The Dearly Departed (14 page)

She asked him to wait outside. No escort needed. In fact he might as well go back to the station.

He touched his transmitter. “I take the station with me. Besides, my secretary gets in at nine.”

“It's Saturday,” said Sunny.

“It's my mother,” said Joey. “I'll wait. I've got reports to fill out right here.”

“On a day like today, I wouldn't leave a dog in the car, even with the windows rolled down. Really, I'll be fine.”

“I'll stay on the porch. And if you need me—”

“In case I come screaming out with my hair standing on end?”

He smiled. “As opposed to what it's doing now?”

Sunny made a face. “Let's get this over with,” she said.

He waited on the glider, which squeaked with each skid of its rusty runners. The cushions smelled of mildew, and left pollen on his dark blue trousers. After what felt like a polite interval, he went to the screen door and called, “Mind if I come in?”

He opened the door when she didn't answer. “Could I use the phone?” he tried. He was in the room where they had died. The walls were a funny color, like knockwurst. A black velvet loveseat split the parlor in half and faced a new television sitting on top of a chest of drawers. His first thought was, A guy's TV, state-of-the-art—Miles Finn's contribution, how he passed the time while she was rehearsing. There were dying flowers in a pewter vase, and a dusting of dead fronds below it. He wished he'd thrown those out so Sunny didn't have to. He recognized them—the daily special from the bucket outside the Century Market—the cheap stuff: a carnation, two daisies, a mum, and something exotic that they rotated daily. He'd bought a couple of them in a pinch.

“Sun?” he called.

“In here.”

The kitchen was past a curtain that hung on a suspension rod in a doorway. Like a dressing room, he thought. As if the actress in Margaret wanted a little mystery between her kitchen and her parlor. Sunny was standing in there with an address book open in her hands. The kitchen was yellow in every possible way—the linoleum, the appliances, the checked oilcloth on the table, the speckled Formica, the curtains. She looked up. “I don't know why I came in here first,” she said, raising the address book a few inches. “I don't know what I'm looking for.”

“People, maybe? Friends of hers you wanted to call to tell about her?”

“A little late for that,” said Sunny. “They'll ask about the funeral and I'll say, ‘Oops, sorry. It was yesterday. Didn't know you existed, so how could I contact you?' ”

“You could say, ‘I'm sorry. We had a private graveside service.' They won't know that the whole town turned out.”

“I wish it were annotated,” said Sunny, leafing ahead a few pages. “It would be so nice if it said, ‘Haven't seen her since we moved here.' ‘Old friend from secretarial school.' ‘Sunny's baby-sitter.' ”

“What does it say for Finn?” asked Joey.

Sunny turned to the F's: “Just ‘Miles.' Two numbers crossed out, then a local number.”

“What exchange?”

“Two-eight-seven.”

“That's the cabin.”

Sunny handed him the book. “Look at my listing. She's had this book my whole life.” Under “Sunny,” Margaret had written in ink and then crossed out with each relocation an address and phone number. There was her mother's helper job at Hampton Beach when she was fifteen; each year of college as the dorm room changed; a camp-counselor summer; her first job; her second job. The Harding School was not crossed out. Recorded proudly were “dorm” and “office.”

“Your whole life is flashing before me,” said Joey.

“She had no more room,” said Sunny. “After this, I'd run into the other B's. I wonder if that should tell me something.”

“Like what? Other than your mother should've written in pencil?”

“I meant, ‘End of the road, Sunny. Stay here.' ”

“You keep bringing that up,” said Joey. “I'm no psychologist, but you've said this to me a couple of dozen times. So stay. Live here. Or at least have a little stopover.”

Sunny took the book back and closed it. “I'd have to get permission from the landlords first.”

“Done,” said Joey.

Sunny, walking to the sink, turned around. “How is it done? Are you on the committee?”

“I'm the chief of police.”

“I know, but—”

“I got the 911 call. I spoke to the reporters. I did not remind the citizens of King George that they were your mother's landlords. And then I got shot. People felt bad. I survived. They were happy.” He placed the flat of his hand over his midsection and took a deep breath. “And did I even miss a beat, except for one night in the hospital? No. This town is feeling pretty fond of me these days.”

Sunny turned around, ran the cold water, with her hands braced on the edge of the sink.

“Sunny?” Joey asked. “You okay?”

She nodded without turning around.

“Just letting the water get cold?”

She nodded again.

“Can I have a glass, too?”

She opened the cupboard to her immediate right, which held only dishes. “She changed things,” she murmured. In the cupboard to her left were glasses—tall frosted ones and short ones with fruit-shaped bumps blown into their surfaces. She took one, looked at it, took a second one. “New,” she said. “Pretty.”

“They're yours now,” said Joey.

Sunny shut off the water without filling either glass, and slumped into a chair.

Joey said, “You know what you should do? Play nine holes. Just go out the front door at dusk, slip onto seventeen and then play your favorites.”

“I don't belong. I'd be sneaking on.”

“You'd be my guest. I'll sign you in.”

“You belong?”

“Not exactly.”

“But this would be another example of everyone feeling fondly toward you these days?”

“Correct.”

“Why does everyone think that whatever's wrong with me can be cured by nine holes?”

“Not cured. Helped maybe.”

Sunny opened the window above the sink. “It's going to be a scorcher.”

“On days like this, you don't have to wait until dusk for the course to be deserted.”

“I know,” said Sunny. “I know all the loopholes. All the best times to sneak onto the King George Links, virtually invisible.”

“Not you,” said Joey.

 

M
rs. Peacock noted that her chief of police, whose salary, overtime, and gas-guzzling Chevy Tahoe were paid for by her tax dollars, was devoting his morning to Sunny Batten.

“Mrs. P,” he said, lifting his cap.

“I would've thought you'd be on disability,” she answered in greeting.

“Doing nicely,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“I heard he got away.”

“Imagine that,” said Joey. “What kind of perp would shoot a cop, then not get out of his car to help him up? What's this world coming to?”

“Did you get his license plate number?”

“Part of it.”

Mrs. Peacock tsked. “Any witnesses?”

“Not so far.”

“He's probably in Canada by now. Probably drove straight through and didn't even get stopped at the border. How would they know what to look for?”

“I managed to alert the proper authorities,” said Joey.

“How's your mother doing?”

“The way you'd expect. Thrilled I'm not dead, then a basket case over what might've been.”

Mrs. Peacock looked past him to the cruiser. “I saw you gave Sunny a ride.”

“That's correct.”

“From The Dot?”

“No. Not from The Dot.”

She reached below her counter for a feather duster and swiped the desktop absentmindedly. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

Joey laughed, which caused Mrs. Peacock to frown. “I don't see what's so funny about that.”

“What kind of trouble could Sunny Batten get into between her mother's funeral and breakfast?”

Mrs. Peacock said smartly, “She brought the Finn boy here.”

“Good! More business. You must be happy.”

“He paid cash,” she said.

“Cash is good.”

“Cash is highly unusual. How many people carry enough money to pay for a hotel in cash?”

Joey said, “Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't one night run him around seventy-seven dollars?”

“It's June,” she said. “High season.”

“Eighty-five dollars?”

“Ninety-nine, with a two-night minimum.”

Joey walked back to the foyer's only chair and sat down. “No special bereavement rates?” he asked.

Mrs. Peacock stared as if he'd uttered something incomprehensible. “Are you suggesting I have special rates for different occasions? Because I've never heard of such a thing.”

“I guess I was thinking you might let folks stay one night in cases of . . . like this—a tragedy,” said Joey.

“I'm not a homeless shelter,” she said. “Besides, I can't tell you the number of calls that came in from her mother's friends offering her a place to stay. But it seems”—and she looked accusingly at Joey—“that she wants her privacy.”

“Can you blame her? Here she doesn't have to discuss her business or defend her decisions or make small talk or take calls. Or, God knows, watch cable.”

“We're getting cable,” said Mrs. Peacock. “We might even get HBO.” She glanced at her watch. “Checking out at nine-fifteen. I wonder what her rush is.”

Joey shrugged.

“Is she catching a bus?”

“I don't believe so.”

“Are you giving her a ride?”

He sighed and stood up again. “She doesn't have a car, Mrs. P.”

“I wonder how she thought she'd get around,” she murmured. She flicked her feather duster at a few more patches of wood. “Will you be chauffeuring Mr. Finn as well while he's in town?”

“If I feel like it, I will,” said Joey.

“There's work to be done,” she grumbled.

“Yours, you mean?”

“Theirs! Two houses to pack, clean, sell—on his part, at least. I don't know who they think is going to do that for them.”

Joey coughed into his fist. “I can't speak for him, but I believe she's staying put for a while.”

“How long?” Mrs. Peacock asked sharply.

“Until she's ready to move on, would be my guess.”

“Not anytime soon, judging by how long it takes her to pack one suitcase.”

“Do you have someone waiting for her room?” he asked.

Mrs. Peacock's nose and upper lip twitched. “Just my mop and pail, my ammonia, and my bleach. I think you know how I keep my units. You'd never believe how some people leave a place. Like an animal—like a
pack
of animals slept there.”

“Hard business,” said Joey. “I'm so glad I do something easy.”

Mrs. Peacock stared, then produced a strained smile. “I'm not deaf to your sarcasm, Joseph. You may be the chief of police—”

“But that doesn't give me the right to give someone a lift in my cruiser?”

“Don't put words in my mouth,” she snapped.

Joey leaned across the counter. “Her mother
died,
Florence. She doesn't know whether she's coming or going. She's never had a father. I'm driving her a half mile to the pathetic little excuse for a house that killed her only living relative, okay?”

Mrs. Peacock lifted her chin. “I've heard you speak to your mother like that and maybe she's impressed by that title of yours, but I know how many men turned this job down before your name came up.”

“Nice,” said Joey. “Very nice.” He rapped on his chest. “Good thing I'm wearing this today.” He walked to the door. “I think I'll go stand in the burning sun and wait.”

“What about him?”

“Finn?”

“Do I wake him up and tell him his ride is here?”

“Me? I'm not his ride.”

“He got a phone call this morning.” She shuffled pink message slips. “ ‘Emily Ann. Call her cell phone.' Want to run it over to unit two?”

“I don't think a guy needs to be awoken by a uniformed police officer for a simple phone message. I'll give him a heart attack.”

Mrs. Peacock was looking past him, at the view through the screen door. “What's she doing with those?” she murmured.

Joey turned to see. Sunny had her golf bag over one shoulder and her other arm around a glass bowl containing large, crisp white lilies. They'd dripped or sweated—he couldn't help but notice—leaving wet spots on the front of her pink blouse.

“The flowers or the golf clubs?” he asked.

“The clubs.”

“Just like high school, I guess. Wherever she goes, they go.”

“The flowers came this morning.”