WORCESTER, Mass. — Peter A. Stefan sat straight up in a leather chair in the funeral home he owns and looked purposefully at the city councilor who had come to ask him why he of all people was storing the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

“How did Worcester have to get involved in all this?” said Sarai Rivera, who represents the city’s Fourth District. Onlookers gathered outside, many incredulous that the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings had come to rest here.

“Why didn’t they send him to Russia?” Ms. Rivera asked.

“They didn’t want him either,” said Mr. Stefan, who heard last week from friends of Mr. Tsarnaev’s family. They wanted his body to go to a funeral home like his, which has experience doing Muslim burials.