The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(61)

Ilka had no idea what to say, but fortunately Artie stepped into the room and saved her. He wore a black coat with a white shirt attached over his Hawaiian shirt, though part of the turquoise collar stuck out at his neck.

Still unable to speak, Ilka walked over to the section of the chapel being used as a reposing room and opened the door. “If you want to see him, it’s this way.”

The daughter glanced at her and, seemingly in spite of herself, walked over to the coffin.

“If you need to be alone, you can just come out whenever you’re ready. Then we can take care of the practical details about transporting him.”

Ilka was about to close the door, but the daughter said, “No, that’s fine. I’ll come with you now.” She turned on her heel and followed Ilka out of the room. “What happened to Toodie?”

“The dog?”

The daughter nodded.

“It’s being kept cold,” Ilka said. “We didn’t want to do anything before you arrived.”

“May I see her?” The anger on her face was gone.

Artie stepped forward and said of course. If she could wait just a minute, he would bring the dog in.

“My father didn’t care about us. About me or the kids. He was never there when we needed him. The past twenty years, we’ve only seen him the few times I came from Albany to beg for help. I’ve been alone with the kids since they were small, since their father…well. And Mom died before the kids were born.”

She looked as if she’d made up her mind not to cry. “I gave him Toodie, and he loved her. I thought the company might mellow him out. Thought maybe we could have a connection that way. But he just didn’t want anything to do with us. Maybe you think he was lonesome, but I can assure you, he chose to be lonesome. Nobody should feel sorry for him.”

Artie came in one of the side doors, pushing a small cart in front of him. He looked like a hotel worker delivering room service. A white sheet covered a mound on the cart.

“Just a second.” Lisa McKenna took a moment to gather herself. She looked like Ilka had expected she would when she went in to view her father. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Artie lifted the sheet, and he and Ilka stepped back. Ilka looked questioningly at him.

“You poor little thing, were you all alone?” She spoke to the dog as if it still were alive. “Did she die of starvation?”

Ilka wasn’t expecting that question. She looked at Artie, who was rocking on his heels. “I’m afraid so, yes,” she said.

While the daughter continued talking to Toodie, Ilka couldn’t help glancing at the coffin where Ed McKenna lay; he should be the one she was grieving over.

“I don’t know what it would cost to have the dog embalmed,” she said, after they returned to the arrangement room and coffee. “But my father had plenty of money, so I’m bringing her home and burying her in the yard.”

After saying good-bye, Ilka stood in the reception area and watched her leave. In a way, she could relate. The difference was that Lisa McKenna had known where her father was. But the rejection must have felt the same.





28



The next morning, coffee, a soft-boiled egg, slices of bread, and a newspaper were lined up on the table in front of Ilka. A large photo of a young Mike Gilbert was plastered on the front page of the paper. The photo bore no resemblance to the ruined face Artie had spent all Sunday afternoon and evening on, shaping it to match the photo his mother had brought. By the time Ilka said good night and went up to her room, the face had been transformed from a bloody mass of broken bones and swelling into a sleeping man with slightly too prominent eyebrows and lips painted on, but it was still far from the big, smiling, happy teenager on the front page.

Ilka guessed it was a school photo. She would have arranged it similarly, but unlike the smiles of many of the students she had photographed over the years, Mike’s smile reached all the way up into his eyes. It wasn’t just a reaction to the photographer saying, “Smi-i-ile!”

The photo had probably been used often following Ashley’s death. In the accompanying article, all the details of Mike’s death were described, at least as well as the journalist could with the few facts that were known. Nobody had been found who had seen Mike Gilbert back in town; that was clear. No one had any idea how long he’d been hanging around before being murdered. Judging from the reactions of the people on the street interviewed by the journalist, most were surprised that Mike would dare show his face in town again. The owner of the tobacco shop even believed that Mike Gilbert had tempted fate by returning to Racine. The short statements were accompanied by small head shots to prove the journalist had done some leg work before writing the article.

The long and short of it was that apparently no one saw him before he was killed. Which was why no one knew when he’d returned. The only new information in the article came from a former pathologist, who colorfully described how little it took to crush a skull, with the right weapon.

His guess was that Mike had been murdered with a baseball bat. “Incredible,” Ilka muttered to herself. Then she skimmed a description of Ashley Simpson’s death. The journalist had found an old school friend and asked her what she remembered from back then. The woman, who obviously hadn’t been taking good care of herself, was photographed behind the warehouses where Mike’s body had been found. She stood with folded arms and stared grumpily into the camera. In the article, she claimed Mike Gilbert had been cursed.