2 Landscape in Scarlet (13 page)

“Yeah. Vincent Hearst. The kid is living with his stepfather now. The divorce was amicable and since the mother didn’t want him living with all the gossip and pressure from the neighbors who wanted him to accuse Comstock, she’s sent him off to live with her ex.”

“Hm. So no hope of talking to the kid?”

“Not so far
and I am reluctant to push it if the kid is really traumatized
.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter really. I just want to know
.
…”

“Yeah. Truthfully, I’d feel less bad if I knew for sure that he was a bad guy. I know that isn’t the politically expedient thing to say
.
…”

“No, but I feel the same. It doesn’t change what I do, but I’d have a lot less
… angst, if I knew one way or another.”

“You going to head back to the Wood and then come down for the funeral.”

He assumed correctly that she was attending based on her choice of attire.

“No. I need to grocery shop and may stop in at the pet boutique to get Marley some catnip.”

“That is one cat who has fallen in gravy.”

“Yes, but he’d
prefer tuna.”

*  *  *

Juliet parked in the lot away from the
squatting
yew tree which
now
looked sinister from every angle.

The sun was out. Barely. But the wind was creeping around, reminding everyone with
soft
tugs
on their c
o
ats
and whispers
in the grass
that winter was coming.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. None of the shutters were opened and the atmosphere was deadly still and gloomy.

The paintings had been cleared
away after the festival
but the odor of hay remained. Juliet looked at those gathered in the church. The general texture of the funeral-goers was bland, expected.
There were members of the art council, Garret and
the
deputy, the woman who managed the only apartment complex in White Oaks and must have been Comstock’s landlady. No friends, no colleagues, no teachers or coaches or anyone from out of town had gathered to mourn.
They
were all strangers to the dead man, attending
his last party
because it was what
their
social training told
them
to do.

No one else could be bothered. Juliet understood. Owners didn’t want to close their businesses. And indifference, distaste,
gossip,
these things had stamina. It was so much easier to force a little amnesia. After all, how much did you owe someone you only knew from the checkout line at the market or the DMV?
Especially if he was a bad guy?

Juliet knew she shouldn’t have come.
Excepting the older woman crying in her handkerchief, no one who had loved or hated
or even known
the dead man was there. Perhaps that was because he hadn’t known many people in town and none of them well. Maybe because he had only been there a short while. Perhaps because he hadn’t felt like getting acquainted with the new life that had been thrust upon him. The divorce from the old one had been bitter and it would be understandable if he hadn’t felt like dating right away. Whatever the cause, attendance was
sparse
and she would learn nothing
.

Juliet decided not to speak to the gray-faced woman who had to be Comstock’s mother. Her people skills were not the best at funerals and what could she say
—
I never met your son but I could tell from the way his body was lying there in the bushes that he must have been a wonderful man
?

Juliet took a seat next to Rose
who was prepared
to be sorrowful
and carrying a hankie
. They smiled but didn’t speak. It wouldn’t have been appropriate in the dead silent room. She noticed that there hadn’t been time to get the carpet near the altar cleaned and the tourists tromping in and out during the festival had left the fading brown rug looking like a dog that had been rolling in the dirt and weeds. It was unseemly and
the lack of respect
for the solemn occasion
bothered Juliet.

It was a relief when the officiant took the podium. The preacher was dressed in an Old Testament manner but his voice and message turned out to be disappointingly new age.

The minister had obviously been briefed on Comstock’s recent, unfortunate history and made no mention of his working with children. With that off the table, it became apparent that Michael Comstock hadn’t done much with his life after the soapbox derby in the fifth grade. In the forty years he’d had to live and grow he hadn’t gone to college, married, had kids
—
done anything that usually merited a mention at funerals.

“There will be no more suffering
.
…”

No
,
nor anything else
,
Juliet thought harshly
. Nothing would ever happen to Michael Comstock again, not down there in the earth where they were putting his ashes
as soon as the police released him
to the
crematorium
.
Of course, all living things returned to dust eventually, but Juliet forced herself away from the thought.

There was a
fraught
pause after the minister asked if anyone wanted to say anything.
No friend
s
got up to speak.
That was when one really noticed the lack of family. It
seemed wrong
to send someone off without a single personal word
, but
it was just as wrong to go
making stuff up about strangers
,
which is what would happen since
it was only people from White Oaks who were there.
Juliet again felt dismay
for the mother
but didn’t rise to her feet.

This lack of friends
from his old life
made Comstock seem like he had
always
been coffin-ready. That people just couldn’t be bothered to invest in a person who wouldn’t be around for long
, so why not die
and get it over with?
But was that an accurate picture? Was the man truly that friendless?
Might he have had friends that were too embarrassed by the gossip about him to show any support? Judgments by people in small towns tended to have long-lasting consequences. Maybe they figured it was better to let him go un-eulogized.

Or maybe he really had been a bad person.

After an uncomfortable moment, Deputy Henderson
got up and
started a video and the movie played silently on the east wall. They saw Michael as a baby, as a boy in a soapbox derby, as a shaggy teen in a
navy blue
cap and gown.
The stroll down memory lane
ended there, maybe because it was an old disk the mother had had on hand. Maybe because there hadn’t been anything to add
about Michael Comstock
.

Rose began to cry
at this final bit of horridness
and Juliet patted her shoulder. She felt a kind of
disgust
too
but did not permit herself the easy tears that sentimentality expected
.

His mother would miss him
—
how could she not? But not as much as if she had lived in the same state.
Comstock was gone and no one cared.

Juliet realized that her funeral might be very much the same.

The calm shattered with the last amen. The need for flight away from the appalling obsequies had people moving as a flock, reaching for possessions and hurrying for the door.
Juliet hoped the mother hadn’t laid on any baked meats for the mourners because there probably wouldn’t be any takers. Attendees were already regretting the social politeness.

Juliet met Garret
’
s
look and knew he was as disconcerted as she was.

“What’s wrong?” Rose whispered when she looked up from her handkerchief
and saw Juliet’s still
, pale
face
.

“I ju
st went to my
creepy place,”
Juliet
muttered softly.
“Let’s go. I can’t take anymore.”

“We could go get a cupcake,” Rose suggested kindly, under the cover of people getting up and gathering coats and scarves.
“Cupcakes and tea are nice.”

How sad was it that a
cup of tea and a
cupcake might actually make them feel better, that the tragedy of Comstock’s death could be erased by pastry? Juliet shook her head but said
,
“We sure need something to sweeten the day. I just hope they still have pumpkin with maple icing.”

“I like the orange ones.
Or lemon. Or chocolate.
”

In other words, anything would be an improvement on what they had just been through.

He just wanted to know who
m
he had pissed off to get sent on this errand. Leaning on
an
old retired artist, even if the word was that she was scary because of having some kind of second sight, just wasn’t his style.

He hadn’t asked questions though. They weren’t welcome and wouldn’t be answered. But he still really wondered who had gotten him assigned this detail
. He went after bad guys, dangerous guys
who hunted the streets of Los Angeles
, not little old ladies who
probably
responded better to tact than threats
.

White Oaks.
It was
n’t
cataclysmically awful, he guessed
, peering out the window as he looked for the road that led to the artists
’
compound called Bartholomew’s Wood
. It was the kind of place where the salon still did an authentic Jackie O hairdo and where they had meatloaf with catsup
and baked beans
at the diner. It was the kind of town that had petered out all over the world and no one was
really
sorry when they went.

And absolutely nothing about the place or the people was going to lead to career advancement
.

Still, sometimes you just did what you were told. And the sooner he finished, the sooner he could get back to doing real work
.

It was high noon, but because of the clouds the world had shadows and Marley was playing in them.
The
encroaching
air was humid and barbed with cold
that reeked of the ocean and something less pleasant
. Usually it smelled of pine and cedar but someone was tanning leather. The whiffs of dead animal were repellant
and overpowered the cup of coffee she had made with her new Keurig. The old coffee machine
had
gone from quirky to moody and dangerous
.
She didn’t believe in keeping subversive appliances that could start fires.

Juliet stepped outside to call Marley in so she could close up the bungalow.

“Mar
—
Oh no.”

Juliet believed in bringing food on a visit. It was a shortcut to convivial interaction and the breaking of bread was a symbol of peaceful intention.

The
strange
man approaching her cottage
on the narrow trail from the compound’s second tier of cabins
was empty-handed. Looking at his u
ti
litarian suit and shoes that fashion
for the last fifty years
had completely bypassed, Juliet made an intuitive leap and immediately fled up the hill for Esteban’s bungalow,
dumping her cup along the way and
cutting through the trees and risking ticks and sprains because it was fastest and the most hidden
escape
route.

Esteban wasn’t home, but she knew where he kept the spare key and a set of high-resolution binoculars.
And guns. But she didn’t need guns.
Probably.

Her panting breaths fogged the air around her
as she scrambled up the hill
. Juliet
was fully aware that intuition had slammed the door on manners and eve
n
reason.
The visitor, who dressed like some kind of Fed, might be selling Avon, or wanting to find out if she’
d
accept
ed
Jesus as her Lord and Savior. He could be someone’s cousin from Iowa, or a repairman
,
or
a
visiting botanist
.