I basked in being warm, dry, bandaged, and newly revaccinated against tetanus. Not to mention alive, vindicated and untelevised.
Kostas puffed. “I’ve been saving those sweaters for yis.”
Josey’s sweater featured a girl with round, blue eyes, her hair spiky and uneven, something the uninformed might have attributed to the geometry of knitting. I saw Josey there, right down to the bandage embroidered on her knee, captured by Kostas O’Carolan, artist-in-wool.
My own sweater reflected the red, yellow and orange of fall foliage.
Josey kept staring at her sweater. One of her more inscrutable expressions occupied her face.
“It’s nothing, of course,” Kostas said, with becoming modesty, “compared to what you’ll be doing yourself, my dear girl, if you keep on progressing at the rate you are.”
Josey nodded with the solemnity I would normally have associated with someone embracing Holy Orders.
“And you’ll be in touch, my girl, at me new address?”
“You have a new address?” Josey asked. “Where?”
Kostas twinkled a bit more than usual. “At the home of Miss Mary Morrison, where I will be ensuring her security and preventing her last years being spent in loneliness and misery.”
And preventing Kostas’s last few years being spent in a tumble-down cottage with a leaky roof and no hot water.
“I will miss Evening’s End and me view of the river, but there are compensations. And me dogs are welcome at Mary’s.”
Josey approved. “That worked out well,” she said.
No kidding.
“Indeed, and I do believe it calls for a little celebration.”
I fished my bottle of Courvoisier out of the washing machine and kissed it good-bye. I whispered in Kostas’s small pink ear, “Don’t worry, Heckie, your secret’s safe with me. In fact, I’ve already forgotten it.”
“Dear lady, I am grateful. And shall we toast to absent friends?”
Rachel lay back on her hospital bed, her eyes closed, the streaks of tears harsh against the bone colour of her skin. Her arm was in a sling, and I knew more bandages strapped her ribs.
She opened her eyes and struggled to a sitting position.
I had mixed feelings about Rachel at that moment. Rachel, who’d known that Dougie Dolan was a walking time bomb.
“Ah, please don’t hate me, Josey dear.” Josey’s expression remained guarded. “I know it’s hard to understand, but I loved Bridget,” Rachel said. “She told me Fiona really was responsible for Benedict’s death, and Dougie was going to follow and get proof. But once I got to know you and Fiona a bit, I figured out Bridget and Dougie might have been mixed up in something terrible. I had to face it. That last morning she sounded really out of control.”
I thought I heard Sarrazin mutter, “Merde.”
Josey patted Rachel’s good arm. “If you hadn’t followed Bridget and distracted her, Miz Silk and I might both be dead now. Tolstoy too.”
Sarrazin cleared his throat. Maybe he felt as I did. If Rachel had spoken earlier, Abby Lake would have been alive and Marc-André breathing without life support. And Dougie Dolan, a guest of the government instead of the graveyard. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have wanted to try to explain Bridget’s death to Sarrazin without Rachel as a witness.
Thirty-Two
The Gatineau river shone fast and silvery.
“I guess this guy’s had enough funerals now,” Josey said.
She gazed through her binoculars and over the inlet as Benedict’s ashes drifted on the breeze and settled on the lapping water. A clump of ash caught in a small eddy and whirled around for slow seconds before sinking.
The air was full of fiddling and sniffling. A cluster of O’Mafia read their poems before the dozen fiddlers tuned up to pay their last respects to a wild Irish poet and legendary lover.
Zoë stood off from the crowd, red head high and shoulders squared. Dignity personified. Unlike Mme Flambeau, puffyeyed and shuddering and unable to utter her formal goodbyes. Lucky for her, Josey took pity, providing her with a steady supply of fresh tissues and a shoulder to lean on.
Even Stella showed up, holding her twins by the hand.
Kostas, hoarse from booming his epic forty-two verse memorial poem to Benedict, stood with his pudgy mitt on Miss Mary Morrison’s shoulder. I was pleased to note the absence of Sarrazin, probably tied up with the coroner. But then Sarrazin’s absence spelled good news, since Uncle Mike had made a rare public appearance. Josey had dusted him off and propped him up next to Natalie. If all went well, they could keep each other busy and out of trouble.
Around the fiddlers, women blew their noses and cried. Even I felt a ache in my throat for Benedict, whose wicked ways had cost his own life and three others, Abby, Dougie and in the end, Bridget.
The sun dipped behind scudding clouds and the river reflected the hillside. I held my breath as Benedict’s ashes drifted and merged with the waves. The last tangible remnants of Benedict Kelly, poet, philosopher and lounge lizard, swirled and sank into waters as green as any graveyard.
Text © 2013 by Mary Jane Maffini
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Cover art: Victoria Maffini
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Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle Page 47
