TheCart Before the Corpse (23 page)

“This is a trying time for you, Mrs. Abbott. May I call you Merry?” He didn’t wait for me to say yes or
hell
no. “I know you must be overwhelmed. The governor and I stand ready to do everything we can to alleviate your difficulties in such a sad time.”

And if I didn’t already have difficulties, he’d be happy to provide them for me. “Uh, thank you,” I said.

“We all know that the real estate market is at the bottom of a deep pit at the moment.” He shook his head and gave a little cluck. “You may not be able to unload Mr. Lackland’s property for a very long while working with a Realtor, even a good one. Meanwhile, the debt piles up, then come taxes, utilities, upkeep of the horses and equipment, mortgage payments on the new stable . . . ” He shook his head sadly. “On top of that, you have a home in Kentucky.”

How in heck did he know that?

“Plus a daughter just starting her career and apt to need your support both financial and otherwise in this down market. You’re a woman on your own, completely responsible for your own welfare. You live a peripatetic lifestyle, traveling from horse show to horse show, horse farm to horse farm. Without even alimony . . . ”

He’d gone way beyond Google. The governor’s man had developed a dossier on me. Why? And why was he letting me know how much he knew? I started to snap his head off, then I saw Peggy across the room watching us, calmed down and decided to hear him out. I nodded and gave him my sad puppy stare. I actually brushed his cashmere sleeve with my fingertips.

“How long are you planning to stay in Mossy Creek after the funeral?” he asked.

“I haven’t made up my mind,” I sniffed. “I do have so much paperwork to go through.”

He snapped to as though I’d hit him in the rump with a cattle prod. “Paperwork? I’m in Bigelow looking after some of the Governor’s interests for a while. I’d be most happy to help you organize . . . ”

“Oh, no. It’s just final taxes and such. My father had a wonderful accountant and an excellent lawyer.”

“Yes, of course.” He’d gone somewhere else for the moment, but he came back to himself and brought his attention back to me. “Let’s have lunch at my club in Bigelow one day next week. Say, Tuesday? I’ll have my girl call up and confirm. I think I can solve all your problems.” He glittered at me. “Maybe the governor can even put a word in the proper ears in New York for your daughter.”

Was that a promise or a threat? My skin crawled. I do not anger easily, but if he tried to use Allie’s career as leverage against me, I’d kill him
and
the governor. Besides, I absolutely hate people who call their secretaries and assistants ‘my girl.’ I spent too many years when Allie was growing up being somebody’s girl. I managed to smile, however, and nod with a hint of tears. “I’d be so grateful,” I said and hated myself.

He patted my hand one final time. For a moment I thought he was going to give me an air kiss and braced myself not to recoil, but he caught himself at the last minute and patted my shoulder instead.

“Now, I’m afraid I have to leave so I can get home to read the kids their bedtime story.” Before he slammed the dungeon door shut on them for the night, no doubt.

He tossed Peggy a little wave and swept out of the room while everyone watched him go. He moved as though he was expecting applause.

I walked over to Peggy and leaned over to whisper, “Who was that masked man?”

“Not the Lone Ranger, that’s for damn sure. What did he want?”

“I don’t guess it’s anything to my advantage.”

“He’s the kind of man who helps old ladies across the street, shoves them under a bus, then sues the bus company.”

“Lawyer, then?”

“The term shyster does not begin to encompass him.”

“He knew a darned sight too much about me.” I said. Interesting that he apparently did
not
know that the mortgage insurance would leave the farm free and clear. Good old Mr. Robertson. Had Whitehead’s been the offer Mr. Robertson had mentioned? Would he tell me if I asked?

Peggy took me around and introduced me to the people who had come to pay their respects. They were mostly Mossy Creek Garden Club ladies, several of whom I had met at Mama’s restaurant. They all wanted to know how soon I could start teaching them to drive.

I was surprised when Geoff Wheeler walked in. “Are you still on the clock or is this purely social?” I asked.

“An officer of the law is always on the clock,” he said. “Protect and serve twenty-four-seven.”

“Must play hell with your sex life.” Why on earth did I say things like that?

“What sex life? We take oaths of poverty, celibacy and obedience to authority like monks.”

“Of
course
you do.”

He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but plenty of married men didn’t. Most of the policemen I’d met did, although I imagine the last thing a detective would want a criminal to know is that he has hostages to fortune stashed somewhere.

“Your wife must be very understanding.”

“The poverty part caused the divorce. She’s a hotshot corporate lawyer in Atlanta and makes more in a month than I do in a year. She didn’t like supporting her lifestyle on my paycheck.”

“So who pays whom child support?” I asked.

He actually smiled down at me. I thought of the crocodile from Alice in Wonderland who welcomes little fishies in with gently smiling jaws.

Most men can’t look down on me
physically
even if they do other ways. He could. “Ask me straight out, why don’t you?” he said. “This ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ method of interrogation went out with rubber hoses.”

“Okay. Children?”

“None. No alimony, although I would like her to pay me some.”

“My mother says early divorces are best because you don’t have either possessions or children to fight over.”

“Did you follow Mom’s advice?”

“You know I didn’t. Whether you or Ken Whitehead developed the dossier on me, I’ll bet you shared.”

“I beg your pardon?” Although his expression didn’t change, he went instantly from banter to
really
serious.

“The governor’s pit bull just left. He knew gew-gobs more about me and my family than he should have. He issued a gentle threat along the lines of ‘keep a low profile and do what we tell you, Missy. We know where you live.’”

“What precisely did he say?”

“The words don’t sound threatening.”

He waved a hand. “Tell me.”

So I did. I expected him to blow me off. Instead he steered me through the people standing around drinking coffee into the hall and around a corner where we were alone.

“Do as he says.”

“You would say that. You play for his team,” I said.

He grabbed my upper arms. I thought he was going to shake me like a beagle with a dead rabbit, but he held me at arm’s length and growled at me.

“I’m talking about the low profile part, dammit. Keep your head down and do not play Nancy Drew or someone may remove it from your shoulders. That would annoy me.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” My heart was racing and my stomach was doing flip flops.

“No, we would not want that. It would add to my workload, possibly screw up my career, complicate my life, and generally piss me off.”

I thought the man was going to kiss me right in front of God and all the corpses. I wanted him to. I hadn’t reacted to a man that way since I fell for Vic, and look how
that
turned out.

“There you are,” said Peggy’s cheerful voice. “Everyone’s been looking for you.”

Geoff dropped my arms, stepped back, ran his hand over his nearly non-existent hair and walked away.

“Oops,” she whispered. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Or not
very
sorry, at any rate. “Who’s looking for me?”

“I have four ladies in there wanting to schedule driving lessons this weekend.”

“Oh, God. Do they know I can only coach them, not drive
for
them?”

“I told them, but not why. They assume it’s your special teaching technique.”

“You’ve driven the Haflinger, right?”

“Golden Boy, yes. He is a truly lovely pony. Also, he doesn’t come joined at the hip to a donkey. Hiram used him for all the beginner lessons, even though he was planning on using Heinzie on Easter to pull the vis-à-vis.”

“What was he planning to do with Don Qui?”

“Lock him in a stall and leave him where he couldn’t hear him yell, although Don Qui has been known to open his own stall and go hunting for his buddy. Heinzie’s not the problem. When Don Qui’s not with him, he may whinny a couple of times, then he settles down and does as he’s told. Don Qui, on the other hand . . . Well, you saw and heard. Heinzie is not the brightest star in the equine firmament. Don Qui is. They’re like the old Shore Patrol—two men, the big one and the smart one. Guess which Don Qui considers himself?”

“What happens if we take him with us to Mossy Creek? Will he wander off or kick the children?”

“I doubt it. He’ll stay as close to Heinzie as he can get. Hiram was working Heinzie away from the stable. I know he drove him down the driveway and along the road a couple of times while Don Qui yelled his head off from his stall. Like most donkeys, however, Don Qui laid in wait for Hiram and stomped on his foot. Broke his little toe.”

“Donkeys are big on revenge,” I said. “Mules are even worse. They’ll wait years to savage somebody who hurt them. Okay, we’ll try Hiram’s technique. We’ll start driving Heinzie down the road with Don Qui locked in his stall, and endure the noise.”

“And watch our backs,” she said.

Chapter 26

Friday morning

Merry

Friday’s weather dawned appropriately soggy, and according to early television weather, intended to get wetter before it blew over. At least Hiram’s cemetery plot was high enough so that it wouldn’t flood out the few mourners, but getting to the tent would entail a slog from the winding road up the muddy hill. Great.

I wear a dress and heels so seldom that I felt as though I were playing dress up in my mother’s clothes. I had absolutely refused to wear a hat, and I don’t own an umbrella. With luck I wouldn’t break my ankle and wind up in the emergency room. The weather was cold enough so that I wore my black blazer over my black dress.

The umbrella Peggy held over her head was big enough for both of us. I turned the heater on full blast as we backed out of her driveway and headed for the cemetery. The rain had turned the weather chill as well as soggy, but my shivers weren’t due to the outside temperature as much as my own internal shakiness.

Friends have warned me that burying a parent is breaking one of life’s ultimate connections. What possessed me to spend so much time and energy keeping him out of my life?

Now it was too late. The only saving grace was that we had reconnected before he died.

I’d never gotten a chance to hug him, to feel the strength and warmth of his arms around me, to hear his heart beating one last time, to see that shit-kicking grin that had enthralled everybody who met him, to smell his verbena aftershave that smelled like fresh lemons even in the midst of winter. We’d never had the chance to find our way back to one another.

Death sucks. Murder sucks worse.

The funeral home people had laid a three-foot wide strip of indoor-outdoor carpet from the road up the hill to the tent where the service would take place. I’d pay for that too.

The cemetery wasn’t large, so Peggy and I been able to spot the green tent from the funeral home parking lot. Good thing, because the hearse had already delivered Hiram’s casket to the graveside, and the cemetery staff had set it up on the hydraulic lift that would lower it into the earth.

We parked, but I made no move to open the door. I wrapped my arms around the steering wheel of my truck, put my head down and leaked. Peggy was smart enough to sit there quietly and let me have at it.

Finally I hiccupped into silence. “Stupid rain. If the sun was shining I could wear sunglasses so nobody could see my eyes,” I said.

“Wear them anyway.” Peggy handed me a big white men’s handkerchief. “This was Ben’s. Tissues won’t cut it. This won’t fall apart on you.”

“We don’t have hysterics at funerals in my family. Very bad form.”

“Who said you planned to have hysterics? It’s okay to weep at your father’s funeral.” She pulled out the twin of my handkerchief and held it to her eyes. “I certainly plan to do more than weep. More like sob. Come on. People are arriving. Time to go. It’s almost over.”

“After the funeral, I’ll have time to figure out who did this to him.”

“We will, you mean.” She opened her door, stuck her umbrella out and opened it. “You’ll just have to get wet until you come around to my side of the truck.”

Twenty chairs had been set up under the tent and the flowers had already been moved from the viewing room to the graveside. The Episcopal pall had been removed and probably sent to the cleaners. The priest was Peggy’s size with a cheerful round face that matched his round belly. I’m sure he introduced himself to me and said all the right things, but I don’t even remember his name. Everybody’s voice seemed to be coming at me through a synthesizer or from under water.

Peggy steered me to the center seat and sat beside me. People I didn’t know came up the hill, shook my hand and took their places. The garden club ladies showed up. A couple brought husbands or significant others. Geoff Wheeler and Amos Royden came together and stood at the back.

I almost didn’t recognize Jacob Yoder. He was squeaky clean, freshly shaven, and wore a black jacket with clean jeans, a white shirt and a black tie. I could believe he’d been raised Amish. Impossible to tell whether his eyes were red-rimmed from booze or tears, but he looked genuinely upset. He shook my hand in his callused one. Even his nails were clean. He’d made a real effort to show my father respect. I appreciated that.

The nice thing about the Episcopal graveside service is that there’s no eulogy. I think that’s because death equalizes us. After the final Amen everyone else walked down the hill to the cars. Peggy glanced at me and started to follow, but I stopped her. I waited until the coffin was lowered, then picked up a handful of dirt and dropped it onto the casket. Old English custom. The thud of finality. Peggy did the same.