Ghost Sudoku (13 page)

She parked and walked in without any other exciting incidents.

Liza had attended enough wakes at Freney’s—hell, Ralph Freney had undertaken the undertaking for both Liza’s father and her mother. The funeral director had mixed unctuousness with an eye for a buck that would have been right at home in the most cutthroat Hollywood studio.

Tonight, Freney had arranged a funeral extravaganza, guest of honor or not. Usually, the building was divided into three “remembrance rooms,” as Freney had explained in his most syrupy tones. But the accordion dividers had been pushed into the walls to create one huge space. Every folding chair in the joint had been pressed into service to create an audience area with three aisles leading to a podium up front.

Most of the chairs were already occupied, but the empty space at the rear of the room, usually occupied by family members exchanging murmured condolences, were filled with political types pressing the flesh.

John Jacob Pauncecombe stood off to the right of the main entrance, looking as if he expected everyone to kiss his ring. He looked older than his pictures in the newspaper—Liza could make out broken blood vessels under the skin of his cheeks and nose. But with his silver hair brushed straight back, he was still handsome, in a fleshy, boozy kind of way.

Beside him stood J.J., looking like a copy of his father that never quite came into focus. The harsh, confident lines of the father’s face were blurred in the son’s. Instead of his father’s ready smile, J.J. seemed more petulant. A wispy blond stood at J.J.’s side, clinging to his arm, a black dress all but washing her out. Liza had heard that the younger Pauncecombe had gotten married, but she’d never seen his wife before.

Then Brandy stepped out from behind the family group. She’d dressed very simply in a long black skirt and black silk blouse, a thin gold chain at her neck, and that damned snake belt advertising her nonexistent waist. Each golden scale must have been faceted—together they gleamed against the dark material of her skirt.

Brandy had wisely eased up on her makeup, but even so her tan and her dramatic skin tone stood out against the somber clothing. In fact, of the Pauncecombe contingent, she made the most vivid impression. The old man was imposing but a bit faded for all his bonhomie. J.J. seemed to try too hard.

Liza shook her head. Leave it to Brandy to steal the show.

She turned away to survey the rest of the crowd and spotted Sheriff Clements standing with his back to the opposite wall. He’d worn his dress uniform with a darker brown, vaguely military-looking tunic and a matching tie.

The sheriff stood quietly observing the throng of politicos and wannabes busily shaking hands. But Liza noticed nobody was pressing the flesh with Clements. In fact, there was a little bubble of open space around the county’s top cop.

I guess nobody wants to be seen with the sheriff in case the machine decides to go with another candidate,
Liza thought.

On the other hand, this avoidance behavior might make it easier for her to pass along her information. Slipping a hand in her pocket, she folded the page from Buck’s notebook until it fit in her palm. Then she stepped over to Sheriff Clements and shook hands.

He hesitated for a moment as he felt the paper between their palms.

“And what the heck is this, Ms. Kelly?” he asked in a low voice.

Liza smiled and nodded as if they were having a desultory conversation. “It’s the address of a motel outside the county and the name of a desk clerk who identified Chad Redbourne as having an affair . . .” She lowered her voice a little more. “With Brandy Pauncecombe.”

The sheriff’s face remained bland, but Liza noticed that his hand tightened around the piece of paper hers held hidden. He gave her a polite smile, but there was no trace of humor in his eyes. “And how solid is this information?”

“Buck Foreman dug it up.”

Clements nodded. “Well, thank you for this exciting can of worms you’ve just opened for me.”

“Sheriff, I’m sorry—”

He cut her off with a mild headshake. “We don’t want people to see us standing here talking too long.”

With a nod, he stepped away. The bubble of empty space remained around him as he moved through the crowd. People stepped aside as if even brushing him might pass on something contagious.

Brandy Pauncecombe left her husband and came over to Liza. “If things keep going the way they’ve been, your friend may not have that gold badge much longer.”

Liza had to keep herself from smacking her old rival. “Would that matter much to you?” she asked.

Brandy shrugged, a move she liked to do because it made interesting jiggles on her superstructure. “I like Sheriff Clements—he’s like a big ol’ bear.” Her big dark eyes narrowed in distaste as she took in the mob of office-and favor-seekers around them. “Y’know, you and I were the only ones to say hello to him this evening. The rest of this bunch didn’t have the guts.”

Liza followed Brandy’s gaze to where Oscar Smutz stood fawning over the elder Pauncecombe and J.J.

Brandy shrugged again. “Course, it doesn’t much matter whether I have guts or not. Nobody much cares about what I think.”

She made her way back to her husband with a carefully calculated amount of hip action, causing a small trail of distraction among the male members of the assemblage.

Look but don’t touch,
Liza thought.

She found herself a seat on the edge of the last row of chairs—someplace that would allow an easy escape if the speeches became too gag-worthy.

And as the people settled down and the speeches began, it was enough to make a yak retch. As a professional, though, she was fascinated by the wild divergence in tone. It wasn’t easy, mixing a eulogy for the deceased’s public service while tiptoeing around the notion of murder or suicide and also distancing the powers that be from any connection with whatever got Chad killed. The speechifying sounded almost as schizophrenic as the speakers, all of it glued together and lubricated by the same old political oil.

John Jacob Pauncecombe even had the nerve to quote the line from Shakespeare about the good that men do being interred with their bones.

What he’d like to do is bury all the dirty business Chad did for him and his honest and honorable pals,
Liza thought.
Either they’ll shove it all under the rug, or they’ll pile it on Chad as the conveniently dead scapegoat.

She watched as Pauncecombe finished to the obligatory applause. Without a doubt, the situation had turned out well for old John Jacob. He’d disposed of not only a potential political embarrassment but a personal one as well. Chad certainly wouldn’t be doing the horizontal mambo with Brandy anymore.

Liza watched the older man’s features as he left the podium; not that she expected to see any signs of guilt—or any other honest emotion, for that matter. Politicians were as good as actors at maintaining a pose—maybe even better. Actors could let go of the role once the play ended or the camera stopped. Political types had to keep the mask on whenever they were in public.

Pauncecombe’s oration was essentially the grand finale. He stepped off for yet another round of handshakes and backslaps, making a procession down the side of the room. Apparently, the etiquette went back to the days of royalty—or at least Elvis. Nobody else was supposed to exit until the king had left the building.

Things didn’t go as usual, though.

For starters, Ralph Freney wanted more than the handshake John Jacob bestowed on him. The funeral director licked his lips, hanging on to the great man’s hand, halting him right beside Liza’s seat.

“Always a pleasure to put our facilities at your disposal,” Freney said in his most syrupy voice. “But I’m afraid there’s a problem. The check I was given—it seems there were insufficient funds.”

Pauncecombe’s face went bright red, bringing the broken blood vessels up into high relief. But it wasn’t embarrassment. This was John Jacob’s famous temper. Liza had seen it before, twenty years ago when J.J. screwed up—or the school board didn’t fall in immediately to cover up the infraction.

As Ava had warned, however, it seemed to be on a hair trigger nowadays. “So you think you had to bring this to my attention?” Pauncecombe barked.

Freney shrank back, faltering, “It’s the account—the Party’s general fund—”

Pauncecombe cut him off. “Who cut it?”

“Mr. Davis from the committee.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t you go to him?” John Jacob’s bloodshot eyes seared their way across the crowd. Liza noticed a slight disturbance—probably the hapless Davis ducking farther back.

The political boss didn’t notice, ranting on. “What do you expect me to do? Pay your bill out of my own pocket? Take it up with Davis.” His gaze settled on his son. “And if he still screws up, talk to J.J.”

Pauncecombe just about thrust the funeral director away. But even though the ritual butt-kissing resumed immediately, he didn’t calm down. He was moody and brusque as the sycophants continued to come up to him. Liza could see the conflicted expressions on the faces of the hangers-on. Which was the worse move? Step up and have their heads bitten off? Or hold back and perhaps be remembered for not being on board?

Liza rose from her seat and trailed behind Pauncecombe’s retinue, enjoying the show. Then a sudden eddy in the crowd obstructed the royal progress.

Sheriff Clements stood in the doorway, the magical empty space around him even larger as people shied away, unwilling even to be seen near the political outsider, especially considering Pauncecombe’s uncertain frame of mind.

Clements tried to make his approach look natural, reaching out to shake hands with the boss. From the tight lines on his face, though, the sheriff might just as well have been offering his arm to a hungry mountain lion.

“We need a private meeting.” Clements’s voice was quiet, but it penetrated the sudden, surprised hush his unexpected approach had created. “I have some questions—”

“Questions?” Pauncecombe’s response seemed several decibels louder. “You’ve got questions? For me?”

The sheriff stood his ground. “Regarding the Redbourne case, we need to eliminate—”

“You’d better watch your mouth, Clements,” the Party chief interrupted. “You’re not so secure in your job that
you
can’t be eliminated.”

Pauncecombe pushed out of the room, his favorites rushing after him.

Bert Clements stood stone-faced. He definitely did
not
fall into that category.

 

 

Arriving home, Liza tried to lose herself in work; not that the results were all that good. The events at the memorial had disconcerted her—especially the way the political cognoscenti seemed to think that the sheriff’s job was hanging by a thread.

Now she worried over what she and her scrap of paper had done.
If Bert Clements loses his job, it’s not as if he has lots of places to go,
Liza fretted.
He won’t just get bucked down to chief investigator. Not with Oscar Smutz in charge.
She sighed.
Not with a vengeful political leadership after him.

Michael finally waved a hand between her face and the computer screen, saying, “Let’s put on the late news.”

Liza didn’t want to watch. He just about had to carry her over to the couch, eliciting some excited barks from Rusty.

It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. There were no lurid reports about a rift between the head of Killamook’s law enforcement and the head of the county’s political machine. By the time John Jacob Pauncecombe had emerged from Freney’s Funeral Home and into the view of the various camera crews, he’d regained control of himself. His somber, unsmiling face seemed in keeping with the serious affair he was leaving.

The only other bad moment came when Oscar Smutz’s fat face appeared on the screen later in the newscast. The daylight background reassured Liza slightly—this hadn’t been shot at the memorial.

But as Smutz continued to second-guess the sheriff’s investigation, Liza’s unease grew. In the eyes of the media—and thus, of the public—Oscar had moved from glorified gadfly to the position of insurgent candidate. And after this evening’s disaster, he’d also have the backing of the Killamook machine.

The news ended, and one of the network late-night comedy shows came on. Liza reached for the remote, but Michael took it. “Leave it on,” he said. “You look as if you could use some cheering up.”

Unfortunately, listening to the monologue seemed to have the opposite effect. Either the writers were really having an off day, or Liza’s mood was so foul, nothing could change it. She watched in apathy as the host promised a new segment after the commercials.

The show returned with a montage of clips featuring famous political and entertainment types and a spinning logo that resolved itself into the words FACES IN THE NEWS.

The host appeared behind his desk, saying, “You know, there are always public affairs shows on Sunday morning, but the people they have on are already famous. We think it’s better to introduce you to faces
before
they get famous. For instance, here’s somebody involved in a political race up in Oregon . . .”

Liza gasped as Oscar Smutz’s face filled the screen.

It had to come from one of yesterday’s TV interviews. The sound wasn’t on, but he was certainly running his mouth. The image froze in the middle of a distinctive mannerism Liza had noticed. Whenever Smutz had something particularly damaging to say, he took a deep breath, his cheeks swelling and his eyes popping.

“And here’s a way to remember him,” the host said as the clip went on, this time with sound.

“What this county needs in a sheriff,” Smutz began, then took a deep breath. But the studio engineers had made an addition to the tape—the loud call of a bullfrog. As Oscar’s face swelled up on the screen, it was accompanied by a deep-voiced “Ribbit!”