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“You prepared the body of Agatha Armoury, a world-famous author, and knowingly put the wrong time of death on the death certificate. I don’t need to remind you that a death certificate is a federal document.”
“I am aware of what a death certificate is.”
“So, you will also know putting the wrong time of death on the certificate to aid a crime makes you an accessory. Depending on the crime committed, you could be looking at a long time in prison.”
The man stared at me as if fighting to remain calm.
“Do you commit crimes often at this funeral home? Is forging documents something you usually do here?”
“I did not forge a document,” he said trying not to snap.
“What would you call it, creative criminality? Call it what you will, but Agatha Armoury’s family was wronged and your business is about to become world-famous for committing fraud and embezzlement.”
“Embezzlement? What are you talking about?” He turned to Lou. “Your family asked me to put that date to save them the embarrassment of having discovered her weeks after she died. They said that they didn’t want anyone to think that someone so famous was the subject of neglect.
“I was sympathetic to their situation and instead put the date they found her. That’s all. I did it as a favor for a respected Tennessee family.”
The guy was sweating watching his world crumble around him. I wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse when Lou pulled out his phone and showed him that we had recorded what he said. But after, he looked calmer.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes bouncing between the both of us.
“What’s going on is that you are going to tell us exactly what you did for his family. You are going to include all of the gritty details or we’re going to make you one of the most famous criminals in America,” I told him knowing we had him.
Along with a lot of claims that he didn’t know what was going on, he walked us through what happened. Not everyone in a town as small as this required an autopsy. That was the case with Lou’s grandmother. She was in her eighties and could be listed as having died from old age.
Having examined the body, he said that that was what she died of. We had no reason not to believe him. That was especially after he admitted to, not only putting the wrong date on the death certificate, but ignoring the damage to the corpse’s skin which was most likely caused by it being in direct contact with the floor of a walk-in freezer.
“We got ‘em,” I told Lou when we returned to the truck. “We have your grandmother’s will. We have a recording where someone admits to putting the wrong date on the death certificate. All we need is the date your grandmother’s power of attorney was switched to your father’s law firm. If it was after your grandmother’s death, it’s done.”
I stared at Lou. I expected him to be a little more excited than he was.
“What’s the matter, Lou? You’ve won. Why aren’t you happier?”
“I’ve gotten back my inheritance, but how does that change things with Sey?”
“What do you mean? Weren’t your parents pressuring you to marry him? They don’t have anything they can hold over you anymore.”
“But Sey does. He still could take away your scholarship. He could still destroy Snow Tip Falls. Me winning back my family’s estate doesn’t affect that.”
It slowly dawned on me that he was right. We had done what felt like mission impossible, but we hadn’t changed anything that affected Lou’s fate. He was still trapped into marrying the guy blackmailing him, and we still couldn’t be together.
“What do we do, Titus?”
I wasn’t sure what we could do. But I knew what I had to do. I had to drop Lou back at his estate. We had been gone a long time. Unless we were planning on confronting his family tonight, he had to keep playing along.
“What do you mean you’re not coming back with me?” Lou asked when we approached the estate’s driveway.
“We found what we were looking for. We’ve done all we can here. But, as the official representative of Snow Tip Falls, there might be something I can do.”
“I can come with you,” he said taking my hand.
“You can’t give your parents a reason to suspect anything’s up. Who knows what they’ll do if they think their lives are on the line.”
“I don’t want to be away from you,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You’ll never lose me. I’m yours and you’re mine,” I said before giving him a kiss.
Lou wanted to leave the truck as little as I wanted him to go. But, he did. And when he disappeared past the gates and into his driveway, I turned my truck around and headed back to campus.
