Chapter 2 - The Trap Springs Shut
The air inside the mortuary prep room turned to ice.
Julian’s face went from pale white to a sickly, mottled gray. For two terrifying seconds, nobody moved. The hum of the industrial ventilation system sounded like a roaring waterfall in the sudden silence.
“Give me that!” Julian roared, lunging across the stainless-steel prep table toward Thomas Ramos.
He was fast, but Thomas was faster. The veteran mortician stepped back smoothly, slipping the scrap of paper and the small glass vial into his chest pocket while shielding the body with his broad frame.
“Touch me, Mr. Vance, and my staff will have you on the floor before you can blink,” Thomas said, his voice dropping into a low, deadly calm.
Two junior mortuary assistants stepped forward from the doorway, blocking Julian’s path. Julian skidded to a halt, his hands twitching at his sides, his eyes darting frantically from the blocked door to the high, frosted windows of the prep room.
I stared at the man I had shared a bed with for six years. The polished, charming executive was completely gone. In his place stood a cornered animal, gasping for air, his pristine linen shirt soaked in nervous sweat.
“Valeria, listen to me,” Julian stammered, raising both hands in a pleading gesture. “It’s... it’s a mistake! Your father was confused! He was suffering from severe hypoxia during the attack. He didn’t know what he was writing!”
“He knew your name, Julian,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was cold, razor-sharp, stripped of every trace of grief. “He knew your name, and he knew you were killing him.”
“Valeria, baby, please! I love you! I did everything for us! For our future!” He took a desperate step toward me. “The stress ruined his mind! He blamed me for company losses—he was trying to frame me!”
“Frame you?” I echoed, letting out a sharp, bitter laugh. “He was dying, Julian! In his final seconds on earth, while his heart was failing, he hid this note in his fist so you couldn’t burn his body and hide your crime!”
Outside, the faint wail of police sirens cut through the morning air, growing louder with every passing second.
Thomas had kept his word. The call had been made.
Julian’s head snapped toward the window. Panic took over completely. He turned toward the rear exit that led to the loading bay, but Thomas picked up a heavy brass clipboard and slammed it against the door’s manual override lock, flipping the deadbolt into place.
“You’re not going anywhere, son,” Thomas said quietly.
“Let me out!” Julian screamed, slamming his shoulder against the heavy metal door. “You don’t know who I am! I run the Vargas Group! I’ll buy this whole damn building and tear it down with you inside it!”
“You don’t run anything,” I said, walking slowly until I stood directly beside my father’s body. I looked down at his peaceful, motionless face. The purple bruise on his right wrist stood out sharply against his pale skin—a mark where Julian had forcibly held him down.
I reached out and gently touched my father’s cold forehead. I hear you, Dad, I thought. I hear you now.
The heavy double doors of the crematorium lobby burst open. Four armed Westchester police officers swept into the prep room, led by a tall, weather-beaten detective with sharp gray eyes and a heavy trench coat.
“Police! Nobody move!” Detective Frank Miller commanded, his hand resting on his sidearm holster.
“Detective!” Julian shouted, instantly dropping to his knees and raising his hands, trying to assume the posture of an innocent victim. “Thank God you’re here! My wife is suffering from a severe psychotic break! She’s tampering with my father-in-law’s remains and making wild accusations!”
Detective Miller looked at Julian, then at the mortician, and finally at me. He noticed my bare, bleeding feet, my torn coat, and the fierce, burning light in my eyes.
“Thomas,” Miller said, recognizing the mortician. “What’s going on here?”
“Detective Miller,” Thomas said, stepping forward and carefully pulling the glass vial and the crumpled paper from his pocket using a pair of sterile medical forceps. “Richard Vargas was brought in for immediate cremation under suspicious pressure from Mr. Vance. Upon examining the deceased, we discovered these hidden inside his right hand.”
Miller accepted the vial and the note inside a plastic evidence bag. He read the note through the clear plastic. His eyebrows pulled together in a tight, ominous line.
He looked down at Julian. “Swapped his medication, huh?”
“It’s a forgery!” Julian shrieked, his voice cracking into a high-pitched whine. “Valeria wrote it! She wrote it while I was in the lobby!”
“She didn’t write it, Mr. Vance,” Thomas said flatly. “I’ve handled Richard Vargas’s legal estate paperwork for twenty years. That is undeniably Richard’s handwriting. And more importantly, rigor mortis had already locked his hand around that scrap before he arrived here. Nobody could have slipped that into his palm after he died.”
Detective Miller nodded once to his officers.
“Julian Vance,” Miller said, stepping forward and pulling a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his belt. “You are being detained in connection with the suspicious death of Richard Vargas. You have the right to remain silent...”
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“Valeria! Tell them!” Julian screamed as the steel cuffs snapped tightly around his wrists. “Call Eleanor! Call my mother! Valeria, don’t let them do this to me!”
I stood beside my father’s body, my arms crossed over my chest, watching in absolute silence as my husband was dragged out of the crematorium into the bright morning sun.
