The Hearse You Came in On (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) Read online

  THE

  HEARSE

  YOU CAME IN ON

  •

  TIM COCKEY

  IN MEMORY OF

  TEDDY HARTMAN

  who would have

  laughed the loudest.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Praise for Tim Cockey

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  I was going along just fine, solemnly chaperoning the dead into their graves and pretty much otherwise minding my own business, when the woman calling herself Carolyn James stuck her halfway-pretty face into my life and scattered all hell to the wind.

  Of course that’s the way life works, isn’t it. They say something as simple as a well-placed sneeze by the right person at just the right moment can change the course of history. I can believe that. Life is funny that way. My ex-wife is a born-again Buddhist (among several other provocative things), and she likens the course of life to one long stumbling forward. The quality of the life, Julia says, is a matter of how adroitly you negotiate the ten thousand obstacles that come into your path as you stumble along. At the end of life, of course … you will finally fall down. Can’t avoid it. The final stumble. Now I don’t happen to think that this is necessarily certified Buddhist rhetoric, but why split hairs. It gets the point across.

  And my point is simply that I was stumbling along just fine in my little old life when with no warning whatsoever an obstacle in a tennis dress and a baggy sweater stepped in front of me and put my adroitness to the test. It might not have been the sneeze that changed the world, but it sure as hell pitched me forward, I can tell you that.

  I’m thirty-four years old and six foot three. That’s way too young to fall down. And way too far to drop.

  On this particular day of my stumbling forward—it was a Wednesday, it was May—Aunt Billie and I were holding a wake in Parlor One. The funeral home that I operate with my aunt is located in a section of Baltimore known as Fells Point. It’s an area where I spent most of my so-called formative years, a largely working-class neighborhood that hugs a jagged corner of the Baltimore harbor just a mile or so east of the downtown. Our establishment is several blocks in from the harbor itself, down past the string of small shops and bars that line the waterfront there. As somebody is always bringing up the irony of our being just a stone’s throw from a bar called The Dead End Saloon—which is the last bar on the stretch—I’ll bring it up now. No, we’re not affiliated. We were here first. My ugly Uncle Stu started the business soon after World War II, where he saw considerable action, including the god-awful Normandy invasion. Although one might conjecture that the idea of becoming a mortician was some sort of cathartic response to the horrific sight of so many bodies lying about, the truth is considerably less psychological. According to family legend, ugly Uncle Stu’s decision came after he was handed the bill for his father’s funeral. Whether as a hedge against having to pay through the nose for his own eventual interment or just as a nifty new way to turn a buck, family legend vacillates. Despite the fact that my aunt and uncle were childless, they named their establishment Sewell & Sons Family Funeral Home. This was Billie’s idea. She was the one who injected into the business the much needed “warm and fuzzy”that my uncle sorely lacked.

  We’re a remarkably nondescript establishment on a remarkably nondescript block of largely—yes—nondescript formstone row houses. You could be leaning up against the wall of Sewell & Sons smoking a cigarette and not even realize that you’re standing in front of a funeral home. We’re a modest operation, with two parlors and two full-time employees, myself and Aunt Billie. We’re both certified morticians, which means we’re licensed to do all the things with the bodies that most people don’t want to hear about. Billie is a refugee from Old South aristocracy, and she maintains that strata’s peculiar relationship with death, which I feel is generally more congenial and accommodating than you find elsewhere. And as Billie had a fair hand in raising me, a good share of her influence has seeped into me. It’s this convivial relationship with death, I think, that sets Sewell & Sons apart from the competition. This, plus Billie’s standing offer of brandy to our guests.

  Our dead guest of honor this particular day was a retired firefighter from Towson, which is just north of the city. He had died of natural causes—if a heart attack is a natural cause—and his widow had informed Aunt Billie that he would be drawing a modest-sized crowd. There’s a hard plastic curtain on runners that divides the two parlors. On those occasions when we expect an overflow crowd, we pull the curtain open to create one large room. The wake for my parents for example. That had been a big turnout. A standing-room-only affair. This one wasn’t.

  Aunt Billie was handling the fireman’s funeral. We trade off. I was sitting in my office just off the front lobby, feet up on my desk, reading the obituaries (kidding). Actually, I was reading a copy of the Thornton Wilder play Our Town and for reasons that I’ll explain later, I was in a cranky mood. And a restless one. I had probably picked the play up and set it down and sighed and then picked it back up again (down again, sigh again) about a dozen times already before I finally just tossed the damn thing aside and decided to check out the action in Parlor One.

  The joint was jumping. Seniors and semi-seniors (what Billie and I call “Aarpies”) were milling about the room, clustering here and there, speaking in low voices, cupping one another’s hands and very studiously avoiding the guest of honor—Mr. Weatherby—who was off at the far end of the room laid out in his coffin (the Embassy model; very popular), as dead as dead could be. My cranky countenance wouldn’t do here so I re-set my face and moved solicitously about the room. I think I’ve mentioned already that I’m a handsome fellow. If not, I’m mentioning it now. Black hair. Blue eyes. Dynamite chin. I’ve been told that I look like one of those TV doctors who are constantly mixing it up with his attractive patients. It’s a fantastic face for this profession. Puts people at ease. If I had a nickel for every “you don’t look like an undertaker”I’ve heard I’d tell Donald Trump he can stop shining my shoes now and get back to whatever he was up to before I hired him.

  I worked the room, squeezed a few hands and was assured each time that the retired firefighter had been “a good man.”That’s pretty standard. It’s only the occasional live wire who sidles up to tell you that the recently deceased was a no-good son of a bitch.

  I spotted Billie off in a corner with Mrs. Weatherby, her blue hands oyster-shelled over the widow’s paw, he
r Helen Hayes smile roaring full blast. As I headed over to offer my condolences to Mrs. Weatherby, Billie looked up and saw me coming. She gave me her Boris Karloff face—which is Billie’s signal to me that I’m scowling too much—then jerked her head in the direction of the coffin. There, partially obscured by a huge horseshoe of gladiolus (compliments of Weatherby’s old fire station), stood a woman. Not an Aarpy, but a woman in her early thirties. She was tall, about five nine or ten. She was dressed in an oversized navy blue sweater and a short short short white pleated skirt from which a very nice pair of matching legs extended several miles down into a plain white pair of tennis shoes. Women’s size eight, I’d say. White anklets with rabbit tails completed the portrait. De rigueur garb for a wake, no question about it. Her hair—coal black with a touch of cranberry—fell in unbrushed waves to her shoulders and at the moment was obscuring her face. One hand was resting lightly on the foot of the coffin. The other hand was rising up toward the hidden face as a shudder suddenly went through her shoulders … and she sneezed.

  Allergies, she would tell me later. To flowers and to death.

  I stumbled forward.

  She looked up as I approached. No. That’s not quite right. What she did was she flicked her head, like someone who has just heard a gun go off, and she nailed me with a pair of hot hazel eyes. I nearly tripped on a piece of air. The look that she was giving me was somewhere between that of the deer in the crosshairs and the one holding the rifle. She had a somewhat heart shaped face, a pointed chin, a smallish red mouth and a terrifically sexy Roman nose. The eyes were deeply set, large and currently mistrusting. Because I’m tall and she was tall I took a nanosecond to imagine the two of us happily married and raising a batch of tall mistrusting children together. Then I held out my hand and introduced myself.

  “Hello, I’m Hitchcock Sewell.”

  She inspected my face for a second and then gave me her hand. The one from the coffin, not the one she had just sneezed into.

  “That’s a funny name,” she said.

  Which of course I’ve heard a thousand times before.

  Color flashed across her cheeks like lightning just below the surface and she wavered slightly, holding on to my hand a fraction too long, to steady herself. The mother of my future tall mistrusting children had been drinking. She let go of my hand and looked down at Mr. Weatherby.

  “Did you know him well?”I asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life,” she announced. There was a touch of defiance in her tone, as well as in the way she squared off in front of me. Her eyes flittered around the room. “Is that his wife?”

  Aunt Billie was still jawing with Mrs. Weatherby over by the plastic curtain. They had been joined by an animated ostrich with Coke-bottle glasses who was apparently taking her tongue out for a walk.

  “Yes. That’s her.”

  “I have to say something.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Of course it’s necessary. I can’t just wander in and wander out like I own the place. It’s a funeral.”

  “Actually, it’s a wake.”

  “You know what I mean.” She looked over toward the door. “Can you get me out of here?”

  “Sure.”

  She took a steadying step forward. At least that was the idea. Her shoulder grazed the horseshoe bouquet and we both snatched at it to keep it from toppling. I reached for her elbow. Instinctively, she drew back.

  “I’m not a little old lady.”

  “But you are a little unsteady.” She tried to glare at me, but apparently her fire was going out.

  She sounded defeated. “I haven’t had a good day.”

  “If it means anything,” I said diplomatically, “I haven’t either. What say we scram.” I held out my arm. I’m a sucker for cheap theatrics sometimes, I readily admit it. She hesitated. “It’s an arm,” I pointed out. “It won’t bite.”

  The interloper flashed me a peeved look and slid her arm through mine. We stepped away from the coffin, long tall me in my dark suit, long tall she in her short short skirt. Several centuries of heads turned in our direction as we crossed the room. As Mrs. Weatherby looked up, the woman on my arm hissed at me. “What do I say?”

  “Tell her he was a good man. That seems to be the consensus.”

  “Seriously.”

  “He was a fireman. Tell her that he rescued your cat from a tree a long time ago and that you’ve never forgotten him.”

  “Could we maybe find something a little cornier?”

  As we approached, the ostrich was going on about some sort of carpeting trauma she had recently experienced. I could see that Billie was grateful for my arrival. I silenced the ostrich with the sheer force of my interruption.

  “Mrs. Weatherby, I’m Hitchcock Sewell, Billie’s nephew. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” I swung my mystery guest into place. “This is—”

  “Carolyn James.” Her expression softened beautifully as she took hold of the widow’s hand. “I’m so sorry. Your husband was … you don’t know me. He … I… I had a cat.”

  I came to the rescue.

  “Your husband rescued Miss James’s cat some years ago,” I explained. “From a tree. The cat was pregnant. Miss James was so grateful to your husband that she named one of the kittens Weatherby. In his honor.” The woman at my side stiffened as I plunged forward. “Miss James happened to see the notice in the paper this afternoon right after a set of tennis—as you can see—and she just had to rush over here and pay her respects.”

  The widow muttered something in response. I missed it altogether. She had not let go of Carolyn James’s hand.

  Aunt Billie chimed in. “That was very thoughtful of you, Miss James.”

  Billie flashed me a get-her-the-hell-out-of-here look. I drew Carolyn James back from the gals and steered her toward the door.

  “What the hell was all that about the pregnant cat?” she hissed.

  I was nodding solemnly at a ghostly couple who were just coming into the room. “It’ll give her something to tell around the bridge table.”

  Out in the lobby I asked Carolyn James if she wanted to sign the guest book. We keep one on a gold-plated stand in case people want to comment on what a rousing good time they had. She declined.

  “I think I’ll just disappear quietly,” she said, turning away from me and stepping over to the door. I trailed her. We reached for the doorknob simultaneously. I got there first, and held on to it.

  “Do you think, just possibly, that maybe you owe me an explanation?” I said. “I mean, before you ‘disappear quietly’ maybe you’d like to tell me why you wandered in here in the first place? We don’t get many drop-ins.”

  “I’d rather not,” she said. But when I refused to release the doorknob she relented. She squared off in front of me.

  “I apologize for crashing your party, Mr. Sewell.”

  “Accepted.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  I gave a little shrug. “You’re always welcome.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she checked me out closely, one eye at a time.

  “It was impulsive, my coming in here. Okay? I stopped in to see … to see about arranging a funeral.”

  “That’s it? Then why all the fuss? Look, my office is right here. Why don’t we—”

  “I changed my mind.” She gave her head a little flip and glared hotly at me. “Can I go now?”

  “I hope you haven’t changed your mind because of that cat nonsense just now. My aunt can handle the arrangements if that would make you feel better. I wouldn’t take it personally. In fact—”

  “There’s not going to be a funeral,” she snapped. I could see faint yellow starbursts pulsing in her eyes. She cocked a challenging eyebrow at me. “Have you got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As I pulled the door open for her, I asked, “When you were thinking of burying someone, may I ask who exactly you had in mind?”

  The
lava shifted in her eyes. She sighed.

  “Yes,” she said. “Me.”

  CHAPTER 2

  My parents were local television personalities in Baltimore back in the old mom-and-pop days of Charm City, before its several heralded facelifts and makeovers. My father worked up on Television Hill, in the studios of WBAL, overlooking the gray rock valley of Hampden, the old mill town, on the banks of the rarely mighty Jones Falls. He was something of a utility man back then, reading the news, doing commercials for local merchants, introducing the late night movie on Friday nights and—in a rotating assortment of silly hats—the kiddy cartoons on Saturday mornings. Those were the days when local TV was still making it up as it went along, “giving radio a face” is how I once heard it put. My father’s face was friendly and unremarkable. He used to brag that he was as ubiquitous as a church key. A funny brag, if you think about it.

  My mother on the other hand was an exotic import from New York City, a stalled actress in the off-off scene who came down to Baltimore to essay the role of Mary Pickersgill in a fifteen-minute film that the Smithsonian Institution was putting together to accompany its display of Ms. Pickersgill’s oversized flag—the original Star-Spangled Banner—that had flapped in the wind over Fort McHenry during the otherwise nearly forgotten War of 1812. I wouldn’t be so crass as to accuse my own darling mother of compromising her virtue to get the part, but the fact remains that a firstgeneration Italian American with shiny black hair, olive skin, a slight accent and hips like a Vespa motor scooter wouldn’t exactly be the logical first choice to portray the vaguely spinsterish and patently Waspy Ms. Pickersgill. At any rate, “somehow” she got the part and she took the train down from New York for the shoot. My dad was tapped to be Francis Scott Key, local boy and scribe of the national anthem. I don’t believe that the historical Pickersgill and Key ever actually met, despite their significant relationships to Old Glory. But the make-believes certainly did, forging an alternate history with their clandestine coupling on the second floor of the Flag House down on East Pratt Street after the film crew had wrapped for the day. For a five-dollar entrance fee you can still visit the StarSpangled Banner Flag House and see for yourself the actual room where my parents bumped and giggled in the off-hours to conceive their dear little pumpkin. When I was a teenager the Flag House was a must-go whenever I started courting a new flame. I never quite presumed I would be so lucky as to star in an actual reenactment of my parent’s infamous tryst… but it gave me an easy opening to drop the subject of sex into the conversation. Which, on balance, rarely hurts.