SIX
When Mrs. Wallace said I didn’t need a jacket, she meant I wouldn’t need to go outside. The funeral parlor is behind that locked door on the main floor. Entering through the front door, you can arrive in a foyer with two doors. One leads into a hall with a door to the courtyard, steps to the living quarters or a small “staff” door into the back of the funeral parlor. The second unmarked foyer door is on your right and leads into the funeral parlor.
I’m guessing that when Gray is expecting clients, they close the door into the main hall and open the one into the business. The lack of sign-age seems confusing, but wearein a residential neighborhood. Something tells me there’s also no sign out front either. Having a neighbor sell fresh-baked pies is one thing; having them store dead bodies is another.
When I step through that door, the first thing I notice is the endless black. Swaths of what I think is called crepe—a lightweight, crinkly fabric—wind around pillars and loop over doorways and cover almost every wrapable surface.
To my left, I find what must be a showroom, with small caskets that I first think, with horror, are for babies. Hey, infant mortality rates in this period are mind-boggling. Then I realize they’re samples. Miniature caskets. Or coffins. Or whatever they’re called. There are sample headstones, too, also in miniature. When I see a book of photographs, I expect mortuary photos—those creepy Victorian pictures of people posingwith dead relatives. Instead, it’s sample photos of living persons with memorial dates.
Looking around, I don’t see any of the ghoulish stuff I associate with Victorians and death. No photos of deceased loved ones. No dolls made in the likeness of a dead child. Nothing more morbid than hair jewelry.
Up front is a sitting room. It looks like a formal parlor, though the colors are much more muted than the riotous ones upstairs. Other than the somber decorating, there’s no sign that this is anything except a sitting area, with a sofa and chairs and tables. I suspect that’s intentional, so curious passersby see only a tidy front parlor. Heavy curtains frame a window that looks out onto the street. There’s no lawn. It reminds me of New York brownstones, fronting directly onto the road.
I dust and sweep the reception area and showroom. Those take up more than half the floor space. There’s no area big enough for loved ones to host the visitations and services. I check, in case there’s a small chapel or viewing room. There isn’t. Odd. Services must be held elsewhere.
That leaves one other essential part of a funeral parlor: the preparation room. I find a locked door at the rear, which I presume is an office. But then another closed door opens to reveal an office, which is remarkably tidy. Not as tidy asI’dlike, but more than I’d expect from Gray, with only one stack of books on the floor and a few scattered pages on the desk. Also a book that seems to have fallen from the overstuffed shelf. It’s lying open on the floor, pages folded. My fingers itch to pick it up, but I can hear him snapping that he put that book there, exactly like that, and I’d bloody well better not touch it.
I close the office door and make a mental note to find out whether there’s anything I should be doing in the office, dusting or such. Then I retreat to finish cleaning the showroom and reception area.
When I’m done, I know I should head off to bed. An hour ago, I’d been ready to cuddle down in a casket to get a bit of rest. Now my work’s finally done, and my brain is whizzing so fast I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.
That locked door must be the preparation room. It must also be where they keep the bodies awaiting burial.
As a police officer, I’ve sat—or stood—in on autopsies. My colleagues always tease that I’m such a keener I jump at the chance to prove myself in anything, even autopsy duty. The truth is that I’m genuinely interested.
I’ve even seen an embalming. I’d been interviewing a mortician on a case, and he’d been up to his eyeballs in bodies, so I’d talked to him while he worked. I suspect that violates some professional code of privacy, but when I’d expressed an interest in seeing the process, he’d happily demonstrated. He also called the next day to ask me out. I said no, but not without a stab of guilt. I suspect putting “mortician” on your dating profile doesn’t win you a lot of right swipes.
As for the preparations, I’d found them fascinating. All that work to give people one last look at their loved one, and they’ll still complain that Aunt Agnes never wore her hair that way. This reminds me of Nan, but in a strange way, thinking about the dead helps quiet the gibbering voice that whispers my grandmother is probably already dead, probably lying in a place like this.
What if she is? Would that be any different than coming back from my jog that night to find she’d passed while I was gone? I would have felt horrible not being there, but I also must admit that we’d said what needed to be said. I just selfishly wanted more time. If she is gone, then her body may be in a place like this, but her spirit is not and the memory of her is not.
I double-check the door. Yep, still locked. I scan the room for something I can use to pick the lock with. Amazing how many of those “junior police officer” kits come with tools and instructions for opening locks, as if breaking and entering is just part of the job.
I return to Gray’s office and ease open a drawer, looking for—
A hard rap sounds at a distant door, seemingly from the front of the house. I slam the drawer shut, wincing as everything inside jostles. I hurry out of the funeral parlor into the main hall. A staccato rap sounds again, and I realize it comes not at the front door but at the rear.
Is a housemaid allowed—or even expected—to answer the back door? I could catch shit either way. The choice, then, is mine. Which means there’s no choice at all. It’s a late-night knock at the back door to a funeral parlor. Of course I want to know who it is.
I must still play the simpering maid, though, so I set my foot behind the door and crack it open a scant inch, while gripping a letter opener in my hidden hand.
I peer through the crack to see a man far more befitting my mental image of a Victorian gentleman… and possibly befitting my romance-loving friends’, too. He wears what I want to call a frock coat, with a vest underneath and a starched white shirt. A wide tie with a jeweled stickpin completes the look. He’s around Gray’s age and has sandy brown hair, sideburns, and a neat mustache. Despite the facial hair not being to my taste, he’s handsome in that ordinary way that I consider the best kind of good-looking. Nothing flashy, just really easy on the eyes.
It takes me a moment to notice the man isn’t alone. Behind him stands a guy probably not much older than Catriona, wearing what is unmistakably a police uniform.
“Miss Catriona.” The older man smiles, and there’s a gap between his front teeth, a charming one that I’m glad no modern orthodontist closed. “So good to see you up and about. I saw the light and thought it must be Duncan working late.”
“No, sir,” I say, my gaze demurely lowered. “It is only myself, finishing my chores. Would you like me to fetch Dr. Gray?”
“Please.”
I slide the letter opener into my sleeve as I pull the door wide and invite them in. It’s only as the two men move inside that I see the wagon in the courtyard. And a foot hanging out of it.
Oh, my. Thisisinteresting.
“I will tell the doctor you’re here,” I say. Then I pause. “Apologies, sir, but…” I rub the bump on my temple. “This has left me a wee bit confused. I know you are an associate of Dr. Gray’s, and that we have met before, and that you work for the police. Yet your name escapes me.”
He only smiles. “Tell Dr. Gray that Hugh McCreadie is here to see him.” He motions at the young man. “And this is Police Constable Findlay, whom I believe you know.”