Read Online Always Kiss the Corpse by Sandy Frances Duncan - Free Book Online Page A

man’s flat phone voice, yes. He wondered how Kyra was doing with the sheriff.
    He preferred Kyra and himself interviewing people as a team. They functioned well together, not in any good-slash-bad cop way but with differing tactics. They heard different details and stances in the answers people gave. Besides, when they worked together they weren’t working separately. Obvious but important too, because Noel worried about Kyra when she was left to her own devices. She got herself into serious trouble easily, and sometimes into danger. She didn’t know when to stop pushing. Not that an interview with a local sheriff could be dangerous, but still.
    The door opened and the receptionist, a round woman of preserved middle age, smiled at him. “Mr. Martin apologizes. He’ll be just a couple more minutes.” She closed the door.
    â€œThanks,” Noel said to the doorknob. He wondered if Claude Martin liked to put visitors off their stride, keeping them waiting. No one, no one, then suddenly Martin appears: And this morning, will you have a burial or a cremation? Or, flashing open a catalogue: We could stuff you like this tiger?
    No, morticians didn’t have tactics. Investigators did. Like dominance in questioning. Noel usually maintained dominance, over both women and men. Begin dominant, stay dominant. Few out-managed Noel. As a young journalist he’d learned to pounce. With Brendan neither had tried to dominate, not in situations nor with each other; balance was part of how their love fitted together. Between Kyra and him, dominance often went back and forth; their kind of balance lay in the to-and-froing itself.
    The door opened again. A man came in, tall, black hair, black mustache, black suit and tie, brilliantly shined black shoes. “Mr. Franklin, Claude Martin. So sorry to keep you waiting.” He reached out his hand.
    Noel stood and took it. Soft, not quite limp. “Good of you to see me, Mr. Martin.”
    â€œThis is about the Vasiliadis viewing?”
    â€œThat’s right.” Flat like on the phone, no sense of what Martin was thinking, feeling. “I’ve been retained by Sandro’s mother. You met her the other evening.”
    â€œYes. Terrible thing. For the family. For us as well.”
    â€œI can see it might be a nuisance for you, but why terrible?”
    â€œWon’t you sit?” He gestured to the chair Noel had risen from.
    Noel sat. Sometimes dominance required letting others take the lead.
    Martin sat behind the desk and leaned across the blotter. “For the body of the departed, the Oceanside Funeral Home comes as close to hallowed ground as any space not sanctified by churches and temples. If the body of an unknown lies here, it compromises the legitimacy of our other clients. There is something,” he sat straight and his eyes glowed but his voice remained unchanged, horizontal, “sacred here. It emanates from the walls, the floors. The air is filled with holiness. You must sense it?” His eyes were now on Noel’s face, scanning it.
    â€œA special place? I guess. Were you present the whole time the mourners were around?”
    â€œYes. I oversee every detail at Oceanside.”
    â€œDo you know who was here?”
    He shook his head. “Many people pass through Oceanside.” A flicker of his lips, a smile that never arrived. “However, if they signed, their names will be in the guest book.” He picked up the phone, pressed a button, waited. “Would you bring in the Vasiliadis guest book? Thank you.” He put the phone down. “We shall see.”
    â€œOf the people who were here, whom do you remember?”
    â€œThe mother of course, she began this difficulty when she denied the body. I can say little about her, she was here so briefly. And the young man and woman who brought her, they seemed kind but they looked exhausted.”
    â€œWho else?”
    â€œThe uncle, Vasiliadis. He