I began lifting great aluminum pans and pots when a sales clerk suddenly appeared. He was balding and big-bellied, and sporting a tattoo of a naked woman playing cards on his right forearm.
‘Can I help you?’ he said to Ruffin.
‘I need the biggest cooking pot you’ve got,’ I answered.
‘That’d be forty quarts.’
He reached up to a shelf too high for me and handed the monstrous pot to Ruffin.
‘I’ll need a lid,’ I said.
‘Will have to be ordered.’
‘What about something deep and rectangular,’ I then said as I envisioned long bones.
‘Got a twenty-quart pan.’
He reached up to another shelf, and metal clanged as he lifted out a pan that had probably been intended for vats of whipped potatoes, vegetables or cobbler.
‘And I don’t suppose you have a lid for that either,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
Different-sized lids clattered as he pulled one out.
‘It’s got the notch right here for the ladle. I guess you’ll be wanting a ladle, too.’
‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘Just something long to stir with, either wooden or plastic. And heat-resistant gloves. Two pairs. What else?’
I looked at Ruffin as I thought.
‘Maybe we should get a twenty-quart pot, too, for smaller jobs?’ I mused.
‘That’d be a good idea,’ he agreed. ‘That big pot’s going to be mighty heavy when it’s filled with water. And there’s no point in using it if something smaller will work, but I think you’re going to need the bigger pot this time, or it all won’t fit. You know?’
The salesman was getting more confused as he listened to our evasive conversation.
‘You tell me what you’re planning to cook, and maybe I can give you some advice,’ he offered, again to Ruffin.
‘Different things,’ I replied. ‘Mostly I’ll be boiling things.’
‘Oh, I see,’ he said, even though he didn’t. ‘Well, will there be anything else?’
‘That’s it,’ I answered him with a smile.
At the counter, he rang up one hundred and seventy-seven dollars of restaurant cookware while I got out my billfold and hunted for my MasterCard.
‘Do you by chance give discounts to state government?’ I asked as he took my card from me.
‘No,’ he said, rubbing his double chin as he frowned at my card. ‘I think I’ve heard your name on the news before.’
He stared suspiciously at me.
‘I know.’
He snapped his fingers.
‘You’re the lady who ran for the senate a few years back. Or maybe it was for lieutenant governor?’ he said, pleased.
‘Not me,’ I answered. ‘I try to stay out of politics.’
‘You and me both,’ he said loudly as Ruffin and I carried our purchases out the door. ‘They’re all crooks, every single one of ’em!’
When we returned to the morgue, I gave Ruffin instructions to remove the remains of the burn victim from the refrigerator and wheel them and the new pots into the decomposition room. I shuffled through telephone messages, most of them from reporters, and realized I was nervously pulling at my hair when Rose appeared in the doorway that joined my office to hers.
‘You look like you’ve had a bad day,’ she said.
‘No worse than usual.’
‘How about a cup of cinnamon tea?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘But thanks.’
Rose placed a stack of death certificates on my desk, adding to the never-ending pile of documents for me to initial or sign. She was dressed this day in a smart navy blue pants suit and bright purple blouse, her shoes, typically, black leather lace-ups for walking.
Rose was well past retirement age, although it didn’t show in her face, which was regal and subtly made up. But her hair had gotten finer and had turned completely white, while arthritis nibbled at her fingers, lower back, and hips, making it increasingly uncomfortable for her to sit at her desk and take care of me as she had from my first day at this job.
‘It’s almost six,’ she said, looking kindly at me.
I glanced up at the clock as I began to scan paperwork and sign my name.
‘I have a dinner at the church,’ she diplomatically let me know.