'Good,' Elise said with a distracted air. She checked over her left shoulder, then pulled from the curb. 'You aren't anxious to get home, are you? I've got to make one or two quick stops.'
'No problem.'
Audrey changed her mind when, ten minutes later, they were turning into the parking lot of a funeral home. 'Somebody die?'
Her mom opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. 'People are always dying.'
'I mean somebody you know.'
'Oh, honey. I'm sorry,' Elise said as if suddenly realizing she was acting a little weird. She looked at Audrey and smiled. 'No. Nobody died. This involves a little investigative work. Something you might find interesting. It has nothing to do with dead people. I'm looking for a tunnel.'
'Tunnel?' That might be okay.
'Come on. You don't need to wait in the car.'
'Hey, isn't this the place that body was stolen from?' Audrey asked as they walked under the green canvas awning.
'Yes.' Elise opened the ornately carved door.
'Cool.'
They cornered the funeral director in the entry room.
The place had red carpet and a bunch of dark doors that probably had bodies behind them. Audrey hoped nobody opened a door.
If that happens, don't look. Just don't look.
'Well, sure, I've heard of the tunnels,' the director said.
She stared at the man her mother was talking to.
He was creepy, with neck skin that hung over his tie. The place smelled too. Audrey had been to only two funerals in her life, both for great-grandparents. Both times she'd refused to look at the dead body, but she remembered that sickening sweet smell. Like something bad was being covered up.
'The tunnels have been sealed for years,' the man said.
'I'd like to see the entrance anyway,' Elise told him.
'We don't allow anybody down there.'
'Mr. Simms, do I need to remind you that a crime was committed in your establishment?'
'It's just… that area of the home is kind of for overflow…'
Audrey immediately imagined piles of dead bodies. The smell, along with the image, began to make her feel a little dizzy.
'I'm not an inspector,' Elise reminded him.
'Okay, okay.'
Annoyed, he led them to the elevator, which took them to the basement level.
What a switch, from all tidy and plush to damp and crumbling stone foundation that smelled like mildew and rotting wood.
The funeral director stayed in the elevator. 'Keep to the right,' he said, waving his hand. 'The tunnel entrance is in the last small room. Low ceiling. You'll need to duck. I have to get back upstairs.' He pushed a button. The elevator door closed. A motor kicked in, taking Mr. Mortician away.
The floor was tabby cement that had been poured over sloped, uneven ground. The light was bad, and there were a lot of deep shadows and dark corners.
Elise clicked on the flashlight.
It was one of those cool police flashlights that really lit up the room. The bright white beam darted around, then landed on a shelf full of small cardboard boxes. Each box had a name and date.
'Apparently relatives don't always pick up their loved ones,' Elise commented.
Sweet kitty.
Audrey didn't like being down there with a bunch of dead people even if they were ashes. At the same time, she was thinking about how nobody was going to believe her at school tomorrow when she told her friends where she'd been. They were going to, like, think it was the coolest.
A lot of people thought cremated bodies burned down to a tiny little pile of ashes. But Audrey had seen a show on the Discovery Channel, and it told how after the thing they cooked them in was cool enough to open, bones and teeth were still there. Mixed with the ashes. They had a machine that looked like a little cement mixer they dumped everything into. The machine ground up what was left.
Gross.
She fell into step behind her mom.
'Watch your head.'
Elise shone the flashlight at the low ceiling, then back to a floor that had turned to rock and dirt. They entered a second room lined with metal shelves crammed with supplies. Bottles of pink liquid claimed to be embalming fluid. Others were called cavity cleaner. Pore sealer. Jugular tubes. Body inserts. Expression formers. Casket Mate, whatever that was. On the floor were drums labeled Drying Compound, Lightly Fragranced.
Audrey was feeling dizzy again.
Just a tunnel.
Right.
Her mother had said they were looking for just a tunnel. Maybe, if it was a tunnel from Night of the Living Dead. Her parents-well, her dad and Vivian-wouldn't let her watch those kinds of movies, but some of her friends had seen them so many times that they laughed at the scary parts. Audrey had been initiated at a sleepover. She'd had bad dreams for two weeks.
Cavity cleaner.
Body inserts.
She felt like she was going to throw up. She took a few deep breaths, then hurried to catch up with her mother, who was peering into an even smaller room.
Audrey couldn't wait to see what was in there. Ha-ha.
They had to walk hunched over.
It was tiny. And thankfully empty.
One wall was brick instead of stone.
'Is that it?' Audrey asked.
She'd seen the sealed tunnel at the Pirates' House Restaurant, so she'd kind of known what to expect, but still it was a letdown. Just a wall. How boring was that?
'Look.' Elise pointed the light along the left edge where the bricks stopped, then down to a pile of rubble. 'Someone's been doing a little excavating.'
Audrey hadn't known what she'd expected when she'd come along. She hadn't really thought about it. But now her heart began beating faster.
She'd heard about the body that had been stolen from the funeral home. It had been all over the news, but suddenly the story changed from things kids at school were joking about to an actual crime. And here was a clue! A real clue!
She'd never seen her mom in action, actually working on a case. Suddenly she felt kind of amazed by her, kind of proud.
Elise pulled some bricks free and shone the light through the jagged black gap.
'Should we go inside?' Audrey asked, excited and scared at the same time.
'No. I need to get a crime scene team down here before anybody disturbs anything.'
'Can I at least look?'
'Here.' Elise handed her the heavy flashlight.
Audrey stepped forward and pointed the beam through the hole.
A tunnel. Cut from rock and earth, with the ceiling curved and lined with brick. In the distance it appeared to end, but Audrey figured it really turned.
Something hit her arm with a plop.
A bug! A huge black cockroach!
She jumped back, shook her arm, and screamed, dropping the flashlight.
