The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(41)
Artie shut the door behind her. He walked over and turned down the Beach Boys; then he glanced at the steel table as if he should be protecting the body. He wore a green apron and an elastic band around his longish hair. He struggled to take off his mask, which was tangled up in his glasses.
“That sounds about right,” he said, after the mask was finally off. He stunk, and Ilka instinctively backed off a few steps. “You probably should’ve let the sister call around. She can usually finagle a coffin out of them, even though they’ve shut us off.”
“You could have told me that. What do we do now?”
He shrugged. “You’re the boss!” His eyes twinkled a bit.
Ilka stared at him in anger, then turned on her heel. She was determined to get hold of a coffin, even if she had to nail one together herself and paint it black and spread glitter over it.
“They sell coffins over at Costco,” he yelled at her back. “The closest one is in Pleasant Prairie. Just follow Lake Michigan down to Kenosha. You’ll hit Highway 50, and then it’s straight west from there. Really, though, I doubt if you can get them to deliver today, in time for tomorrow morning.”
She turned at the door, tired now. “And what’s Costco?”
“It’s a warehouse that sells just about everything, most of it in bulk. They’re about to drive the coffin suppliers out of business anyway, with their prices. You just have to pay an annual membership fee to shop there.”
“Fine.” Ilka imagined people at the warehouse, shopping for giant packages of toilet paper, paper towels, and coffins.
17
She drove through a landscape of open fields, lakes, and lush forests. She was just as stubborn as she was mad; all she could see was the white stripes on the road and the notepad on Sister Eileen’s desk where she had crossed off the names of coffin suppliers one by one as they rejected her. In fact, she was enraged at how they had treated her. At the very least they could have given her a chance to make things right. They’d regret turning her down!
She stomped on the brakes when a car passed and nearly swiped her bumper as they swerved back in the right lane. The hearse rocked heavily.
“R?vhul!” she yelled, as loud as she could. Asshole! Not that the driver heard her, or understood her even if he had. It just felt good. If she stayed in Racine long enough to arrange more funerals, none of those fucking suppliers would get so much as one single order from her.
“Maybe it’s a real idea to go organic,” she muttered to herself. Just like in Denmark, surely someone over here was making coffins out of recycled material or paper, in that ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust way in which coffins decomposed in a relatively short time. She’d be the first funeral director in town to think environmentally. That would get the Oldhams’ attention.
Her thoughts were in a jumble as she pulled into an enormous, almost empty parking lot. She chose a space close to the main entrance. Banners announcing the weekly bargains hung from both sides of the sliding doors, and pallets with gallon jugs of laundry detergent and stacks of white plastic lawn chairs stood just inside. She stopped for a moment to get her bearings. The warehouse had an optician and a photo center with good offers on tripods for various cameras. Ilka walked over to ask a young man behind the vision center counter, which was crowded with glasses and offers on vision tests, but on the way, she noticed ends of coffins sticking out from a small niche in the wall.
Seven hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. And the price was the same regardless of color—dusty rose, silver, or marine blue—but there were differences in how showy they were. Two of them boasted large rosettes in all the corners and a broad, gilded piece of trim—plastic, no doubt, Ilka thought. She looked at the price again. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than the ones from the suppliers—about a tenth of the price of some of them.
She walked over and read a sign on the wall between the models on display: ALL COFFINS HAVE THE SAME FUNCTION. THEY ARE THE FINAL RESTING PLACE FOR THOSE YOU HOLD DEAR. CHOOSING A COFFIN IS A VERY PERSONAL DECISION. FAMILIES SHOULD CHOOSE A COFFIN BASED ON THEIR OWN PREFERENCES AND THE PERSONALITY OF THEIR LOVED ONE. Beside the sign was a plastic holder with order forms.
That’s certainly good to know, Ilka thought, shaking her head. None of the models came even close to being black. But they all had a two-piece lid for viewing, and apparently, a coffin liner, pillow, and blanket were included. So far, so good.
She pulled out an order form. To her relief, the coffins came in several colors, including gold. There was also one in black. She read the instructions:
1. Choose a coffin in our selection.
2. Fill out Costco’s Purchase Order.
3. Take to the cashier for payment.
4. Delivery time: 48 hours.
“Shit,” Ilka said. She stuck the order form in her pocket; then she set off to find someone to help her.
“No, not at all,” she assured the elderly gray-haired employee. Frank had reluctantly agreed to check returns storage to see if a black coffin had been returned, and he had come back with a discouraged look on his face. “One small scratch on one side doesn’t matter. But does it have glitter? Okay, okay, that doesn’t matter either. I’ll take it without.”
Ilka had gone through three employees before ending up with Frank, the returns manager. The first two she’d talked to had told her she couldn’t get a black coffin delivered immediately; it was out of the question, even if they had them in stock. That’s not how things worked. The coffin had to be ordered and would be delivered. And the third employee got so sick and tired of Ilka that she finally said the only chance Ilka had of leaving there with a coffin was if they happened to have one that had been returned. But it probably had been damaged during transport.