A Most Curious Murder (9 page)

Dora shook her head. “Zoe, you are incorrigible.”

“I know,” she said. “And other things too terrible to say out loud for fear of frightening the cat. I think I got that one from Emily Dickinson. I’m reading her again, though the pages of your book are crinkled and feel like old cotton.”

She closed her eyes to think. “Or maybe it was a dog,” she said. “Maybe Emily said that about Carlo, her dog. I don’t remember. I’ve had it stuck in the back of my head for a long time. I’m glad it’s finally out.”

They talked about fairies to be painted on the pole and went on to other things before Zoe came to the point she’d originally come over to discuss. “I came about the funeral tomorrow. As Adam’s suspected killer, do you think I should go?”

“Of course,” Dora said. “You had nothing to do with his death. If you don’t go, people will gossip.”

“They’ll gossip if I do go.”

“So it seems you have no choice. Either way, you’ll be discussed.”

“Like the weather.” Zoe sipped her lemonade. “I’ll only go if I can be with you two.”

It was a sad statement, but it was agreed upon. The three would go to the funeral together.

“One thing more I’ve been thinking about,” Zoe said. “I need to go out to see Aaron, Adam’s brother—but maybe tomorrow won’t be the best day because of the funeral. There’s something in that family . . . I don’t know what. Maybe Aaron can tell me more about Adam and who wanted him dead. Maybe even tell me where Fida is. You never know. I’ve been wondering if Adam didn’t take her out to Aaron before he was killed. You know, to hide her for a while. Teach me a lesson.” A small ray of hope crossed her face. “I was thinking maybe we should ask Tony to go with us. He was a detective, you know. I’ll bet he’d know how to get information out of Aaron.”

“Third degree?” Jenny teased. “I’ll go if you want.”

“Are you kidding?” Zoe made a face. “You coming to help or just interested in Tony?”

“What? I . . . fine. Forget it.” Jenny wanted to knock Zoe on her head.

“I was teasing.” Zoe frowned. “Of course I need your help. I feel like you’re almost my friend.”

“Yeah,” Jenny muttered. “Well, almost. Think your nose should do a better smelling job around me.”

Brown. Brown. Brown. And then more brown thrown in as an accent color.

Brown carpets in the funeral home. Brown couches lining the long hall of the old house. Brown paneling on the wavy walls. Brown wooden lamps on dark mahogany tables.

The funeral home was a cave, a place so dark and forbidding, it should have been left empty with a few bats hanging from the ceiling. She’d forgotten about Tannin’s Funeral Home and about Mr. Tannin, standing at the front door, greeting mourners in his old white shirt with a sweat ring at the collar, his smile frozen permanently somewhere between sadness and melancholy.

“Ah, Mrs. Weston and Jenny Weston,” Tom Tannin greeted them, ignoring Zoe. “Adam Cane is in the Serenity Room. So sad . . . poor Adam Cane. And only this one day. I would have thought more time would be needed—friends from distant places, you know. A nice memorial. A cortege of limousines to the cemetery.” He rolled his eyes.

His patter would be the same to each person who entered, the flick of his limp wrist, his surreptitious glance at his watch to see if it was dinnertime yet. Her father had been buried from
here. Jenny caught the smell of overly sweet flowers masking the stench of death. She felt sick—the same light-headed feeling she had all those years ago.

She remembered flinching from people who came up to hug her, eyeing each of them, thinking that anyone could be the person who killed her father.
That one? That one?

She’d become suspicious of kindness. Wondered what lay behind smiles.

A single awful funeral was enough to write off funeral homes and mourners forever.

Mr. Tannin leaned down to whisper close to Jenny’s ear. “I heard you discovered the body of the poor man.”

Her stomach did a small leap at his unctuousness and the smell of spearmint on his breath.

He turned to the next arriving group, hands out, sickly smile in place.

The large reception room was packed. People, standing along the hall, nodded to Dora, smiled at Jenny, and ignored Zoe. Others turned their backs.

As Dora said, the citizens of Bear Falls went to funerals no matter if they were friends or relatives of the dead person or they’d seen them once in Baldur’s Hardware Store. It was what a decent person did—marked each passing. They were here in force, dressed in their Sunday best. Children—forced to be there—wore their Easter clothes, complete with stiff white hats on the little girls and uncomfortable black shoes on the boys.

Jenny, Zoe, and Dora entered the viewing room.

At the front of the brown room sat a closed brown wooden coffin atop a carved, brown bier. Flowers in baskets stood on the floor around the casket, most seeming to be brown, too, along with planters of dying greenery that looked as if they’d never make it through the day. Dora had sent a plant like so
many others. Always practical: “Flowers die. The family can take a plant home with them. You get your money’s worth with a plant.”

Jenny couldn’t help but lean toward Dora and ask, “Which member of Adam’s loving family will take home your plant, do you think, Mom?”

Dora shook her head and gave Jenny a shushing look as she joined the line moving up to the casket where the bereaved stood.

Jenny hadn’t seen Abigail Cane since before she left Bear Falls. When she worked at Myrtle’s Restaurant and Grill, she’d watched Abigail make her regal way down the hill from her house to the drug store or the post office: back erect, head high, a smile to the right and a smile to the left. Abigail was thin then, with light-brown, wispy hair that would stand in the slightest breeze and wave. With her nose in the air and handbag over one stiff arm, she’d stop to grace a passerby with a word or two or lift a hand to hail a honking car. Jenny, never being acknowledged by Abigail, knew little of what she said to the loungers on the benches along Oak Street but imagined it would be a solicitous question about their health, their children, or a comment on the weather. Everybody in Bear Falls talked about the weather as if they had inside information. Especially in the winter, when the waterfall at the far end of Oak Street froze solid before it dropped into Bear Lake. Kids climbed the half-iced cascade.

Abigail, along with a colorless woman who stood at her elbow in front of the wooden casket, received mourners with a gracious dip of her head at each expression of sadness. She, heavier than Jenny remembered, wore a black suit with a white blouse, starched ruffles at the neck. The gold in the frames of her glasses glinted in the low light, making it appear as if she gave off sparks. Jenny found herself a little nervous but then felt
silly. Abigail Cane meant nothing to her. The woman’s name was usually mentioned only in whispers around Bear Falls, along with a few other rich dowagers living in old, dark houses with antique furniture; doilies on the tables; antimacassars on the backs of plush chairs; and huge, Italian-made soup tureens on their polished dining room tables.

The mayor was speaking to Abigail so others hung back As a kid, she’d learned that there was a pecking order to be followed, beginning with the mayor, though she’d never been told why.

Zoe tugged at her hand. “I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t talk to Abigail Cane. She won’t know what to say, and neither will I. And then I’ll get preposterous. People are looking at me funny as it is. I feel like an axe murderer. I’ll go wait in the car.”

Zoe spun around and made her way back through the crowd with her head down. Jenny watched the little figure, in an ankle-length black dress and a black headband to hold the blonde curls back, swish out of the room.

***

After a few minutes, Tony Ralenti ambled up to Jenny, next in line to speak to Abigail. He whispered, “What I heard, Adam wasn’t liked much by anybody, but look at ’em.” He indicated the crowd. “Think they’re here to make sure he’s dead?”

He grinned down at her. She frowned, not wanting to laugh and be stigmatized as an infidel. She was here out of duty—first to Dora, who would have been shocked at not attending, and second because she was the one who found his body, which gave her a terrible distinction. Certainly Abigail would have heard.

“You see Aaron Cane?” Tony asked. “Zoe needs to talk to him.”

Jenny shook her head and stepped up, nodding to Abigail Cane. Tony politely waited behind her until he was introduced.

“Ah yes, you’re Dora Weston’s daughter.” The woman, her coarse-skinned face red, leaned forward to take Jenny’s hand and shake it. “I heard you were back in town.”

She quickly dropped Jenny’s hand and turned to Tony. She acknowledged him with a smile and a tip of the head, making the comment that she’d heard he was a fine carpenter.

“Very sad,” she answered their condolences.

When her eyes came back to Jenny, the friendliness was more assessing. “I understand you found my brother in your neighbor’s garden. Awful for you, I imagine.”

Jenny opened her mouth to speak, but Abigail didn’t give her a chance.

“It
was
your neighbor’s garden, wasn’t it?”

Jenny nodded.

“Isn’t she that little person who came to town a year or so ago? I thought I just saw her in line.”

Again, Jenny nodded. “She felt . . . eh . . . that maybe she didn’t belong.”

Abigail sniffed. “She was right, I suppose. Hardly the place for her at my brother’s funeral when she could very well have murdered him.”

Jenny was about to defend Zoe when Abigail cut in: “I wonder why she came to Bear Falls in the first place. Seems very strange to me. Of course, it’s nice to have new people in town. Makes things interesting for a while. But with Adam found in her yard, and I’m told there were bad feelings. Well, one has to be at least a little concerned. I . . .”

Jenny interrupted back. “She’s really a wonderful woman and neighbor. You’d love her if you got to know her.”

“Really?” Abigail’s brows shot up.

“She’s a writer, you know. Quite well known.”

Abigail blinked and then smiled. “I’d heard she was a writer, but so many are these days. But . . . published? No one told me. Well, it’s good to have an educated woman living here. I must have been mistaken about her. Ed Warner said something, but I’m sure he’s got things all wrong. Well, well, a writer here in town—what a coup for Bear Falls.”

She seemed pleased and turned to the woman standing patiently behind her. “This is my secretary, Carmen Volker.”

The woman, of the faded sort, bowed slightly first to Jenny and then to Tony. She settled back and clasped her hands in front of her like a good servant. Her dyed-black hair was drawn into a classic chignon that pulled back the skin around her eyes, giving her a pained look. She wore a black dress, buttoned to the throat. The dress had seen better funerals, the white collar not as white as it should be. Her black, sensible pumps tipped oddly backward on worn heels.

“Did you know there was a well-published writer living in town?” Abigail asked Carmen.

Carmen, in her late fifties, Jenny guessed—a hard-used late fifties—shook her head, eyes popping open as if the news was astounding. “No. I suppose you’d like to meet him.”

“
Her
. It is a she. And no, I don’t think I would like to meet her right now. Adam was found murdered in her garden.”

Carmen unfurled her big eyes again. “Ah. Well, then . . . of course not. She’ll probably be jailed soon, I would imagine.”

“And Jenny Weston, here, was the one who found Adam.”

Abigail and Carmen shared a look. Carmen clucked in Jenny’s direction, giving her no clue what the clucking was about and whether Jenny, too, should soon be jailed.

The woman’s nervous, blue eyes flitted from Jenny to Tony before she stepped back behind Abigail, giving the smallest of nods to both.

“I would love to talk to you sometime soon,” Jenny said to Abigail, her throat threatening to close with nerves.

“About what, dear?” Abigail leaned forward, her smile benevolent.

“About . . .”

A slight man in his thirties came up behind Abigail, putting his hand familiarly on her back. The man wore a slick navy-blue suit. A gold tie bar held his black tie in place. He was sallow-skinned and thin-faced, with an austere look to him undermined by brown hair so thick, it resembled a wig or a bouncy toupee.

He leaned in to whisper into Abigail’s ear.

She listened then raised her hand to introduce him.

“This is my attorney, Alfred Rudkers.”

He gave Jenny and Tony an apologetic look. “I was telling Abigail we have to keep the line moving. Sorry.”

He stepped forward and put his hand on Jenny’s back, giving her the smallest of pushes. She wiggled her shoulders, stepping away from the hand as she turned and shot an indignant look his way.

Abigail quickly thanked them both for coming and turned to the next person in line.

Jenny leaned close to Tony when they were far enough away not to be overheard. “Obnoxious jerk.”

“Got a rich client. Probably rich himself,” Tony whispered back. “See that kind everywhere.”

They went to a corner to watch the crowd, smiling at one person after the other, exchanging remarks on the weather, the dead man, Abigail, and, more than any other topic, where Aaron was and why he hadn’t come to his brother’s funeral.

“You’d think old feuds would die at the grave, wouldn’t you?” Minnie Moon, Dora’s neighbor, stopped to say. Minnie was a big woman in a horizontally striped, black-and-white dress
stretched tight over a wide frame. Thick, red hair was bound up in a water spout atop her head. She stepped closer to comment on the lack of flowers and ask Jenny how she was doing, “finding the man dead and all.” Minnie didn’t wait for answers. She never did, Jenny remembered. She moved on to whisper in another woman’s ear.

Tony whispered, “Think we can go now? Have we spent a respectable amount of time here?”

She looked up into dark eyes that wrinkled with his smirk. Smiles seemed called for with this man with the scarred face.

They made their way back through the crowd to the porch where Dora had escaped earlier. She stood now in broken sunlight coming through a honeysuckle vine behind her. She whispered to a severely thin woman in a black pantsuit more appropriate for winter than June.

“You remember Cindy Arlen, don’t you?” Dora smiled and took Jenny’s hand, pulling her in to say hello to Johnny Arlen’s mother.

Jenny nodded. Despite what Johnny had done, she’d always liked his mom, a soft-spoken woman who stood with her head bent forward, looking as if she might break into a run at any moment.

“How are you, Jenny?” the woman asked, her voice low. She smiled a fleeting smile and put out a fragile hand, then drew it quickly back.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Arlen. How are you?”

She shrugged. “Better now. I was just telling your mother how I’ve often thought—” She stopped herself, obviously knowing whatever it was she wanted to say wouldn’t be appropriate in this place, at this time.

Dora took Jenny’s arm and steered her away from the awkward situation, even as she told Cindy Arlen she’d have to come
by for lunch one day. Cindy answered with a tentative, “Why, yes. I’d love to.”

Dora led Jenny down the wide steps to stand on the uneven sidewalk in front of the funeral home. She whispered, “Everybody but Cindy Arlen starts by telling me they suspect Zoe. It makes me so angry.” She nodded fast. “By the time I’m finished with them, though, they’ll know what a treasure Zoe is, not at all the kind to hurt a flea, let alone Adam Cane. Still, that’s the word zipping through town.”

Dora’s disgust showed. “Hope Zoe hasn’t heard.” She looked around for Zoe.

“Everybody’s in a mood, I’ll tell you,” Dora said. “I tried to compliment Mr. Tannin on how the home looks, but all he did was go on and on that he never expected a Cane to go out the cheap way Adam’s going out.”

“You mean being murdered?”

“No, no, no.” Dora clucked her tongue at her. “He meant how cheap Abigail’s being about the funeral. He said the secretary and that lawyer picked out the least expensive coffin—the model usually used for indigents. No flowers from the family. Not from the sister and not from the brother. Aaron isn’t even here, you notice? All those awful flowers Sally’s florist got rid of are from people here in town.”