Paradox (FBI Thriller 22)

“Easy enough to determine,” Sala said. “We can have some of the urn ashes they returned examined, verify they’re human.”

Ty frowned at him. “I never thought of that.”

He grinned at her, chucked her chin. “Well, I’m FBI, and you’re only a lowly police chief.”

They were both smiling when they opened the wide white double doors and walked into the foyer of the Sparrow Crematorium to be hit in the face with cold air. It was wonderful.

“Nice place,” Sala said. The white walls were wainscoted with dark wood, making a beautiful contrast. There were flowers on a single table, a mirror behind it. It was like a lovely home, except that at the end of the foyer was an obvious reception area. An older woman with beautiful gold hair streaked with thick hanks of white sat behind a mahogany desk, watching them approach. The area was softly lit, soothing, Ty supposed, for the mourning families, reassuring them they were in the right place, doing the right thing.

It was very quiet, the older couple who’d passed them outside nowhere to be seen. Where were the owners of all those cars in the parking lot? Perhaps at a viewing? Simply standing here in this building made Ty uncomfortable. Was it because of a human’s natural fear of death and being forced to face it? Was being burned in an oven better than being buried under six feet of black earth? The dead person wasn’t there to care. It was so quiet, she noticed her own boots clacking across the rich dark oak floor.

The woman gave them a full, warm, very sympathetic smile. “How may I help you?”

Sala pulled out his creds and handed them to her. She studied them a moment, then looked at Ty’s ID. “I’ve been expecting you. Mrs. Chamberlain at the post office called to tell me you’d be coming to speak to Susan because of Gunny. Oh yes, forgive me, I’m Ms. Betty Chugger. Ever since Mr. Chugger ate himself into a heart attack and keeled over while he was fishing in his boat, eating a hot dog, I decided I wanted to be called Ms., not Mrs. I guess that makes me all modern now. I hope you’re not here to tell me Gunny’s dead?

Ty said, “No, she’ll be fine, but she isn’t called Gunny anymore. It’s Leigh, Leigh Saks.”

“Leigh? Why Leigh? Why did Lulie change her name?”

Sala said, “Leigh herself changed back to her birth name, told her mother she was no longer Gunny, she was Leigh. That’s her real name, Leigh Ann Saks.”

“Fancy that,” Ms. Chugger said, shaking her head. A beam of sunlight from the skylight overhead speared down on her hair, making it look like spun gold. “After a blow to the head, it’s a wonder she even remembered her real name. Well, strange things happen all the time, don’t they?”

“Indeed they do,” Ty said. “Did you personally work with Leigh, Ms. Chugger?”

“I hate to say anything about a person who could die—”

“We told you, ma’am, Leigh is going to be fine,” Sala said. “Were you working here when Leigh was?”

“Oh yes. Gunny—Leigh—worked here about a year before she left to go to work at the post office. You ask me, that was a favor to Lulie, hiring poor little Gunny—Leigh. Sorry, she wasn’t Leigh then, she was Gunny, b

ut all right, I can call her Taylor Swift if she wants. I remember you had to explain everything to her slowly, usually twice, but when she learned, she did simple tasks well. She’s a lovely girl, beautiful like her mother, Lulie—silly name, but Lulie’s such a superb baker, no one cares.” Ms. Chugger shook her head. “It’s a pity, but Leigh was born simple, or the idiot doctor who pulled her out of Lulie must have ruined her brain, whatever. Poor child.

“I remember Lulie called Susan to tell her Gunny admitted she couldn’t stand working here any longer, too many nightmares about seeing people on that conveyor belt headed into the oven.” She looked put out. “There’s nothing depressing or scary about it, I assure you. Everything is done with great respect. Landry oversees that part of our services. He always says a prayer for the deceased. Besides, if Gunny—Leigh—ever saw anything, she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.”

“Thank you, Ms. Chugger,” Ty said. “We’d like to see Susan Sparrow now.”

Ms. Chugger nodded over her left shoulder. “She’s in the second office to your right. Both the boys are with her.”

“Boys?”

“I mean both Landry and Eric Sparrow are with her. I’m old enough to be their mother, so yes, they’re still boys to me.”

Ty said under her breath as they walked down the wide hallway, past former Sparrows’ portraits on the walls, all the way back to the mid-sixties, “Didn’t you say Landry was forty-four?”

“I guess if you live in a small town, you stay young until all the older folks die off. Then you graduate to being an adult.”

Ty paused a moment to look at the painting of a handsome middle-aged man and woman identified by a gold plaque as Elaine and Jonah Sparrow, who’d died in the car accident and were the parents of the current Sparrows.

“They were fine people,” a woman said from an open doorway down the hall. “I’m Susan Sparrow, do come on back.”

55

* * *

Susan Sparrow was a looker, no doubt about that. Her hair was black as a raven’s wing, her eyes brown, her skin a lovely white, and a figure to stop a Mack truck. “Betty buzzed me,” she said. “Do come in, Agent Porto, Chief Christie. My husband and brother-in-law are here, as I’m sure Ms. Chugger told you.”

Ms. Chugger’s boys, Ty supposed when two men slowly rose to face them. Susan Sparrow said, “Let me introduce you to my husband, Landry Sparrow, and Eric Sparrow, my brother-in-law. And as I already told you, I’m Susan.”