It Takes Two (19 page)

Nype rolled his shoulders inside his jacket. “Just part of the job,” he answered, clearly pleased with the compliment.

“Want to tell me who’s who? The officer in the Air Corps uniform, third row, for instance.”

“Captain Fay. Commander at the National Guard detachment out at Page Field.”

“Wow. What about in front of him?”

“First and second pew, you have your county officials and their wives. The mayor of Myers—he’s a widower now. All three county judges and their wives. Pretty fair turnout.”

“Political crowd, huh?”

“Yes, and you also have Gene Faircloth, former state representative from Lee, next to the mayor. Then Faircloth’s wife. After her, with the short white hair, you got an old codger, Philip Winston. He’s some kind of Indiana millionaire, has a winter home over on Boca Grande Island.”

The organist, who’d been noodling along Bach-like, suddenly picked up the pace and the volume. The new melody sounded operatic—Wagner, Verdi, something like that. I can never tell them apart. Then she shifted into a slow march. The crowd began to rustle.

Nype smiled and looked over his shoulder. “Here they come. Jeez, would ya look at those flowers.”

A bronze casket covered with yellow roses, ferns and white ribbon had been trundled into the vestibule at the front of the church. An undertaker and an elderly black-suited cleric guided the procession. Norris’s pallbearers gathered behind the box and then fell into two lines, moving up the wide aisle on either side of the coffin. Self-conscious as freshman football players under lights for the first time, all but the undertaker noted the presence of friends here and there as they passed, ostentatiously avoiding anything more than slight nods of greeting. A second undertaker pushed the casket from behind. The third directed traffic through the pair of Gothic doors that led from the vestibule into the main aisle.

Nype was seated on the left side of the aisle. A moment after passing his right elbow, the casket swerved slightly to port, startling an elderly woman in a feathered hat. Moving quickly, the lead undertaker righted it and pointed it toward the crossing at the front of the church.

“Bet you know all those men,” I whispered. “The pallbearers, I mean. They big shots or what?”

“Mostly your leading citizens doing the honorary heavy lifting, yes,” Nype whispered back, his tone a mix of playfulness and awe. “My boss is the second man on the far side. Behind him, Bill Nugette, he owns the First National Bank; then Armer Gray, runs the local FHA office. This side you got Ridley Boldt, the lawyer, and Gene Hollipaugh, he’s the sheriff.”

“Heard of him,” I said.

Sheriff Hollipaugh’s face was turned away. All I could see was a burly back, a bald head, a western-style suit and what looked to be a size 18 neck. He might as easily have been a chief warrant officer or a butcher. As he passed, I ticked off a string tie, high-heeled cowboy boots a and thick right hand gripping a Stetson.
Great
, I thought.
Not only a sheriff with a taste for East Coast high life, but a cowboy sheriff
.

“He a valued friend of your hotel too?” Nype inquired.

“Not that I know of,” I said. “We’re still looking forward to his first visit.”

The music ebbed and rose again, the organist setting a surging, heartbeat rhythm, uh-
bah,
uh-
bah,
uh-
bah
-bah-
bah.

A red-faced clergyman roughly my age, marching backward like a drill sergeant, signaled the last of the procession forward into the lighted church. The widow entered on the arm of a thin, ordinary-looking young man in a blue suit.

“Who’s that?” I whispered.

“Beats me,” Nype muttered, busying himself with the printed program. “Probably, uh, David J. Norris, nephew. I’ll have to check that for my story.” Pulling a mechanical pencil from inside his coat, he scribbled a note on the program.

Mrs. Norris’s weeds included a shoulder-length veil, black kid gloves and a black skirt that stopped just short of her ankles. The hand not gripping the nephew’s arm clutched a bouquet of spider lilies and yellow roses. The flowers shook like pine branches in a November breeze. Moving up the aisle, she glanced around the church—a singer counting empty seats at a matinee. Nearing the casket, she reined in her shaking hand and pressed the palm against the edge of her veil, over her heart.

A younger, thinner version of herself, in black dress, hat, veil and low-heeled shoes, trudged along behind her, followed by fifteen or twenty white people. A pair of elderly black servants, both in uniform, brought up the rear.

“Miss Hillary, the girl there by herself,” Nype whispered. “First time I’ve seen her in anything but riding clothes.”

“Pretty little thing,” I said.

Hillary Norris, like most of the female relatives behind her, carried a spray of tropical flowers: Turk’s cap, lantana, ixora and coral vine. Each bouquet resembled the next, as if a single pair of hands had fashioned all of them.

The family settled themselves in the front pews on the left side of the church. The elder minister opened the altar rail gate, stepped forward, almost tripped on the steps leading up to the altar, recovered himself, turned, cocked his hands and called out, “Please rise for the singing of ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,’ the favorite hymn of our dear departed friend, Hillard Norris.”

Dutifully, we all rose.

Twenty minutes later, as the ceremony wound down, a middle-aged wraith wearing a fur neck-piece, black suit and veiled cocktail hat rushed up the aisle. She stopped next to Ralph Nype, tapped the narrow shoulder of his cheap green suit, then quickly slipped around his knees to wedge herself between us. I recognized her immediately. She was Mildred Goodwill Boldt, Willene Norris’s first cousin.

“Family didn’t leave an inch for me up there,” she whispered. “So I thank you boys, thank you. Didn’t mean to be this late. Never happens when it isn’t important. What have I missed?”

A portrait painter, local art teacher and the wife of Hillard Norris’s gambling buddy and pallbearer Ridley Boldt, Mildred Boldt was an occasional visitor to the Caloosa Club. She’d caught my attention the first time we met by comparing the club room to Harry’s Bar, a famous watering hole in Venice where she claimed to have had drinks with Ernest Hemingway, Peggy Guggenheim and assorted European nobles. (She also once dropped the name of Salvador Dali, the great surrealist who— she coquettishly intimated—admired not only her talent but her looks. “As a student touring Europe on a strict budget back in the ’30s, I posed for him several times wearing little more than Chanel No. 5.”)

Mildred patted my arm to get my attention. “Dan, I’m so glad you’re here. Do you see Ridley?”

I pointed to the pallbearers lined up in front of us and to the left. She leaned forward, nodded and sat back. “Guess he couldn’t save me a seat.”

“How’s Miss Willene taking this?” Nype whispered, leaning close to Mildred. “Must be a terrible shock.”

“You can just imagine,” Mildred replied. “Such a strain on everybody. Terrible shock. Yes.”

“You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

“That would be so helpful. Yes, of course.”

Outside the church a few minutes later, Mildred fished a handkerchief and a pack of Chesterfields out of her purse. “Who’d have thought it could come to anything like this?”

Nype struck a match before she could raise her veil. “Umm, oh, dear, that’s good,” she said, lighting up. “Thanks, that’s very, very good. And so many thanks for letting me share your pew.”

Nype looked past her, catching my eye as if to demonstrate his own connection to one of the town’s most powerful families. “Do either of you need a ride to the cemetery?” he whispered. “I have the
News-Press
car.”

Mildred stood a little taller. “We walk,” she said.

“It’s over a mile to the graveyard,” Nype answered.

“A family tradition,” Mildred replied. “You can drive if you want to, but I can’t. Back before we had cars and hearses, it used to be the grown men in the family who pulled the casket on a wagon. Didn’t use horses or mules or anything.”

Without thinking, I said I’d like a picture of that. She looked at me sharply, then nodded. “Interesting,” she said. “Yes. That’s an idea. Thank you, Dan.”

Nype was about to ask her something else. But by the time he looked up, she’d sighed, said ta-ta and started to move toward her relatives.

“Shit,” Nype said beneath his breath. But he quickly recovered himself. “No doubt,” he added, “she’s consumed by grief.”

“Over here,” the
News-Press
photographer called. When Mildred didn’t look up, he snapped her picture anyway. Undeterred, he followed at a distance as she crossed the sidewalk and greeted Hillary. Even in the soft afternoon sun, the flashbulbs caught and magnified the streaky tears running down the girl’s cheeks. When the photographer held up his camera and asked the young woman for just one more, Mildred shooed him away.

A thin smile hovered around the corner of Nype’s mouth.

“You do nice work,” I said.

“Doubt we’d run anything like that,” he answered. “Not the day after a funeral. My editor just likes to keep files on local big shots. You never know what’ll come up.”

The hearse lead the way to the cemetery followed by groups of Norrises, Boldts, Turnipblossoms and their connections and dependents, all on foot. The pallbearers and a flower car followed, with the Klan contingent crowding in behind. Friends, officials, busybodies such as myself and the grave undertakers followed. A dozen sober-faced blacks formed the rear guard.

The photographer snapped more pictures as the procession snaked across town and into the old city cemetery. The hearse stopped at a large plot enclosed by a coral rock wall two feet high. The Turnipblossom parcel was punctuated with tall, severe headstones. The freshly mown grass looked parched, the ground hard, the spirit of the place even harder. All the usual comforting symbols of death were absent—no cedar trees, no marble angels, no stone lambs, none of the devices that provide an affecting aura of tradition and easeful rest. A long cut in the ground loomed open, shaded by a green awning and surrounded by woven grass mats and rows of metal folding chairs.

The undertakers, assisted by the three youngest pallbearers, lifted the casket onto their shoulders and carried it into the plot. Using a set of stout ropes and pulleys, they quickly and carefully lowered the box into the pit.

Only the grieving widow, her daughter and one very old woman took seats. The extended family gathered at Hillard Norris’s feet. The rest of us, mourners and gawkers alike, arranged ourselves as best we could. I was lucky to get a spot with a splendid view, just above Norris’s head. Looking around, I caught sight of Nype. He was standing beyond the crowd, near the hearse, chatting with Officer Walter Hurston and taking notes.

I made a mental note myself. Bud needed to know that these two men had talked.

The graveside service was simple. The younger, sunburned minister stood up, led the crowd in the Lord’s Prayer, opened his prayer book, intoned, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” read a few other calls on heaven then shut the book and looked around.

“We are gathered together,” he continued, “to remember our fellow believer and friend, uh, Hillard Norris. It is the custom of his family to offer tributes herewith, and to remain while the final labor is done.”

With that, the preacher turned toward Willene and Hillary Norris and bowed his head. Both women rose and looked down into the grave. The widow then dropped her bouquet onto the flower-topped coffin as if consigning a magazine to the trash basket.

“Prepare the way, dear husband of my heart,” she called down. “Be with me always.”

There was momentary silence. Then the daughter coughed, glanced down at the casket, dropped her bouquet as if it was on fire, choked out, “Daddy, don’t go!” and sat back down. Grandmother Turnipblossom, seated beside her, circled her fat arms about the girl and pulled her close. As an afterthought, the woman tossed her own bunch of ferns and bougainvillea into the hole, then began smoothing the girl’s hair.

The rest of the family moved quickly, each depositing a floral offering on Norris’s casket. Few added anything to the chief mourners’ sentiments. Only Mildred Boldt went for a grand gesture. Elevating two sprays of gladiolus above her head, she crossed and held them aloft like a pagan priestess greeting the dawn. Looking west toward the Gulf of Mexico and the afternoon sun, she called, “Fond cousin, from all of us, until we meet on that other, brighter shore: Keep well, remember us to the God of Gods, and know that you truly live forever in our grieving hearts.”

Mrs. Norris’s hands, now controlled and unmoving, remained firmly folded in her lap. Hillary’s small form, all lumps and twists, shook painfully back and fourth.

I looked around, putting names to faces: banker Nugette, millionaire Philip Winston, sheriff Hollipaugh.

Bud still hadn’t shown up. I was starting to worry. Despite the crowd, I felt bone lonely and anxious. Shutting my eyes, choking up, I knew why. It had nothing to do with Hillard Norris.

The faces of the men I’d known on the
Indianapolis
were with me again—officers, chief mates, firemen, gunners, my cooks and supply men, dozens and then hundreds of men, one after the other, each flashing me a snappy salute and then marching through that goddamn door inside my head, the one marked Davey Jones. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, fighting the sight of what was always the last, most painful salute, the jaunty “See you” thrown by Ensign Rizzo.