Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (9 page)

“Are you doing that in case there are fingerprints on the cellophane wrappers?” I asked.

“Just in case.”

He put the broom back, then locked the door behind us as we left.

By the time we’d finished at Amber Buchanan’s, neither of us had time for a sit-down lunch at Rizzie’s. We went through the McDonald’s drive-through and picked up sandwiches before he took me back to his office to get my car.

• • •

My niece Megan and nephew Johnny ran over and gave me great big bear hugs when I went into Gee Three
that evening. I’m really trying to use Rizzie’s “brand,” and Daddy or John were supporting it because one of them had bought the kids Gee Three
sweatshirts which they wore. Daddy, John, Miriam, Mike, and Frankie nodded at me and said “hello,” but none of them are into hugging me hello or goodbye like the kids are.

“Where are Bill and Molly?” I asked when I sat down at the biggest table Rizzie has in the grill.

“He called and said they wouldn’t make it,” was Frankie’s answer.

Tyrone arrived at the table with eight glasses of sweet iced tea and asked, “Are you ready to order?”

“Not yet,” Daddy said. “Does Rizzie have a special today?”

“Yes, she calls it the ‘Split Po Boy.’ ” Tyrone paused.

“What’s that?” Daddy asked.

“It’s a twelve-inch sub on crusty French bread. What makes it a split is that she puts oysters on one end and catfish on the other. You can get it dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion or undressed with just meat and either tartar sauce or remoulade sauce.” Tyrone delivered this in a monotone, making it obvious that Rizzie had made him memorize it.

“What’s remoulade?” my nephew asked, mutilating the pronunciation of the name of the sauce.

“It’s a special mayonnaise kind of thing that Rizzie makes. It has a little mustard and pickles and something that makes it pinkish-colored. Oh, and horseradish, definitely has some of that in it.” Rizzie clearly hadn’t rehearsed him on that.

Most of us decided to try the Split Po Boy but Johnny and Megan both asked for hamburgers.

After turning in our orders, Tyrone came back to our table. “You should have been here yesterday morning,” he said to everyone. “Callie helped deliver a baby.”

“What?”

“Callie and Pork Chop Higgins helped Misty Bledsoe have her baby right here in the diner. It’s a boy. Billy Wayne came by while ago and said he was on the way to the hospital to pick them up.”

Megan screwed up her nose and made that “eeuhh” sound teenaged girls sometimes use to express distaste. “We’re not eating at the table where she had the baby, are we?”

“Nah,” Tyrone answered, “Misty was actually lying on the floor over there by the first booth.”

Thank heavens Rizzie called him then to pick up an order. I really didn’t want a blow-by-blow description of birth from a fifteen-year-old. Johnny’s the same age though, and I could see that he was interested.

Our food was scrumptious, and the only thing wrong with a Split Po Boy is that it’s impossible to tell which side tastes better—the catfish or the oysters. Rizzie came to the table just as we all finished eating. “How about dessert? I have some homemade fruit cake and several kinds of cookies.”

The adults all ordered cake, and the kids wanted cookies. “Granpa wouldn’t let us eat any of the bourbon balls,” Megan said as she licked the frosting off a bell-shaped sugar cookie. Then, with a proud as punch expression, she said, “But he’s making Aunt Cutie’s Peanut Butter Blossoms for us tomorrow.” I grinned at that and made a mental note to go by Daddy’s tomorrow. Those were my favorite cookies growing up.

“Don’t be offended,” I answered her with my mind back on the Bourbon Balls. “He won’t let me drink beer at his house and probably wouldn’t let me eat bourbon balls either.”

Daddy grinned. “Start sharing my bourbon balls with everyone, and I might run short after I take some over to Miss Lettie. Did you know that woman ran that farm by herself since the Vietnam War?”

“Better be careful,” Frankie said. “From the way she behaved last night, Miss Lettie may already be noshing on some bourbon balls.”

“I think maybe the doctor had given her something to keep her calm,” John defended his friend’s mother. “Until Jeff moved, she was really a paradox. She was very demanding and strict, yet she smothered him, too. I hadn’t seen her in years until last night, but this has to be as awful for her as her husband’s death was, and that was a major subject at their house the whole time Jeff and I were growing up.”

“Losing a spouse that you love isn’t something a person ever gets over,” Daddy said. “Then to have a child die has to be dreadful.”

“And Jeff was her only child,” John commented.

“That don’t matter a whole lot,” Daddy said. “Do you think I’d grieve less for one of my children than someone who only has one? You can’t replace a child, no matter how many you have.”

“You could replace a wife
and
a child, Granpa,” Johnny suggested. “You could marry somebody new who had a child or your new wife could have a baby.”

Daddy’s eyebrows lifted in that way he does sometimes when he’s surprised. The rest of us laughed at the thought of Daddy with a new baby. “And I might just do that someday, but a new wife would be just that—a new wife, but not a replacement, and I’m perfectly happy with the kids I’ve got, though a few more grandchildren would be nice.” With that, he cut his eyes toward me.

At that moment, James Brown embarrassed me by shouting from my bosom.

“Hello,” I answered.

“This is Otis. What’s the chance of your coming back by here when you finish dinner with your family? Didn’t you transfer all the prepaid funeral files to the computer?”

“I did.”

“Where are the original folders?”

“In boxes upstairs on the second floor.”

“Frank Patterson is coming over, and we’re going to need to access some files. It’ll be easier if you’re here and can pull this stuff up on the computer instead of having to dig out the box and paperwork.”

“I’ll be back soon. We’ve finished eating, and Daddy’s going over to Miss Lettie’s again.”

• • •

Otis may have needed me to find what he wanted on the computer, but when I arrived, he was bringing a big box of files down the stairs from the upstairs room that had been casket storage until recently and the Middletons’ living room before then.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Have you heard of that new natural burying ground?”

“The one in the green cemetery where we buried that lady’s husband and planted the crape myrtle tree?”

“No, this is even newer. They advertise that ‘you can be your own undertaker’ and not involve anyone except the owner of the ground.”

“What’s the name of this cemetery?”

“It’s not a cemetery! It’s a field where they’re burying people without caskets, not even those cardboard or basket ones; no vaults of any kind, not even concrete blocks around the body to keep the earth from sinking; no memorial markers, don’t even plant a tree; no service at all. The burying ground man just digs a hole, dumps the body in, and covers it up. The family doesn’t pick the spot. He’s got them lined up and ‘planting’ bodies side by side, back to front, so he doesn’t drive his tractor over an existing grave because he’s packing them in as close as possible. It’s a field, just a common field. Go look it up on the Internet. I think it’s called Fields of Flowers Green Funeral Services.”

I did as I was told. Fields of Flowers had a webpage fit for a rock star. Across the top in sparkle letters was, “Save $ and our environment with natural burial.” Below that, a picture of beautiful wildflowers served as background for bold goldenrod-colored letters: FIELD of FLOWERS NATURAL CEMETERY. For under a thousand dollars, Field of Flowers would sell a plot and provide opening and closing of the grave. For an additional one hundred dollars plus seventy-five cents a mile, they would transport the body from place of death or the morgue to the cemetery with no stops. Since embalming, caskets, vaults, and memorials weren’t allowed, those were the only choices. They also provided (for one dollar) a brochure explaining how to obtain death certificates. As each section of the cemetery was filled, the owners would plant it with wildflowers. Sweet, simple, and cheap without having to pay a preacher or musician either.

I have to admit that if I wasn’t involved in the mortuary industry myself, it would sound pretty good to me, but I’d been with Middleton’s long enough that I believed in the value of a funeral service where the family and loved ones could be comforted by their pastor and remember the deceased together.

Would places like this take over the business?
I wondered. I’d assumed that Otis was exaggerating and Fields of Flowers would turn out to be a funeral home and cemetery that was simplifying the funeral business by cutting out the “extras,” things like catering and jewelry, but I’d had no idea that it would be cut as drastically as it was described. They should have named the place “Bare Bones” because that’s what their amenities were stripped to and that’s what their “cemetery” would hold quite quickly as they buried unprepped bodies either clothed or wrapped in natural fibers like cotton as the webpage specified.

“Precious Memories” announced Mr. Patterson’s arrival, so I closed out the Internet and went to meet him at the front door.

“I don’t have time to waste on this. Just refund my money. My mind’s made up. When Emma Lou dies, I’m going to bury her at Fields of Flowers.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t make any decisions or handle business here. You’ll need to talk to one of the Middletons.” I smiled and turned. “Follow me, please.”

I led Mr. Patterson to Otis’s office. Otis was seated at his desk with the big file box in front of him. When we entered, he appeared to be frantically going through the files, but he stopped and stood when he saw us. “Let’s go down to a consulting room,” he said in his Funeral Director 101 voice.

“I demand my money back right now!”

Otis ignored him until we were seated at the conference table. “Now, sir, before we can discuss refunding your money for the prepaid funeral, I need some information.” He took a clipboard from a small table beside the chair and placed it in front of him. “Your name?”

“I’m Frank Patterson, and my wife was Emma Lou Riley.”

“Was? Then your wife is deceased?”

“No, but she’s dying, and I’ve decided to put her in that flower place they advertise on television where it costs less than a thousand dollars. Emma Lou tells me her first husband prepaid Middleton’s for both their funerals before he died. She says all I have to do is call you people when she kicks the bucket and you’ll take care of everything.”

“If her services have been prepaid, that, sir, is all you’ll need to do. If she’s in the hospital or a nursing home, please tell them to call us as soon as she’s pronounced. We’ll remove her and then you can finalize the arrangements.” I cringed when Otis said, “We’ll remove her,” because that’s one Funeraleze word I don’t use. The term “remove” is what most morticians use to refer to bringing the body from the place of death or medical examiner’s facility to the funeral home. I use the term “pick up.” I don’t know exactly why, but it sounds more respectful to me. When I die, I’d rather be picked up than removed.

“Can’t you understand what I’m saying?” Patterson sputtered. “I want the money back. I’m not going to use your services.” His face turned dark red.

“I believe, sir, that if you read the contract, you’ll find that the prepaid services are not refundable except under certain conditions.”

“Emma Lou doesn’t know where the papers are. She told me to check with you about them, but I’m telling you I want the money back.”

“You’re going to need to talk to my brother Odell, but I assure you that there can be no refund to you if you’re not who bought the service.”

“He’s dead. I told you that her first husband made these arrangements. You buried him almost ten years ago. I’m her husband now. The money comes to me.”

“Not unless she’s dead, and even then, for you to get a refund for a prepaid funeral, the person must not only be dead but also have no remains to be interred.”

“Now, how is Emma Lou supposed to be dead but have no remains?”

“Sir, that’s to cover situations like when the deceased is lost at sea or dies in an explosion—something like that.”

“She’s not even able to get out of bed. She’s certainly not going to be out in a boat or anywhere there’s a bomb. I just want my money back.”

“It’s not your money until you inherit from your wife. Then it will become yours, but right now, you have no say at all.” This sounded rude coming from Otis. He stood and said, “Call tomorrow and make an appointment to see my brother Odell. He can explain this better than I can. You need to read the contract.”

“I’ve already told you, I can’t
find
the contract! You have to give me another copy.”

“I can’t do that. The prepayment belongs to your wife.”

“She’s a dying invalid.”

“Call and make an appointment with Odell.”

“Can’t you make the appointment?”