They clicked together and caught the light as he let them drop into Irene's palm. She looked at them, uncomprehending.
"The white represents purity and peace. The bells are the voice of the dead person. They help you remember her."
Irene picked them up. The bells rang softly.
He said, "When Renee visits you in your mind, you must welcome her. And don't cry over her. That would make her spirit sad."
"I'll try," Irene whispered.
Patsy stifled a sob and pressed a Kleenex to her nose.
Jimmy Panther nodded. "We all have a time to die. We're lucky if we can choose our place. Renee liked the Everglades. It is a good place to die, if your time has come."
Irene stood up and put her arms around his neck, still clutching the beads. "Thank you," she said, and he let her kiss his cheek. Jimmy Panther placed his hands momentarily on her shoulders, then silently turned and crossed the room, everyone watching until he had gone.
Gail wandered far enough into the lobby to see the front door close behind him. She hadn't known he and Renee were friends. They could well have met at the Historical Museum, when Renee was working there as a volunteer. What Gail did know was that Irene had already donated more money than she should have to Jimmy Panther's Miccosukee history center. As far as Gail had heard, the center was still no more than a pile of concrete blocks out on the Tannami Trail, the highway heading west across the Everglades.
Irene didn't need anyone playing on her sympathy, Gail thought. Particularly not Jimmy Panther, with his beads and his bullshit about Renee's spirit.
A brown pickup truck turned out of the parking lot. For an instant, flashing from window to window, Gail saw the Indian at the wheel, patchwork jacket off, his elbow resting on the edge of the door. He wore a short-sleeved blue shirt. There was a gun rack in the back window.
Gail turned around just as Dave came into the lobby.
He pulled his car keys out of his pocket, then studied them in his hand. "I'm going to go get Karen."
"Dave, we already decided."
"You decided." He headed for the door. "I'll be back in time for the services. It'll be good for her."
Gail followed through the door, across the slate terrace, then down the steps. "Do you want her to remember Renee like this? In a funeral home, in a casket? She can't even see her."
"Does it matter?"
"Are you that bored?"
He whirled to face her. "I'm not bored, Gail."
Gail leaned against the side of their Buick. Under her dark suit she felt hot, prickly. The sky was still a bright, cloudless blue, the wind rattling the fronds of the palm trees in the parking lot. She pushed her hair off her forehead.
Dave sorted through the keys on the ring. "Karen liked Renee, you know."
"Damn it, that isn't the reason I left her home."
He unlocked the door and waited for her to get out of the way. "Do you mind?"
They looked coldly at each other for a moment, then Gail moved aside. "You be responsible for her while she's here."
Dave got in. He turned the ignition and the backup lights went on. The Buick shot into reverse at the same time a silver Mercedes coupe cornered at the street and sped across the lot.
"Dave!"
Both cars slammed on their brakes, the Mercedes skidding on a patch of loose dirt. The Buick bounced, its horn blasting. Gail saw Dave look angrily over his shoulder and raise his middle finger.
The other driver's dark tinted window slid down. She could see him now, a bearded man in gold-rimmed sunglasses. He leaned out the window and screamed something in Spanish. But Dave was already halfway to the street. The Mercedes backed into a parking space and the window slid up.
The car's chrome grille bore a gold Mercedes emblem the size of a dinner plate. On each headlight there was a tiny gold-colored windshield wiper. The door opened.
The driver tucked his tie into the front of his dark blue jacket. He was young—thirty, not much more than that —and a bit pudgy. His hair was thinning on top, but his beard was thick, closely trimmed to his face.
He closed his door, catching sight of Gail at the same time, and grinned at her. Behind him, the headlights flashed. There was a high-pitched chirp from under the hood. He spun the key chain around his finger and turned toward the front of the building.
A drug dealer. Or an auto thief particularly careful about his own property. But then, most of the luxury cars in Miami had alarms. At every clap of thunder they would go off like so many frightened children.
In the lobby Gail checked the guest registry. No name had been added to those of the women from her mother's parish who had come in just before him.
"Ms. Connor?"
She looked up.
It was Owen Finney. He whispered, "I have a message for you."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Father Donnelly called to say he might be late." Something in Gail's face made him add, "He took a wrong turn off the expressway. He'll be here, for sure."
She checked her watch. Not quite seven. "All right. Thanks." She should have been grateful that a priest was coming at all. It had been damned hard to find one.
Gail had spoken first to Father Hagen at Irene's parish, which her mother attended now and then. He was a thin, hollow-eyed man, his theology drier than his handshake. He offered his sympathy, but doubted he could in good conscience appear at the services. Gail knew it wasn't Renee's suicide that bothered him. He was still ticked off that Renee, at seventeen, had told him to kiss her sweet white ass. Irene had never heard about this.
Gail said yes, she understood, but it was Irene who needed him, not Renee. For fully more than two minutes, Father Hagen mulled it over, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Finally he told her he could put her in contact with a Father Eamon Donnelly. Father Donnelly was Irish, retired from a country parish, and recruited by the Archdiocese of Miami.
Father Hagen explained: The church had a crisis on its hands, what with the older priests dying off, and so many Latin American Catholics immigrating in. And then there were the Haitians—Heaven only knew what the Archbishop was going to do without priests who could speak Creole. Luckily Father Eamon Donnelly had picked up some Spanish in Madrid. He had consequently been sent down to Homestead, to minister to the migrant workers in the tomato fields.
Father Hagen apologized when he handed Gail the telephone number, but Gail caught the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes.
The next day Father Donnelly said of course he would come. Naturally a donation to the poor was customary. Two hundred dollars, cash preferred. After a moment of stunned silence, Gail said she would arrange it. He asked about Renee; Gail gave him Irene's number.
What a joke, she thought now. A Catholic funeral for an atheist. Flowers from people who would never have spoken to Renee On the street.
As she began to turn away from the window, Gail caught sight of a sporty gray Cadillac turning into the driveway and disappearing past the side of the building. The funeral director's door was open and there was a window behind his desk that faced the parking lot. She went in far enough to look through it. The driver had seemed familiar.
The car stopped in a space next to a cluster of palm trees. Its brake lights went off. The door opened, and a man's foot in a low-cut black shoe appeared, planted on the ground for a moment before the rest of him got out.
It was Anthony Quintana. Gail had thought so, but couldn't imagine what he was doing here. He started walking toward the building, then stopped. Gail automatically tensed before she realized he was looking at someone who had come around the corner.
She saw a beard and blue suit. The drug dealer—if that's what he was—said something to Quintana. They spoke, standing at some distance, not a smile from either of them. Then the younger man headed for his car, and Quintana came toward the funeral home, so close to the window she could see the subdued pattern in his tie. No splashy colors today. His suit was charcoal gray, conservatively cut.
Possibly the bearded
man was one of his criminal defendants. But why was Anthony Quintana here? Much as the idea intrigued her, Gail doubted he had come because of her. Courtesy did not extend that far. Had he known Renee?
She heard footsteps behind her. It was the funeral director himself—thin, balding, his eyebrows lifting. "May I help you?"
Gail murmured an apology and left his office.
She went back to the visitation room and looked past a group of women from the country club. Anthony Quintana was standing at the casket, head bowed, one hand on the kneeler. The diamond ring was gone. Today he wore a different one—silver with black stones.
He finally turned around and she met him at the last row of chairs. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Quintana."
"Please, call me Anthony." He took her hand. "I was very sorry to hear about your sister," he said. "We will all miss her."
"You knew Renee?"
"Yes. From the title company." When Gail looked at him blankly, he said, "My law firm owns a title company. Renee worked there in the closing department. I thought you knew."
"No, I—" She tried to remember precisely what she had heard from Irene or Ben. "I knew Renee had a job for a title company, but I didn't know where." Gail began to walk with him back across the room. "You didn't mention Renee the other day when we met."
"Should I have?"
Gail considered. "No, I suppose not."
He said, "Would you introduce me to your mother? I'd like to offer her my sympathy." Anthony Quintana's manners were impeccable, even courtly.
Irene didn't recognize his name, but brightened when he spoke of Renee.
He said quietly, "She will be missed, I tell you this sincerely. Her sense of humor. Her compassion for other people's troubles." He reached into his jacket pocket. "She left this on her desk," he said. "There were other things, but nothing so personal."
"Oh, my." Irene unfolded it, a gold-colored photo frame with two hinged sections. She studied each one.
There was a photograph of a Caribbean harbor, Renee in the foreground in the stern of a fishing boat. The other made Gail hold out her hand. "Mother, may I see it?"
Irene gave it to her, then turned to talk to Anthony Quintana.
Gail held the frames closer to the lamp. She saw two little girls flying up in a backyard swing, both in shorts and sneakers. The smaller one was sitting down, legs straight out. The other girl stood up, leaning back, holding onto the chains.
Gail remembered the chirp of rusty metal, the sun in her face, the lurch of her stomach as they reached the zenith and fell back, the earth rushing toward them. Renee was laughing, a giggle that wouldn't stop. A shadow cut across the grass—whoever took the picture. A man. Their father, probably. The colors were faded now. One corner was torn.
Gail stood there, the frame in her hands, until her mother tugged it away.
Irene said, "Thank you so much, Mr. Quintana. You were very kind to bring this."
"Not at all."
Gail walked with him to the door.
"Call me Monday, if you think of it," he said. "Maybe we can work on settling that case."
"Oh, yes. That." Gail shook her head. "I'm afraid I haven't drawn the order yet."
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, "The photograph upset you."
"No. Well, perhaps a little. I haven't seen it in years."
"You looked so much alike," he said. "Your hair was the same color then."
"I was the taller one, of course." She laughed. "We were so skinny, weren't we? That was our backyard."
"Yes." Then he added, "Renee told me."
"Did she? You knew her well?"
"We met about a year ago."
"Ms. Connor?" Owen Finney had come up behind her, his hands clasped. He said softly, "Father Donnelly is here. He asked to speak to you."
Gail glanced back at Anthony Quintana. "I'm sorry. I have to go."
"We'll talk next week," he said.
She followed Owen to a room further along the corridor, a small office. Father Donnelly—Gail assumed the elderly man in the notched collar must be the priest—was hanging his coat on the back of a chair at the other end of the room. A white robe on a hanger lay across the desk.
He turned when she came in, smiled at her, and nodded. "Missus Connor, is it?" He was a short, balding man with broken veins on his cheeks.
She hesitated. Mrs. Metzger, actually, but she didn't use Dave's last name. "Yes," she said.
He met her across the room and took both her hands. He was breathing quickly and his face was flushed. A wisp of gray hair, wet with perspiration, angled across his broad forehead. She noticed his cheek where his razor had missed, leaving a patch of white stubble.
"God comfort you in your time of sorrow," he said, and squeezed her hands.
"Thank you." She glanced again at the robe. It wasn't necessary. It was too ceremonial for a funeral home. She had expected only the black suit and a simple stole around his neck.
He patted a tissue across his forehead. ''Please forgive my tardiness, Missus Connor. I lost my way. And the traffic!" His accent sounded even thicker to her now than it had over the telephone yesterday. Pure brogue.
Gail reached into her pocket for the envelope containing the money he had asked for.
"Oh," he said. He took the envelope as if he had no idea what it was, then dropped it into the pocket of his coat. "I am sorry to bother you with such things."
Gail said, "Have the director let us know when you're ready to begin." She turned to go.
"No, wait a bit. Wait a bit." The priest stuck his thumbs under his suspenders, which made two lines down his shirt, curving over his belly. "This is a difficult thing, your sister. Unfortunate. But I'm glad to help. She had her burdens, didn't she? As do we all. I ask, shall she be shut out of heaven because she couldn't carry them, and stumbled?"
The late afternoon sun was hitting the small, high window. Gail could see the shadow of steel mesh behind the curtains.
"Father Donnelly ... is there something you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Sit down, if you like. I'll be only a minute or two." He lifted his white robe off its hanger. "When I was in Ireland, I had a parish. A small parish, and I knew each family well. It was in Clonmel. Did I tell you?"
"Yes," Gail said. "You did."
He nodded, sliding his arms into the wide sleeves, one, then another. The robe belled out, catching a puff of air, then settled over his black trousers. "I have no parish of my own now," he said, "but still I like to know the loved ones I pray for. I have done so many I could read the service with my eyes closed, and be thinking about my supper. But that's not right, is it?" He zipped the robe to his neck.
Gail frowned slightly. "I thought Mother told you about Renee."
"She did, bless her, but—" Father Donnelly's cheeks colored and he smiled sheepishly. "When I spoke to your mother, I wrote it down, what she told me, on a little piece of paper. And I seem to have lost it."
He thrust his hand through a slit in his robe into his pants pocket "Now could I have . . He sighed. "Oh, well. Doesn't matter. Tell me about her. I'll remember what you say. She was ... a young woman, was she not?"
After a pause, Gail shrugged. "She was twenty-nine. Never married. No children. I'm her only sister. Our father died when we were very young."
Through the open door Gail could hear music begin to filter down the corridor from the visitation room. Strings and a flute. She looked at the priest. "What exactly do you want to know about her?"
"Tell me ... who she was," he said. "Her work. What she liked to do." He slid a narrow purple stole off its hanger and lightly kissed the cross embroidered on the center of it, murmuring words she could not hear.
Gail felt suddenly closed in, as if the room had grown too small. As if she had intruded into preparations for a rite of death that had nothing to do with her. Father Donnelly lifted the stole and put it carefully around his neck, smoothing the satin fabric, aligning the edges.
He glanced
at her. "What was she like?"
"What was she like ..." The seconds seemed to stretch out. Gail's mind was reaching for something, anything. Did he want details he could sprinkle through his prayers, or did he want the truth? Her lips would not move.
And yet to say nothing was untenable. As if her silence would be weighed and judged.
"Renee had a beautiful voice. Or at least she did at one time. She could have sung professionally. But she . . . well, her lifestyle wasn't exactly conducive to sustained effort, you might say."
Gail's smile faded as Father Donnelly continued to look at her. He prompted, "And her work?"
"She . . . she worked in a real estate title company," Gail said, aware of how banal it sounded, how unreal. "I don't know whether she liked it or not."
He waited, not moving, standing quietly in his robe.
Her mouth was dry. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't."
The funeral director tapped at the open door. "Excuse me. Everything is ready."
Gail nodded. "Yes. I'm coming."
She looked back at Father Donnelly. His hands rested lightly on his chest, thumb and forefinger holding the edges of his stole. The nails were ridged, the skin like parchment. An old man's hands, she thought, and then noticed their peculiar grace.
Gail said, "Renee was expecting a child."
"I see."
"My mother doesn't know. I don't want to tell her."
"Renee confided in you, did she?"
"No. No, I found out from the coroner. She didn't— We weren't. . . close."
He nodded slowly.
"We used to be. As children, I mean. Then something happened between us as we grew older. I don't know why."
Father Donnelly picked up his liturgy from the desk— a thin, black book, its corners soft and frayed, showing cardboard underneath the binding.
Gail's throat felt tight. "I thought sometimes we should start over, you know. For our mother's sake. But ... we never did."
Turning the pages, he found the right place in his book, then closed it on his thumb.
"I think," he finally said, "that in our last hour, we are all forgiven." He looked up, smiling at her. "Go take your place. I shall say ... Renee Michelle, beloved daughter and sister. It's enough."
Suspicion of Innocence Page 4
