When she was nearly dehydrated, she stood and walked over to a massive flower arrangement on a small table. She reached behind the flowers and pulled out a small package of tissues. She put one to her nose and blew with the force and noise of a large goose. She wadded up the tissue and dropped it in the wastebasket.

“I have them hidden everywhere,” she said. “You can never have enough of them in a funeral home.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, grabbing another tissue and dabbing at her eyes and mottled cheeks. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m sure it’s hard.”

She nodded. “Yes. It is. I miss my brother terribly.”

I nodded, glad that she no longer seemed interested in harming me physically.

“And I’m sorry about the…incident outside your home,” she said, her eyes flitting in my direction. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“It’s over and done with,” I said. “I’m sorry, too.”

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. “Would you like some coffee? I was about to go get some upstairs.”

I stood. “Sure.”

I followed her down a long hallway decorated with more flowers and pictures of beaches and nature, more feeble attempts to be soothing for those in mourning. We passed a room that looked like a receiving or reception area and then approached a flight of stairs. I followed her up them and around a corner to a door wedged into an A-frame.

“I got the job here a little over a year ago,” she explained, twisting the knob. “Lucky for me, the small apartment was vacant and mine for the taking.”

“Um, yes, lucky,” I said.

The small apartment had polished wood floors, a worn green couch and lots and lots of clowns.

Clowns.

There were framed pictures of clowns. There were figurines of clowns. There were stuffed clowns.  There were happy clowns. There were sad clowns. There were super scary clowns that looked like they wanted to murder the other clowns.

Clowns.

I might have gasped in horror. Loudly.

Olga must’ve noticed me looking around the room because she said, “I like clowns.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, feeling like all the clowns were watching me. “I can…see that.”

“I’ve liked them since I was a kid,” she said, walking over to a small kitchen counter and flicking the switch on a small coffee maker. “Olaf did, too. We actually both had done some amateur clowning.”

“Clowning?”

“Well, we didn’t go to clown school,” she explained. “It was too expensive. But we started experimenting with makeup and playing around. We did kids parties as a part-time job when we were in high school.”

Weird. Olaf hadn’t mentioned his interest in clowning on our dinner date. Probably because I would’ve run screaming from the restaurant.

“I still do the occasional party or carnival,” Olga said, pulling two mugs from the cabinet. “But only by referral.”

I had no idea what that meant. “Of course.”

“Sit.”

“Excuse me?”

She motioned to the couch. “Sit down.”

“In there?” I asked.

She stared at me like I was mentally disabled. “Yes, in there. On the couch. With the clowns.”

I forced my feet to move and stared down at the floor as I walked so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with any of the murderous-looking clowns.

“I’ve actually found that it helps with doing make up for the services here at the mortuary,” she explained, continuing the conversation.

“Uh, what?”

She watched the coffee drip from the pot. “When a person is brought here, one of my jobs is to prepare them for their service. Most people require a fair amount of makeup. So some of my clowning experience has paid off.”

“That’s…nice,” I said because “That’s really friggin’ weird” would’ve been rude.

She poured coffee into each of the mugs and brought them over. She handed me mine and I clutched it in my hands as she took a seat on the sofa next to me. She gestured to the cream and sugar on the center of the coffee table, but I shook my head.

“I spent last night with Olaf,” she said, blowing on the surface of her coffee.

I tried not to drop mine. “What?”

“He’s here,” she said, then she pointed to the floor. “Downstairs. They brought his body over here yesterday.”

“Oh,” I said, even though that explained nothing.

She stared into her coffee, her eyes wrinkling, threatening to spit tears again. “I knew he was down there. So I grabbed a blanket and went and slept next to his drawer. It was just like when we were kids. Except he wasn’t snoring because he’s dead.”

Really. Friggin’. Weird.

“I’m sorry,” I said because I literally couldn’t think of one other single thing to say to that.

She waved a hand in the air. “I’m just overly emotional. It’s probably why I attacked you the other day.”

Probably.

She took a long sip from her coffee and it seemed to steady her. She took a deep breath and leaned back into the couch. “You know, Olaf really enjoyed his date with you.”

I smiled at her. “We had a very nice time.”

“He wanted to ask you out again,” she said. “I mean, before that other man came into your life.”

I wondered if she’d been keeping tabs on me for awhile. And I wondered why she’d referred to Jake as ‘that other man’ with barely concealed venom.

Her face clouded over and she stared into her coffee again. “And, of course, stupid Helen.”

“Stupid Helen?” I asked.

Olga’s eyes narrowed and she set her cup down on the table. She placed her hands flat on her thighs and looked at me.

“Yes,” she said, glowering. “Stupid, horrid, waste of a human Helen.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

NINETEEN

“Let’s just say Helen and I don’t see eye to eye and it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s taller than me,” Olga said, picking up her coffee mug again.

“Why’s that?” I asked, trying to sound vaguely interested without coming off as totally intrusive.

“Mainly because I think she’s a lying shrew.”

“Oh.”

She stared at the mug like she was going to take a bite out of it. “That woman ruined my brother. From day one. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I tried to warn him off, but he just got sucked in by that succubus.” She snarled at the cup and took a sip. She licked at her lips. “I can’t think of one good thing that came from their relationship. Not one good thing.”

I looked around, but the clowns started freaking me out again, so I moved my gaze back to her. “So you were happy about the divorce then?”

“Oh, you betcha,” she said, nodding furiously. “You betcha. I was so glad. It wouldn’t be soon enough if I never saw her again.”

“I don’t want to pry, but Olaf and I didn’t talk about our divorces when we went to dinner,” I said carefully. “Why did he and Helen get divorced?”

“Because she’s a horrible creature who would be better off living at the bottom of a lake where she could bottom feed for the rest of her pathetic life,” she said. “Among other things.”

“Right,” I said, sipping the coffee.

She waved her hand in the air. “They just didn’t get along. At all. Anything that interested Olaf, Helen would belittle or dismiss. The only things that mattered were the things that mattered to Helen.” Her eyes narrowed again. “And I think she stepped out on him.”

“You mean had an affair?”

She tugged at the lapel on her blazer. “Olaf told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I always had a suspicion. No proof so there wasn’t anything I could do about it.” A small smile creased her lips. “But when Olaf told me they were getting a divorce, I couldn’t help but hug him. He wasn’t too happy about that.”

“I’m sure,” I said.

“And either was Helen,” she said, still smiling. “Pretty sure there was a lot of crying and whining that night.”

I replayed that last sentence in my head again. “Wait. Helen wasn’t happy with the divorce?”