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“You don’t need to do that,” she protested. She’d paled again, but I could tell she was doing her best to keep it together. “Besides, we’re going to be scattering his ashes. It’s not like they’re going to be sitting on my shelf.”
“Still,” I said. “Aren’t you going to have a service for Brant before you do that?”
She seemed to consider my question for a moment. Sounding hesitant, she said, “I — I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. But I suppose his friends will want something.”
“Then go ahead and pick the one you think he would’ve liked best.”
A nod, and then she started leafing through the binder as Janice gave me an approving look. Clearly, she wouldn’t have been happy if she’d had to hand over Brant in a plastic box.
After flipping through the entire binder, Sasha went back a few pages and left it lying open so I could see the page in question for myself. “I think he would’ve wanted this one.”
It was beautiful — a tall vase shape of fired pottery and a “tree of life” design done in bas relief, the whole thing finished with a reactive glaze in warm shades of green and brown. Honestly, I would’ve chosen it to hold pussywillow branches on my mantel if I hadn’t known what its actual intended purpose was.
And it wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t care about that. I took my credit card out of my purse and handed it over to Janice, while Sasha looked on with guilty eyes. After the funeral director left the room to process the payment and make the other arrangements, Sasha turned to me.
“I really didn’t expect you to pay for all of this.”
“It’s no problem,” I said. “I want to help. I feel like it’s partly my fault that this happened to Brant. If I hadn’t called him to help us out — ”
“You shouldn’t think that,” Sasha cut in. “Brant was very excited about this case. He hadn’t been called on one for a while, and he thought he would be able to make a difference. But still…thank you. I was wondering how I was going to afford all this.”
It had been a while since I’d had to worry about expenses from week to week, whether I’d be doing enough readings to make rent and pay the utility bills, but I still remembered what that was like. Just one car repair or trip to urgent care was enough to make a person wonder if they’d be able to cover their basic expenses that month. And paying to cremate someone and buy an urn was not cheap.
“Well, now you don’t have to,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. I paused, then asked, “What are you going to do after this?”
“Go back to Sedona and try to find someone to sublet one of the rooms in the house we were renting,” she replied. “I can’t afford it without Brant’s income, and I really don’t want to move. We were lucky enough to find the place — it’s a little cottage in Oak Creek Canyon, on the banks of the creek — and I don’t want to let it go. I know I wouldn’t be able to find anything half as nice on my own.”
I hoped she could find someone. If the place was as inviting as she made it sound, she probably wouldn’t have too much trouble. For a moment, I wondered if I should offer to float her rent for the next month, just to help her along until she found a roommate. Then I decided I probably should let it go. The first of September was three weeks away, and so that meant Sasha still had the bulk of the month to locate a roommate…and three weeks before she had to make rent. Helping out with Brant was one thing; I got the impression that anything else would feel too much like charity. Even so, I knew I’d be quick to help if she should ask.
Janice returned and said that Sasha could come back the next morning to pick up Brant’s ashes. This concrete evidence that he was truly gone made her pale a little, but she nodded resolutely and said she’d be in around ten.
With that matter handled, we went out to the parking lot. Sasha paused by the driver’s door of Brant’s Subaru, expression diffident. “I don’t know how to thank you for all this — ”she began, but I waved a hand.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I wanted to help. What are you going to do now?”
“Go back to the hotel and regroup,” she responded. “I have a bunch of calls to make. Then I’m probably going to watch TV and try not to think about much of anything.”
That sounded like a good plan. I told her to call me if she needed anything, that I’d be at the store until five but would be reachable by cell after that.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I suppose if you hear anything important on the voice recorder, let me know.”
“I will,” I promised. Despite the muggy warmth of the afternoon, a little chill moved down my spine.
I really didn’t want to listen to that thing…but I’d promised her I would.
We said goodbye after that, and both got in our cars and drove off to our separate destinations. The whole way back to the store, that chill stayed with me.
I had a bit of a reprieve until the store closed at five, but after that, I’d have to sit down and play the recording.
I had no idea what I’d find.
9
Cat With a Past
The threatening weather seemed to keep most of the casual shoppers away, or even the not-so-casual ones; the person who’d been peeking in the store window early that afternoon never returned, and I didn’t have a single shopper. I tried to keep myself busy by tidying up and putting in a couple of online orders for new merchandise, but even with those minor activities to distract me a bit, I didn’t think I’d ever had a day that dragged as badly as this one. No texts from Calvin, either, which told me he must still be off chasing meth dealers.
At least one of us was doing something useful with their time.
