The casual efficiency of it made my stomach turn.
“The body types,” I said. “The shorter one looks about five ten. Stocky build.”
“I noticed that,” he said. “Let’s go see if the neighbors saw anything.”
We started across the street at the strip mall, because those storefronts had the best sight lines to the funeral home’s front porch and the driveway where the van had parked.
The lot had been repaved recently, the asphalt still dark enough to look wet in the late afternoon light, and the little row of businesses had gotten a face-lift sometime in the last year that made it look almost cheerful. The laundromat anchored the end the way it always had, surviving every economic downturn this block had weathered since before I’d taken over as coroner. Next to it, the Crate and Go occupied the middle units, and the CrossFit gym held down the space next to it, its front windows sweating with condensation from whatever was happening inside. The corner unit housed a delicatessen that was fairly new, and caught the overflow crowd from those who didn’t want to deal with the crowds of the Towne Square.
We started at the laundromat. Patrice Gooding was behind the counter folding towels when we walked in. She was a tall woman in her mid-fifties with dark skin, silver-streaked locs pulled up in a high wrap, and reading glasses perched on the end of her nose that she looked over instead of through. She’d been running the laundromat since I was a kid, and we’d shared enough sidewalk conversations over the years to skip the small talk when it wasn’t needed.
“Hey, Patrice,” I said.
“Hey yourself. Busy morning for you two.” She leaned her hip against the folding table. “Heard about Cole. He doing okay?”
“He’s out of surgery,” I said. “He’s going to make it.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, her eyes tearing up a bit. “I’ve got a soft spot for that man. And he owes me twelve dollars for a shirt he dropped off in March. I told him I don’t run a storage facility.” She glanced at Jack. “You tell him when he’s feeling better.”
“I’ll pass it along,” Jack said, his smile gentle. “We’re talking to everybody in the area about some activity at the funeral home this morning. Were you working the counter around ten thirty, quarter to eleven?”
“Honey, I’m always working the counter. I’ve been here since seven.” She pulled her glasses off and let them hang from the beaded chain around her neck. “What kind of activity are we talking about? I’m assuming this has something to do with all the cop cars across the street?”
“Did you notice a cargo van pull into the funeral home driveway this morning? Dark colored, navy blue?”
Patrice’s face shifted, the warmth pulling back just enough to make room for something more careful. “Matter of fact, I did. It came down Catherine of Aragon, driving slow. Not lost slow, more like looking-for-something slow. Passed right by my windows.” She pointed toward the plate glass. “Only reason I noticed was because he turned left onto Anne Boleyn, and then sure enough, a couple of minutes later he came driving by again and pulled into your driveway. I figured it was a delivery service or something. Usually when you’ve got big flower arrangements they come in a van like that.”
“Did you happen to get a look at the driver?”
“White guy,” she said. “Had a beard. Not old, but not young either.”
“And after?” Jack asked. “Did you see which way the van went when it left?”
“Went out the same way it came in, back down Catherine of Aragon away from the Towne Square, like it was headed toward Nottingham.” She looked between us, her expression serious, and the neighborhood gossip was replaced by something sharper. “What happened over there today?”
“The van left a dead body on the lawn,” I said.
She looked at me with eyes wide. “Normally I’d make some kind of comment about it being a funeral home, but I can see you’re serious as a heart attack. You think they’re coming back?”
“I’d just say to keep your eyes open, and to call if you see anything suspicious,” Jack told her. “Let us know if you think of anything else.”
She picked up a towel and folded it with slow deliberation. “You know I will. Stay safe.”
We worked our way down the strip mall. The kid working the register at Crate and Go had been on his phone all morning and hadn’t seen anything, which he reported with the cheerful lack of shame that only a teenager could manage. The CrossFit gym gave us nothing—the owner said a class had been going on during the time the van dumped the body, and the front windows were too fogged to see through anyway.
When we got to the deli, it was closed, with sign on the door that said BACK AT TWO. Obviously their appointment ran over because it was after three and the door was still locked.
“Maybe they saw all the cops and decided it was best to stay out of the way,” I said. “You know how cops make people nervous.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I love that part of the job.”
We walked down Catherine of Aragon toward Anne Boleyn.
The houses on Anne Boleyn sat on large lots with deep setbacks and mature trees that said old money or at least old roots. American flags hung from porch brackets. Flower beds were tended with the seriousness of competitive sport. It was a street where people mowed their lawns on Saturday mornings and waved at every car that passed. The people who lived in these houses knew everything that happened on the street. They usually knew what bodies were coming into the funeral home before they were delivered.
Harold and Ruthann Pruitt lived in the yellow Cape Cod on the corner, the property closest to the funeral home. A wooden flagpole stood at the edge of the front walk with an American flag that Harold raised every morning at six and took down every evening at sunset, rain or shine, because some habits outlasted the uniform that created them. The flower beds along the front were Ruthann’s domain—roses and hydrangeas and black-eyed Susans in tidy rows that looked like they’d been planted with a level and a tape measure.
Ruthann answered the door before we knocked, which meant she’d been watching us come up the walk, which meant the neighborhood grapevine was already fully operational. She was a small, round woman with a cloud of white hair she kept pinned back with tortoiseshell clips, pink cheeks that always looked like she’d just come in from a walk, and bright hazel eyes that missed absolutely nothing. She was wearing a floral apron over a denim shirt, and her hands were dusted with flour.
