The Empty Hours Read Online Free PDF Page A

spending his Sunday
driving all the way upstate. But he had promised her he’d combine business with
pleasure. This was the pleasure part of the trip, and in deference to his
promise and his wife, he refrained from discussing the case, which was really
foremost in his mind. He talked, instead, about the scenery, and their plans
for the fall, and the way the twins were growing, and how pretty Teddy looked,
and how she’d better button that top button of her blouse before they got out
of the car, but he never once mentioned Claudia Davis until they were standing
in the office of the Fancher Funeral Home and looking into the gloomy eyes of
a man who called himself Barton Scoles.
     
    Scoles
was tall and thin and he wore a black suit that he had probably worn to his own
confirmation back in 1912. He was so much the stereotype of a small-town undertaker
that Carella almost burst out laughing when he met him. Somehow, though, the
environment was not conducive to hilarity. There was a strange smell hovering
over the thick rugs and the papered walls and the hanging chandeliers. It was
a while before Carella recognized it as formaldehyde and then made the automatic
association and, curious for a man who had stared into the eyes of death so
often, suddenly felt like retching.
     
    “Miss
Davis made out a check to you on July fifteenth,” Carella said. “Can you tell
me what it was for?”
     
    “Sure
can,” Scoles said. “Had to wait a long time for that check. She give me only a
twenty-five dollar deposit. Usually take fifty, you know. I got stuck many a
time, believe me.”
     
    “How do
you mean?” Carella asked.
     
    “People.
You bury their dead, and then sometimes they don’t pay you for your work. This
business isn’t all fun, you know. Many’s the time I handled the whole funeral
and the service and the burial and all, and never did get paid. Makes you lose
your faith in human nature.”
     
    “But
Miss Davis finally did pay you.”
     
    “Oh,
sure. But I can tell you I was sweating that one out. I can tell you that.
After all, she was a strange gal from the city, has the funeral here, nobody
comes to it but her, sitting in the chapel out there and watching the body as
if someone’s going to steal it away, just her and the departed. I tell you,
Mr. Carella ... Is that your name?”
     
    “Yes,
Carella.”
     
    “I tell
you, it was kind of spooky. Lay there two days, she did, her cousin. And then
Miss Davis asked that we bury the girl right here in the local cemetery, so I
done that for her, too — all on the strength of a twenty-five-dollar deposit. That’s
trust, Mr. Carella, with a capital T.”
     
    “When
was this, Mr. Scoles?”
     
    “The
girl drowned the first weekend in June,” Scoles said. “Had no business being
out on the lake so early, anyways. That water’s still icy cold in June. Don’t
really warm up none till the latter part July. She fell over the side of the
boat — she was out there rowing, you know — and that icy water probably
froze her solid, or give her cramps or something, drowned her, anyways.” Scoles
shook his head. “Had no business being out on the lake so early.”
     
    “Did
you see a death certificate?”
     
    “Yep,
Dr. Donneli made it out. Cause of death was drowning, all right, no question
about it. We had an inquest, too, you know. The Tuesday after she drowned. They
said it was accidental.”
     
    “You
said she was out rowing in a boat. Alone?”
     
    “Yep.
Her cousin, Miss Davis, was on the shore watching. Jumped in when she fell
overboard, tried to reach her, but couldn’t make it in time. That water’s
plenty cold, believe me. Ain’t too warm even now, and here it is August
already.”
     
    “But it
didn’t seem to affect Miss Davis, did it?”
     
    “Well,
she was probably a strong swimmer. Been my experience most pretty girls are
strong girls, too. I’ll bet your wife here is a strong girl. She sure is a
pretty one.”
     
    Scoles
smiled, and