Spiro appeared in the doorway not far from me. Two small frown lines had fixed themselves between his eyebrows. He strode forward, cutting a swath through the crowd. I had a clear view in his wake, and the view was of Grandma Mazur.

“It was my sleeve,” Grandma said to Spiro. “It got caught by accident on the lid and the dang thing just opened up. It could of happened to anyone.”

Grandma looked back at me and gave a thumbs-up.

“Is that your granny?” Ranger wanted to know.

“Yup. She was checking to make sure Moogey was here.”

“You’ve got a helluva gene pool, babe.”

Spiro tested the lid to make sure it was securely closed and replaced the flower spray that had fallen to the floor.

I hustled up, ready to lend support to the lid-caught-on-the-sleeve theory, but support wasn’t necessary. Spiro clearly wanted to minimize the incident. He made some sounds of comfort to the closest mourners and was busy wiping Grandma’s fingerprints off the glossy wood.

“I couldn’t help but notice while the lid was up that you did a nice job,” Grandma said, hovering over Spiro. “Couldn’t hardly see those holes at all, except for where your mortician’s putty’d sunk in a little.”

Spiro nodded solemnly, and with the touch of a fingertip to Grandma’s back, deftly turned her away from the casket. “We have tea in the lobby,” he said. “Perhaps you would like a cup of tea after this unfortunate experience?”

“I guess a cup of tea wouldn’t hurt,” Grandma said. “I was pretty much done here anyway.”

I accompanied Grandma to the lobby and made sure she was actually going to drink tea. When she settled into a chair with her cup and some cookies, I went on my own in search of Spiro. I found him loitering just outside the side door, standing in a halo of artificial light, sneaking a smoke.

The air had grown cool, but Spiro seemed oblivious to the chill. He dragged the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly. I figured he was trying to absorb as much tar as possible, the sooner to end his wretched life.

I knocked lightly on the glass door to get his attention. “Would you like to discuss the, um, you know … now?”

He nodded to me, took one last long drag, and pitched his cigarette onto the driveway. “I would have called you this afternoon, but I figured you’d come to see Bues tonight. I need these things found yesterday.” He shifted his eyes over the lot to make sure we were alone.

“Caskets are like anything else. Manufacturers have surplus, they have seconds, they have sales. Sometimes it’s possible to buy bulk and get a good price. About six months ago I put in a bulk bid and got twenty-four caskets below cost. We’re short on storage space here, so I stowed the caskets in a rental locker.”

Spiro took an envelope from his jacket pocket. He removed a key from the envelope and held it up for my inspection. “This is the key to the locker. The address is inside the envelope. The caskets were wrapped in protective plastic for shipment and crated so they could be stacked. I’ve also included a photograph of one of the caskets. They were all the same. Very plain.”