Then the minister made a few remarks related to the scriptures, about returning to dust and the sun also rising and the sun going down. Several of the women, and Elmer, were weeping openly.
Rhodes looked at the casket sitting over the open grave on the belts that would be used to lower it. Elmer was walking toward it, and it was only then that Rhodes realized that this was going to be one of those funerals in which the casket was lowered in full view of the mourners and in which the deceased’s husband was going to throw on the first clods of earth. Rhodes understood the theory-it would be a definite parting, shocking the husband into the realization that life must go on and his dead wife could no longer be a part of it. He understood the theory, all right, but he didn’t necessarily approve of it.
The coffin was lowered slowly and expertly into the ground by two men from the funeral home who had been standing quietly by in their black suits, looking for all the world like any other mourners there.
Elmer worked a clump of the damp black earth in his hands as the tears streamed down his face. “I love you, Jeanne,” he said in a choked voice, so quietly that Rhodes could hardly hear. “I’ll never forget you.” He crumbled the dirt in his hands and tossed it into the grave, then stood silently looking down.
It was a dramatic moment, and Mrs. Barrett couldn’t have chosen it better if she had been Cecil B. DeMille. She leaped out of her chair, slamming it into a stout woman in black who sat behind her. The stout woman may have cried out, but if she did Rhodes didn’t hear her. All he could hear was Mrs. Barrett, yelling at the top of her lungs. “The Whore of Babylon!” she shrieked. “The Scarlet Whore of Babylon!” Apparently she hadn’t bought the minister’s picture of a reformed Jeanne Clinton after all. She’d been crying about something else.
After her first outburst, Mrs. Barrett ran amok. Rhodes was pretty sure that he’d never seen anyone run amok before, but that was about the only way to describe Mrs. Barrett. She ran crashing through the mourners, knocking chairs right and left, and knocking a few of the less agile mourners right and left as well. Once she leaped into the air. Had she flapped her arms, she might have taken flight.
The minister was paralyzed. Like Rhodes, he’d never seen anything to resemble what was going on. Mrs. Barrett didn’t stop for him. She bowled him over and kept on going. She came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the open grave, yelling down at the coffin.
“You lured the men with your skimpy clothes and your painted face,” she yelled. “But you never gave them what you promised. A teaser, that’s what you were, and now you’re dead! Killed by Hod Barrett, that you lured from his proper bed, and serves you right!”
She worked her throat, and Rhodes was horrified that she was about to spit into the grave. He finally managed to get himself into action, at just about the same time as Hod Barrett. Elmer Clinton had started for her first, a strangled cry ripping from his throat, but when she had named Hod as the killer, Clinton had changed course and made for Hod.
Rhodes didn’t know which way to go. Clinton had collided with Barrett and had his hands wrapped around his throat. Barrett had Clinton in a bear hug and was squeezing for all he was worth. At the edge of the grave Mrs. Barrett was hopping around. Her shoe heel caught in the soft earth and her right leg gave way beneath her. She started to fall into the grave.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rhodes saw Larry Bell start for Mrs. Barrett, so he went for Clinton and Barrett. The two men had also lost their footing and were rolling around in the chairs already knocked over by Barrett’s wife. Women were screaming and trying to get out of the way. Men were yelling and cursing; a couple of them tried to reach into the whirling mass that Barrett and Clinton, had become. One of them got a huge fist in his eye and fell aside. The other backed off and stepped aside for Rhodes.
The two men rolled forward. The minister sat up and watched them dazedly. Rhodes tried to grab Clinton’s jacket, but his hand slipped. The men rolled up against the pile of dirt from the grave and somehow struggled to their feet. Clinton slammed Barrett into the Astroturf.
Barrett fell against the carpet. Struggling to stand again, he pulled a section of it off the dirt it covered. When Clinton plowed into him, both men smacked into the wet earth. They pummeled each other, the dirt, and the air.
Rhodes knew of only one thing to do, so he did it. He was wearing his.38 in a discreet holster at the back of his belt where it was covered by the coat to his suit. He pulled it out and fired it three times. It put an end to the fight, and it shocked everyone into a complete and utter silence. No one there had ever heard a pistol fired at a funeral before. Most of them would talk about this occasion for the rest of their lives.
Rhodes looked at Barrett and Clinton. They were covered with mud and grass stains, red-faced and sweaty. He looked over at Mrs. Barrett. Larry Bell was holding her hand as she sat at the edge of the grave, one leg dangling over, her carefully pinned hair all disarranged around her face. The minister was up and going over to her.
Rhodes considered Barrett carefully, arranging the puzzle pieces in his mind, trying to make them fit. “I guess you’re under arrest, Hod,” he said.
Barrett was panting and breathing through his mouth.
“You’d take the word of a crazy woman?” he asked. “You know she’s not right in the head. You can’t arrest me!”
“I guess I have to, Hod. Everyone here heard her accuse you. It wouldn’t look right if I just let you go. We can just say I’m taking you in for questioning. Then we can talk to your wife after she’s calmed down some. If she wants to change her story, that’s fine. We’ll see what evidence she’s got against you. “ ‘
“You’d damned sure better take him in, Sheriff,” Elmer Clinton said. “You don’t, and he’s a dead man.” Clinton was as winded as Barrett, but he sounded convincing. His eyes were narrowed and his voice was shaky with anger as well as fatigue.
“The Whore of Babylon!” Mrs. Barrett shouted.
Elmer Clinton’s shoulders tightened, and his hands formed claws. “Take that bitch, too.” he said.
“Watch your language, Elmer,” Rhodes told him. “Have a little dignity at your wife’s funeral.” He turned toward Mrs. Barrett. “Come on, Hod,” he said.
Larry Bell was patting Mrs. Barrett on the shoulder as Rhodes walked up. “Now, now, Mrs. Barrett,” he was saying. “Jeanne wasn’t no whore. I went to high school with that girl, known her ever since. She might of been wild at one time, but not no more.”
The puzzle pieces shuffled themselves in Rhodes’s mind once more. He didn’t like the new arrangement any more than he’d liked the old one. “Can you get her home, Larry?” he asked.
Bell helped her to her feet, his hand under her elbow. “Sure,” he said. “Be glad to.”
“Thanks, Rhodes said. He led Barrett over to the county car and opened the back door. Barrett sighed and got in. Rhodes got in the front, started the car, and drove away. He looked in the rearview mirror. The mourners were beginning to head for their cars, the ones that weren’t still waving their hands and talking. The minister was making no effort to call them back. For all practical purposes, the funeral of Jeanne Clinton was over.
Barrett had little to say on the way back to Clearview. It was only when they arrived at the jail that he began to talk. “You really going to arrest me?” he asked.
“Sure enough,” Rhodes said. “But not for murder. Right now the charge will be more like ‘disturbing the peace.’ You were guilty of that, don’t you think.”
“Me and a few others,” Barrett said.
Rhodes pulled up in front of the jail, got out of the car, and let Barrett out. “If you’re innocent, you won’t be in but overnight,” Rhodes said “In fact, if you call a lawyer you can get out sooner. Be damned hard to find a lawyer in Clearview on Sunday afternoon, though.”