Eileen Slovak

Chapter Eleven: Seeing Ms. Scarlet

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and locales are products of the author’s imagination. They are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental. Copyright © 2024 by Eileen Slovak.

Scott

I should be getting paid time and a half for having to attend a stranger’s funeral. I’m sitting in the last row behind a pretty redhead who I recognize from Sean’s social media. Thankfully most people don’t think about making their accounts private. I’m having trouble accessing his phone since no one knows the password.

Aside from Sean’s parents, I don’t know a single soul and no one knows me. Jeff says funerals are the perfect opportunity to observe members of a victim’s life, sometimes guilty parties turn up. From my vantage point, I can study the mourners and make some mental notes.

      I follow the attention of the congregation turning toward the sound at the back of the church. The wail of the bagpipes fills the church. The player, in full Scottish garb, strides up the center aisle. He’s followed by eight young, male pallbearers dressed in black, bearing the casket; Sean’s friends and relatives. They look too young to be charged with this task. It stirs a familiar wave of anger in me. The faces of the men in my former unit flash in my mind. Swallowing hard, I can think of a million places I’d rather be right now. Unfortunately, leaving isn’t an option. It would be disrespectful to the client. This job is the only piece of sanity I have right now. When the bagpipes are silenced, a hush falls over the gathering. All of these people are here to mourn the loss of this young man.

According to his parents, Sean Campbell was not the victim of accidental death. It’s their belief he was the victim of an insidious crime. Maybe so, maybe not. My job is to find out who in this crowd has something to hide.