“Even though I was talking to the dead people?”
“Sure, that’s what you say, but nobody else is talking to them. So no one believed you.”
“And why would you even think I would lie about that?” Tasmin asked, staring at her sister, and angry all over again.
“Look. I’m not here to argue with you,” Lorelei replied. “I’m just here to remind you that you have unpaid bills. The bottom line is that I need them paid, and, if you can’t pay them, I expect you to show up and to work them off.”
“Great. Thanks a lot.”
“You need use of the facilities, and I need the help,” she stated. “So you know it’s a good solution.”
“Maybe,” Tasmin muttered, “but then I’d end up working twenty-four hours a day, trying to do that work and mine.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go off and have your own business, doing this,” she argued, with a wave of her hand at the workshop. “It’s all Dad can even do to let you in the house now.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Tasmin replied, staring at her sister. “It’s okay for him to be handling dead bodies, but it’s not okay for me to be handling dead body parts? I don’t get it.”
Her sister winced at that. “Okay, I get it. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it’s still him. And again, we don’t have any choice in it. This is how it is.”
Tasmin sighed, put down her screwdriver, then stood and faced her sister. “I shouldn’t get angry at you,” she muttered. “I’m just frustrated. I had the police here this morning about a break-in, and I needed that like a hole in the head.”
“What do you mean, a break-in?” Lorelei asked, looking around. “What was taken?”
“One of my pieces and, worse yet, it was put on display down on the Old Fountain Square.”
Lorelei turned and looked at her in horror.
Tasmin nodded.
“Oh my God. They took one of your tattoos and put it on display?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether it was a joke or something more sinister, but, of course, that made for a great morning,” she shared. “I’ve got the jobs to pay those invoices. I just need to get the work done.”
“I’d rather you came and worked for me anyway,” Lorelei admitted. “I’m getting pretty burnt out.”
“You and me both,” Tasmin agreed sadly. “We’re both in an industry with very little forgiveness and way-too-much work.”
“Since the damn pandemic came through, we have an awful lot more in the way of bodies,” Lorelei explained. “We’re really strapped. Dad’s working full-time, even though he’s retired. Mom’s been in the office every day, and here they had hoped to be off traveling and doing fun stuff at this stage of their life.”
“I think we all thought we’d be doing fun stuff, regardless of the stage of life,” Tasmin noted indignantly. “Instead we’re both running businesses and just trying to stay afloat.”
Her sister stopped and frowned at her. “Are you not doing this because you want to?”
Tasmin now frowned and stared at her shop. “I guess I’m doing this because I feel compelled to,” she muttered.
“I’m not sure that’s a good answer,” Lorelei replied, still frowning.
“No, maybe not, but why are you doing what you’re doing?”
Her sister glared at her. “Simple. Because you won’t.”
Tasmin laughed. “Not to mention the fact that having me around there wasn’t doing the business any good.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Lorelei admitted sadly. “Ever since it got out that you were talking to the corpses, it started freaking people out.”
“Sorry about that,” Tasmin said, “yet it just happens to be true.”
“See? And that’s how we end up in trouble.” Her sister didn’t seem to know what to say. “Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut, if that’s the case?”
“It’d be easier if the dead wouldn’t talk to me, but they insist on it, so what am I supposed to do? Ignore them?”
“Absolutely you’re supposed to ignore them,” Lorelei cried out. “Everybody else would. I don’t know why the heck they would talk to you and nobody else.”
“Uh, maybe because I talk back to them,” Tasmin replied.
“Yeah, but it’s not as if you can do anything helpful. I mean, we’ve had murder victims in, and you’re not talking to them.”
“I’ve talked to some of them. The trouble is, you guys want me to give answers to the cops that I can’t get because the dead don’t have any answers to give me.”
“And how does that work? They can give you all kinds of shit, but they can’t give you anything helpful?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.” Tasmin grew weary of this same conversation that they’d had time and time again. Nobody seemed to understand—or to even give a crap—and it was wearing her down. “Look. I can come tonight and help out, if that’s of any benefit.”
“Yeah, it’s a benefit,” Lorelei muttered, almost absentmindedly. “Anything is a benefit. I’ll see you at six p.m.” And, with that, her sister turned and left.
If it weren’t for the ongoing family dynamic, Tasmin would have laughed at the exchange, but it was something that was constant, never-ending. Every time she tried to get further away from the family business, they ended up in trouble and dragged her back in again. Sure, she could say no, but she really did need to use their facilities for her work.
Hearing the front door for a second time, she got up, plastered a smile on her face, headed out to greet the first customer of the day.
*
Follow-up phone calls hadn’t provided any enlightenment to speak of. Hanson checked with the security company, and, yes, they showed that the cameras were out this morning, but they had no information as to when it happened. They were checking their systems and would get back to him. Also, despite the invoice, they had no record of a technician going to her place last week. Pondering that, Hanson studied the invoice, picked up the phone, and called her.
“According to the security company,” he began, without preamble, “they didn’t send anybody last week.”
She sucked in her breath. “Well,” she said slowly, “somebody came, so what the hell did they want?”
“Presumably to find out how to get into your place.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“What about the cameras?” he asked again.
“I told you that they were out.”
“Yes, and what about last week when he was there?”
“It overwrites every seven days, I believe.”
“Of course, and he was there eight days ago, I gather.”
She winced. “Yes, that’s exactly when he was here.”
“So that was also on purpose.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“I wasn’t even here at the time. Remember? My sister was working for me.”