Free (2012) Colder Than Death by DB Gilles Page A

in a maze. After a minute or so he turned to me. “You here for the clothes and picture?” His voice had the same abrasive impatience he'd had on the phone earlier.
    “Yes.”
    “Wait here.”
    He disappeared into the house for about thirty seconds, returning with a plastic bag from a grocery store.
    “Here,” he said, handing the bag to me as if it contained garbage. “I'm supposed to tell you to hold it on the side so the stuff doesn't get wrinkled... as if it matters, right?” He rolled his eyes. “The kid put a pair of shoes in there too. Why I don't know. It's not like Brandy's going out dancing.” He laughed cruelly.
    “The fact is,” I said firmly, in a tone carefully measured to make him feel stupid. “ Most people put shoes on their loved ones. And most people also insist that underwear and socks are placed on the body.
    He glared at me with a genuine sense of disgust.
    “That's sick,” he said. “When I die I want to be cremated and I want my ashes put in a bottle of Dom Perignon and dropped into the Caribbean. Look, between you and me, if you want to give these shoes to some charity, fine. We're done, right, chief?”
    “Yeah.”
    As I headed back to my car I understood why Quilla couldn't stand this guy. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him later that night when, he, Suzanne and Quilla would arrive for the viewing. A part of me hoped he wouldn't come.
    Someone representing the Home has to be present when bodies are on view. Lew and I alternated. Sometimes Clint filled in.
    We weren't crazy about having Nolan greeting people at the door. All you had to do was have a kindly expression on your face--which Nolan possessed naturally--and be ready to direct people towards the Viewing Room in which the body of the person they were coming to see was laid out. The problem was that Nolan wanted to talk to people, oftentimes people in mourning or deep distress. If he engaged in minor chitchat it might've been acceptable, but Nolan would occasionally forget himself and reveal that he had done the work on the body.
    *****
    Because Brandy Parker would be the third body on view and since Lew was out of town, Clint would have to be on hand to help with the greeting. The Viewing was scheduled from 7:00-to-9:00 p.m. At my suggestion, the family arrives first, anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes earlier, to have the first look at their loved one in private and to check over the appearance of the body. Sometimes there's an inappropriate amount of make-up on a female. The plain Jane in life shouldn't look like a Vegas showgirl in repose. Sometimes the hairstyle is all wrong, curls instead of straight hair, bangs instead of a bun. Sometimes the lips have been arranged in an uncharacteristic smirk or snarl.
    By coming early the family can point out errors and Nolan can correct them.
    I looked at my watch--6:35. No one from the immediate family had arrived. I stepped outside the front entrance onto the veranda and looked at the parking lot. Nothing. Not even the other two bodies on view had callers yet. I glanced towards the entrance to the lot. No cars were visible. The warm October evening seemed more like June. I decided to stay outside until someone came. I gave the building a quick once-over. It could use a paint job and work on the roof. I would wait until Spring.
    Our Home is small by traditional standards and quite normal-looking. Rather than a Victorian or Gothic design, ours is more Colonial, painted white with a cheery yellow trim, with abundant windows. I've been kidded it looks more like an International House of Pancakes than a Funeral Home. DiGregorio's, on the other hand, is straight out of The House On Haunted Hill with arches and gables and turrets. Built with a dirty, reddish brown brick that hadn't aged well and hadn't been cleaned since I'd come to Dankworth, the structure was a sad, depressing reminder of death.
    For Quilla's sake I hoped she and her parents would pull in then and there. This