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Channing
“I guess I thought that the mortician was the one to do the makeup and hair,” Loki said to me as I applied another swipe of concealer on the woman’s face.
“Oh, Brittany; you know Brittany, right?” I asked turning to him.
He was sitting on a stool beside my table and watching me work.
He’d been sitting in the exact same spot, going on three hours now. He looked exhausted, but he hadn’t stopped talking since we got here, asking me questions.
He nodded. “The Chief’s wife. I didn’t realize she was a mortician, though. I knew she worked in the funeral home, but I guess I didn’t realize that being a mortician was a—ahh, woman’s job.”
He smiled at me conspiringly. Remembering the fit I’d thrown earlier about what he said about female body builders.
I mock glared at him and went back to my client.
Her name was Penelope Stanley, and she’d died in a car wreck three nights ago. She’d been driving on a back road when a deer stepped out in front of her. When she’d swerved to miss the deer, she’d ran head on into a large oak tree, killing her instantly.
She needed a lot of reconstruction on her face, but her family was adamant about it being open casket.
I’d been surprised when Brittany had told the family she could do it.
Normally, if they were as bad as Penelope here was, she’d tell them straight up that it would be better to have a closed casket. The only reason she’d agreed was that Penelope was the wife of a member of the city council. She didn’t want to risk pissing off her boss, so she’d put in a lot of work reconstructing her face, and making her look as normal as possible.
“Brittany’s father was a mortician. Being a mortician seems to run in the family, but when Brittany turned sixteen, her father contracted cancer, and they had to sell the business to afford the treatments. When her father died from complications, Brittany set out to follow in his footsteps,” I explained.
He nodded understandingly. “When we made that bust at Bayou Funeral Home, you were up front. You’d said you were the receptionist.”
I noted a hint of accusation in his voice, and I wondered how long he’d been stewing on that question. He was a detective, after all, and it had to have been killing him not to ask it.
“I work—worked there as well, on the weekends. It was rare for me to be up front. Since that closed down, though, I’ve been picking up shifts at Clip Tease off Texas Street,” I explained, as I ran the sponge covered in foundation over the black bruises around Penelope’s eyes.
He grunted.
I worked while I listened to his brain turn over and over again.
It took him another ten minutes to get to his next question.
“Why do you do this?” He asked finally.
I lifted both of my shoulders. “I got in a fight with a customer. He kept coming in once a week just to get his hair washed. Never paid for a clip. Never tipped. Turns out, he just got his rocks off by having his head rubbed. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t come. He yelled, causing me to inadvertently drench him with water, and he’d called the manager. From there it degraded into a he said/she said match, and I lost my job. Not that I liked listening to people bitch about their problems all day long.”
“You probably wouldn’t do so well at being a cop. That’s all I fucking do all day; listen to people’s life stories,” he muttered as he watched me squish a piece of Penelope’s face back on. “That’s disgusting.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to it. At first, it wasn’t so great, but now it’s just natural to me. I enjoy the silence. I love that I can make them pretty for one last party in their honor. I used to sing to them when I first started. The silence was disturbing, so I sang. Brittany still teases me about that.”
He smiled. “So, what are your plans for Christmas?”
“I think my dad is going to try to come by. He didn’t really say he could or couldn’t yet, but he won’t know until closer to the day. How about you?” I asked.
I thought about the question for a few moments before answering. “I don’t really know. My mom and I don’t spend it together. My brother’s in Germany. I haven’t seen him in two years,since he took his command post. Normally, I’d spend it with Trance, but he just got married and all that fun shit. Guess it’s just you and me babe. If your pop shows up I’ll head home.”
My mouth pursed. Christmas hadn’t really been that big of a deal to us since my mom died.
“What does your brother do?” I asked as I inspected the color of Penelope’s face to make sure there were no inconsistencies.
“Master Sargent in the army. Although he met his wife in Germany, and I suspect he has no real desire to come home anymore. His job is cushy. He doesn’t deploy. Hell, I don’t even think he goes out of his office during the day,” he explained.
