After a brisk walk out of the business district and into the tree-lined old section of Main Street, Clay found himself outside the wrought-iron fence of Todd and O’Connor, wondering how to conduct the inquiry. Naturally they would want to know why he was asking such questions-and since the perpetrator of the fraud had not been determined, the deputy wasn’t sure that he should tell them.
He hurried up the cement walk to the freshly painted gray porch and prepared to ring the bell. The door was ajar. They probably don’t like a lot of noise here, thought Clay, And it’s not as if anyone would come here to steal anything.
He had been inside a number of times before, but never alone, and he would have been ashamed to admit how uneasy he felt at doing so now. It was the deputy’s experience that people usually went to funerals in groups. He supposed that law enforcement officers in larger districts would have become quite accustomed to death after a few years on the job, but in rural Georgia, murder was no everyday occurrence. Clay had seen enough car wrecks to last him a lifetime, but mercifully few victims of homicide.
As soon as he entered the oak-paneled hallway, a solemn young man in a gray suit materialized from an inner sanctum and in hushed tones inquired whether he could be of help. The boy could have done with less hair grease and more Clearasil, in Clay’s opinion.
“I’d like to see Mr. Todd,” he said in his normal tone of voice. The words seemed to bounce off the walls. “I’m here on official business.”
With a cordial nod, the apparition scuttled back into the offices, and Clay could hear the murmur of lowered voices discussing his arrival. Clay studied the Victorian prints on display in the hall. Todd and O’Connor seemed to favor Landseer animal portraits, along the lines of The Old Shepherd Is Mourned by His Canine Companion. The artist had a way with animals: their expressions made them almost seem human.
The deputy felt the presence of someone behind him and turned so quickly that he almost collided with the velvety person of Azzie Todd. Everything about the funeral director was sleek and molelike, and he had an unfortunate shortsighted gaze over a pointed snout that completed the image. He reminded Clay of the children’s book Wind in the Willows. Idly, the deputy wondered if Mr. O’Connor completed the firm’s literary allusion by resembling a large and aristocratic toad.
He ushered the deputy into a small back office with earth-tone walls (the burrow, thought Clay, fighting to keep a straight face). After he had seated himself behind a cluttered antique desk, Mr. Todd folded his hands primly and asked what he could do for the local constabulary.
“I am conducting an inquiry,” said Clay, answering the formality in kind. “And I need some information-or at least, your advice on how I can obtain it.”
“And that is?”
“I need to know whether anyone was cremated in this county in the last seven years, and if so who. And by whom.”
Concern flickered across Azzie Todd’s talpine features. “We at Todd and O’Connor don’t offer that service,” he said.
“I know. This investigation would have been a whole lot easier if you did.”
The funeral director looked puzzled. “Has there been a murder?”
“Why do you ask that?” asked Clay, thinking that murder had been a strange, and perhaps telling conclusion to reach on the basis of his question.
Todd blushed. “I read detective stories. Cremation is the ideal way to conceal your crime. You poison someone and then have them cremated. No evidence!”
The deputy considered it. “Lord, I hope we don’t have that to contend with. At the moment, it’s more like a case of mistaken identity. I really can’t be any more specific than that.”
“I understand,” said Todd, making a steeple with his fingertips. “Discretion is a byword with us.”
“On the phone the other day, I believe you said that you farm out any cremation requests, so to speak. Would you have a list of any such cases?”
“No. Why should we? Anyway, it doesn’t happen very often. Seven years? I can go back twenty. We’ve had three such requests. One was the Hadley boy, who moved out to the West Coast and left instructions in his will that he was to be cremated. His parents didn’t much care for the idea, but they did it anyway.”
“Was the body cremated here in Georgia?”
“No. Done there, and the ashes mailed here. We made the arrangements by telephone with a firm out there. The second was one of those commune people-Earthling, I think they call their company. One of the fellows out there died in a car wreck and the rest decided to cremate the body and to scatter the ashes in their meadow. I referred them to Elijah’s Chariot, as I always do in these cases, but I must say I did suspect them of doing it out of stinginess. He left them all his money; they spent less than five hundred dollars on his funeral. That young man was an heir to some minor tobacco fortune.” He shook his head in wonder that this was so. “Ever noticed that most of these hippie types that want to live on the land come from well-to-do families?”
“Sure,” said Clay, no stranger to that lifestyle himself. “If poor kids want to eat beans and sleep on the floor, they can stay home and do it. Do you remember the name of the deceased?”
“Christopher Greene. They called him something else, though. Rama-something.”
The deputy made a note of it. “Now didn’t you say that there was a third case?”
“That I know of, yes,” said Todd. “Now, you understand there may be people in the community who take their business elsewhere without consulting me. In order to be absolutely certain, I think you’ll have to check the death records at the courthouse one at a time.”
Clay grimaced at the unwelcome suggestion. He was afraid that such a chore might be inevitable. “And the third was…”
“Jeter Wales. He was at least eighty and his nearest kinfolks were some first cousin’s children in Ohio, so they-”
The deputy wrote down the name. “I don’t think that’s who I’m looking for.”
“That’s about all I know to tell you,” said Azzie Todd with a mournful smile. “You really want to go to the courthouse and check those death records.”
Clay Taylor sighed. “No, I don’t. Want to, I mean.”
Elizabeth MacPherson had seldom been more cheerful at breakfast. She smiled when asked to pass the sugar bowl; she made bright and inane conversation to no one in particular; and she kept taking deep breaths as if she were about to burst into song. Geoffrey was afraid she would. Driven from his bed by the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the upstairs hall, he had crept to the table in stupefied silence, where he had attempted to ingest a cup of black coffee without attracting undue attention.
As usual, Captain Grandfather and Dr. Chandler were nowhere to be seen, having breakfasted at seven, and Aunt Amanda was supervising the cleaning operations. Charles, screened from view by the Atlanta newspaper he was reading, had coffee and a cup of yogurt in front of him, which he would attempt to reach with his spoon from time to time without lowering the paper. It was a bit like watching a robot arm handle radioactive substances. This, unfortunately, left no one for Elizabeth to be pleasant to except a comatose Geoffrey.
“Isn’t it a lovely morning?” she asked, beaming in his general direction.