Read Online Grave Intent by Deborah LeBlanc - Free Book Online Page B

parking lots, front and sides,
were packed with cars, pickup trucks with homemade campers attached
to the beds, and travel trailers of varying sizes. Hordes of people
milled around the vehicles. Michael spotted a woman hanging a man’s
shirt on a car antenna and two other women carrying a large black
pot to a butane burner that sat behind an Airstream. Groups of
children raced through the chaos in heated games of tag.
    With his mouth still agape, Michael inched
his Buick past the funeral home, then nursed it around more
haphazardly parked vehicles until he reached his house, almost
three blocks away.
    Janet’s Caravan wasn’t in the garage, so
Michael parked the Buick in the empty slot, then hurried over to
the funeral home on foot.
    When he reached the parking lot, Michael
cornered a stout, middle-aged man dressed in a rumpled brown suit.
“Excuse me, but are all of you here for the Stevenson viewing?”
    The man’s caterpillar brows knitted, and
without a word, he pointed to a woman who sat crying on the hood of
a nearby Oldsmobile.
    Michael took a step toward her, thought
better of it, then hurried over to the service entrance of the
funeral home. He half expected to find Chad cowering in some corner
in desperate need of Prozac.
    The side door swung open just as Michael
reached it, and a young man in a Lee’s Florist uniform bustled
out.
    “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” the man said. “Did I
hit you?”
    “No. What’s—” Michael began, but the guy spun
away, already heading for the back end of a delivery van, which was
tucked tightly against the side of the building.
    “Hey,” the man called out before disappearing
into the back of the van. “Can you hold that door open for me?”
    Michael propped the door open with a foot,
and the delivery man hurried back inside with two floral
stands.
    “Who died?” the man asked. “A governor or
something?”
    “A teenage girl,” Michael said, closing the
door. He stared at the multiple rows of flowers and plants lined up
against the walls, their nauseatingly sweet fragrance nearly
palpable. Many of them had Savoy’s Florist salutation cards
attached to them.
    “Yeah? She a local?”
    “From out of town.”
    The man placed the stands near a large wreath
of white carnations that had OUR SYMPATHY written on a wide red
ribbon across its middle. “Well, whoever she is, her family must
sure have the bucks ‘cause Lee’s and two other shops’ve been
deliverin’ here pretty steady.” He swiped his forehead with an arm
and hustled out the side door again.
    Michael picked up the floral stands and was
heading for the viewing rooms when Chad burst out of the men’s
bathroom, his hand still on his fly.
    “Can you believe it?” Chad said nearly
running into Michael. His eyes looked the size of salad plates.
“There’s gotta be a thousand people outside!”
    “I don’t know about a thousand, but it’s a
hell of a group that’s for sure. Everything ready?”
    Chad nodded while buttoning his suit coat. “I
just finished cosmetizing.”
    Michael started down the hall again, and Chad
quickly fell into step.
    “Where’s Sally?” Michael asked.
    “In the viewing room, setting up
flowers.”
    “We’re going to need extra help—”
    “I already called Mr. Mason. He’s on
standby.”
    Michael glanced over at him. “You already
called Richard?”
    Chad’s eyes grew wider . “Shouldn’t I
have?”
    “No . . . I mean, yes, you should have,”
Michael said, impressed by Chad’s efficiency. “Good job.”
    Richard Mason was a semi-retired funeral
director whose help was an occasional blessing and a frequent
curse. From the old school, Richard used embalming techniques that
turned bodies into concrete statues. He also pasted enough makeup
on a corpse to make a whore blush. Michael only called on him when
absolutely necessary, and this service promised to accurately
define necessity. Even with Richard’s help, Michael still worried
about how they would manage a