An Ice cold Grave Page 0,78

doesn't run any fever or have any other symptoms that scare me, tomorrow should be good," he said. "How about you, young lady? Your pain better?" he asked me suddenly.

"I'm doing much better, thank you," I said. Barney Simpson had been trying to find a break in the conversation to take his leave, and he said "See you later" to everyone in the room and strode out the door.

Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the shock to his nerves the past week had been, but out of the blue Manfred said, "Well, when's the wedding?"

There was instant silence in the room. Dr. Thomason completed his own departure in a hurry, and left Rain looking from the bed to Tolliver and me, almost as astonished as we were.

I'd known Manfred wouldn't be happy, but I hadn't thought he'd be angry. I told myself to bear in mind his many shocks of the past few days. Tolliver said, "We haven't set a date yet," which was yet another surprise I hadn't wanted.

Now I was mad at everyone. Rain was gaping, Manfred was looking sullen, and Tolliver was really furious.

"I'm sorry," Rain said in a brittle voice. "I thought you two were brother and sister. I misunderstood, I guess."

I took a deep breath. "We're no relation, but we spent our teen years in the same house," I said, trying to keep my voice gentle and level. "Now, I think, Manfred must be tired. We'll just go over to the funeral home. Sweet Rest, I think the doctor said?"

"Yes," Rain said, "I think that was it." She looked confused, and who could blame her?

As we strode out of the hospital, Tolliver said, "Don't let him spook you, Harper."

"You think Manfred saying the word 'wedding' is going to spook me?" I laughed, but it didn't sound amused. "I know we're okay. We don't need to take any big jumps. We know that. Right?"

"Right," he said firmly. "We've got all the time in the world."

I wasn't in the habit of feeling so sure about that, since I spent a lot of time with surprised dead people. But I was going to let it slide for now.

This funeral home was one of the one-story brick models, with a parking lot that would fill up way too quickly. I've been in hundreds of funeral homes, since lots of people don't make up their minds until the last minute about asking me in. This would be one of the two-viewing-rooms kind, I was willing to put money on it. After we walked into the lobby, sure enough there were two doors facing us, each with a podium outside with a signing book waiting for mourners. A sign on a stand, the kind with removable white letters that stick into rows of black feltlike material, said that the viewing room on the right contained James O. Burris. The one on the left was empty. There were also rooms to our right and left; one of those would be for the owner. The other would be for a co-owner or assistant, or it would maybe be employed as a small reception room for the bereaved family.

And here came the funeral director herself, a comfortably round woman in her fifties. She was wearing a neat pantsuit and comfortable shoes, and her hair and makeup were also on the comfortable side.

"Hello," she said, with a kind of subdued smile that must be her stock-in-trade. "Are you Ms. Connelly?"

"I am."

"And you're here to view the remains of Mrs. Bernardo?"

"I am."

"Tolliver Lang," Tolliver said, and held out his hand.

"Cleda Humphrey," she said, and shook it heartily. She led us to the back of the building, down a long central hall. There was a rear door, which she unlocked, and we followed her across a bit of parking lot to a large building in the back, which was really a very nice shed that was brick, to match the main building. "Mrs. Bernardo is back here," she said, "since she's not going to be buried here. We keep our temporary visitors in a transition room back here."

"Transition room" turned out to be Cleda Humphrey's comfort-speak for "refrigerator." She opened a gleaming stainless steel door and a draft of cold air billowed out. In a black plastic bag on a gurney lay Xylda. "She's still in her hospital gown, with all the tubes and so on still attached until the autopsy decision is made," the funeral director said.

Shit, I thought. Tolliver's face went very rigid.