Death Comes eCalling by Leslie O'Kane Page A

playing hide-and-seek with me under his seat. I pretended to be amused, then carefully explained that Mommy didn’t like to be scared and warned him I’d get angry if he ever did that again.
    Later that afternoon, Carolee met Lauren and me at the door and said a brusque goodbye to us as the children obeyed her instructions to go downstairs to the rec room.
    En route to the funeral in the BMW that Steve normally drove, I mentioned how awkward it felt that Carolee never invited me inside her house.
    Lauren shrugged. “I’ve known her since she bought that house six or seven years ago. For the first few months, she never asked me in either. She just isn’t much of a housecleaner. It takes her a long time to feel comfortable enough with adults to let them see her house in its natural state.”
    “We’re not talking toxic-waste sites or anything, are we? I mean, you trust having Rachel there, right?”
    Lauren chuckled. “Absolutely. I’ve been in her house many times. Believe me, there are no health hazards.”
    “What about childproofing? She doesn’t have children herself, and she’s a nurse. Are there unlocked cabinets filled with drugs?”
    “Yeah, but don’t worry. The kid will have to climb over the open tar pit and the high-voltage wires to get at them.”
    I laughed.
    Lauren asked, “Have you gotten any more threats or bizarre emails?”
    Last night, I’d filled Lauren and her husband in on my encounter with Tommy Newton. “No, though I’ll certainly be watching to see which of our former classmates attend Mrs. Kravett’s funeral. Somehow I hope to spot some face at the funeral that’ll let me make sense out of all of this. Maybe someone wearing a button that reads: Have Email. Will Send Death Threats.”
    We turned at a busy intersection, and it occurred to me how unfamiliar I was with this town. Most of my world had consisted of the ten-or-so-mile bus route I’d ridden so many times, so many years ago. The scenery was lovely: lush hillsides, enormous oaks and maples. Alongside the main roads were stately, century-old homes meticulously maintained. In Boulder, those would’ve long since been turned into bed-and-breakfasts. Loyal as I am to Colorado, the color spectrum of autumn leaves in the nearby New York Adirondacks is breathtaking, whereas the Rocky Mountains’ aspens turn yellow. Not unlike comparing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to “Chop Sticks.”
    Yet even as a child, my life here felt like one big what’s-wrong-with-this-picture game. I was the object that didn’t belong. I was never sure why that was so.
    We parked and got out of the car. We took a couple of steps toward the church. Lauren paused and said; “Hang on. I need to set the car alarm.” She pressed a button on her keychain, then shook her head and added, “Men and their toys.”
    “Really. You know the invention for a car I’d like to see? A child-sized chute that goes from the house straight to the back seat. Kids would have a blast going down it. We wouldn’t have to spend twenty minutes telling ’em to get in the car every time we have some five-minute errand to run.”
    “That’d be wonderful. But it’s the men who design these things, so it’ll never happen.”
    “True. They give us such so-called time-savers as self-cleaning ovens. Who cares? Where’s my self-cleaning bathtub?”
    Lauren laughed. It was a marvel how our childhood friendship had defied distance and time.
    We sobered the instant we got in line to enter the church. As we slowly moved forward, a sense of revulsion mingled with macabre curiosity; our line led to a room that held a coffin, then into the main room for the service. My mother having had an aversion to taking children to funerals, I had never seen a dead body before. Curiosity won out, and I kept my place in line.
    I peered into the coffin. It struck me as almost obscene to gaze down at my once feisty teacher this way, lifeless and waxen. She should open her eyes and say, “Stop