in the front row, where I was sure it would be noticed. I got out, put on the blazer, and took the opportunity to slowly stretch my cramped muscles. At six feet two inches tall with a lean runner's build, my back and legs would tighten up like piano wires after a long drive. I looked around the parking lot again. Other than the Lincoln Town Car, the only people coming to the funeral looked to be the county sheriff and me.
The sheriff's cruiser was sitting in the deep shadows under the tree. I couldn't see clearly inside, but there was a guy in a brown uniform slouched in the front seat, his arm hanging out the window, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips. He wore a pair of those “FOP-approved,” silver-lensed, aviator sunglasses like Ponch wore on CHIPS when I was a kid, the kind no “real” cop would be caught dead without. He was watching me with that bored- curious look that only a cop with nothing better to do would know how to give. I smiled and blew him a kiss as I walked past. At least that got him to move. He flicked the cigarette aside and I could see his head following me.
The Greene Funeral Home was one of those long, low, one-story brick colonial things that was supposed to give the bereaved a feeling of history and permanence. The shrubs were neatly trimmed and the grass was green enough to have been spray-painted. The outside walls were a thick, dignified, brown brick and there was a tall white cupola on the roof, complete with a wrought iron weather vane and a crowing rooster. The main entrance had three broad concrete stairs and a set of double glass doors. Yep, the place looked sturdy and prosperous. It looked permanent. It looked positively eternal. Bet Mr. Greene didn't offer too many cut-rate deals on coffins. Bet he didn't even try.
When I started out from Boston the night before, I had a full head of angry steam inside, but as I closed in on the front door of the funeral home and saw those two black hearses under the portico, my knees grew weak. The heat rippled off the asphalt and my pace slowed to a crawl. It wasn't me. It was my feet. They said not to go any further, and feet are rarely wrong. All the pain and anguish I kept locked away these many months had grabbed me by my coattails and stopped me dead in my tracks. I closed my eyes. I couldn't breathe. It felt as if the funeral home itself was pushing me back, telling me to run back to the Bronco and get the hell out of town while I still could. Why did I come up to Columbus in the first place, it whispered? Why dredge up all those horrible memories? Why? The obituaries? They must have been a mistake, some crazy coincidence or somebody's idea of a cruel joke. Whatever, they weren't worth this price.
I wanted very much to give in, to cut and run, but I couldn't let myself do that. I forced my eyes open and stared at the front door, focusing on it, on the glass and my reflection. I saw my face and forced myself to concentrate on Terri and to remember why I had come here to Ohio. They could fool with me, but not with Terri and not with my memories. With those thoughts, I took a deep breath, then another, and slowly, slowly, I blew on the coals, again and again until the anger burst into flames and became a raging bonfire inside me again. I needed it and I used it, because my memories of Terri were the one weapon I had to keep my feet moving forward. The anger. It was my ally. It built and churned inside me and I knew it was the weapon I would use to defeat anything this funeral home could throw at me.
I gritted my teeth and pushed on through those front doors, but the Greene Funeral Home wasn't done with me yet. Once inside, I felt the sticky-sweet smell of cut flowers and the soft drone of organ music wrap themselves around me like a hot, wet blanket. It brought back all the pain, the grief, and the plastic insincerity. It turned my stomach. I wobbled back and forth fighting the nausea, trying desperately to keep my grip on the anger, because without it, I could never force myself to go on.
I took a deep breath and slowly opened my eyes. I was standing in a spacious foyer. Muted lighting. Soft pastel colors. Carpet so thick you could sink into it up to your ankles. And the furniture? Ethan Allen, top of the line. The music? Probably a twelve-hour tape. The sweet flower smell? Some phony spray in the air conditioning ducts. That way, Greene could use artificial flowers and save a ton of money. Well, at least the place wouldn't play havoc with my allergies. As for my claustrophobia? No help there. Funeral homes closed in and squeeze the life out of me like a giant Anaconda every time I stepped inside one. Maybe that was why I hated them. That, and too many dead people.
In the center of the foyer stood a large pedestal table with a monstrously large flower arrangement that looked like a bomb had gone off in a Hawaiian garden. A wide, carpeted hallway went off to the right and to the left with a chapel on each side. The doors on the closest two were open, but the two at the far end were closed. On each side of the corridor, I saw a black, framed plaque on the wall. The one on the left read “Schirmberger” in gold press-on letters. The one on the right read “Talbott.” Beneath the family name, in smaller type, I saw “Peter and Theresa.” I stood there and stared at the plaque. Terri hated that name “Theresa” and seeing it in bright gold letters pushed me right to the edge. My memories of Terri were intensely private and these clowns had no right to stomp around inside my head with their dirty work boots. It made me want to rip that black plaque off the wall and jam it and the Hawaiian flower arrangement down someone's throat.
The doors to the “Talbott” chapel were wide open. At the door stood a small writing stand with a curved reading lamp, an open guest book, and a ballpoint pen. I walked over and looked down. The book was open. The page was blank. Not a single entry. Somehow, that didn't surprise me.
Well, as the guest of honor, I didn't think it was polite to hold things up, so I stepped inside. The chapel had perhaps fifteen long, wooden pews on each side and could easily hold a couple of hundred people if it had to. Today it didn't. The crowd consisted of me and two cheap wooden coffins sitting on draped biers at the front of the room. They lay in a “V” with the far ends angled in so they almost touched. The coffins were matching, of course, and closed, with a large floral blanket lying across the center of each. Coffins. Funny how these two didn't bother me very much, probably because I knew I wasn't in the one and I knew Terri wasn't in the other. I strode down the center of the aisle for a closer look, but there was nothing to see. The coffins were shut tight, their covers screwed down, so I turned around, intending to take a seat in a pew halfway back and wait.
That was when I discovered there was another man in the room. It was the grease-ball with the chrome- plated .45 who shared the front seat of my Bronco with me last night. He stood in the right rear corner of the chapel watching me through a pair of dark, wrap-around sunglasses with an expression of faint amusement. Today he was dressed in a nicely tailored summer-weight beige suit and a dark blue silk shirt, open at the collar, with a matching floppy handkerchief in the coat pocket. He had the same set of gaudy gold chains hanging around his neck and his black hair combed straight back into a ponytail. With the clothes, the chains, and the ponytail, he didn't fit here in Buckeye land any more than I did. He took the sunglasses off and began to slowly clean the lenses with his handkerchief, staring at me the entire time. And there was no evasion in those eyes. They were cold and analytical, like a butcher sizing up a fresh slab of beef in a frosty meat locker.
I finally looked away and took a seat in a middle row, left. At precisely 2:00 PM, the organ music faded to silence and a tall, silver-haired man in a superbly tailored black suit materialized through a side curtain in one of the front alcoves. He wore an expensive blue silk tie with a matching handkerchief and his suit jacket remained buttoned. Very formal. Very proper. His crisp, white shirt had large, gold cuff links and he wore a sapphire ring on his pinkie finger. Tanned and fit, his mane of silver hair looked so stiff and lacquered, you could drop him on his head from a third floor window and he'd bounce. This couldn't be some junior assistant. This had to be Greene himself. With his head slightly bowed, he glided silently to the center of the room in front of the caskets. Ah, he seemed to be saying, life was indeed good, but if you play it right, death could be even better. The man paused there for a moment between the two coffins, his hands clasped in front of him, looking down, serious, contemplative, and very well practiced. When he finally looked up and saw me and the big gumba in the rear corner, I saw the slightest flicker of surprise in those soft-brown cow eyes, but Greene's expression never changed. Clearly, he didn't expect to see either one of us. Probably didn't expect to see anybody. Surprise? Annoyance? Yes, but oddly detached. And curious.
With a soft cough, he began to speak in a thick, baritone voice. “My friends, it was the wish of Peter and Theresa, as conveyed to me through their executor, that no memorial service be held at this time.” Great ad-libbing, I had to concede. “They knew how sad their untimely passing would be to their many friends,” Greene continued on autopilot without a hint of doubt or shame. “And Peter and Theresa very much wanted to spare them any further grief. Naturally, we will respect their wishes today. So, let us now bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer in their memory.”
After a brief pause, I heard another soft cough and had to stifle a laugh. If a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, I guess a mortician in Ohio measures a silent prayer as the shortest time between
