The coffin remained closed after the minister’s address. I could well believe that it had been impossible for the mortician to reconstruct Jack. So instead of viewing the deceased, a ritual I was glad to forgo, we all retreated to our cars and drove to Shady Rest. Though parking space at Shady Rest would be at a premium, I took my own car and Martin took his Mercedes; I didn’t want to leave my Chevette at Western Hill, which was not exactly on the way home.
Martin and I stood in the sun, our heels sinking into the rain-softened ground, while the brief graveside service came to an end. The pallbearers laid their boutonniиres on the casket, and the minister, reminded by their action, did likewise.
The funeral director, a trim blond man I’d never met, bent down to Bess and murmured something, and Bess, wakening from her thoughts, nodded and stood. The funeral was officially over.
Immediately, most of the attendees left to resume their regular Sunday afternoon pursuits.
Romney Burns went around saying hello to people she recognized while her mother had a quiet talk with the minister. I introduced Romney to Martin and we talked stiffly about the day and the service. Romney seemed remote, numb; I felt so sorry for her.
Jack Junior stood by himself, facing out over the adjacent field, smoking a cigarette, his expression savagely angry; I thought I would steer clear of Jack Junior, who was obviously in a very volatile state.
Not everyone had noticed this, however. Somehow uncued by Jack’s stance, Faron Henske laid a big, brown would-be comforting hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack twitched away, threw down his cigarette, and abruptly lost control. Those of us looking in his direction could see him pop, and a collective wince ran through us.
The minister was pulling out of the main gate. He should have stayed a few minutes longer.
“One of you did it!” Jack shrieked. Those who’d not seen the windup froze in their tracks; and poor Faron looked devastated at having set off this firestorm.
“He wouldn’t turn his back on someone he didn’t know! One of you did it!”
Martin looked grim and hard. The blond funeral director, closest to the two, was considering whether to intervene; he thought the better of it, and I was sure he was right. The only person who could handle this came striding across the soft ground; Bess, in her black, wrapped her arms around her son and talked quietly in his ear, her eyes dry. Romney, round and sandy as her father had been, stood a few feet away, scared to join them.
The tension seemed to seep out of Jack as we watched, and the few remaining people scattered to reach their cars, trying not to look as if they were hurrying. Jack was crying as Martin and I turned away. I glanced over my shoulder to see Bess, Romney, and her brother make their way to Jack’s car, and leave.
I looked sideways at my husband. If there’s anything Martin hates worse than watching strangers pour out strong emotion, I have yet to discover it; that’s one reason I go to the movies with Sally or Angel. His lips were pressed together, his gaze straight ahead. Martin looked as if he were tempted to say, “Thanks a lot, Roe,” but was trying to forbear.
“I’m sorry,” I said with a certain bite in my voice, “for letting you know I wanted you to come.” I could hardly apologize for Jack’s behavior. I eyed him cautiously, waiting to see what his mood was.
“How many years will Lawrenceton recall that little scene?” he asked. I relaxed.
“Forever and ever. Do you think Jack Junior was right?”
“Yes,” said Martin after a second. “Yes, I think he was.”
I thought of the faces around the grave, all of them known, familiar. I shivered in the bright sun, and Martin put his arm around me.
“I have a feeling,” Martin said, looking straight ahead, “that we haven’t exactly been operating on the same wavelength lately.”
That seemed as good a way of putting it as any. I remembered Martin’s first wife telling me that Martin was not a man to talk about problems, and I felt he was doing the best he could, considerably better than I had anticipated.
“I’ve been working a lot of hours, and when I thought about it on the way home from Chicago, I realized I hadn’t been seeing you much, lately.”
This was going almost too well.
“I’ll try to be at home more,” Martin said briefly, but not without effort. “I guess I didn’t like it when you went back to work without talking to me about it first.”
The shadow of an oak branch tossing in the wind played over Martin’s face.
“Possibly,” I said very carefully, “we should talk to each other a little more.” We looked at each other cautiously and stiffly, like creatures from different planets who basically bore each other good will, but who did not speak the same language to explain that.
After a long pause, Martin nodded in acknowledgment, and we resumed the walk to his car. As we reached the Mercedes, shining whitely against the green carpet of grass, Martin swung me around to face him, gripped both my arms, and to my astonishment leaned me against the car and kissed me thoroughly.
“Well,” I said when I came up for air, “that was wonderful, but don’t you think we really ought to postpone this until we get home?”
“Everyone has left,” Martin said breathlessly, and I saw that that was true, for the most part. On the other side of the cemetery, the group of pallbearers (minus Jack Junior) was deep in conversation by Paul’s dark blue Chrysler, and I remembered all of them were police officers with murders to solve.
The funeral home staff had gone to work as soon as the widow had left. The casket was in the ground, the lowering device had been packed up, and the funeral director and another man were shoveling the dirt into place, while a third man loaded the folding chairs into the funeral home van. I knew from past experience that soon the dirt would be mounded, the flowers laid over it, the artificial turf removed. The tent would stay for a day or so. Then that would be gone; the cemetery would return to its slumber.
“I’ll see you at the house,” I told Martin, and rested the palm of my hand against his cheek.
As I bumped the Chevette along the gravel road leading out of the main gates of the cemetery, I passed Paul’s car. Paul and Lynn were the only ones left of the group that had been there a few moments ago; I raised my hand as I passed, and Lynn responded with a bob of her head, but she didn’t stop talking to Paul. Paul’s pallor and sharp features had never been more evident. I thought he was suffering from some distress. He had one hand extended, resting on the roof of his car, and that seemed to be the main thing holding him up. He didn’t acknowledge, me at all by wave or smile, but fixed me in a stare that seemed to pin me like a captured butterfly. I was glad when I was by him and on the road home; I couldn’t imagine what he and Lynn could have been discussing that would make him look that distraught. I glanced once in my rearview mirror to see Lynn’s car leaving the front gate of the cemetery, turning left instead of right as I had done.
Perhaps Lynn, too, had come to the conclusion that the person who’d attacked Arthur was Perry, Paul’s former stepson and now his friend. That would account for the haggard expression on Paul’s bony face.
I thought of how upset he’d been last night, when Arthur had been stabbed; I thought of his unexpected choice of female companion, a woman with poor taste and judgment, so different from Sally. And yet, this was the woman whose rump he’d groped in front of me. I felt again that flash of uneasiness. That hadn’t really been Paul-like, had it? Paul had always been calm, controlled, and conservative.