Chapter 8 - The Shadow on the Estate
Ten minutes later, the scene at Oakridge Funeral Home was illuminated by the flashing red and blue strobe lights of three police cruisers and a high-speed ambulance unit.
Inside the warm, dry rear of the ambulance, Clara sat wrapped in three thick wool blankets, an oxygen mask fitted over her nose and mouth. Dr. Vance sat beside her, monitoring her vital signs on a digital screen while a paramedic administered an intravenous line.
Toby sat huddled directly against Clara’s side, his small arms wrapped tightly around his mother’s waist, refusing to let go for even a single second. Clara’s weak, pale hand rested gently in her son's thick chestnut curls, her fingers lightly stroking his hair.
Outside the ambulance windows, pinned against the side of a police cruiser in handcuffs, was Arthur. His tailored black suit was covered in thick brown mud, his hair plastered over his face, his lips blue from the cold.
Sheriff Marcus Brody—a thick-set, grizzled officer with twenty years on the force—stepped out of the funeral home holding a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag was the rusted ten-inch hand saw Toby had used to break the lock, alongside a small, dark glass tincture bottle found in Arthur's coat pocket inside the chapel coatroom.
Brody walked over to the police cruiser, staring down at Arthur with cold disgust.
"Digitalis concentrate," Brody said, holding up the glass bottle. "Found it tucked in your inner pocket. The mortician says you paid him an extra five thousand dollars in cash to bypass embalming, claiming Clara had religious objections to the procedure."
May you like
Arthur kept his head down, refusing to speak, his teeth chattering violently from the cold and panic.
"You knew if he embalmed her, the chemical would be washed from her bloodstream," Brody continued, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl. "You gave her enough to induce a comatose state mimicking clinical death, rushed the death certificate through an out-of-county corrupt coroner, and locked her in a box before she could wake up."
