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at the request of the deceased, it is limited to the immediate family. Thank you and have a safe drive home.” Appropriate, I thought, as I stared at him and he stared back at me. No, not at me, more through me than anything else. Then the eyes swung away. They looked past me toward the back of the room where the guy in the blue shirt and gold chains was sitting. Greene's eyes paused again, as if he saw something there that bothered him a whole lot more than I did. Finally, he turned away and glided back into his alcove as silently as he had come.
    It only took a minute or two for the empty, oppressiveness of the room to wrap itself around me again and start to squeeze. If I sat there much longer, it would crush the life out of me. Besides, there was nothing more to be gained here and I wanted to talk to the grease-ball in the beige suit before he disappeared on me again. I stood and turned, but he must have slipped out the aisle into the corridor and he was already gone.
    My knees were weak and trembling, but I hurried after him through the lobby and out the front doors into the parking lot, but he was too fast. He jumped into the white Lincoln Town Car, started it up, floored it, and roared past me, kicking up a billowing cloud of dust as he bounced his way out onto Larkin Road. Tires screaming, the Lincoln turned east and disappeared down the road, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the hot, sun-drenched parking lot. Well, not completely alone. The deputy sheriff continued to sit there in the shade in his big brown police car, watching and waiting. For what, I wondered? Obviously not for reckless drivers in Lincolns. Great. Other than a silent prayer and some quality time with two caskets in an air conditioned chapel, my foray into the world of Buckeye mortuary science had accomplished absolutely nothing. I had scratched all the new itches that had bothered me since I read the obituaries the night before and got that out of my system, but in the end, all I found were the same old sores festering underneath.
    I turned and walked back to the Bronco, tossed my blazer across the passenger seat, and got inside. The mid-day sun had turned the interior into a sauna, so I rolled down the windows and turned the air conditioning up to Max, waiting for the big SUV to cool down. That morning I found a good rock station in Columbus, QFM-96, and this afternoon they were featuring some back-to-back-to-back Mariah Carey. She was one of Terri's favorites, so I leaned against the headrest and closed my eyes as her music filled the car. There are some things you can never get too much of, and chocolate, a good Napa cabernet, and Mariah are near the top the list. With the car finally cooled down, I dropped it in gear and took a slow loop around the parking lot, past the deputy sitting in his cruiser. I smiled at him as I drove out of the lot and turned west on Larkin. The deputy didn't smile back. I didn't expect him to.
    There was a Sunoco gas station a few doors down at the corner. I pulled in and drove around to the rear of the building where I found some shade under a big poplar. The area was mostly open cornfield. From my vantage point, I could see the Greene Funeral Home, its side portico, and the two black hearses parked at the back of the lot. That's where I decided to wait.
    Twenty minutes later, two men in dark suits emerged from the side entrance, strode back to the hearses, and drove them under the portico and parked them side-by-side. They got out, walked back to the side doors and held them open as two more dark-suited men came out pushing two gurneys that were carrying the coffins. They opened the rear door of the hearses, pushed the coffins inside, and I heard the doors slam shut. The drivers and their helpers got inside and the two long, black cars drove out to the street with the brown sheriff's car finally stirring and taking up the rear of their short convoy. They exited the lot and turned west. After they passed