“I don’t think Perry did it,” he said, after a moment, dropping my hand.
“Why?”
“Faron Henske hand-searched the garbage cans along the way to the office where Perry placed the call to 911,” Arthur said. “He looked down drains. He took apart a sink. Faron isn’t a ball of fire, but he’s a very reliable searcher. And there were cleaning people still in the community center, plus a few guests who stayed to talk or take down some of the decorations, and they say Perry didn’t stop on his way to the office.”
“And the office was taken apart.”
“Yes. Of course.” Arthur leaned back against his pillow; I’d only seen him look this bad once before, when I’d nursed him through a bout of flu.
“I’m real sorry you got hurt,” I said.
“I’m real sorry I fell on you,” he answered politely. “Took you down to the ground, Paul says. Of course, it made the fall easier on me.” A shadow of his hard grin was on his face. “Did you get hurt?”
He sounded rather as if he hoped I had.
“Just some bruises and scrapes.” I pulled back my hair to show him the bump on my forehead.
“Next time I’ll try to fall on someone bigger, and land on her front and not her back,” he told me, trying for bawdy.
“Lynn’s bigger than me.”
“Roe…”
“Okay, sorry. I don’t know what went on with your marriage. But I’m not the escape hatch. I’ll always have good memories of you, and I don’t want them to get sour.”
“Straight from the hip, Roe.”
“Had to be,” I said.
“I love you.” Suddenly he looked twenty, vulnerable and yearning.
“You love what you remember. But you were screwing Lynn on the side for the last three or four months we were together. So I’d say your love wasn’t ever an exclusive item.”
“Let me have it when I’m down.”
“Only time I can get you to listen.”
The corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. “Okay, okay. You listen now,” and he reached for my hand again. “You take care, Roe. I know you love Bartell, but since you told me what you think about my marriage, I’ll tell you what I think about yours.”
Oh, boy, I didn’t want to hear this.
“That guy is out of your league, Roe. He’s tough and he’s ruthless. He’s a lot older. He’ll never think you’re his equal.”
That seemed a very strange charge to level at Martin, and I looked at Arthur in some surprise. I’d been scared, perhaps, that Arthur would tell me he’d kept Martin under surveillance and that Martin had a mistress. Or that Martin was engaged in some criminal activity. Arthur would just love to catch Martin in those situations, and he’d make sure I knew, because he’d warned me from the time I met Martin that I shouldn’t marry him.
If Arthur hadn’t caught him, Martin wasn’t doing it, I suddenly realized. I hadn’t known how worried I’d been until the relief spreading through my body made me giddy with cheer.
“I don’t know if he thinks I’m his equal,” I said. “We’re so different I think ‘equal’ would be hard to pin down. But he lets me be myself, and he’s never tried to change me, and we enjoy each other very much.”
We looked at each other steadily. I thought of how wounded I’d felt at Arthur and Lynn’s wedding, how betrayed. It seemed strange now, as though those emotions had been felt by some other person and only told to me.
“Good-bye, Arthur. I hope you get out of the hospital soon.”
“Bye, Roe. Thanks for visiting. I know you’re curious about what happened. I’ll get Paul to keep you filled in.”
I thought about being embarrassed, decided to skip it.
“Thanks. See you,” I said, and walked through the door.
“Officer Turlock,” I said, inclining my head. She nodded back grudgingly. I didn’t feel I’d made a friend.
A glance at my watch told me it was almost time for the funeral. I brushed my hair and powdered my nose in one of the chemically scented hospital bathrooms, and drove to Western Hill Baptist Church.
Western Hill was easily the prettiest church in Lawrenceton, a town of many churches. It sat by itself on the top of a rolling hill in, obviously, the (north) western part of town, which consisted mostly of newer suburbs. The church overlooked Lawrenceton, a calm, white-spired presence that everyone enjoyed. Western Hill was landscaped to the nth degree, with flowers, shrubs, and grass that looked clipped with a level. In its rivalry with the larger Antioch Baptist, which actually possessed an indoor swimming pool, Western gained points with its parking lot, which surrounded the church on three sides; no long slog to the car at Western.
And Western was undoubtedly the best place to have a funeral, though I was sure that hadn’t crossed Bess Burns’s mind when she’d joined the church years before.
The long black hearse was parked at Western’s massive front doors, on the semicircular drive that curved across the hill in a graceful arc. This was a driveway used only for ceremonies; Western had provided back entrances and that wonderful parking lot for regular occasions. I used one of those smaller entrances, and wended my way through the day-care corridor to the sanctuary door. In the sanctuary, the ceiling was two stories high, and the walls and ceiling were dazzling white, giving the impression of light and sky. The sun streamed through the high arched windows and flung a bolt of dramatic light across Jack’s dark gray coffin, topped with a large casket spray of white gladiolus, resting at the steps up to the altar.
Jack Burns was being buried on a beautiful day.
I had to walk to the back of the church, since I’d entered from the door to the west of the altar area; as I passed, I scanned the row of pallbearers on the left front pew. I knew all of them, from Jack’s fellow officers-Paul Allison, Faron Henske, Chief of Police Tom Nash Vernon, Sheriff Padgett Lanier, and (amazingly) Lynn Liggett Smith-to his son, Jack Junior. I scurried by, not particularly wanting to meet the eyes of any of the people on that pew, especially Lynn.
The church was rapidly filling up, and I ducked into the first aisle space I saw, nodding to Sam and Marva Clerrick sitting in the pew behind me. I was closer to the front of the church than I liked to be, but I didn’t want to sit on one of the folding chairs that had been lined up in the back. I got settled, tried to stick my purse under the pew, began to slide to my knees and just in time recalled I wasn’t in a church with kneelers.
“Almost hit the ground again, didn’t you?” murmured a voice in my ear.
I had a moment of sheer rage when I thought the speaker was Dryden. Was I going to be approached in every church I entered?
But Martin, perfectly appropriate in a quiet suit, sat down in the pew beside me. I took his hand and squeezed it, my heart thudding in a ridiculous way. I was so glad to see him I was in serious danger of crying, and that would have been noticed this early in the proceedings.
“You came anyway,” I whispered, knowing that was obvious but wanting to say it, nonetheless.
He looked at me sideways, and a little smile curved his lips. “Missed you,” he said.
Then the organ music changed in tone, the funeral director from Jasper’s appeared at the front of the church to signal the family had arrived, and Bess Burns and her daughter walked down the aisle as the congregation rose to its feet. In her black, Bess seemed to have lost ten pounds in a few days, and Romney’s round face was bare of makeup and stained with tears. I knew Romney well from her teenage days, barely over, when she’d come into the library three or four times a week. It shocked me to see her look so adult.
I hastily revised my carnal thoughts for those more appropriate to the occasion; whatever Maker there was to meet, Jack Burns up yonder in the stainless-steel coffin had seen that Maker face-to-face. No more mysteries left to solve for that detective.
I wondered if the pall-bearing detectives on the front row had thought of that. I could see a slice of all their faces, as they looked to the right as the minister entered his pulpit. Paul was looking pale and resolute, Faron Henske solemn, and Lynn Liggett Smith was just blank. I’d never expected to see a female pallbearer, but I heard Marva hissing to Sam that Jack had specified Lynn in his will. Arthur was supposed to serve, too, but his wound had prevented it; Paul had replaced him.