4th Musketelle

by Brian Bakos

45. Absolution

  Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles – Donalbain, speaking in Macbeth

  Frank Armstrong had never believed in “useless flummery,” and he preferred to exit this world with minimum fuss. According to his last instructions, his body was to be displayed for a few hours of public visitation so that “everybody can see I’m finally dead,” then immediately cremated and interred without ceremony.

  He didn’t want some “religious windbag” praying over his corpse like it was some “god damn holy relic,” and he was particularly opposed to a lugubrious procession of automobiles taking him to the final resting place.

  “Save the gas money,” he’d directed. “Reduce your carbon footprint like those left wing whack jobs are always telling you to do.”

  Laila was grateful for this simplicity, mentally processing it into a final gesture of loving concern from her dearly departed husband. He’d known that things would be hard on her, and he’d wanted to ease the pain as much as possible. She prepared as best she could to face the visitation ordeal – the last of her wifely duties. She was at a physical and emotional low, yet she had to make a good impression on the attendees.

  Things were going quite well for Laila, actually, but the terrible guilt about the crime she’d come so close to committing wouldn’t let up. The horrifying visitations at Gemrock were taking their toll – and that crazy woman! It seemed as if she could read her mind.

  Laila told herself repeatedly that, no, she had not gone through with the murder, but the nagging self-reproach remained.

  There was a way out of this emotional turmoil, though. She would find absolution at the funeral home. When she exited that grim place of death, all guilt, grief and fear would be left behind. This, too, was a gift from Frank, she made herself believe.

  All the running around during the past days had aggravated her leg injuries. Her sprained knee began to swell and her shin hurt fiercely. Dr. Keating prescribed ice packs and pain medication. She now wore a tight bandage around her knee and used a cane to take off some of the pressure. Rest was what she really needed to heal properly, but that would come after the visitation catharsis was over.

  She hated the cane, but saw the value of it, too. It was more than just a medical device but a plea for sympathy. When hobbling around with it, she looked much more the unfortunate widow than the young gold digger who had finally struck it rich. This would prompt people to empathize more – and to underestimate her. Being underestimated was often an advantage, she realized.

  As her late husband had put it: “A little camouflage always helps.”

  She was constantly recalling more of Frank Armstrong’s words of wisdom. This, too, was part of his legacy for her.

  She studied her face in the vanity mirror. She looked tired and haggard, older than she really was. A good makeup job would help a lot, but she decided that the ‘grieving widow’ look would be preferable today. She added just a bit of concealment for her fading black eye.

  She arrived at the funeral home in her own car with Lonnie driving and Debbie sharing the back seat with her. Laila felt comfortable and secure with these people around her, while, concurrently, yearning for a time when their support would no longer be needed.

  The funeral home was a tasteful, dark brown structure in semi-Alpine architectural style. A place where one could imagine the well-heeled skiing off into eternity. It was set back from the street by a long driveway providing a quiet oasis amid the suburban bustle.

  A vast parking lot surrounded it, and a green belt with a creek running through it bordered the facility on one side. A small office plaza, including a medical clinic, abutted the other flank. Any patients who didn’t survive had only a short jaunt to their next stop.

  Laila entered the viewing room walking slowly with her cane and hanging onto Debbie’s arm with her free hand. Lonnie moved to an unobtrusive spot against the back wall, and John Hogan rose from his seat to accompany the women.

  “How good of you to come, Mr. Hogan,” Laila said.

  He nodded gravely. Laila could the see genuine concern in his eyes – a rarity among the visitors.

  The place was largely filled already. Laila’s initial impression was that she had entered the reptile house of the zoo. When she was a young girl, shortly after Dad walked out, she had visited the zoo on a class trip. She’d been disturbed by the heartless eyes of the various reptiles staring out at her – the lizards, crocodiles, snakes.

  Especially the snakes. Like that malignant old man sitting near the back with his frowsy wife, one of Frank’s less reputable business associates. The cruel look in his eyes could chill a person’s blood.

  And there were the slit eyes of others around the room, their owners trying to calculate the new balance of power in the Armstrong clan, wondering how they should hedge their bets. Were the offspring the major players now, or did the poor widow constitute a threat? Common knowledge favored the offspring, but the presence of Blackjack Hogan at the widow’s side was a powerful argument in her favor.

  The creepy woman she’d encountered at Gemrock and at the mall turned her head Laila’s direction, nodding in acknowledgement. She was sitting with two other women near the casket, left of the isle. A cold chill tiptoed up Laila’s spine.

  Who were those horrible creatures? She wished Lonnie could expel them, but that would elicit censure from the crowd, even make its way into the news media. Rest assured plenty of cell phone cameras would record the episode. She’d just have to endure their presence, along with that of the other vultures.

  Patricia and Henry Armstrong approached her, their animosity poorly submerged beneath solemn exteriors. Laila felt it radiating off them like a poisoned vapor. She exchanged pro forma condolences and resumed her progress toward Frank’s casket set out in the front of the parlor.

  She felt the eyes of the whole room on her as she hobbled toward it on her cane, Debbie still in attendance. Hogan dropped respectfully away and resumed his seat, having made his political statement to the crowd.

  Laila was standing before the coffin now, gazing down at its occupant. Frank Armstrong seemed to be at peace, though his face still bore its determined cast and his folded hands looked poised to make decisive gestures. He lay amid the luxurious white satin of the casket interior as if he were floating on a cloud. Masses of flowers surrounded him, including a large arrangement of roses with a Loving Father placard. Frank would have hated the smell.

  Laila raised a handkerchief to her eye. An immense burden of grief and guilt was crushing her down like the boot of some giant ogre. She struggled for the right approach; it came to her in a flash of insight.

  I forgive you, Frank, she thought with profound sincerity, can you forgive me?

  Moments passed during which the world seemed to hang in the balance. Laila knew that if she did not receive absolution now, her entire future would be blighted. Debbie grasped her arm more tightly to keep her from failing.

  Then, like a healing balm, a wave of gentle kindness seemed to rise up from the inert form in the casket. Laila felt it caress her with love and total understanding, soothing her tormented spirit. She felt a dazzling moment of righteousness, an almost unbearable burst of gratitude to Frank for providing her with so much prosperity, for teaching her so much, and for getting out of the way in such a timely manner.

  Tears burst forth in a torrent, washing her soul clean, ushering in a whole new life. Every positive emotion she’d ever experienced for her husband came tumbling out all at once – intense love, devotion, awe bordering on fear. Forgotten were all the humiliations she’d suffered, her crushing sense of inferiority, the fear that she’d wasted the best part of her life with an ingrate possessing little more warmth than the body laid out in the coffin.

  She felt liberated.

  The show of tears impressed everybody in the room. People shifted in their chairs, glancing at each other. Several women brushed aside their own tears. Even John Hogan became misty eyed.
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  Maybe the slut cared about Dad a little after all, Patricia thought acidly.

  She’d yet to confront her own, often toxic, emotions about her father, preferring to project them onto Laila instead. But the widow’s outburst at the casket had nudged even her stony heart.

  Henry was less charitable in his thoughts: Well, she sure knows how to play a crowd.

  Laila turned slowly away from the coffin. John Hogan left his seat and joined her again. He and Debbie led her slowly back to a chair in a row with the other family members.

  Ilsa McIntyre and her friends of the Eldorado Explorers Club sat together in their empty row near the casket. The other mourners preferred giving them a wide berth.

  “My, doesn’t the corpse look good?” Pauline observed in a hushed voice. “They did a marvelous job with him.”

  Margaret dabbed a handkerchief to her eye, mindful of the theatrical effect. “The poor widow seems to be hit very hard.”

  “Quite so,” Pauline agreed. “She looks like she may not be long for this world.”

  She roved her sharp little eyes over the widow’s stooped figure moving down the aisle away from the casket.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Pauline said. “One goes, and right afterward, the other one goes. They simply can’t live without each other.”

  “She’s feeling guilty, if you ask me,” Margaret said. “She probably never appreciated him enough.”

  Ilsa remained silent. She knew far better than the others how Laila Armstrong was feeling.

  Laila sat in her chair, exhausted and relieved. A dull ache emanated from her knee, but the band of tension across her face and neck had relaxed. Debbie sat beside her, and John Hogan’s comforting presence occupied the chair directly behind. Patricia, Henry, and the two boys were on the edge of her peripheral vision, though she tried not to notice them.

  Where were the Musketelles, she wondered? She badly needed their support in the midst of this shark tank. Organ music began piping into to the room. Frank would have really hated that.