‘But when he got together with Chloe – well, the whole tone of his emails changed. Chloe was just so much more right for Rob than Lianna ever was. That time we came to visit, after Jeremy was born, was the happiest I’d ever seen my son. And now she’s gone. He’s lost her.’ Vivian’s eyes welled with tears. ‘He’s had to endure so much.’
‘Chloe adored him,’ Shelby said honestly. ‘He’s a fine man.’
Vivian sighed. ‘Well, we’ll have a bit of a rest and then we’ll go and get him at the hospital. Do what we can to ease the burden for him.’
Shelby nodded. ‘I think once I get Jeremy up and dressed I’ll go back to my apartment.’
‘I’m sure you could use a break,’ said Vivian.
‘No that so much as I want to give you folks a little extra space. And time to get to know Jeremy. He’s a wonderful kid.’
‘He goes to preschool, doesn’t he?’ Vivian asked.
‘Yes. His teacher is an old friend of your family’s – Darcie Fallon?’
‘My goodness. Little Darcie is teaching school? She was an adorable child. Always following Rob around like he was her big brother.’
‘Well, she’s very devoted . . . to both of them. Rob and Jeremy. If you need anything, I know you can rely on her,’ Shelby said.
‘That’s good to know. We’ll all have to pitch in to help Rob now. Jeremy will need all the love and support he can get. Especially from his grandparents,’ said Vivian pointedly.
‘I’m always here for him,’ said Shelby, her voice shaking a little.
Vivian reached out and grabbed Shelby’s hand with her own. ‘I know you are,’ she said.
Shelby was only able to return to her apartment by promising Jeremy that she would see him the very next day. He was uncertain about these strange new grandparents until Vivian assured him that they were going to pick up his dad at the hospital and bring him home. He immediately forgot Shelby’s departure in the excitement over his father’s return home. Shelby felt incredibly grateful to Vivian and Hugh for the kind, low-key way that they handled their grandson. She knew she was leaving him in loving hands, even if it was only for a little while.
Shelby was running a load of laundry in her kitchen and putting together a simple supper for herself when the phone rang. To her complete amazement, it was her sister, Talia, sounding almost cheerful.
‘I’m surprised to hear from you,’ Shelby said. ‘I thought maybe you weren’t speaking to me.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be speaking to you?’ said Talia.
‘Never mind,’ said Shelby.
‘I’m calling because I thought you might want to know, since you were accusing him yesterday.’
‘Who are you talking about?’ Shelby asked. Her sister had never called her to discuss someone other than their mother or Glen.
‘Faith’s father,’ said Talia, and Shelby could hear the satisfaction in her voice. Far from being angry at Shelby, she was proud to have this information to offer her sister. ‘He killed himself last night.’
Shelby’s knees went weak. ‘What?’
‘Yeah. Faith called to say she wasn’t coming in. Apparently, he hanged himself.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Shelby, recoiling from the mental image.
‘Faith said he had a terminal illness,’ said Talia offhandedly. ‘Probably wanted to avoid the slow decline.’
Shelby’s mind whirred. She thought about her confrontation with Bud Ridley and felt a nagging sense of culpability. Had her threats sent him over the edge? No, she thought. If she had been wrong about his part in Chloe’s death, it wouldn’t have affected him at all. It was because she was right that he had taken this drastic step. His actions actually confirmed her suspicions. She was certain now that someone had hired him – it just wasn’t Talia.
‘Did you hear me?’ said Talia.
‘I heard you,’ said Shelby.
‘I couldn’t tell. You didn’t say anything.’
‘I’m thinking,’ said Shelby. Bud’s suicide seemed to say, louder than words, that she had confronted him with at least part of the truth. But Shelby had to know if Bud had admitted to anything before he died. Left a note. Something to implicate the person who had engaged him.
‘What is there to think about?’ asked Talia.
‘I’m just wondering . . .’ Shelby realized that she needed to see Faith or Peggy. To question them. But their hour of shock and grief was no time to start making accusations against their dead father and husband.
‘Wondering what?’
‘Are there services? Or a wake?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Talia impatiently.
‘If there’s a wake, you should really go and pay your respects,’ said Shelby slowly.
‘Why?’ said Talia. ‘I said I was sorry. That’s enough.’
Sometimes Shelby wondered how her sister managed to function in the world. The conventions of life had no meaning for her. ‘Talia. Come on. You work with her every day. It’s the least you can do. You’d expect Faith to show up if the tables were turned. If it were mother.’
‘Mother would never kill herself,’ Talia said indignantly.
‘I meant, if she were to die. That’s how people show that they care about you – by showing up.’
‘I don’t care about Faith that way,’ she insisted.
That’s probably true, Shelby thought. She heard no sympathy or compassion in Talia’s voice. Even Shelby, who sincerely believed that Bud had pushed Chloe overboard, was able to imagine Peggy’s shock and sympathize with Faith’s grief.
There was a component of empathy missing in Talia, but that was hardly news to Shelby. And she was not about to let her sister off the hook. She intended to go to the visitation with Talia, so that her presence there would seem natural. ‘Do you want to hurt her feelings?’ Shelby asked. ‘Because if you don’t show up, her feelings will be hurt. And that’s not a good way for an assistant to feel.’
Talia was silent for a moment. ‘She is a good assistant,’ Talia admitted.
‘Exactly. I’ll go with you.’
‘Why?’ Talia asked.
Shelby wasn’t about to explain that perhaps the link to Chloe’s killer could be found at Bud Ridley’s wake. ‘It’ll make it easier,’ Shelby said. She was already searching for Bud’s death notice on her computer as they spoke. She located it. ‘The first viewing is tonight. We’ll go and get it over with.’
‘I can’t leave mother,’ said Talia.
‘Get Nadia to stay with her,’ said Shelby. ‘Tell her I’ll pay her double.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
S
helby and Talia hurried past a half a dozen smokers who were huddled, collars up, under the eaves and entered the vestibule of the funeral home, shaking the rain off of their umbrellas. Shelby consulted the board with names of the dead who rested inside. She had heard of wedding factories, but this facility seemed to be a funeral factory with a dozen or more of the departed ensconced in the variously themed rooms inside. ‘The Columbus Room,’ she said to Talia. ‘Come on.’
Talia followed her sister into the wide, dimly lit hallway with its thick carpet and imitation-Venetian chandeliers. There were letter boards beside the double doors, indicating which of the deceased rested in that room. Between the double doorways were thickly padded faux-leather benches where people could sit for a while and escape the grief of the other mourners, the cloying smell of the funeral flowers, or the sight of the departed.
Shelby went down the hall until she located the Columbus room. She gestured for Talia, who was hanging back near the doors to the vestibule, to join her. Reluctantly, Talia shuffled over to her sister.
‘I’m not staying here for long,’ Talia said in a normal speaking voice that was startling in the hush of the funeral home.
‘We don’t have to stay long,’ said Shelby. ‘Just speak to the family and sit for a few minutes.’
‘I don’t want to.’ Talia squirmed like a child. ‘You made me do this.’
‘Just take it easy,’ said Shelby. ‘It’s rude to be in too big of a hurry.’
Shelby led the way. The room had folding chairs which were set up to accommodate a crowd of a hundred or more. There was no need for that many chairs tonight at the viewing of Bud Ridley. There were about a dozen people scattered in the front few rows, in pairs or groups of three or four.
The open casket was at the front of the room, flanked by gladioli in urns. In the front row, facing the casket, Peggy, Faith, and Faith’s husband, whom Shelby recognized from the wedding picture in Peggy’s house, were seated, wearing black. Shelby gestured to Talia to follow her, and they went down the side aisle and walked up to the casket. Shelby looked in at Bud. It was hard to believe that she had seen him alive just the day before. The undertaker had liberally pancaked his face and neck so that his complexion was an orangey-pink, and the bruises around his neck were minimized. The embalmed body looked like a life-size, homely doll, lying stiffly on a bed of satin.
You killed my daughter, Shelby thought, looking at him. Your suicide is the proof. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were praying, and took a deep breath.
Talia glanced at the body and then turned away. She walked over to Faith and stiffly muttered ‘Sorry, Faith.’
Shelby turned around.
‘Oh, Dr Winter, how nice of you to come. This is my husband, Brian. And this is my mom.’
Talia grimaced as she shook hands with each of them. Peggy was slump-shouldered, her face puffy from weeping. She greeted Talia politely, wiping her eyes with a balled-up Kleenex.
Talia hastily excused herself, and took a seat halfway to the back of the room. She indicated to Shelby that she should hurry up about it. Shelby ignored her sister. She greeted Faith, who seemed surprised and almost flustered to see her again. She murmured her condolences to Faith and her husband, and then moved on to Peggy.
Peggy grasped both of Shelby’s hands in her own. ‘Shelby,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s so good of you to come.’
‘Well, it seems that we’ve both suffered a terrible loss lately.’
Peggy shook her head. ‘I don’t how you get through the day,’ she said.
Shelby hesitated, and then sat down in the chair beside Peggy’s. She knew very well that Bud had not told his wife about her visit – she would have bet anything on that. Still, she thought Peggy might find her presence odd; after all, she was virtually a stranger. But it was not as if there were a line of mourners behind her, and Peggy seemed to welcome the opportunity to stop counting the people who had, and had not, showed up this first evening.
‘What a shock this has been for you,’ Shelby murmured sympathetically.
Peggy dabbed at her eyes. ‘Oh, that’s for sure.’
‘He didn’t give you any indication?’ Shelby asked. She was relying on the fact that Peggy was a garrulous woman, and she knew that most people welcomed an opportunity to exorcise their misery by recounting it, over and over.
Peggy sighed. ‘Well, as I told you, he was depressed. I mean, anyone would be with that diagnosis, but he wasn’t even showing many signs of the illness yet. Hardly at all.’ She glanced over at her husband’s body in his coffin and shook her head. ‘To look at him, you’d think he was the picture of health.’
Shelby murmured agreement. She knew that she had to try and walk the line between sounding concerned, and overly curious. She had to pose each question carefully. ‘Did he say or do anything that would make you think he might . . .’
‘No. No, of course not,’ said Peggy. ‘If he had . . .’ Peggy shook her head and started weeping again.
Shelby felt a little bit cruel to be pressing this distraught woman. But she reminded herself that Bud Ridley had been her enemy. He had killed Chloe. And, in truth, Peggy seemed content to be speaking about her late husband. All too soon, people would avoid mentioning his name to her. Shelby persisted.
‘Did he leave a note, anything like that?’
‘That’s the horrible part,’ Peggy confided. ‘He did. He said . . .’ Peggy had to collect herself. Then she continued. ‘He said he couldn’t live with himself. As if he was somehow to blame for this. I mean, it’s an illness. It wasn’t his fault. I know he worried about me having to try to care for him as it got worse. I know that. But I never would have blamed him.’ Once again, Peggy was weeping.
‘Of course not,’ Shelby murmured. He couldn’t live with himself. That wasn’t about the illness, Shelby thought grimly. He couldn’t live with himself because he threw an innocent girl off of a cruise ship for gain.
Shelby felt almost guilty about continuing. But not guilty enough to retreat. ‘I hope the insurance pays up. I’ve heard that they can be miserable about paying when a person commits suicide. And at a time like this, you don’t want to be worried about money.’
Peggy was not a woman given to secrets and circumspection. ‘Oh no, we’ve had this policy for years. Of course it doesn’t amount to much. Once we pay for the funeral . . . Well, there won’t be anything left.’
‘Really?’ Shelby asked. Her face flamed as she posed the question. It was none of her business and she knew it, but she was asking anyway. If Bud had enjoyed a big payday for throwing her Chloe overboard, surely he would have let his wife know where to find the money. After all, it was not as if he had been hit by a car. He had done this deliberately. He had the time and the foresight to leave his wife access to all that money before he took his life.
‘Nothing,’ said Peggy. ‘In fact, I’m gonna have to sell the house and move in with Faith and Brian. If I can find a buyer. I tell you, Shelby, it’s a nightmare. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Really, I don’t.’
This isn’t getting me anywhere, Shelby thought. The suicide’s implicit admission of guilt made it seem as if the mystery of Chloe’s death was almost solved. But now his wife maintains there is no money? A contract killing costs more than the price of two cruise tickets. And it was only weeks ago. Bud couldn’t have spent it all before he died. Or could he? Did he have a secret mistress, or a love child? And then she thought of that shrine to Faith in their living room. No. It was much simpler than that. Peggy and Faith were this man’s whole life. If he had money to leave anyone, he would leave it to them. So where was the money? Shelby’s head was beginning to ache.