The Dead Girls Detective Agency (12 page)

“Guyliner music aside, your parents have done a good job,” Nancy said cheerfully, like she’d been to a million of these things before and oh! aren’t they just so much fun.

Looking around, I kinda had to admit she was right. Mom and Dad had chosen the church just around the corner from our apartment. It was a beautiful gray building with spires and buttresses—which make it Gothic in a good way. It wasn’t too big, so I looked more popular than I’d been.

Bunches of flowers in my favorite colors—blue and purple—spilled off the windows and were arranged in neat clumps down the aisle. My coffin was black and so shiny that, when she apparited, Lorna could see her reflection in it. (I totally caught her checking out her hair before the guests arrived.) Even the picture of me that Mom had picked to put at the altar wasn’t too shabby. It was taken on my sixteenth birthday. Before I danced like a mad woman at a Killers concert and Mom shook her head at me and said, “Oh, Charlotte, what have you done? You looked so … neat.” I was wearing my favorite American Apparel navy T-shirt dress, my eyeliner was on my eyes and not heading cheek-ward for once. And my straggly dark hair had been tamed into smooth waves by Mom. I was smiling because I knew I had a whole night ahead where Mom and Dad were taking me for a fancy meal in the Village, before letting me and David go and see a band (even if they were going to wait in the bar while the show was on—the shame). I looked happy. Like I had everything to live for.

Would I have done anything differently if I’d known then what I did now?

“And even though you don’t have as many people at your funeral as I had at mine, it’s not a
bad
turnout. Better than at Nancy’s anyway,” Lorna said, a teasing glint in her eye. “There were more empty seats than full ones at that, weren’t there, Nance?”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “We’re not here to talk about the turnout, we’re here to look for clues. Clues about who killed you. Charlotte, your murderer could be in this very room.”

That made me stop goofing around.

“Guys, I’m serious,” Nancy said. As if she was ever anything but. “We need to stay alert.”

Everyone was seated. Evanescence stopped. Thank God, my eardrums said. And the vicar guy at the altar started to speak.

If you’ve ever seen a funeral in a movie, you pretty much know the score. There was lots of stuff about how sad it was that I’d “passed away so young” but how everything “happens for a reason” even if, right now, we didn’t understand “God’s great plan.” But, hey, on the bright side, everyone could rest assured I’d be with “the Lord now” and “in peace at his side and in his kingdom.”

As if. I wanted to apparite there and then and tell them that, no, actually, there were no kingdoms or plans going on here. Kingdoms, I’d be happy with. This, not so much.

“And now,” said Vicar Dude, “one of the people closest to Charlotte would like to say a few words.”

Uh-oh. Who? Mom hated public speaking and Dad always said he was better on paper than in real life. Which was why he’d become a sports journalist. That, and all the guaranteed tickets to games. My grandparents weren’t getting up on that lectern without a crane to help them. Who else could it be?

“David?” Vicar Dude looked down to the front row, where David was nestled between Mom and Kristen.

Wait a second. Mom and … Kristen? Erm,
hello
, what was
she
doing here? Stroking David’s arm in a “there, there” way. Kristen wasn’t even my friend on Facebook, so how had she gotten herself on the front row at my funeral? This was not Fashion Week. She might be Miss Popularity, but she didn’t deserve one of the best seats in the house. Especially not when Ali and her parents were crammed into row three.

David walked up to the lectern. He wobbled on the steps and swallowed awkwardly, like he was going to throw up, but was trying super-hard to keep it down. His eyes were red and puffy. I didn’t know who he’d borrowed the black suit he was wearing from—because it was most definitely not his—but it was about half a size too small. The trousers were way too tight and the jacket too slim fit for such a “somber occasion” (as Vicar Dude called it).

On any other boy it would have been what Lorna called a fashion faux pas, but David didn’t look stupid. He looked hot. Seriously hot. Like he was the newest, blondest member of the Strokes. All ready to rock a sweaty room in some bar in Brooklyn, rather than make a speech in a dusty old church.

“Whoa,
he
was your boyfriend?” a sarcastic voice said.

I turned to my right to see that Tess had ported beside us. What was she doing here? First Jamie, then Kristen, now Tess? I thought funerals were meant to be for loved ones only? Instead, there seemed to be an open-door policy for mean girls.

“Yes, we dated for a year and a half,” I snapped back. Why was I trying to defend my relationship? I knew Tess was just messing with me. And that David loved me completely—get a load of the eye puffiness. If I was going to be stuck with Tess for who knows how long, I really had to learn to ignore her when she put her Queen Bitch crown on.

“Er, I’m not very good at standing up and talking to people,” David said nervously. The mic screeched and he took a step back from it, eyeing it suspiciously. “In fact the last time I did, it was when I, erm, played Joseph in the fourth grade Christmas nativity … Those of you who were there that day will remember it didn’t go so well.”

David dropped “Jesus” (some other kid’s rag doll) on the floor and its head rolled off. I wasn’t there, but I knew it had gone down in elementary school history because the story had even reached my school downtown. It was the reason that, after that, every Joseph in the city had Jesus attached to their hand with some string and tape.

Some of the kids in the congregation giggled. David’s shoulders unhunched a little and he carried on. This time with more confidence in his voice.

“I don’t hang around a lot of churches,” he said. “But I hoped that one day I would be hanging around one with Charlotte. Well, not hanging around as such … That didn’t come out right. I … let me try again.”

Tess sniggered. I shot her my best Nancy stop-being-sooo-immature look.

“What I meant was that—I know we’re only sixteen and have a lot of growing up to do …” He looked down at the lectern as if hoping to find someone else had left a speech there that he could read out. “But I sort of thought that if I was ever in a church in a suit with Charlotte, it would be for a reason that would make my mom happy—like getting married one day. Years and years away, of course.”

He looked down at my coffin. “Not like this. Not with her in there.” He sighed unevenly. “I can’t even begin to tell you what a hole Charlotte has left in my life. I’m just going to miss her so much.” He looked over at my parents, who were properly sobbing now, then Ali, who’d fixed her stare on the flowers at the end of her pew. “We all are … I don’t know how I’ll get through this. That’s … that’s all I wanted to say.”

Wow. Forget what he said about me to Jamie in the library,
that
was amazing.

The church was totally silent. I think every single person was a little bit in love with David at that second. Except for my dad and the vicar. Because that would just be weird.

“That,” said Lorna, who was quietly making sobbing noises next to me, “was
the
most beautiful thing I have ever, ever heard. Beat my eulogy hands, feet, and elbows down.”

“It wasn’t half bad,” Tess admitted, refusing to make eye contact with me.

Wow. She actually said something not nasty.

David stepped off the lectern and went back to his seat hiccuping with a little sob. Even Nancy gave me a he’s-very-lovely, lucky-living-you look.

Kristen stroked his arm fondly, gently running her nails over his skin. Mom gave her a stare so evil Kristen actually took her hand off David’s and put it back on her electric purple Mulberry Alexa bag (could she not have found a black one, just for today?). I had to admit that, even though I’d probably never get a chance to tell her, my mom could be pretty cool.

After a couple more hymns and some readings, Vicar Dude dismissed everyone. The choir behind him sang some kum-by-ya-yas and everyone filed out. It still wasn’t my kind of music, but at least it wasn’t you-know-who.

“How are you holding up?” Nancy gave my arm a supportive squeeze. I jumped a little—not as badly as I had when Ed touched my hand, but still enough to hope Tess hadn’t noticed—and tried to smile.

“Okay, I’m sure I should make some it’s-my-funeral joke, but I’m feeling kind of beat,” I said. “Shall we get out of here? I didn’t see anyone acting weird, did you?”

Nancy’s face went all detectress again. Of course.

“We need to look out for anything strange. Is there anyone here who you’re surprised to see? Anyone you weren’t friends with in life?”

“Nancy has this theory that murderers always turn up at their victim’s funerals,” Lorna explained. “She saw it on some Agatha Christie drama on the I’m-Pretty-Much-Geriatric Channel once.”

Nancy sighed. I scanned the crowd. Aside from my family, it was pretty much all the people I’d expect. Kids from my school, most—like Ali, Parker, and Kari—I’d known since kindergarten, others—like Alanna and Mina—weren’t my BFFs, but we talked, a few of my teachers who probably thought being here was preferable to grading the mountain of essays they had sitting at home, Mr. Millington (excellent—so that did very little to disprove Why Charlotte Died Rumor 3, then), the Tornadoes, and …

“Actually there is someone who shouldn’t be here. Well, three someones actually,” I said. And one of them—the one I was most worried about—was nowhere to be seen.

“Who?” Nancy asked, pulling out her little spiral notepad.

“The cheerleaders: I wasn’t friends with them at school, I wasn’t even allowed to stand next to them in the lunch line, but now three of them are taking time out of their hectic preening and self-tanning schedule to be here. Do you think it could simply be because they know they look good in black?”

Lorna nodded sagely. “Yes, that does sound strange!” Nancy smiled excitedly.

“In fact I can’t see the head cheerleader now.” I looked around some more. Most people had left, but—unlike Jamie and Kaitlynnn—she hadn’t walked past us. “Kristen—she was the sickeningly pretty blonde who sat in the front row during the service. I didn’t see her leave.”

“That’s because she disappeared into the vicar’s private room with your boyfriend about ten minutes ago,” Tess said. “I wonder if she’s comforting him in there?”

A sick feeling, much worse than porting sickness, started bubbling up in my throat. If this was one of Nancy’s stupid soap operas, I would storm in there and find something bad going on.

But it wasn’t. This was real death. Kristen might be the über-bitch, but David was my loyal boyfriend—the guy who’d just given the cutest speech ever. He’d been talking about
marrying
me some day. What sixteen-year-old boy says crap like that—especially to a girl who is dead so he’s got nothing to gain from it? He wouldn’t be fooling around with another girl already. Not after that.

“Let’s go see what’s going on then,” Nancy said, trying to calm things down. She must have been terrified I was going to get overemotional again and apparite at my own funeral. While we hadn’t covered that as a specific Rule no-no, I was pretty sure spooking everyone you’ve ever met right after your wake was in there under “really, don’t do.”

Nancy, Lorna, and I walked across the aisle to the small wooden door Tess had pointed to. We all looked at one another expectantly. Nancy was hoping for a breakthrough. I was just hoping I wouldn’t see anything that would break my heart.

We walked through the shut door. Tickle. David was standing by the window, looking out at the busy street outside. Kristen hovered beside him. Now that Mom was out of sight, she was back on arm-stroking duty. Grrrr …

“It’s not even been three whole days, but I miss Charlotte so much already,” David said quietly, his voice shaking. “Is this empty feeling ever going to get better?”

“Of course it will,” Kristen said brightly. “Look at Brad and Jen. Okay, she didn’t die—unless you count the career suicide that was
The Breakup
—but Brad was back in the game and dating again within
weeks
. And dating someone who was way more on his social and attractiveness scale.” Bitch. “Your Angelina could be just around the corner!”

I was pretty sure David had no idea who she was talking about. But he smiled anyway.

“I tell you what, how about we think of some of the things you
didn’t
like about Charlotte,” Kristen said.

Um, how about we don’t?

“That’s what I always do when I want to get over a guy,” she said. Like
she
had ever been ditched by any man. “It helps me realize he wasn’t perfect and that I can live through this and find someone better.”

Kristen pouted, waiting for David to speak. She’d somehow found time to reapply her lip gloss between the front pew and here. If I wasn’t so mad, I’d be impressed by such stealth styling.

“Charlotte was … she was amazing,” David said. “She was everything I ever wanted from a girlfriend: She was kind and smart and cute and she got me.”

More pouting—this was not what Kristen wanted to hear.

“Though she could be kinda controlling at times, I guess,” he said quietly, ducking down his head.

WTF? Controlling?
Controlling?
The only thing I ever tried to control was the frizz level of my hair.

“Oh, and …,” he started.

Oh and
what
, precisely? For someone who thought I was “amazing” three seconds ago, David seemed to be warming to his subject now.

“Once, when I wanted to have a Brooklyn bands day on my iPod, she pressed shuffle because it was making her depressed and that meant I had to listen to music from all over the world, which was really not the point of what I was doing. That kinda annoyed me.”

Give me strength.

“See! She wasn’t totally perfect after all.” David nodded. “You know what I think? I think the way through this pain is for you to try to forget about Charlotte,” Kristen said. “This is a new time in your life now. A new start for you. And I’d”—
muchos
eyelash batting and shy floor-staring—“really like to be part of that.”