Mortuary Confidential

the morning.

Bored, I flipped through the radio stations for almost an hour before a pair of headlights pulled up behind me. I hopped out into the freezing desert air and ran to the rear of the van, hugging my wool coat tight around me. The figure in the white pickup truck engaged an emergency light bar over the cab of his truck and got out. He was an elderly gentleman, probably working during his retirement years to stay busy.

“Hey there,” I greeted him. He clutched a couple of road flares in his hand.

“Hull-o, Miss,” he replied. “I understand you have a blowout?”

“Yeah. Left front tire is completely gone.”

He smiled at me with crooked teeth. He wasn’t wearing much more than a heavy flannel shirt and a ball cap. He was the type accustomed to working outdoors in the cold. “We’ll have you underway in just a few minutes, Miss.” He popped the flares and dropped them on the rumble strip alongside the van.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” I said. “It’s been a long day and I’m ready to get home.”

“Let’s have a look.” He loped up to the front of the van and poked at the tire. “Yup. Blew it out all right. Thankfully you didn’t bend the rim, so everything is going to be fine. You probably won’t need a tow unless you bent the axle.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Seems to me, if I remember correctly, the spare for this is located behind the front seats in the cargo area under the floor-boards.”

“Okay,” I said and swung the doors open.

The man peered into the cargo area. “What’s that?” he asked and put a crooked finger on his grizzled chin.

“Just a couple of bodies,” I said briskly. “I’ll move them out of the way so you can get to the tire.”

The man recoiled. “I’m not touching this van!”

“What?” I said, confused. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll pull the bodies out and you do your job. You don’t have to touch them.”

“I’m not getting in there!” he said. “There are dead people in there!”

My gratitude quickly melted into frustration. “Then what are you here for if you’re not going to help me?”

“I’m not getting anywhere near no dead people.” He took a step backward toward his pickup.

I snorted. “Then just get the hell out of here! I’ll do it myself,” I yelled. I had never changed a tire before on a car, much less a giant van, but I wasn’t going to sit around and suffer this fool.

I pulled the two cots out onto the shoulder of the freeway. The cars zipping by slowed; a strange scene was unfolding on the side of the road and the drivers wanted to rubberneck. I crawled into the back of the van, lifted up the floorboard, and retrieved the spare tire and jack. The tire didn’t look like the regular ones. It was smaller and didn’t look as sturdy—almost like a donut.

I rolled the donut between the suspended steel bays and crawled out, my charcoal pantsuit pants now smeared and greasy. I noticed with annoyance the guy was sitting in his pickup, watching. I loaded the two cots back inside the van and marched back to the pickup and rapped on the window. He rolled his window down.

“There,” I said, “the bodies are all gone, now do your job.”

He looked at me and said, “I told you I’m not going near that death van.”

“Then go on. Get the hell out of here. I don’t need you if you aren’t going to do anything.”

“Can’t. Gotta stay. Rules.”

“Do the rules also mention you sitting on your ass doing nothing?” I glared at him and marched back to the spare and jack. I picked them up and went around to the front of the van and got down on my hands and knees and looked under the chassis of the van. I found what appeared to me to be a suitable place to put the jack and started cranking. After I had the rim off the ground a few inches, I took the wrench and tugged at the bolts holding the old tire on.

“You’re doing it wrong!” the man called from his truck. I ignored him. The bolts were stiff and I was using every ounce of my strength. The van rocked perilously. I stopped and waited for it to stop moving. Then I tugged at the wrench, applying more even force. These bolts are really on there, I thought as I gave the wrench a final pull. The jack kicked out from under the van and it crashed down. I dove out of the way just in time. I sat on my rear end a few feet away, shaking from my close call.

“You’ve got to loosen the lugs before you jack up the van!” the man in the pickup truck called.

Thanks, asshole! I thought, picking myself up off the shoulder and dusting my coat off.

I retrieved the wrench from where I had flung it and found that by partially standing, I could put all my weight into loosening the bolts. I got all five loose and again jacked up the van. I slipped the spare on the rim and let the vehicle down. The spare donut seemed really soft, but I wasn’t going to ask the useless idiot in the pickup for anything like an air pump.

I tightened the bolts and navigated slowly back onto the interstate. Opening my window, I flipped the old guy the bird before I roared off. I kept the van at thirty-five all the way to the mortuary.

It was a long ride back.

CHAPTER 10 Severe Clear Contributed by a bicyclist

One night about ten years ago, I received a call at the witching hour. It’s not at all unusual in my business to get calls in the middle of the night, but this call was quite unusual. It went something like this:

“Freeman Mortuary. Gabe speaking.”

“Yes,” the shaky voice on the other end of the line said. “My name is Betty Drake. I’m sorry to bother you but I didn’t know who else to call.” She paused and wept.

“Did someone pass away?” I inquired, still lying in bed with my wife, the lights out.

“Yes… no. It’s our dog, Clear.”

“Oh,” I replied. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” Betty said. “We heard some noises about an hour ago and came out to the kitchen—my husband and I—and found him… dead!” She wept again. I remained silent. Betty composed herself and continued. “We just moved here and we didn’t know who to call. My husband suggested I look in the phone book for a funeral home. We knew the undertaker where we used to live and he came and got our last dog twelve years ago. I found your number in the Yellow Pages and called.”

“You want me to come get your dog?” I asked.

“Well, yes,” she said. “If that’s something you do.”

No, that’s not something I do, I thought, but what the hell. “I’d be happy to come get your dog,” I said. “What kind is it?”

She told me and gave me her address. I promised to be there within the hour and hung up. I redialed the phone. “Hey, Tom, don’t be mad, but—”

When I hung up with Tom, I lay in bed for a moment thinking, Don’t look at the clock, don’t look at the clock. I looked and groaned. My wife just rolled over and continued sleeping.

Tom and I arrived at the Drake household forty-five minutes later and found a crying Mrs. Drake and a somber Mr. Drake. They were an older couple; I guessed them to be in their early to mid-sixties. Mrs. Drake led us into the kitchen, where one of the most beautiful dogs I have ever seen, a husky with a black and white coat lay on the floor.

“We were never able to have children,” Mrs. Drake said. “So our dogs are like—” She bit her sentence off.

Mr. Drake knelt next to the dog and stroked the fur around his neck. “You ever dive?”

“Excuse me?” I said, confused.