In-Laws and Outlaws (4 page)

“Oh, didn't I tell you?” she answered absently. “They're getting a divorce.”

A
divorce
. So Annette had to contend with the collapse of a marriage on top of everything else … I fought down another shudder and composed myself the best I could to greet my sister-in-law. When she came in, she first murmured something to Connie and then turned to me.

I was looking at an impeccably groomed woman who was even more attractive now than she'd been ten years ago. Annette and her twin sister both had immense presence; they would have been dynamite on a theater stage. Just by walking into the house on Mt. Vernon Street, Annette had taken charge of it. Her eyes had deep shadows under them and her face wore the same pinched look as Connie's; but where Connie seemed on the edge of succumbing to hysteria or depression or worse, Annette was still in control. Four family deaths in quick succession were enough to make anyone a little nuts—anyone except a Decker born and bred.

Annette took my hands and said, “I always thought you'd come back.” She spoke with the same cool deliberation she'd used on the telephone the night before. “I'm only sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

“So am I,” I answered sincerely, strangely grateful for her … forgiveness? For her understanding. “I'd have come earlier if I'd known about Ike and the other two.”

“Ike's dead. Nothing can be done about that now.” She forced a little smile and said, “I'm glad to see you again, Gillian. You're looking good. Where are you living now?”

I told her where I was living and what I was doing there; it didn't take long to bring her up to date. “You really didn't know where I was?”

She raised an elegant eyebrow. “You didn't exactly keep us informed.”

“I realize that, but you … have ways of finding things out, don't you? All of you. Somehow I thought you always knew where I was and what I was doing.”

That brought a slight smile. “Oh, dear. You make us sound like the FBI. We did follow your career the first few years after you left, while you were still in New York. But then we lost track of you.”

Then they stopped bothering
, she meant. “Well,” I said, at a loss.

After an awkward moment, we both decided it was time to go. Connie was ready and waiting for us.

When we went to get into the car, two men with cameras swooped down on us, clicking away. I followed Annette's lead and ignored them. But as soon as the chauffeur closed the door behind us, Connie burst out, “I thought Uncle Oscar had put a stop to that!”

Annette spoke soothingly. “All Oscar can do is apply a little pressure to the newspaper owners. At least there's no TV camera crew here shoving microphones in our faces. I hate that.”

Even though it had been ten years since I last saw either of the women I was riding with, the drive to the private cemetery was mostly a silent one. That was no time for chatting. Besides, it was Raymond I was thinking of then, of the horrible way he'd died and of what his loss would mean to the family. Connie was fighting tears, none too successfully. Last night I'd asked if she had a recent picture of him; the photo she handed me showed a man who'd settled comfortably into his middle years. Raymond's black hair had started to gray, and the laugh lines around his mouth were more pronounced than I remembered them. There was no sag under the chin, though; the Decker jaw was as firm as ever. One corner of Raymond's mouth was lifted, as if he were amused. He'd been a good-looking man.

There were more reporters waiting at the cemetery entrance, and this time TV cameras as well. The windows of the Rolls were up, but that didn't stop the newspeople from shouting their questions at us as we drove by. Most of what they said was unintelligible through the glass, but one of them I heard quite clearly; she wanted to know who I was. I couldn't believe they were making this much fuss over the death of one lone financier, even if his last name was Decker. Raymond had been an important man, but he'd kept out of the public eye; most of the world didn't even know he existed. No, it had to be the circumstances of his death that drew them, the fact that he was the fourth member of the same family to die in as many months. Those seekers-after-truth with their cameras and their tape recorders were hoping for a nice juicy murder story to take back to their editors. The cemetery gates closed behind us, with the guards Rob Kurland had hired glowering at the crowd outside.

Five rows of folding chairs had been set up along one side of the grave for the family; I hesitated when I saw how many people there were. Everybody in the western hemisphere who'd been born a Decker, married to a Decker, or descended from a Decker was there. And then I was in the midst of them, all those faces I hadn't seen for so long. I heard more
Hello, Gillians
and
Thank you for comings
than I could respond to. None of them seemed surprised to see me; Annette had wasted no time in spreading the word.

And none of them seemed particularly glad to see me, either, truth to tell; I hoped that was because we were at Raymond's funeral and not because they'd have preferred me to stay lost. There were some faces there I didn't know, or only vaguely remembered, from other branches of the family. At the last minute we were joined by a sandy-haired man of somewhat shorter stature than the Deckers—Dr. Tom Henry, Annette's soon-to-be ex-husband. I was seated in the last row next to young Joel Kurland. I shivered, from the cold; Joel gave me a sad little smile and turned his attention to the funeral.

The arrival of Raymond's widow was the signal for the ceremonies to begin; Connie kept her eyes on her hands in her lap and wouldn't look at anybody. The first to speak was Oscar Ferguson.

The Congressman from Massachusetts had an appearance that suited his role; he was tall, solidly built, and had a full head of beautiful gray hair—
très distingué
without making a joke of it. The only thing that had changed about Uncle Oscar in the past decade was that he'd grown a tad jowly. But even that was right, in a way; if he were too pretty in his late middle age, the voters might stop trusting him. But Oscar's true gift was his indisputable ability as a speaker; he had a Richard-Burton-sober voice and he knew how to use it.

“I've lost a nephew,” he started out, “but Raymond Decker was more than just one man's nephew. He was a man who changed the world he found himself in, and he left it better than he found it.” That rich actory voice rolled on, extolling Raymond's virtues as far-sighted businessman, philanthropist, lover of his country and devotee of the arts
(devotee of the arts?)
, sportsman, world traveler, concerned citizen, and lodge brother. “But more than anything else,” Oscar said, “Raymond Decker was a family man. He knew that the family is the basis on which this country is built, the bedrock on which all individual achievement rests.” That part sounded like a few political speeches I'd heard Uncle Oscar make. He went on, “Our family is less, now that Raymond is gone. But the bedrock remains. Raymond managed to strengthen even that. We will never see another man quite like Raymond Decker. I mourn his passing.”

Then, to my surprise, he sat down; I'd expected a much longer peroration. But immediately Michelle Kurland was on her feet and speaking. I knew it was Michelle, because her clothes were different from those worn by the woman I'd ridden with to the cemetery.

She was every bit as stunning-looking as her twin. They must be forty-four, forty-five by now; I hoped I looked that good in another seven or eight years. Hell, I'd settle for looking that good
now
. Michelle was saying about the same things Oscar Ferguson had said, but she was adding a few personal reminiscences of her brother. She articulated each word carefully, making sure she was understood.

From where I was sitting I could barely see the side of Rob Kurland's face as he listened attentively to what his wife was saying; his expression was unreadable. I had a good view of Tom Henry's face, though, Annette's husband; he looked miserable. Aunt Elinor sat next to Connie, leaning toward her protectively but saying nothing; I could see only the backs of their heads.

On the other side of the grave stood a group of mourners, all strangers to me. Most of them kept their eyes on the casket poised over the open grave; all of them looked properly somber. Michelle finished speaking and Annette took her place at the head of the grave. Like the two speakers before her, Annette stressed Raymond's belief in family as the single most important thing in human existence. They were all saying the same things, but they were pretty good at finding different ways to say them.

Then Rob Kurland stood up to speak. “He was my brother-in-law, he was my business partner, he was my friend,” he began in a raspy voice. “I shall miss all three of them.” It was the first good look at Rob I'd had, and I was shocked by his appearance. He'd always been thin, but now he was almost cadaverous-looking. The bones in his face were too prominent; his skin was not a healthy color. I wanted to ask Joel sitting next to me if his father had been ill but decided I'd better wait.

Perspiration had begun to bead on Joel's forehead. The man sitting directly in front of me, one of the out-of-state Deckers, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the back of his neck. The sun felt warm on the backs of my hands, but they were the only parts of my body that did feel warm. I just couldn't get rid of the chill I'd woken up with that morning.

I'd been under the impression that only family members were going to speak at Raymond's funeral, but such was not the case. As soon as Rob sat down, there began a parade of other speakers, Raymond's friends and business associates, a few local politicians. Fortunately, they all kept their speeches short; no one spoke more than three or four minutes. One man said the head of the Decker family had been a man of strength, dignity, and the highest ethical standards. I wondered if Raymond would have been embarrassed by that. Probably not; he'd had a way of letting hyperbole roll right off him.

The last eulogizer was the state's lieutenant-governor, I later found out. He said we'd lost a man who had demonstrated repeatedly in his life that the family was the bedrock on which this country rested; he must have used the same speechwriter as Uncle Oscar. Then the minister moved to the head of the grave and we were all on our feet. I didn't hear one word of the prayer the man uttered, and I wondered if anyone else did either; I for one was all too conscious of that casket waiting to be lowered into the ground. The minister finished; the casket was lowered; the funeral was over.

And everyone in the Decker family took off in a different direction.

I was left standing in front of my folding chair with my mouth open; even young Joel Kurland had bolted. The minister and the mourners on the other side of the grave were exchanging puzzled glances; they'd probably expected to move along a waiting line of Deckers while murmuring sympathetic words over and over again. But with everyone scattered like that …

Then they started coming back. Annette spoke to the minister; Oscar and Michelle moved among the mourners, accepting their condolences. They'd all just needed a moment alone, that was all. Eventually a sort of line did form, which I joined. But there was no eye contact among the Deckers, no sharing of grief; every Decker was isolated from every other Decker, each one an island of his or her own personal sorrow. After great pain, Emily Dickinson said, a formal feeling comes; the remoteness would disappear in time and there'd be a closing of ranks later. God, how I wished this day were over.

But we still had the postceremony gathering at the house to get through. This time I barely noticed the reporters at the cemetery gate because of something Connie had just said. “Those people on the other side of the grave,” she ventured tentatively, “do you suppose it was one of them who killed Raymond?”

Annette made a sound of exasperation which she quickly suppressed. “
No
, Connie, none of those people would want to hurt Raymond. You really must put that idea out of your mind.” All during the ride home Annette worked on her sister-in-law, reasoning with her and calming her, until she had Connie actually apologizing for her suspicions. What Annette didn't know was that I was harboring those same suspicions myself.

People like the Deckers are always objects of envy, and sometimes that envy can become obsessive and turn dangerous. The Deckers lived well, they were a prominent family, they
belonged
. Someone outside their circle of privilege could very easily be so soured with jealousy that he'd go right over the edge and start killing the symbols of what he couldn't have for himself. The Deckers knew that; they'd suffered from it once before, when someone had kidnapped Raymond and Connie's son Theo and ended up killing him even though the ransom had been paid. So there was just no way the rest of the Deckers could dismiss the four deaths in the family as coincidence, accidents, tragic bad luck. They had to be suspicious. They just weren't telling Connie.

That made a kind of sense. Connie wasn't a player; she was a passenger. When I'd known her earlier, she'd rarely made decisions on her own. She just went along with what the rest of the family decided. If Annette and the others thought some lunatic was stalking them, they'd take steps to protect themselves and Connie but try to shield her from the knowledge. Why frighten her? Talk her out of it, soothe her, make her think everything was all right. That wasn't the way I'd do it, but the Deckers would see it as guarding their weakest link.

There were a few cars parked near the family home on Mt. Vernon Street, the passengers courteously waiting until the new widow had returned. Once the various Deckers started coming inside, a lot of the remoteness that had been in evidence at the cemetery disappeared—because they were no longer on public display, I supposed.

Annette took off her wide-brimmed hat and gave me a surprise. Her black hair was cut short, almost as short as a brush cut. It was the sort of hairstyle that required no attention other than the occasional trim. Someone wearing that hairstyle was saying to the world,
Look, I have better things to do with my time than fuss over hair
. A busy-woman haircut. And it suited Annette to a T; she looked stunning. Michelle kept her hat on so I couldn't be sure, but it looked as if she might have the same cut as her twin.