Scott Larsen had left before Trish woke up. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all. His eyelids were heavy. His head throbbed. His mouth insisted he had swallowed a wad of cotton. Even his hair hurt when he combed it. Never again would he drink so much. In fact, he didn’t care if he had an ounce of alcohol ever again.
To make matters worse, he saw Joe had been back to the funeral home. One tap of a button and the alarm system revealed that someone using Scott’s key and code had entered at 3:10 in the morning and left at 4:00. What the hell was Joe doing?
Scott hoped he wouldn’t be sorry he had given Joe the code. As he came in the back door of the funeral home he caught himself wincing, the throbbing in his head bouncing off the backs of his eyeballs. He dreaded finding another mess in the embalming room. He could already smell the pungent odor of cleaners mixed with … what was that? Oh, yeah. Menthol.
He stopped before he got to the doorway. Clean. Thank God, it was clean. So the odors were from their afternoon work. Maybe Joe had added some specimens to the walk-in fridge. Scott was on his way to check when the buzzer at the back door went off. He glanced at his watch. The power guy he had called earlier was right on time. Damn well should be for what they were charging just to show Scott where to flip a switch for the generator.
“Mr. Larsen?” The guy towered over Scott. Or maybe the massive tool belt and size-twelve work boots made the man seem huge. An embroidered patch on his breast pocket said his name was Ted.
“That’s right, I’m Larsen,” Scott told him while he straightened his tie. It was a nervous habit and he stopped himself. Stupid to think he needed to show some authority with this guy. “I think all the electrical stuff is outside, around back.”
Scott led the way. He could feel sweat sliding down his back and sticking to his crisply pressed shirt. Luckily he kept spares in the office. Nobody trusted a sweaty funeral director.
The sky was murky, but it didn’t seem to block out the heat. If anything it heightened the humidity. Scott noticed the wind had picked up. Son of a bitch, that storm might actually hit.
“Here it is.” He pointed to the rectangular metal boxes with electrical wires weaving their way out of the top and bottom.
Ted flipped open the box’s door.
“Yeah, you’re all set up.”
Scott held back a sigh of relief. Of course, he was set up. He just needed to know how to turn the damn generator on.
“You push this button.” Ted pointed. “Followed by this one. That sequence, okay?” He was talking to him as if Scott were a third grader.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Scott answered, wanting to add “bastard.”
“Then you pull this lever.”
“Got it. Guess I’m good to go.” He turned, ready to walk the guy back.
“Wait a minute. What’s this one?” Ted had opened the other box.
“Oh that’s some stuff I added when I bought the place. A walkway to connect the buildings. Brand-new walk-in cooler. Couple of freezers. The old ones were too small. Pretty outdated.”
“You know that everything on this circuit board isn’t connected?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You won’t have generator power for anything you added on these circuits.”
“No, that can’t be right.”
“It’s not connected.” Ted pointed down below both boxes.
“Will it take long for you to connect it?”
Ted laughed. Then he must have seen the panic on Scott’s face. “Sorry, man. Even if I could connect it, your current generator wouldn’t have enough juice for everything on the second panel.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“If you have a separate generator, you can hook it up directly. Make sure you use the double-insulated power cord. You say you’ve got a walk-in cooler. That’s probably going to need 5500 all to itself.”
“So I just go out and buy a 5500 generator. No problem.”
“Go out and buy one? You mean you don’t already have another generator?”
“No.”
“Maybe you could use your home one.”
“I don’t have a home one. So I need to go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and get one?”
Now the guy laughed again. “I don’t think you’ll find one. Not around Pensacola anyway. My guess is they’re sold out.”
CHAPTER 33
Liz brought in the Pensacola News Journal and handed it to her dad on the way back to the kitchen.
“Thank you, darling.”
“Dad, you’ll never guess who I ran into on the beach last night.”
“Who’s that?”
“Scott.”
“Scott?”
“Scott Larsen, your son-in-law.”
“Scott? At the beach? Scott never goes to the beach.”
“Well, he was there last night and he was drunk.”
“Drunk? Scott? Scott doesn’t drink.”