"It was a really good dollhouse," she tells him quietly.

Eventually, the folding partition opens, and the mourners come through. 

After about a minute they queue up in their groups, and the first two come through. They're bald, stocky, and haven't bothered to take off the overcoat that many of the mourners seem to be wearing (and most of the rest are still wearing also). They look at April briefly, then look back at Jake. They talk to each other in a language that sounds of Slavic origin, then one reaches into the casket, and puts two fingers on Jake's neck, as though trying to take his pulse. 

...

The other one takes a fancy-looking camera out from his overcoat, and starts taking careful pictures of the body. 

Are these people for fucking real? Whatever, she does not need to make this her problem. She can just keep giving them judgmental looks until they go away.

After a few seconds of this, the first man looks back at April, takes his fingers away, and says to her, Slavically, "Sorry for your loss."

"Thanks."

The photographer takes a couple more shots, then one of April, and the two of them back away to make room for the next person in line. 

This time the person is only a single person, no others with him. He goes, stands over Jake, looks for a moment, and then reaches into his overcoat and pulls out a knife, raising it high in the air to stab the corpse with it. 

"Absolutely the fuck not," says April, stepping in front of him.

The man is larger and more muscular than April, and could certainly push her out of the way if he chose to. This fact is made very clear by his body language as he clearly chooses to allow her to get in his way, as opposed to doing something about it, stepping back casually to make space for her between him and the body. 

"Get that shit out of here," she says, with an indicative jerk of her head. (Her own body language displays that she has noticed how big he is and has chosen not to factor that into her decision of whether to get in his way, though it may factor into her choice of tactics if it comes to that.)

"I am here to stab your Uncle," he says to her, simply. "He has faked his death before. I was told to confirm it had taken this time around." 

All the other men in the room are clearly watching this conflict, to see what happens next. 

"The last guy took his pulse. I will also accept honking an air horn in his ear. Stabbing is a no-go."

"May I inject him?" one of the men says, holding up an empty syringe. He looks like he's humoring her. 

"No! Listen, do you know the kinds of gross shit they do to bodies to make them look this pretty? The man is already full of staples in uncomfortable places, we are not introducing any more foreign objects to his corpse today."

Another man holds up a cotton swap wrapped in plastic. "I'm just here to get his DNA, to make sure it's him." 

The man with the syringe snorts. "Can be faked." 

"At least I'm not murdering anyone with three dozen witnesses, empty syringe boy," the man with the cotton swab says. 

"Acceptable," she says, pointing at DNA guy. "You can still fuck off," she continues, pulling her hand in to gesture at the man with the knife standing in front of her.

He looks at her. "Why do you care, Turnberry?" he asks. "You never knew your Uncle. He means nothing to you, and you sure as hell meant nothing to him. In life, he never went out of his way to help you. What do you care if I stab him, or George here pumps air into his vein? If he's dead, it won't matter. And if he's not dead, then he's played you for a fool. Either way, there's no reason to stand in our way." 

"Hey you!" she calls out to the funeral director, past the crowd. "How full of staples is my uncle right now?"

Chesterfield has been standing at the partition between rooms, amazed at the events transpiring before him. "Many," he says. "You probably do not wish to know how many. I also personally drained his body of its fluids and replaced them with embalming solution. If he wasn't dead before I did that, he was dead after. You don't come back from formaldehyde and methanol." 

"Yeah, that's what I figured. So! I haven't seen my uncle since my fifth birthday, but he asked me to represent him at his funeral, so that's what I'm doing. If you want to go over the records with So-and-so back there to verify the thing about the fluids, that's not my business. I will also grudgingly accept checking his pulse and swabbing his DNA. But I really gotta draw the line at stabbing. There will be no stabbing. If the only way you can be sure he's dead is to stab him then you will just have to endure the mystery."

"Sorry," he says. "I need to make sure."

"No! You don't! You literally do not need that! Go home!"

He sizes her up, brandishes the knife, and smiles. "All right then," he says. "This could be fun." 

"Enough," says one of the Slavic men, the one who took Jake's pulse. "He's dead."