What really happened to David at the funeral home?  Did he make things up to get out of trouble?  Let’s find out.  Enjoy the final part, Part 6, of Sorry Forever.  Thanks.

 

PART 6

 

OFFICER PETE AND UNDEN were outside of David’s hospital room talking with Susan and Frank.  Officer Unden’s cell phone rang.  He excused himself and walked away.  He put the phone to his ear and went about twenty feet.  Officer Pete, Susan, and Frank glanced over at him.

 

“We’ll be there,” Officer Unden said.  “Keep it quiet.”

 

Officer Unden walked back to the three.  “I’m sorry,” Officer Unden said.  “Mrs. and Mr. Forman, we have another urgent call to get to.  We’ll update you on David’s case in a few hours.  We’ve got to go.”

 

“Take care of yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. Forman,” Officer Pete said.

 

Susan and Frank watched the officers as they rushed to the elevator.  The officers were speaking in low tones.  Whatever they were saying had to be about David and his case.  Susan and Frank looked at each other.

 

The officers stopped talking as they waited for the elevator.  When they stepped inside the elevator they were alone.  Officer Unden pressed the button to get the doors to close faster.  Once the doors closed and the elevator was going down Officer Unden looked at Officer Pete.

 

“I know that look,” Officer Pete said.  “What’s this urgency we’re rushing off to?”

 

“Remember what that kid said to you?” Officer Unden asked.  Officer Pete shook his head.  “He said we were not going to believe him.  You’re not going to believe this.  The funeral home’s owner…”  He stopped talking.

 

The elevator had slowed and then stopped.  Three people got on.  The elevator stopped two floors later.  Four people got on.  At the lobby everyone got out.  The groups went in different directions.  Officer Unden and Pete were alone and heading for the exit.

 

“The owner wanted us to come back to his business,” Officer Unden said.  “He wants to show us something.  It has to do with Mrs. Dillard.”  Officer Pete squinted.  “Yeh.  Mrs. Dillard.  The dead woman that young David had to see.”

 

“Boy, I hope this isn’t what I think it is,” Officer Pete said.

 

“You’re not the only one,” Officer Unden said.

 

Officer Pete and Unden quickly got to their patrol car and headed to the funeral home.  It was the funeral home’s owner who found David.  David was unconscious on the floor.  He was next to the table where Mrs. Dillard’s body was.  The owner had said that an employee must have accidentally left a side door open.  That was the only way David could have gotten in.  Once inside he found Mrs. Dillard’s nude body.

 

“This is giving me the creeps,” Officer Unden said.

 

Officer Unden drove fast to the funeral home.  He turned on the siren several times to get through traffic.  This was an emergency.  They arrived at the funeral home in ten minutes.  Normally it would have taken fifteen minutes.  But their captain upon hearing about the case told them to get a handle on it and fast.  If there was a child molester in their community chasing kids they needed to know about it, solve it, and now.

 

At the back door of the funeral home stood the owner.  He was holding the door open.  He had told Officer Unden that he would be waiting for them there.  He had also asked them to park around the back.  He did not want or need the publicity that the case could bring to his business.  Whatever went on with that little boy and Mrs. Dillard’s body needed to be dealt with quietly.  It did not need to be in the newspapers or on the nine o’clock nightly news for the world to see.

 

Officer Pete and Unden jumped out of the patrol car and rushed inside.  They followed the owner down the hall to the room next to the last.  He opened the door and went inside and motioned to them to follow him.

 

Officer Unden and Pete entered the room and abruptly stopped.  They were caught off guard.  They had seen dead bodies before.  Some were mangled beyond recognition.  But they had not expected to see Mrs. Dillard’s body.

 

The owner had not noticed the officers’ reactions to seeing Mrs. Dillard’s body.  He got to the point.  “I’m going to show you what I found,” the owner said.  “I didn’t completely open her hand.  I wanted it to stay there until you got here.”

 

Officer Unden looked at Officer Pete.  Officer Pete squinted.

 

“By the way, this is Mrs. Dillard,” the owner said.  “She’s still quite beautiful, even in death.  I can see why the young boy was so intoxicated with her.  A schoolboy crush on a woman like this.”  He shook his head.  “It isn’t easily extinguished by something as simple as death.  Look at her.  You decide.  She’s perfect.”

 

Officers Unden and Pete could see that Mrs. Dillard was a beautiful woman.  Her body was still attractive in death, just like the owner said.  But the way the owner was talking about her was giving them alarming, uncomfortable feelings about the owner.  Maybe they should look into his background.  Maybe scrutinize his story a bit more.  He did find David on the floor.

 

What if David was infatuated with Mrs. Dillard.  He rode his bike to see her.  He sneaks into the building.  He opens the door and sees the owner performing an illegal act on Mrs. Dillard’s body.  David becomes angry and threatens to tell someone.  What if then the owner went to grab David?  David pulls away from his grip.  He falls and hits his head.  But before the owner could dispose of David he was interrupted by an employee.  The owner had said an employee was nearby when he found David.  The story was plausible.  The officers glanced at one another as if they knew they were having the same thoughts.

 

The owner sensed the quiet in the room and the possible suspicion being cast upon him.  “I’m not a pervert,” the owner said, sternly.  He realized that his admiration for the body may have been too much for the lay person, and especially for two police officers.  Many people look differently at funeral home owners and directors—as if they were not everyday people too.

 

Officer Pete and Unden told the owner they were not thinking that about him.  The owner shot them an incredulous stare.

 

“Anyway, in her hand,” the owner said.  “See here.”  The owner had a metal pointer in his hand.  He pointed it at her hand.  “I left that in her hand.”  Officer Pete and Unden leaned and over and looked at her hand.  “Here.”  The owner gave them a magnifying glass.  “I’m positive it wasn’t there earlier.  That’s why I wanted you to see it.  The body is in the rigor mortis stage.  That is why she has a fist.  Nothing should be in her hand for two reasons.  First, rigor mortis.  She could not have opened and closed her hand.  Two, without stating the obvious.  But I will.  She’s dead.  And that wasn’t in her hand when she got here.”

 

Using the magnifying glass the officers saw it.  They could not believe it.  But there it was.

 

Mrs. Dillard’s clenched fist was holding a button that looked like it came from David’s shirt.  In her hand was also a piece of collar that was certainly from David’s shirt.  The question was how did they get there.

 

“What is this saying?” Officer Unden asked.  He was not going to think about what he knew the owner was thinking.

 

Officer Pete would not answer.

 

“It’s obvious,” the owner said.  “When young David climbed up on the stool to kiss her…”  The officers looked at the owner, skeptically.  Without words they were questioning his statement before he finished it.  The owner could see it on their faces and feel it.  “He kissed her.  See.  Here.”  He pointed to her mouth.  “I’m sure if you did a DNA test it would be his saliva.  He French kissed her.  Or, bluntly put, he kissed her with his tongue in her mouth.”

 

The officers pursed their lips and did not speak.  What could they say?  There was saliva.  David was definitely hiding something that he did not want to say.  The kiss was probably it.  He did mention leaning close to her.  Why else would he lean close to her?

 

“When he kissed her something must have scared him,” the owner said.  “He may have heard the employees coming.  Whatever it was he fell off the stool.  Now here’s the strange part.”  Both officers wondered how much stranger could it get.  “You can believe what you want.  But I’ve seen and heard the unforgettable and the unimaginable.  This is something to think about.”

 

The officers were almost holding their breaths.  This case was about to get stranger.  They could feel it.

 

“What if Mrs. Dillard reached out and prevented young David from cracking his skull wide open?” the owner asked.  The officers sighed and stared at the owner.  “This floor is hard as hell.  Blood should’ve poured from that boy more than it did.”  He paused.  “She was a teacher.”  He nodded at her.  “Once a protector of children always a protector.  That’s the only explanation I have about the button and torn collar in her hand.”

 

The officers sighed and looked at one another.

 

“Mr. Tate, we’re going to suggest for your own good and for the town’s good that you don’t repeat this story,” Officer Unden said.

 

“It wouldn’t be good for that young boy to be known as a molester of dead bodies,” Officer Pete said.  “The kid isn’t a necrophiliac.  Is he?”  He looked at the owner.

 

The owner seemed to be at a loss for words.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “How would I know?” the owner asked.  “He didn’t go that far with this body.  If you’re talking about now?  I guess not.  Who knows?”

 

“It wouldn’t be good for your business to tell the public what happened in here,” Officer Pete said.

 

The owner nodded his head in agreement.  “And it wouldn’t be good for your police department to have people running around in a mass panic believing that the dead are coming back to life,” the owner said, “especially with Halloween around the corner.”

 

They nodded in agreement.

 

 

Strange things happen sometimes.  I can’t explain it.

I hope you enjoyed Part 6 and the entire story.  Thank you for coming by and allowing me to entertain you.  

See you tomorrow.

Thank you.

Stephen Wallace   

An apology can cleanse the soul sometimes.  Did it help David?  We’ll see.  Enjoy Part 4 of Sorry Forever.  Thanks. 

 

PART 4

 

DAVID SKIDDED HIS BIKE to a stop behind the tall hedges next to Guller Funeral Home.  He laid the bike down, crouched down and peered through small openings in the hedges.  Voices were coming from nearby.  But he could not tell how far or where they were.  The hedges distorted the direction of the sounds.

 

David stayed behind the hedges and moved along.  He could not take the chance to look up to see who was talking.  He did not recognize the voices.  They were not his mother or father.  They could have been his teachers.  He could not tell.

 

David was on his knees and stuck his head out further between the hedges.  Three men and one woman walked by.  He held his breath and sat down on the ground.  Did they see him?  He waited for a hand to reach between the hedges and grab him.  When it did not come, he crawled until he got to the end of the bushes.  A parking lot was in front of him.  Now he needed to wait until he could run across it without being seen.

 

He counted five cars in the parking lot.  One big man got into a small car and drove away.  He saw his chance.  No one else was around.  David ran from behind the bush to the funeral home and stopped at the corner of the building.  He realized he was not completely hidden.

 

David looked around.  He was afraid he was going to get caught.  His mother and father would be called to come and get him.  He would be grounded forever.  Worse.  Someone may call the police.  He would go to jail and miss school.  He would be locked up forever.

 

David looked back at where he had hidden his bike.  Maybe he should go back home.  He could slip back through the window before his mother knew he was gone.  But how would he get in the third-floor window?  He jumped from roof to roof to get down. That was easy.  He could not climb up the house.  The window was too high.

 

His thoughts were scaring him more than the funeral home was.  That funeral home scared everybody.  But, he had to be a big boy.  Be a little man like his father told him sometimes.

 

David ran to the first door on the side of the building.  He grabbed the handle and pulled on it.  It surprised him when it opened.  He had pulled on it so hard he almost fell down.

 

Now what?

 

David stared down a hallway that went straight back from the door.  It was long and spooky.  The farther back the hallway went, it seemed to narrow.  It appeared to end in a point.  The floor tiles were black and white squares.  The walls were a semi-dark green.  Silver drain covers were in the center of the hallway.

 

David swallowed and stepped inside.  He eased the door closed behind him.  He stood at the front of the hallway for a few seconds.  Rooms were on each side.

 

He took a deep breath and tiptoed down the hallway calling out in a whisper to Mrs. Dillard.  She had to be in one of the rooms.  What if she was dead like people said she was?  She would not hear him.  But if she was not dead, she would hear him.

 

Some room doors were open.  He looked in and kept moving.  Other doors were closed.  He opened those and whispered Mrs. Dillard’s name inside.  He got to the next to the last room on the right.  He took a breath and opened the door and whispered Mrs. Dillard’s name.

 

David froze.  It was not voluntarily.  His legs would not move.  They barely supported him.  His feet refused to take a step.  Even his hands would not let go of the doorknob.  He bit his lip.  His breaths were shallow, fast, and hard to come by.  He did not know what hyperventilating was.  But he was about to do it.  He was feeling dizzy.  His stomach was starting to hurt.  He wished his mother was there.  Why was he sweating so much?

 

David forced himself to take one step and stopped.  Then he forced himself to take another step, and another and another.  Until he was standing next to a stainless-steel table where Mrs. Dillard’s body was laying.

 

She was not in her usual skirt and blouse.  Her long hair was not in a bun on the top of her head.  She was not wearing makeup.  Her skin was pale.  She was nude.

 

David had a tough time processing what he was seeing.  Was this Mrs. Dillard?  He told himself not to run.  Steadying himself, he came to an adult decision.  He was still shaking, though.

 

The body on the table was still as beautiful as ever to David.  He would only look at her face, he told himself.  Minus not being dressed and looking exactly like herself, she was still pretty Mrs. Dillard.

 

David reached up with a shaking hand and touched her arm.  It was cold.  He stopped himself from snatching his hand away.  He did turn his head.  An object in the corner of the room caught his eye.

 

David walked over to a stool.  It had wheels on it.  He pushed it over next to the table.  He went from one side of the stool to the other.  He needed to stand on it without falling off.  The wheels made it move a lot.  He had to find a way to get on top of it.

 

David pushed the stool against the table and climbed up on it.  He gripped the table and held on.  He stared down at Mrs. Dillard.  She looked as if she would talk to him at any moment.  But, he knew better.  He was not stupid.  He knew she was dead.  So he thought he should say what he came there to say and leave before he really got into trouble.

 

“Mrs. Dillard, I’m sorry I said I hate you,” he said.  His heart ached.  He did not know why.  But, he was sad.  Never had he felt such sadness.  “I didn’t mean it.  I was just angry.  I’m sorry if I upset you.  I’m sorry if I caused you to die.  I’m sorry for everything I said.”  He paused and sniffed.  Then he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.  His face was wet.  Tears were beginning to flow.  “I’m sorry.  Bye.”

 

David leaned slowly toward Mrs. Dillard’s face.  He closed his eyes and brought his lips to hers.  The kiss was not like he thought it would be.  It was confusing.  What was he supposed to feel?  It did not help that he was the only one doing the kissing.  It also did not help that her lips were cold.  But he held his lips to hers for a few seconds.  He even got up the nerve to open his eyes while he kissed her.

 

It was time to go, he thought.  He straightened up and looked at Mrs. Dillard one last time before he would leave her.  He would never see her again.  One more kiss would not hurt either of them.  He leaned in and kissed her.

 

Her eyes opened and stared into his.

 

David jerked his head away from her and fell backward.

 

David tried to right a wrong.  Did he accomplish it?  Only time will tell. 

I hope you enjoyed Part 4.  I enjoy having you stop by.

I will see you tomorrow.  We’ll check in on David.   

Thank you.

Stephen Wallace