'I've never been to a funeral home. 'Want company?
'Actually, I could do with a little moral support.
On tape at least, the proprietor of the place sounded mondo bizarre.
Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker.
'Sounds like my kinda guy.'
'In that case, you're on. Between the resuscitation we just called off and the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home, I have a feeling I'm going to need a beer or two tonight.'
'My treat,' Subarsky said.
The Gates of Heaven Funeral Home was hardly a place to inspire poetic thoughts about the eternal, It occupied a shabby building on a dingy side street six blocks from White Memorial. The windowless place was painted black, and the ornately lettered sign above the entryway was peering. Beside the door was a small wooden plaque, hand-painted with the ambiguous motto: ENTER HERE IN COMFORT: GO IN PEACE. D. DEVINE, DIRECTOR
Several windows in what seemed to be an apartment on the second story were lit.
'Nice place,' Eric said.
'Positively inspirational,' Subarsky added.
'Makes one want to rush right out and die.'
Eric gestured at the doorbell. 'Want to do the honors?'
'Be my guest. But first check around your feet for any signs of a trapdoor.'
Eric depressed the small lacquered button, setting off a series of six or seven chimes which were loud enough to echo down the empty street.
They were playing a melody he recognized, but could not identify.
'Dr. Najarian, I presume?'
Donald Devine's voice flowed forth from a speaker built in over the doorway. Eric swore he could hear violin music playing in the background.
'That's right,' Eric said. 'I hope this isn't too late.'
'Hardly. Hardly. I'll be right down.'
'Perry Como,' Subarsky whispered. 'And a damn good Perry at that.'
A pair of lights recessed beside the speaker flicked on, and moments later Donald Devine opened the Gates of Heaven. Had there been a contest to design a mortician, Devine might well have been the winning entry. Thin, almost cadaverous build; sallow complexion; round, wire-rimmed glasses; coal-black three-piece suit; thinning hair, pomaded to his scalp; he was at once prototype and caricature, a man in his forties trying diligently to look sixty.
Eric introduced himself and David. Devine led them inside. The decor of the Gates of Heaven was baroque and musty, and generic string music played through speakers in every room. The air was heavily perfumed, but through the bouquet Eric could still detect the familiar, unmistakable odor of formaldehyde.
'Can I get you gentlemen anything?' Devine asked, escorting them past a small chapel to a reception area. 'Some wine? A little tea?'
Both declined. Devine poured'himself a goblet of burgundy and then turned down the music from a panel on the wall.
'Pardon me for asking,' Eric said, 'but is Devine your real name?'
Devine turned to him, his fingertips touching to form a steeple.
'Donald Devine is, in fact, my real name now. I had it legally changed a number of years ago.'
'And, it does go nicely with the job.'
'Yes, I think it makes a statement of sorts. It helps put my clients' loved ones at ease.'
Devine. Eric wondered if the misspelling was intentional.
Donald Devine motioned them to a pair of heavily brocaded love seats.
Then he withdrew a file from the drawer of a small writing desk with glass-ball feet.
'Now then,' he said, 'you mentioned in your message that you were interested in the ultimate fate of Mr. Thomas Jordan.'
'Thomas Jordan?'
'You did say the death of your patient occurred on February twenty-seventh, did you not?'
'That's right.'
'Well then, this must be your man.' Devine flipped through the file but did not hand it over. 'John Doe; Caucasian male; late thirties; acute and chronic alcoholism; probable cardiac arrest due to arteries… art-er-i-'
'Arteriosclerosis,' Eric said, glancing over at Subarsky.
'Exactly-', 'How did you find out his name was Thomas Jordan?'
'Fingerprints, I believe. The M.E. does all that stuff.'
'Dr. Bushnell?'
Donald Devine looked up from the file and seemed momentarily startled.
Then he smiled.
'Precisely,' he said. 'Dr. Bushnell. Getting along in years but still as sharp as any of them. He made the ID and located the man's sister in'!-he consulted the file again-'Chicago. The woman gave him authorization to release the body. We did the rest.'
'Doesn't she have to come in and view it in person?' Eric asked.
'Not with a positive fingerprint ID. all she needs to do is get a notarized statement that she is who she says she is, and she can do the whole thing long distance. I think when she found out what her brother did for a living, which apparently was to drink, she lost her enthusiasm for a trip east.'
Eric felt a growing sense of relief. For once, Tern Dillard had been mistaken. John Doe was not Laura Enders's brother. He was not a scuba-diving computer wizard. He was Thomas Jordan, a down-and-out alcoholic with a sister who scarcely cared that he had died.
'So what happened to the body?' Subarsky asked.
Donald Devine flipped to another page in his file.
'Ashes to ashes,' he said reverently. 'The body was taken to the crematorium in mist Roxbury on… March 11. I would assume that the urn was sent to the deceased's sister.'
'Well then, I guess that's it,' Eric said.
'I hope I've been of some help to you gentlemen,' Donald Devine said, extending a hand that felt as if it had been kept in a meat locker.
'You've been a great help,' Eric said. He was thinking of how pleasant dinner with Laura Enders was going to be, now that he had no bad news for her.
Devine again formed his phalangeal steeple.
'Think nothing of it,' he crooned. 'At the Gates of Heaven, service is our middle name.'
'Nice slogan,' Subarsky muttered thoughtfully.
''Service is our middle name.' I like that.'
They thanked the mortician. Then, to the strains of muted string music, they departed.
Although the lobby of the Hotel Carlisle was badly in need of refurbishing, the lighting was so subdued that Eric actually had an impression of opulence as he crossed the frayed Oriental carpet in the lobby and settled into a cracked blue leather easy chair near the elevators. He was ten minutes early, and Laura had asked him to wait.
The prospect of spending time with her was appealing for reasons even beyond his initial attraction. She would be the first woman unassociated with medicine he had dated in longer than he could remember.
Buoyed by thoughts of the evening, he had enjoyed a day as peaceful, productive, and close to normal as any he had had in some time. The morning, which Verdi had ushered in with an aria that might have been from Madama Butterfly, had been spent paying bills and writing some long-overdue letters. In the afternoon he had played racquetball with a friend and attended grand rounds at the hospital.
Normal. After thirteen years of study and training, of ungodly hours and one sacrifice after another in his personal life, he wasn't even sure he knew what the word meant. what he did know, however, was that change was in the wind for him, with or without the appointment as associate director of the E.R.
It had been a full week since the search committee meeting. For three of those days he had worn the
