Casket Case (3 page)

“I didn’t know she has red hair, but I knew he married a young woman he met over the Internet after he retired.” Jane just amazes me. She would let me think she stays in her apartment and sleeps except when she talks to me or is on the phone as Roxanne, but she’s always a day ahead of me on gossip.

“The Internet?” I asked.

“Yep, he met her in a chat room and decided she’s the perfect woman for him regardless of the almost fifty years between them. According to what I heard, she grew up in a poor rural part of Georgia and has never had much. When she came to visit, she thought the Dawkins house was like a mansion.”

“Did you know Dr. Melvin liked to bake?” I said.

“He doesn’t, guess I should say
didn’t
, really like to bake. He wanted to win the Southern Belle Flour Baking Contest. The grand prize is half a million dollars. I’ve thought about sending in one of my recipes.”

“You should. You’re a great cook!” My mind shifted back to Dr. Melvin. “So he needed money?” I asked.

“I think he was comfortable, but he wanted to be able to do more for his bride.”

“Do you think she might have drowned him?”

“Oh, Callie, why do you always think that way? Stick to reading your mysteries. His new wife probably killed him, but I doubt she drowned him.” Jane giggled. She didn’t have to say what she was thinking. We’ve been friends so long that a lot of the time we know each other’s thoughts. To be polite about it, she was insinuating that Roselle “loved” him to death.

After riding silently for about fifteen minutes, Jane asked, “Can we have breakfast on the way? I didn’t have supper, and I’m starving.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat before we deliver Dr. Melvin to MUSC.”

“To what?”

“The Medical University of South Carolina, where the autopsies for Jade County are performed.”

“Oh, I should have remembered that, but why can’t we eat first?”

“We need to get Dr. Melvin into refrigeration as soon as possible because he hasn’t been embalmed.”
Besides,
I thought,
it seems disrespectful to leave Dr. Melvin in the
parking lot while we eat. What if someone stole him out of the funeral coach?

Jane didn’t answer. She was pouting. I could tell because she sat up straight and pressed her lips together. Her silence was probably because she hates to think about body preparation and the other aspects of the mortuary business just as much as I hate to think of her sitting up all night talking dirty to old men, though she swears not all her talk is obscene and not all of her clients are old. Jane considers her job a public service.

When we pulled up at the MUSC morgue receiving area, Jane sat quietly while I got out and signed papers for the attendant, who transferred Dr. Melvin’s bag to a gurney and rolled him inside after signing my receipt for body delivery.

“Where do you want to eat?” I asked as I wheeled out of the parking lot.

“Are we anywhere near a Cracker Barrel? I’m starving. I want Uncle Herschel’s breakfast with grits and biscuits and gravy as well as country fried steak and eggs.”

I’d planned to go through a take-out window at Bojangles’, but I’d asked Jane’s preference, and we weren’t that far away from where she wanted to go, so that’s where we went. When we got out, I was immediately reminded of work. We have rocking chairs on the wraparound veranda at the mortuary. Ever since a mourner said that the rocking chairs at Middleton’s made her think of the rockers on the porch at the Cracker Barrel, the restaurant brings the funeral home to my mind.

All the tables were full, so I put my name on the waiting list.

“Jane, do you want to sit in the chairs out front?” I asked.

“No, let’s check out the gift shop.” Looking through any store with Jane means telling her what I see and letting her examine through touch whatever interests her.

June. Not even summertime yet. Though the South Carolina coast feels like summer as early as April, sometimes even the end of March, I always remember that summertime sometimes starts officially on June twenty-first because my birthday is the next day.

The Mother’s Day items were reduced forty percent. Not that Jane and I were interested. My mother died the day I was born. Jane’s passed away when she was eighteen. The Father’s Day special gifts were reduced twenty-five percent. I didn’t mention those to Jane either. I’d already given Daddy a nice gift on Father’s Day, and Jane’s dad abandoned his family right after he learned his baby girl was completely blind.

“What’s new to look at?” Jane said.

“There’s a lot of red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July,” I said, “but there’s also a lot of Halloween stuff.”

“Oh, phooey,” Jane joked, “I was hoping to see Christmas trees.” I didn’t tell her that a young lady was setting up a display of ornaments right beside a turkey-shaped cookie jar.

Jane can’t see a thing, not even a shadow. She was born with no optic nerves. Since, according to shows on television, the medical profession now transplants corneas, hearts, kidneys, livers, and lungs as well as grafting toes onto hands to replace fingers, I sometimes wonder if Jane could have optic nerve transplants and be able to see. Until then, I’ll just have to keep describing what she’s touching for her to “see” it.

“Is
that Jane Baker? Jane?” called a tiny older lady looking our way.

The woman was hunched over one of those walkers with tennis balls on the back legs. She zeroed in on us, pushed through the crowd, and reached out to put her hand on Jane’s arm. The woman’s bright floral, matching skirt, blouse, and hat contrasted with her short, curly white hair. Her flip-flop shoes with bright cloth flowers attached didn’t quite seem appropriate with the walker she used.

Jane doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, but she knew the speaker because she wrapped her arms around the lady in an embrace.

“Mrs. White, you’re back! How was your trip?”

“Wonderful, just wonderful!” the woman replied.

“Callie,” Jane said, “you remember my landlady, Pearl White, don’t you?”

How could I forget her? Names fascinate me because mine is so strange. I was named Calamine Lotion Parrish by my daddy, who happened to be drunk
, very
drunk, when my mother died giving birth to me. Daddy couldn’t think of anything feminine except the color pink. Thank goodness he thought of lotion instead of Pepto-Bismol. Most folks call me Callie now, but my dad still calls me Calamine, and I get a kick out of other strange names.

What struck me as funny when I first met Pearl White was that her maiden name was Pearl Gray. I thought she could be a walking commercial for teeth-whitening ads. Especially since when Pearl gave up her own dental battle and got false teeth, she talked her dentist into giving her an unnaturally bright white.

“Of course,” I replied and noticed the man standing right behind her. His hair was gray only at his temples, but his mustache was salt and pepper. He had cool blue eyes and a smile that said, “Hello, where have you been all my life?” I couldn’t call him a
young
man, because he looked about fifty, but if he was Mrs. White’s escort, he qualified as a boy toy in comparison to Jane’s landlady, who was at least seventy.

“I’m really glad to run into you, Jane. I was planning to go by the apartment today to talk to you,” Pearl said.

“Go by? Are you taking another trip?”

“Not exactly,” Pearl said and then spoke over her shoulder to the man. “Georgie, would you change our request to a table for four? Jane and Callie can join us, and I’ll tell them my exciting news.”

The man squeezed through the crowd and headed away from us toward the hostess area. I noticed that he moved with that confident, long stride that smooth, self-assured men use. His khakis looked like they’d been tailored to fit, and the polo shirt he wore was one of the top name brands.

“I can’t wait until we’re seated to tell you.” Pearl laughed and gave a silly little shimmy. “George and I are going to be married. I’ll be moving to Orlando with him.”

Jane opened her mouth, but before a word escaped, “Carter. Table for four for Carter” sounded over the speaker.

“Come on, that’s us.” Pearl led Jane through the crowd, spreading the sea of people with her walker. I followed. We caught up with George and were seated together at a big round table. The restaurant was crowded and the table would have sat eight. I wondered if George had rubbed a little green across a palm at the hostess desk, but I must confess, I’ve never seen or heard of that happening at a Cracker Barrel.

The landlady’s expression beamed with unabated joy. “Georgie, this is Jane Baker, my tenant in the garage apartment, and her friend, Callie Parrish. Ladies, this is George Carter, my fiancé.”

“You’re getting married? How wonderful! Are you going to Orlando for your honeymoon? When will you be moving back to St. Mary?” I promise, I promise I didn’t mean to, but I babbled.

“We won’t be,” George said as he patted the older woman’s veined and wrinkled hand. We’ll be living in Florida at my place. Pearl is selling her South Carolina property.”

“And that’s what I needed to tell you, Jane. I’m afraid I have to give you thirty days’ notice to move unless you want to buy the house and apartment.”

Jane’s eyes don’t demonstrate emotion, but her face does. Fear and dismay replaced her happy expression. “Thirty days? But what will I do? You worked for the Commission for the Blind, Pearl, and you know how hard it will be for me to find another place. I’ve been in the apartment for years. It’ll take more than thirty days to pack everything.”

“Ridiculous! You’re one of the most independent visually handicapped people I know.” Pearl paused. “And I’ll help you pack.”

We ordered and consumed breakfast foods, but Jane ate very little. Pearl described her love for
Georgie
and how the engagement might seem quick, but they’d been communicating hours at a time on the Internet since meeting in a chat room for older singles.

Having been interested in a younger man earlier in the spring, one I hadn’t heard from since he left St. Mary promising to be in touch, I felt a pang of identification with Pearl. I’d never thought of her as lonely, but she must have been. The change from drab brown and gray clothing to the brightly garbed peacock sitting with us was obviously a result of finding love.

Picking at my breakfast cheese potato casserole and scrambled eggs, my mind wandered to this Internet phenomenon as Pearl and Jane talked. I caught occasional bits of their conversation. Pearl continued her joyful account of love at first sight, or was it first chat? Jane bemoaned the thought of moving.

Both Dr. Melvin and Pearl had found their soul mates online. I wondered if I could find time to enter a dating profile in one of the chat rooms while at work. I’d been planning to buy a computer for my home, but other bills kept pushing that goal away. No one stared over my shoulder when I entered obituaries on the mortuary computer. I could check out a singles website there.

Suddenly, my mind jumped back to Jane and her problem.

“Next door!” I blurted.

“What?” asked Jane and Pearl in unison.

“You know I’m living in a duplex,” I said, “but no one lives next door. Jane, why don’t you rent the other side of my building?”

“Is it just like yours?” Jane asked. She dipped her biscuit into white gravy.

“It’s exactly like mine. It would be like living together, but still having our own privacy.” The server topped off everyone’s coffee. I added cream and two sugars to mine. I used to take three or four, but I’m trying to cut back on processed sugar.

“And you wouldn’t be moving my things around like you did when you lived with me after your divorce.”

“That’s right. No more garlic on your cinnamon toast, but we’d be close enough to visit anytime.”

“And you wouldn’t have to listen to Roxanne, but you could if you ever wanted to,” Jane promised.

“Who’s Roxanne?” Pearl asked and frowned. “Do you have a roommate I don’t know about?”

“Oh, no,” I answered quickly. “That’s a radio show. I don’t like it, but Jane listens to it.”
May that lie not blister my tongue,
I thought.

“That apartment next door to your friend sounds like a problem solved,” George Carter said to Jane as he continued stroking Pearl’s hand. “But I’ve already told Pearl she doesn’t have to be in a hurry to sell, so you can take your time.”

“Now Georgie,” Pearl said, “I want to settle everything as quickly as possible so we don’t have to keep coming back and forth from Florida, and besides, I already have someone interested in buying all my property. Her name is Dorcas Lucas, so if she comes and wants to look around, it will be okay, Jane.”

“Are you staying in Charleston now?” I asked.

“No, we’re actually staying at a bed and breakfast in Beaufort. We came up this morning to go shopping.” Pearl smiled a big shiny white smile and gave George Carter a look of adoration. “Georgie is the only man I’ve ever known who never hurries me.”