In accordance with his wishes, Henry had been cremated. There would be no tombstone, no marker, no specific anchor for his body; his ashes would be spread over the farm and that would create the link he wanted between his soul and the land he had loved so dearly. The ashes currently rested in a large silver urn that stood on a long table draped with white and crowded with flower arrangements sent by friends and family and business associates; scalloped along the edge of the table was the Guthrie family tartan, the greens and reds bright in the sunshine. Around the table were concentric circles of folding chairs and behind the table stood Rev. Donald MacTeague, who had gone to high school with Henry, had performed the wedding service for Henry and his wife, Bess, had baptized Val, and who had presided over the funeral of Roger Guthrie back in 1976, over Henry’s brother George eight years ago, over Bess two years ago, and now over Henry. Mac, as he was called by everyone in town, looked very old to Crow, and he could see that Henry’s death had taken a lot out of him.
As Mac slowly went through his homily, Crow surreptitiously looked around at the crowd. Nearly five hundred people had showed up for the service, a hundred of them standing after all the chairs were taken. Beyond the rings of guests there was a second ring of less formally dressed spectators made up of reporters from all over the county. Crow figured that no one beyond the fifth or sixth row could hear a word that Mac was saying, but no one had thought to bring a microphone for him, and when one of the press reps had asked if they could hang a lavaliere mike on him Val had withered him with a look that would have turned a stallion into a gelding.
Scanning the crowd though the opaque barrier of his sunglasses, Crow could see that anyone of any importance in town was there, from the selectmen and grower’s commission chair to the owner of the tractor dealership on Harvest Hill Road near the Crescent Bridge. Gus Bernhardt was there, sweating in his ill-fitting uniform, and next to him were the four Philadelphia cops, Ferro, LaMastra, Jerry Head, and Coralita Toombes, who had carpooled out for the occasion. It was the first of three funerals they’d be attending this month, he knew, with burials for Nels Cowan and Jimmy Castle pending the release of their bodies from the morgue. Crow thought it very decent of them to show up here, since none of them had actually known Henry. When Ferro saw Crow looking in his direction he gave a small, curt nod. There were a few other officers present, but they were mostly local blues working security.
Mac concluded his remarks and indicated that everyone should sit down. While they were sitting, Crow leaned close to Val and whispered. “You okay, baby?”
She just squeezed his hand, keeping her eyes fixed on the urn and her mouth locked in a hard straight line. A soprano from First Methodist stood up and began to sing “Amazing Grace” while a bagpiper played along. When that was done they segued into another hymn that Crow didn’t know. He lost interest in it and went back to checking out the crowd. Near the front, Terry and Sarah Wolfe sat next to Saul Weinstock and his wife, Rachel. At one point Mark, who was only one day home from the hospital and seated in front of them, began to cry quietly, and Terry reached out and massaged his shoulders briefly and then leaned close and said something in his ear. Mark nodded, sniffed, wiped his eyes, and let out a deep breath. When Terry sat back, Crow could see Sarah lean over and kiss his cheek.
What held his interest, however, was not this simple kindness, or Mark showing some emotion other than bullish hostility, but the haggard look on Terry’s face and the shell-shocked expression Weinstock wore. If there was a competition for the most demonstrably stressed-out man in Pine Deep, Crow wouldn’t have known who to bet on. Crow could understand Terry’s stress, but why Weinstock looked so battered was an unknown. He tried to catch his friend’s eye, but Weinstock just stared at the soprano with utter rigid indifference.
A flash of light caught his eye and he looked past the crowd and the press to the winding path that led past the field and back onto the road. He could see a kid standing there, with one sneakered foot on the gravel of the road and the other on the pedal of his bicycle, a hand raised to shade his eyes from the intense sun glare, light sparking off of the bike’s reflectors. Mike. Good kid, nice of him to show up, even at a distance.
