The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(28)
Ilka sat down beside her in the chair Artie had pulled out. “But he came back,” she said. She asked if he had seen his sister after he had returned.
“No. I didn’t know he was back in town. The plan was that he would go to Milwaukee and I would meet him there. He wanted to visit Emma; she’s in All Saints Hospital here in Racine, but I was scared that people would recognize him if he showed up here.”
Her mouth began quivering again; her voice sounded brittle. “He didn’t do it. You know that, right?” she asked, even though she had to be aware that Ilka couldn’t know what had happened back then. “He wasn’t the one who killed her. They used him as a scapegoat and ran him out of town. The town he was born and raised in. Jesus!”
She hid her face in her hands for a moment; then she straightened up and reached for Ilka’s hand. “I can’t pay for a big expensive funeral. I can’t even pay the bills for my daughter’s treatments. Our health insurance has turned us down because she has a brain tumor; they don’t cover it when there’s too big a risk to operate. But when I get the house sold, I hope there’ll be enough money to cover your expenses with Mike.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’ve already taken out a bank loan to cover Emma’s first round of chemotherapy, so I’m not sure I can borrow any more. But the house should be easy to sell if I price it low enough.”
Her tears began falling again. “I just want to see him one last time, so much,” she murmured.
Ilka stroked her hand. “It sounds like you and Artie have already made a deal, and if you don’t mind a plain coffin, I know we can work something out.” She thought of the unvarnished wooden coffin they had decided to give to the homeless man, who as it turned out wasn’t actually homeless.
“We’ll need some clothes for him,” Ilka said, and she asked if there was anything special Shelby wanted him to wear.
“I don’t know if he can fit into anything he left behind. I haven’t seen how much he’s grown.”
Ilka smiled at her. “Go home and have a look. Otherwise we’ll find something. It was just if there was something you preferred.”
They were standing up now, and Ilka noticed that the coffee had been left untouched again. Maybe she was doing something wrong during these conversations?
11
After her meeting with Shelby Gilbert, Ilka had gone up to her room and stuffed most of her father’s clothes in some large grocery bags she’d found in the kitchen. Sister Eileen could send them to her parish. She’d placed a note on the nun’s desk in the reception area, informing her that she could have the sacks of clothes in the hall. Later she dropped by the taco shop two blocks from the funeral home and grabbed a bite to eat. Then she shopped at the supermarket and picked up water, crackers, and a bag of chips. And some bread she could toast the next morning. She surveyed the refrigerator; the bread Artie had mentioned was more cardboard than bread. On the way to the checkout, Ilka had dropped two cream sodas in her cart.
Now everything was lined up on the desk, and she was reading the will from the very beginning.
“I bequeath everything I own except my funeral home business to my wife, Mary Ann Jensen, and my two daughters, Leslie Ann Jensen and Amber Ann Jensen. That includes the money deposited in my private accounts and the contents of the bank box in Mid-America Bank, 21075 Swenson Dr., Suite 100, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Everything is to be divided equally among the three, as my wife is wealthy. In addition, the house is in her name, and she has purchased most of the contents of the house. I bequeath Jensen Funeral Home to my daughter from my first marriage, Ilka Nichols Jensen. The business is to be transferred directly to her, and she is to be the sole owner of the business. If, however, she wishes to sell the funeral home business, Artie Sorvino and Sister Eileen O’Connor are to have first right of refusal before it is put on the market, at a price set by a person knowledgeable of the funeral home business.”
Ilka was interrupted by her phone. Most likely not her mother, she thought; it was the middle of the night back home in Denmark, and hopefully she was sound asleep.
“Can you do a pickup?” Artie asked. Music was playing in the background.
“Not just now. I’m about to eat,” she muttered. “And I’m reading through my father’s papers.” Also, she had an offer on Tinder. Some guy a few blocks away had invited her to meet him at a bar. “You’ll have to take it yourself.”
“You can be here in fifteen minutes; I’ll be ready,” he said, ignoring her objections. “Bring along plastic and the light stretcher. It’s up on the second floor.”
He hung up. A moment later, he’d messaged her his address.
It’s a quick pickup. You’ll be back in an hour.
She sighed and gathered the papers, laid them on the desk, and grabbed her fleece jacket from the bed.
She recognized the lighthouse as she drove the twisting road north along Lake Michigan, but the GPS told her to continue past it before turning right. The road down wasn’t quite as steep as when she had picked up Artie and his fish. Houses lined both sides of the small side street. Nothing big; more like summerhouses, with short driveways. At the end of the street, she reached a turnaround and a small path that led to the last house, which faced the lake. The surface of the water looked like quicksilver, an artificial gray metallic sheen.