Sharyn McCrumb - The Windsor Knot

The woman came out from behind the curtain now, looking concerned. Her lips were pale and her eyelids red with a well-scrubbed look. Charles thought that she looked sympathetic and her figure was all right.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a physicist, and I don’t know anybody in town. Would you go out to dinner with me and tell me all about your work here?”

The woman regarded him as if he were a weevil in the whole-wheat flour. “No way,” she said.

While he waited for his deputy to get off the phone, Wesley stared up at the picture of the cowgirl on the palomino. The girl and the horse graced the calendar above his desk. Every year Wesley would sift through the collection of complimentary calendars sent out by local businesses-in search of a new palomino and cowgirl to adorn his workspace. Usually it was the feed store or the local hardware that issued such an offering, but this year they had opted for collie puppies and waterfalls, respectively, so Wesley had had to go as far as the Milton’s Forge Tack and Saddle Store. This year’s cowgirl, a skinny blonde in a white buckskin jacket, looked as if the palomino she was holding by the reins was the first of its species she had encountered. Wesley would be glad when the year was over. There weren’t any trees in the background, either. Any place without trees made him nervous.

His conversation with Clarine Mason had been brief. He had told her as gently as possible that the photograph from California did resemble Emmet, as far as he could tell, and that being the case, he had a few more questions to ask. He wanted to know if Emmet had ever been to college or if he had lived anywhere but Chandler Grove. Clarine said that apparently he had, if he was presently residing on a slab in a Los Angeles morgue, but Wesley assured her that he meant before that, to the best of her knowledge.

“No,” said Clarine Mason, without a moment’s hesitation. “He went to the community college for a business course, but he’d lived at home then. Of course, there’s the army. He was stationed in Germany about 1960. Does that count?”

“It may count,” said Wesley. “But I doubt if it matters.” He told her that he would be in touch when he learned anything and hung up.

Clay, on the other hand, seemed to get trapped by every person he talked to. He always wound up saying very little during these phone conversations, except for an occasional “I understand” and “That’s not really why I called” or “How interesting.” The calls always started out the same way. Clay would inquire whether the funeral homes supervised cremations, and then he wouldn’t get a word in edgewise for a good three minutes. Wesley was afraid that if this kept up, his deputy would become a real-estate baron in cemetery plots.

Finally, on the last call, he managed to avoid having one of the firm’s representatives sent around to discuss their special prepayment burial plan (Because in your line of work, sir, you never know) and he hung up the phone with the air of one who has had to wrest himself from its clutches.

“Okay,” he said, turning to Wesley. “I have some information for you. And, listen, if anybody with a voice like Vincent Price calls up and asks for me, tell ’em I’m out, all right?”

“Persistent, were they?” Wesley chuckled. “What did you find out?”

“They didn’t want to discuss cremation, you understand. I gather it must not be a profitable enterprise for them. It does them out of embalming charges, expensive vaults, satin-lined caskets, and all that other good stuff that contributes to the high cost of dying.” Clay shook his head. “When I go, just wrap me in a blanket and throw me in the ground.”

“That’s probably illegal,” Wesley pointed out.

“Yeah, they got lobbyists in the legislature, too, don’t they?” He turned to the page of scribbled notes he had taken during the phone calls. “All right, most of the local ones say that they don’t offer the service because there’s no demand for cremations in rural areas. Especially not back East. Now, in places like California, Hawaii, and Oregon, about forty percent of the deceased are cremated, but in, say, Kentucky and Tennessee, the figure is less than one percent.”

“Land is cheaper here,” Wesley remarked. “Also, we’re conservative here in the Bible Belt. In Sunday school they taught us that resurrection of the body would take place on Judgment Day, and by God it’s hard to agree to have your remains incinerated if there’s even a tiny chance you’d be missing out on a chance to come back.”

“Oh, Wesley, that makes no sense. Why, decomposition of human remains-”

“I didn’t say it made sense,” the sheriff retorted. “But I’ll bet you it accounts for the ninety-nine percent who want an old-fashioned burial.”

“It’s not environmentally sound,” said Clay with the conviction of the newly converted. “One guy-Clarence Calloway, over at Shady Pines in Reedsville-allows as how cremation is a pretty good idea, even though they don’t offer it. He says that in the United States, a person dies every fifteen seconds, making a grand total of fifty-seven hundred bodies a day to be disposed of. That’s a lot of land going into cemetery plots. And every new cemetery means less forest, less farmland, and less living space for those that are living.”

“That’s a pretty convincing argument,” Wesley conceded. “So how come he’s not offering this service if it’s such a good idea?”

“He can’t afford to,” said Clay. “First of all, like I said, there’s not so much profit margin in cremation as there is in regular burial, and secondly, in order to do it, you have to have a lot of expensive equipment. Now if there’s such a small demand for cremation in this area, you’d never recoup your investment.”

“Well, suppose Mr. Calloway’s funeral home does get that rare ecological patriot who doesn’t want to take up space in the ground. What do they do about him?”

“They farm it out,” said Clay, consulting his notes again. “I have it written down here. It seems that there is one place in this area that has a crematorium, and what few families request it are sent over there.”

Wesley picked up his pen. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Who is it?”

“It’s called Elijah’s Chariot, Inc., and it’s over in Roan County.” Clay shook his head in bewilderment over the name. “You reckon they named the business that because of the association? Chariot of fire, I mean. Kind of a poetic term for cremation.”

“Could be,” said Wesley, “but if I remember my Sunday-school classes right, it means something a whole lot more interesting.”

“Want to go over and talk to them tomorrow?”

“I have to be in court tomorrow, but if I get out in time, I will. Before then, though, I want to know who’s in that urn.”

“Who’s going to tell you that?”

Wesley grinned. “An expert witness.”

Clarine Mason was on her second straight glass of Southern Comfort. No ice, for once; she wanted it neat. In case anyone should drop by she had put a dish of mints beside her chair. She wouldn’t want her neighbors to smell liquor on her breath. Clarine had fixed her hair in a French twist, and she’d put on her navy blue church dress-just in case. She had asked the sheriff not to tell anyone the news about Emmet, and he’d said he wouldn’t, but she got dressed up anyway. It occurred to her that she might like to talk about this strange new feeling of bereavement, but it was too embarrassing to be shared.

The first grief had been a clean wound. Five years ago, she had felt anger at Emmet for his foolishness-and the pain at losing him and her security and her identity as Mrs. Somebody, so important in a small community. But she had everyone’s sympathy, and no one could say it was her fault back then. She had told Emmet not to go.