The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(73)

The nun’s body was limp; her head covering lay beside her. Artie quickly kneeled; then he told Ilka to hold the door so he could carry her out.

They took her into the office, which had a thick carpet. Artie spoke quietly to her, shaking her lightly. Finally, she opened her eyes, but she was so confused that Ilka couldn’t understand a word she said. She was alive, though, and Ilka let out a sigh she’d been suppressing for several minutes, as if she’d been holding her breath.

Artie checked her pulse, and Ilka grabbed a thick blanket from a chair in the arrangement room. As she wrapped it around Sister Eileen, her hand grazed the nun’s ice-cold skin. She closed her eyes again, but her eyelids were quivering in fright. “I’m calling an ambulance,” Ilka said after she’d tucked the blanket around the sister’s feet.

“Let’s see if she comes out of it first,” Artie said. Carefully he lifted her head and stuck a pillow underneath. Her short dark hair, damp from the cold, clung to her forehead. He rubbed her arms.

“She’s not really conscious. It’s like she’s in and out. I’m calling.” Her hand was on the phone to call 911.

“Wait!” Artie ordered. “She’ll make it. It’s not life threatening until the body is under seventy-nine degrees; that’s when you need special treatment to survive. The important thing is to warm the body carefully.”

“I’m not taking responsibility here; we’re calling an ambulance. If you’re afraid we don’t have insurance to cover this, I’ll pay for the hospital. She’s not conscious. This is irresponsible.”

She lifted the receiver, but before she could call, he shocked her by wrenching the phone out of her hand. “We’re going to wait.”

Sister Eileen stirred, and Ilka hesitated. “Okay. But being cooled down this way can kill you.”

He nodded. “Go up and see if there’s a hot water bottle or an electric blanket in your father’s room, and fill the bathtub with hot water.”

Artie kept rubbing the sister’s arms, as Ilka remembered her mother doing when she’d been out sledding and came in freezing, her cheeks red and fingers tingling from the cold.

“Right now the important thing is to get her own heat regulation going,” he explained when Ilka came down with a heavy electric blanket. “But we have to be careful. Her skin can be numb from being cooled down. Make sure the blanket isn’t too hot.”

She went out to fill the bathtub. When she came back the sister had lifted her arms, and she was moving her fingers one by one, as if she were making sure they were still there. She stared at a spot behind Artie’s shoulder, her eyes fluttering as if she’d just woken up.

“How in the world did this happen?” Ilka asked. She squatted down and massaged the sister’s feet. “It’s way too unsafe if the door locks automatically when it shuts.”

“It doesn’t,” Artie murmured. “The door only locks when you push the red symbol in on the doorknob outside.”

“So what does that mean?”

He stared at her, his eyes doing the talking: The nun hadn’t locked herself in the cold room.

“We need to call the police.” She got up to call, but the sister spoke, asking her to come back.

Ilka sat down again beside her. “What happened?”

Sister Eileen tried to sit up using her elbows. Her body wasn’t cooperating fully; her movements lagged behind. She groaned and lay back down, and Artie tucked the electric blanket around her.

“Did you see who it was?”

The sister shut her eyes again, but this time her voice was clear. “Forget about it. It was an accident, and everything’s okay now.”

“What are you talking about?” Ilka said. “You could have frozen to death in there if we hadn’t found you.”

“Let’s just drop it.” Artie stood up. “If Sister Eileen doesn’t feel like being questioned by the police, she shouldn’t have to. Right now, the most important thing is to warm her up.”

He slid both arms under the nun and helped her sit up. “I’ll walk her out to the bathtub; you can get everything ready for Shelby and her daughter. They’re coming at five.”



Ilka wasn’t sure whether what had just happened was the last straw, or if she’d already made her decision after leaving the old crematorium. But instead of preparing for the two women’s farewell to Mike Gilbert, she went into her father’s office and plucked out of the wastebasket the transfer agreement Phyllis Oldham had brought.

She smoothed it out and dabbed at the oily spots that came from its lying in the trash. Luckily there were none on the back side where Phyllis Oldham’s signature was written in steep, loopy handwriting. Ilka thought it almost looked like it had been written with a fountain pen. She reached for a cheap plastic pen with their logo on it and signed her name on the dotted line. The document now had both of their signatures.

“Are you sure?” Artie said from the doorway.

Ilka hadn’t heard him. “Yes. I’ll have to sell sooner or later anyway, and now I guess it’s going to be sooner. I’ve had enough of the funeral home business.”

The thought of driving around to schools in Copenhagen and photographing students was more attractive than ever to her.

“She’s going to be all right,” he assured her. “It will help when she gets into the warm water.”