Delivering Death: A Novel (Riley Spartz) (26 page)

She was surprised to see me. “Riley, what are you doing here? Is the story running tonight?”

I assured her everything was fine. “You dropped something in my car. Let me in and I’ll show you.”

I expected Lisa to refuse, telling me it was against their policy to allow nonemployees in after closing. And that would make sense, considering the sensitive nature of their business, but she motioned for me to come inside and locked the bolt behind me. I followed her down the hall past the showroom of caskets.

“What going on?” she asked. “Is there a problem with the story?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

I pulled the St. Apollonia pendant out of my jacket pocket and dangled it by its chain. “I think this belongs to you.”

She didn’t reach for it nor did she say anything.

“Your name is engraved on the back.” I flipped it over, handing it to her. “It must be a special piece of jewelry.”

“Thank you.” She unhooked the clasp and hung it around her neck, tucking it inside her soft denim shirt.

“What’s the significance, Lisa?”

“It was a gift.”

That’s when I told her I’d checked into her educational background. I didn’t accuse her of lying, but I explained about the need to be accurate in any news story.

“Why did you tell me your dream was to be a doctor instead of a dentist?” I asked. “Do you think being a doctor sounded more glamorous for the cameras?”

“Definitely not. I’ve always wanted to be a dentist.”

She turned away then, so I followed her down another hallway, past a coat rack where a tan puffy parka hung. We arrived in the embalming room with its eerie blue light. A ventilating system made a low hum. We were alone, but knowing a corpse might have laid there hours earlier was a little unnerving.

“You mentioned your St. Apollonia necklace was a gift,” I said. “From who?”

“My grandma.”

She explained that she’d first decided on a career as a dentist while watching the holiday classic
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
with her grandmother. The impassioned speech by Herbie, the misfit elf who wanted to be a dentist, had settled her on that path.

“Remember the Abominable Snowman?” she asked.

“Who could forget? He was some villain.”

“I loved the ending. The Abominable fingering his empty gums in bewilderment while Herbie waved the forceps in triumph. A mouthful of monster teeth piled at his feet as trophies.”

Lisa was smiling with such glee I had no doubt where our conversation was going. “Yep.” I tried mimicking her enthusiasm by giving her a thumbs-up. “The dentist saves the day. Well, I just wanted to make sure you got your necklace back.” I wanted to leave, but she was closer to the door. I pretended to admire an
anatomical wall chart of the circulatory and muscle systems of the body.

“I knew you would understand, Riley. We’re on the same side. Good vanquishing evil. The world is a better place without him. He needed to be stopped.”

I wasn’t certain if she was talking about Leon or the Abominable, but seeing that puffy coat made me fear her. And her next words clarified everything.

“This is where it happened.” She patted the steel embalming table. “I invited him over to smoke wet, but I made it so concentrated that he passed out. The first tooth was the hardest to extract.”

She described the crunchy feel, followed by a satisfying yank, and spoke of her fascination watching dark blood oozing from the gap in his smile. “By the third one, I got my rhythm and decided to pull them all. I felt like a real dentist.”

“Yet you lost your patient,” I said. “Leon died, choking on his own blood. Did you mean to kill him?”

“No. I wanted him to wake up without teeth, just like the Abominable, but I didn’t expect so much blood. The others I practiced on didn’t bleed.”

I remembered my autopsy discussion with Della about dead people not bleeding, and suspected Lisa was referring to corpses at the funeral home. “You pull teeth from the bodies here before they’re buried?”

“Just a few to hone my technique. Some have dentures so there’s nothing to work with. I just take back teeth, so their lips look natural during viewings. Dental schools train with cadavers. This way I can continue my education, like Herbie and the Abominable.”

Looking back on our encounter, I realize I should have applauded Lisa for her determination and praised her for her ingenuity instead of asking questions. But that’s the nature of being a journalist: asking provocative questions that sometimes backfire. Like my next one did.

“But deep down, wasn’t the Abominable actually good? In the final scene he puts the star on top of Santa’s Christmas tree.”

Her expression told me I’d made a big mistake challenging her view of the holiday classic.

“I should just leave and let you finish cleaning, Lisa. Let’s continue this another time when you’re not so busy. I’ll see you at Channel 3 for the story.”

That’s when she closed the door, shutting us inside the embalming room. “I thought we were friends, Riley, but maybe that pretty TV smile of yours can’t be trusted after all.”

She reached into a drawer for a shiny tool. I thought she was going to try to scare me by threatening to pull my teeth, but wasn’t particularly alarmed until I saw Lisa was holding a scalpel, not pincers. I knew the kind of damage that sharp-bladed instrument could do to the living as well as the dead.

“Lisa, we’re friends, remember?”

“Are you going to the police?”

“No, of course not. Are you?”

Playing dumb with her didn’t work any better than it did with David Johnson. She knew I couldn’t let her get away with murder. My options for escape were few.

“You’ve been through a lot, Lisa.” I tried to talk her down. “Leon Akume may have stole your identity, but don’t let him steal your soul.”

She seemed to be considering my words. “It’s easy for you. My life is ruined.”

“That’s not true, Lisa. And even if you believe that, do you want your afterlife ruined?” I urged her to pray to St. Apollonia for guidance.

Lisa fingered the medallion through her shirt and mumbled something under her breath that I could not understand. She took a step toward me. I took a step back. After all, she was the one armed with a scalpel; all I had was my wits. The blue light across her face distracted me so I didn’t see her slash coming.

I screamed as the metal blade sliced the sleeve of my jacket. Everything happened so fast, I wasn’t even sure if it hit my skin until the fabric turned red. I veered away as Lisa’s next swipe cut the strap of my purse. The handbag fell from my shoulder, skidding across the floor.

I bumped against the embalming table, and it moved. Realizing the wheels must have been unlocked from cleaning the floor, I shoved it between me and Lisa. Like a battering ram, I pushed her against the wall. She grunted in surprise, doubled over.

So I raced for the door.

I
was confused by all the interior walls and clumsy in my new shoes. Mentally, I cursed Nicole for her fashion advice. I turned a corner, looking for the exit or somewhere to hole up, and found myself by the refrigeration unit. Two of the spaces were already occupied. It would be a cold day in hell before I’d crawl in there.

I heard Lisa coming down the hall, and realized I’d been dripping blood from the gash in my arm—a dead giveaway to my location. I waved red spatter on the refrigerator to fool Lisa into thinking I had hidden inside. The injury was not deep, and pulling my sleeve tight stopped the bleeding. I opened a door marked
STORAGE.

The room was dark, so I brushed my hand across the wall for a light switch. I flipped it and was greeted by rows of closed caskets—like an aboveground cemetery.

The surplus inventory ranged from pine boxes to polished woods to stainless steel. Outside noises from the hallway sounded like was Lisa opening the refrigerator. Within minutes, she’d know I wasn’t hiding in one of the body drawers. I had no doubt she’d keep looking until she found me.

My cell phone was in my purse, back in the embalming room. I was on my own.

I could think of only one ruse—and it was morbid. I switched
off the lights and felt my way from casket to casket, blindly selecting one. I lifted the lid—which was heavier than I expected—and climbed inside. All the padding made the fit snug, but not uncomfortable. Because the room was already pitch-black, I didn’t think closing the casket would bother me. But I was wrong. My panic didn’t come from the lack of light, rather the fear of being trapped.

I’d never considered myself claustrophobic, but I’d never been shut inside a seven-foot by two-foot box—much less one with so much macabre symbolism. I could see why some people were paranoid about being buried alive.

My head rested on a pillow, the padded lid a mere six inches above my face. My breathing increased as I shuddered at the thought of suffocating. Rationally, I knew caskets must not be airtight, or bodies couldn’t decompose. But there was no room for logic in my tight quarters. My hands pressed up to open the lid a crack. Even though my situation was grave, that small link to the outside seemed to calm me. So did deep, measured breaths. Even though the air smelled stuffy, my nose was drawn to the chasm.

My arms were starting to ache when I heard a door open.

Lisa was inside the storage room.

I closed the casket, hoping that when she flicked the light switch, she would see nothing amiss and simply leave. Instead, the floor creaked.

“Riley?” she whispered.

I held my breath, praying my casket would not be my final resting place. A tiny line of light was now visible across the middle, and I tried convincing myself that I was in a womb, not a tomb.

“Come out, come out. I know you’re in here.”

Maybe she did. Or perhaps she was just guessing. Running out of air, I braced myself to inhale softly, quietly, through my mouth. Even though it was dark, I shut my eyes. When I did,
Nick Garnett came to mind. I didn’t have time to think of what that meant because a thumping noise caught my attention.

Lisa was opening the caskets, one by one. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.”

It was like she was playing a shell game and I was the pea. Was she fantasizing about plunging her scalpel through my heart like a vampire hunter? Disposing of my body would be easy. Lisa could just bury me underneath a paying customer, and I’d be one more missing woman whose body was never found. Perhaps I could become their patron saint.

“Come on out, Riley. You know I would never hurt you.”

You already have, I thought to myself.

I estimated there were a few dozen caskets in the room. Soon, Lisa would come to mine. I weighed whether I was more vulnerable waiting for her to uncover me, or if I would fare better by jumping up as if rising from the grave. But what then? I felt around for some sort of weapon. Nothing, not even car keys—they were also in my purse. I kicked loose a high heel, and an idea came to me. One hand stretched downward while my foot nudged the shoe closer until my fingers clutched the leather toe.

“Knock, knock.” Lisa was tapping on the top of my casket.

The hollow sound echoed; my body tensed. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating like the deranged narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story.

She asked, “Who’s there?” while flinging open the lid. My eyes blinked at the sudden light, but she seemed equally shocked I was actually inside. Her face was close to mine, her arms extended high, holding onto the cover.

I punched her face with the heel of my shoe. She shrieked and tried slamming the lid shut while I fought to sit up. Our ruckus tipped the casket forward off of its stand, crashing both of us to the floor where I was sandwiched between Lisa and the casket.

She seemed dazed, so I wriggled free and left. But not before she pleaded, “Stay with me, Riley. I’ll turn myself in. I promise.”

•  •  •

Two cars were parked in the lot, Lisa’s and mine. Without keys I couldn’t drive off; without a phone I couldn’t reach help. I jogged south toward downtown Minneapolis in bare feet on snowy concrete trying to put distance between me and the Rest in Peace Funeral Home. Other storefront businesses appeared closed. This was a neighborhood that shut down at night. I waved at a transit bus but couldn’t reach the stop in time.

My feet were cold, but at least I wasn’t six feet under.

My biggest fear was that a hearse would pull over to offer me a ride, and Lisa would be behind the wheel. A block of pubs were ahead in the next half mile, and surely someone there, despite my disheveled appearance, would believe my story and phone the police.

A
ll the local television stations led their morning newscasts with the overnight fire at the Rest in Peace Funeral Home. Three bodies were discovered, but only one—a woman—was actually killed in the blaze. The other two were corpses under refrigeration awaiting burial.

Authorities suspected arson.

•  •  •

Della, the medical examiner, sat across me with a file folder labeled
LISA MELBY
. “I’ll keep it simple. Suicide.”

“I shouldn’t have left her,” I said.

“If you hadn’t,
your
picture might be on my murder wall right now. She proved herself capable of violence against herself as well as others.”

“Can you tell me anything more about her death?”

“This case was rough. Are you sure you want the full account? Some things you can’t unknow.”

“Tell me.” Maybe the viewers wouldn’t need all the gory details, but I did.

Della shuffled through the papers before looking up at me with melancholy eyes. “Lisa Melby climbed into a casket, doused herself with embalming fluid, and lit a match. Think self-cremation.”

I’d been right. Lisa was crazy.

“If there was a note, it went up in flames with her,” Della continued, “but we found this around her neck.”

She handed me the pendant—once silver, now blackened. Even though damaged, I could still feel the texture of the outline of St. Apollonia.

In her demented state, Lisa must have convinced herself she was emulating the martyr. But she was mistaken. There was no honor in her death, only tragedy. While she had escaped being judged here on earth, I prayed another judge might be merciful.