coroner's office, morge, funeral?

The coroner determines the cause of death.

The mortician embalms the body and gets it ready for burial or cremation.

Each death is different. You can always call the funeral home and ask them when they are picking up the body. They have to tell you, it's public record.

In circumstances where death may be suspicious, the police do take the body to the coroner, or medical examiner (same thing).

The term 'morgue' is one that can be used for the office of the medical exmainer, or just a place for bodies to sit until claimed or sent for burial.

Again, in circumstances that are other than normal, a medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death. For instance, say a man, in his 70's, dies at home and is found dead. He has a bloody head wound, so the police want to find out how he died. He could have been killed by another human. Well, the coroner performs the autopsy and finds that the man suffered a stroke, which caused him to FALL and bash his head, and he died. In that case, the body is released to the family, and is transferred to a funeral home. Depending on the timing, work load, etc a burial can take place in a day or two, or in some cases, two weeks or more. It does take time to prepare a body for a funeral and the family needs to make arrangements so that sometimes distant family members can arrive in time.

In other cases where a person dies of of obvious natural causes, etc, the body can go right to the mortuary and prepped or cremated.