(2012) Colder Than Death by DB Gilles Page A

but I didn't want to embarrass her. I decided to point at the floor and hope she got the idea.
    I raised my right hand and gestured downward. She saw it, looked down and realized what I was warning her about. She rolled her eyes, stepped around the dangerous area and approached me. “Thank you.”
    “I'll have to get that fixed.”
    “My cell conked out. I need to make a call. Do you have a phone I could use?”
    “Sure. In my office.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Not at all. This way.”
    As we walked to the office Gretchen said, “Quilla mentioned that you've been very supportive to her since she got the bad news.”
    “She seemed to need it.”
    “She speaks very highly of you, which isn't something she often does of adults. By the way, I'm Gretchen Yearwood.”
    “Del Coltrane. Nice to meet you. Here we are.” I opened the door to my office and turned on the light. “Take as much time as you need. I'll wait outside.”
    “I don't need privacy,” she said as she stepped inside. She went to the phone and dialed a number. She pressed a couple of buttons, listened to a message for about twenty seconds, then hung up. “All done.”
    I noticed her eyes go from looking directly at me to something over my shoulder. She blinked nervously a couple of times. I turned around to see what had gotten her attention. It was the photographs I had on the wall. There were a dozen or so pictures of the headstones of famous people's graves. In some of the photos I was posing next to the grave with a stupid smile on my face.
    “It's a morbid hobby of mine.”
    “ Hobby ?”
    “I like to explore old cemeteries. Find unusual headstones. Celebrity graves.” She stared at me tentatively. “I know. It's weird.”
    “Not weird. Different.” She moved closer to the wall and examined the photos. “Billy the Kid, Aaron Burr, Al Capone, John Dillinger, Jack London. Joe McCarthy. Scott Joplin.” She turned to me. “You just jump in your car and drive to cemeteries looking for famous graves?”
    “Not quite. I go to trade conventions a couple times a year. It's usually a different city. Put a bunch of morticians together and the talk comes to what well-known person is buried in or near a town. I'll rent a car. I've taken vacations and checked out local cemeteries. I don't tell a lot of people about it.”
    “There are worse things you could be interested in.” She glanced at her watch and said, “I'm enjoying our conversation, but I think I better get back to Quilla.”
    “Right.”
    Gretchen walked me to the front entrance. She made a joke about tripping on the carpet, then said, “Thanks again for letting me use the phone.”
    As I watched her walk away I knew that I wanted to get to know her better. The nature of my business isn't the most ideal for meeting women in circumstances conducive to dating. Dozens of times I've had a gorgeous woman show up to make funeral arrangements herself or accompany a parent or sibling. It would be tasteless to make a move. And I would always be positioned in a woman's mind as the man who buried dad or uncle Bill or aunt Sally. Because I couldn't rely on my line of work to meet women, I had to utilize the conventional ways like bars, fix-ups, on-line dating or chance encounters, which I was horrible at because I'm not good at chitchat in normal situations. I'm only good with words when I'm selling.
    I'd gotten to the point where I had unofficially given up on ever finding someone. My life was too screwed up. She would either have to be enormously understanding or just as damaged as I. Whichever it was, Gretchen Yearwood was the first woman in years who had caught my fancy.
    And I was more than a little curious as to how she had gotten so close with Quilla.

Chapter 12
    At exactly 9:00 p.m. Quilla and her two teenaged friends emerged from the Viewing Room. Right behind them was Gretchen. They all headed towards the door. The two kids mumbled something to Quilla, then they said soft good-byes to