Authors: Laura Childs
Suzanne blushed. “Really,”
she said, “should we even
be having this conversation? We’re, like, ten feet from a
dead body.”
“Where should we
continue this conversation?” Sam
pressed.
“I don’t know,” said
Suzanne. It was way too early for
talk this serious, wasn’t it?
“I can think of a nice
place,” said Sam.
Suzanne glanced
around, then stepped closer and
pressed her shoulder up against his. “I’ll bet you can.”
Once
Sam took off for the hospital, Suzanne circled the
room, looking to
collect Toni. Instead, she noticed that the room seemed filled with electoral
candidates, incumbents,
and more than a few staff from city hall. And when Su
zanne noticed Allan
Sharp whispering in Mayor Mobley’s
.ear, she sought out Sheriff Doogie again.
“What if those two
clowns had been trying to fix the
election?” she asked him. “And Peebler, as
mayoral candi
date, got wind
of it?”
Doogie turned flat
eyes on Sharp and Mobley. “It’s not
easy investigating a town’s mayor.”
“Then what about
Sharp?” Suzanne asked. “What pies does he have his bony fingers in these days?
Is there any
sort of trail to
follow?”
“Only dung I can think
of,” said Doogie, “is that Sharp
was trying to get a parcel of land rezoned so he could
build
a pizza place and a
sandwich shop.”
“And he’s doing it by
the book?”
“Suppose so.”
“Can you look at Allan
Sharp a little closer?”
Doogie didn’t look
happy. “Maybe.”
Still Suzanne
persisted. “Then there’s the small matter
of Jane.”
Doogie
rolled his eyes. “I
knew
you were going to bring
her up.”
“You don’t actually
believe Jane’s connected to any of
this, do you?”
Doogie
held his ground. “I gotta look at all the angles.
Even if they’re not pretty or
popular with everyone.”
“Okay,” said Suzanne.
Her eyes skittered across the
crowd, falling on Carmen, who was now overtly flirting
with Lester Drummond. “There’s
another shady character,”
Suzanne
murmured, meaning Drummond.
“Face it,” said
Doogie, “you really don’t like him.”
“No, I don’t,” said
Suzanne, gazing at Drummond’s o
verdeveloped shoulders, which seemed ready to burst
from his black leather
jacket “I really don’t.”
Thirty
minutes later, Suzanne was strolling down Laurel
Lane, walking Baxter
and Scruff. They’d fallen into a sort
of sniff, shuffle, stop, then sniff again
routine. A little mad
dening for Suzanne, but highly desirous to her two canine
companions.
“C’mon you guys,”
Suzanne urged, “I hereby declare
that sniff time is over. So let’s pick up the pace and
focus
on
the walking portion of the evening. And try to get home
and in bed before midnight.”
Both dogs stopped to
stare at her with furrowed brows
and expressions of dismay. Did she not understand the cor
relation between
sniffing and happiness? Did she not understand a canine’s primary sensory
pleasure?
Pausing in a dark
spot to scope out a bed of withered
hostas, the dogs tugged urgently at their leashes.
Suzanne
sighed,
then relented, giving them the latitude they needed.
While off to her left, a car,
running without its lights, slid
slowly
into the intersection.
Car trouble? Or up to
no good? she wondered, tugging
hastily on the leashes and quickly shepherding her pups
down the street where
they could stand under a friendly
spill of light from a streetlamp. The car moved
slowly on
and
Suzanne and her charges hurried for home.
Probably
not a good idea to be out wandering around, she decided. Especially in the wake
of two murders.
Back home, doors
locked, lights on, leashes stowed,
dogs happy, Suzanne wandered into the kitchen and
poured
herself
a glass of orange juice. Ever since she’d traded
words with Sam tonight, she’d
been in a state of emotional
flux.
Should she get involved
with him? Or shouldn’t she?
She took a sip of
juice, decided for about the hundredth
time that after their little
snuggle party Tuesday night she
was
already
involved.
For better or worse?
And all that implied?
Wandering back through
the house, still sipping and
ruminating, Suzanne was drawn to Walter’s old office.
Though she was pretty
sure she’d be cool about the whole
thing, a rush of sadness suddenly swept over her
when she
stepped
inside. Everything that screamed Walter was still
in place in this office. His
Tiffany pen set, his books on fly tying, photos of him fly-fishing in Canada,
even a framed
poster from a long-ago Eric Clapton concert.
Maybe, Suzanne
decided, it was time to pack some of
these things away. Turn this place into a cozy
library or
music room.
Or a home office for
me.
But before she did
any packing and redecorating, there
was one thing she wanted to look for.
Suzanne sat down at
Walter’s desk, paused for a moment as the cushy chair yielded to her, then
slid open the
top drawer on the left. It was Walter’s kookaloo drawer,
basically a junk
drawer, and it was jammed with pens, batteries, sunglasses, old Juicy Fruit
gum, a magnifying glass,
and even a half-eaten Salted Nut Roll. Suzanne grabbed
the
petrified
nut roll, tossed it into the trash can, and heard it
land with a hard thud.
Then she
continued rifling through the odd stamps,
postcards, and year-old receipts
until she found what she
was looking for. A white key card. She grabbed it, held
it
in her
hand, then tapped it against the top of the desk. It
was a souvenir they’d kept from
a weekend splurge at the
Edgewater
East in Chicago.
Carrying the key card
into the kitchen, Suzanne dug
around in her own catchall drawer, pawing through twine,
old
Christmas seals, notepaper, paper clips, and packets of
colorful beads, until
she found what she was looking for. A
small box of tempera paints.
Laying the key card
flat on the counter, she took a
paintbrush, dipped it into one of the paint vials, and
mak
ing
broad swipes, very carefully colored the key card light
blue.
Pushing
open one of the oak double doors of Hope
Church, Suzanne and Toni stepped
inside one of the oldest houses of worship in Logan County. Light streamed
through stained-glass
windows filling the room with
warmth and a kaleidoscope of sparkling colors. Massive
hand-carved wooden
arches spanned the width of the white
plaster ceiling.
An usher, wearing a
dark suit and a
Peebler for Mayor
button pinned to his lapel,
hastily handed memorial cards
to
Suzanne and Toni.
“Darn,” said Toni, as
they strolled down the center aisle,
“I wish I’d worn my Peebler button, too. It would
have
been a nice tribute.”
Suzanne scanned the
church, noting that it was barely
filled. “Where do you want to sit?” she asked. “Aisle?
Far
ther in?”
“Not the aisle,” said
Toni, looking nervous. Like most
folks, Toni preferred to be as far away from a rolling
coffin
as humanly possible.
They edged their way
into a pew and sat down on a hard
bench just as Agnes Bennet, the organist in the
choir loft,
began pumping away. She was a tiny woman, a septua
genarian who’d been
the church organist for almost fifty
years. Even though she
seemed the size of a child when
seated at the enormous pipe organ, her legs pumped up and
down
with the athletic skill of an NFL quarterback. Fanta
sia in C Minor filled the church
with a sumptuous sound
making it feel as if the Lord himself was bearing
witness.
“Not too many people
showed up,” Toni whispered.
Suzanne glanced toward
the front of the church and
gave a nod. “Mobley and his flunky Allan Sharp are here,”
she whispered back.
“Jerks,” said Toni.
Then, feeling guilty at her unchari
table remark, she quickly dropped her head and
made the
sign of the cross.
Glancing down at the
memorial card she’d been handed,
Suzanne stared at the fuzzy photo of Peebler. Under the
photo, in a sort of
Gothic script, the years of his life were
defined by a dash between his
birthday and his ... what
would you call it? His death day? Suzanne shivered, just
as
the
doors at the back of the church swung open and some
thing metallic bumped across the sill.
Suzanne and Toni
scrambled to their feet, along with the
rest of the mourners. Then, from
the back of the church,
six pallbearers began to wheel the copper-colored coffin,
blessedly
sealed today, up the center aisle. A spray of white
roses jiggled on top, a final
floral tribute to the man who
probably would have been elected Kindred’s mayor.
When the procession
reached the altar, Peebler’s cof
fin was jockeyed back and forth and angled next to a half
dozen
floral arrangements that had been hastily brought
over from the funeral home.
“So sad,” Toni
murmured. “You see that wreath with the
miniature...”
“Golf club,” said
Suzanne, nodding. Golf had been
one of Peebler’s passions. Now he’d gone to that great
fairway in the sky. Or
could his poor soul be stuck in a
sand trap?
As
Suzanne shook her head to clear it, Reverend Strait
entered the chancel. His
salt-and-pepper hair seemed to
reflect the light that seeped through the stained-glass
win
dows
on either side of the altar. As he began to intone, “The
Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want,” his comforting
presence seemed to spread out across the room.
After finishing the
Twenty-third Psalm, Reverend Strait
went on to deliver a heartfelt speech about
Peebler’s kindness and his dedication to the community. After touching
on Peebler’s civic
pride and love of golf, Reverend Strait
then invited others to come up
and share their thoughts and
recollections.
As community members
talked about Peebler in glow
ing terms, Suzanne noted that no one mentioned Peebler’s
attraction to
strippers or his frequent visits to Hoobly’s.
Like most tributes to the dead,
previous sins were rarely
mentioned.
A final
blessing was delivered, then the gentle strains
of Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will
Remember You” rolled out
from the organ, a cue that the service had concluded.
The casket rolled
back down the aisle on clacking
wheels, the six pallbearers all looking decidedly
serious.
Suzanne
and Toni waited until the church was practically empty, then stood up and edged
toward the aisle.
“You okay?” Suzanne
asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Toni.
“At least the service didn’t last an
eternity, like some do.”
“Interesting choice
of words,” Suzanne observed. They
walked slowly down the aisle and out into a cool,
cloudy
day where mourners
milled about on the sidewalk, talking
with each other in a low buzz.
“Too bad Petra had to
hold down the fort,” said Toni.
“She would have liked this, the music and all. And wasn’t
it lucky that Kit was able to pinch-hit for us?”
“Just as
long as Kit doesn’t ask us to fill in for her,” said Suzanne, as they pushed
their way through the crowd.