Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 (11 page)

“I'll come to you.”

Betsy was startled to find that what she had thought was the church hall was, in fact, the church.

“We still use the little church, as a chapel,” said Reverend Rettger. He was short, with a broad face, low-set ears that stuck out, and fluffy white hair around a bald spot. He had the kindest blue eyes Betsy had seen in a long while. “It was the first church built in Excelsior, so we want to preserve it,” he said in his mild voice. “We use it for early-Sunday services and small weddings and funerals. But of course you'll want to use the big church for Margot.” He started to lead her back to his office.

Betsy frowned. “I will?”

“Of course. And the church hall after, for coffee. Half the town will come, and people from all over the area.”

“They will?”

The blue eyes twinkled. “You haven't been keeping up with your sister's activities for a while, have you?” He opened the door to an outer office. “Hold my calls, Tracy.”

“Yes, Reverend.”

He gestured Betsy through the door to his office. “She was a driving force in this town,” he continued, following her in and closing the door. “She worked to improve the Common, to run the art fair, to aid the schools, to build this new church and repair the chapel, to get better fireworks for our Fourth of July celebration, to raise money for various fund drives.”

Betsy allowed him to seat her in a very comfortable leather chair, one of a pair. His office, while not large, was light and airy. She said, “I went with her to a committee meeting to hold a fund-raiser for a child in need of heart surgery. I didn't realize she did a lot of this sort of thing.”

“She wouldn't have thought it a lot, she was always pushing herself to do more. Yet she was very patient with the rest of us, who couldn't keep up.”

“Sounds like her eulogy should be given by you.”

Rettger gave a little bow from his seat facing her—he hadn't gone behind his desk. “I'd be honored. I have known her a long while, and her husband even longer. Have you spoken with a funeral director?”

“Yes, Mr. Huber. He's taking Margot to be cremated right now. When can you find time in your schedule for the funeral?”

Rettger's white eyebrows lifted. “No visitation?”

“I can't afford it. I want a no-frills funeral service here, and then burial in the same plot as her husband.”

Rettger appeared to be about to say something, then visibly repressed whatever it had been and said, “Let me show you the two burial services of the Episcopal church. You have some decisions to make.”

It was not unlike selecting a wedding service. There was a framework of ceremony, with options in the hymns and readings. Rettger said, “I want to assure you that there are people in this congregation who are going to insist on having a part in the service. They would be insulted at the notion that you might offer to pay for their efforts.” His mild voice and kind eyes took the sting out of his words.

“All right, that's fine,” replied Betsy. “Now, I know ‘Amazing Grace' is a cliché, but we both loved that hymn.” A huge lump suddenly formed in her chest and sought to climb up her throat. But she swallowed it and went on.

Rettger took notes as Betsy made her choices, but had a suggestion of his own for the Old Testament reading, not one of the options. Betsy agreed to it—why not? His intentions seemed at least benign, and surely he knew what he was doing. The funeral was set for Sunday afternoon. “We'll have to form a committee to let people know,” he said. “It will be my great honor to take care of that for you.”

“Thank you.”

 

Even forewarned by Reverend Rettger, Betsy was astonished at the turnout. She recognized the mayor and decided the people with him must be others from the city government. Shelly was there, with a contingent of women who might be fellow stitchers, or perhaps some of the part-time crew. The crazy lady—what was her name? Potter, Irene Potter—sat behind Betsy, dressed in a shapeless navy-blue dress, dabbing a handkerchief edged in black crochet lace to her eyes and sighing audibly.

There were children and adults and elderly, people dressed beautifully and people dressed very casually, and even some dressed rather shabbily.

Betsy had a black dress, but it was for cocktails, not funerals. So she wore an old purple suit that was too hot.

The music stopped and Reverend Rettger came out. To her astonishment, he was wearing white vestments. Then she noticed he had covered the beautiful funeral urn with a white cloth heavily embroidered in gold. What does he think this is? thought Betsy angrily. We're here to bury Margot, not confirm her.

A small, good choir did a lovely arrangement of “Amazing Grace,” which was not spoiled by everyone joining in. Except Betsy, whose breathing had gone all strange, so that she couldn't sing. I'm going to cry at last, she thought. But she didn't.

The first reading, from Proverbs, was done by Mayor Jamison. It was the one suggested by Rettger.

Some in the congregation began reacting with sounds suspiciously like snickers.

Now Betsy was sure she heard a giggle.

That last line sent everyone over the border and there was audible laughter. The mayor himself was grinning. Betsy felt her cheeks flame. How dare they! And how dare Rettger persuade her to allow this reading! She wanted to crawl under the pew—no, she wanted to stand up on it and shout at them to shut up, shut up! But she sat in shamed silence as the reading went on and on.

Betsy heard a sound and looked over. She saw Jill and Shelly and some other women. Tears were streaming down their smiling faces. Those tears gave her the courage to sit through the rest of the service.

The urn was carried out in Mayor Jamison's arms like a stiffly wrapped baby, the priest leading the way, the choir singing, “All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” No, no, no, thought Betsy, her heart a stone in her breast, not alleluia, how can they sing alleluia!

After the ugly work at the cemetery, Betsy sat on a metal folding chair and looked at the raw earth covering the gorgeous urn she'd paid so much money for, that contained all that was left of her beloved sister. Everyone else had gone now, gone to eat and drink and be glad it wasn't they who were reduced to ashes and buried deep underground.

She couldn't stay here, not in a town that turned a funeral into a joke followed by a party.

But what was she going to do? Where was she going to go?

She sat so long that her joints stiffened. It was hard to rise from the chair, and her knees were so stiff she nearly fell making her way to the narrow dirt lane that wound around the hill and down to the street, down which she stumbled, back to the empty apartment, there to fall across her bed and descend immediately into sleep.

 

Hudson Earlie stood beside the coffee urn, cup and saucer in hand, watching the crowd. Big turnout, which was to be expected, of course. And it had gotten cheerful, as these things tended to do. He hadn't seen the grieving sister, though. Not a bad-looking woman, if you liked them with a little meat on their bones, which he did when no one was looking. She had some intelligence and sophistication to her, too, which he also liked occasionally.

But she was too old, only five or six years younger than he was. He had a strict rule that the women in his string not be older than thirty-five.

Which was too bad in this case, as this one might be the sole heir of her sister's estate, which he knew was considerable.

“Hud, whatever are you thinking about?” said a voice beside him.

“Me? Thinking? You know me better than that,” he jested quickly, grinning at Shelly Donohue.

“Seriously,” she said.

“I was thinking how the museum would miss Margot. She was on the board, you know, and she brought some good, businesslike attitudes with her to meetings. And I liked her myself—” He had to stop and swallow. That surprised him, and he took a sip of his coffee to clear his throat. “She was a hardworking, capable woman,” he concluded.

Shelly nodded. “Yes, she was a terrific friend as well as a good boss. I loved working in her shop. That reading at the funeral had me bawling like a little kid, the one about wool and flax and dressing her servants in scarlet when winter comes. That's from Proverbs, did you know that?”

“No, I didn't.”

“I thought Proverbs was all one-liners of advice, like fortune cookies. But that was a long one. And it described Margot so well! Even about the sashes—did you get that?”

“Yes, it came up at Christopher Inn the other night.”

They'd held a Founders' Day parade last year, and Margot had helped with costumes. One thing she had done was make sashes for the people who were playing founder George Bertram, and the Reverend Charles Gilpin, and schoolmistress Jane Wolcott, so people would know who they were.

“I don't think her sister is going to be the one to replace her,” said Shelly.

“It would take four people to do what she was doing,” said Hud.

“Too bad, what happened to her.” This was a new voice, and they turned to see Irene Potter in her dark dress and alert face, a cookie stuffed with M&Ms in her slim fingers.

“Terrible,” said Shelly.

“What do you suppose he hit her with?” asked Irene.

“Irene!” scolded Shelly.

“Does it matter?” asked Hud.

“Whatever it was, he took it away with him. I was just talking to the detective in the case. He's here, you know. Says it's true murderers always come to the funeral of their victims.”

Hud opened his mouth, but Irene talked right over anything he might have said. “I was wondering if maybe Margot didn't bring it down with her, to scare him off with, and he grabbed it away and hit her with it.”

“Stop it, Irene!” Shelly turned and walked away and Hud quickly made an excuse to leave her as well. When Irene got into one of her “speculating” moods, there was no talking to her about anything else. You just had to let her get over it.

Reverend Rettger watched this exchange as he sipped the coffee. He was unhappy that Ms. Devonshire had insisted on being left at the cemetery. The manner in which she refused almost made him think she was angry with him, which he knew was impossible. He had thought that when she saw how the congregation reacted to the Proverbs reading, she would understand that everyone present stood eager to give her comfort and aid of any sort. But she seemed to be in a mood to resist any help. He'd seen grief in many forms, but the sort that resisted comfort was the saddest kind.

Of course, she had reason to be angry, her sister being taken from her in such a sudden, dreadful way. Perhaps if the police were to find and arrest her murderer quickly—it was probably one of those teenagers who would be unable to explain himself, unfortunately so common nowadays. It was small satisfaction to a bereaved family, to learn that the captured murderer could only shrug when asked why.

Irene watched Shelly join another group. What was the matter with her? Just a few days ago she'd joined eagerly in speculating about Betsy and Margot. Speculation—Irene didn't call it gossip—was so interesting, and it was great to have found someone who liked it even more than she did. Why did people do what they did? Whatever were they thinking? Irene, perhaps because people were such a mystery to her, never tired of speculating about them.

Why on earth had Margot gone charging into her shop? She hadn't brought a knife, or she would have been stabbed. Irene thought about that, the blood spattering all over the walls—she'd seen a photo once of a crime scene and been quite shocked.

But Margot hadn't been stabbed; she'd been mashed in the head. They'd done an autopsy. But she couldn't speculate on the autopsy, she didn't know how they were done.

So instead she pictured the darkened, ransacked shop, and Margot striding in, hand up, holding a golf club. Margot didn't golf, but her husband had been an avid golfer, which made it kind of strange that he had joined the Lafayette Country Club, with its piddly nine-hole course. Of course, the Lafayette was a very prestigious club, and with such a pretty building. And the setting was quite beautiful, the lake on three sides. Irene had been out there once, as a guest.

But that wasn't relevant. It was the golf club that was relevant. Widows, Irene (who was a spinster) speculated, were inclined to hang on to some of their late husbands' favorite things. So at the back of a closet in that apartment was Aaron's golf bag. What was it Margot had grabbed? A mashie? A nine iron? Irene had heard those were the names of golf clubs. Too bad Shelly—whose former husband was a golfer—didn't want to speculate on this; it would have been very enjoyable.