Death of the Black-Haired Girl

32

AFTER THE WEEKEND Stack decided it was time to lay Maud beside her mother. Another spell of warm winter weather had settled on the region. Monday was the warmest December day in seventy years. He took the train out to Nassau County, to the Church of the Holy Redeemer, where his wife’s ashes reposed. He had left a voicemail message with McCallum and Jenkins the day before, letting them know about his intention. He called McCallum again before setting out and this time reached the man himself.

“We may have run into a snag,” McCallum said.

“What snag? You have everything ready, don’t you?”

“We have everything ready on our side. I expected to hear from the bishop’s office, but judging from their call today I don’t know if they’ve made a decision.”

“I want to do this today. If I don’t get it done…” He left the statement unfinished. “I want to get it done.”

“I’d wait until we heard from them.”

“Are you in today?”

“Yeah, I’m in,” McCallum said. “But I’d wait.”

“I’ll be over,” Stack told him.

He took a taxi from the station to the funeral parlor. At the front entrance he found he had to ring for admittance. There was no one inside except James McCallum, funereally dapper, at his desk in the front office. The lingering scent of lilies, he supposed, must be constant. He sat down in one of the chairs intended for mourning clients and took out his checkbook. The undertaker had an itemized bill ready for him, and Stack wrote the check for the full amount.

“So,” Stack said, “do we take it over?”

“Well, the thing is,” McCallum said, “I haven’t got their consent quite yet.”

“Fuck their consent.”

“I don’t know if that’s the attitude. Look,” he said before Stack could answer, “let me show you.”

When he came back he had a rectangular box that looked as though it might be made of slate. It was slate-colored, very dark gray and marked with a dark green cross like the ones that illuminated medieval Celtic manuscripts.

“You didn’t tell us, Mr. Stack. We had to hope it was satisfactory.”

“You mean it’s done?”

“That was how we interpreted your instructions. We had to take the risk it would be all right.”

McCallum held the box toward him in a way that presented him with the option of taking it or not.

Stack put his hands out stiffly and took hold of it. It was cool and smooth, considerably bigger and heavier than he had expected. McCallum rose and quickly took it from him and laid it in front of a gray curtain behind his desk.

“I very much hope it’s all right. Mrs. McCallum and I…”

“It’ll be fine,” Stack said. He had resolved to make them put Maud with Barbara.

“You look angry.”

“I’m not angry at you.”

He was surprised to hear mention of Mrs. McCallum because he had taken James McCallum for gay. In fact, the Mrs. McCallum referred to was McCallum’s mother.

“So I should take it now,” Stack said. “Let’s take it over.”

“Well, they haven’t made the call. I talked to them and I thought I had arranged it but they haven’t made the call.”

“That’s OK,” Stack said. “We’ll just take it there.”

“What if they don’t accept it?”

“Don’t accept it? What do you mean?”

“Well,” McCallum said in some confusion. “I was talking to a friend over there. I thought it would be all right. Now it’s unclear.”

“I’ll go clear it up.”

“I don’t know,” McCallum said.

“Give me the… thing there. What do you call it?”

“Casket. It’s a casket.”

Stack went and got it.

“I thought it was ‘cremains’ or some shit.”

“Mr. Stack, please.”

“Casket. I’m going to take it over there to the church.”

McCallum rose from his chair and stared at Eddie Stack.

“I’d better go too.”

“Why?” Stack demanded, gripping the box. “What do you mean, you better go too?”

“Believe me, Mr. Stack. I should go. There are laws. If for some reason they don’t take it — I mean, I really thought they would — there are laws about transporting remains in New York State. You have to have a license.”

Stack and McCallum drove over to Holy Redeemer in McCallum and Jenkins’s Lincoln Town Car.

“I was thinking,” McCallum said as they drove. “You seem angry. So I’m thinking of the laws.”

“I appreciate it,” Stack said. “Does this cost me more?”

Maud’s remains were strapped into the rear seat.

“Are you serious? Of course not.”

On the way, McCallum kept trying to call his friend or whoever it was at Holy Redeemer who had encouraged his optimism, but he failed to make contact. When they got to the cathedral the undertaker parked in the space reserved for funerals.

“Nothing today,” he told Stack. “Except us.

“We’ll go to the rectory,” McCallum said. Stack, carrying the casket, kept falling behind, out of breath. Then McCallum changed his mind. “No, we won’t. We’ll go to the crypt — we’ll ring for the sexton.” So they reversed course and headed for the church itself.

Holy Redeemer had been built in the mid-1970s. It was a long, vaulted building with two huge winged structures on either side, like the flying buttresses on a Gothic cathedral. Both of the buttresses were larger than the vaulted construction in the center. They climbed three low, expansive steps and found every door of the main building’s entrance locked. McCallum went over to a small brass disk beside one door, a doorbell of sorts. It looked like a very old device, something from another era. Stack thought it might have come from an older church and been rigged up for this one. Above it was a plaque that read “Ring Bell for Sexton.” McCallum pressed it. No sound was audible where they stood. Stack heard no result. He set the casket down and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

“So warm today,” McCallum said to Stack. “Don’t worry,” he added. “This’ll work.” He seemed to have grown optimistic.

“Good,” said Stack.

Somewhat to Stack’s surprise, after a few minutes the door with the ring button beside it opened and a man in a black cassock came out and looked at them in a not particularly welcoming manner. He was wearing a civilian collar with a red tie under his cassock and seemed to be some kind of layperson, presumably a sexton. Stack recalled hearing or encountering the term “sexton,” but its meaning was unclear to him.

The man’s gaze immediately fell on the casket with Maud’s ashes in it. Stack found his stare somewhat offensive. He seemed to know McCallum and to not much care for him.

“What are you two doing here with that, McCallum?”

“This is Detective Stack,” McCallum said. “Detective, this is Arthur Porgest, the assistant sexton here.”

A detective was a good thing to be in Arthur Porgest’s world. He shook Stack’s hand.

“Mr. Stack unfortunately suffered the loss of his daughter. He wanted to place her remains alongside her mother’s. I’m sure it would be all right.”

“You’ll have to ask the monsignor.”

“No, no,” McCallum said. “We can unlock the crypt and put her up there.”

“I can’t just do that,” said the sexton.

“Sure you can,” Stack said. “Just do it.”

Porgest stalked off, leaving them on the steps, and came back with a pale, slight, bald priest with a purple band framing his Roman collar. The priest had a pamphlet in his hand. He raised it to his forehead to shield his eyes from the bright winter sunlight, the better to see them more clearly.

“Hello, Mr. McCallum,” he said. “Let me guess. Would this be Mr. Stack?”

“I’m Eddie Stack,” Stack said. “I’ve brought my daughter here. I mean, I’ve brought her body here.”

McCallum and the priest looked down at the white steps of the church, away from the casket.

“We’ve heard about your need from Mr. McCallum. I’m Father Washington.” He put his hand out but Stack did not take it. “I’m afraid this is still under discussion.”

“What do you mean, ‘this’? Letting my daughter be with her mother? I want to put her here now.”

“This is embarrassing,” the priest said.

“Is it?” Stack asked him.

The priest, smaller by several inches than McCallum or Stack, kept the pamphlet at his forehead and looked at them with what seemed great intensity. Because of his baldness and the smoothness of his head, the reflected glow he cast was impressive.

“For one thing, I’m afraid I can’t ask you into the rectory at the moment. Or…” He gestured beyond the tall doors of the church. “We may not look busy today, but we are. His Eminence hasn’t made a decision on this.”

“Couldn’t we,” McCallum asked, “just place Miss Stack’s remains now? And perhaps talk later.”

“Mr. McCallum,” the priest said, “we are not a convenience-store operation. You don’t drop in on us. You,” he told McCallum, “of all people, should know that. And,” he told Stack, “you should too, sir.”

“Mr. Stack is a police officer,” McCallum told the priest.

“Is that right?” Father Washington asked. “Very fine. Thank you for your service. Actually, I think I read that somewhere.”

“How about opening up and receiving the kid’s ashes?”

“Yeah, well,” Father Washington said in a strange tone, different from the brisk one he had been employing. “Now you want us.”

“Yeah,” Stack said. “Now I want yez.”

“Not so easy,” said the priest, with the hint of a smile.

“I think she wants her mother. I think her mother wants her there.”

“I’m sorry,” Father Washington said softly. “I haven’t the authority.”

“She made a mistake,” Stack said. “I guess you heard about that. But she wants to be with her mother. Her mother would want that.”

The priest looked at each of them in turn with renewed energy. “Look here, guys. Let’s put Maud away for the weekend and we’ll all discuss it further. His Eminence—”

“Put who away?” Stack asked him, biting his lip. “Who we putting away?”

McCallum put a hand to Stack’s arm.

“Why, the young lady,” Father Washington said. “I mean… Miss Stack’s remains.” He took a half step back toward the door.

“Let’s put them with her mother, Father,” Stack said.

“Look, McCallum,” said the priest. “When you get back to the funeral home you can explain this to him.”

“You explain it,” Stack said to the priest. “You explain it to me.”

Father Washington turned away and disappeared through the church door that was unlocked. Porgest, the sexton, had been standing just inside.

As they drove back — Maud strapped in the back seat again — McCallum started to explain.

“It’s a very conservative diocese, Mr. Stack. Other places would be more flexible. They’d be — I hope they’d be more understanding.”

“That’s OK,” Stack said. “Not your fault.”

They placed Maud’s ashes in a curtained room behind the funeral home’s office.

“You weren’t drinking today, were you, Mr. Stack?”

“Not for the last two days. I’m still buzzing, though. Still intoxicated.”

“I’m sure they’ll see their way clear. They’re a very stuffy bunch here. And Washington, he’s a difficult man.”

“Have you been drinking, Mr. McCallum?”

McCallum smiled and wiped his brow again.

“Not for eleven years,” he said.