Disrobed for Death (3 page)

“I find it extremely sad when a young person dies and can’t help but wonder what kind of life he might have had? Whose lives would be changed by his passing? If the tears were any indication, many of the young people realized it could just as easily be them in that coffin.”

“I felt that way after a classmate died, made me put things in perspective. Well, since the funeral home isn’t bursting at the seams with our kind, I imagine we don’t hang around long. So, where do we go, and when do we leave?”

Jack started to answer when his attention was diverted to the sound of someone in the hallway. “Whoever it is can’t see or hear us, but old habits are hard to break.”

The cleaning lady entered the kitchen and put the vacuum in a closet. Opening the refrigerator door, she removed trays of pastries and arranged them on a table. Then she filled a Styrofoam cup from one of the large urns and exited the kitchen, leaving behind the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Sweets were always Susan’s weakness, and the plate of brownies looked absolutely scrumptious. “It’s not like me to pass up a treat. So why don’t I have the urge to scoff up a brownie?”

“We no longer have the need to eat or drink, so we’re not tempted.”

“Now, that’s a real bummer. Well, no use hanging around here.” She closed her eyes and returned to her parlor. Jack appeared beside her, the sleeve of his suit coat brushing her arm. Standing near her casket, she heaved a sigh. “I still can’t believe I’m dead. There were so many things I wanted to do.”

“I know the feeling.”

The doors to the parlor closed behind them with a loud bang.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“You must not have read the marque. Both of our wakes are scheduled for later today—four to eight p.m., so they’ll keep our parlors closed until then.”

“When are our funerals? I didn’t bother to find that out either.”

“Mine is scheduled for eleven a.m. tomorrow. Yours is set for one p.m.”

Susan smoothed the front of her skirt, which really didn’t need it. “It’s scary to think about it. I don’t know if I want to be there. I definitely don’t want to leave my loved ones, and how do I know that light will come for me?”

“You’re not alone, seems everyone feels that way. But I have a feeling we’ll do what’s right when the time comes. Why don’t we sit and talk, find out a little more about one another. It might help us get through this.”

Susan remembered her hand passing through the stand and guest book. “How can I sit without falling through the pew?”

A boyish grin crossed his lips. “Like before, you only have to visualize it.”

She pictured herself sitting on the front row. It worked, and Jack sat next to her.

“I still haven’t figured out how to pick up or move an object,” he said. “Thinking about it doesn’t work. Guess I’m going to have to visit a poltergeist to learn the secret behind rattling chains.”

“Sounds like you plan to stay earthbound for a while.”

The muscles around his mouth flinched. “At least until I figure out who shot me.”

Susan’s mouth flew open. “You were murdered?”

The grandfather clock in the foyer struck four o’clock p.m., and with the last chime, the funeral director opened the doors to her parlor. Over shuffling feet and muffled conversations, Susan recognized A. K.’s voice.

“I’m so sorry. Susan was like a sister to me.”

Susan stepped into the aisle and watched A. K. comforting her parents and Edward, her brother.

Jack cleared his throat. “I’d better return to my parlor. We can talk later when we’re alone.” In an instant, he was gone.

A. K. and Edward headed down the aisle together. Susan’s mother and father followed, each supporting the other. Their grief stricken faces hurt more than Susan thought possible. Caught up in the moment, she failed to step aside, and A. K. passed right through her. Her ghostly form quivered as if jolted by a volt of electricity. It was a sensation she never wanted to experience again. At the same time, A. K. shuddered and rubbed her arms.

“Dang, it’s freezing in here,” she said.

Susan moved behind the casket and waited to recover from the harrowing incident. Her jangled nerves finally calmed, and she made a mental note not to get too close to another living person. While standing on the other side of the casket, she watched their tearful expressions and listened to questions she had asked herself.

Her mother clutched the side of the casket then leaned down and kissed the lifeless body on the forehead. “My baby…why my baby?”

Her father shook his head and put his arm around his wife of forty-five years.

“Let’s sit down, dear.” He persuaded her to take a seat on the front row.

Despite Susan’s earlier resolution, she took a seat beside her mother.

“I love you, Mom,” she whispered. It didn’t matter that her mother couldn’t hear her. She needed to say what was in her heart. “I can’t believe I’ll never again be a part of your life.”

Susan longed to touch her, to feel one last time her warmth. Braving the consequences, she reached out and caressed her mother’s cheek. There was no jarring encounter, but the firmness of the flesh didn’t exist. Susan felt nothing. But her mother’s reaction was quite different. Like A. K., she shivered.

“You’re right, A. K. It is cold in here,” she said.

Susan drew back her hand and returned to the casket, where she stood beside an easel of yellow mums. That’s when she saw him—Wesley Grissom, the one man and only man she had ever really loved.

His sandy hair looked even lighter against his dark blue suit. With his head down, he made his way to the casket where he stood for a long time looking down at her, and then he gently touched her cold, hard cheek. She flinched, not wanting him to remember her that way. After he withdrew his hand, he squeezed the edge of the coffin until his knuckles whitened. His mouth drew tight, and his hazel eyes glistened like shiny marbles.

She wished she could turn back the years, feel his arms around her once again, but she was helpless to do anything. Standing behind him, she breathed in the familiar scent of his aftershave, a mixture of foreign spices that so reflected his masculine persona. She exhaled as if to blow a kiss on the back of his neck, and his skin pebbled.

“Oh, Wesley,” she said, “I came home hoping we could build on the past. We didn’t get the chance to try. I was busy trying to get my business started and thought I had all the time in the world. Boy, was I wrong.”

“Wesley,” her mother said, “is that you?”

He joined the family, seated in the front row. “Yes, ma’am.”

He cradled the elderly woman in his arms.

“Thank you for agreeing to be a pallbearer. Susan would have wanted that.”

“What I really would like is to not be dead,” Susan said.

“I’m so sorry,” Wesley said.

He spoke briefly with her father and brother, who introduced him to A. K. After expressing his condolences, he excused himself and took a seat in the back of the parlor.

Susan followed and sat beside him, frustrated that she couldn’t make contact. “I’m here, Wesley. I never stopped loving you. I really thought the future would hold good things for us. It’s true what they say—don’t put your dreams on hold.”

Wesley sat silently staring at her coffin.

“I don’t want you to think of me that way, a cold, lifeless shell. Remember me from the past.”

For two hours, he sat alone with his thoughts then eased his way through the visitors gathered in the lobby and exited the front door.

Co-workers, neighbors, and friends continued to arrive. They filled the room with a mixture of perfumes and colognes and the hum of hushed conversations. A. K. walked back and joined Debbie and Sheila, who sat a few rows behind her family.

Susan turned her thoughts to her friend and employees. What would become of them? Would her parents sell her business? Her parents had no knowledge of the industry and certainly didn’t need the money. If only she had made arrangements to leave the boutique to A. K. Susan wished there was some way she could communicate with her friend. But on second thought, she realized that a voice from beyond would probably send A. K. fleeing for the front door. As she contemplated her existence in the afterlife, Susan couldn’t help but wonder how many spirits had stood beside her at prior funerals.

Throughout the evening, a constant stream of visitors stopped to pay their respects, but near closing time, the crowd thinned. Her mother and father were the last to leave. Now, she was all alone. Emptiness, the likes of which she had never known before, consumed her. She took one last look at her remains and wondered how she would react tomorrow when they lowered her casket into the grave.

She shuddered at the thought and willed herself into the foyer where an overflow crowd had gathered outside Parlor B. The revelation that Jack Evans was murdered still played on her mind. What did the man do that someone would shoot him? He seemed like such a likeable fellow. Did he have an idea who killed him? Was that why he planned to remain earthbound? Even if he found his killer, what could he do about it?

Jack nudged her. “Quite a sight, huh? Makes me sad to see so many old friends I neglected in life. Seems I always had an excuse for not getting together. More often than not, work interfered. If I had it to do over again, I’d make a lot of changes.”

“I know what you mean. Too bad we don’t get a second chance.”

She paused and reexamined her ghostly friend. Since he wore no wedding ring and seemed to be in his late-thirties, she would assume he was divorced. He was a nice looking guy, about six-foot two, and not a smattering of gray. Who indeed would want to kill him? A rejected lover? A disgruntled business partner? Perhaps he’d walked in on a robbery.

While she pondered those questions, Jack pointed out his family members as they filed past toward the front doors. “The woman in the wheel chair is my mother. She suffers from rheumatoid arthritis.” The petite, gray headed lady dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and offered a weak smile to those saying goodbye. “Dad’s pushing Mom.”

Susan could see the resemblance. Jack’s father was tall and stately with dark hair and carried himself like a much younger man, pushing the wheelchair, rather than relying on it for support.

Jack continued pointing out members of his family. “The woman in the green dress is my sister, Ramona, and the two men with her are my brothers, Henry and Chris.”

Susan looked with surprise at his sister. “Oh, I know Ramona. She’s a customer…uh, was a customer. I own a boutique. Dang, I can’t think of my work as being in the past.”

“Me either. My work was my life.” Jack then directed her attention to a woman with shoulder-length, auburn hair and wearing a lavender dress. “She’s my ex. I’m not surprised Clarissa would make an appearance. We did love each other, once, and parted on fairly good terms.”

Tall and thin with big blue eyes, his ex could easily have passed for a model. While not a regular customer, Susan also remembered waiting on Clarissa, who had a knack for picking the most exclusive items. While her undergarments were not visible for inspection, the outfit she wore belonged to a designer whose line carried a hefty price tag. And her jewelry definitely didn’t come from a store in nearby Hammond. Clarissa flashed so much bling, she could have found her way around in the dark.

When the last of the visitors left, Susan turned to Jack.

“Okay, I can’t stand it any longer,” she said. “How did it happen? Did you see who murdered you?”

“First, tell me how you came to be here.”

“I’m afraid mine was just a dumb accident. I slipped and hit my head.”

“There’s nothing dumb about dying. Were you alone? Did someone get you to the hospital?”

“I don’t know. The next thing I remembered was standing in the foyer of the funeral home.”

He rubbed the center of his forehead. “Mine was no accident. A .38 caliber ended it for me. I was sleeping and woke in time to see the barrel of the gun. That’s all I remember. By the time I took on my new form and realized I was dead, it was the next morning, and the intruder was gone. I do remember seeing my body. When they carried it away, I thought it best I follow it.”

Jack threw up his hands. “Valentine’s Day! Can you believe it? I died on Valentine’s Day. So much for love. I’d made plans to take several of my workers to lunch, and when I failed to show up and didn’t answer my page, they knew something was wrong. That’s when the police found me.”

“You didn’t lock your doors or have a security alarm?”

“It was one of the few times I didn’t set my alarm. I lived in Meadow Wood, a gated community. Guess I was lulled into a false sense of security since we never had any problems. The police couldn’t find how the intruder got in, but since the place was ransacked, they surmised the motive was robbery. Undoubtedly, the thief didn’t expect to find anyone home and wasn’t about to leave a witness.” His voice deepened, almost to a growl. “I’m determined to find out who did this to me.”

“I can understand how you’d want to know, but what good will it do? How could you possibly bring anyone to justice?”

“I don’t know, but there has to be a way.”

“Maybe…maybe I could help you.”

Jack’s voice softened. “You’d do that for me, a total stranger?”

Susan really didn’t know why she had volunteered, except that she wasn’t looking forward to that hole in the ground and wasn’t sure whether the light would be there for her.

“Sure, why not?”

The following morning, both parlors quickly filled with mourners. Susan found herself mulling over her decision to stay behind and help Jack find his murderer. While she wanted to help him, her real reason was to remain among her family and friends.

“Second thoughts?” Jack asked, as if reading her mind.

“Too many.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll understand. It doesn’t seem there are any rules in this new existence. You do what you feel is right.”

Mourners exited his parlor and made their way to the front door.

“They’re loading my casket in the hearse for the short ride to my plot. You want to come?”