Death Notice (10 page)

“Not when you found him, but the incision in the artery had been widened by something. The assumption is that the killer inserted a tube into it. That’s how he was able to get the formaldehyde and water mixture into the circulatory system. It got the job done, but it was pretty rough. Not at all like the professionals.”

“Professional who?”

“Morticians,” Nick said. “After George Winnick bled to death, the killer tried to embalm him.”

Henry lay on his weight bench, grunting against the 250-pound barbell he pushed away from his chest. The muscles in his arms tightened as he held the weight aloft for three seconds. When he lowered it, the tension eased, flooding his muscles with a satisfying warmth.

“One,” he said.

He raised the barbell again. He paused three more seconds. He lowered it.

“Two.”

Henry’s routine included a workout in a corner of his apartment filled with exercise equipment. One hour of each day was devoted to honing his body to its full potential. Although pushing forty, he possessed the strength and agility of a much younger man.

“Three.”

With his face looking the way it did, Henry knew peak physical prowess was the only thing that kept people from pitying him completely.

“Four.”

And he didn’t want pity.

“Five.”

He wanted to be left alone.

While he worked out, music blasted from a CD player against the wall. Puccini’s
Tosca,
one of his favorites. Opera was still relatively new to Henry. It was only in the past five years that he had become obsessed with it. Now it was the only music he listened to. Especially the tragedies. What he heard in the music, other people missed. The tales of doomed love, mistaken identity, and broken hearts of epic proportions were melodramatic, yes. But they were also true. You
could
love someone so much you would kill for them. Your love could be so strong that if they died, a large part of you died with them. Opera was tragic. So was life.

Finishing another set of reps, Henry lowered the weights and—breath heavy, heart thumping—paused to listen to the music. It was “E lucevan le stelle,” Cavaradossi’s third-act aria in which the doomed painter recalled memories of his lover, Tosca. The aria was sung in Italian, and Henry knew every
word. He was fluent in Italian, having learned it in his old life. Before the accident. Before Henry Ghoul.

E lucevan le stelle.

Henry repeated it in English, like a prayer. “How the stars seemed to shimmer.”

Closing his eyes, he focused on the music, on the lyrics, on the perfect voice singing them. It reminded him of Gia. Sweet Gia. His Italian rose. The aria could have been written about her.

Entrava ella, fragrante.

“How she then entered, so fragrant, and then fell into my arms.”

Usually, he would have been enthralled, swept up in the aria’s embrace. But that day was different. The aria—and thoughts of Gia—put him in a dark mood, which was accompanied by an itching restlessness.

L’ora è fuggita . . . e muoio disperato.

“My last hour has flown and I die hopeless.”

E non ho amato mai tanto la vita.

“And never have I loved life more.”

Henry left the room without bothering to turn off the CD player. His apartment, located above a used-book store on the end of Main Street, was large by modern standards. But that evening, the place felt absolutely tiny. As he roamed restlessly inside it, the walls seemed to constrict around him.

He had to get out. Just for a little bit.

His steps quickened in the hallway as he headed for the front door. By the time he was outside, he was at a full jog—legs churning, arms pumping. He picked up speed to tackle the slight incline of north Main Street. When it flattened out at the end of the street, he kept the same pace, streaking over the sidewalk.

The stares of strangers confronted him as he passed. Blurs
of faces trying to get a good look at him. Henry ignored them, soon becoming unaware of how many people he flew by or if they were staring. He also ignored the cold, which his flimsy workout clothes did nothing to ward off. He focused only on the steady exhalation of his breath and the rhythmic slapping of his feet on the pavement.

The sadness that overcame him in his apartment dissipated outdoors. He knew the melancholy would wash over him again at some point. No matter how fast he ran, Henry knew he couldn’t outrun his pain.

After he had sprinted at full speed for about fifteen minutes, a cramp stabbed his midsection. He slowed himself, legs winding down until eventually he came to a stop at the corner of Maple and Oak streets. Bent forward in exhaustion, palms resting on his knees, he noticed a large Victorian mansion dominating the corner.

McNeil Funeral Home.

Henry had never been inside, but the exterior impressed the hell out of him. Three stories tall with white siding, it boasted a green gabled roof, wraparound front porch, and Tiffany accents in the tall windows. Pretty fancy for a stopping place on the way to the afterlife.

Once he regained control of his breathing, Henry stepped onto the walkway that cut through the property’s expansive front yard. Without fully comprehending what he was doing, he trotted toward the front door. Not hesitating, he pushed inside, entering a tastefully appointed room dominated by a large mahogany desk. An attractive young woman sat behind it. She smiled at him when he entered.

“Hello, Henry,” she said.

He halted in the doorway. “How did you know it was me?”

“Because you look uncertain.”

Henry imagined he looked more than uncertain. He probably looked ghastly in his sweat-drenched T-shirt and running shorts, his flushed face making its flaws stand out even more.

Deana Swan, however, looked better than expected. Years of speaking to her on the phone had created a mental picture that wasn’t flattering. In Henry’s imagination, she was a female version of her brother, with chipmunk cheeks and oversized sweaters.
That
was the type of woman who spent her whole day in a funeral home.

The real Deana couldn’t have been further from the image created in his head. In her early thirties, she was slim, well proportioned, and modestly stylish in a black skirt and lavender blouse. She wore her strawberry blond hair pulled back, revealing razor-thin cheekbones, and startling, sparkling blue eyes.

“What brings you here today?” she asked.

Henry didn’t know, which was made obvious by his refusal to take one more step inside.

“I was jogging,” he said.

Deana ran her gaze up and down his body, lingering on his chest, his stomach, his crotch. The boldness of her stare made Henry pulse with excitement, as did the sultry tone of her voice when she said, “I can see that.”

“When I passed by, I thought I would stop in and say hello. Since you’ve told me I never do that.”

“You don’t,” Deana said. “And thanks. That was sweet of you.”

Oddly, Henry felt more awkward chatting with Deana than he did telling Chief Campbell about George Winnick’s death notice. That was being helpful, a good citizen. This was something entirely different. This was, Henry guessed, flirting.

“I just want you to know,” Deana said, her smile radiating a kind patience, “that my offer is still on the table.”

“What offer?”

“Lunch. I think it might be fun, since we’re coworkers in a weird way.”

That was true. Henry talked to Deana more than anyone at the
Gazette
. And she seemed friendly enough, with no hidden agenda except to get to know him better. Plus, he thought it would be nice just once to break out of his safe routine.

“A great sushi place just opened up on Main,” Deana said. “We could try it out one day.”

Henry was on the verge of saying yes. He felt the muscles in the back of his neck loosen, preparing for the nod to follow. But then something on the wall caught his eye. It was a mirror—large and gilded—and framed in its center was his reflection.

Staring at his own image, Henry suddenly felt foolish. He was in excellent shape, yes. But his face—that was unacceptable. And the more that Deana smiled benevolently at him, the more Henry became convinced that her motives were suspect. She wasn’t interested in him. Just like the patrons of a freak show, she was interested in his face. Its lines and scars and deformities.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Henry said, breaking his gaze from the mirror. “But thank you for the invitation.”

He regretted stepping foot into the funeral home. It was a bad idea, he realized. And now he was eager to leave.

He turned and reached for the door, surprised to see it was already halfway open. Someone was on the other side, pushing the door so forcefully Henry had to hop backward to avoid being struck by it. That’s when Kat Campbell burst inside, riding a gust of frigid air.

With her was a man Henry had never seen before. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, Henry assumed he was a cop of some sort. He and the chief shared identical scowls as they passed, barely noticing his presence.

Henry nodded a wordless greeting and exited the funeral
home. Crossing the front porch, he heard Kat through the open door ask, “Are Art and Bob here?”

“Arthur is,” Deana told her. “Is something wrong?”

Henry paused at the top of the porch steps, waiting for the chief’s response. When it came, he was surprised, intrigued, and more than a little fearful.

“I need to know,” Kat said, “how to go about embalming someone.”

In Kat’s mind, few places on earth were as depressing as McNeil Funeral Home. Arthur McNeil, the owner, tried hard to make it as calm and comforting as possible. Beige walls, classic furnishings, fresh flowers on a side table by the front door. Yet the sterile perfection of the place always unsettled Kat. The décor felt to her just like the corpses on display there—posed, painted, lifeless.

Her opinion of the place was colored by the terrible hours spent there during her parents’ funerals. Too uncomfortable to take a seat, she waited with Nick just inside the door. The position gave her a glimpse into the empty viewing room where her mother’s body was laid out eight months earlier. Memories of that time rushed into her head. Seeing James cry. Weeping herself. Sitting next to her mother’s casket, trying not to break down completely. The recollections were so painful that Kat sighed with relief when Art McNeil finally appeared.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, taking one of Kat’s hands in both of his. “Deana told me it sounded important.”

He was dressed in light blue scrubs, with a paper cap on
his head and a surgical mask lowered to beneath his chin. Even out of street clothes, Art projected a benevolent calmness that was one of the tools of his trade.

When Kat introduced Nick Donnelly, Art flashed him the smile of a favorite uncle.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Lieutenant Donnelly.”

“We hate to bother you like this,” Nick said. “But there are some things we need to learn in order to investigate a recent crime.”

Art shook his head sadly. “Let me guess—George Winnick. Wallace Noble told me everything when I made arrangements to pick the body up from the morgue.”

On the one hand, Kat was annoyed that Wallace felt free to talk so openly about the case. But on the other, she was glad Art already knew the gory details of the situation. Since she still barely comprehended it herself, she had no idea how to go about explaining it to someone else.