Organize Your Corpses (8 page)

“Bed-hopping slacker,” Jack said cheerfully.

Sally added a bit too loudly, “I suppose they deserve each other.”

Benjamin turned his head and furrowed his teddy-bear face. “Sally, for heaven’s sake. We’re in church.”

Pepper turned around at that exact moment.

Sally caught her breath.

I felt myself blanch.

Benjamin whispered, “When will you two learn a bit of control?”

Luckily Pepper’s attention was diverted by the arrival of several elderly women, in navy skirts and sweaters, wearing large crosses. They could only be nuns, in those outfits. I remembered some of the faces from St. Jude’s. It wasn’t like nuns to be late, but I figured this batch was probably from out of town. They were being ushered toward the front of the church to join the rest.

Although the new arrivals seemed quite solemn, even the somber church and the nature of the event couldn’t mask the upbeat mood of the congregation. Miss Helen Henley was dead. Murdered it appeared. But, as Jack kept insisting, who had never wanted to kill Miss Henley? Tra la la.

By the time Olivia Henley Simonett, the sole surviving relative, was escorted in her wheelchair to the front of the church, it was standing room only, with stragglers sulking outside on the stairs. Everyone strained to see the fragile figure in the wheelchair. Her long, wavy white hair was held back by a pink ribbon. Each cheek had a spot of rouge like a target, and her bright lipstick had overshot the mark on her upper and lower lips. She wore a strange, shy smile, alternated with an expression of stunned surprise. On her way toward the front, she began to wave coyly at the crowd. Muffled laughter swept the church. Near the front, she began to try to get out of her wheelchair and was promptly shoved back in her place by the sturdy, dark-haired woman who was wheeling her.

Benjamin shook his head. “Oh, poor Olivia. This kind of circus won’t do her any good.”

“Do you know her?” I whispered.

He nodded. “I was her GP before she went to Stone Wall Farm. She’s very fragile.”

I hadn’t known Olivia Henley Simonett was one of Benjamin’s patients. Of course, I didn’t know much about her at all. I wanted to ask him what he meant by fragile. But I knew Benjamin well enough to know that he wouldn’t spill the beans on anyone under his care.

The memorial was uneventful. I couldn’t imagine what people would find to say that would be all that heartwarming about Miss Henley. I had admired her passion for order, her spectacular self-discipline, and her shoes. But that would hardly bring a tear to anyone’s eye.

There were no tears in the church that day. Imagine spending seventy-plus years in one town, and when you die, the church is packed and everyone’s in a mood to party.

Six St. Jude’s students carried a half dozen large arrangements of lilies and green mums up the center aisle. As the flowers neared the front of the church, Olivia Simonett leapt to her feet, staggered away from her wheelchair, and waved her arms in what appeared to be jubilation. I guarantee you just about everyone in that church experienced a most unChristian thrill. The dark-haired attendant was knocked sideways. Her glasses flew through the air. Olivia blew kisses to the crowd. The attendant recovered in time to grasp Olivia by the arms, just as the elderly woman staggered and sank out of our sight, with a crash that must have been wheelchair related.

“Holy shit,” Sally said.

Benjamin pressed past us and hurtled toward the front of the church.

“He’s great in doctor mode, isn’t he?” Sally said. “That’s what I fell in love with.”

“He’s great in any mode,” I snapped. “What do you think was going on up there?”

Jack climbed on the seat of the pew and stretched to see over the hundreds of craning heads. “A celebration, for sure. Seems to have ended badly though.”

As I strained to see the ongoing commotion, I caught sight of a pair of dark eyes. And they caught sight of me. I found myself staring once again at the man from Tang’s. Mr. I-may-have-the-eyes-of-a-shy-woodland-creature-but-I-also-have-a-wedding-band was heading toward the front of the church too. I turned away but not before Sally noticed.

“Who’s that stud muffin?” she said.

“What?”

“Don’t get all coy, Charlotte. The guy with the leather jacket.”

“Nobody.”

“Come on, Charlotte.”

“Actually I have no idea, and I don’t need to know, Sally. Remember we’re in church. Pay attention to the ceremony.”

“Since when do you care about ceremonies? Anyway, it’s stopped, as you must have noticed.”

Benjamin gave us both another of his irritated teddy-bear frowns as he hustled by with the attendant wheeling Olivia Simonett. The attendant still seemed pretty dazed, her glasses tilted at a definite angle. Olivia, her long white hair hanging loose, waved to the crowd. The hair ribbon had vanished.

As soon as they were out the door, the organ music swelled and the memorial service was under way.

At least Sally shut up. I tried to pay attention to a succession of retired school principals for St. Jude’s. Each one of them gave the impression that unseen marksmen had high-powered rifles trained on their foreheads. I could almost imagine the red dot from the laser. If you chose to believe them, Miss Henley had brought much joy to their lives by her immaculate record keeping and maintenance of classroom order.

Sally said, “I hear the old witch left a serious bundle to the school, and the catch was they had to have all the living principals speak at the memorial.”

“That would explain it,” Jack said. “Principals losing their principles.”

Benjamin’s face was pale as dust when he ducked back into the pew. When Sally opened her mouth, he said, “What is the matter with you people? Keep your voices down.”

Jack gave me a nudge. I refused to make eye contact with him for the rest of the memorial. The high point continued to be the fracas at the front with Miss Henley’s fragile elderly cousin. By the time the last representative of St. Jude’s wiped his brow with a handkerchief, the crowd was pleased to exit and head for the bread portion of the circus.

By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, the big white wheelchair-accessible van from Stone Wall Farm had arrived, the attendant had her glasses straightened out, and Olivia Simonett had shipped out. The eager crowd could surge toward the reception without distraction.

The reception was held, not in the church hall with the parish’s Women’s League traditional egg-salad sandwiches, but in the ballroom at the Woodbridge Arms, Woodbridge’s recently renovated historic hotel. It was a two-block hike from the church. I suggested we skip it, but Sally and Jack nixed that idea. The chocolate brown van from Kristee’s Kandees was parked by the hotel.

I pointed to it. “That’s good news, at least.”

“Get a load of that.” Jack smirked, staring around in wonder as we walked in. “Everything but the disco ball.”

But I approved. The ballroom was quite splendid. Tables of canapés and tiny pastries, chocolate truffles, huge silver coffee urns and tea services. Small glasses of quite tolerable white wine were handed around by busy servers in black and white uniforms. Miss Henley had made sure her memorial would be one to remember, even if she couldn’t have counted on her cousin to give it that little extra touch.

I spotted Margaret Tang frowning at some canapés. She radiated expensive professionalism in a severe navy suit, with just a whimsical bit of lace camisole showing. There was always more to Margaret than you’d expect. There was no sign of Mrs. Tang. I figured she’d hustled back to the store. I slipped up behind Margaret and said “hi.”

She turned and squealed, “Charlotte Adams.”

“That’s me!” I squealed back.

“Did you come back for this happy event?” she said, picking up a small plate and adding a few sandwiches and a pastry.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Margaret’s mother hadn’t been passing on messages. I figured that was typical for the Tang family.

I said, “I’ve been back in Woodbridge for more than six months now. I’ve set up a business.”

“No kidding.”

“I heard you’d set up a law practice. That’s great. I left you a couple of messages at the store. I left my business card too. I figured you were too busy getting settled to get in touch.”

She shook her head. “Mom’s weird. You should know that after all these years.”

“Jack tried to reach you too, when Pepper hauled me in for questioning. You were somewhere in court.”

The hand with the sandwich froze. “Pepper hauled you in?”

“Yeah. She questioned me about Miss Henley’s death. I think she wishes I’d done it.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, I didn’t even hear about that. I’ve been up to my ears with a deposition in Albany. And I didn’t get that message. Of course, that’s what happens when you have your cousin working in your office. Mom probably issued a ‘no message’ list. This kid’s scared to death of her. Anyway, here’s my cell number if you ever need me again. I’ll give it to Jack too.”

We went through a juggling act with plates and wine-glasses until we’d completed the ritual exchange of business cards. It sure felt strange to do that with an old friend like Margaret.

I said, “Let’s hope. Listen, why don’t we get together? Come on over and catch up with Sally and Jack. It’ll be just like old times.”

Margaret made a face. “Hope not,” she said.

I took it the way I thought she meant it. I couldn’t blame her. Margaret had been a chunky, brilliant Asian in a small town that didn’t value any of those attributes in a girl. She’d complicated matters by wearing glasses and winning school medals. Her science projects had been jaw-dropping. All that wasn’t quite the kiss of death, but close. I never remembered Margaret having a date or even a conversation with any of the popular kids in our school. She’d worked hard at the store under the eye of her sour mother, and endured ethnic slurs and cracks about her weight at school, when she wasn’t being completely ignored by prom queens and football players with half her brains. Except for Jack, Sally, Pepper, and me, no one ever spoke to her. And of course, no matter what Jack said, we were the misfits.

So what on earth had possessed her to return to Woodbridge now that she had a size-two figure, a thousand-dollar suit, a law degree, and a pair of contact lenses? Knowing Margaret, I decided it was better not to ask.

I slipped my new business card into her pocket. “That was then, this is now. You know what they say: doing well is the best revenge. Anyway, we had fun together, you and me, Sally and Pepper and Jack.”

“You’re right,” Margaret said. “We did. Maybe the only fun I’ve had in my life. I’ll call you. And you call me.”

The reception turned out to be the social highlight of the year. I was taking it all in when I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. I turned to meet the gaze. The one person I didn’t want it to be. I felt a flush rising on my neck. Oh crap, how seriously uncool. I turned away and bumped into Sally.

Damn.

“I figure this sucker cost about seven grand, easy,” Sally said, sipping a sparkly drink. I watched as she flitted from person to person, catching up on news here, air-kissing there. Of course, her little black dress was perfect for a funeral. I just hoped she hadn’t seen the flash between me and Mr. Wedding Ring.

I snatched up my fourth truffle. I quickly stepped backward to avoid a cluster of chocolate lovers and bumped into Kristee Kravitz of Kristee’s Kandees. “These are fabulous. Did you supply them?” I said, pointing to the truffles, which were vanishing fast.

“I sure did. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt grateful that a person died,” Kristee said with a giggle. “Oh that’s awful, isn’t it?”

I made a noncommittal noise.

“Thousands of dollars, just today,” Kristee was saying. “She loved her chocolate truffles.”

“Did she?”

“For sure. She was a steady customer ever since I opened the shop. You’d never think about her being kind to anyone, but she was, in her own mean sort of way. She bought a half dozen black and white truffles for herself and one for her cousin every week. You saw that poor lady at the funeral? That’s Olivia Henley Simonett. She’s a few chocolates short of a gift box, to put it mildly, but Miss Henley was always really nice to her. I guess old Hellfire wasn’t always awful, the way she was to us in school. Well, all right, she was awful. A nasty old bat.”

I said inanely, “But I suppose you’ll miss the business.”

“Won’t have to. She even left a little fund so her cousin still gets the truffles every week. The best part is, I still get the business and I won’t have to put up with all those remarks she always made. The left-handed compliments and the digs. And that special way she had of looking down her nose at you. Remember?”

“Who could forget?”

“She had a lot of power over people.” Kristee shivered.

“You’re telling me,” said a pink-faced woman with a silver brush cut and earrings to match. I recognized her as Ramona, the librarian from the Woodbridge Library reference department. “I saw her when I went to the doctor for my annual checkup last week. Just the sight of her was enough to raise my blood pressure. And I’m a tough cookie. But it was like when you barely avert a car accident by slamming on your brakes. There were a couple of scrapes she never caught me out on at St. Jude’s, and all of a sudden I panicked. That’s crazy, I know. I can’t believe I was afraid of her, but . . .” She shivered and her silver earrings jingled. “These truffles are fabulous though, Kristee.”

Sally edged her way in between us and gave me an oversized wink. She followed it with a playful nudge in my ribs.

“What’s that about?” I said.

“He’s very yummy.”

“Who?”

“You know who.” She glanced over my shoulder.

I jerked my head around, and sure enough, there he was, leaning against a wall and watching us. Sally gave him a flirtatious little wave.