Death always wends its way to the graveyard, which was where I found myself sitting at a little before 11:00 A.M., a magnetic FUNERAL sign stuck to my hood. I watched people get out of the cars in the line ahead of me and, following the efficient guidance of the undertakers, file toward a freshly dug grave with Flora Nuñez’s flower-draped casket poised over it in a sling. The drizzle had cleared for the time being, but I buttoned my forty-dollar raincoat and followed the flow. I felt like one of those freelance mourners who still operate in old New Orleans, bringing up the rear at the funerals of strangers, for that’s what Flora Nuñez and I were to each other: strangers, whose journeys had intersected only on the final leg of hers.
She evidently had made friends in her few years in the city, though; about twenty cars with their headlights on had trekked out from Nuestra Señora del Carmen for the burial, which had inevitably forced the thought: How many carloads would come to mine? I abandoned speculation and drew in among the people clustering at the grave as the priest began some final remarks.
The sleuth in me was ever curious. My ex-mother-in-law had once
remarked that if I had brought that kind of attention and focus to bear on the stock pages of the Wall Street Journal, I’d be a wealthy man. I judged myself to be that anyway, I told her; after all, I was married to her daughter.
In the small quadrant where Flora Nuñez was to be interred, laid out in neat rows beneath the spread of large maple trees were stones bearing family names representing a dozen or more ethnicities. Discrimination didn’t exist six feet down where dust mingled with dust and worms were the ultimate egalitarians.
Among the people at the fringes of the small crowd, I picked out Lucinda Colón, and after the brief ceremony ended, I moved over and said hello. She was teary, but she remembered me. I offered my condolences, and we made a minute’s worth of small talk. Perhaps it was just her grief, but she seemed a little unsteady, and I wondered if she was medicated. She turned to go. I took out the Polaroid I’d found in Flora Nuñez’s apartment. “Do you happen to remember when this was taken?” I asked.
She looked at it, and her brow clenched quizzically. “I’m sorry?”
I rephrased it, though I was convinced she’d understood the question the first time. “This is you and Ms. Nuñez, isn’t it?”
“We was in the same night class together, a paralegal class. Sometimes we used to go out after class. Just for a drink or food.”
“Are these other people from your class, also?”
She avoided my gaze, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of a lace handkerchief. “Yes, some, I think. I’m not sure,” she said quickly, and seemed nervous again. “But that has nothing to do with this sadness about my friend. The cause of this is Troy Pepper, and he is a son of a bitch for making us so sad. Now, I am going.” And she walked away steadily, despite her heels and the soft grass.
I put the Polaroid away and caught up with the priest. He was a youthful forty, with dark hair just starting to thread with gray and thick black eyebrows. He had delivered his funeral remarks in a fond, even exuberant way. I knew from the funeral program that he was Father Jose Marrero. I waited as he spoke with an older woman dressed in black, nodding thoughtfully as she spoke to him. When she went off, he saw me and offered his hand, which I took.
“I liked what you had to say today, Father,” I told him. “Too many times I get the feeling the clergy folk are talking about strangers. Your words were personal and heartfelt.”
He smiled gently. “I was fortunate that Flora often came to mass, so I got to know her. It’s sad that she died. You were a friend?”
“No, I never met her. But based on what I’ve been hearing about her, I’d like to have.” I explained who I was. His manner cooled a little, but he didn’t dismiss me.
“If you’re looking to learn anything that Flora might’ve confided in me, Mr. Rasmussen, naturally you will be disappointed.”
“I understand. I’m not going to ask you to betray confidences, but I wonder if you had any personal sense of what her relationship with Troy Pepper might have been?”
“He’s the one the police are holding?”
“Yes. He indicated to me that they were thinking of getting married. Did she say anything about that?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Father, did Flora ever hint that she felt threatened by Troy Pepper? Or afraid?”
He seemed to consider the question, or whether to answer it; then he shook his head. “By answering what you’re asking me, Mr. Rasmussen, I might be aiding the person who took Flora’s life. Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of her?”
“Perhaps. Though you might also be allowing her to reach out and show mercy to a man whom she may have loved. That could be a charitable act, too, couldn’t it?”
He gave me a patient look. “She didn’t come often for pastoral counseling. Still, I did have a sense from our occasional conversations that there was someone she cared for. I don’t know his name or anything else about him. Do you think it’s this man the police have arrested?”
I admitted I didn’t know. There was a lot about Flora Nuñez and Troy Pepper I didn’t know. A small jet passed overhead, descending: some kind of corporate flight, heading for Hanscom Field. I asked, “Did you have any sense of whether he was someone living here in the city or elsewhere?”
“No idea. But now that I think of it, I recall something she asked me,
oh, eight or ten months ago, that got me wondering if she’d made some decision to seek a different life.” We were mostly alone now, the bulk of the mourners having returned to their cars and driven off. Colored leaves shimmered in the maple trees and made a soft rustling, like the bright, eager gossip of schoolgirls. “She asked about making sacrifices for love. And then she asked … this is what struck me—she asked what taking holy vows might be like.”
“Vows for becoming a nun?”
“That’s the thing. She didn’t say she wanted to take orders or anything, but she did seem curious, especially about wearing the habit. Where one got the costume, what the various parts of clothing meant. When I tried to open her up about it, she told me it was just something she wondered about.”
We had come to a deeply polished black Marquis. Father Marrero turned and shook my hand. “I wish you well. Each in our own way, we’re all searching for answers.”
“One more thing. Do you know if she was in church Sunday morning?”
He thought a moment, then shook his head, the thick brows coming together. “Not then, no.”
I watched the Marquis move slowly toward the cemetery exit, the trees and sky mirrored in its sheen. As I headed for my car, I noticed that one other vehicle remained, a maroon Chevy. It had drawn farther around the loop road and was parked, partially obscured by a line of tombstones. It wasn’t on the way to my car, but I turned and went toward it. Before I could get there, the driver started up and drove off, but I recognized him as Paul Duross.