Whispers

Tannerton’s clients, the relatives of the deceased, would never be brought into this room, for the bitter truth of death was too obvious here. In the front of the house, where the viewing chambers were decorated with heavy wine-red velvet drapes and plush carpets and dark wood paneling and brass lamps, where the lighting was low and artfully arranged, the phrases “passed away” and “called home by God” could be taken seriously; in the front rooms, the atmosphere encouraged a belief in heaven and the ascendance of the spirit. But in the tile-floored workroom with the lingering stink of embalming fluid and the shiny array of mortician’s instruments lined up on enamel trays, death seemed depressingly clinical and unquestionably final.

Olmstead opened the aluminum coffin.

Avril Tannerton folded back the plastic shroud, revealing the body from the hips up.

Joshua looked down at the waxy yellow-gray corpse and shivered. “Ghastly.”

“I know this is a trying time for you,” Tannerton said in practiced mournful tones.

“Not at all,” Joshua said. “I won’t be a hypocrite and pretend grief. I knew very little about the man, and I didn’t particularly like what I did know. Ours was strictly a business relationship.”

Tannerton blinked. “Oh. Well … then perhaps you would prefer us to handle the funeral arrangements through one of the deceased’s friends.”

“I don’t think he had any,” Joshua said.

They stared down at the body for a moment, silent.

“Ghastly,” Joshua said again.

“Of course,” Tannerton said, “no cosmetic work has been done. Absolutely none. If I could have gotten to him soon after death, he’d look much better.”

“Can you … do anything with him?”

“Oh, certainly. But it won’t be easy. He’s been dead a day and a half, and though he’s been kept refrigerated–”

“Those wounds,” Joshua said thickly, staring at the hideously scarred abdomen with morbid fascination. “Dear God, she really cut him.”

“Most of that was done by the coroner,” Tannerton said. “This small slit is a stab wound. And this one.”

“The pathologist did a good job with his mouth,” Olmstead said appreciatively.

“Yes, didn’t he?” Tannerton said, touching the sealed lips of the corpse. “It’s unusual to find a coroner with an aesthetic sense.”

“Rare.” Olmstead said.

Joshua shook his head. “I still find it hard to believe.”

“Five years ago,” Tannerton said, “I buried his mother. That’s when I met him. He seemed a little … strange. But I figured it was the stress and the grief. He was such an important man, such a leading figure in the community.”

“Cold,” Joshua said. “He was an extremely cold and self-contained man. Vicious in business. Winning a battle with a competitor wasn’t always enough for him; if at all possible, he preferred to utterly destroy the other fellow. I’ve always thought he was capable of cruelty and physical violence. But attempted rape? Attempted murder?”

Tannerton looked at Joshua and said, “Mr. Rhinehart, I’ve often heard it said that you don’t mince words. You’ve got a reputation, a much admired reputation, for saying exactly what you think and to hell with the cost. But….”

“But what?”

“But when you’re speaking of the dead, don’t you think you ought to–”

Joshua smiled. “Son, I’m a cantankerous old bastard and not entirely admirable. Far from it! As long as truth is my weapon, I don’t mind hurting the feelings of the living. Why, I’ve made children cry, and I’ve made kindly gray-haired grandmothers weep. I have little compassion for fools and sons of bitches when they’re alive. So why should I show more respect than that for the dead?”

“I’m just not accustomed to–”

“Of course, you’re not. Your profession requires you to speak well of the deceased, regardless of who he might have been and what heinous things he might have done. I don’t hold that against you. It’s your job.”

Tannerton couldn’t think of anything to say. He closed the lid of the coffin.

“Let’s settle on the arrangements,” Joshua said. “I’d like to get home and have my dinner–if I have any appetite left when I leave here.” He sat down on a high stool beside a glass-fronted cabinet that contained more tools of the mortician’s trade.

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