Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Ayoung blonde woman with streaks of lavender hair and large emerald green glasses bent over a man with the pallor of cottage cheese, brushing his hair behind his ear. He lay in a huge open cardboard box on a rolling gurney.
She glanced up at them and smiled, her eyes round through the thick glasses. “Duke. Wasn’t expecting you today.” She carefully crossed the man’s hands over his chest, closed her eyes for a moment, and bowed her head.
When she opened her eyes, Duke said, “I have a few questions for you about Bailey Nosboum, when you have a second.”
She looked down at the man in the box. “Richard was a big guy. This will take about three hours. Will you need more time than that?” Her large blue eyes were surprisingly open and welcoming.
“That’s more than enough time. I didn’t realize cremation took that long.”
Ferd waited until Maddie had opened the little door, lined up the box, and carefully slid him inside. Her insides tensed. Nope. Not in her job description. Seeing Bailey had been enough death. Now here they were, seeing more.
Duke followed Maddie to a little office down the hall. Unlike the subdued blue carpet and the oddly yellow walls, her office had been painted a soft pink with electric pink and bright blue accents. The back of her laptop sported a thick layer of anime stickers.
“Okay, you only come see me when you’re having a death problem.” Maddie rested her elbows on her desk, clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them. “Despite telling you multiple times that you can come see me anytime you want.” She blinked rapidly.
Duke shifted in his seat. “Sorry, this is work . . .” He looked away.
She laughed, but Ferd wasn’t sure if she found his discomfort funny or the situation. “I’m Ferd Kincade, by the way.” She gave a smile instead of offering a handshake. Instinct said she wasn’t a hand-shaker.
“Nice to meet you. So, this is about Bailey? No one has come to collect the body or schedule a funeral. We have nothing. We haven’t had him long, but usually I hear from someone by now. Maybe the police have a hold on him that I haven’t heard about?” She shifted her gaze back to Duke.
He shook his head. “Our investigation is over once you have him. We have a fund for things like this if no one comes forward soon. We could cover a small funeral for him.” Duke leaned back in his chair.
“So, you want to see who shows up at a funeral? That’s always interesting, honestly.”
“Exactly,” he said. “The people who come to bid him farewell may have legitimate reasons for being there, or they may have something to prove or something to find out. We would need to record the whole thing, without anyone noticing if possible.”
She nodded with a huge grin. “I love it. We can do that. I feel like an undercover agent already.” She hummed the Mission: Impossible music.
“When would you like to get this set up?” he asked, interrupting her sudden shifting around, dancing in her chair.
“Oh, we have time right now if you want?” She grabbed a legal-sized pad in one hand and drew a big rectangle with short dashes.
“We can seat people here. Cameras can go here.” She added an x to two places behind the seating area.
“Oh, and one behind the casket so we can see faces!” She added another x.
Her desk phone rang. She held up one finger and grabbed the receiver.
“Marion Home Sweet Home, Maddie speaking.” She pulled at a loose thread on her violently orange scrubs.
“Oh, I see.” Her head bent, blocking her face from view.
“You want a what?!” she paused. “No, that’s not how we normally do things.
Are you part of his family? The police didn’t give me your name when they released him into my custody. ”
The volume of the speaker on the other end rose, but not enough to hear what was said.
“There’s no need to yell. I’m required to ask questions. It is illegal to steal or to do anything to a corpse. That’s why I asked.” Her tone sounded like she was reading from a script.
The person yelled many words in quick succession.
“Fine. If you have proof you’re the next of kin, then come down here and you can take the body for the water burial you have planned, but I cannot release him if you don’t have anything.
In fact, after the way you’ve treated me, please take your proof to the police first. This is an active murder case, and I’m not willing to do anything that might get me in trouble with them.
” She finally looked back up at Duke and gave a nod with her eyes slightly wide.
Duke gave her a thumbs-up. At least they’d know who this person was if they came in to prove they weren’t planning anything illegal.
“No. I won’t release him to you. Yes, this is an open investigation. Why? Didn’t you know that?” Her forehead gathered. “You’re not from around here. How did you know to call me then?” She jumped slightly, then pulled the receiver away from her ear. “He hung up on me.”
“Who?” Ferd asked just a moment before Duke.
“George Edward Ripley, the third was his name.
According to what he told me, he was Bailey's nephew and he'd only just been notified of his uncle's death. He was quite rude. Sounded older than twenty, younger than thirty. Foreign, but not from another country. Like maybe California or Washington. Not from Wyoming.”
Duke snickered. “California isn’t foreign.”
Maddie didn’t miss a beat. “Around here it is.”
Ferd couldn’t hold in a grin. “What else did he say? You mentioned a water burial.”
Maddie grabbed a book off her shelf and flipped through the pages, then turned the book around. “He wanted the equipment to do something like this, where the body is held on a boat and winched off into the water. Oh, and he wanted me to get the boat.” She tapped the page twice.
The image was of a crane device much like the cremation retort they’d watched her use when they arrived.
“He’d have to buy a specific casket that would degrade quickly in water.
You can’t just dunk a regular one over the edge and call it good.
There are rules and laws.” She rolled her eyes. “Coffins aren’t Oreos.”
Duke blinked for a second, then shook his head with a laugh as he quickly punched something into his phone.
“Found someone with his name on social media. Hopefully, we’ll hear from him at the station soon, confirm this is our guy, and find out what his real connection to Bailey is. Thank you for your help.”
“What about the clandestine funeral?” she asked, pouting. “I was already planning it.”
“We’ll have to put that on hold until George makes his relationship to Bailey clear to us. Now, if he’s telling the truth and we simply didn’t have record of any family, then we’ll have to let him do with the body as he pleases.”
“But you don’t think he does?” Ferd concentrated on Duke.
“No, I think this might give us more information about Bailey that we absolutely needed.”