Читать книгу Killer Summer - Lynda Curnyn, Lynda Curnyn - Страница 13

Zoe

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

“She looks, um, good,” I said to Sage once we were seated at the back of White’s Funeral Home on East 71st.

Sage gave me a look, and I knew exactly why. I hate when people say that at wakes and funerals. Who looks good when they’re dead? But the truth was, Maggie did look good. At least better than the last time I saw her. I couldn’t get the image of her sightless eyes and pale skin out of my head. I guess that’s what wakes were for, I thought, remembering the last one I’d been to for Myles’s father. But that had been a whole different thing. One of those sprawling affairs on Long Island, sprawling mostly because Myles’s father was not only a father of five and brother to six, but a Suffolk County cop, killed in the line of duty. You can imagine how big that wake was. It even made the papers. People came from miles around, in such numbers that they had to limit the viewing hours just so Myles and his family could have some time to grieve in peace. And grieve they did. I’d never seen Mrs. Callahan so broken up. And Myles’s sisters. I had always been so close to them, especially Erica, the only one who was still single and close to my age. I didn’t even know what to say to Erica—to any of them. Myles had been so sweet, so good, trying to stay strong, keep it all together while everyone else fell apart. I knew he was grieving, had held him tight when he finally did cry the night after they buried Mr. C.

Which was why this sophisticated and utterly dry-eyed event had me wondering. If it wasn’t for Maggie’s mother, sobbing silently in the corner with Maggie’s brothers, I would have wondered if anyone here even cared that Maggie had been cut off in the prime of her life. I looked over at Tom, standing up front near the entrance, smiling and greeting people just as merrily as he had during the first dinner party on Memorial Day weekend. Only it was his wife’s wake. I turned to Sage again. “Don’t you think it’s kinda strange how unfazed Tom seems to be?”

Sage flicked her gaze over to Tom. “People grieve in different ways,” she said.

That was true, I thought, looking at Sage now and wondering what she was feeling. She knew Tom and Maggie better than I did. But she wasn’t one to cry either. Her toughness was legendary. It was rumored that she’d barely shed a tear when her kid sister died. I hadn’t known Sage at the time, having moved with my mother to Babylon in my sophomore year of high school, but I had heard the stories, from Nick mostly. Hope had been eleven when she died, and Sage was fourteen, which was pretty young to keep things so bottled up.

“The whole thing just seems weird to me,” I said, remembering how calmly Tom had responded when I had gotten back to the house. Like he was following some guidebook: What To Do In The Event Of Your Wife’s Death. I had run back to the house, and in one breathless burst told him about finding Maggie on the beach. I didn’t say “dead.” I couldn’t. Tom had picked up the telephone and dialed 9-1-1. I think he might even have given the sauce a stir before he threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and headed down to the beach. Of course, I hadn’t seen his reaction to the sight of his wife. He had insisted I stay at the house and wait for the police to show up so that I could direct them. Though I felt like someone should go with him, I was glad not to be the one. I was spooked enough by the memory of Maggie’s sightless eyes looking up at me, her pale white flesh glowing in the darkness. By the time I led the Marine Bureau cop who showed up down to the beach a short while later, Tom was still under control. I nearly lost it, especially later at the house, when the questioning by the homicide detective began. All of us had to talk to the police—Tom, Nick, Sage and me. I was a bit freaked out by it, especially when I was asked where I had been, what I had been doing. If I had seen anyone else on the beach. I guess Tom got the same questions, and I imagine he answered them with more aplomb than I had managed.

I was startled by the questions, mostly because I had thought of Maggie’s death as an accident.

“They always ask those questions,” Sage had said on the way back to the city early the next morning. “You’ve seen Law and Order.”

“Yeah, but that’s because they’re investigating murder on that show.”

Then Sage calmly explained that accidental deaths or deaths that occur at home are always investigated by the police as a matter of course. I had to take her word for it, Sage was a bit of an authority on accidental death scenes, seeing as her sister’s death had been an accident, too.

If all those questions opened up the doubts in my mind about Tom’s behavior that night, damp from God-knows-what and chopping garlic with barely restrained fury, apparently the police hadn’t been fazed. In fact, that was the thing. Nothing seemed to faze them, I thought, remembering the weary face of the homicide detective who had questioned me, jotting down notes as if I were giving him one of Maggie’s famous recipes rather than filling in the blanks about how she might have wound up floating in the tide. Accidental death by drowning was what the medical examiner came back with. I wish the medical examiner were here to witness this, I thought, watching as a pretty brunette sidled up to Tom, latching herself to his arm.

“Who the hell is that?” I whispered to Sage, nudging her away from the program she had begun to read.

Sage looked up, her green eyes bland as she settled on the brunette in question, then withering once she turned to me. “That’s Francesca, Tom’s daughter.”

“Oh.” Okay, okay. So maybe I was being a bit overdramatic. But what was I supposed to think with Tom over there yucking it up with some woman who was half his age? Especially considering that Maggie was nearly half his age, too. Actually, I was surprised to learn from the dates on the coffin that she was closer to forty than my own thirty. She looked pretty damn good for her age, I thought, watching as Tom merrily greeted a tall blonde. But maybe not good enough, I thought next, as Tom leaned to kiss the blonde, his hands roaming over her back as he hugged her.

“Hey, whatever happened to Tom’s first wife?” I asked.

Sage practically glared at me. “She’s alive and well and living in Boca Raton.”

“I’m just asking.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so worked up about this. The woman drank too much and went for a swim.”

My eyes widened, but I kept my mouth shut. Sage was my best friend, but sometimes she was a total mystery to me. She could be the most generous person in the world—witness that whopping cluster of lilies up at the front of the room that she’d purchased on our behalf. But when it came to things like Maggie’s death, she just closed right up. After a harrowing night of recounting the night’s activities for everyone from the Marine Bureau cop who answered the call, to a detective from the homicide squad at the Suffolk County Police Department, we had ridden the train back to Manhattan the next morning in near silence, Sage lost in her own thoughts and Nick dozing off, only waking periodically to clutch his cell phone in his lap with a look of alarm, as if he’d just missed an important call. Tom had stayed behind, of course, and though at first I assumed he was under arrest, I later learned he had gone back to the house to secure it before leaving the beach. And to pick up Janis Joplin, who likely had to be sedated if the state I’d seen her in last was any indication.

“Where’s Nick?” I asked now.

“He had some sort of a business meeting,” Sage said, finally looking me in the eye again. I knew that look. She was wondering, like I often did, how a man who barely earned a living managed to have so many “business meetings.” “He’s supposed to be here by now,” she continued, her gaze moving to the door. “Holy shit.”

I swung my head around, fully expecting to find Tom in a new tryst with some willing female—for a married man, he sure knew a lot of hot, young things judging by the crowd that had showed up—and I was surprised to see him enveloped in a hug with a man.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Good question. He’s fucking hot,” Sage said. Then, running a hand over her tousled, blond-streaked hair, which she’d just barely tamed into a French twist, she said, “C’mon. Let’s go see how Tom is doing.”

If I had wondered about my best friend before, I was positively dumbstruck when I found myself standing next to her as she smiled up at Tom, who immediately wrapped one arm around her slender shoulders, pulling her close. “Sage, sweetie, how are you doing? You know Vince Trifelli, right? Our VP of manufacturing?”

I saw Sage’s eyes widen. “The Vince Trifelli? I think we must have spoken on the phone a few times, but I don’t think we’ve ever actually met.”

“It was Vince here who convinced me to get into leather goods in the first place,” Tom told us all with a smile. “And then leather outerwear. But I can’t give him all the credit for being the brains behind Edge, because Sage here deserves some, too.” Tom waggled his brows at Sage. “Funny you guys haven’t met,” he said with a frown. “But I guess Vince has been on the road a lot. Poor guy has been suffering over in Italy for the past few weeks—all for the sake of Edge.”

“I spend most of my time in China, Tom,” Vince said. “Let’s not forget that. And you know China is no picnic.”

“Hey, if I could give you Italy all year round, buddy, you know I would,” Tom said. He turned to Sage. “Sage has been making her own kind of magic for Edge. She’s my best sales rep.” Tom gazed fondly down at her, pulling her in tighter. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Ah, Sage,” Vince said, his dark eyes roaming over her appreciatively. “Yes, I do believe we have spoken a few times. A pleasure to finally meet you.”

I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me more—the way Tom was practically groping Sage, the way Sage was letting him or the way Vince was gazing speculatively at Sage. I’d already pegged Tom as a wacko, but Sage? Hello? I mean, yeah, Vince was hot—dark-eyed, dark-haired, with rough-hewn yet exotic Italian looks, but this wasn’t some pickup spot in the meat-packing district. This was a fucking wake.

People grieve in different ways. If this was grieving, then maybe I should start attending more funerals. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do with my Saturday nights these days.

I felt relieved at the sight of Nick loping through the door, but whether it was because this happy little threesome had forgotten I was there, or because I didn’t exactly want to be remembered by them, I wasn’t sure. I slipped away—not that any of them noticed—and intercepted Nick at the door.

“Hey,” I said, looking up at him and noticing his dark brown hair looked a little more unkempt than usual, his eyes tired.

“Hey, Zoe. Did I miss anything?”

Oh brother. “Not much. I think there might be some supermodels left for you to hit on.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I studied his dark eyes. “So how are you doing?” I knew at least Nick had experienced some of the shock I had, judging by the way he kept replaying his final conversation with Maggie about the ill-fated dinner plan. I understood what he was going through. I had played Maggie’s last voice mails back at least six times, listening to her cheerfully rattle off the ingredients she needed and trying to grasp how a woman could go from a clawing need for coriander to floating in the tide in the space of one evening. I wasn’t sure if it was guilt that drove me to it, or my own need to somehow grasp how she could be there one moment and gone the next.

“Not good,” he said, blowing out a breath.

I reached out, taking his hand. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, I just had a meeting with Lance—you know, my Web site developer? Anyway, it looks like he’s going to bail on me due to lack of funding.”

I dropped his hand, biting back a sigh. I guess life was made for the living. Clearly Nick had let go of whatever angst he had felt over Maggie’s sudden death.

“I thought you said you’d found a big investor.”

Nick dropped his eyes and nearly blushed. Actually, the tips of his ears turned red, which is what typically happened whenever he was embarrassed. Or angry. “Uh, she dropped out at the last minute.”

“She?” I asked, remembering that Nick’s forte was landing women, not investors. Like Bernadine, whom he still kept dangling on a thread. I wondered if maybe he’d pulled a little too hard on that thread and hit her up for a little funding. After all, she was reportedly a big shot out at a software firm in San Francisco now. “Anyone I know?”

His eyes widened, then he shook his head. “Uh, not really.” He glanced around, “Where’s Sage?”

“Over there applying for the role of wife number three,” I said, waving one hand blandly at the intimate grouping of Sage, Tom and Vince. I saw her lean in to whisper something in Tom’s ear, her gaze fastened on Vince as she did. Nah, not wife number three. If there was one thing I was sure about with Sage, marriage wasn’t her goal. I had a feeling, judging by the way she was looking at Vince, that she had just found her latest prey. I suppose I couldn’t blame her; he was good-looking. Though a bit older than she usually went for. Maybe things had gotten desperate even for Sage. I mean, here she was making flirt time at a wake for chrissakes.

Speaking of which…“So you want to go up and see Maggie?” I said.

Now Nick was grabbing my arm, looking around as if Maggie might step out from behind one of the tasteful drapes with a freshly baked Bundt cake in hand. “What?”

I rolled my eyes, gesturing with my chin toward the coffin at the front of the room, decked in flowers. As if he could miss it. “To pay your respects.” Clearly Nick hadn’t been to many wakes.

“Oh, right,” he said, nodding his head as if this made some sort of sense to him, though he didn’t let go of my arm.

“Come up with me?” he pleaded.

For the second time that evening, I found myself kneeling before Maggie Landon, Beloved Wife—as the flowery banner at the end of the coffin declared her. I glanced at Nick, who kneeled beside me, though he seemed to be looking at everything but the overly made-up face of Maggie. I couldn’t blame him. Dead people freaked me out, too. And Maggie especially, considering I had seen her dead before the makeup job. I followed Nick’s gaze, which now wandered over the line of flowers leading to the coffin, and took some heart. If the amount of money the local florists had collected on Maggie’s behalf was any indication, she clearly was loved, despite the jolly ruckus her dear husband was creating in the back of the funeral home. “Those are the flowers Sage ordered from us,” I said, pointing out the tall display of lilies, so huge it practically dwarfed the two baskets of mixed flowers it stood between.

Nick’s eyes widened. “It looks expensive,” he whispered and I knew the question of how much his share of the cost was going to be was floating through his mind. It had floated through my mind, too, as Sage pointed the flowers out when we arrived. I guess that’s the way Sage grieved—expensively. I would have preferred to shed a few more tears. There was a good chance I wouldn’t be eating next week after I forked over my share of the bill for that bouquet.

Oh, God, I was just as bad as the rest of them.

“We should probably say a prayer,” I whispered, but whether I was reminding myself or Nick of why we were here, I wasn’t sure.

I closed my eyes, only to open them again immediately. I never knew what to pray for in these situations. Eternal salvation? Yeah, I’d been raised a Catholic, but I wasn’t sure what I believed in anymore. Now, as I looked at Maggie’s dead face, the way her lips seemed pulled into the kind of smile I’d never seen on her face in real life—closed mouth, knowing and a bit too pink—I felt the same disturbing emotion as when I had found her on the beach. With a shiver, I looked up at the photos that had been placed in the casket. Maggie as a baby, with one too many ribbons in the short tuft of blond hair. Maggie standing next to Tom at some black-tie event, beaming at the camera. Maggie standing proudly before a berry tart. Maggie tossing a stick to Janis Joplin on the beach.

I closed my eyes again, expecting comfort to come, but instead a new reel of pictures flashed in my mind: Myles dressed in a dark suit standing stoically by his mother at his father’s funeral, his eyes damp with tears he refused to shed. Another of his face across the pillow from me, his eyes fixed on mine. “I don’t know what I would do without you in my life, Zoe,” he had said, pulling me close.

Apparently he did. Because I was no longer in his life.

Now I felt, for the first time since this whole tragedy, a sob rolling up. But there was no relief in it. Only deeper sadness.

I wasn’t crying for Maggie, I realized, once I opened my eyes and remembered where I was.

I was crying for myself.

“You done?” Nick asked, already beginning to stand.

“I guess I am,” I said, getting up, knowing that I was at heart no better than the rest of them. Wondering if anyone really cared about anyone more than they did about themselves.

Myself included.