The funeral was a continuation of the nightmare. Not even called a funeral, the “Rite of Passage,” as Ian demanded was held on the wooden deck of the Hacienda and at the rocky edge of the ocean. Closed to the public.
The day was early fall chilly, but not nearly as frigid as the small cluster of gatherers. Heather, Stephen, and Jayson, whose ghostly attendance surprised me, hung together. Alexis stood by herself in a corner, her arms folded. Vivian and Anne didn’t bother to show. One deck, one urn, and two mourners with portable oxygen tanks. One killer in prison.
Ian, sober and straight, was the only one who expressed any outward emotion. He stood next to the small wooden table and regularly burst into tears, his hand trembling as it touched the engraved silver container holding his mother’s ashes.
Every once in a while, Teddy Biancho approached Alexis, but she shrugged him off. She’d meant it when she told him he was out of her life. Whatever else Alexis might have felt, she acted more interested in the rotting gutters than in the service for her mother. Sweet kid. Made it easy to lose any guilt I still harbored. I’d seen only one split in her skin. When I arrived on the deck with Boots and Lou, Alexis’s eyes glittered with deep hate. I’d done Dad.
I stood in the Lou and Boots circle, but we weren’t doing much talking. At first Lou had absorbed the news of Lauren’s murder stoically, with no signs of a physical relapse. But as the days passed he descended into a bottomless depression. Boots was the only person able to reach him. I wouldn’t say his despair lifted when she was around, but at least he’d talk.
While Boots helped draw Lou out, her presence drove me deeper into my own version of hell. I was haunted by my incompetence. My inability and stupidity to prevent Lauren’s death, my responsibility for its effect upon Lou. Each and every time I’d aimed my hostile glare in Lauren’s direction I’d been wrong. But I’d kept on glaring because she and Lou had threatened a frightened, confused place in me. And now Lauren was dead and so was part of Lou. And more than likely a part of me.
Paul Brown’s strangle had breathed full life into my pessimism about the fine line between love and hate. About the invisibility of that line to those who danced along its edge. Breathed life into the recognition that I was a dancer.
Lauren’s murder overwhelmed me with hopelessness every time I thought about the ties between her and her husband. Until she fell in love with Lou, Lauren had held onto Paul as he had clung to her. Not as tight, and certainly without delusions. But Lauren hadn’t really let go until near the end. Their neurotic interlock represented my bleakest vision of family—and its result was shredding every other image out of my system.
I even doubted my memories of Chana and my fantasies about our family. Skeptical that the pictures in my mind of Becky growing up, of growing old with Chana, could have developed in life as they had in my imagination. Why should I believe them? I’d never seen a family like the one I’d been carrying inside.
The minister urged us to leave the Hacienda’s deck and head toward the water. Ian led the cortege, holding tightly to the urn. Alexis refused to walk with Biancho, Boots helped Lou, and I lent Jayson a hand. Stephen started to protest but Heather quieted him down. Eventually, the whole motley crew stood at the water’s edge.
The minister talked about Lauren as a minister friend would. She talked about Lauren’s confidence, path-cutting, risk-taking, assertiveness, and commitment to living a complete life. She spoke of Lauren’s politics, social conscience, and her self-reliance.
The minister left out a lot, but it was probably better that way. When she asked if anyone had something to add there was only silence. A silence broken only by Ian’s quiet tears. “Can I spread her ashes?” he asked plaintively.
A few nights later Lou and I still weren’t doing much talking, though we spent a lot of television time in my apartment. Lou continued his intermittent use of the oxygen mask. He was also smoking my dope. Despite the threat to his health, I didn’t have the heart to stop him, or the strength to stop myself. At least he hadn’t blamed me for Lauren’s death. He didn’t have to, and I think he knew it.
Boots was in and out but unable to splinter the thick desperation. And although she and I were able to talk, our conversations were strained. But Boots being Boots knew better than to push. Wrong time, wrong place. Lou had found something he’d been looking for, lost it, and with his loss my hopes had gone missing as well. I’d thought my masochistic cheat with Alexis had been a perverse reflection of my fear to commit. A fear I thought I was close to overcoming. Now when I looked back, my inability to come seemed closer to the truth.
When the telephone rang, we were sitting in the dark watching Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge with subtitles. We should have switched stations but neither of us bothered.
The telephone continued to ring until Lou finally grunted. “Aren’t you going to answer that? It’s probably Boots.”
I wanted to, I really did. Instead, I reached for the bourbon. “I know.”
Zachary Klein is the author of the critically acclaimed Matt Jacob mystery series. He has worked as a Vista volunteer and a private counselor for individuals, couples, and groups, and is a founder of the People’s School in Uptown Chicago, a school for high school dropouts. He also worked at Boston’s Project Place, a worker-run social service collective that provided free crisis intervention and other community services, as well as serving as the Clinical Supervisor for one of Boston’s methadone clinics.
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Zachary Klein
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Table of Contents
Praise for Zachary Klein’s Matt Jacob series
Title Page
The Matt Jacob Series
Still Among the Living
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Acknowledgments
Two Way Toll
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
&
nbsp; Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Acknowledgments
No Saving Grace
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
Ties That Blind
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
About the Author
Copyright Notice
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 113
