Chapter 9 - The Abandoned Crematory
The Fairhaven facility had closed eighteen months earlier.
Official reason:
equipment modernization and regional consolidation.
The property remained corporate-owned.
No active cremation license.
No staff.
No reason for anyone to be there.
Police obtained a search warrant.
I did not go.
Neither did my mother.
That was not our job.
We waited in a secure room at the state police headquarters while Ortiz’s team entered.
The first report came forty minutes later.
No Daniel.
No Adrian.
But evidence everywhere.
Old refrigeration units had been disconnected.
A basement storage room held boxes of archived paperwork.
A locked maintenance bay contained personal effects from dozens of decedents whose official records listed other funeral homes.
Investigators found no mass grave.
No room full of bodies.
Reality was less sensational.
And more administratively horrifying.
Daniel’s network used the abandoned facility as a transfer point.
Bodies were temporarily brought there without proper documentation, identity tags switched, permits altered, remains rerouted, and cremations performed later at licensed partner facilities under false names.
The system enabled:
insurance fraud,
estate fraud,
identity disappearance,
concealment of improper death certifications,
and illegal body disposition.
Some living people had been declared dead.
Some dead people had been misidentified.
Some families had received ashes that were not their relatives.
That was enough horror.
Then forensic teams found two sets of preserved tissue samples matching names on Adrian’s freezer boxes.
Joanna Pike.
Professor Leonard Ames.
Did that mean they were dead?
Maybe.
DNA comparison required relatives.
Cause of death could not be determined from samples alone.
No claims beyond evidence.
Then they found a hidden office.
Inside:
Daniel Cross’s laptop.
Still warm.
He had been there recently.
Emails showed him coordinating with Adrian after the funeral-home escape.
Daniel:
You failed to destroy Evelyn and Claire.
Adrian:
You told me Mercer’s drug would hold.
Daniel:
You exceeded plan.
Adrian:
She found transfer papers.
Daniel:
Then retrieve ledger and finish acquisition.
Adrian:
No acquisition. I want out.
Daniel:
You are not leaving with my records.
So Adrian and Daniel had split.
That was dangerous.
Criminal partnerships become most unstable when everyone wants to survive separately.
Another message:
Adrian:
I have originals.
Daniel:
Then you have a target on you.
Adrian:
You first.
Then silence.
My mother read the messages.
“They’re hunting each other.”
Ortiz nodded.
“Possibly.”
I asked:
“Which one has the ledger?”
“We have Harold’s original.”
“Then what originals does Adrian mean?”
My mother’s face changed.
“The pre-need contracts.”
Not digital copies.
Original customer signature cards.
Before Whitmore computerized all records, pre-need funeral plans were signed on paper.
Hundreds of elderly customers.
Those signatures could have been copied into false insurance or transfer documents.
If Adrian stole the originals, they were both evidence and identity-fraud tools.
Where were they?
My mother remembered.
The old satellite chapel in Brookfield.
Whitmore closed it five years earlier.
Records remained in basement storage awaiting digitization.
Adrian had insisted there was no hurry.
Now we knew why.
Police went.
The basement was empty.
Shelving stripped.
But they found blood.
Fresh.
Two types.
One matched Adrian from samples at our home.
The second unknown.
And they found a burned jacket.
Fairhaven executive logo inside.
Daniel?
Possibly.
Then surveillance from a nearby gas station showed Adrian’s stolen van leaving Brookfield at 3:11 a.m.
Passenger seat occupied.
Someone slumped forward.
Was Adrian kidnapping Daniel?
Or carrying an injured accomplice?
Camera could not resolve face.
The van headed north.
Then a toll camera captured it forty miles later.
This time passenger seat was empty.
Ortiz’s face tightened.
“Between those points, we have twelve exits.”
Search began.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Police told me not to answer.
Ortiz traced while I put it on speaker.
Adrian’s voice.
“Claire.”
My whole body went cold.
He sounded exhausted.
Not triumphant.
“Where are you?”
He laughed weakly.
“You still think I’m the one you should be afraid of.”
“You put me in a coffin.”
“I know.”
“You tried to cremate me.”
Silence.
Then:
“I thought you were dead.”
That did not improve anything.
“I should have checked.”
My mother nearly lunged toward the phone.
Ortiz stopped her.
Adrian continued.
“Daniel is cleaning everyone.”
“Where is he?”
“Closer than you think.”
“What originals do you have?”
A pause.
“Not contracts.”
Then:
“Death certificates.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
My stomach turned.
“And one of them has your name on it.”
I froze.
“My name?”
He whispered:
May you like
“You’ve been legally dead for eight years.”
Then the call ended.
