"Oh, um, thank you." Jonah looked up at Jemima as she offered the blanket, giving her a smile, coincidentally as her fingers brushed across his skin, something he barely noticed and certainly didn't note, as he took the blanket and covered the corpse.
Sitting back on his heels, he looked up at her and shook his head. "I don't think it's necessary to come back in. I'm glad you are doing well, just keep it clean and don't pick at it."
He'd b more than happy when the undertaker showed up. In the mean time...
"Marshal," he addressed Speed, "will you need me to do a more thorough examination?"
I took an oath for this job. The oath says bring him in. That's what I'll do.
Charlie stood looking at the smoke coming out of the post office. Thankfully, the fire hadn't spread any further and had been contained very quickly. People were still milling around and he could hear them talking about it. Looking over to where the body of Richard Orr was lying, he could see Doc Danforth and some others who had come over, including the Wigfall girl, who didn't seem all that eager to leave.
Seeing that Speed was headed over to the group, Charlie decided that it was best to follow. When he had become deputy a few days ago, he didn't expect something like this but then again what had just happened was totally unexpected. Orr had caused a ruckus a few days ago by holding an impromtu town council meeting and now he was dead.
"Marshal," he addressed Speed, "will you need me to do a more thorough examination?"
Charlie glanced over to see the undertaker approaching and waited to see what Speed had to say.
The funeral business is dying, I tell ye, dying on its feet!
Death had once again struck Kalispell. Death was his life; and no death, since that of his much younger wife some sixteen years ago, was not of some material advantage to him. Even the meanest pauper or beggar meant a fee from the Town Council for a makeshift deal coffin and a cursory funeral service at which he and his helper were very often the only witnesses. He had buried poor, rich, friends, enemies, he had buried them all.
"Make way, please gentlemen. I ken you've a deceased gentleman here that requires my attentions" His accent was still unmistakably Scots, but it was softened by many years in the Royal Navy and then the States.
"Och! Is that Dicky Orr I see, burnt to a cinder! Pooooorrr man!" he shook his head knowingly, as if he had been predicting this grisly end to the man's career for years. His eerie glance flitted from man to man. "Marshall, Doctor, Mr Wentworth, McVay" he nodded to them all. "Well what are your instructions, Gentlemen? Has the next of kin been informed? I trust there are no other casualties?" Not that he needed further deaths: Orr was rich, this funeral would be a nice little earner.
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"I'd say the cause of death is plain, doubt there's any foul play or McVay wouldn't have drug him out here. He listened to the approaching undertaker, a man not well liked for his brusque manner, and his directness without thought to personal feelings of those 'left behind.'
The family was here a bit ago. They know, and unless Mister McVay's got burns to be treated, no other casualties." Speed said."Guess we can just say accidental fire was the cause. I'll look it over. see if there's anything the water didn't destroy that means anything. Sad day, like him or not, just not the way a body should perish." He looked around, "Well Charley, I think we're done here, head up to the Lickskillet give this some thought."
"Mr. Jolly." Standing, Jonah nodded to the man, glad that Speed had declared the matter settled on McVay's word, so that he was done with the incident. And with the fire effectively extinguished, he could go home and clean up, then head to the Lickskillet for some pie.
Except...
There was Jemima Wigfall, gazing at him with those milky eyes, and he weighed his options.
"Mr. Jolly, let me help you with that. We can wrap him in the blanket then get him to your office." Where he could sneak out the back!
The funeral business is dying, I tell ye, dying on its feet!
The Marshall was happy with his examination of the body and the scene of the fire, so the body could be moved, which was good news. Mr Jolly didn't like waiting around: time was money. To his surprise Doctor Danforth offered to help move the body. Usually he and his helper, Gilbert, would have demurred, but in this case he was happy for the extra help.
"Mr. Jolly, let me help you with that. We can wrap him in the blanket then get him to your office." Where he could sneak out the back!
"I'll nay say no to that offer Doctor, I thank you kindly. These burnt ones go sour awful quickly, especially in this sort of weather, y'ken? Aye, there'll be little or no skin t' keep the fluids in." he explained matter-of-factly, while Jemima turned her ghoulish glance toward the large 'package' on the ground. If the doctor was hoping that this would be a good way to shake the love-lorn girl, he was to be sadly mistaken.
"Jemima child, you'll take a corner too!" he instructed her, at which she gave an obedient "Yes Uncle Col." The lugubrious undertaker took Danforth's expression of disappointment as one of confusion and filled him in.
"Do y'no ken that wee Jemima's ma niece, Doctor? And a fine girl too, I might add: as strong as she's bonny! She'll be a fair catch for some young man one o' these days!" a blushing Jemima gave a sniff and a little smile, basking in the glow of being praised in the company of the dishy Doctor D. With the four of them, it was pretty easy work to get the body to the funeral parlour, hefty though it was. Once there, Jolly's assistant, the reticent, almost somnambulant Gilbert took charge of the corpse. People said that if it weren't for his vertical posture, Gilbert might be mistaken for one of the funeral director's clients.
Jolly detained Danforth from leaving immediately.
"You'll nay stop for a wee dram, Doctor?" he told, rather than asked, Jonah, and sent Jemima to fetch a bottle of fine old Scotch whiskey that he had stored amongst the coffins and shrouds at the back of the place.
When she was gone, Old Col further sang her praises. "Och aye, she's a good wee bairn, our Jemima: hard worker, religious, and can drink any man in town under the table. And you know she has the sight, too, Doctor, did you ken that? She talks with my poor, dear, dead wife her aunt on a regular basis: it is quite the comfort to me in my twilight years, you may be sure!" he ruminated, his bushy white eyebrows raising up and down with emotion.
"Every town needs a newspaper."
Phinn was as close to being in shock as a man who'd fought in the late war could be. He was till there, with those who had gathered near the corpse that had been Richard T. Orr. In moments the body would be loaded and on it's way the undertaker's office where the family would go to make those final arrangements, when they were able, of course. He envied them not.
To be clear, Phinn McVay detested Dick Orr and all that the man stood for. His family? There are always those innocent beneficiaries of a mans inhumanity to man, no matter how slight. Of course, that was not the case here, Orr was a corrupt a man as was possible, but charm and whit can carry a man a long ways with the fairer sex, of that he had some experience. But Phinn had never set out to defraud, swindle, or, extort people, not that he could actually prove Orr guilty of such things, but the packet of papers he had managed to rescue, stuffed in his coat pocket might say otherwise.
"Gentlemen," He said as he rose. "I'll be at my office if any should need me." And with that Phinn McVay walked away
"Oh, you're related?" Jonah feigned interest, although the surprise was genuine and the dismay hidden. "Seems the Wigfall clan has many a tendril in these parts."
Then he was offered whisky and regaled with the charms of Miss Jemima...and he had to allow that he needed the whisky to swallow the assertions, which he conveniently did not acknowledge.
"You'll have your work, dealing with Mr. Orr," he commented, "but at least you won't need to worry about the viewing." For there was nothing to even patch together to view, save for just covering everything in pretty cloth.
The funeral business is dying, I tell ye, dying on its feet!
"Oh, you're related?" Jonah feigned interest, although the surprise was genuine and the dismay hidden. "Seems the Wigfall clan has many a tendril in these parts."
"Aye, you ken Mrs Wigfall, yon Jemima's mither: why she was a bonny wee lass when first I came to Kalispell, two wee bairns in tow and ne'ry a Father to their name... until wee Mr. Wigfall married her and made her decent. But bonnier still was her sister Elizabeth. And despite her beauty and her youth, she agreed to be mine. Ahhhhh... two short years we had, and then she was away. Beautiful still in death."
"You'll have your work, dealing with Mr. Orr," he commented, "but at least you won't need to worry about the viewing." For there was nothing to even patch together to view, save for just covering everything in pretty cloth.
Jolly frowned "Dinnie underestimate me, Doctor Danforth, dinnie underestimate me! You'd be amazed what can be done with a false beard, some modelling clay and a pot of emulsion."
"Don't bother, Uncle Col!" Jemima's stentorian voice boomed as she returned with three glasses of whiskey, one of which she passed to Jonah, the other to Jolly. "Here's to a just God who burns sinners in Hell!" she declared with no little venom in her voice and, raising her glass in a toast, downed it one.
Taking the glass of whisky -- he really needed it -- Jonah joined in the toast, silently agreeing that at times, God tended to give people their due, and he had to wonder what that meant for him. Of course, there were plenty of evil people who lived long, hale lives, and far too many good, innocent people who died far too young.
"I'm sorry to hear about your wife, Mr. Jolly," he commented, although he did have to ponder just what the man's perception of 'beauty' was.
"I think that's the reason I've staunchly avoided a relationship...I see so much illness and death, I don't know if I could survive losing a loved one."
That, and he could always walk away from a place any time he liked, but he'd be obligated to drag a family with him.
"So," he changed the focus of the conversation, "you can make Mr. Orr presentable?" Maybe reconstruct the semblance of a face, but the features of a specific face? That would be interesting to see!