Chapter 3 - The Viewing Room
The back room of the Pike & Sons Funeral Home smelled permanently of damp chrysanthemums, lemon-scented floor wax, and the faint, coppery undertone of embalming fluid that no amount of potpourri could ever quite scrub out of the wainscoting.
It was ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. Outside, a light, greasy mist was turning the limestone steps of the courthouse across the square into a slick gray slide.
Inside the viewing room, twenty-four folding chairs had been set up in neat rows facing an empty mahogany bier where a polished oak casket—unopened, heavy, and smelling of fresh varnish—sat under the amber glow of four brass wall sconces.
Vanessa was sitting in the front row. She was wearing her good black wool coat—the one with the faux-mink collar she only brought out for weddings, funerals, and quarterly corporate audits—and her knuckles were pressed so hard against her lap that her fingers looked like peeled willow wands. Beside her, Grant was whispering into the ear of a tall, thin man in a charcoal suit who had a leather portfolio tucked under his arm like a shield.
Near the back, standing by the water cooler with a paper cup he hadn’t touched in twenty minutes, was Harold Pike.
He looked older than he had at Thanksgiving. His shoulders were rounded, his white hair cropped close to a skull that seemed to have shrunk inside his skin, and his eyes kept darting toward the heavy oak doors leading out to the vestibule every time a car door slammed in the square.
“You’re late,” Vanessa said without turning around as the inner door creaked open.
She hadn’t expected me. She had expected the courier from the bank with the final lien release on the north forty.
When the heels of my boots clicked against the linoleum—and when the second, heavier tread of rubber-soled slippers followed mine across the threshold—the entire room went dead silent. It wasn't the respectful silence of a funeral. It was the absolute, breathless quiet of a crowd watching a tightrope walker lose his balance halfway across the wire.
Vanessa stood up so fast her metal folding chair screeched against the floorboards, tipping backward and clattering into the empty row behind her.
“You,” she breathed, her face going from pale white to a hot, mottled purple that matched the cheap plums on the wallpaper. “What are you—how did you get in here? I told the sexton to lock the side gate!”
“The gate was open, Van,” I said, stepping past the empty bier and walking down the center aisle. I kept my hands in the pockets of my trench coat, my eyes fixed on the back of Harold Pike’s neck. “Uncle Harold always did forget to drop the latch when he was expecting company.”
Harold didn’t turn around. He just stared harder into his paper cup of lukewarm water as if the secret of the universe were floating in the bottom among the paper flakes.
Grant jumped up beside Vanessa, his face twisted into an ugly, snarling mask. “Get out of here! This is a private family proceeding! The probate court has already sealed the premises, and the sheriff’s department was notified an hour ago that you were harassing the executors!”
“Executors,” Dad said.
The word came out of the shadows by the heavy velvet curtain like a timber wolf stepping out from behind a frozen spruce.
Dad didn’t rush. He walked with that slow, rolling gait he’d had since the logging accident in seventy-six—the one where his left knee had been crushed under six hundred pounds of white pine. Every step was deliberate, heavy, and accompanied by the soft thud of his rubber-soled house shoes against the carpet.
Vanessa let out a sound that wasn’t quite a scream—more like the yelp of a dog that had just been kicked under the porch. She staggered back against the polished edge of the oak casket, her hands flying to her mouth, her fingers digging into her cheeks until the skin turned white.
“Dad?” she whispered. The word didn’t sound like anger anymore. It sounded like a prayer gone wrong. “Dad... you’re... you’re in the box.”
Dad stopped five feet from the front row. He looked down at the shiny oak box, then over at the brass nameplate screwed into the lid: ARTHUR J. COLE — 1941–2026 — AT REST.
He reached out with one thick, calloused finger and tapped the brass plate twice. Ting. Ting.
“Well, now,” Dad said, looking around the room with a slow, devastating grin. “That’s a mighty fine piece of cabinetwork, Harold. Cherry veneer over poplar, am I right? You always did charge fifty dollars too much for the brass corners.”
Harold Pike finally turned around. His face was the color of skim milk, and his lower lip was trembling so hard he had to bite down on it to keep his teeth from clicking.
“Arthur,” Harold croaked, his voice sounding like two dry shingles rubbing together in an attic. “Artie... is that you?”
“Who else would it be, you old horse thief?” Dad stepped closer, leaning his weight on his good leg. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Harold. Or maybe you just look like a man who’s about to have to explain to the state insurance commissioner why there’s an empty pine box sitting in a room paid for by a dead man’s life insurance policy.”
Vanessa found her voice then—not the sharp, administrative bark she used on the phone, but a high, animal screech that bounced off the memorial wreaths and rattled the water pitcher on the table by the door.
“It’s a trick!” she screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Dad’s chest while tears spilled over her mascara and cut black tracks down her cheeks. “It’s an imposter! It’s some old tramp they picked up off the highway in Illinois to ruin us! Grant, call the sheriff! Call the state police! He’s dead! Dr. Geller signed the paper! Harold saw him in the bed! He’s dead!”
“Am I?” Dad asked mildly. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a crumpled pack of Camels, flicked one out with his thumb, and stuck it between his teeth without lighting it. “That’s funny. My legs still hurt when it rains, and my coffee still tastes like chicory. Seems a shame to waste a good funeral over a little thing like being alive.”
May you like
The lawyer in the charcoal suit—the one with the leather portfolio—slowly and very deliberately set his briefcase down on the floor, took two steps back toward the vestibule door, and reached for his overcoat.
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