Rose Hill (19 page)

He talked to her about what had happened to Anne Marie, and when he mentioned Knox, she got even more upset.

“If something happens to me anytime soon, I hope you investigate that bastard.”

Scott asked her what she meant by that, and she laughed shrilly, drawing attention from patrons at other tables, but seemed unaware of it.

“I probably shouldn’t say anything more, because my life is worth more to me than that. You should look more closely at my dear brother-in-law, keep a real close eye on him, and if I have an accident like Anne Marie’s, you’ll know who to hold responsible.”

“Why would Knox try to kill Anne Marie?” Scott asked her quietly.

He noticed her hands were trembling so hard she could barely hold her paper coffee cup. He took it from her and placed it on the table.

“Because she’s a liability,” Sandy said. “He can’t control her.”

“What’s she done?”

“She almost caused a scandal with some boy at the college, until Knox stepped in and smoothed it over with a big check. She drinks too much and takes all kinds of pills. I don’t know where she gets them. Knox cut off her money.”

“Does Knox abuse her?”

“He doesn’t hit her, at least as far as I know, but verbally he tears her to shreds. Knox is not an easy man to live with, and he demands perfection. He wants to get into politics, and no one better stand in his way.”

“And Anne Marie is in the way?”

“If she’s not careful enough, and he gets embarrassed one too many times.”

Scott thought about the gold coin that ended up in Theo’s bedroom. Was Theo involved with Anne Marie? Scott wondered if by asking Knox about the coin he had unwittingly prompted the man to rid himself of his wife through a convenient accident.

Sandy was rapidly falling apart as he watched, and when she abruptly jumped up to leave, he was afraid of what might happen if he let her go while she was so emotional.

“You’re upset, Sandy, let me take you home.”

She backed away from him, saying, “Trick’s waiting for me; he’ll drive me. It’s dangerous even to be seen talking to you. I’ll deny everything.”

And with that, she ran out of the cafeteria and was gone. Scott was worried about her, but was afraid if he chased her, it would only agitate her more.

Only immediate family was allowed in ICU to see Anne Marie, and since Knox was not around, Scott left the hospital and drove toward home. Snow was swirling in eddies across the interstate, but the sun was bright in a clear blue sky. He thought of going a little out of his way to stop in to see Sarah, but decided it was more important to get back in time for Theo’s funeral.

Anne Marie was not being careful, according to Sandy. Had Anne Marie got pregnant by the
college student, or was she merely indiscreet? He wondered if she may have been Theo’s no-show dinner guest, and if she had given him the coin in return for drugs. He ruminated on all the possibilities as he headed toward home.

The Machalvie Funeral Home, originally a grand Victorian home, was located on the corner of Peony Street and Rose Hill Avenue. Over the years multiple rooms had been added on in every direction so that the original structure was now unrecognizable. There were Grecian columns of varying sizes and styles flanking broad steps on all four sides. The front façade featured a wide, deep, southern style porch with large plastic ferns in hanging brass pots and pairs of white rocking chairs on the dark green indoor-outdoor carpeting.

Inside, deep-pile burgundy-colored carpet covered the floors, and you knew when you stepped off newer construction and entered a room in the original house because the old wood floors under the carpeting were slanted and squeaked under your feet. At the windows heavy draperies of burgundy velvet were drawn back in complicated folds like heavy skirts revealing petticoats of shroud-like, puffy white sheers. The lighting was subdued, pre-recorded religious pipe organ music played, and the scent of lilies and chrysanthemums wafted through the air.

Hannah and Maggie stepped inside the overheated front foyer and waited in line to sign the guest book.

“This place looks like a very religious whorehouse,” Maggie said.

“Jezebels for Jesus?” Hannah suggested. “Hos for Hosanna?”

“Look at Peg,” Maggie said. “She’s had some more work done.”

Peg Machalvie, the funeral home director and owner, was greeting guests as they came through the door. Her big perky boobs were only a few years old, and were pushed up so far by her foundation garment that they threatened to pop out of the neckline of her form fitting black dress suit. She wore pointy-toed spike heels, and her dyed black hair was teased out into sort of a bell-shaped hat for her head.

Her face had recently been surgically lifted, and was so pumped full of wrinkle smoothers and nerve paralyzers that the only facial movement she could make was a strained grimace. Her eyebrows arched so high she looked permanently surprised. Her tautly stretched shiny face was ghostly pale and covered in a thick layer of foundation and powder, and her eye, cheek, and lip makeup were dramatically dark in contrast. She was greeting people and directing them to sign the guest book, gesturing with pale fingers tipped by long blood red nails.

“Did you bring any garlic?” asked Hannah, holding up the small gold cross she wore around her neck.

“No,” Maggie said, “and I left all my wooden stakes at home.”

“There’s Satan’s spawn,” Hannah said, gesturing to the left.

Peg’s two thick-necked sons, Lucas and Hugo, chewing gum and looking bored, were stationed on either side of the entrance to the viewing room, handing out small programs for the afternoon’s event. Their hair was stiff with gel, and their heavy cologne battled with their mother’s perfume for dominance in the hot, stuffy lobby area. Their father and Peg’s husband, Mayor Stuart Machalvie, passed between the boys on his way into the viewing room, and squeezed each of his sons on the shoulder as he did so.

“Look,” Hannah said. “There’s Huey, Louie, and Stuey.”

Maggie had heard the joke many times before, but it still made her smile.

As they approached her
, Peg pretended not to notice them, and instead aimed her rectangular smile over their shoulders at the next guests. When they got up to the guest book Hannah wrote “Professor Van Helsing” and Maggie wrote “Anne Rice.”

Hannah nudged Maggie as they crossed the threshold into the viewing room and could see the crowd.

“Get a look at that, will ya?” Hannah said under her breath as she indicated the fashionably attired sister of the deceased.

Gwyneth, dressed head to toe in black, was perched on the edge of a chair at the front. She reached up underneath the
dark veil of an enormously wide-brimmed hat to dab her eyes with a large starched handkerchief. The mayor was comforting her by alternately squeezing her knee and patting her other hand from the chair beside her.

“I wonder if Joan Collins knows that outfit is missing,” whispered Hannah.

“This is even better than I expected,” replied Maggie. “I hope Mom saved us seats near the front.”

Hannah and Maggie dutifully filed through to look at Theo in his casket.

“He’s needed this makeover for about twenty years,” Hannah whispered.

“Look at the expression on his face,” Maggie said. “He looks almost happy.”

“He’s thinking of all the trees they had to cut down to make this giant coffin.”

They nodded politely to everyone as they looked for Maggie’s mother, who was waving her program in the air at the back.

“This place is packed,” Bonnie murmured to them as they took off their heavy coats and sat in the seats she had saved on either side of hers.

“I think they all want to be sure he’s really dead,” replied Maggie, for which Bonnie gave her daughter a sharp pinch on the underside of her arm and a stern look of reprimand. Maggie winced and rubbed the spot.

“I separated the two of you because I know you can’t behave,” Bonnie said. “Try to act like grown women, the both of you.”

Hannah looked as if she didn’t know what her Aunt Bonnie could possibly
have meant by that remark. Maggie just looked straight ahead and did her best not to laugh.

Reverend Macon’s voice was a deep, resonant monotone, and he spoke in a slow, sonorous manner that some people found soothing but others found to be a strong sedative. He seemed to be having a hard time finding good things to say about Theo, so instead he recounted all the good things the Eldridge family had done for the town of Rose Hill since they settled there in 1889. He we
nt on and on and on, until right when it seemed like the group as a whole had achieved the level of boredom which can cause irrational behavior, nausea, or fainting, he introduced Gwyneth, saying she wanted to say a few words.

The mayor helped Gwyneth take her place at the podium, where she lifted her dark veil and looked out over the crowded room. She didn’t realize the veil she thought was draped back over her wide-brimmed black hat was actually standing straight up in the air, giving her a bizarre beekeeper-of-the-night look as she spoke. Hannah and Maggie could only look at each other out of the corners of their eyes and suppress their laughter, lest Bonnie deliver another pinch.

Gwyneth’s accent was extra-British for the occasion.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she began. “I would like to thank Reverend Bacon for his kind words about my family. One is gratified to know all one’s family’s many valuable contributions to this community are appreciated, at least by some.”

“In addition, I would like to thank the many townsfolk who have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome, and had such kind words to say about my brother.”

Bonnie lightly touched the underside of Maggie’s arm with her pinching fingers, and Maggie looked at her as if to say “what?” while Hannah smirked.

“Due to my delicate health and sensitive nature, my parents felt it best that I be educated abroad. After returning to the states, I received my graduate degree behind the ivy-covered walls of one of the finest schools in New England. Living as I have for these many years in Manhattan, I daresay I would never have returned to Roseville, but for the unfortunate and premature ending of my dear brother’s life.”

Maggie looked for Scott and found him, watching her from where he stood against the wall to her left. He winked at her and she stuck her tongue out at him. Her mother pinched and Maggie flinched.

“One hopes one’s friends will be comforted knowing I shall remain here, shouldering the heavy mantle which has been passed down through many distinguished generations of Eldridges before me. I, too, shall seek to uphold the high standards set by our ancestors as I pledge to look after our tenants and preserve our land, as my dear brother did.”

Maggie reflected that
Gwyneth was acting as if it were the eighteenth century and not the twenty-first. Maggie also enjoyed knowing that the original Theodore Eldridge Gwyneth was so proud to be descended from was an alcoholic younger son shipped to America because his gambling debts were such an embarrassment to his family. He got the money to start his own business by marrying the daughter of a rich low-born Yankee who owned a string of “opera houses” known more for bawdy women than classical music.

The Eldridge family legacy Gwyneth so enjoyed the fruits of came from scalping the first growth hardwoods off the surface of the surrounding mountains and then carving the coal out from beneath them. If the town of Rose Hill had the Eldridges to thank for the college and the city park, they could also thank them for the mine subsidence and permanently poisoned spring water.

“My sister Caroline regrets she cannot be here with us today, but she has pledged her support in my endeavor to continue the good works with which our family name has become synonymous. Thank you again.”

Gwyneth paused momentarily, as if for applause. The mayor jumped up and almost collided with Reverend Macon in his attempt to reach her side. Organ music swelled as Gwyneth pulled her veil down over her face and allowed both men to lead her out of the side door to a waiting limo.

“She called him ‘Reverend Bacon,’” Maggie said to Hannah, as soon as her mother was out of pinching range.

“I know,” Hannah said, “and ‘Roseville,’ for crissakes. She can’t even get the name of the town right.”

“Her sensitive nature,” Maggie said. “What a load of crap. She was only ever sensitive when it came to her own feelings, as I recall.”

“The ivy covered walls of a New England loony bin would have been more appropriate for her,” Hannah said.

They were waiting for the rows ahead of them to empty so they could file out.

“The only person making her welcome and saying nice things about Theo is the mayor,” Maggie said, “and that
’s because he thinks she’s won the Eldridge lotto.”

Impatient with the slow moving crowd, they edged their way around the people remaining in the aisles, who were clustered together in small, gossiping knots.

“Are we going to the graveside?” Hannah asked. “I half expect to see the earth spit Theo back out.”

“I don’t want to,” Maggie replied. “It’s much too cold to stand on the
top of Rose Hill Cemetery and watch the mayor slobber on Gwyneth. Besides, they’re dedicating a stone, not burying him. His body’s going to be cremated.”