An Uneasy Inheritance--The Funeral

The Funeral

After an uneventful trip back to Renovo, we located the Conrad-Murphy Funeral Home, a large, brick, Gothic Revival-style structure with electric candles glowing in all the windows. As we climbed the steps to the front porch, a startled gasp from Marissa drew my attention to a sleek black cat with yellow-gold eyes staring at us from the railing. "Well, that's appropriately creepy," she muttered as we headed towards the main entrance.

I giggled at her observation. "Kind of looks like Lucifer, doesn't he?"

Spook's eyes snapped over to look at me quizzically. "Do I really want to know how you know what Lucifer looks like?"

Graham gave me a crooked smile. "You haven't introduced him to Lucifer yet?"

"No, not yet." I quirked my mouth, realizing they didn't know about my new addition. "But I'll introduce them soon enough."

Spook looked around at our faces with a guarded smile. "Okay, obviously I'm either missing some joke here, or you're all more twisted than I ever knew."

Graham finally took pity on him. "Lucifer is one of Mrs. Sweigard's cats, and he's an aptly-named demon kitty from hell. He just about made mincemeat out of me a few months ago when I was fixing her porch railing. Came out of nowhere and latched on to my arm with claws and teeth. I think I still have the scars." He made an unsuccessful attempt to pull his suit sleeve up to show us.

"Well, then I'd better give you fair warning." I gave him an earnest glance as I joked, "Surprisingly, no one else would take him on after Mrs. Sweigard died. He kind of took a liking to me after she had her stroke, so Scott guilted me into adopting him."

Graham responded grimly, "I hope you're planning to lock him in the dungeon when you have company. Either that, or provide chain mail for guests to wear in his presence."

Spook opened the door and held it open as Graham and Marissa went through. Just before I went inside, I glanced over my shoulder. The black cat had been joined by a large crow that stood silently next to the cat, fluffing its wings. Both cat and crow stared back at me, and I had the sense they were watching, waiting for something.

"What's wrong?" Spook's eyes were dark with concern. "You've got that look."

For a split second, I raised my eyes to meet his. "What do you make of that?"

He turned his eyes in the direction I had been looking. "What do I make of what?"

I whipped my head around to see that both animals had seemingly vanished into thin air. My mouth moved wordlessly for a moment, before giving up. "Never mind. It was probably nothing."

Casting one more glance over his shoulder, he followed me inside where Graham and Marissa waited. As the four of us navigated the long hallway back to the main service room, the stale, sterile smell made my nose twitch. Memories of my parents' funerals fought for attention, but I held them at bay, not wanting to revisit them now.

As we got closer to the service room, Graham turned to me and asked, low, "What kind of music is that? It doesn't sound like funeral music."

I cocked my head and listened. He was right. The light, lilting instrumental music was much different than the more somber, religious-themed ambient music piped in at our parents' funerals. "I'm not sure. It sounds kind of New Age-y, doesn't it?" Now that I'd said the words, it occurred to me that the music we were hearing just seemed to fit with the books and other objects I'd seen in Celeste's house. It matched what I guessed was her personality.

At the doorway to the service room, a thin, gray-haired man in an ill-fitting brown suit busily arranged memorial cards on a lectern inside the door. He didn't seem to notice us, so I went in first and said, "Mr. Conrad?"