The Undertaker's Daughter (Ilka #1)(82)
Before continuing, Thomas gestured for two broad-shouldered men with MEDICAL EXAMINER printed on the back of their coats to go on in.
“Forensics is finished. They’re taking Jesse to the morgue. They’ll do an autopsy today or tomorrow. Though I’m sure the cause of death is the pills he says he took from his mother’s medicine cabinet. When they bring him out, you can go in and pick up Mike.”
Suddenly Ilka was so dizzy that she wavered a bit before plopping down on the ground. Artie pulled out his cigarettes and looked at the officer, who simply nodded and held out his hand. They lit the cigarettes and sat down beside her.
“Jesse also wrote that he hadn’t heard from Mike for almost eight years; then all of a sudden he shows up and wants to meet him. Jesse thought he’d come back to see him, but it turned out he was only interested in money. He wanted help to pay for his sister’s treatment. That hurt Jesse.”
Thomas snubbed out his cigarette. Then he explained that Jesse had also felt threatened. Not that Mike would reveal what happened back then, because he didn’t know. But he did know the Oldhams had something to hide. And he was putting Jesse under pressure to help get the money. It wasn’t until Mike told him about Kathy and the twins, though, that Jesse lost control and started beating him.
“The letter is pretty mushy,” Thomas said. He didn’t try to hide that he couldn’t care less how a decent, sensible young guy could end up so bizarrely deranged.
Artie had been quiet, but now he said, “It’s not really so strange for young kids to experiment with their sexuality. But in a little place like Racine, you don’t do it in public.”
Ilka could imagine that two schoolboys in love was something people whispered about here. Twelve years ago, people had probably not even talked about it.
“Jack drove over to inform Phyllis and the rest of the family. We finally managed to contact them right before we called you. They were at the hospital all morning. Howard Oldham died, about the time our dogs found these two.”
Thomas shook his head and began rubbing his temples again. Artie was smoking another cigarette, sitting and staring out over the lake. The wind blew hard enough to flatten the small, stiff bushes, but they ignored it.
Ilka had seen Jesse Oldham only twice. During their first meeting with Golden Slumbers and then yesterday afternoon, when he was gazing at the river. She shivered when she remembered what he’d said about the lake. He had been handsome, not very tall, but muscular and friendly-looking. From now on, though, when she thought about him, no matter how hard she tried not to, she would see him sitting on the floor in the fishing cabin with Mike Gilbert’s head resting on his lap.
“So it wasn’t Douglas Oldham who killed the young girl,” Artie said, stubbing out his cigarette. “Wonder if he’d still be alive if Phyllis had known he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Officer Thomas struggled to stand up. “Yeah, like I said,” he muttered. “This job, some days are just better than others.”
37
Leaning against the back wall during Mike Gilbert’s funeral service, Ilka realized why her father had stayed with the funeral home business all his life. And why working with the dead was more meaningful to Artie than what he had been doing in Key West.
She barely remembered carrying Mike’s body down from the fishing cabin. She had been in shock from the sight of the two young men. When they got back, Artie immediately began reconstructing the parts of Mike’s face damaged on the way up to the cabin. At one point, she opened the preparation room door and watched him leaning over Mike’s face, fully focused. When she closed the door carefully, not wanting to disturb him, she heard what was missing—noise, specifically music. Not so much as one note of the Beach Boys was going to distract him.
The Racine Police Department had permitted the Gilbert family to hold the services already planned for the day after the tragedy. Ilka had the feeling that the quick release of the body was connected with Officer Thomas wanting to see the whole agonizing case put to rest; everyone, including local TV news journalists who were on the love tragedy like dogs on a bone, pointed out that the Racine Police Department hadn’t investigated Ashley’s death thoroughly enough back then.
Candles were lit in the tall candelabras up by the coffin. She didn’t notice the music in the background, but it filled the room with an air of serenity. She’d asked Artie to lay Mike in the showy coffin taking up space in the garage. The coffin with the large golden handles and the shiny white satin liner looked like something for a head of state. It had been delivered by mistake, and someone might come to pick it up, but that wasn’t her problem now. After all Mike Gilbert had been put through, he wasn’t going to be sent out of her house in some shabby wooden coffin.
Artie had dressed him in a suit Kathy brought in. He threw the old clothes away.
Officer Thomas had stopped by Ilka’s office earlier that day to tell her and Artie that the police considered the case closed. They had ransacked Jesse Oldham’s apartment and found several letters Mike had written him after he left town. Jesse had placed the letters on his desk in his small office. They had also confiscated his laptop and cell phone.
“What about his mother?” Ilka had asked. She was surprised to hear that Phyllis had known about everything. The morning before he committed suicide, Jesse had told her he was the one who pushed Ashley and killed her. He had panicked and called his father, who then came to the fishing cabin. Douglas sent Jesse home and got rid of every trace of Jesse’s presence. And Phyllis had seen him after he’d finished, when he was on the way down. By keeping silent all those years, she’d thought she was protecting her unfaithful husband, when in truth, he’d saved their son.