CHAPTER 47

The sky looked as dark and murky as Scott felt. He’d taken a long shower because for some reason he could smell decomposing flesh almost as if the scent had been smeared on his skin. He put on crisply pressed trousers and shirt. No tie today. He ate breakfast with Trish. She’d prepared blueberry pancakes and sausage. She was in a good mood. Go figure.

As soon as he got in his Lexus he could smell it again. There was no mistaking the scent of decomposing flesh.

At the first intersection he pulled to the side of the road, got out, and started searching the vehicle. A splash of gasoline and a smudge of oil dirtied the plastic he’d laid in back before transporting the generator, but there was nothing else. He kept his vehicles as spotless as the funeral home.

He tried to ignore the smell. Get his mind off it. He turned up the local radio station.

“Isaac’s coming, folks. The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was reporting from our own Pensacola Beach this morning. The eye of the storm is about a hundred miles away. Winds at 160 miles per hour. That’s a cat 5, and this thing is in warm open water with nothing to slow it down. In fact, it’s picked up speed and is moving at fourteen miles per hour instead of ten. That means it’ll be sooner than later. We’ll be seeing the outer bands about noon and this monster will be making landfall sometime tonight.

“City commissioners for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties have declared a state of emergency and shelters across both counties will start opening this morning. I’ll be giving you their locations in just a minute. Folks, we’re getting a big piece of this storm, and it’s looking more and more like we’ll be in the northeast quadrant. That means it’ll be bad. Really bad.”

Scott shut it off. Hell, at least he’d be ready. He was exhausted but he was back in control.

Earlier he’d received yet another phone call from Uncle Mel’s family. Now they wanted to wait until after the storm.

“Is that okay? Will he be okay?” they had asked, but Scott could tell Uncle Mel was no longer their priority. There was a storm to survive. Funny, he thought, how the dead are forgotten when the business of living distracts us.

At least they weren’t forgotten by Joe Black. Again, there were no signs of a vehicle but Scott could tell from the alarm system that Joe was still inside. Where the hell did he park? There was an apartment parking lot on the other side of the trees, but he’d have to walk through the brush and tall grass that separated the two properties. And when did he start dumping his coolers in Scott’s shed? Liz seemed just a little too interested. Is that where he had first started smelling decomposing flesh? Had Liz smelled it last night?

Scott walked through the back door and the scent was even stronger. He caught himself cringing. What had Joe left for him today?

“Hey, buddy.” Joe came down the hall from the walk-in refrigerator.

Scott noticed empty hands and no splatters. He restrained a sigh of relief. Instead he glanced into the embalming room. Clean. So what was he smelling?

“I probably won’t see you until after the storm,” Joe told him, slinging a backpack over his shoulder.

“Making a run for it?”

Joe laughed. “You might say that. I have one more pickup and then I want to get my boat out of harm’s way.”

“You have a boat?”

“I told you that.”

But Scott knew he hadn’t. He would have remembered.

“Makes it a lot easier,” Joe explained, “to get around afterward when the roads and bridges are out. But I need to move and dock it at least a hundred miles west of here.”

“Biloxi? New Orleans?”

“In that vicinity.”

“I just heard it’s moving in a lot faster than they predicted.”

“Gotta go, then. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

Scott watched him leave and found himself wishing Joe had invited him along. Then he started hunting for the source of the smell. At one point he even sniffed himself, pulling his shirt open and taking an inside whiff. He checked the walk-in refrigerator but the scent didn’t grow stronger. Maybe once he got to work he would be able to ignore it.

He rolled out a stainless-steel table with the cardboard box containing Uncle Mel. He still needed to embalm the guy. Just as well do it before the storm. He’d sold the family an expensive casket even though they didn’t want it open for the memorial. Actually the expensive sell was always easier with families that didn’t want a traditional viewing. It was their way of compensating for their guilt of not wanting to take one last look.

Scott arranged everything he needed in the embalming room. He gowned up and opened the cardboard box, ready to begin.

“That son of a bitch.”

Uncle Mel’s knees were cut away and both of his hands were missing.