Tribulation Bay Chapter FOUR

Andrew had risen with the morning sun shining on his face, which was something that he would have to start getting used to in this new house. As he nursed a large mug of black coffee, he meandered his way around the outside of the house which was a two story Folk Victorian Home with a large porch that went all the way across and wrapped around the sides. The main steps went up the middle of the porch with the main door parallel to the steps. The house was built in the early 1900's and was renovated around 5 years ago, bringing all electrical and other modern needs up to current specs. When it was renovated, a small strip of unused beach behind the house was cleaned up and made private.

The church, which was right next door to the parsonage was also built in the Folk Victorian style. It was a simple, unadorned one room church painted a simple white, with simple stained glass windows, with a working bell-tower and a large wooden cross to the one side of the church whose top reached around 10 feet from the ground.

He looked up to see the same woman who called the sheriff on him just the night before. “You don't give up, do you?”

“Why should I?” Miss McGrudibeggar held out a small pile of papers. “Here these are for you.”

“And they are?” Andrew glanced over the papers, curiously.

“As if you don't already know,” Miss McGrudibeggar smiled coyly, “it's an outline for the sermon I want you to preach tomorrow!”

“I already have something I'm going to preach on tomorrow.”

“I'm sure you do,” Miss McGrudibeggar said snidely. “But here's the way things are going to work around here. I will write the sermons, and you will preach them as I've written them; no deviations of any sort.”

“My youngest daughter can write a sermon better than this trash, and she's only 16.” Andrew waved his hand at Dawn, who was on the steps moving one of the boxes from the porch into the house.

“Your youngest?” Miss McGrudibeggar looked around to see if she could find the older one. “Where is the other?”

“She's back in Philly helping her boyfriend with a few things before they come here.”

“You mean to tell me that you left your young and impressionable daughter alone with some guy she probably just met unchaperoned?”

“First of all, they both grew up together, they were born in the same hospital almost an hour apart and lived next door to each other all their lives. Second, they are both over 21. And third, this is the 21st century, not the 19th.”

Miss McGrudibeggar's mouth hung open for a full minute. “Well I never!”

Andrew looked up to see a pick-up truck pull up with a man in his late 50's in the driver's seat, hooked to the back of the truck was a utility trailer with a ride-on mower. “Pastor Collins.”

Andrew quickly made his way to the man in the truck.

“Don't pay that woman no mind. She came to town about 6 months ago and literally drove the old pastor out of the church because she wanted to write his sermons to fit her personal views.”

Andrew raised up the sermon she wrote for him. “I'm not even here for 10 hours, and she's already doing that to me.”

“Preach what God leads you to preach, not what some old daffy wants you to preach. Anyway, I'm Frank Sloan, I was supposed to meet with you yesterday to sign some final paperwork. I'm also the groundskeeper, and I usually come every Saturday to mow the lawn and whatnot.”

“You will NOT preach what God leads you to preach!” Miss McGrudibeggar gave Andrew a sour faced look. “You will preach what I write for you to preach!”

“Wow!” Frank said

“OK,” Andrew looked at Miss McGrudibeggar, “tell me this; what qualifications do you have to write a sermon outline?”

“W-well I-I...”

“Thought so. I took proper training at a seminary for 4 years. Preached as an associate pastor for 3. Then preached at my own church in Philadelphia for close to 10 years.”

“So? That certainly doesn't mean anything!” Miss McGrudibeggar screeched out

“Frank tells me that you've only been coming to this church for 6 months, tell me, what church did you go to before coming here?”

“I went to a church in New York.”

“What was it called?”

“It was...well, I forget the exact name of it, but I went there for years.”

“You don't go to a church for years, and not remember the name,” Frank interjected.

“Dad,” Dawn came over, “mom wants you to place a couple of pieces of furniture.”

“Listen I have things that need to be done, so does Frank and so do you.” Andrew began to follow Dawn back to the house.

“You might as well sign these papers, won't take but a minute.”

“Tell your mom I'll be right over,”Andrew took the short stack of papers and began to sign them as Frank explained to him what he was signing. He looked over his shoulder to see Miss McGrudibeggar still standing there watching him like a hawk. “Is there something else you want?”

“Well, no.”

“Then go harass someone else,” Frank pointed in a random direction, he saw her heading towards Dawn & Caroline, “besides my wife and daughter!”

“You and I are going to have a talk about your whore of a daughter. So will the whole entire church!” Miss McGrudibeggar said as she walked on past them. “Mark my words!”

“There is something seriously wrong with that woman,” Carolyn said without even losing her composure.

“...OK, Mr. Luntzy,” Clark spoke to the tall well-built man who stood before him in the kitchen, as he glanced at the amount that was deposited on the screen. He had called a number that he had found on an online search, and despite it being Saturday morning, he came by almost immediately and gave the house a proper inspection after which they immediately signed the paperwork. “ I just got the money from you on my bank account now,”

“$50,000,” Rachael hissed out with an unapproving glance as she looked at the screen from over Clark's shoulder. “My father sold his for twice that much, and that house sat right next door.”

“That's because he's purchasing this house with pieces of furniture still remaining, and considering there are repairs that need to be made, the fact that I just want out of this house, with the fact that the money is already in my account, it's quite obvious that I've accepted the offer.”

“Now, about getting me a key,” Luntzy said, “is there some way we can get me a key now?”

“There is,”

“If you have a spare you can give me.”

“Just to be on the safe side,” Clark reached for his mother's keys and handed them to the man. “Just don't try to come by before Wednesday, even though I plan on leaving on Monday afternoon.”

“I won't be able to do anything with it until later this week anyway. Anything else?”

“Concerning the utilities, just to be sure; I'm going to have them take my mother's name off on Wednesday just to be sure on my part and do the final bill payment online this afternoon, at which time I'll be putting your name on the bill.”

“And you can do all thee utilities online; Gas, Water & Electric. Each one you should be able to do in a few minutes each.”

“OK,” Clark felt the phone buzzing in his hand, “I've got another call coming in.”

“Good luck on your endeavors.” Luntzy said as Rachael showed him to the door.

Clark switched the phone over to the incoming call. “Yes Lara?”

“I wont be able to come over to go through Mom's stuff until tomorrow.”

“It's OK. I need to do a few other things anyway.”

“It won't be until after church though.”

“That'll be fine. See you tomorrow afternoon.” Clark hung the phone up.

“Is everything OK?” Rachael had come back from showing Luntzy out.

“Why wouldn't it be?” Clark sighed.

“I mean with you and that nightmare last night.”

“Well, you know how I sometimes tend to overthink certain situations, and the fact that that police sergeant came out of the blue with the news that mom died a week ago. Kind of threw me.”

“There's got to be some reasonable explanation.”

“There usually is, and it better be presented properly when we go to the hospital morgue.”

“Why there?”

“Well, that's where they took the body.”

“I see.”

“Listen, give me around 20 minutes to do a couple of things on my computer.”

“In the meantime I can cook up some eggs and coffee,” Rachael began to move around in the kitchen.

The hospital morgue sat in the basement of the hospital, with Clark and Rachael standing outside the main doors. A woman in her 50's came to them holding an i-Pad. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Clark was the one who responded, “I'm here concerning the body of Doris Johnson.”

“And you are?” The woman asked.

“Clark Johnson, her son.” Clark handed the woman his driver's license for verification.

The woman took a look at the license and handed it back, then glanced at Rachael. “And she is?”

“Rachael Collins, my fiance,”

“I wouldn't exactly say that,” Rachael responded as the woman looked at her.

“What she means is, we made a verbal agreement only last night, but no public proclamation as of yet.”

“Well,” the mortician said, “I don't need to worry about that part. Just need to see your driver's license.”

“Oh,” Rachael dug around her purse to find her driver's license.

“OK.” The Mortician lead Clark to where the body was stored, pulled it out of the storage compartment and pulled it out. “Here's Doris!”

Clark frowned.

“Sorry,” the Mortician said, “sometimes my humor can be a little macabre.”

Clark continued to frown as he looked at the corpse that stare up at him. “Is this more of your macabre humor?”

“What do you mean? It says here that it's Doris Johnson.”

“Doris Johnson is a woman in her 80's who was shot and killed in an incident with the police just last night. This woman, who is clearly in her 50's looks like she was butchered and the body left where it was for around a week.”

The Mortician looked at her i-Pad and made a few strokes on the screen as she talked. “I think I know what happened.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“Two bodies came in at the same time, one Doris Johnson, and the other we could only identify as a Jane Doe. And the lab tech in a moment of dyslexia confused the initials of the two names, in effect reversing the names. Doris Johnson became Jane Doe and Jane Doe became Doris Johnson.”

“Does this happen to you quite often?” Rachael asked.

“More often than you think,” the Mortician responded.

“That's not very reassuring,” Rachael mumbled.

“but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.”

“Too late for that,” Clark sighed. “My mother's last moments were a bit nightmarish to begin with, then to have the police Sergeant arrive at midnight to announce that despite having to shoot her down only a few hours before, that she's been among the living dead for the past week!”

“I'm sorry for that.”

“So,” Clark said, “can we see the body of the woman your dyslexic assistant tagged as Jane Doe?”

“I can't do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because you're here for the body of Doris Johnson.”

“I'm not the dyslexic lamebrain that got the bodies mixed up!” Clark responded.

“Oh, alright.” She turned to the place where the body tagged as Jane Doe and pulled her out then pulled back the sheet an elderly face that looked like the Crypt Keeper looked up at them.

“Now that's her.” Rachael responded as she looked at the body.

“Now we can make arrangements for her cremation,” Clark added, “just a simple one.”

“The cheapest we can do is $1,000, no urn though, just the ashes put in a cardboard box.”

“There's no need for an urn anyway; what I have planned for them there will be no need for any long term storage.”

“I see, you'll be having a sort of a scattering of the ashes at your mother's favorite place,”

“Err--.” Clark said with a strain. “Yes.”

“Then this is all you'll need,” the Mortician came across the envelope with all of Doris' personal effects, “these are the items that we took from her, a wedding ring,” she held the ring up to the florescent light, almost suggestively to Clark.

“Are you sure that ring is hers?” Rachael teased. “I mean, if you got the bodies mixed up, why not their personal effects?”

Clark took the ring from the Mortician's hand, picked up a magnifying glass and held it up to the band, where he read the inscription. “No, this was my mother's, and the inscription proves it.”

“If you're sure.”

Clark put the ring back with the other effects, which weren't much, just a common lighter, a pack of cigarettes and a few trinkets she carried around. “Now, what paperwork needs to be done?”

“Just sign this, and pay the fee.”

“Will this do?” Clark held up his debit card. He waited for her to do what she needed to do with it. When his phone came up with the message that the $1,000 was deducted, he took back the card. “So, when should we expect to come around and pick up the ashes?”

“Any time after 9:00 Monday morning.”

“That will be perfect,” Clark turned to Rachael, “we can simply come by and pick them up as we leave town.”

“Oh, you two going on a honeymoon?”

“Not quite,” Rachael responded.

“Her family just recently moved to a small town along the Jersey Coast, and I've been invited to stay with them for a while until I figure a few things out.”

“Ah,” something else the Mortician need not know about.

“Well,” Clark moved towards the door, and spoke as he exited, “I'll be back on Monday, probably in the afternoon.”

“Where to now?”

“I have an idea concerning this ring,”

“That old thing?”

“This old thing, the band is made from pure gold, the diamond is a real 14 karat diamond. Have a jeweler polish it up, buff out the old inscription yadda, yadda, yadda, and I'm sure it'll make a nice wedding ring for you.”

“Are you really proposing to me now, in a dimly light hallway just outside of the hospital morgue?”

“Of course not, we did that last night outside of your father's moving van,” Clark teased with a smile as he flipped at the piece of costume jewelry that hung around Rachael's neck.

Andrew drove the U-Haul truck and hitch down to the service station so he could turn them in before he was charged for any extra time. Seeing nobody out in the lot, he tapped on the horn, but got no response. He peeked in what seemed to be some sort of office, again he found nobody there.

“Anybody here?” He called into the garage, which was open, which meant somebody had to be there.

“Be right out,” a decidedly female Russian sounding voice called out.

“OK.” Andrew looked up to see a 7' tall woman lumbering towards him with a 25 pound weight sledge-hammer flung over her shoulder like it was nothing. Shadows covered the features of the giant woman's face as she moved in closer and closer. He let out one of his “Christian curses” as he tried to back away, but tripped over himself and fell to the ground. He repeated the same curse over and over again as the sledge-hammer raised from her shoulder and over her head.