The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(72)

The back door out to the parking lot was unlocked when they returned. Ilka ignored it; even before they’d left Dorothy Cane’s crematorium, she’d been holding back the call of nature, and now she rushed through the foyer to the guest bathroom while Artie parked the hearse in the garage. She heard him call out for Sister Eileen; then he walked by the bathroom toward the reception area and called her name again.

Ilka came out of the bathroom and said, “Do you need help with something?”

“I asked Sister Eileen to clean up after the embalming, and she didn’t put the key back.”

“Where do you usually put it?”

“I told her to lay it on the desk in the office, but it’s not there. Usually I keep it on me.”

“I’ll look on her desk,” Ilka said, turning to go.

“I already checked; it’s not there.”

She walked back to the reception area anyway to see if she’d stuck the preparation room key in one of her drawers. “Is it on a key ring?” she yelled back.

“There’s two keys, on a leather string with a ceramic amulet on the end of it. You can’t miss it.”

Ilka tugged on the drawers. Two of them were locked; the top one was open. Paper, stapler, tape, envelopes, but no keys. When she closed the drawer, she noticed the nun’s bag beside the desk chair.

A small, dark gray woman’s bag.

“I don’t think she’s left,” Ilka said after she returned empty-handed. “Her bag is still here. And I told her to lock up if she left before we came back, and she didn’t. She must be in her apartment.”

Ilka walked up the stairs to her father’s room to pack up all the folders containing the business’s accounts. She’d planned on going through everything, but now she didn’t feel like starting on anything that might help save the funeral home. It simply wasn’t worth it any longer. What did she think she was proving? Other than that she wouldn’t be scared off.

“She’s not in her apartment,” Artie yelled from the hallway. His voice was higher than usual, and she stopped on the stairs. He sounded worried. She turned and took the last steps down in one jump.

He grabbed the doorknob to the preparation room and shook it as he called the nun’s name. He knocked, then slammed the palms of his hands against the door, as if he hoped it would cave in.

“Why do you think she’s in there?” Ilka asked. What had gotten into him?

“I don’t necessarily, but she might be; maybe she started feeling bad while she was cleaning up.”

She heard the worry in his every word; she hadn’t thought much about the relationship between her father’s two employees, but clearly, Artie cared about her.

“Maybe she lost track of time and suddenly realized she had to go,” Ilka said, wanting to reassure him. “And forgot about returning the key because she was in such a hurry.”

“And forgot to lock the back door?” He didn’t believe it. “Her apartment door wasn’t locked, either, and her lunch was on the kitchen counter, half-eaten, and her tea was cold.”

He knocked again.

“You’re afraid she’s locked herself in,” Ilka said.

“It’s dangerous in there when the exhaust fan isn’t running. The fumes are poisonous.”

“But surely she didn’t stop in the middle of her lunch to come over and clean up. Don’t you think she finished cleaning first?”

He banged on the door again and called her name. “You said her bag was in the reception area. Was her wallet there?”

“I didn’t look for it,” Ilka admitted. Artie said he would run home for his extra key.

The house was oddly quiet after he left. As if no sound could get in or out. She felt jittery, agitated, and the feeling spread throughout her body. Suddenly it was as if she were in a house of farewell, a house filled with loss and sorrow. Not a chilling feeling, but empty.

She went over to the preparation room and slumped to the floor beside the door. The stillness was intense; it spread under her skin like a gust of wind.



When Ilka heard Artie drive in, she opened the back door. Infected by his worry, she followed him to the preparation room and stood behind him as he unlocked the door and opened it.

The room had been cleaned. Every surface had been washed; water still stood on the floor here and there after the hosing down. But the sister wasn’t there. The only thing that caught Ilka’s eye was the thin gold chain Mike had worn around his neck, lying flat under the architect lamp on Artie’s small worktable.

“If we’re giving the chain to Shelby, I can put it in an envelope for her so it doesn’t get lost.”

Artie shook his head; then he walked over and picked it up. “I forgot to put it on him. I’ll do it right now.”

He looked around the room as if making sure the nun wasn’t in one of the corners; then he turned off the light.

Ilka stayed while he walked over and punched in the code to unlock the cold room door. She was hungry. She could pick up some tacos over at the Mexican place. Or she could start packing the old accounts, like she’d planned on doing before, and lay aside everything she wanted to take home to Denmark. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard the scream.



Sister Eileen lay on the floor just inside the cold room. The temperature was in the thirties, to hinder the decomposition of bodies without freezing them.