بخش 03 - فصل 24

24

Hodges and Janey are loaned a phone-friendly room down the hall from the hospital lobby, and there they split up the deathwork. He’s the one who gets in touch with the funeral home (Soames, the same one that handled Olivia Trelawney’s exit rites) and makes sure the hospital is prepared to release the body when the hearse

arrives. Janey, using her iPad with a casual efficiency Hodges envies, downloads an obituary form from the city paper. She fills it out quickly, speaking occasionally under her breath as she does so; once Hodges hears her murmur the phrase in lieu of flowers. When the obit’s emailed back, she produces her mother’s address book from her purse and begins making calls

to the old lady’s few remaining friends. She’s warm with them, and calm, but also quick. Her voice wavers only once, while she’s talking to Althea Greene, her mother’s nurse and closest companion for almost ten years. By six o’clock–roughly the same time Brady Hartsfield arrives home to find his mother putting the finishing touches

on her tuna salad–most of the t’s have been crossed and the i’s dotted. At ten to seven, a white Cadillac hearse pulls into the hospital drive and rolls around back. The guys inside know where to go; they’ve been here plenty of times. Janey looks at Hodges, her face pale, her mouth trembling. “I’m not sure I can –”

“I’ll take care of it.” The transaction is like any other, really; he gives the mortician and his assistant a signed death certificate, they give him a receipt. He thinks, I could be buying a car. When he comes back to the hospital lobby, he spies Janey outside, once more sitting on the bumper of the ambulance. He sits down next to her and takes

her hand. She squeezes his fingers hard. They watch the white hearse until it’s out of sight. Then he leads her back to his car and they drive the two blocks to the Holiday Inn. Henry Sirois, a fat man with a moist handshake, shows up at eight. Charlotte Gibney appears an hour later, herding an overloaded bellman ahead of her and complaining about the

terrible service on her flight. And the crying babies, she says –you don’t want to know. They don’t, but she tells them anyway. She’s as skinny as her brother is fat, and regards Hodges with a watery, suspicious eye. Lurking by Aunt Charlotte’s side is her daughter Holly, a spinster roughly Janey’s age but with none of Janey’s looks. Holly

Gibney never speaks above a mutter and seems to have a problem making eye contact. “I want to see Betty,” Aunt Charlotte announces after a brief dry embrace with her niece. It’s as if she thinks Mrs. Wharton might be laid out in the motel lobby, lilies at her head and carnations at her feet. Janey explains that the body has already been transported to

Soames Funeral Home in the city, where Elizabeth Wharton’s earthly remains will be cremated on Wednesday afternoon, after a viewing on Tuesday and a brief nondenominational service on Wednesday morning. “Cremation is barbaric,” Uncle Henry announces. Everything these two say seems to be an announcement.

“It’s what she wanted.” Janey speaks quietly, politely, but Hodges observes the color rising in her cheeks. He thinks there may be trouble, perhaps a demand to see a written document specifying cremation over burial, but they hold their peace. Perhaps they’re remembering all those millions Janey inherited from her sister

–money that is Janey’s to share. Or not. Uncle Henry and Aunt Charlotte might even be considering all the visits they did not make to their elderly sister during her final suffering years. The visits Mrs. Wharton got during those years were made by Olivia, whom Aunt Charlotte does not mention by name, only calling her “the one with

the problems.” And of course it was Janey, still hurting from her abusive marriage and rancorous divorce, who was there at the end. The five of them have a late dinner in the almost deserted Holiday Inn dining room. From the speakers overhead, Herb Alpert toots his horn. Aunt Charlotte has a salad and complains about the dressing,

which she has specified should come on the side. “They can put it in a little pitcher, but bottled from the supermarket is still bottled from the supermarket,” she announces. Her muttering daughter orders something that sounds like sneezebagel hellbun. It turns out to be a cheeseburger, well done. Uncle Henry opts for fettuccini alfredo and sucks it

down with the efficiency of a high-powered Rinse N Vac, fine droplets of perspiration appearing on his forehead as he approaches the finish line. He sops up the remains of the sauce with a chunk of buttered bread. Hodges does most of the talking, recounting stories from his days with Vigilant Guard Service. The job is

fictional, but the stories are mostly true, adapted from his years as a cop. He tells them about the burglar who got caught trying to squirm through a basement window and lost his pants in his efforts to wriggle free (this earns a small smile from Holly); the twelve-year-old boy who stood behind his bedroom door and cold-cocked a home invader

with his baseball bat; the housekeeper who stole several pieces of her employer’s jewelry only to have them drop out of her underwear while she served dinner. There are darker stories, many of them, that he keeps to himself. Over dessert (which Hodges skips, Uncle Henry’s unapologetic gluttony serving as a minatory power of

example), Janey invites the new arrivals to stay at the house in Sugar Heights starting tomorrow, and the three of them toddle off to their prepaid rooms. Charlotte and Henry seem cheered by the prospect of inspecting at first hand just how the other half lives. As for Holly . . . who knows?

The newcomers’ rooms are on the first floor. Janey and Hodges are on the third. As they reach the side-by-side doors, she asks if he will sleep with her. “No sex,” she says. “I never felt less sexy in my life. Basically, I just don’t want to be alone.” That’s okay with Hodges. He doubts if he would be

capable of getting up to dickens, anyway. His stomach and leg muscles are still sore from last night . . . and, he reminds himself, last night she did almost all the work. Once they’re beneath the coverlet, she snuggles up to him. He can hardly believe the warmth and firmness of her. The thereness of her. It’s true he feels no desire at the moment, but he’s glad

the old lady had the courtesy to stroke out after he got his ashes hauled rather than before. Not very nice, but there it is. Corinne, his ex, used to say that men were born with a shitty-bone. She pillows her head on his shoulder. “I’m so glad you came.” “Me too.” It’s the absolute truth.

“Do you think they know we’re in bed together?” Hodges considers. “Aunt Charlotte knows, but she’d know even if we weren’t.” “And you can be sure of that because you’re a trained –” “Right. Go to sleep, Janey.” She does, but when he wakes up in the early hours of the morning, needing to use

the toilet, she’s sitting by the window, looking out at the parking lot and crying. He puts a hand on her shoulder. She looks up. “I woke you. I’m sorry.” “Nah, this is my usual three A.M. pee-muster. Are you all right?” “Yes. Yeah.” She smiles, then wipes at her eyes with her fisted hands, like a child. “Just

hating on myself for shipping Mom off to Sunny Acres.” “But she wanted to go, you said.” “Yes. She did. It doesn’t seem to change how I feel.” Janey looks at him, eyes bleak and shining with tears. “Also hating on myself for letting Olivia do all the heavy lifting while I stayed in California.”

“As a trained detective, I deduce you were trying to save your marriage.” She gives him a wan smile. “You’re a good guy, Bill. Go on and use the bathroom.” When he comes back, she’s curled up in bed again. He puts his arms around her and they sleep spoons the rest of the night.