward the kitchen. She left the basement door wide open and took the stairs two at a time to avoid Brock’s mother. There was a burglar door at the bottom of the landing. Black metal bars and a mesh screen kept anyone from breaking into the embalming area. You wouldn’t think that a person would want to come down here unless they had to, but many years ago, a couple of kids from the college had busted open the old door in their quest to steal some formaldehyde, a popular choice for cutting powder cocaine. Sara assumed the combination on the keypad hadn’t changed. She entered 1-5-9 and the door clicked open.
Brock kept the area immediately across from the door empty so that no one would accidentally glance through the mesh screen and see something they should never have to see. The buffer zone continued down the long, well-lit hallway. Storage shelves contained various chemicals and supplies with the labels all turned toward the wall so the viewer would not know what he was looking at. Small shoe boxes filled the last metal cabinet; cremains no one had ever bothered to pick up.
At the end of the hall, Brock had posted a sign that Sara recognized from the hospital morgue: Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. Roughly translated, “This is the place where death delights to teach the living.”
The swinging doors to the embalming suite were propped open with old bricks from the house. Artificial light bounced off the white tile walls. While the upstairs had been drastically changed, the downstairs looked exactly the same as Sara remembered. There were two stainless steel gurneys in the middle of the room with large industrial lights spring-mounted above them. A workstation stood at the foot of each gurney, plumbing connected at the ends to help evacuate the bodies. Brock had already laid out the autopsy tools-the saws, the scalpels, the forceps, and scissors. He was still using the pruning shears Sara had bought at the hardware store to cut through the breastbone.
The back of the room was wholly devoted to the funeral business. Beside the walk-in freezer was a rolling tray containing the metal trocar that was used to pierce and clean out organs during the embalming process. Neatly tucked into the corner was the embalming machine, which looked like a cross between a buffet-style coffee warmer and a blender. The arterial tube hung limply in the sink. Heavy rubber gloves were laid out on the basin. A butcher’s apron. A pair of construction goggles. A splatter mask. An industrial-sized box of roll cotton for stopping leaks.
Incongruously, there was a hair dryer and a pink makeup kit opened on top of the cotton box. Pots of foundation and various shades of eyeshadows and lip glosses were inside. The logo for “Peason’s Mortuary makeup” was embossed on the inside of the lid.
Sara took a pair of disposable surgical gloves from the box mounted on the wall. She opened the freezer door. A gust of cold air met her. There were three bodies inside, all zipped into black bags. She checked the tags for Allison Spooner.
The bag unzipped with the usual hassle, catching on the bulky black plastic. Allison’s skin had taken on the waxy, iridescent tone of death. Her lips were blackish blue. Pieces of grass and twigs were stuck to her skin and clothing. Small contusions pebbled her mouth and cheeks. Sara slipped on the surgical gloves and gently folded back the girl’s bottom lip. Teeth marks cut into the soft flesh where Allison’s face had been pressed into the ground. The wound had bled before she died. The killer had held her down in order to kill her.
Carefully, Sara turned Allison’s head to the side. The rigor had already dissipated. She could easily see the gaping stab wound at the back of the girl’s neck.
Brock was right. She wasn’t killed bad. There was no fury written on the body, just a deadly, precise incision.
Sara pressed her fingers to the top and bottom of the wound, stretching the skin to reconstruct its probable position at the time of injury. The knife would have been thin, approximately half an inch wide, probably no more than three and a half inches long. The blade had gone in at an angle. The bottom of the incision appeared curved, which meant that the knife had been twisted to ensure maximum damage.