Page 28 of A Rose of Steel
I took in a breath. I didn’t believe it, but evidently he did. “Okay,” I said.
“What do we need to do now to get this started?” he said.
“I,” I emphasized the word, “will need to call the hospital and have the body brought over to the new facility. I’ll let the County Commissioners Court know.”
“Can’t we do like last time and I just appoint you?”
“You really didn’t appoint me last time. I subbed for Doc Westin, he gave me permission to do it, not you.”
“Oh. I thought I had been the one who gave the permission.”
“No. But it’s okay. I’ve met all the people in charge. I’m on good terms—very good terms with them.”
“Okay, then you’ll do like last time and give me the report.”
“Yep.”
He paused. I could hear him breathing hard. “You’re not mad are you?” he asked.
“No, Cousin. Not at all.”
I hung up from Pogue, opened up a browser window on my computer and pulled up my email. I clicked on old mail and found a recent correspondence with one of the Commissioners. I composed a quick email relaying my sense that there may have been foul play in Michael Hackett’s death and, in my medical opinion, deemed it necessary to perform an autopsy. I also added, since I’d been so adamant about not working for the tri-county, that if I was not deemed suitable to do it, I strongly suggested that an ME from another county perform one before burial. I sent it and stared at the ad that popped up afterward.
“That’s all I can do,” I said to the screen. “And it appears that’s all that Pogue wants me to do.”
“You talking to your computer?” Auntie had come into my room and stood in the archway that separated the sitting room from the sleeping area.
“It’s better than talking to the dead,” I said.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said.
I didn’t answer her. I stared at my monitor and thought about Bumper. He was so young. So much promise ahead of him. Why would someone want to take that away?
“I see you’re lost in thought,” Auntie said. “I just wanted to come and check on you, make sure you were alright.”
She turned to walk away, but I called her name, stopping her. I thought maybe I should tell her my idea of what happened to Bumper. Pogue just wanted to keep it official. It would be nice to have someone to bounce around ideas with. “Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
“Oh heavens no!” She let her eyes roll upward. “As soon as you tell me all of Roble will know. Heck all of East Texas.” She patted my head. “When it comes to you telling me secrets to keep, best thing for you to remember is mum’s the word.”
Chapter Thirteen
There were mums all over the kitchen table when I came down for breakfast the next day. Big. White. Fluffy.
“Homecoming,” I muttered.
The silk chrysanthemum scattered about were used to make “mums” for girls and arm garters for boys, a tradition worn during homecoming for as long as anyone could remember. Mostly exclusive to Texas, the adornment was virtually unknown anywhere else. Sporting one, most Texans believed, began at Baylor University in Waco (others erroneously believe the tradition started in Missouri) and began with live mums worn as a corsage but morphed, like most things Texas, to something huge.
Now the mum flower was just the base and they were made with trailing ribbons and feather boas that when pinned, could cover half the chest and were long enough to reach the floor. Festooned with personalized trinkets of the kind seen on charm bracelets, popular with people of all ages, it had borne a lucrative industry with mum businesses popping up everywhere.
“I guess there’s no bacon,” I said. Josephine Gail and Auntie Zanne were sitting at the table, mums up to their elbows. The weekend before it had been wedding decorations I had to wade through. Catfish had warned me that homecoming was coming, I should have figured it was going to interfere somehow with me.
“Looks like you’re going to have to go for a bowl of cereal on the back porch today,” Auntie Zanne said. “Can’t have all that bacon grease popping all over my mums.”
“Why are you making them here?” I asked.
“We’re not making them, we’re dismantling them.”
“You’re dismantling them?” I asked. “Catfish said homecoming was this weekend.”
