“He’s the doctor who signed Randy Nicholson’s death certificate.”
“Should we stop her?” Lara asked nervously.
“No. He’s probably not guilty of anything. The man flatlined, and an entire group of medical personnel thought he was dead.”
“But...?”
“I’ll call Matt and Brett,” Meg said.
“Perfect,” Lara said, jumping up.
“Where are you going?” Meg asked her.
“To stop Sonia. I’ll get her to postpone, tell her I could use her help thinking about next season’s gala,” Lara said. “Just to be safe.”
Meg nodded. “A conspiracy of the unwitting,” she murmured.
*
Diego, Matt and Brett stood in the offices of the Diaz-Douglas funeral home, along with the entire staff. They went over the events that had followed the arrival of Randy Nicholson’s body at the mortuary. Every employee seemed equal parts stunned, scared and mystified. They’d been there for thirty minutes, and all they’d ascertained so far was that yes, the body had arrived. Many of the employees had seen it, but since the family hadn’t wanted embalming or an open casket, there had been no need for anything beyond cleaning and dressing the body, then laying it in the silk-lined coffin his children had chosen. That meant, as Mr. Douglas had explained, most of them had no actual contact with it.
“All right,” Brett said. “Who prepared Mr. Nicholson for the coffin?”
Carl Sage lifted his hand. “I cleaned and dressed Mr. Nicholson,” he said. “I laid him in the coffin, and I sealed the coffin. And I can tell you, when I did so, Mr. Nicholson was in it. Two of our ushers, Mike Bitter and Victor Menendez, helped me set it in place for the service. We also saw that it was transported from the funeral home to the cemetery. I’m telling you, they did not take the body, and neither did I.”
“What about the night the body stayed at the mortuary?” Brett asked.
“I was here until quite late, as usual, but I locked up when I left,” Carl said.
“Anyone else? After closing, I mean,” Matt asked.
“We were all here for a while,” Carl said. “The ushers leave first, but Mr. Douglas and Mr. Diaz were here for a while. And Mrs. Diaz,” he added. “When they left, I locked up and then went to my office.”
“May I see your office?” Brett asked.
Carl looked at his bosses. Both men nodded grimly.
It was odd, Brett thought as Carl led him, with Diego and Matt, with Diaz and Douglas following, through the employees-only area, that while he’d attended many autopsies, he’d never been behind the scenes at a mortuary. They passed by the embalming room, where several bodies were in various stages of preparation.
Somehow, he found this place sadder even than autopsy. In an autopsy, doctors worked to discover cause of death. To speak for the dead.
While here...
The soul was gone, but every pretense was taken to pretend the dead weren’t really gone. A makeup set on a tray sat by a stainless-steel gurney holding the remains of an older woman.
No amount of makeup would change the fact that she would never look like herself again. The internal spark that had made her who she was had fled.
They moved past the embalming room and stood in the doorway of Carl’s office. The small room held a desk, a computer, filing cabinets—the usual accoutrements of any office, although this one also held a collection of books on embalming, and the reconstruction and cosmetic preparation of bodies. There was also a thick book of Florida statutes on proper and legal burial procedures.
But it wasn’t the office itself that interested Brett. It was the fact that the office was at the far end of the hall, near the funeral home’s receiving bay. But if the office door was closed, the bay doors could easily be opened and closed—and someone in the office would be none the wiser.
“Do you keep your door shut when you’re in here?” Brett asked Carl.
“Yeah. I turn on my music and do my paperwork,” Carl said. He seemed puzzled by their question.
Matt walked to the end of the hall and the receiving doors. Diego closed the office door.
“What’s going on?” Diaz demanded.
“There are only five people with keys?” Brett asked him.
“Yes, I told you. Myself, Jonathan, my wife, Carl and Jill,” Diaz said. “Why?”
“Because I think someone opened that door and let somebody in, somebody who took Randy Nicholson’s body from the mortuary,” Brett said.
“That’s just not possible.” Douglas sounded genuinely indignant.
“I think it’s time we stopped cooperating and called our attorneys,” Diaz said.
*