Cold Feet. Brenda Novak

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       A LTHOUGH M ONDAY AFTERNOON was warm, with a rare amount of sun for Seattle in September, the mortuary was cool. Too cool. It smelled of carnations, furniture polish and formaldehyde, which dredged up memories of every funeral Madison had ever attended—Aunt Zelma’s, Grandma Rayma’s, the skeletal-looking man who’d lived next door when she was five. She couldn’t think of the old guy’s name, but she remembered staring at his waxy face as he lay in his coffin.

      Fortunately, she didn’t have to deal with any memories of her father’s funeral. They hadn’t given him one. She, her mother, Tye and Johnny had simply sent out notices of his death to the few friends and family who’d remained supportive, and buried him without any type of viewing or wake. Because of the ongoing investigation, and the damage he’d done with his old rifle, it seemed prudent to handle things as quickly and quietly as possible.

      Lawrence Howell, the manager of Sunset Lawn Funeral Home and Memorial Park, had helped make the arrangements. He sat across from Madison and her mother now, his short blond hair neatly combed, his face wearing the same somber expression he always wore.

      Fortunately, Madison had been able to reach Joanna Stapley, a senior at South Whidbey High School who often baby-sat for her, in time to have her pick up Brianna from school, so she didn’t have to cope with a wriggling six-year-old during such a difficult meeting.

      “How could this have happened?” she asked when Mr. Howell had finished explaining what he’d told her on the phone when he’d reached her at her office earlier—that someone had dug up her father’s coffin last night. “How could anyone have figured out where he was buried?”

      Howell rested his elbows on his mahogany desk and clasped long white fingers in front of him. “As I told the gentleman who called me this morning—”

      “What gentleman?” Annette demanded.

      Madison put a comforting hand on her mother’s arm. “Tye, Mom. I phoned him as soon as Mr. Howell contacted me. I thought he might want to be part of this.”

      “Is he coming?” she asked, obviously not pleased that Madison had included him.

      “No, he said he has to work.”

      “What about his wife? Is she going to be here?”

      “Sharon and the kids are visiting her mother in Spokane.”

      “Ellis never could count on his boys,” Annette said, her lips compressed in disapproval. She didn’t want Tye or his wife involved, yet she sounded affronted by their lack of support.

      Mr. Howell, who’d waited politely through their exchange, cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I have no way of knowing how this happened. There was no headstone or anything else to mark your father’s grave, Ms. Lieberman, just as you requested. Our files are kept private and are always locked up at night. There was no sign of forced entry into the mortuary here, where we keep the files. And it’s been a year since the burial—a year in which we’ve had no hint of trouble.”

      “That’s what I don’t understand,” Annette said, her eyes filling with tears. “Why now? What would anyone want with Ellis’s body after all this time?”

      “A year’s not so long, Mom,” Madison said before Howell could respond. “Whoever it was wants the same thing we’ve encountered before, to express their anger and contempt for…for what happened.”

      “I just want my husband to be able to rest in peace,” her mother said. “Ellis was innocent. He never hurt those women.”

      Madison wished her mother’s words didn’t sound so hollow to her. She still wanted to believe them. But the locket she’d discovered under the house yesterday threatened the last of her faith, was leaching away the righteous anger that had sustained her so far. Without a strong conviction that her father was innocent, she had nothing to cling to, except the desire to protect her mother and Brianna from what was, most probably, the truth.

      “Of course he was innocent,” Howell said, his tone placating.

      Madison was willing to bet Howell believed more in the extra money they’d paid him to keep her father’s burial place a secret than he did in her father’s innocence. Just as she thought the call he’d made to them this morning, and what he might shortly suggest for her father’s reburial, would come with a hefty price tag. They should’ve gone ahead with the cremation Madison had suggested from the first. But her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Annette had never known anyone who’d been cremated. It seemed foreign to her—certainly nothing she was willing to do with her beloved husband’s body.

      “Fortunately, our security guard frightened the culprit away before he could open the casket,” Howell added.

      Madison rummaged through her purse to get her mother a tissue. Annette didn’t used to cry so easily, but the past twelve years had taken quite a toll. “Why didn’t the security guard catch him sooner?” she asked.

      Howell politely turned his attention her way. “As you know, this is a big cemetery, Ms. Lieberman. Anthony, our СКАЧАТЬ