The phone rang as Mary pushed open her back door, her arms full of groceries. She set her full cloth bags on the floor and stared at the phone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She was tired. It was after three and she’d been talking to people all day. The children were safely deposited with their mother and right now all she wanted was a cup of tea.
The phone kept ringing. She must have forgotten to set the answering machine again. With a snort of disgust, she picked it up.
‘Mary, thank goodness. I’ve been trying to get you for hours.’
‘Isabel. What’s wrong?’
She sounded rattled. Pastor’s wives weren’t supposed to sound rattled. They had to deal with everything from committee women with their noses out of joint to distraught parents of a sick or dying child. Isabel usually handled her role with calm dignity that Mary found admirable. There was nothing calm about her now. ‘Cliff and what we’re supposed to do about him, that’s what’s wrong.’
Mary felt herself stiffen. Do? About Cliff? What was Isabel talking about? She set her handbag on the kitchen table and walked over to the stove. She checked the teakettle. It was full. She turned the fire under it full on blast and headed for the cupboard for a mug. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about Cliff Mathews. Everybody’s asking me about the funeral. I called Dan’s people and they said as soon as the autopsy was finished, so were they. Someone has to claim the body and arrange for burial. They won’t. What are we going to do?’
Cliff’s funeral. It’d never occurred to her. Her hand didn’t get any farther than the cupboard door. It seemed frozen on the knob, incapable of pulling it open. Surely his family – only, she couldn’t think of any family. His wife was dead, had been for over ten years. They had one daughter, but Mary didn’t think she’d seen her since her mother’s funeral. She’d had some kind of falling out with her father and Cliff hadn’t mentioned her since. She’d almost forgotten about her, couldn’t even remember her name. Where was she now? Mary had no idea. Had Cliff any siblings? She couldn’t remember him mentioning any. Cliff wasn’t a native of Santa Louisa but had bought his practice after he’d graduated from vet school. He’d moved here from … Where? They’d have to find out and find his next of kin as well. Everybody had someone. Surely it was just a matter of locating them. ‘What about his family?’
‘Don’t know. Les is working on it. There’s a daughter, but where she is … Anyway, the autopsy is scheduled for Monday and it won’t be long after that before the body’s released. We have to do something.’
‘What do you mean by “we”? Cliff wasn’t a member of St Mark’s, and if you mean you and me, I’m sure he had closer friends.’
‘Cliff didn’t officially belong to St Mark’s, but Les said he’d do the service. Eloise, his wife, was a member for years and Les officiated at her funeral. If memory serves, you and your committee did the food for the reception after her burial.’
Isabel was right. Mary remembered that day. Cliff had looked like a lost child, dazed, uncomprehending. A vague picture of the daughter came up. A thin woman, boney actually. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, her black dress a little too large through the hips, as if she’d lost weight and hadn’t bothered to replace the dress, or even take it in. Only, she couldn’t remember anything else. Nothing she said, no one she talked to, not even her father. Her memory put the woman at the grave site. She couldn’t remember if she’d even been at the reception. So sad.
‘They bought two plots and Les says we’re going to bury Cliff beside her. Unless, of course, someone comes along and says different.’
If Mary’s memory of the daughter was correct, she thought that highly unlikely. That Reverend Lestor McIntyre was going to give Cliff a proper send-off wasn’t. It solved one problem, one she hadn’t thought about. There were plenty of others. ‘What does Les want us to do? Provide food for the gathering afterward? Flowers?’
‘Well, a little more, I’m afraid. He wants you to contact the funeral home and make the arrangements. Dan wants you to meet him at Cliff’s. He needs to look through the house. While he’s there he thought you could collect the, you know, clothes and things like that, for the burial.’
The teakettle started to scream. Mary removed it, took a mug from the cupboard and a tea bag from the canister, plopped the bag into the mug and filled it with hot water. It started to turn a rich brown almost immediately. This was going to take a few minutes, though. She pulled out one of the chairs by the old white table that sat under her kitchen window, sank down onto it and tried to push the shoe on her left foot off with her right one. She almost groaned with relief when it slipped to the floor. Now for the other one. ‘Why me? I knew Cliff, of course, but not that well. It was Eloise I knew. After she died I didn’t see Cliff all that often.’
‘You’re the chairperson for St Mark’s Hospitality Committee.’
‘Arranging other people’s funerals doesn’t come under the heading of Hospitality.’
‘Visiting people in the hospital. Sending people cards and flowers. Making sure people have food after a funeral – that kind of thing does. It’s the closest committee we could think of to do this. You will, won’t you, Mary?’
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Mary took a deep breath, willing herself not to be huffy. She’d had a long, exhausting day and she wanted to sit here, sipping her tea, alone, letting the day just slip away … There wasn’t one thing about any of this she liked or wanted any part of.
‘First, I’m the co-chairman of that committee. Naomi Bliss is the other one and all she does are the cards and flowers. I do the food and all the organizing. Neither of us signed on to arrange funerals.’
‘Well, if you don’t want to do it, tell Les and Dan. Not me. But, Mary, I’m a little surprised. You’re always the one we can count on when we need help.’ Isabel sounded surprised and more than a little hurt.
Mary sighed and got up to get her tea. It looked black and strong. She fished the teabag out and put it in the sink before gingerly taking a sip. Too hot. It would be another couple of minutes. Drat. She needed that tea. ‘I’m sorry, Isabel. I guess I’m a little tired. The extravaganza and the can tree thing have worn me out. Then all this with Cliff. I suppose Les wants to use O’Dell’s Mortuary.’
‘Who else?’
Who else, indeed. The O’Dells had been members of St Mark’s for three generations and took care of all the funerals for the congregation. They’d also volunteered their services in cases like this before. Not in murder cases – at least, Mary couldn’t think of one, but in cases when someone died without the necessary funds or if there was no family. They’d waived their fee when the Ryans’ little boy died. Pat Ryan had been out of work for almost a year and the child’s hospital bills had gotten out of hand. The Ryans were in danger of losing their home as well as their child. Mary sighed. If the O’Dells were willing to help, she guessed she was too. That didn’t make her feel any better, though. There was something creepy about arranging a funeral for someone who wasn’t a relative, someone who you knew only casually, whose wishes you could only guess at. Was she supposed to pick out the casket as well as Cliff’s last outfit?
She shuddered and tried a sip of tea. ‘All right. I don’t like this one bit, but I’ll do it. When am I supposed to meet Dan?’
‘He said he’s at Cliff’s right now and could you come there. I have the address. It seems there’s a problem with the landlady and Cliff’s things need to be taken care of by tonight.’
‘Tonight!’
‘That’s what he said. He’s called Ellen as well.’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll see what I can do. But, I’m finishing my tea before I do another thing.’
Isabel laughed and hung up.
Mary looked at the clock and at the groceries she hadn’t unpacked and groaned. The last thing she wanted was to go out again. Her back hurt, so did her feet, and she wanted to put on her slippers, sip her tea and watch the local news. Well, maybe she still could. It wasn’t quite four. If she left now she could run by and see what it was that Dan needed. Maybe most of it could be done tomorrow. With a deep sigh, she opened the cupboard that held vitamins and other everyday medications, shook two Tylenol out and popped them into her mouth, picked up her mug, drained it and put it in the sink. She pulled the orange juice, butter and fish out of the sack and put them in the refrigerator. She’d do the rest later. She had to make a phone call before she left. No, two. O’Dells needed to be put on alert. And Naomi. She wasn’t doing this one alone.