by Cate Price
Dottie pursed her lips. “Well, supposedly he’d been very sick with a bad cold. Ruth is such a good person. I feel so sorry for her.”
“Poor Stanley,” Eleanor murmured. “And poor Ruth.”
“Yes, it’s terrible,” Martha said. “Still, perhaps it’s for the best.”
There was a pause while we each absorbed the news and the toilet flushed faintly in the back.
“How’s your calendar coming along?” Dottie asked. “Sounds like a fun project.”
“Good. We’re almost done,” Martha said.
Eleanor drained her mug of coffee and smacked her lips. “I must say I’m seeing things I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Martha waved a hand in the air. “Meh. Seen one, seen ’em all.”
Dottie smiled, and Eleanor burst out laughing.
I couldn’t join in the frivolity, though. I was sure that to everyone else Stanley’s death must seem like a blessing, and if I hadn’t had the odd experience in his bedroom last night, I might have been able to adjust as quickly, too.
But as things were, I went through the motions of pouring more coffee while my pulse raced and my mind struggled to make sense of it all.
A few moments later, Roos sauntered out of the bathroom, adjusting his leather pants. “Hey, that’s sad news, man. About ol’ Stanley, I mean.”
Suddenly it hit me. “Alex, why on earth didn’t you say something to us before?”
“Had no clue the dude was toast until I heard you guys talking. Excuse me. I mean, ladies. I . . . ah . . . crashed someplace else last night,” he said with a hint of a boyish grin.
Martha rolled her eyes at me.
“Well. I must be going. See you all later?” Dottie asked. “At the funeral?”
“Yes, we’ll be there,” I said firmly.
She hurried out with her usual purposeful stride, as if she was on some kind of important mission.
“Yeah, I gotta cruise, too,” Alex said. “Thanks again for the camera, Daisy. I’m stoked.”
Martha frowned as she watched him trail out onto the street after Dottie. “I still think that photographer is quite strange.”
Eleanor slipped a couple more cookies out of the lunch box.
“Oh, Martha, he’s okay,” I said. “He’s just a free spirit, and he shoots from the hip—pardon the pun.”
“Very punny. Did you see those leather pants he was wearing?” Eleanor mumbled, her mouth full. “They didn’t leave much to the imagination, that’s for sure.” She wrestled a few cookie crumbs back up into her mouth. “And believe me, I have a very vivid imagination.”
I twisted some wire around a bunch of bay leaves, and then another twist to hold it on to the circular metal frame.
Martha sniffed. “I’m positive he wasn’t wearing any underwear.”
“Even though he’s so overblown that he’s almost comical, there’s something oddly sexy about him,” I said as I pulled out a few more stems from the bunch, trying to match their length. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”
Eleanor arched an eyebrow at me.
I pointed a eucalyptus stem in her direction. “Don’t say it, Eleanor.”
Martha shrugged on her coat. “Well, I’d better get on home and pick out a black outfit for the funeral. And maybe I’ll stop and see Ruth on the way.”
Eleanor hopped down from her stool. “I’ll go with you.”
For the funeral.
I tried to gather some more fresh bay leaves into a bundle, but my hands shook so badly that the cut end of the wire pricked my finger. I gasped and dropped the leaves onto the counter.
“What’s the matter with you?” Martha asked.
I sucked down some coffee for strength. “Jeez. I don’t even know if I should say anything about this to anyone. It was just so bizarre . . .”
I’d said the magic words as far as Martha was concerned. If sweets fueled her body, gossip fueled her soul. I knew she wouldn’t leave now until I’d spilled the beans. So I explained about visiting with Stanley and his dramatic announcement when we were alone in his bedroom. “I know it sounds hard to believe, but he seemed so perfectly lucid. I don’t know what to do. Should I say something to Detective Serrano?”
Martha and Eleanor exchanged glances.
“What?”
“Let’s face it: Stanley was a few sandwiches short of a picnic,” Eleanor said.
I winced. “Don’t talk like that, please.”
“Sorry.”
In my mind’s eye I saw the vast array of bottles on the bedside table. “He was taking a ton of medication. You don’t think that Ruth could have, you know, been tempted to . . . ?”
Martha shook her head firmly as she buttoned up her coat. “Ruth spent an absolute fortune caring for that man. I’ve never seen anyone more devoted. She acted like she wanted to keep him alive at all costs. Round-the-clock medical care, a physical therapist every day, you name it. I don’t see how you could possibly take it seriously.”
Martha edged toward the door. I could see she was on fire to get over to Ruth’s and dive into the middle of the action. She wasn’t about to waste any more time with me.
I frowned. “But what if it was a deathbed statement? What if he was murdered? What if he was being slowly poisoned?”
“I don’t think you should worry about it any more, Daisy,” Martha called over her shoulder as she hurried out, with Eleanor close behind. “See you later?”
I nodded and sucked my finger, where blood oozed out of the cut from the wire.
Chapter Three
That afternoon, I was sitting on a wooden pew in the chapel of the local synagogue next to Joe, still shaken by the speed of events.
I’d closed Sometimes a Great Notion early and put an apologetic sign on the door. I hated to disappoint any customers, but in the winter it was really only the weekends when our little village came alive. I had tried to call Ruth, but Kathleen Brown said she was indisposed. According to Martha, who’d made a futile visit to the house and been turned away, the doctor had given her a sedative and she was lying down to rest.
On the ride over, I’d told Joe about Stanley’s dying declaration. Joe hadn’t been as adamant as Martha that I was barking up the wrong tree, but it was evident that he thought I was reading way too much into one rambling comment by a highly medicated man suffering from the final stages of dementia.
As we waited for the service to begin, I tried to imagine what Ruth’s life must have been like for these past few years in the grueling role of caregiver. How hard was it to change the diaper of a man who had once been your lover?
And Ruth was lucky, if you could call her that, in that she was wealthy enough to afford nurses to give her some respite. What about the people who couldn’t?
I swallowed against a wave of sadness, remembering my last sight of Stanley. The husk of the person I’d known had been lying in that bed, but the kernel was gone.
I slipped my hand into Joe’s and he squeezed back. I mentally said a prayer of thanks. Even though I wasn’t in my own church, I was sure it would be heard somewhere up above.
My husband was very much alive, healthy, and gorgeous. To me, anyway. I held his hand tighter. We could still ride our bikes, make love, savor romantic dinners, and enjoy each other’s company. There was a lot to be thankful for.
I blinked against a sting of tears.
Eleanor slid along the pew to sit on my other side. “You okay, Daisy?” she whispered. She wore a designer black cashmere sweater with smart dress pants and black boots.
I swallowed and stared into her gray eyes. “It’s just that this is all happening so quickly,” I murmured, softly enough that Joe wouldn’t be able to hear me. “I’m wondering if I should have done more. Asked Serrano for an autopsy, a toxicology report, something.”
She shook her head
. “Autopsies aren’t allowed according to the Jewish religion. Unless it’s a criminal case, of course.”
I sighed and leaned against the hard seat, looking around the modern chapel. The backs of the pews were a brilliant blue, and the white beams radiating like a sunburst from the raised platform in front of us soared up into the ceiling. There were no flowers, only the simple wooden coffin draped in black.
Eleanor pointed to the raised platform in front of us. “That’s the Ark, where the holy Torah scrolls were kept.”
I stared at the highly decorated cabinet in front of us that was flanked by two columns. The pulpit stood off to one side.
“How come you know so much about the Jewish way of life?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Lots of friends in the film business, I suppose. As a matter of fact, some of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life were for thirteen-year-old boys.”
I smiled at her. Eleanor had worked as a costume designer for years before she moved to Millbury. She had even been on some of the same film sets as our daughter, Sarah, who lived in New York and worked as a script supervisor.
I tried to save a spot for Cyril and Martha, but the church was filling up and we had to keep sliding down the pew. Where the heck were they? Martha was usually the first to arrive at any kind of event, not wanting to miss a moment.
The place was packed. Obviously there were many people who remembered Stanley as fondly as I did. Amazing that so many were here, especially on such short notice.
Ruth was sitting in the front row now. I spotted most of my fellow store owners, other members of the Historical Society, and the local newspaper reporter, PJ Avery, who was slinking around the edge of the room. The Bornsteins didn’t have any children, but they were both involved in so many philanthropic endeavors that they had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. The cream of Philadelphia society and the upper echelon of city government were also in attendance.
“There’s that creep Beau Cassell,” Eleanor muttered, nodding toward the builder who planned to destroy our village if we didn’t stop him. He was a well-built man in his forties, sandy-haired and strangely tanned for this time of year, wearing a tweed jacket with a black turtleneck underneath and dark pants. With his vigorous good looks, he could have been a politician himself.
A well-dressed couple walked down the center aisle, the man extending a hand in front of the woman as if parting the waves for her. She swept the folds of her ermine coat close to her body as she slid onto the pew.
“And there’s Nancy Fowler, and her milquetoast husband, Frank,” Eleanor said.
Nancy was currently a commissioner for Bucks County, but it was rumored she had ambitions of becoming Pennsylvania’s governor some day. Frank was our township solicitor.
I glanced over in surprise at the fervent disdain in Eleanor’s voice. “What’s the matter with them?”
“How many defenseless animals do you suppose died for that woman’s coat?”
I nodded. “Ah, I see.”
Eleanor had been quite the radical back in her day. I’d seen photos of her at various political events and sit-ins, usually wearing a psychedelic scarf around her head and chained to a railing, protesting the use of performing animals in circuses or the clubbing of baby seals or some such cause.
A couple of minutes later, there were so many mourners crammed in next to me that in spite of the fact it was early November, my heart started pounding and a thin film of sweat covered my forehead.
Oh, no, not now.
There were too many people, too close. Too late I wished that I’d sat at the end of the aisle.
I concentrated on my breathing, fighting the panic. In. Out. In. Out.
Many years ago, I’d tried to protect one of my students in a violent altercation and had barely survived. Sometimes when I felt cornered, the old fears and the panicked urge to flee came raging back.
Eleanor glanced over at me and fanned me with her funeral program. I smiled faintly, turning my face toward the welcome brief gusts of air.
Martha hurried down the aisle and forced her way into the end of the pew in front of us. Her freckled cheeks were pink, and she looked even more flustered than me, if that was possible. She rolled her eyes at us, obviously irritated, as she settled herself and took off her coat.
“Where’s Cyril?” Eleanor muttered in my ear. “I can’t believe he wouldn’t come.”
I nodded in agreement, my pulse settling down with something else to focus on. This wasn’t like him. Admittedly he didn’t know Ruth that well, but he certainly knew what was expected by his commander in chief.
“Where’s Cyril?” I mouthed when Martha turned around.
She shook her head and made the motion of dialing a telephone. “I’ve been calling and calling, but he never answered. Finally I said, Screw him, and came on my own,” she hissed.
A couple of people glanced at us with forbidding expressions, and we subsided into silence.
The rabbi stepped up to the pulpit, and I checked my watch. Four o’clock. Unlike many other ceremonies I’d attended, this one started exactly on time.
As he started the reading of Psalm 23, my thoughts drifted to Stanley and then quickly sank back into the quagmire of doubt. Had the nurse with the attitude wanted to get rid of him? Or the doctor who’d visited earlier? Perhaps the physical therapist?
But it didn’t make sense. It was in those people’s best interests to keep the goose that laid the golden eggs alive as long as possible. Now that he was gone, they were all out of a job.
At the very least, had he been overmedicated? It could have been a simple mistake for the nurse to confuse those different medicines on the bedside table. Come to think of it, the only person I hadn’t spotted in the congregation was Jo Ellen.
Oh, Daisy. Stop being so melodramatic. The poor man was just delusional. You’re reading way too much into it. I tried to concentrate on the eulogy and on my own memories of Stanley. His warmth, intelligence, and gentle humor.
Suddenly I sucked in a ragged breath.
Ruth had made a Very Big Deal about stating that Jo Ellen was the one to give him his meds. Is that why she brought me up to the house? So good old Daisy could be a witness? And later she could slip him something extra and, if there were any inconvenient questions, blame it on the nurse?
Wild thoughts rampaged through my brain. Funerals should give the public the opportunity to speak, like at a wedding, when the person officiating asks if anyone has anything to say before the proceeding continues. I pictured the rabbi intoning, “Does anyone have any objection to this funeral, or any reason why this man should not be buried?” At which point I could jump up and say, “Yes, because I think he’s been murdered!”
My stomach clutched into an aching knot. Did I owe it to Stanley to make sure justice was done? But what should I do?
Maybe Ruth didn’t mean to kill him. Even if she’d been tempted to give him a hefty dose of sleeping pills so she could get a good night’s rest for once, could anyone really blame her?
Just when I was toying with the idea of making a complete fool of myself, the cantor chanted the memorial prayer in a plaintive voice, and mercifully, the ceremony was over.
This had to be the quickest funeral I’d ever attended.
As soon as the casket was carried out and the family left the church, I jumped to my feet. Even though the worst of my panic attack was behind me, I still wanted to get the heck out of Dodge. Ignoring the frowns of those who rightfully thought I should wait my turn until each pew emptied in order, I hurried toward the exit, alternating between apologies and pushing past bodies. Just the act of standing up and moving was something to be thankful for.
The synagogue was an attractive building, with a preschool and religious school attached. Outside were tree-lined walkways and places to sit, and the bracing cold was a welcome respite from the
stuffy interior. I sank onto a concrete bench to wait for Joe, wiping my clammy forehead and sucking in large gulps of frigid air.
He found me a few minutes later, and we joined the line of cars heading for the cemetery.
At the gravesite, I stayed at the back of the crowd. I wasn’t about to make the mistake of being trapped in that mass of humanity again. There were several chairs placed before the grave, but the majority of people were standing.
Serrano materialized at my side, wearing a black suit and gray overcoat.
“Everything okay, Daisy?” he said quietly.
Same comment as Eleanor. My face must mirror every thought in my brain.
Men were normally not detail-oriented, but Serrano had eyes like telephoto lenses, and right now he was zooming in for a close-up.
“Fine,” I answered, wishing I could blurt out all my anxieties and suspicions. But what if I was wrong? Did I really need to heap more suffering on this day?
“I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on, Detective,” I said, hoping to distract him with a joke.
A hint of a smile played around his firm mouth, but we fell silent as there was another reading, another psalm, and a recitation of an ancient prayer in Hebrew.
Too soon, I watched as the coffin holding the body of Stanley Bornstein was lowered into the ground. My eyes stung as Ruth tossed a shovelful of dirt on top of the coffin and placed the spade back in the earth.
The announcement had been made earlier that shivah would be held back at the Bornsteins’. When we arrived, the front door was standing open and there was a table with a pitcher of water and towels for mourners to wash their hands before entering the house.
Martha and Eleanor caught up to us, and we all walked in together. Martha had brought a cheesecake, I carried a dried fruit and nut platter, and Eleanor had a box of dark chocolates under her arm.
Inside, every mirror was covered now, and tall candles burned on every tabletop. There were so many people crowded around Ruth in the living room, I suggested we head for the kitchen first with our food offerings.
