Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard by Fran Rizer

and both sides. White rocking chairs like at the Cracker Barrel and clay pots full of seasonal flowers create a pleasant ambiance. When my bosses, Otis and Odell, were little boys, they lived upstairs with their parents and played hide and seek among the stored coffins.
    My assigned parking spot is in the back, between the loading dock and the new storage building. We still kept caskets on the second floor of the house until a few months ago. There’s a small forklift that would raise the casket from the downstairs loading dock to the second floor. Once the casket was upstairs and situated, matching carpet disguised the opening where items were unloaded. The mechanism had developed some kinks. My bosses, Otis and Odell, solved the problem with a new storage building out back, but they’d saved most of the huge live oaks dripping with Spanish moss around the lot, and I like the pleasant plunking sound of acorns falling on the ragtop of my Mustang.
    I was barely through the back entrance when I heard an instrumental version of “It Is No Secret” signal that the front door was open. I caught up with Otis as we reached the front door.
    “This will be Miss Nila Gorman,” Otis said. “Her twin sister, Miss Nina Gorman, is the deceased. Visitation is tonight, six ’til eight. Services tomorrow at the Lutheran church at one o’clock.”
    “Couldn’t she have left clothing with you?” I grumbled. “I really wanted to go check on Maum and Rizzie.”
    Otis didn’t answer because right then, Miss Gorman came through the door carrying a large garment bag, puffed out with what must have been a lot of clothes. He might not have answered anyway—Otis can’t stand whining.
    “Good morning, Miss Gorman,” he said. “This is Miss Parrish, who dresses our ladies for us. She’ll be taking care of your sister just as you requested.”
    “I remember you,” Miss Gorman said to me in a sweet old-lady voice with a drawl. “You were at Molly’s shower. Her husband Bill is your brother.” The lady was the epitome of an elderly lady of the South with her sturdy lace-up shoes and crocheted shawl wrapped around a mint green sweater set that matched her wool slacks. I hadn’t been even slightly cool outside, but Maum always says, “Old bones are cold bones,” so I supposed Miss Gorman might have felt a chill in the air.
    “Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “I see you’ve brought more than one outfit. Let’s go in here and take a look.”
    I guided her into the first consultation room.
    Glad Otis had told me Nina was the one who died, I wondered what happened to the pastel shades of hair the twins had worn at the shower. One of them had a slight blue rinse on her hair; the other, a light lavender. Today, Miss Nila Gorman’s hair was snow white, no way to tell which twin she was. I couldn’t remember who had been lavender and who was blue anyway.
    “I’m going to leave you ladies to discuss the details, but you call me if you need me,” Otis said and left the room.
    Miss Gorman sat in one of the burgundy velvet overstuffed chairs at the round mahogany table and opened the zippered bag. She laid two identical pink dresses and two identical beige skirt suits across the table, and then she set two pairs of low-heeled pink shoes and two pairs of taupe on the table beside the dresses.
    My first thought was the woman wasn’t quite sure which size her sister would need, but they all appeared to be the same size. Beside the shoes, she placed two ziplock bags.
    “The tan is for Nina to wear tonight for the visitation,” she said, “and the pink is her funeral dress for tomorrow.”
    I sat silent for a moment. Since I’d come to work for the Middletons, I’d never had anyone want me to change the body’s clothes between the visitation and the service, but I could certainly do it for her. Our goal at Middleton’s is to make the customer as happy as possible under the difficult circumstances of their loss.
    “Yes, ma’am,” I