I took one last look around, and everything was ship-shape.
Well, just about everything.
Upstairs, just outside the roped-off doorway that led into the old ballroom, that CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC sign was upside down again.
9
Believe me, when it comes to the men-and-romance department, I have more than enough experience, some of it good, some of it is disastrous. I knew better than to have my head turned by Jack’s smile, or Jack’s charm, or Jack’s gorgeous body.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t grinning—just a little—when I locked up the memorial and headed to the other side of the cemetery for Marjorie’s funeral.
Or that I didn’t have to remind myself that standing at the edge of an open grave and grinning probably wasn’t the most politically correct thing to do.
I wiped the little glowy aftermath of my encounter with Jack from my expression and did my best to concentrate on what the minister was saying about Marjorie. No easy thing considering it was all about how dedicated she was, how wonderful she was, how knowledgeable she was about all things James A. Garfield, and blah, blah, blah.
To my way of thinking, it would have been way more interesting if the plump, bald minister could have given me some insight into who tossed her over that balcony.
With that in mind, I took a careful look around the crowd of mourners. It was no surprise that most of them were familiar, Garden View employees and volunteers. I mean, really, did I expect Marjorie to have friends?
I gave the people I knew a quick once-over. Ella and Jim Hardy (our big boss) both looked appropriately solemn. So did Ray Gwitkowski. He was just behind Ella, next to Doris Oswald, and both Ray and Doris had their eyes cast down, looking at the simple, but tasteful, program we’d all been given that listed the bare essentials of Marjorie’s life: birth date, death date, and the plot number where her copper-colored casket would soon be lowered into the ground. It also included a note of gratitude from her nephew, Nick Klinker, who said, as Marjorie’s only relative, he was grateful for all the kindnesses shown to him in his hour of need.
Or maybe the program wasn’t what Ray and Doris were looking at.
I’m tall, remember, so I sometimes get an interesting perspective on things. I craned my neck for a better look, and from where I stood, I could see what a lot of the other mourners couldn’t: Ray and Doris didn’t have their eyes averted out of grief, or even respect. They weren’t reading the program. Both of them had their gazes focused on where their fingers were entwined.
Old people, holding hands like lovestruck teenagers? I would have been grossed out if I wasn’t so busy wondering what it meant and if it could have anything to do with my case.
Ray had mentioned that he was dating someone new, but I never expected it to be Doris, and talk about a new perspective! Suddenly, ideas weren’t just niggling at the back of my mind, they were jumping up and down, shouting out the possibilities. Here’s pretty much the way my thought processes went:
Marjorie made Doris cry. Marjorie made Doris think about leaving the cemetery. And Doris loved her volunteer work at the cemetery.
This told me there was no way Doris could have been all that fond of Marjorie.
Marjorie blackmailed Ray into taking her to concerts and movies and parties. Marjorie demanded his time and his attention. She dangled the promise of a get-rich scheme in front of him like a fat worm on a hook, and because of it, she expected him to jump at the drop of a hat. She had not only stolen Ray’s time—time he could have been spending with his new honey, Doris—she’d also humiliated him and played him for a chump.
This meant that Ray wasn’t a big fan of Marjorie’s, either. In fact, I knew this to be true, because Ray had gone to her place that night I visited to throw that wedding invitation back at her.
Could old-folk love run deep enough to spark jealousy? The kind that resulted in murder?
I didn’t know, but I did remember that both Ray and Doris were in the cemetery the morning Marjorie was killed. If I recalled correctly (and yes, I usually do), when I ran into them, they both looked a little flustered. And I hadn’t forgotten that back at Big Daddy Burger after all the flipping and the squirting was done, Ray lied to me about something. Nobody was that jittery when they were telling the truth.
