Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (5 page)

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Callie Parrish. I work at Middleton’s Mortuary, and you’ll be seeing me there when you come in this afternoon, but right now I don’t represent Middleton’s. John Parrish is my brother. He and your son were close friends growing up, and my daddy wanted me to bring you a pot of Brunswick stew this morning from our family.” The words just poured out of me like they’d been rehearsed.

That wrinkled face beamed. “John Parrish? I remember. Him and Jeffrey Junior was good friends all through school and right up until my Jeffrey Junior got that urge to go and moved himself to Charlotte. Well, he didn’t actually
move
to Charlotte. He went to work there and lived in Fort Mill just on the other side of the South Carolina line. Where’s your brother now?”

“John lives in Atlanta, but he’s coming here to see you tonight.”

“I’ll be happy to see him. I’ve hardly seen any of Jeffrey Junior’s friends in all these years since he left. It’s been, what? Over twenty years since Jeffrey Junior moved. Once in a while I see that red-haired girlfriend he had in high school shopping at the Walmart, but we never speak, and none of his friends ever came to see me.”

I didn’t answer that. I wondered if Jane’s mother had lived and Jane had moved away, would I have gone over to visit Mrs. Baker?

After a moment of silence, Miss Lettie stepped back and waved her arm at the living room. “Come on in.”

“Let me get that stew first.”

The pot was heavy, making me glad Daddy hadn’t tried to carry it out to my car since he now has a heart condition. I lugged it up the steps, and that old woman reached out and took it from me. “Hold the door for me,” she said. “I’ll just set this right on the stove and turn it on low. Some of the relatives and neighbor people will probably come over tonight. The longer stew simmers, the better it will be.”

I couldn’t believe that elderly lady could carry the pot, but she did it with a lot less apparent strain than I’d felt trying to bring it in. I followed her into the kitchen. When the stew was on the big burner and she’d set the temperature to its lowest setting, she motioned me to have a seat at the kitchen table.

“Let’s have some coffee,” Miss Lettie said. She poured two cups and set one in front of me before sitting across from me. Sugar, Sweet’N Low, and powdered cream were already on the table along with several napkins and plastic spoons.

“Now, tell me about that brother of yours.” She took a sip of the steaming-hot coffee.

“I have five brothers, but the one who was closest to Jeff is John. Like I said, he lives in Atlanta now, but he’ll be over to see you this evening, and he’ll be here for the funeral.”

“I’m glad. I want to talk to people who knew Jeffrey Junior. I don’t know any of his friends since he moved. How about your brother? Does he have children?”

“Yes, ma’am. He has a boy called Johnny and a girl named Megan. His wife is Miriam.” I didn’t bother to tell her that what had always been the best marriage in our family was getting rocky as John got older. I kept telling myself it was middle-age crisis. I wished he’d just trade in his Mercedes for a little red sports car and hurry up his male menopause.

“I hope he brings his chaps with him tonight.” (Chaps is Southernese for children.) Miss Lettie’s expression became wistful and wishful. “I always wanted Jeffrey Junior to settle down and give me some grandkids.”

“Do you have any other children who might have families someday?” I stuck my foot into my mouth with that one. Her expression clouded.

“No, Jeffrey Junior is or I guess I should say
was
my only child. I never remarried or even wanted to date after his dad died.”

Working at a funeral home, I’m familiar with people breaking down when talking about their loved ones who’ve passed away. I’ve been trained to be comforting, to pat shoulders or even offer an occasional hug, but I wasn’t expecting Miss Lettie’s sudden explosion.

She jumped up. Her face twisted into violent rage, and she threw her cup against the kitchen cabinet, splashing coffee all over the linoleum countertop. She flung her arm out and slammed everything on the table down to the floor. Thank heaven I held my cup in my hand or my hot coffee would have splattered all over me along with the contents of the sugar bowl.

“It’s not fair!” she screeched. “God gave me everything and then took it all away. It’s like I had two hearts, and both of them are broken. I loved Jeffrey Senior with all my heart, but he died. When Jeffrey Junior was born, I began growing another heart, a mother’s heart to love that little baby boy. Now he’s gone, and there’s nothing left of him, not even a little bit of him in a grandchild for me to love. He won’t live on anywhere except in my heart, and it’s gone. Both my hearts are broken, destroyed, and will never mend.”

I did what I’ve been taught to do. I put my arm around her shoulders, pulled her close, and let her sob all over my shirt, Buh-leeve me, I was relieved when the back door opened and an older lady stepped in without even knocking.

“Oh, Lettie,” the woman, who looked like a white-haired Aunt Bea on Andy Griffith’s old
Mayberry
show, said and reached for Miss Lettie, pulling her away from me and into her own ample bosom. “Cry. Let it all out.”

“Are you kin to her?” I asked.

“No, just her neighbor Ellen, but we’ve been friends for years.”

I pointed to the pot. “I brought some Brunswick stew. I need to go to work. Will you stay here with her until she feels better?”

“I don’t know if she’ll ever feel better, but I’ll be here until she calms down. I plan to spend the day with her.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s terrible about Junior, but I’ll be with Lettie like I was when his daddy died.” She continued patting Miss Lettie and dismissed me with, “Thank you for the stew. I don’t think the funeral home has brought the food register yet, but when it comes, I’ll write it down. Who did you say you are?”

“I’m Callie Parrish, but the stew is from my daddy. I work at Middleton’s and we’ll be bringing registers and chairs over this afternoon.”

“I’ll probably see you at the funeral home. I’ll be going with Lettie to see Junior, and make arrangements for his service. You can leave now if you like. I’ll stay here with Lettie.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I put my cup in the sink and left without offering to help clean up the mess.

• • •

I changed into a black dress, stockings, and low black pumps when I got home. That’s my standard work uniform, and I figured I’d hear from Otis soon. I was right, though his brother Odell called instead of Otis.

“Callie,” he said, “Otis has finished the prep and is ready for you to come in. This one is going to take a lot of work. His nose was smashed and part of it’s missing.”

“Be right there,” I answered though I’d hoped to have time to visit with Jane before going to work.

Middleton’s Mortuary is an old, but immaculate, white two-story house surrounded by a parking lot edged by as many live oaks with Spanish moss hanging from them as there are lining the drive to Daddy’s house. The house has a verandah that extends from the front around both sides with white Cracker Barrel-style rocking chairs and clay pots filled with seasonal flowers on it. My bosses grew up in the second floor of the house with caskets stored in some rooms. No one lives up there now, and they recently moved all the caskets into a new storage building in back.

Odell met me when I stepped into the hall through the employee entrance. “Mr. Morgan is already in your workroom, and if you need any help, just buzz for Otis. I’m going out to pick up some barbecue sandwiches because it’s probably going to push all three of us to have this one presentable by the time his mother arrives.”

My bosses were born identical twins, but Odell is balding and probably fifty pounds heavier than his vegetarian brother who opted for hair plugs instead of baldness. Their personalities are as different as their current looks, but they both treat me and everyone except each other with courtesy and respect.

The minute I stepped into my workroom, I saw what Odell meant. Even covered by a sheet, it was obvious that Mr. Morgan’s limbs jutted out at slightly unusual angles—evidence of broken bones. After pulling on my gloves and waterproof smock, I changed my mind and garbed in a full suit a lot like a hazmat. I pulled the sheet back and looked at the face. The Middletons don’t like for me to refer to decedents as bodies or corpses. They prefer that the deceased always be called by their names, but it wasn’t easy to think of what lay on my work table as “Mr. Morgan.”

In addition to the black-stitched Y-incision on his chest and groin from the autopsy, the man was bald, which would make the postmortem head incision a problem. The entire body was discolored and covered with abrasions, and Odell might refer to Mr. Morgan’s nose as damaged, but in my mind, his nose was missing. Making Jeff Morgan presentable for his mother would require a work of art and several procedures beyond sculpting wax.

“Be careful as you position him,” Odell cautioned. “His left arm was amputated in the accident. They put some stitches in, but if you jar that arm, it’s going to come loose.” He hesitated and then added, “Otis is in the prep room if you need him. I’m going to pick up sandwiches, but after lunch, I’ll help, too, if you need me.” He handed me several photographs of a young man. They bore little resemblance to the corpse. In addition to decades of difference in age, the head in the pictures was covered with thick, dark hair.

“This is a rough case,” Odell continued. “If you want to wait until we can work on him together for the face, you can pick out his clothes while I’m gone.”

Normally I’m a self-starter at work, but though I’ve done my fair share of restorations, I’ve never actually rebuilt a nose. I decided to select clothing and hope Otis or Odell showed up to help before I began facial reconstruction. Most of our stock clothing for men is gray, navy, or black, but we had a dark brown tweed suit with a two-button jacket that seemed perfect for Jeff Morgan. In my mind, Mr. Morgan was linked with my brother John, so I chose clothes that I thought my brother would like—the tweed suit, a cream-colored shirt, and a brown, burgundy, and tan striped tie that was a lot like one I’d seen John wear.

The soft sound of an instrumental “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” signified that the front door was opened. I’d barely reached it when in walked Detective Dean Robinson. “Just a few questions,” he said.

“I don’t have time right now,” I answered. “Jeff Morgan’s mother will be here after lunch to make funeral plans for her son. She wants to see him when she arrives, and I’m nowhere near ready to dress him.”

“We’ll talk while you work,” he said.

“Are you sure? I haven’t done much toward restoration and makeup yet.”

“I’ve been viewing autopsies for years as part of my work in homicide. I doubt seeing you put someone back together will be any worse than watching medical examiners take them apart.”

“Okay, there are rules about who can be in my workroom, but I guess if it’s legal for you to sit in on postmortems, it’s all right for you to come on in.”

When we stepped into the workroom, Robinson reached to the dispensers and took out a pair of disposable gloves and a mask. He pulled them on and stepped away from my work table.

I have to say this for Robinson—he made it a point to stay out of my way except when I needed to shift the body or the amputated arm. When assistance would help, he lent a hand without commenting or interfering with what I was doing. After several repairs with special wax, most of my work became air brushing except the nose, which I postponed until one of my bosses returned. The detective watched carefully.

“Had you put makeup on before I came in?” he asked. “The skin color is different, rosier, more natural than the bodies I’ve seen at autopsies.”

“Most autopsies are performed before embalming. Mr. Morgan has been prepped. The embalming fluid changes the texture and the color of muscles and skin, makes them harder and pinker.”

“You’re good at this,” he said.

“I try to create a good memory for loved ones.”

“I wanted to ask you a few questions about yesterday.”

“Go ahead.” I continued working.

“Are you certain that body wasn’t on your porch when you left to go to your father’s?”

“It was big enough that I think I would have noticed it,” I answered while correcting color coverage on Mr. Morgan’s right hand. Special prep fluid adds some color to the skin, but doesn’t eradicate damage from bruises.

“Did you touch her before you called 911?”

“Her? Then it’s a woman?”

“Yes, white female, probably in her early forties. No identification and no identifying marks like tats.”

“What does she look like?”

“Slim, attractive with long red hair. It’s not always easy to determine eye color after death, but they appeared blue or green.”

“Cause of death?” I stopped and looked him directly in his eyes.

“Of course we’ll know more when the postmortem report is ready, but from watching, I’d say she was strangled. As the pathologist recorded his observations, he noted petechial hemorrhages in the eyelids. That’s usually an indication of choking, and I noticed a deep ligature furrow on the neck, but this examiner wasn’t as willing to discuss his findings with me as the ones who knew me before I came up here from Florida. He told me he’d get the official findings to us as soon as possible.” Detective Robinson removed his gloves and took a small notebook like the one Sheriff Harmon carries from his inside pocket. “Of course, we won’t know about blood ethanol or drugs until those screens come back.”