The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(60)

“Yes.” Shelby stared at the dark mahogany table and nodded, as if she was slowly becoming aware of the extent of the tragedy.

“Do the police say the Oldham sons are responsible for killing Mike?”

After a few moments, the woman shook her head. “But they don’t need to. Isn’t it obvious?”

Maybe, Ilka thought. If they thought he had come back to expose the family…

Her hunger was gone, replaced by an emptiness inside her. She thought about all the years the secret had hung around Racine like a dark cloud, casting its cold shadow, particularly on Mike’s mother and sister.

Shelby stood up. A handful of balled-up Kleenex lay on the chair. While buttoning her coat, she turned to Ilka. “Phyllis claims she didn’t know anything about Howard falling in love with the girl. Just like she didn’t know her brother-in-law broke into your garage and desecrated my son’s body.”

She looked away. “What kind of people are they?”

She shook her head and left the room.

So. A young girl had turned the heads of two grown men. Nothing new there, Ilka thought.

Sister Eileen appeared in the doorway. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” she announced, adding that Ilka might want to change into something more respectable before Ed McKenna’s daughter showed up to view her father.

The nun was right. She didn’t look like someone who should be meeting a grieving daughter. But first, she needed some clarity about finding her father’s clothes in the Dumpster. The whole thing was confusing, and Ilka just couldn’t let it go.

“I keep meaning to ask you,” Ilka started, turning to Sister Eileen. “Why were my father’s things thrown into the Dumpster?”

A look of sheer surprise crossed over the nun’s face as she stared, with seeming bewilderment, into Ilka’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I know; it was so strange. I saw them in there and couldn’t figure out why you would have thrown them away.”

“I most certainly didn’t,” Sister Eileen said assertively. “You must be mistaken. I would never have done that. Never. Oh my goodness, no.”

It was all so odd, but Ilka didn’t want to cause any more upset or spark an argument. Apologizing for the mistake, she excused herself to change into something more appropriate, and headed upstairs.

Up in the room, still shaking her head, Ilka grabbed her father’s black suit. Her uniform, she thought. Once again she felt homesick for her own bathroom and bathtub, her clothes, which might not have been the most fashionable, but at least they hadn’t been bought for a man in his seventies.





27



“Please, have a seat.” At the doorway, Ilka gestured discreetly toward the oval table in the arrangement room. Lisa McKenna entered without a word, leaving in her wake a strong scent of lavender, which Ilka followed.

“This won’t take long,” Lisa said, her voice deep, almost masculine. That surprised Ilka; Ed McKenna’s daughter was light in complexion and thin, her hair set up loosely in a very feminine look. “We haven’t really seen much of each other the past several years.”

“Of course,” Ilka replied quickly. She wished Artie was there, but she knew he was busy reconstructing Mike Gilbert’s face. He had told her what to focus on: coffee, kringle, and Kleenex. Sister Eileen would bring everything in, he’d said. And then just talk to her, or rather, let her talk. Anything she wanted to talk about. “And call me if she wants to know what it takes to prepare her father for transportation by air.”

Ilka had asked if they should also show the dog. “Only if she asks,” he’d said.

Ed McKenna was prepared for viewing, and he lay in the front part of the chapel, which had been curtained off so the room didn’t seem so big. The two large altar candles, one on each side of the coffin, were lit. For a moment, Ilka considered mentioning that the dog had licked her father’s cheek off before lying down to die beside him, but Artie had done a fantastic job of reconstruction, and she probably wouldn’t even notice that part of his face was wax now. There wasn’t any reason to let her in on this macabre detail.

“Coffee?” Ilka kept her voice down, thinking it would help the woman feel at home, cared for.

“No, thanks, but I’d like to use your bathroom before we go in.”

The woman’s voice surprised her again. “Of course. This way.” She pointed and led her out into the front hall.

The daughter’s hair was graying, and a fine net of wrinkles softened her face. In her fifties, Ilka guessed.

“I couldn’t stand him,” Lisa McKenna said when she returned from the bathroom. “If it was up to me, you could pour his ashes in a can and take it to the dump.”

Ilka froze; so much for her plan of action. It looked like they wouldn’t be needing the Kleenex.

“He was an egotistical, self-centered asshole. But for some strange reason my children want him to be brought home and buried in our cemetery.”

Sister Eileen stood in the doorway. She must have heard what the daughter had just said, and Ilka was sure she spotted a glint in the nun’s eye after the outburst that left the room silent. The daughter’s anger was deep, savage; her attractive face had morphed into a grimace as she spat the words out.