That evening, Finus dressed and went out to Birdie’s house. Earl wouldn’t be ready at the funeral home till the next day. Finus knew Parnell never got them ready the same day if they came in after noon — he was a perfectionist.
Birdie was in her den, with visitors in there and the kitchen, a few scattered into the living room and sunporch. The visitors served themselves from a large percolator on the kitchen counter and ate baked goods from the kitchen table. Creasie was nowhere to be seen.
After Finus had been there a half hour, Earl’s brother Levi and his wife, Rae, and Merry came in, obviously drunk. Merry wore the requisite black, but around her neck along with a string of pearls lay some kind of fur stole. On her head was a bright shiny red hat that seemed made from the skin of some large exotic bird, half a dozen blue feathers askew from the crown, bedraggled, as if she’d just killed, skinned, and partially plucked the creature out in the yard and stretched it onto her skull still steaming from lifeblood. She looked over at Finus and closed her eyes slowly, let an odd smile slip across her lips, then opened her eyes and batted them once at him. He couldn’t help but wonder where Avis was at that moment, since he’d seen her car parked outside. Just then Merry murmured something to Levi, who gave her a look like he’d just swallowed his tongue and wanted to say something but just shook his head. Merry looked back up at Finus then and said, loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear, — Well I’m surprised you’re here, Finus. Being the disgruntled lover and all.
He was confused, at first, felt himself blush that she would joke about their old affair in public, but then he realized from the look she was giving Birdie that she meant Birdie, as in Finus and Birdie. Levi still hadn’t spoken, still didn’t look like he could. Birdie turned paler than she had been. Finus stood in the center of the room like some stiff ridiculous totem. Levi took Merry’s elbow and tried to pull her toward the door, whispering something to her, but Merry yanked her arm free and turned back to Birdie. Birdie looked up at her, horrified.
— I don’t know how you can sit there and play the grieving widow, Merry said. -Sweet little Birdie, she mocked her. -Well you don’t fool me.
— Merry, please, Birdie said, don’t do this.
— Do what, honey, tell the truth? Everybody thinks she is so-o-o innocent, she said loudly then, sweeping her arm around the room, almost losing the ridiculous hat from her head. It seemed the entire house had fallen silent, everyone in the den and in the other rooms, too. -Well, she went on — but Finus had heard enough and if Levi couldn’t handle her he would. He stepped over, took her by the upper arm, and hustled her through the kitchen and out into the driveway.
Outside, she twisted from his grip and swung her purse at him.
— What the hell, Merry.
— She killed him, is what, Merry said, pushing her hair back out of her eyes and spitting onto the sidewalk. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing bright red lipstick on her pale skin.
— Jesus Christ, Finus said, are you insane? You couldn’t be that drunk.
— I don’t know how, she said, but my brother Earl was healthy as a horse and did not just keel over from a heart attack. Wasn’t enough she lived like a little queen out here, having her every whim, new cars, new clothes, a goddamn nigger maid to do all her work, this pampered little goddamn thing, but everybody knew Earl was fucking every girl came through his store, and everybody knew he fell in love with Ann after she went to work there, and everybody knew he set Ann up in the Tallahassee store so he could go down and be with her, and Birdie knew he was going to leave her for Ann and if you don’t think that’s enough motive for a woman to kill her husband you’re a bigger idiot of a half-ass small-town newspaper man than I took you for.
She realized she’d locked herself out of her car, took off one of the expensive high-heel shoes Earl no doubt had given her gratis from his store, and smashed the heel into the driver’s window shattering it. She tossed the fur stole onto the seat over the glass, climbed in, cranked up, and peeled out of yard. Finus heard something behind him then, and Avis walked up in the shadows, though he could make out the ironic smile on her face. She nodded to Merry’s car hurtling away.
— Too bad you two didn’t work out. You deserve each other.
Finus ignored her and went back in to apologize to Birdie for his part in the scene, even though that’d been ending it. He heard Avis’s heels clicking down the driveway toward her car.
THE NEXT DAY, Finus went back to the funeral home to pay Parnell Grimes, county coroner and funeral director at the home, a semiofficial visit.
The old Victorian mansion Parnell used for a home and business stood on the west side of downtown near the library. Inside, Finus could smell nothing of the large bouquets and wheels of flowers standing in the foyer and parlors, but only (perhaps in his mind) the faint and pervasive odor of the chemicals of the trade, something like and not like formaldehyde, and sitting across from Parnell Grimes in his back office, looking at the soft little pudgy fellow he was, his pinkness, he couldn’t help but entertain the morbid fantasy that a strange ancient secret funerary chemical ran in Parnell’s veins in lieu of blood. He seemed distracted, shuffling papers on his desk, glancing up at Finus with a nervous smile, asked what he could do for him. With his smoothness, his balding slicked-down head, and his tight black suit, he looked a little penguinish standing there, to Finus.
— You’ll have to forgive me, Parnell said. -Busy day. As always!
— No problem, Finus said. -Take your time.
— Um hmm, um hmm, Parnell said, shuffling his papers, raising his eyebrows and nodding, checking a drawer for something, shutting it. Then stopped all his fidgety activity, placed his pudgy little hands on the desk in front of him, and looked at Finus, eyebrows in a question mark. His child-size hands were almost translucent, made Finus shiver a little at the thought of them handling the dead — or him, dead. And within that cartoonish gathering of flesh blinked those deep-set and absurdly pretty eyes, like a movie idol’s, so anomalous as to shock one upon first noticing.
— Well, I was just passing by, really, Finus said. He put his hands in his pockets, jingled his change, smiled at Parnell. -Any new customers today?
— I’m afraid so, Parnell said. -Mrs. Terhune, from Southside.
— The tamale lady?
Parnell nodded.
— I’ll miss them, Finus said. -Used to buy them by the sackful.
— Selena will, too, Parnell said, referring to his wife, who lived with him there in the home. -She loves tamales.
— Mmm hmm, Finus said. -Say, Parnell, when I called yesterday you said Earl Urquhart died of a heart attack.
Parnell stood somewhat at attention, his head cocked in question.
— Yes?
— Well, I was just rechecking that. Just wondering, no real reason, if there was anything odd there, anything that might have suggested any other cause.
Parnell kept his odd, penguinish pose.
— No real reason, Finus said, just that he seemed so healthy, you know, just talked to him the other day. He shook his head. -Just goes to show.
Parnell, after a beat, nodded as if the pose had been prelude to some odd penguin mating dance.
— Yes, yes it does. You never know. Well, no, Mr. Bates, no sign, no reason to think anything other than cardiac arrest, as far as I could tell. I suppose it could have been a stroke.