St. Louis Hustle by Claire Applewhite

Author:Claire Applewhite
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

When he left for Angel’s funeral that morning, Reggie’s thoughts consumed him. He barely noticed the barren trees and the frozen grass. At least, the dense fog lifted. He firmly believed that oftentimes, a murderer appeared at a victim’s funeral—and so, he would too.

Last night, a surprise phone call from Rick Valentino stunned him. He hadn’t heard from him in months—and now, he sees Reggie’s name on the front page of the paper, and decides to call. Great. Just great. He desperately hoped Rick wouldn’t ask to come back to work with him. Rehab or not, Reggie didn’t believe the guy licked his drinking problem. In fact, if he hadn’t wanted to believe otherwise, he would have sworn Rick was drunk when he talked to him, just a few hours ago.

He pulled into the parking lot of Schreckengeist Funeral Home. At first glance, he distrusted the place. Set against the leaden sky, the old Victorian structure almost looked sinister. Reggie almost expected a madwoman to poke her head from a stained glass window in one the brooding turrets, to rant and cackle, her long gray hair blowing in the wind. Still, no such thing happened. In fact, nothing at all happened.

Bewildered and weary, Reggie sat in the car, waiting for the right moment to enter the building. He always knew when it arrived; someone showed up, or something intriguing happened. He believed this time would be no different. That was the thing that he loved about his job—the excitement never quit.

As if on cue, the surprise appeared, dressed in a black suit, no less. Elvin Suggs, driving his silver Cadillac, pulled in next to Reggie’s car, accompanied by one woman he didn’t recognize, and one that he did. The sight of them took Reggie off guard. What was the link between Angel Cleary and Elvin Suggs?

From the confidential way in which Elvin spoke to the unidentified female, however, Reggie concluded that she must be the connection. Yet, to Reggie the woman did not look particularly aggrieved by the occasion. Rather, as she chattered to Elvin and Di, picking at her chunky gold jewelry and fluffing her hair with her manicured nails, Reggie reflected that she almost seemed energized by the outing. He couldn’t decipher the covert message. Time to move. He decided to trail them.

“Where’s the front door?” Elvin said.

Indeed, Reggie understood what he meant. The building had so many doors and windows it was difficult to identify the entrance. Worse, there didn’t seem to be any signs of activity, or even light radiating from within the premises. Schreckengeist Funeral Home did not appear to employ the friendly staff of sympathetic employees that Reggie had come to expect from St. Louis undertakers. To his dismay, he now found himself alone with Elvin and his “ladies.”

Reggie saw no reason to avoid them. Besides, his curiosity was piqued. He wanted to know who the woman with the gold jewelry was, and most of all, why Elvin and Di had brought her here.

Di spotted him first.

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