The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(23)

“I’ll give the box of his things to Artie Sorvino,” she said.

“Thanks,” Officer Thomas said. “And, of course, you’ll hear from us when we get a definite identification; his family will have to cover the expenses. Though I just heard his sister is sick; they think it’s cancer, so if the family doesn’t have good health insurance, don’t expect to get much out of them.”

Ilka nodded, but she already knew she didn’t have the heart to squeeze money out of a mother who had lost her son many years ago, a son who’d finally returned, only to be killed.

Artie walked in the door and stopped when he saw the two officers. He glanced over at Ilka.

“I let them look at the man we picked up from the morgue,” she said. “They think they know who he is.”

“Yeah?” Artie said. Ilka thought he looked relieved that the policemen weren’t there regarding the funeral home’s demise.

“We have a good idea,” Officer Thomas said, “but it hasn’t been officially confirmed.”

“Mike Gilbert,” the younger officer said, as if the entire town should know who that was.

“Really? I didn’t see that coming.” He pulled the refrigerator drawer out and studied the body for a moment before closing it again. “It can’t be his face you recognized.”





9



“Do you know anything about what happened to him?” Ilka asked when the policemen left. She followed Artie out into the kitchen.

“I know his mother.” He grabbed a few plates out of a cupboard. “She never got over it. I didn’t know him or the girl, either, but they were the talk of the town.”

Ilka shook her head when he asked if she had eaten. He handed her some silverware, and she asked if he was ready to talk to the Norton family.

“I already talked to them. I stopped by on the way; they were all at the mother’s house. The funeral service will be on Saturday. They’re keeping the coffin, as was agreed with the deceased, and they’re also going to buy four charms and a silver chain; I’ve billed them for that. But we kept the agreement on the flowers from the mother’s garden.”

Ilka nodded. She thought about a waiter she once knew. He’d taken pride in his ability to convince guests who ordered meatballs to drink an expensive burgundy. It was all in the way you sell, he’d said. And she’d had to agree. Though it said more about him than about the customers at his restaurant.

After Artie finished bragging about his sale, he said the Golden Slumbers Funeral Home had invited them over, so Ilka would have the chance to meet the new owners before starting in on the transfer of ownership. “We can grab a bite to eat before we go; I started the grill.” He nodded toward the back before walking into the garage for the white bucket of fish. “They need to be eaten today.”

Ilka nodded. Not because she was particularly wild about eating the fish he’d put in the back of the hearse, but she could see in Artie’s look that he was testing her again.

Why in hell is there a grill in a funeral home? she asked herself, though she kept her face blank.

“What would you like to drink?” Artie walked over to the refrigerator. “I’m having a beer.”

His words were innocent enough, but something in his tone and, again, the look in his eye annoyed her. “I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Not at all? Never a beer, never a glass of wine?” He eyed her. “You have a drinking problem?”

She tilted her head and gazed at him. Whenever she turned down an offer of alcohol, the obligatory question followed: Why? She weighed which version would be best to throw at him. “I don’t have a problem with alcohol. It’s just I don’t like it.”

She read his eyes; he seemed to accept her explanation and presumably categorized her as a bore. “So you don’t smoke, either?” he asked later, when he returned with the grilled fish.

Ilka shook her head and found a root beer in the back of the refrigerator.

She held her plate out, and he gave her two delicious-looking pieces of fish, which he offered to fillet. She squeezed lemon juice over them. “There’s bread in the kitchen too,” he said.

“Do you ever miss your gallery and your life in Florida?” she asked.

He slid some fish onto his own plate. “I do, yes.” He spooned up some coleslaw and dumped it over his fish; then he passed it over to her. “I miss the life, sitting in the sun and watching people on Duval Street while I work. It’s a little hard to do that here.”

Ilka asked if he ever painted or sculpted anymore.

“I do wood carving. You’ll see that if you ever stop by my place.”

“But don’t you miss people coming into your gallery and getting excited about what you’ve created?” She remembered how proud Erik had been when people praised his photographic portraits at the few exhibitions he’d held.

He chewed without looking at her. “It’s more that I miss talking to people, like when they stopped by to see Artie the Artist.”

She almost laughed but stopped herself when she saw he was serious.

“I miss all the variety, the diversity, the tolerance. You probably won’t be here long enough to see how people in this town all think the same way. How little anyone stands out, how much gets left unsaid, because no one thinks it’s worth making someone mad. I miss the crazy guy with the big hat who got drunk and sang on the way home from Sloppy Joe’s bar. I miss the tourists kissing on the beach at sundown. Keith telling crazy stories he made up about Hemingway. Bald-faced lies. All the pleasuremongers and street artists. And the women. You meet the best women in Key West. And then of course I miss the climate,” he added. “It’s cold as a well-digger’s ass up here, most of the time. And everybody talks about the weather, all the time.”