Eine Kleine Murder (22 page)

Chapter 39

Caloroso: With warmth, passion; passionately (Ital.)

It was still early when I slipped into jeans and a T-shirt and took my morning tea outside to see what the weather was going to be like for Grace's funeral. From the extra cars at Al Harmon's, I deduced both his sons had arrived for their mother's funeral in the afternoon. I hoped their presence would comfort him.

Al appeared around the side of his house and waved me over to introduce me to his sons and their families. His sons were twins, both tall and slim like their father, and each had a blonde wife and two children, not twins. The four kids, who all looked grade-school age, were relieving the sobriety of the occasion by hollering and cavorting on the nearby playground. There were three boys and a girl.

The mood was subdued at the house, but everyone seemed to be holding up well. I eyed Al, trying to picture him as a murderer, but couldn't make it work. He was too sane to be a killer. Wasn't he? We made small talk for awhile, then I went back to my place to change clothes.

I glanced at the flowers in the window boxes as I opened the door to enter the cabin. They were past their prime. Or maybe they were just dead because I had never watered them. It saddened me that I hadn't tended Gram's blossoms. Another way I had failed someone I loved.

It was horrifying. To get to the church, I had to thread through a throng of cameras and newshounds. The street outside the parking lot was packed with television vans. At least three reporters stood before cameras gripping their microphones and speaking in their appropriately solemn tones. One wore a suit coat and tie with jeans and track shoes. I guessed his cameraman, who was a camerawoman, was good at head shots.

Having reporters shove their microphones in my face and shout belligerent questions was a new experience for me, but, as I had seen felons and the accused do on television, I put my head down, stayed silent, and plowed through them.

The church had probably been built before the turn of the twentieth century. The Victorian architecture gave me a serene, secure feeling, maybe because it reminded of the house I grew up in.

A long wooden stairway led gracefully up to the front double doors and, above, an old-fashioned painted steeple held a heavy bell. A wheelchair entrance had been added at the side.

The interior of the church was bright and airy. Some of the double-hung windows of stained glass had been raised and a soft breeze wafted in. Primary colors shone through the panes and threw bright patches on the people gathering in the pews. The quiet rustlings and murmurings inside contrasted violently with the chaos outside.

Gram had attended church here and occasionally I had gone with her when I was very small. At the thought of her, I reached to my throat for the locket she had given me. Annoyed, I remembered it was still missing. The chain I had seen around Mo's neck leapt into my mind's eye and I knew, I just knew, he had stolen my locket, along with everybody else's precious things. It was clear as a bright
ping
on a percussion triangle. My annoyance turned to hot, hard anger. I wasn't sure what I'd do if he turned up.

It would be easy for the Lutheran minister to eulogize Grace Harmon. She had attended the Alpha Lutheran Church regularly, as had Gram. Almost everybody from town turned out and the church was crowded. By the time I signed the official guest book, a dozen pages were full. Some of the attendees were, no doubt, just curious. After all, the multiple murders were the most sensational thing to happen in Alpha since the fire at the lake years ago. What on earth would Toombs's funeral be like?
There might be international news crews here by then
. I shuddered at that thought.

I could look around and notice things more easily now that it wasn't my grandmother being buried. Her funeral had been such a blur; I wouldn't have recognized this building had I not already known it. Hayley and her daughters were about halfway down the aisle, but I didn't see Mo or Martha. Good thing. I might have socked him. A stripe of yellow from the stained glass window glass caught the wispy, flyaway hair of Hayley and her daughters. Hayley wore a long-sleeved dress that was too warm for the day, but her girls were cute in matching sundresses and sandals.

I looked for Daryl, but didn't see him. I was surprised to see Eve hunched at the end of a pew near the back, her conventional black dress hanging on her skeletal frame, her body humming with nervous energy. She'd obviously not been charged after all. I wondered why not.

Wayne and Sheila came in just before the service began and sat immediately behind me, in the last row. As Wayne sank into his seat I could smell the liquor on his breath. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Sheila's enormous green and yellow dress, a welcome change from her usual muumuu, but didn't turn further to look at them. Her cigar was missing today.

As we rose, Al and his family filed in and sat in the front pew reserved for them. Al looked old, but stoic. His tall sons and their families all wore dark clothes and somber faces. The little boys, hair slicked down and parted, looked like they were trying to play a part.

The minister rose and ascended to the pulpit, but when it came time for him to talk about Grace, he came down the altar steps and walked back and forth, his black robe swirling, and gave his message. He seemed to truly grieve the death of Grace, and gave her a beautiful send-off. Several older people stood up and told stories and anecdotes about her. One was a woman who had attended grade school with Grace and related how she had organized a group to make stuffed animals for hospitalized children. Another was a man who said they'd been on the debate team together in high school, and Grace “beat the socks off” all comers.

Since I'm the type that cries the minute anyone else does, I was soon on my last tissue. Grace had had many friends in this town.

Near the end of the minister's final oration, he spoke the words, “We can all take comfort from the fact that we know Grace Harmon has now met God.”

Wayne stumbled into the aisle and shouted, “That Mizz Harmon was a good soul, but I'll tell you who ain't goin' to meet God nowhere, the old devil.”

“Wayne,” Sheila pleaded softly. “Come on, baby. Sit down.” She stretched her chunky arms out to grab his red plaid shirt. She missed, and the fat on her upper arms wobbled as she held them out for a second. The extent of Wayne's funeral attire was a clean plaid shirt and a pair of threadbare slacks instead of his usual overalls.

The congregation, stunned into a sudden silence, swiveled their heads in his direction, as if choreographed. For an instant, everyone froze. Then the whispering started.

Wayne stumbled down the aisle, just out of Sheila's reach, continuing to wave his arms. Every eye followed him. A few people put their heads together. I wondered if they were thinking of getting up and expelling Wayne.

“Sheila's mother is restin' easy in her grave, I'll tell you that,” he shouted. “And that old son of a bitch—”

Sheila jumped up, caught his hand, and bustled him out the main door in the back.

Over the faint murmurings of the crowd outside, I could hear them clomping down the hollow wooden steps, Sheila muttering, “Wayne, you gotta stop drinking. You're making me nervous.” Wayne shouted incoherently. It sounded like he was saying he'd take care of something, or had taken care of something. Sheila continued her soft pleading as the entire congregation listened to their voices fading into the distance while the door swung shut.

I hoped for their sakes the camera crews were gone, or they'd be getting some dramatic, unexpected shots.

The minister bowed his head and raised his arms, his wide sleeves falling to his elbows, and swung into his final prayer as if nothing had happened. That gave us all a sense of relief and returned us to normality.

My mind wandered as I half-listened, and my gaze drifted across the bowed heads.

Whoa!
My heart skidded in my chest. This couldn't be.

I didn't process it at first, denying what my eyes were seeing. That thin, lank hair. Those serious, piercing eyes. I scrunched down as soon as I spied Len, but he turned his head and looked at me.

I refused to look that way again and scrambled to leave as soon as we were dismissed, frantically dropping my purse. I scooped the spilled contents up and stuffed them back into my purse, stumbling out the door.

The reporters were gone, but wads of people were gathered and whispered together outside the building, blocking my way. They were mourners who hadn't been able to fit into the church. I tried in vain to get through them, a lump of panic rising in my throat. The crowd had to have been there earlier, when Wayne and Sheila left. Her heft was probably an advantage plowing through a crowd. I was stuck.

The coffin was carried past me, the delicate daffodils ringing it, but this brought all other movement to a standstill until the attendants loaded it into the hearse with practiced, smooth efficiency.

I tried to push through the crowd watching the casket, but it was no use. Len caught up to me and grabbed my bare arm with a steely grip.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered angrily, trying to jerk my arm away from him. He held fast. His touch made my skin crawl.

“I happened to be at the airport when you drove past on Highway One-Fifty the other day.” His nauseating smile looked smug. Had I really liked those stern, remote, judging eyes at one time? “I had an educator's meeting at the Holiday Inn and I had just dropped off a music professor who flew in.”

“So that
was
you.” I knew it. I had driven out to Alpha past the airport—and right past Len.

“I figured out what town you went to.” His feral grin widened. I scowled back at him. “That's why I was at the grocery store, too. I knew you would have to eat sometime.”

“You drove all the way back out here from Chicago? Twice?”

“It's not that far. Three hours or so. Also, I saw the story on television, the one where they said Cressa Carraway found two bodies near Alpha.” He still gripped my arm. “The notice of the funeral was in the Chicago paper. These murders are receiving a lot of press. I figured I would see you here.”

“Leave me alone, Len. I don't want to see you.” I tried to shrug him off again. His fingers tightened, pinching me now.

“But Cressa, babe, I have good news.”

I jerked my arm away with a strong pull and dashed to my car.

“Wait!” he shouted, but remained standing where we had talked, looking disappointed. I sped off, glancing in my rearview mirror to make sure he hadn't followed me. Bastard.

The rest of the people had already started to head for their cars, many of them on their way to the reception at Al's.

Maybe, I thought, the safest place for me right now would be the reception.

On my way up to the cabin, I passed Pat Fiori driving out and waved to her. Several people were already gathered at Al's, waiting for the family to come back from the graveyard.

Pat slowed and rolled her window down. “Kids are a lot better,” she yelled to me. “I'm driving in to see them now.”

It looked like the Fiori kids would recover. That was a huge relief.

After the reception at Al's, a backyard affair that started out gloomy but grew warm with memories and the delicious home-cooked dishes of the women of the church, I prowled around the cabin aimlessly. Lamenting the death of Grace all the more for having met her many grieving friends and relatives, I made a decision. What I needed was a new beginning. My old life with Len was over, my life with Gram was over, and I needed to do something to signal a new beginning; I needed to feel in control of something.

I took the road into New Windsor and stopped at a greenhouse I'd seen earlier. Potted geraniums and daisies, sitting on the sidewalk, bobbed their bright heads and nodded to me. I bought six of each and took them back to the lake.

A moment of irrational terror gripped me when a car like Len's, a little blue convertible with its top up, pulled into the lake complex after me. It didn't follow me up the hill, though, so I relaxed.