Page 31 of Bitter’s Sweet

The shipment.

The Grave Prowlers make coffins. Real ones. Beautiful ones. Boxes built with more care than some men give their wives. Biker coffins, veteran coffins, flame-painted coffins, preacher coffins, glitter coffins, Tennessee Vols coffins, and one damn Elvis coffin I still believe should be illegal. We ship them all over.

That is the respectable part.

The part nobody respectable asks about is what else can ride hidden in a coffin when the right man pays and the wrong man looks away.

Raven’s rider coffin is honest. Black walnut, chrome handles, velvet dark enough to hold secrets, a carved bird on the lid because the dead bastard had style even if he owed half the county money. Tomorrow night’s run ain’t Raven’s, though, and festival traffic gives us the kind of cover men have used since roads were invented.

It also gives Ravenfork the same cover.

CSI taps the screen. “They’re not moving like tourists. They’re checking lanes, cameras, access points. Could be reconnaissance for the shipment. Could be something else.”

“Either way,” Hyde says, “I don’t want them close enough to find out what they’re curious about.”

His gaze lands on me. “Bitter.”

“Prez.”

“You’re on the school side and south gate.”

I keep my expression flat. “School side?”

Nevermore looks at me.

Hyde nods once. “Miss Mercy’s got students, mourners, volunteers, and civilians with more curiosity than survival instinct. Raven’s transfer happens after lunch. His coffin gets staged in the work bay until Carver signs off. Reapers have been sniffing around the building. You keep them out.”

“That all?”

“No. You see a Reaper, you don’t start a war in front of a grieving widow and a school full of makeup girls.”

Boogie groans. “Why you looking at him when I’m right here?”

“Because you’d start a war in front of the widow and ask her to hold your beer,” Hyde says.

Boogie thinks that over. “Fair.”

I scratch my jaw. “What if they start it?”

“Finish it somewhere tourists ain’t buying kettle corn.”

“Bossy.”

“Presidential,” Nevermore says.

I look at him. “You get uglier when you agree with him.”

“You get uglier when you breathe.”

“That ain’t true. Women love my breathing.”

“Women love bad choices and discounted candles,” Sweeney says.

“Same thing in this economy.”

Hyde taps the gavel once. The hollow knock cuts through the room, and the jokes die like they know better.

Plague reads from his notebook. “Festival opens soft tonight. Vendor swap meet at five. Homemade cider and moonshine tasting at six, legal cider up front, illegal moonshine wherever Boogie hides it. Coffin races tomorrow at noon. Bobbing for bones at two. Hand-dig grave contest at four. Raven’s procession at sundown. School demonstrations all weekend.”