Prairie Gothic by J.M. Hayes Page B

what?”
    â€œIt’s there, Englishman. It’s in the lot, right where I left it. Are you satisfied? Is there anything else you want? Should I double check the location of our school buses for you?” The school buses were returning students home in advance of what the weather bureau had decided might be a major storm after all. “Why do you want to know where our car is?”
    â€œTell you later.”
    â€œEnglishman!” she howled, startling a couple of nearby administrators. The sheriff didn’t hear her though. He’d hung up.
    ***
    Aside from the new addition to the Texaco, Klausen’s Mortuary was far and away the most prosperous piece of real estate in Buffalo Springs. It stood, perfectly manicured, freshly painted, and flawlessly maintained at the corner of Washington and Main. It blended into the neighborhood, among those businesses that were still occupied and not verging on bankruptcy, like a peacock among sparrows.
    The sheriff parked his Chevy in the lot at the side of the building. Even though the lot was almost empty, he avoided the main entry. It was all soft carpets and dark woods, soothing paintings that hinted at a gentle eternity, vases of fresh flowers, or now, in the dead of winter, the finest silk blossoms. If you lived in Benteen County, you could hardly avoid going through those doors for many rites of passage. Too many. Your last would probably be here as well. He followed a neatly shoveled walk around to the rear and let himself in the back door.
    It opened on an antiseptic white hallway. The building embraced you back here in a way that was less friendly but more honest. Englishman’s boots echoed reassuringly, an indication that he hadn’t left his body behind when he passed into this lifeless place of light and silence. The third door on the left was rented by the county at a minimal rate. The sheriff knocked and Doc Jones told him to come in.
    Doc was alone. His desk was uncharacteristically cleared of papers. It appeared that he’d just been sitting there in the dim light that filtered through the small high window behind him, eyes lost in the thousand-mile stare of someone contemplating the mysteries of life and death. This place must lend itself to such considerations. The sheriff resolved to spend as little time here as possible.
    â€œBeen waiting for you,” Doc said, shoving himself up from his chair. “Come on, let’s go have a look at our uninvited guest.”
    â€œThat necessary?” The sheriff had been in the mortician’s room that doubled as autopsy lab too many times. “Can’t you just tell me what you found?”
    Doc kept moving. He made his way down the hall to the first door on the opposite side. The sheriff felt like Doc was punishing him. Not because he was to blame, most likely, but just because he was available to take the abuse. A dead baby was hard on everyone.
    Doc’s office held some personality. He’d hung a couple of paintings, stuck some photographs on his desk, added shelves of heavily thumbed texts that gave the room a lived-in feel. The lab was the opposite. It felt died-in, but that wasn’t the case. People didn’t die here. They came to be embalmed, repaired, and groomed for open-casket funerals, boxed and tagged for transport to a crematory, or to lie on that cold steel table and wait for the coroner’s unwelcome intrusions. No, not people, the sheriff amended. Their shells. Whatever made them people was gone by the time they came to Klausen’s workrooms.
    Against the south wall was a door that looked a lot like the one to the meat locker down at the Dillon’s. Not without reason. Doc opened it and disappeared into the refrigerated interior for a moment. He came back carrying a little zippered bag. The sheriff had stuffed buddies into similar versions when he was in Vietnam. He’d come close to needing one himself.
    Doc laid it on the stainless-steel