Till Death Do Us

SEYMOUR

The establishment called Stiffs & Sons Mortuary Service was located on a quiet, conduit-lined cobble-stone street. The building was a shambling wooden three-story structure more 200 years old, and very much looked it. The glass in some of the windows was either cracked or wavy. The conical spires and gabled dormers were a grimy gray, the building having long ago surrendered its straw-colored exterior to the ever encroaching air borne soot that rose from Gravesend's coal-generated steam plants. Phineas wasn't sure that a funeral home should be brightly painted and inviting, but shouldn't it at least appear neat and well-kept?

Suddenly claiming he had urgent errands to run, Cousin Rudy dropped Phineas off in the driveway and sped away in the funeral lorry. Phineas let himself into the mortuary through the rear door. Inside, as usual, the slightest hint of gas hung in the air. No matter how tight the pipe fittings were, they could not prevent a few wayward molecules from escaping. The walls were covered with faded floral wallpaper, in some spots buckling and peeling, in others stained from ancient water leaks. The iron wood-burning stoves had reddish-brown rust streaks along the edges. As Phineas took in these imperfections, he wondered why he'd never noticed the creeping dilapidation before. It struck him that the last time any major improvements had been made to the building was when the lighting had been switched over from candle to gas, sometime before he was born.

Phineas climbed the dark creaking stairs to the business suite on the second floor. As customary when he wanted to enter his father's office, he knocked twice, waited a beat, and then pushed open the door. When he knocked today, he thought he heard what sounded like a drawer being hastily slid open and banged shut as if something was quickly being hidden. Indeed, upon entering the office, Phineas observed the pronghorn-in-the-headlights expression on his father's usually taciturn face, followed by a very obvious attempt to appear as though nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired. Phineas could not help but wonder what his father would have believed needed hiding in his desk.

But such deliberation did not last long, as it was quickly replaced by the sensation of shock as Phineas surveyed the disarray of his father's office. What had once been a model of tidy organization was now a mess, the desk hardly visible beneath a mountain of papers, cabinet drawers half–open with folders protruding. Still more piles of paper and periodicals were stacked on the floors.

In the midst of this disturbingly cluttered office, Phineas's father, Seymour Stiffs, straightened the ruby tie pin in his maroon cravat. But the nervously self-conscious attempt to neaten his appearance fell short. Strands of thinning gray hair trickled in wayward directions over his ears and temples. And stuck to his moustache was a small yellow morsel of dried food. Furthermore, the dark shadow over the lower half of his face made it apparent that he had neglected to shave that morning. Most alarming of all, Seymour, never a specimen one would call stout, had clearly lost weight. His clothes appeared too large, his pale cheeks hollow, his overall appearance, gaunt.

In a feeble attempt at order, Phineas's father gathered some of the disorganized papers from the desktop and began to shuffle them. "Just back from the Bilderback burial? Blew herself up in her kitchen?"

"I think that was last week," Phineas replied while easing his large frame into a creaky leather chair. "Today it was Hortense Peabody."

"Oh, right, right. The one with the blue fingernails."

"Blue fingernails?" Phineas repeated, his forensic training piqued.

"Yes, gave me a moment's pause, too," said his father, setting the pile of papers back down in a slightly more straightened state of disorganization. "Possible cyanide poisoning and all that. Thought for a moment about alerting the constable, but then it occurred to me that blue fingernails are also a sign of pulmonary embolism, cardiac tamponade, or polycythermia vera. Anyway, thank God for our pre-paid little old ladies, eh, Finny? They've been going like clockwork lately, about one a week. I'm not sure we'd be able to keep the good ship Stiffs & Sons afloat without them. Floating on a sea of corpses. Not a very fetching image is it? No, I think not, ha ha!"

Please forgive another interruption, dear reader, while we briefly consider the reason for the forced and strained cheerfulness with which Seymour addresses his son. As we will soon discover, the sources of awkwardness between father and son are multifaceted. But one supersedes all others – despite the long mortuarial tradition into which he was born, Phineas has declared that he has no desire to be an undertaker. He would much rather spend his time training for the profession in which he someday aspires to be employed —that of a forensic investigator. Rather than prepare insensate protoplasm for that final, and most permanent of addresses, he would much prefer the challenge of winnowing down the possible causes of death. Especially when considered suspicious or, at least, not immediately obvious to the naked eye.

To that end, since the age of fifteen Phineas has abandoned the fine liberal arts education offered by Gravesend Academy and chosen instead to attend the Venenum Institute of Forensics. This has required him to board many hundreds of miles from home for much of each calendar year. However, being a dutiful son (and no doubt suffering some degree of guilt over his deviation from the Stiff family traditional norm), he returns for a few months each summer to help in the business.

To be clear, Phineas's decision to walk away from the mortuary business was made after innumerable hours of painful deliberation, as well as a great deal of angst and guilt. Still, Phineas's mind is made up. To that end, he has already decided not to mention that the morning's interment had run half an hour late thanks to Cousin Rudy's last-minute detour through the Le Roadhouse quaff-and-go. After all, the deceased Ms. Hortense Peabody was in no position to complain about a little tardiness.

Besides, there is a much more immediate issue to address. "Dad, Rudy said he hasn't been paid in a while. He can't afford to get his Serpollet out of the garage."

Seymour's face emptied, then just as quickly refilled. "Just a hiccup, my boy. That's all, Finny. Nothing to worry about. We all get them now and then. Just a hiccup."

"A hiccup or the Mix-up?" Phineas asked.

Seymour looked down at his desk, and it seemed to Phineas that the lines in his father's face deepened as though he was aging right before his eyes. With slumped shoulders Seymour once again began to sort through the jumble of papers on his desk, as if unable to meet his son's gaze.

Phineas felt his body go tight. Clearly, things were worst than he'd supposed.