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“I’ll come with you if you want. Or I can do whatever else you need.”

“I—Please. Come with me?”

“Of course.”

This was going to suck.

“And—” he paused, swallowed “—I need to figure out where to do the reception thing. After. I was… I wanted to…” Another swallow. “Do you think your mom would help?”

“Absolutely.” My mother had asked at least three times this morning what she could do. And my mother is an absolute hosting-goddess. “Want me to call her now?”

“Not yet. I—Do you think we can do it here?”

“At the house?” That hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility, but as soon as he said it, it made sense. The main room in the house was open and fairly large, large enough for the people Gregory Crane had called friends and family, anyway. If we moved some furniture around. Added some chairs… But Mom could figure that out.

“And Dad’s spirit house,” he said softly. Traditional Mamaceqtaw practice was to build tiny houses or log structures as a way to protect the grave mounds and to provide a shelter for the spirits of the dead until they’re ready to move on to the next world. Elliot and Gregory had built Naomi’s when she’d died.

“What about it?” I asked him.

“Help me build it?”

“Of course. I’d be honored.” It’s not like Elliot needed the help. He’s a master carpenter, for fuck’s sake. The fact that he askedme…Yeah, I’m his best friend, but I’m not Mamaceqtaw. It was a big fucking deal to ask me to help build a spirit house.

I’m sure somebody was going to have a fit about that. But I wasn’t going to refuse Elliot anything.

He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “We’ll—We’ll build it here, then take it over to the cemetery. It should—” another swallow “—it should fit in the back of the truck.”

I just nodded.

He took a deep breath, then let it out. I could see his hands shaking, even though he was resting them on the counter.

I put one of mine over one of his.

He squeezed my fingers.

“Just tell me what to do,” I told him.

He nodded. Took another breath. “Thank you.”

* * *

The Shawano PDcalled me back while we were at the funeral home, and I shot Elliot a chagrined apologetic look as I scooted out of the office into the hallway to take the call.

“This is Hart.” I tried to sound vaguely professional.

“Mr. Hart? It’s Detective Smith.”

“Yes, detective. What can I do for you?” I’ve been practicing being personable on the phone a lot, mostly because Ward asked nicely.

“We’ve got the postmortem results back.”

I steeled myself. Even though I was almost positive they were going to come back with suicide, part of me still hoped that they were going to be on my team—our team. That the ME had found something that indicated homicide. That this wasn’t going to be the drawn out and protracted, ugly battle I was afraid of.

“Looks like Mr. Crane’s death was the result of self-inflicted strangulation.”

I swallowed, quickly, so that my voice wouldn’t crack or break when I replied. “You’re saying he hung himself?” I was really glad I’d left the funeral director’s office. Elliot didn’t need to hear this shit.

“That’s affirmative,” the detective replied. His gruff voice sounded somber, straightforward. I couldn’t hear any derision or disgust in his tone, no glee, nothing to indicate that he’d been a part of Gregory’s death and was celebrating getting away with it. So either he was one hell of an actor, or he, at least, wasn’t in on whatever coverup or incompetent bullshit was going on.