Chapter 3 - HOLLOWAY FUNERAL HOME
At 8:30 the next morning, I drove to Holloway Funeral Home with Claire’s brass urn on the passenger seat and the false cremation certificate folded in my coat pocket.
The woman at reception recognized me at once.
“Mr. Miller. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I looked her in the eye.
“You may be sorrier in five minutes.”
That got me into the director’s office fast.
Her name was Diane Holloway. Late fifties, precise, not easily rattled. I set the urn on her desk, unscrewed the lid, and tilted it just enough for her to see the gray grit and plaster pieces inside.
Her face changed.
“What is this?”
“That,” I said, “is what your employee gave me and called my daughter.”
Diane frowned immediately.
“Janine Walker?”
“You remember her.”
“I remember every family coordinator who uses my stationery.”
She put on glasses and took the cremation certificate from me. Less than ten seconds passed before her expression darkened.
“This number is wrong.”
“What?”
“It’s from an old sequence. We changed our numbering format two years ago.”
A cold silence filled the office.
Diane reached for her keyboard and pulled up Claire’s file.
I watched her scroll.
Then stop.
Then scroll back up.
“Mr. Miller…”
“What?”
“There is no record here that your daughter’s cremated remains were ever released to you.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“Then where are they?”
She clicked again.
“According to the file, remains were released to spouse—Marcus Hale Miller—three days after cremation.”
I stared.
Marcus had told me Janine personally delivered the urn to me because he “couldn’t bear” to do it himself.
Diane kept reading.
“There’s also a supplemental release here that shouldn’t exist.” She printed it and slid it across the desk.
Marcus’s signature.
And beneath it, witness signature:
Janine Walker.
I looked up slowly.
“She was involved.”
Diane did not sugarcoat it.
“Yes.”
“Was she actually your employee?”
“Temporary contract coordinator. Six weeks. She disappeared in April.”
“Disappeared?”
“Stopped answering calls. Never came back for her final check.”
I sat back.
“Do you know where she went?”
“No.”
I almost laughed. Of course not. Men like Marcus and women like Janine do not vanish accidentally; they vanish when the story around them hardens.
Diane leaned forward.
“Mr. Miller, if your daughter’s remains were tampered with, and if false documents were used in connection with this home, I have a legal obligation to report it.”
“Good,” I said quietly. “I was hoping someone in this situation still had one.”
She nodded once, sharp and professional.
Then she asked the question I had been trying not to form myself.
“Was your daughter’s estate ever probated?”
I blinked.
“Marcus said it was straightforward.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
No, it wasn’t.
And suddenly the room seemed to shift around me.
Claire had owned half their house.
A savings account.
A small education fund for Leo.
A life insurance policy from the design firm where she worked.
If Marcus lied about the urn, what else had he handled alone?
Diane watched me think.
Then she said, “You need an attorney.”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
But before I called one, there was one more thing I needed to do.
May you like
For the first time in my life, I was going to do exactly what my six-year-old grandson told me.
I was going to follow Marcus once.
