“What happened? Why were you not there?”
“I was a couple states over, doing a talk to a group of morticians.”
“Interesting. About tattoos?”
“Yes, about that, about preserving skin, about maintaining ethical boundaries, that sort of thing,” she muttered. “I lecture on it quite regularly, but I do try to stick to just my group of people in the industry, instead of trying to get new people on board.”
“Of course. That would be a less contentious position for you.”
“Denial is one thing, but giving these talks to people who aren’t believers in the first place is a whole different story. I also talk directly to tattoo artists and at several of the art shows.”
“Of course. I’m sure that is something you have to develop from the ground up.”
“Exactly. Look. I can give my sister a call and see if she remembers anything about the technician.”
“I still have to call her anyway,” he said, “so I’ll do that.” With that, he hung up and quickly dialed the number Tasmin had provided. “I’m looking for Lorelei Baker.”
“You got her,” she replied, her tone cross. “What’s up?”
He immediately identified himself. “I’m Hanson MacGyver, a detective for the local police department. I’m investigating the break-in at your sister’s place.”
“Great, what’s that got to do with me?”
“Some days you work there, I hear?”
“I wouldn’t say I work there. I occasionally fill in when she has to be away, just as she fills in here when we’re trying hard to stay afloat.”
“Right. Well, a week ago a technician came in to work on the security system, and you were filling in for her that day.”
“Maybe, but it’s not like I noticed. It was really quiet, so I was doing a bunch of my own paperwork. I just have to be a warm body there. It’s not as if I do any of her work.”
“And yet you could, couldn’t you?”
“Sure, I could. I mean, we’re in the same industry, whether people want to think of it that way or not. But I don’t, as it’s her job, and I have plenty of my own headaches here.”
“How is business?”
“Crazy,” she muttered. “In fact, my sister will be working at the mortuary tonight because we’re getting behind.”
“Right,” he muttered. “So you don’t remember anything about the technician?”
“No, I remember he was there, but I don’t remember anything about him. He had a uniform. He had an ID, a business card that he left behind, and he told me that he thought he had it fixed. I just nodded. He left the invoice, and I carried on.”
“Of course. Thank you for your time.”
“Do you really think this is targeting her or is it targeting the person who had the tattoo?”
“I have no idea. We’re in the very initial stages of our investigation.”
“Great, the last thing she needs is to have everything torn apart again.”
Hesitating, Hanson added, “I haven’t pulled all the details on what happened.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun for you then. There are plenty of details. It’ll take you a while.”
“Do you want to give me the gist of it?”
She frowned. “All I can give you is the company line, which is basically the family line. She was overworked and had a bit of a break.”
“What kind of a break?”
“I don’t know what you call it. She supposedly started talking to dead people in front of a family who was there to pick out a coffin. Tasmin had just come up from downstairs, as they were pulling out a coffin. They were trying to choose which one. The father wanted to go with one, while the mother wanted to go with another, and my lovely and helpful sister spoke up and declared that their daughter wanted the pink one.”
He froze. “Did she say the daughter was talking to her?”
“Oh, yeah, are you kidding? It ended up being quite a dramatic scenario. It was all we could do to separate her from them. At the time, the decedent’s family was both intrigued and upset, wanting to know if Tasmin was for real because some of the things she had said had been right on point.
“However, nobody in our family really wanted it to be for real because that’s not the reputation we want as a business. Yet the grieving family wanted to come back the next day and talk to Tasmin about their daughter. She had died from leukemia, and some of the things Tasmin shared with them were so consistent with their daughter that they wanted a chance to touch base again.”
“Of course that’s a real problem for anybody who can talk to the dead,” Hanson stated matter-of-factly.
Silence followed on the other end for a moment. “You’re not thinking Tasmin was serious, are you?” Lorelei asked in disbelief.
“I’m just saying that we’ve seen cases like this before. Time and time again actually.”
“Yeah, of course you have, especially on full moons and Halloween.”
He asked a few more questions and then one more. “Is that when she started her own business?”
“No, we sent her off on a holiday and thought she would rest, but instead she just got weird for a while. So we kept her away from the business. With her out of the picture, the hubbub faded, and we got the business back on track. Eventually she came back but worked in the evenings, when nobody was around. She didn’t have anything to do with the public, so we could keep things calm and quiet.
“Then, out of the blue, she started talking about setting this up. As I’m sure you can understand, my parents were horrified, but my father especially. It’s not the kind of thing that goes along well in this area, where most of the people have a staid background and traditional Catholic beliefs.”
“And yet the people are already dead, so it’s not as if Tasmin’s torturing them or anything.”
“No, but an awful lot of religions require that you must have all the body at the same time for a proper burial. Otherwise, for them, it’s not complete, and so this just goes against their beliefs.”
“Sure, but that’s not everybody, and those people won’t be the ones who want something preserved, right?”
“Maybe. Look. I’m not here to justify what Tasmin is or isn’t doing. You asked me questions. I gave you the answers. Now I need to get back to work.” And, with that, she hung up on him.
He stared down at the phone in surprise. Something about this family continually surprised him, as if they didn’t seem to think they had to answer the questions he was asking. And maybe the questions were unusual, but the problems he had were unusual, as was the crime. He shook his head and got up to grab a cup of coffee, when he noted his coworkers, Mark and John, stood nearby, talking.
Hanson walked over and asked, “Anything new?”
Both men turned to him and shrugged. “Not on your case,” Mark replied, “but we’ve got a grave that’s been disturbed over on Main Street.”
“At the big cemetery?” Hanson asked.
Mark nodded. “Yeah.”
“Any idea what’s up with that?”
“No, we’ll go take a look. We thought we’d leave you to handle this one.”