Dead Body Language (20 page)

Celeste’s office was dark, and I could see no other staff.

Knocking on French’s half-shut door, I inched it open with each rap. French looked up, put his pencil down, and offered his salesman smile. He was holding up well for a man in his midfifties. Been sipping some of that embalming fluid?

“Hi, French,” I said, entering slowly. “Sorry to bother you so late, but the front door was open, I saw your light on, and I had a few questions. Have you got a minute?” I closed the door behind me.

French removed his bifocals, leaving an imprint on the bridge of his nose, and set them carefully on his neat desk. His Wal-Mart suit was wrinkled from the day’s work, his hairpiece slightly disheveled, and there were a few crumbs of food on the side of his mouth. I licked my lips in response, but he didn’t get the hint.

“Come on in, Connor. Have a seat. I heard you stopped by and took the tour. Celeste mentioned you might have an aunt who may be needing our services soon. The counselors are all gone for the night. Can I help you with anything?”

I nodded and sat down in the leather chair opposite him. “Yes, uh, Aunt …” Oh, my God. I had forgotten my fictional aunt’s name! Well, how about “… Lotta. I’m afraid she’s …” I shook my head to avoid lying too excessively.

After a dramatic pause, I pushed on. “It’s hard to talk about, you know. But I was really impressed by the way you and Celeste handled Lacy Penzance’s arrangement. The funeral was so … unique. All that pink and those birds. God, it’s so hard to believe she’s dead.”

French nodded. “She was quite a lady. What a shocker to learn it was murder. Who would want to kill a nice old gal like that? She was quite a contributor to this community.”

She would have loved the “nice old gal,” I was sure. “I didn’t know her very well. But you did, didn’t you? I think
she mentioned you were friends when I last talked with her.”

French shrugged. “You know how that is in a small town. We dated a while when we were in high school, but I wanted to be a mortician, like my father, and she had higher aspirations for her future husband. It didn’t work out. We went our separate ways.”

“What about after Reuben’s death? I suppose you could have tried again. You’re a single man.”

He gave me a sharp look that quickly softened into a smile. “I’m kind of involved with Jilda down at the Nugget. She wouldn’t have liked it much if I’d started fooling around with Lacy, that’s for sure. She’s got a bit of a jealous streak. No, the timing wasn’t right for me and Lacy. Now about your aunt—”

“French, I’ve been thinking a lot about Lacy. I saw her the day before she died and something seemed to be bothering her. Do you know anything about a secret she might have been hiding?”

“A secret?”

I pressed on. “I think she was seeing someone. Recently. In fact, she might have been contemplating remarrying.”

French stuck out his lower lip and frowned. “Really?” He paused, picked up his glasses, and wiped the lenses with the front of his shirt. “Well, I guess it’s possible, her being a widow and all. But I never heard a thing about it. Funny.” He paused again.

“It wasn’t you?”

“Good grief, no! Hell, I met her a couple of times for dinner after Reuben died. Like I said, we were old friends. But Jilda would have killed me if she’d caught me, even though it didn’t mean anything. I mean, Lacy’s a very attractive woman and all. Even better looking than she was a few years ago. But I—”

He stopped, looking somewhat alarmed that he may have said something he shouldn’t have. Quickly he picked up his glasses and replaced them on his nose.

“You won’t say anything to Jilda, will you?” he said, frowning.

I shook my head and went on. “French, there’s something else. When I was here taking the tour, one of the embalmers mentioned something about an instrument missing from the embalming room.”

He frowned again and the glasses slipped down his nose. He pushed them back up with his middle finger, making an unconscious obscene gesture. “What? No! We’re very careful …”

“I think it was a trocar …” I bluffed.

His eyes narrowed. “Connor, what exactly do you want? I thought you were interested in some services for your aunt. This talk about Lacy and embalming tools and stuff isn’t really relevant.”

He stood. I stood.

“I was just curious. You know, everyone’s talking about Lacy’s death. I thought you might know something about the weapon that was used to kill her.”

“Weapon? You think a trocar was used to kill Lacy? One of Memory Kingdom’s? Connor, you’re way off the track here. I think—”

I turned around and headed for the door. Missed that last part. Bummer. I opened the door, then faced him once again.

“Thanks for your time, French. I’ll get back to you on my aunt … Lana.”

He closed his mouth and nodded. Nothing was worth losing a future customer. Then came that salesman smile again that had been missing for the last several minutes.

“Just let me know when I can be of service, Connor. Your aunt—now what did you say her name was—”

The phone apparently rang because French looked down at it, picked it up, and said hello. He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Oh, shit!” or maybe “Holy shit!” as his eyes shifted back and forth frantically. He dropped the phone down, grabbed his suit jacket off the hook, and headed for the door.

“Something wrong?” I asked. He looked pale, even for a mortician.

“It’s Sluice.”

“What? Is he—”

“There’s been an accident. Sluice apparently fell into an open grave he’d been digging.”

“Shall I call an ambulance?”

French didn’t respond to my question. Instead he replied, “They think he’s dead.”

I
hesitated before following French out the door. The sheriff would have to be notified if he hadn’t been already, and French didn’t appear to be thinking clearly. Still, someone had had the presence of mind to call French at least. Who? And from where?

French had no TTY, so I dialed the sheriff’s number on the regular phone and started talking when I thought someone would have had time to pick up the receiver. I repeated over and over the phrase, “This is Connor Westphal. Sluice Jackson’s fallen into an open grave at the Pioneer Cemetery,” and hoped someone was listening. Otherwise I’d feel like a fool.

After five or six repetitions, I left the office and headed for the cemetery, adjacent to the mortuary. The smell of the town mascot filled the air, a constant reminder of my new community. Across the dimly lighted expanse of lawn, I spotted a backhoe and made my way over.

As I approached, I saw French and Wolf Quick hovering over a freshly dug grave next to the backhoe. The monstrous, threatening machine cast long, jagged shadows over the scene. The two men alternately gazed into the six-foot
hole and glanced around the nearby area as if anxiously awaiting assistance. Wolf pointed to the backhoe, while French scratched his ear, and spit. I couldn’t tell what they were saying from that distance.

By the time I arrived at the grave, a little out of breath from the run, I saw Sheriff Mercer hiking up the hill at a rapid pace to join us. That was fast. In fact, too fast to take my call and respond. Someone else must have alerted him first. Wolf?

“What’s going on?” the sheriff said, as he got down on one knee and peered into the pit. “Goddammit! What happened? Is he alive? Where are the EMT’s? We gotta get a look at him.” The sheriff turned around and eased himself into the grave.

While French went in search of a flashlight in the sheriff’s car, Wolf recounted the story in mumbled speech. He wasn’t easy to read with the overgrown beard and mustache that curled over his lip, but I caught bits here and there. He had happened upon Sluice while walking through the cemetery, which to me sounded odd in itself, but I said nothing. He heard a noise coming from the open grave, stopped to look in, and saw Sluice. He figured Sluice must have fallen off the backhoe he’d been operating—the engine was still running. At that point Wolf had pulled out his cellular phone and called the sheriff, then French.

“He doesn’t look like he’s breathing,” Wolf said, shining the retrieved flashlight into the hole. The sheriff had opened Sluice’s jacket and was preparing to give him CPR.

French gave Wolf a horrified look. “He can’t be dead. Not another one. Oh, God. Jesus. We’ve gotta get him out of there!”

“Just hold tight,” Wolf said. “Sheriff’s with him. The EMT’s are on their way. They’ll take care of him. We better not move him, in case—” I missed the rest as he turned toward the roadway. I followed his gaze. The ambulance had arrived, as well as Deputy Arnold and a couple of curious onlookers.

“Stand aside!” The two paramedics took charge
instantly. Ropes were pulled from the back of the ambulance. Stretchers were propped nearby. Medical bags were opened. While the male paramedic prepared his equipment, the female paramedic procured a ladder from the side of the nearby landscape shed. With Mickey’s help, she lowered it into the grave and climbed down into the claustrophobic pit to join the sheriff.

Mickey shined a flashlight into the open hole and we watched as the woman took Sluice’s pulse, assisted by a small mouth-held flashlight. After a few moments the sheriff came clambering out of the pit and said something.

“What did he say?” I asked Mickey who was standing next to me, his arm on my shoulder.

“He’s still alive!”

It was after midnight when I finally left the sheriff’s office and returned to my home-sweet-diner. I had hung around to watch the paramedics lift Sluice Jackson out of the grave and transport him to the ambulance, for a code blue ride to the Mother Lode Memorial Hospital in Sonora. I waited a while at the sheriff’s office creating suppositions with the deputy until we heard from the hospital, a little past eleven. Sluice Jackson was stable. I’d gone home when there was nothing more to learn.

Was it an accident? Or could he have been pushed? Those were the two questions Mickey and I had debated the most throughout the remainder of the evening. At first I had wondered what Sluice was doing out in the cemetery with the backhoe so late at night, but French had explained it was routine to do the digging at night, so as not to disturb folks in the daytime. People don’t like to see actual graves being dug in broad daylight. But another question remained: What was Wolf doing roaming around the cemetery at night?

Sheriff Mercer had been the one who called in around eleven-thirty
P.M
., reporting on Sluice’s condition: lacerations to the head, various bruises, and a broken finger. Sluice was still semiconscious, but he was expected to recover. He had lost some blood from a head wound, but
his blood pressure had stabilized and his heartbeat was nearly normal.

“What’s the story with Sluice anyway?” I said to Mickey as I packed up my notebook and backpack to head home. “Does anyone really know anything about him? All I ever get are rumors.”

Mickey stuck a wad of gum in his mouth, which didn’t help the lipreading. I had to strain to understand him at that late hour.

“All I know is, he’s an old prospector who’s been in Flat Skunk forever, and he’s still searching for his pot of gold. He’s not quite all there, you know.” Mickey tapped his temple. “Probably alcohol poisoning. But he’s harmless.”

The deputy chewed his gum solemnly for a few seconds before pushing it back into the dark crevices of his cheek like a squirrel.

“Sluice used to be employed by Reuben Penzance, who was mayor before you came here, you know. Sluice worked for him part-time, doing odd jobs, helping out around their ranch, much like he does at the mortuary. I think the Penzances felt sorry for him. He was with Reuben at the time of the mayor’s accident, what—six months ago, was it?”

“The boating accident?” I’d read something about it when I’d first arrived, but I didn’t know all the details.

Mickey looked down at the floor in thought and swung his feet at the base of the sheriff’s desk in an alternating pattern. His once shiny shoes, now encrusted with red dirt from the walk in the cemetery, spun in small circles. He took a moment to scratch an inflamed rash on his arm, then continued.

“About six months ago Reuben was out fishing over at Miwok Reservoir. Sluice was there, caddying his fishing gear. The way Sluice tells it—when he’s somewhat coherent—they’d gone out to the middle of the lake, and suddenly Reuben latched onto something big. Apparently he overcompensated and leaned too far out of the boat. They both fell into the water as the boat tipped over.”

“Was there no one else around?”

The deputy shrugged. “Apparently not. Anyway, Sluice had a life jacket on at Reuben’s insistence ’cause he couldn’t swim. Reuben could swim, so he wasn’t wearing one, but he’d been drinking. He must have got tangled up on his line or something and couldn’t break free. We found him floating the next day, the fishing line wrapped around his legs. The hook was caught in his nose.”

Yeech. “What happened to Sluice?”

“He got hold of a rock in the middle of the lake and held on all night, pretty terrified. It’s a big lake, you know, and it took a while before he was found.”

“Wasn’t Lacy frantic when she realized her husband was missing? Didn’t anyone go looking for him?”