Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

She strolled into our bedroom, hands on hips. “Well, damn it, Dan, I left it right there hanging on the frame of the closet in the guest room not more than fifteen minutes ago!” She stamped her foot. “You had to have moved it. It didn’t just get up and walk off on its own!”

“I’ll help you look for it, but I promise, babe, I didn’t touch it.”

We searched high and low and ended up heading off to catch our flight one dress short.

Upon our return a week later our next-door neighbor, Mr. Williams, greeted us from his usual spot on his front porch—leaning against one of the pillars. He tipped his cabbie hat. “Hi there, Sara.” He tipped it again. “Dan. You all coming back from the beach?” He scratched his grizzled face and took a drag of his cigarette. He smoked it out of a holder.

“Nope,” Sara chirped, “just coming back from a wonderful trip to Bermuda.”

“Huh,” Mr. Williams said, and scrunched up his face.

I could tell something didn’t sit well with him. He spent a lot of time on his front porch watching the world go by, and was, essentially, the neighborhood watchman.

“How long you been gone?”

“A week,” Sara replied.

“Well, someone had one hell of a party in your house two nights before last. Lots o’ carrying on, talkin’, laughin’ and such…it went on until all hours. I thought about going over there and havin’ a highball.” He laughed a phlegmy, smoker’s laugh.

Sara and I looked at each other and exchanged glances. We knew who had hosted the party.

“Must have been my brother having his friends over for a party or something,” Sara said.

“Or could have been the ghost,” I chimed in, joking with Mr. Williams.

We all laughed, but for different reasons.

“Well, I hope your brother didn’t ruin the house too much. Sounded right wild,” Mr. Williams said.

We agreed.

When Sara went upstairs to drop her bags, I heard a scream. I ran up the steps and found her pointing to her polka dot dress hanging in the middle of her closet; the other clothes seemed pushed away from it. “Holy—”

“Take it easy, babe. Maybe Thaleia wanted it for that party she threw,” I said.

“Not funny.”

What could we do? We had a ghost. She liked to play with the electricity and hide things from us, end of story. The incident with the dress really got me thinking, though. I began to think about all the people that must have been born and died in the house over the past 120-plus years and I decided to do a little research. I went downtown to the local historical society and located the builder for all the homes on the block and then located the tax records for my house dating back to 1879. On a hunch, I wrote down all the names of the owners of the house and the years the property changed hands.

The next day when I went into work, I went down into the basement where the records are kept and took a look at our funeral service records dating back to 1891, when the company was founded. They are big, dusty, leather-bound ledgers with one gilded page dedicated to each entry. Back then, the owner only did fifty calls a year, so I was able to blow through the records pretty quickly. I knew the names I was looking for. It took me a little over an hour and a half to go ten years and find it.

In 1901, the tax records indicated, a man by the name of S. Roemer sold my house. The 1901 ledger listed an entry for a young girl, aged 17, named Juliana Roemer. Her father’s name was Samuel, and her address matched mine. Cause of death was listed as “cholera.”

In those days, the founder of the mortuary would have driven his horse and buggy out to the house, embalmed Juliana in her bed, and most likely would have laid her out in the parlor of the house for one, two, or three days for the wake. After that, she would have been loaded up on a horse-drawn hearse and taken to the cemetery where real gravediggers, not backhoes, dug her hole and bricked out a grave liner.

I ran my finger down the dusty gilded page and located the section and lot in the old city cemetery where Juliana was laid to rest.

These days, my wife and I go out once a year to the old city cemetery and lay flowers on Juliana’s grave on the anniversary of her death, and though things really haven’t changed at home, I no longer have to hunt for my keys in the morning anymore.

Sara still won’t sleep alone with a ghost in the house.

If you would like to submit your story for consideration in future compilations, please send it to Ken and Todd at www.menofmortuaries.com.

First and foremost I’d like to thank my agent, Elana Roth. In a literary landscape littered with apathy, she chose this manuscript and championed it, and ultimately made all this happen. Also, my editor at Kensington, Amy Pyle, who helped me produce the best possible finished product. To Bill Thompson, who I have had a relationship with as long as I have been scribbling, thank you for getting the ball rolling. Your advice on the original draft made all this happen.

I’d also like to thank my biggest backers and fans, my grandparents, Jean and Max Robinson. When I embarked on this crazy dream of writing you never doubted me. A special kudo to Barbara and Kruger; my beautiful wife, Melissa, who had to suffer the humiliation of our first date; my uncle, Rick, who taught me the trade, and all those I work with (you know who you are). To my peer reviewers: Megan Baker and Caitlin Navarro, I know some material you loved didn’t make it into the final product, but your advice on the thousands of drafts was, as usual, point on. And a special thanks to Scott Navarro for the author picture. Finally, my bro, Scott, and all the soldiers like him keeping our country safe.

I want to thank my sister, Katie; my grandmothers, Alyce and Katie; and Dr. Bob and Bill W. All these people have given direction and meaning to my life.

As this book was nearing publication, both my mother and her mother passed away unexpectedly and peacefully.

My mother always taught me that you can obtain anything in life that you want. She proved this when she became a commercial pilot in 1978. One of her big life secrets: “Always be able to laugh at yourself.”

My grandmother taught me many things: how to fish, bake, and even knit. And her secret for keeping cookies soft? “Place a piece of bread in your cookie jar, and your cookies will always be moist.

16 YEARS, 1938

80 YEARS, 2002

ALYCE K. MCKENZIE

APRIL 28, 1922–FEBRUARY 15, 2008

People usually ask me where my freewheeling sense of adventure comes from—writing a book like this, for example—and I tell them, hands down, it came from my grandma. My grandma’s unique sense of humor and spirited personality shaped my life and helped me achieve all that I have. I think the above photos show her personality. In the photo on the left the year was 1938, my grandma was 16, and she had just been at the Solano County Fair. Alyce—grandma—saw what were billed as “Live Nude Dancers” there (behind wooden fences, of course—it was 1938, after all). Later, tooling around with her friend Dorothy in Alyce’s Model T, they came upon a wooden fence. Dorothy posed a dare. Sixty-four years and a lot of bragging later, how could Alyce top that photo? Do it again at age eighty! Grandma, this book is dedicated to you.