The Apprentice

“You worked on her only a month ago.”

“Yes, but I don’t always remember the details.” Joey had finished his wax job on the hands. Now he moved to the head of the table, where he stood nodding to the beat of “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog.” Dressed in black jeans and Doc Martens, he looked like a hip young artist contemplating a blank canvas. But his canvas was cold flesh, and his medium was the makeup brush and the rouge pot. “Touch of Bronze Blush Light, I think,” he said, and reached for the appropriate jar of rouge. With a mixing spatula, he began blending colors on a stainless-steel palette. “Yeah, this looks about right for an old Elvis girl.” He began smoothing it onto the corpse’s cheeks, blending it all the way up to the hairline, where silver roots peeked beneath the black dye job.

“Maybe you remember talking to Mrs. Hallowell’s daughter,” said Rizzoli. She pulled out a photo of Gail Yeager and showed it to Joey.

“You should ask Mr. Whitney. He handles most of the arrangements here. I’m just his assistant-”

“But you and Mrs. Yeager must have discussed her mother’s makeup for the funeral. Since you prepared the remains.”

Joey’s gaze lingered on Gail Yeager’s photograph. “I remember she was a really nice lady,” he said softly. Rizzoli gave him a questioning look. “Was?”

“Look, I’ve been following the news. You don’t really think Mrs. Yeager’s still alive, do you?” Joey turned and frowned at Korsak, who was wandering around the prep room, peeking into cabinets. “Uh… Detective? Are you looking for something in particular?”

“Naw. Just wondered what kind of stuff you keep in a mortuary.” He reached into one of the cabinets. “Hey, is this thing a curling iron?”

“Yes. We do shampoos and waves. Manicures. Everything to make our clients look their best.”

“I hear you’re pretty good at it.”

“They’ve all been satisfied with my work.”

Korsak laughed. “They can tell you that themselves, huh?”

“I mean, their families. Their families are satisfied.”

Korsak put down the curling iron. “You’ve been working for Mr. Whitney, what, seven years now?”

“About that.”

“Must’ve been right out of high school.”

“I started off washing his hearses. Cleaning the prep room. Answering the night calls for pickup. Then Mr. Whitney had me help him with the embalming. Now that he’s getting on in years, I do almost everything here.”

“So I guess you got an embalmer’s license, huh?”

A pause. “Uh, no. I never got around to applying. I just help Mr. Whitney.”

“Why don’t you apply? Seems like it’d be a step up.”

“I’m happy with my job the way it is.” Joey turned his attention back to Mrs. Ober, whose face had now taken on a rosy glow. He reached for an eyebrow comb and began to stroke brown coloring onto her gray eyebrows, his hands working with almost loving delicacy. At an age when most young men are eager to tackle life, Joey Valentine had chosen instead to spend his days with the dead. He had shepherded corpses from hospitals and nursing homes to this clean, bright room. He had washed and dried them, shampooed their hair, brushed on creams and powders to grant them the illusion of life. As he stroked color on Mrs. Ober’s cheeks, he murmured: “Nice. Oh yes, that’s really nice. You’re going to look fabulous…”

“So, Joey,” said Korsak. “You been working here seven years, right?”

“Didn’t I just tell you that?”

“And you never bothered to apply for any, like, professional credentials?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Is that because you knew you wouldn’t get a license?”

Joey froze, his hand about to stroke on lipstick. He said nothing.

“Does old Mr. Whitney know about your criminal record?” asked Korsak.

At last Joey looked up. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Maybe I should. Seeing as how you scared the shit out of that poor girl.”

“I was only eighteen. It was a mistake-”

“A mistake? What, you peeped in the wrong window? Spied on the wrong girl?”

“We went to high school together! It wasn’t like I didn’t know her!”

“So you only peep in windows of girls you know? What else you done, you never got caught for?”

“I told you, it was a mistake!”

“You ever sneak into someone’s house? Go into their bedroom? Maybe filch a little something like a bra, or a nice pair of panties?”

“Oh, Jesus.” Joey stared down at the lipstick he’d just dropped on the floor. He looked as though he was about to be sick.

“You know, Peeping Toms have a way of going on to other things,” said Korsak, unrelenting. “Bad things.”

Joey went to the boom box and shut it off. In the silence that followed, he stood with his back turned to them, staring out the window at the cemetery across the road. “You’re trying to fuck up my life,” he said.

“No, Joey. We’re just trying to have a frank conversation here.”

“Mr. Whitney doesn’t know.”

“And he doesn’t have to.”

“Unless?”

“Where were you on Sunday night?”

“At home.”

“By yourself?”

Joey sighed. “Look, I know what this is all about. I know what you’re trying to do. But I told you, I hardly knew Mrs. Yeager. All I did was take care of her mother. I did a good job, you know. Everyone told me so, afterward. How alive she looked.”

“You mind if we take a peek in your car?”

“Why?”

“Just to check it out.”

“Yes, I mind. But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”

“Only with your permission.” Korsak paused. “You know, cooperation is a two-way street.”

Joey just kept staring out the window. “There’s a burial out there today,” he said softly. “See all the limousines? Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved watching funeral processions. They’re so beautiful. So dignified. It’s the one thing people still do right. The one thing they haven’t ruined. Not like weddings, where they do stupid things like jumping out of planes. Or saying their vows on national television. At funerals, we still show respect for what’s proper…”

“Your car, Joey.”

At last, Joey turned and crossed to one of the cabinet drawers. Reaching inside, he pulled out a set of keys, which he handed to Korsak. “It’s the brown Honda.”

Rizzoli and Korsak stood in the parking lot, staring down at the taupe carpet that lined the trunk of Joey Valentine’s car.

“Shit.” Korsak slammed down the trunk hood. “I’m not through with this guy.”

“You haven’t got a thing on him.”

“You see his shoes? Looked to me like size eleven. And the hearse has navy-blue carpet.”

“So do thousands of other cars. It doesn’t make him vour man.”

“Well, it sure ain’t old Whitney.” Joey’s boss, Leon Whitney, was sixty-six years old.

“Look, we already got the unsub’s DNA,” said Korsak. “All we need is Joey’s.”

“You think he’ll just spit in a cup for you?”

“If he wants to keep his job. I think he’ll sit up and beg likea dog for me.”

She looked across the road, shimmering with heat, and gazed at the cemetery, where the funeral procession was now winding its dignified way toward the exit. Once the dead are buried, life moves on, she thought. Whatever the tragedy, life must always move on. And so should I.

“I can’t afford to spend any more time on this,” she said.

“What?”

“I’ve got my own caseload. And I don’t think the Yeager case has anything to do with Warren Hoyt.”

“That’s not what you thought three days ago.”

“Well, I was wrong.” She crossed the parking lot to her car, opened the door, and rolled down the windows. Waves of heat rushed out at her from the baking interior.

“Did I tick you off or something?” he asked.

“No.”

“So why are you bailing out?”

She slid behind the wheel. The seat felt searing, even through her slacks. “I’ve spent the last year trying to get over the Surgeon,” she said. “I’ve got to let go of him. I’ve got to stop seeing his hand in everything I run across.”