by P. N. Elrod
“I appreciate your listening,” he said again. “You’ve helped lift the weight of some of my personal distress and to forget others. Those must soon be attended to; we’ve a sad evening before us, sir.”
Maureen’s funeral. “When do we . . . ?”
“The pastor will arrive a little before ten.”
“That late?”
“I allowed for the possibility that you might be delayed.”
“Won’t he think a funeral at night is kind of unusual?”
“When I was younger all funerals were held at night. Perhaps not so late, though. No need to worry about him or anyone else—I’ve seen to the legalities and done a bit of influence on those concerned to keep this quiet. It lacks courtesy, but I’d rather avoid gossip. Lord knows there’s been enough, what with Emily selling and moving out, and that construction equipment tearing things up.”
“You hypnotized the workers, too?”
“There were no workers. I rented equipment, got instruction on how to use it, and did it all myself.”
That was impressive, though I had a hard time picturing him in overalls and heavy boots and operating a bulldozer. “To avoid gossip?”
“When one chooses to put down roots for an indefinite period, the less talk the better. I wish to have a quiet life here, and laborers telling tales at their favorite tavern would work against that endeavor. If anyone found out the real reason behind the digging I’d have no end of interest from the police. One may influence for a time, but it never lasts, as you well know.”
Did I ever. There was a homicide cop back in Chicago just waiting to put me away on general principles. Now that I couldn’t hypnotize him anymore I took pains to keep my head low.
“I’ve let the curious think I’m excavating with the idea of building a new guest cottage on the foundations of the old house. In due time I shall give it up as a bad idea and fill it in again. Perhaps I shall plant new trees. I never liked the land there being so unnaturally flat. But that’s for the future.” He straightened a little. “There is another issue, too. I wouldn’t mind your advice.”
“Oh, yeah?” He was just full of surprises. “On what?”
“It can wait until after the service. The pastor arrives at about ten, along with the hearse for transport.”
“Trans—what do you mean?”
“To convey Maureen to the cemetery,” he said gently.
“She’s here?”
“Of course. Where else?”
“I thought she’d be at the funeral home or a church.”
“Different times, different customs, Mr. Fleming. Her casket is . . . well, I’ll show you if you wish to pay your respects.”
That phrase again. It sounded better when he said it. “Yeah, sure.”
“It is sealed. As you might have guessed, things were not pleasant, but it was a duty I could not impose upon another.”
Until now I’d been able to avoid thinking about that aspect of Maureen’s disinterment. It’s what made Barrett the better man. I wouldn’t have been up to the task knowing that it meant seeing her like that. I looked at him, feeling pity and respect. “That had to be. . . ”
“Yes, it was. But it is past. We will look after her and lay her worldly shell to rest and remember better times.”
Okay, that was something I could do.
“I must beg your pardon, I’m in no fit state for company. If you will allow, I’ll correct things after I show you to your room.”
He rose and led the way back to the main entry to get my trunk.
Barrett was ready to take the trunk upstairs himself, but I got there first. We compromised, each grabbing one of the leather handles on each side. On the second floor he surprised me again, ushering me into what had been Emily’s room. The big bed and some feminine-looking furnishings were left, but everything else had been cleared out, not even her scent remained.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, easing his end of the trunk down. “It’s the only bedroom that’s light-proofed and it has its own bath.”
The curtains looked to be inches thick, and the door to a large bathroom was open. If there’d been sheets on the bed and pictures on the wall it would have passed for a suite in a fancy hotel. “It’s great. If you don’t mind my asking, where’s Maureen?”
“Ah. Yes. This way.”
Downstairs again, he took me to the same room where Emily’s casket had been nearly two years earlier. That bothered me, but I couldn’t say why.
I hesitated; he went through, turning on the lights. They were also of low wattage, meant to soften things, I suppose. Futile.
Get it over with, he’s already done the worst part.
I made myself go in and saw pretty much what I’d expected.
Barrett had done her proud when it came to the flowers. He must have emptied a winter greenhouse. She’d loved roses. The color didn’t matter so long as it was a rose. Barrett had surrounded her with all kinds, along with carnations and other blooms I didn’t know.
As promised, the casket was closed. He’d picked a nice one, nothing fussy, but not cheap. The brass fittings gleamed like gold against the warm brown wood—until I realized they were gold or at least gold-plated.
I must have made a noise.
He turned an inquiring eye on me. “A problem?”
“I was just thinking what she might have said about this.”
He understood what I meant. “Yes. She would not have approved of the extravagance. I’m sure she forgives me.”
Half a dozen chairs were set before the casket. Too many, considering we were the only mourners, but it gave balance to the tableau, made it less lonely.
I took in the rest of the room as an afterthought and damned-near jumped out of my skin.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
Resting on an ornate easel was a life-size oil portrait of Maureen. It was at eye-level and disturbingly realistic.
Barrett gave me a moment, then stepped forward. “I had it painted in those years we were together. I. . .” He cleared his throat, for his voice had gone suddenly thick. “I wanted to see what she looked like in sunlight.”
I couldn’t speak. There was a knot in my own throat.
Memory is treacherous. It makes you forget too much of what’s important. It had taken from me the shine in her eyes, the color of her sweet lips, and a thousand other details.
Barrett murmured something and left us alone.
I pulled one of the chairs over and sank onto it, suddenly a tired traveler. The artist had done some trick with her eyes so she seemed to be smiling down at me.
She’d posed outside, drenched in sunlight so pure you could feel waves of heat coming from the canvas. Her clothing was a loose draping of material that imparted a timeless quality to the work. She held a brilliant spray of flowers, the originals long wilted and gone to dust, but their image preserved with her forever.
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
Maureen glowed back. She’d been happy, that was clear in every curve of her expression. Strangely, I didn’t mind that it had been Barrett who’d made her smile so. I’d seen that smile, too.
She’d changed me, and it wasn’t to do with my return from the grave. I’d loved her. A man doesn’t fall in love like that and not be permanently changed. Everything in my life to follow had been shaped by that love, up to and including how I now felt about Bobbi. Things were good for us because I’d learned the hard way just how fragile and brief a thing happiness could be.
I wanted to hear Maureen’s voice, hear her laugh again. Scraps of her tone if not her words survived in my memory. It wasn’t enough. She was gone, taken away forever by a stupid act of selfish, vindictive insanity, and it wasn’t fair.
At least I could look at her. Like Barrett, I’d also never seen her in sunlight under the intense blue of an untroubled sky.
Maureen suddenly blurred as tears welled and stung my eyes. I swiped at them. They kept coming.
I’d mourned for he
r before and had thought it was all out of me. The tears flowed despite that, and my chest ached from trying to hold things in.
Dimly, I was aware of water running elsewhere in the vast house. Barrett was taking a shower. Grief is a private thing. I don’t share that pain.
The rush of water meant he wouldn’t hear.
I’m not made of stone; alone in this hushed and private place I broke down and wept, truly wept for her.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Cleaned up, shaved, and in my good black suit, I waited in the parlor with Maureen, looking at her portrait, sometimes softly talking to her. It was crazy, but that was my business.
Barrett kept himself elsewhere in the house. He’d gone out to get a car from the garage and bring it around to the front, then retreated to his basement sanctuary. When the pastor and the others arrived, he came up to answer the bell. I caught a glimpse as he crossed the entry hall; he’d gotten rid of the beard, washed and combed his too-long hair straight back, and was in a suit so sharp you could cut paper on the creases.
He brought the pastor in, introduced us, and smoothed over what might have been an awkward moment by explaining that this was a re-internment for the deceased who had died outside the country.
“It was her wish to be brought home,” he concluded.
“You show a great benevolence of spirit to go to such lengths, Mr. Barrett,” the pastor said.
“She was a good and kind lady, the like of which I shall not see again.”
“Were you related?”
“There was a distant blood relation between the three of us, yes,” he said with an absolutely straight face. He shot me a look, but I’d not made a sound, having successfully resisted the urge to snort.
“You gentlemen are cousins?”
“Several times removed,” I put in.
“Miss Francher the younger will not be attending?”
By that address I understood Emily, assuming the identity of a young namesake invented for the purpose, had been accepted by the community.
“Miss Francher will not be attending,” Barrett confirmed. “You may have heard she sold the estate to me and moved away.”
“I’m not one to pay mind to town talk,” the pastor said, proving himself to be as human as the next man with that fib. I decided I liked him and wondered if he’d crossed his fingers or would later do some sort of penance or prayer to get himself off the hook with his Boss.
The imperfect clergyman noticed the portrait and offered praise for the artist’s skill. Barrett discussed the painting’s history while sturdy guys in black suits took the casket from the room to load it into a hearse parked under the porte cochère. They came back for the flowers—two trips—and then it was time to leave.
We pulled on coats, hats, and gloves against the cold night. My snap-brim fedora looked racy next to Barrett’s aggressively somber Homburg, but then my hair wasn’t sticking out from under like a circus clown’s wig.
Parked a few yards behind the hearse was an impressive white Studebaker Champion; Barrett must have bought it from Emily along with the house. A nice car, but I preferred my newer two-door coupe.
“Blood relations,” I muttered, getting in.
“Perfectly true,” he said, starting the motor. He let it idle and warm up while the muscle brigade made adjustments to the loads of flowers. Some had to be put in with us, filling the car with the out-of-season smell of fresh greenery. As the estate sported a generous covering of snow from the last fall, I considered the miracles of modern living that made roses in February possible. It kept my mind off what was to come.
When things were resolved with the flowers, the hearse took the lead down the long drive to the main road. The white painted ironwork gate showing the name FRANCHER was wide open, the gatehouse utterly dark, its shutters closed. I asked after the couple that lived there. The woman had been the head housekeeper, the man the gardener.
“The Mayfairs left not long after Emily’s accident.” There was no hesitation from Barrett on that last significant word. Apparently he was long used to referring to her murder in that way. “At first I thought I could influence them into accepting her changed condition, but she said it wasn’t something she wanted to force upon anyone. Mrs. Mayfair gave notice for the both of them, and they found employ with one of the Francher relatives in Connecticut.”
“Probably giving them an earful.”
“Hardly. She’s of a breed apart from most servants, very correct, intensely loyal, with no tale-telling. I can’t say her husband has the same disposition, but she’ll see to it he keeps his mind on his work.”
Nursing a broken heart or not, Barrett had a good life ahead, no loose ends from the old one lying around to trip him. If I had a suspicious mind I’d have thought he’d arranged it that way from the start. I only had his word on everything. For all I knew he’d done away with Emily, fired the servants, and had gotten me here to bump me off in revenge for Laura’s death.
Imagination can be an ugly, illogical thing. I’d been mingling with rough company for far too long. Escott trusted the man, and I could trust Escott. He was good at figuring people out, and didn’t waste time on bad guys unless it was to put them away. He also didn’t waste time on fools, which gave me hope for myself.
The road wound eastward, threading past various estates belonging to people who didn’t worry about money in the same way that others do.
Sometimes I’d see a mansion through the skeletal trees and think about what living was like for those inside, but not for long since I didn’t know much about that kind of life, only what’d I’d seen in the movies. And how accurate was that?
I bet those people all had really good cars, though.
Our parade eventually passed the gates of a very old cemetery on the grounds of an equally old church. The brake lights for the hearse flickered, then held. Barrett slowed and stopped, and we quit the Studie, standing out of the way while the men with the hearse did what they had to do.
I noticed Barrett slump again, head down.
“You okay?” I asked.
“This is difficult. Many of my family are buried here.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him feel better. Uncomfortable, I thought of my own family and what the passage of the years would eventually accomplish. This wasn’t the first time it had crossed my mind, but I usually pushed it away, determined not to worry about things over which I had no control. I’d not told any of them about me; I didn’t know how or if I even should.
Maureen’s sister had known about her change, and that had ended in disaster. Barrett and I wouldn’t be here tonight if—
Damn it. Back roads named “if” were the worst. They wandered off in too many directions and no one had ever gotten anywhere traveling on them. But still. . .
I couldn’t help feeling that I’d failed Maureen. If she’d just come to me I could have done something to help, and she would have never gone to Long Island. I’d looked at that if from every angle for almost two years, and frustration was the only result. Her choice had been to seek out Barrett. He knew all the background and was the right one to go to, but it hurt that she’d said nothing to me. Maybe she didn’t want to have the new man in her life meeting the old one. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Maybe—
