Despite the fact that they still had no solid leads on what happened to Aspen Harbor’s local bookish celebrity, a funeral needed to be held. Carmen didn’t get her ice cream, or her promised Monday off, but at this point she was so intrigued by it all, and frustrated that she’d been told to wait for answers as to the the cause of death, that she couldn’t have enjoyed a weekend rotting into her sofa if she tried.

Lionel was an utter mess, he could hardly hold himself together long enough to help navigate the funeral planning. A grieving Mrs. Desiree Crane and a panicked/grieving/tired newbie publishing agent—who was more akin to a PA than an actual agent—named Lucy Buckingham had bombarded him with questions. He’d grown overwhelmed, so she’d taken over. Did she do the paperwork right? No idea. She’d figure it out later. The most important thing was that it was done enough. All they could manage right now was enough.

Go figure, it rained heavily the day of the funeral. It was scheduled for the following Friday morning, one week after the writer’s death and a handful of days after the somewhat somber launch of his new book: Dark Moon O’er the Harbor. The service was quiet and kept hidden from the public. Link was nowhere close to being a bestseller by any means, but he had fans, and the news of his sudden passing had riled up the book community. Even the BooTube world, which was small and niche, was mourning the loss. 

Famed reviewer NyxNovelNook popped out of their short hiatus to make a video about the news and dropped their review on the new, now posthumous, release that they’d happened to receive an advanced copy of with soft words of sorrow. It was enough to inspire Carmen to grab the books for new reading material, even if the series wasn’t full of hot werewolves and buff gargoyles like she typically preferred. She was entranced by the story, needed to know who the killer was, what lingered in the darkened sea, and found herself up until sunrise several days out of the week—which didn’t help her haggard appearance.

Lincoln Crane had a way with words. Or, he did.

When Carmen went to visit The Quirky Quill—the indie bookstore in the city that Lincoln was meant to do his reading and signing at—on Sunday, the air was heavy. The display set up for the author was sweet if not somewhat tacky, obviously now capitalizing on the tragedy more than celebrating the release. She’d offered to go with Lucy since the agent was an absolute mess and had no idea where to even go or how to handle damage control, so they took a small road trip.

Carmen liked Lucy, even if she was a drama queen. The English transplant had taken over from Lincoln’s previous agent a few months prior, and she felt as if she kept messing everything up. From events, to contracts, to the abysmal haircut she’d gotten that was meant to be trendy but made her look like a mushroom, everything had her bursting into tears. So it was no surprise that she was a mess during the funeral, too.

The service was somber. Apparently the writer loved yellow despite his horror-adjacent, well, everything, so the church where his service was held on the far end of Aspen Harbor was full of yellow blooms as far as the eye could see. The writer had been carefully dressed in a nice suit from his wardrobe with skull embroidery on the lapels, and the private funeral was watched by the employees of the Kingfisher Funeral Home from a safe distance near the back. Carmen could tell it was eating Lionel up, the dark circles under his eyes had grown and he’d hardly been able to get a shave in. It drove Carmen nuts, so she sat him down on the autopsy table before they’d left the funeral home to help him clean up. He was thankful, but it was obvious he was hurting.

They’d uncovered little in the way of the autopsy, and it truly did seem as though Lincoln Crane had died of natural causes. Waiting on the toxicology report would be the death of her, it took much longer than TV shows would lead one to believe, but it was the only other route they could take. Sheriff Goode did end up transporting the body to a hospital in the nearby city for a second check with more professional equipment, mostly for everyone’s peace of mind, at the request of Lionel.

The mortician said he was thankful for Carmen’s help, and she’d done well, it just didn’t sit right with him and he didn’t have the full range of equipment needed to check everything. But the hospital hadn’t found anything unusual, either, so now it was simply waiting for the bloodwork to come back.

Carmen stood in her best black dress in the back of the chapel, watching the guests with a curious eye. She was on alert. Her obsessive binging of true crime documentaries during college had her trained to know that if Lincoln’s death was brought on by the hand of someone else, they’d probably be in the pews somewhere. Watching. Observing. Smirking. Or not. Probably not. But she was still positive it was foul play. Though if that surety was due to her own boredom or fact, she couldn’t quite be sure since her attention kept turning to her boss.

The rain covered the windows at their side, the sound of the storm pattering down atop the roof moved in rhythm with the organ that was playing a hymn as the priest finished up the service, asking for mourners to come say final goodbyes and offer condolences to Mrs. Crane. With a gentle hand, Carmen told Lionel to go say farewell while she got the hearse engine turned over so they would be warm. Technically, the next stop would have been the cemetery, but with the intensity of the storm and Mrs. Crane’s wishes to be the sole person at the graveside, they opted to take the writer back to the funeral home until the weather cleared and his mother could find the constitution to handle the situation.

Carmen watched as her boss, dressed in his finest suit, walked down the aisle to join the other mourners. With a sigh, she grabbed her parasol from the bucket by the door and headed out into the rainstorm to go warm up their ride.

After they’d gotten the coffin back into the funeral home through the back door and situated in the empty on-site chapel, Carmen told Lionel to go rest while she wiped the rainwater off of the black-painted wood to keep it pristine. Lionel gave her his thanks and made his way to the office.

Carefully, Carmen ensured every inch of the coffin was dry and the writer was taken care of. She replaced the wreath of yellow lilies and baby’s breath on top of the curved surface and took a step back to look at the beautiful box. From what she understood, Lionel special ordered the coffin from a woodworker on the other side of the country, and she had no idea if her boss knew the significance of the address on the slip that came alongside the delivery. Cane’s Coffins, Wylder Wood, Colorado. A place only known to those in the know, and she had no idea if her boss was in the know or just had really dumb luck and good connections.

Sometimes it was hard to tell if her employer was really that blissfully unaware of the world of the supernatural around him, or if he chose to pretend it didn’t exist for some unknown reason. She didn’t want to ask, because it would be way too awkward to explain the whole grim reaper thing to a normal human who just happened to stumble his way through magical moments without recognizing what was happening.

“We’ll figure this out, Mr. Crane,” Carmen promised quietly as she turned on her heel and left the room. The heels of her Mary Jane pumps clacked across the wooden floors. She turned down the lights and stepped out into the foyer of the funeral home. Lightning cracked overhead and the rain came down harder than it had been earlier in the morning. She set her hands on her hips and sighed angrily when she remembered she was still cinched up in her corset, so she started to untie the ribbons so her ribs could expand as she headed down the hall to see if she could convince her withering employer to eat something small. Everything in her body cried out to go home and rest, but she couldn’t rightfully leave Lionel alone right now. It would be irresponsible, so if she could at least get an order from the pub down the road so they could eat and ensure he wouldn’t pass out on his way home she’d feel better.

As she opened the door to the office, she poked her head inside and felt the color drain from her face. In the flash of lightning, lingering above her sleeping boss, was a figure. Tall, slouching, and see-through, the spirit of one Lincoln Crane stood awkwardly biting a non-existent fingernail.

“Oh… hell…”