The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(46)

“Couldn’t leave after all,” she wrote to her mother. “Something has come up I have to take care of. Could you handle my jobs? Get Hanne to help set them up.”

Her mother had helped several times when Ilka had been on a tight schedule, so she knew the routine on photo shots, how the school students were to be placed. Granted, she’d never actually taken the photos, but that was the easiest part. All she had to do was press the camera’s button, Ilka had explained.

Before sending her message, she checked her watch. Her mother was probably asleep and wouldn’t see this for another eight hours. Ilka would be asleep then, and her mother would realize it was too late to find someone to do the jobs. Ilka knew she was conscientious; she would step in when she saw there were no other options.



The sun was about to go down, and Ilka felt restless. With a hint of a smile on his lips, Artie had helped her unload the Costco coffin out of the hearse. He decided to cover the scratches with black shoe polish; he doubted the family would notice. Fortunately, the damaged side of the coffin would be turned away from everyone.

There wasn’t anything more Ilka could do to prepare for the next day’s service, and besides, she was hungry. And in need of company, of a normal conversation that didn’t include coffins, dead people, and complicated inheritances. She rose from the bed and picked her sweater up off the floor; then she went back downstairs to ask Artie if he wanted to go to Oh Dennis! for a bite to eat.

The preparation room door was open a crack, but she couldn’t hear the fan. The Beach Boys were, however, at top volume, with Artie humming along. She stepped inside. Mike lay on the table in the middle of the room. Artie was leaning over his face, concentrating on brushing another layer onto the crushed cheekbone. Then he studied the face below him before using his brush on the cheek again.

The easygoing California summer surfer music contrasted sharply with the strange sight before Ilka, but in a way, Artie’s movements were so gentle that it didn’t seem grotesque.

Ilka cleared her throat loudly so as not to scare him to death; then she asked if she could come in.

He glanced up and nodded a bit absentmindedly before focusing again on the face. Mike’s body was still covered by the sheet; only the face was visible. He lifted a small putty knife out of a bottle of something that reminded Ilka of modeling wax. Then he pressed a small clump of the material into the part of the sunken cheek he’d been brushing and carefully smoothed it out. He leaned closer in and compared the damaged and undamaged cheekbones; then he added more wax and rounded it off to make them look identical.

Ilka was fascinated by his work. He concentrated on applying layer upon layer, and Mike’s cheek and eye socket soon were as prominent as they had been before someone had destroyed them.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I can pick up something if you want to finish here.”

He glanced up at her as if he’d forgotten she’d come in; then he shook his head. “I’m okay, but thanks.”

He concentrated as if he were creating a work of art, and in a way, he was. Ilka noticed the cans of Red Bull lined up on the table by the wall. One of them was open; three others sat there waiting.

“Text me if you change your mind, or if you want a beer when you finish. I’m going out and see if anyone in this town has discovered it’s Friday, the day before the weekend.” She left him to his work.



The food wasn’t exactly a gourmet delight, though there was lots of it. The spareribs that had filled Ilka’s plate were gnawed to the bone, though, by the time the waitress returned to her table and asked if she wanted coffee and cheesecake. Ilka answered with a question of her own: Where do you go on a Friday evening if you’re looking for some company?

Ilka nodded as the young woman told her to drive down the main street and cross the small canal; a little bit farther down, on the right side, was a bar with live music. If she liked that sort of thing.

“But there are other bars,” the girl said. She pointed up the street, away from the square. “I think they have music there, too; I’m not sure.”

Ilka paid her bill and decided to try the bar across the canal. If it wasn’t her type of place, she could check out another bar on the way home.





21



At least there was live music. A group of men about her age was standing around when Ilka walked inside. So far, so good. She squeezed her way through.

It was only a little past nine, but most of the tables were already taken, and the dim bar with the low-hanging lamps was lively. The only other light was a grainy yellow glare from above the bottles behind the bar and a colored string of lights nailed up along the edge, like an elaborate drapery.

Some people were rolling dice, and at a table up next to the stage, a group of women sang loudly. Western hats and boots; the guy standing there with his guitar was going for it, Ilka thought, as she pulled out an empty bar stool and sat down. He sang well, and the vibes in the bar were good. She glanced around while waiting for the bartender in the plaid flannel shirt to notice her.

“Root beer,” she said, when he came over.

The men behind her burst out laughing at something she didn’t hear. They ordered more beer. More people came in; greetings were being yelled all around her. Everybody seemed to know one another, from the conversations going on. “How’s Greg doing?” “Is your mother okay now?” “Did Jenny have her kid?” Where in the world were all these people in the daytime? Not on the street; that was for sure.