Family Skeletons (20 page)

Then decisively she turned from the window, as if
forcing herself to look to the future instead of the past. “I need that coffee.
What happened to Ryan?”

Sunny was grateful Roberta hadn’t suggested a walk
to the beach. She didn’t relish the thought of standing with her mother and
looking at the place where her father had lain buried for seven years.

She’d prepared chicken salad sandwiches and potato
salad for a simple, early supper. They ate quietly, then prepared to leave for
the first proceeding of the weekend: the interment. Though this part was
private, they invited Ryan to join them.

But he declined. “You don’t need me. You need each
other, but you don’t need me. Not tonight.” He ushered them out to the car,
gave them each an affectionate peck on the cheek, then saw them off.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sunny stood alone in the middle of the parlor,
trying to remember what she’d gone in there for. She couldn’t keep her mind on
any one task but was way too fidgety to sit and read, so she was still trying
to keep busy—which was impossible when she couldn’t remember what she was doing
long enough to get it done.

She was hopeless. Giving up, she walked to the
window and looked outside.

Jonathan should be arriving any time now. She felt
as excited and elated as a teenager before a big date. So no wonder she was
such a basket case. She was a bundle of emotions: expectant, joyful, both
scared and happy. She didn’t have a handle on anything, and didn’t even care
that she didn’t.

The phone rang and startled her into a jerky leap.
Shaking her head at herself, and glad that Ryan the psychologist hadn’t
witnessed her little exhibition, she answered it.

“It’s me,” said Jonathan’s voice. Because he sounded
garbled, she guessed he was on his cell phone. He quickly corrected himself.
“Uh, I—I mean, it’s I. It is I.”

She grinned.
Nobody but you.

Then she frowned as a sinking feeling formed in her
gut. “Is there a problem? Are you calling because you can’t make it?”

“I’ll be there, but not on time. I know Friday
traffic is supposed to be bad, but this is ridiculous. Don’t wait on me. I’ll
meet you at the mortuary. I remember passing by it once so I won’t have trouble
finding it.”

“Okay.” She heard her relief and wondered if it was
audible over the line’s static. “I’ll save you a seat.”

“Right next to you,” he whispered, his tone turning
husky and now carrying well over the airwaves. She felt a tingle from her
eardrum right to her groin.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

“Soon,” he said, by way of goodbye, and she repeated
the word back to him, same promise in her voice as in his. Gently, she replaced
the phone in its cradle and then looked at it.

You’ve got it bad, Sunny.

* * *

Roberta’s sedan was roomier than Ryan’s coupe, and
was more presentable than his grandmother’s clunker, so they chose to ride in
it to the memorial service. She balked at driving, however, so Sunny
volunteered.

As they’d feared, the time and place of the service
had leaked out. The mortuary’s parking lot, as well as the whole street, held a
carnival atmosphere. Ryan took Roberta’s arm and elbowed his way past the
flashbulbs, and Sunny followed in their wake. Each of them knew better than to
make eye contact with the news people, or even to reply to the clamored
questions with a terse, “No comment.”

The room filled quickly, but no one bothered them in
their pew at the front. Sunny sat at the end, next to the wall aisle and saving
the space beside her for Jonathan. Tom and Mavis sat behind them. Sunny
suspected that some of his cohorts sat across the center aisle from them as
well, for the specific purpose of fending off unwelcome visitors.

When Jonathan slipped in next to her and squeezed
her hand, her breathing quickened, and she broke out in goose bumps all over.
Oh,
yeah. You’ve got it real bad, Sunny
.

She gave him a lingering look. He was impeccable in
a dark-brown suit, cream shirt and oatmeal tie. Those familiar green eyes were
filled with expression, longing and questions and concern as they searched
hers. His breathing had also quickened.

The buzz in the room diminished somewhat, but didn’t
cease, once the minister appeared and took his place at the podium. She and
Jonathan turned their attention to him. The man looked out over the
congregation, and remained quiet, and silence fell over the room.

He was soft-spoken, brief, and respectful as he laid
Franklin Corday to rest for the final time. The preceding night at 7:00 p.m.,
the skeleton, enclosed within a plain wooden coffin, had been lowered into the
ground. Only three people had been present: his ex-wife, his daughter, and the
same man who stood at the podium. Their faces had been solemn, but dry, as they
were today.

Now, as Sunny thought of the crowd of people behind
her—and feeling resentful of most of them—an unwelcome thought broke through
her subconscious and gave her a sudden chill. Barely aware of Jonathan’s hand
around hers, or of the minister’s voice, she remained frozen for an instant.

This room was full. Was her father’s murderer in it?
Saying his—or her—final goodbye?

Feeling sick with it, she closed her eyes against
her next thought, which was even more unwelcome than the first. Had his
murderer been present last night as well?

Her mother as killer was incomprehensible, yet the
possibility had always been there, barely suppressed, waiting to pop up. The
only indisputable fact they had was that the killer hadn’t profited. It had
been a crime of passion, of impulse, without premeditation. Roberta had said
she’d let go. But she might not have done so until she’d seen his body plummet
to the bottom of the cove, followed it down, then dragged it into the vines and
heaped sand over it.

When she caught Jonathan’s quick glance, Sunny
realized her shudder had carried itself to him. But there was no way he could
know that her troubling thoughts concerned her mother, not her father.

* * *

For the reception Sunny had invested in more outdoor
furniture: two cushioned lounges, a round tempered-glass table equipped with an
umbrella, and four matching chairs complete with cushions. She’d given Ryan
carte blanche, in both purchasing and placement, and had noted how quickly and
totally he’d become immersed in the project. This was an outdoorsy,
domesticated side of her smoothly put together housemate and best friend that
Sunny had not seen before.

Only a handful of people were invited to follow them
home: Tom and Mavis, Tim Joyce, Bev and Matthew, and they all milled about the
house and yard. Matthew stayed outside with his face turned toward the ocean.
He was so painfully ill at ease that Sunny wondered why he’d attended at all,
and for his sake she hoped Bev would take him home soon.

A pair of men was stationed outside the house on the
road leading in from town. She doubted they were here in an official capacity,
however. It was more likely they were doing Tom a favor. She was grateful for
their presence; they’d already stopped and turned away several media members.
Before she got a chance to send food out to them, she saw that Jonathan had
commissioned Matthew to take plates to them. The act served two purposes:
telling the men they were appreciated, and it gave the obviously uncomfortable
teenager something purposeful to do.

Because of the late hour, their guests—Sunny had
difficulty with the word mourners, though she wasn’t sure why—probably wouldn’t
be staying long. She was also grateful for that. Her mother concealed it well,
but she was under a strain. Roberta needed peace and quiet and solitude. Sunny
was also tired and on edge. And she was acutely, almost painfully, aware of
Jonathan Corday.

He was uppermost in her thoughts, constantly in her
vision, and if he didn’t have his hand on hers or his arm around her, it was
the other way around. She’d dressed in a dark-green skirt, straight and short,
and an ivy-green sweater. She even wore stockings with her conservative pumps,
and several times she’d noticed him looking at her legs. She was both flattered
and flustered, feeling like a teenager again, raging hormones and all.

At one point, the kitchen was empty except for the
two of them. He saw it first, pushed the porch door closed and then wrapped his
arms around her.

“It’s about time,” he whispered as his lips lowered
to hers.

When they came up for air, either seconds or minutes
later—Sunny doubted either of them knew how much time had elapsed—he murmured,
“I’ve never seen you in a skirt before.”

“Maybe not, but I wear shorts all the time.” Her
voice was as breathless as his. “You’ve seen my legs before.”

“Yes, but shorts and skirts are different. Maybe
it’s the stockings. Stockings are sexy.” His hands rested on her waist while
his teeth nibbled at her lip. “Please note my admirable control. My fingers are
itching to check out those stockings, but I’m afraid someone might disturb us.”

As if on cue, the door opened. “Oops,” Ryan said.

“Get lost,” Sunny said without looking at him.

“Please,” Jonathan agreed.

The door closed.

Their hands behaved themselves, but their mouths
were locked for another long while, then finally Jonathan raised his head. “We
need a breather. This is getting, uh...”

“Yeah,” she agreed. They broke apart and stared at
each other.

He took a deep breath, looked at the outside door
and exhaled noisily. “How long do we have to wait before we can graciously tell
everybody to go home?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll still have Roberta and
Ryan.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He gave her a cautious, almost panicky
look. “That doesn’t mean you want to move back into your old room, does it?”

She smiled, then laughed.

“Good,” he said.

Ryan opened the door again. “Okay, that’s long
enough. You make excellent potato salad, Sunny. Got any more?”

“No.”

“Actually, the bowl of green salad was the first one
emptied. Mavis’s frittata wasn’t bad, either, but I could do without the
macaroni and cheese. And that was the only hot dish out there.”

“You’ll survive,” Jonathan said.

Ryan grinned. “So will you.” He could be a master of
innuendo when he wanted to be, and he was presently pouring it on.

Jonathan frowned, as if trying to decide if he’d
read the comment correctly, and Sunny smiled. “What do you want, Ryan?” she
asked. “Besides more potato salad.”

“I want you both to come out to the porch and sit
down with me. I brought up three chairs and positioned them in such a way that
no one should take it upon himself or herself to join us.”

“And why did you do that?” Sunny asked, tilting her
head curiously.

He gave her a level look. “Because I want you back
home where it’s safe, and I don’t think you’ll go without a fight until you’ve
exhausted every investigative possibility. Your suspects are all here. Come
look at them, and we’ll talk about them. Which is exactly what those two deputy
sheriffs are doing, or at least what they should be doing.”

“Except that Tom’s one of the suspects,” Jonathan
said dryly. “I admit I’ve not been involved in a murder investigation before,
but this one seems quite unorthodox.”

Ryan’s idea seemed like a good one, so they went
outside and sat down. Sunny felt guilty about spying on her friends, and feared
that the three of them might be conspicuous sitting up here on the porch
surveying the group of people, but neither did she want to forego this chance
of looking at everybody at the same time.

“We’re missing a few players,” she said. “Langley
Bowers and his sons, except that his boys would’ve been mere children seven
years ago. But his wife, Louise, is definitely in the running. And Roberta said
that Bev’s marriage wasn’t a good one. Howard Wilkes might’ve blamed Franklin,
her first love, for that.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. “Anyone else?”

“Yeah.” She made a face and shook her head. “The
murderer. How can we believe that any one of these people actually swung a bat
at somebody’s head hard enough to kill him?”

“Someone did, Sunny. Be quiet and look around. What
are your impressions?”

She did as bidden. Her gaze traveled from person to
person, and then she met Matthew’s eyes as he stood alone in the yard, but he
didn’t quickly glance away as he usually did. Sullenness darkened his eyes as
he looked back at her. His mouth was a harsh, straight line, and his posture
was so stiff he appeared wooden. Then he took a half-step to turn toward the
ocean, showing her his back, and Sunny wondered if it had been her imagination
or if the anger she’d read in his expression had really been there.

Bev chose that moment to stand. She wore a pearl
gray sweater dress that showed off her figure, not bad for over fifty. She’d
been seated with Roberta and Mavis, and it appeared she was saying goodbye to
them. Sunny felt her eyes narrowing as the fact struck her that each of those
three women had been physically intimate with Franklin Corday. They each had
known of his various involvements, yet they were seated together, out of
choice, following his funeral. She shook her head, wondering at the variances
of human nature.

Roberta also stood, elegant as always in a straight
brown skirt that reached her calves, and a print over-blouse that was tied at
the waist with a cloth belt. Sunny noted how much the women resembled each
other. Each was tall and slender and carried herself well. Mavis, in a simple beige
sheath, matched them in height. Franklin had been of small stature but had been
attracted to tall women. Was that why he’d been compelled to prove himself over
and over again? Woman after woman? Had his own insecurity made him a small man
emotionally?

“Quicksilver,” Ryan murmured, and Sunny saw that he
meant Bev. “Her moods can turn rapidly, but she doesn’t try to hide them. She
just goes with them.”