The midafternoon sun beat down on the mourners gathered outside the white-columned Silver Bay Presbyterian Church. Conley could already feel her silk shirt sticking to her back as people pressed closer and closer to the church entry.
Michael shifted impatiently from foot to foot, tugging at his already loosened tie. “What are we waiting for? Why don’t they open the damn doors?”
He obviously hasn’t attended many funerals, she thought.
“We’re waiting for the funeral procession,” Conley informed him. “Long black hearse, pallbearers carrying a long, mahogany coffin. Like that.”
“Right. My bad.”
They’d managed to spirit Rowena around the crowd fifteen minutes earlier, and she’d worked her dowager queen magic on an usher stationed at a side door, who wordlessly opened the door wide to allow her access.
“Okay,” Conley said, pointing toward the street, where a stretch limo was slowly pulling alongside the curb. “That should be Vanessa.”
She trailed closely behind him as he moved into position. The limo driver hopped out and came around and opened the door. Vanessa stepped out and, spotting the television crews stationed on the sidewalk, straightened her dress and paused for dramatic effect. A dignified older man got out of the other side of the car, came around, and took her arm.
“Who’s that?” Mike asked as his shutter clicked away.
“I think that must be George McFall. He owns the funeral home.”
Conley reflected that death became Vanessa Robinette. Her red hair was twisted into a chignon. She wore a severely cut black dress with elbow-length sleeves, obviously couture, but Conley, who didn’t keep up with such things, couldn’t name the designer. A tiny pin twinkled from the scalloped neck of the dress. Symmes’s fraternity pin, she remembered. Her eyes were obscured by a veil pinned to a small velvet pillbox hat. It was a very Jackie Kennedy look, Conley had to admit.
A second limo pulled behind the one Vanessa had vacated. The back door opened, and Charlie Robinette emerged, dressed in a charcoal suit, followed by Kennedy McFall. Then Charlie leaned down and lifted a wriggling preschooler out of the back seat, delivering her to her mother’s outstretched arms.
Graceanne wore a navy dress with a smocked bodice and puffed sleeves and a ruffled petticoat. As Charlie handed her off, Conley stifled a giggle as the child’s bare pink bottom was exposed. She saw, rather than heard, Kennedy gasp, then dart back to the limo to retrieve a pair of lacy white underpants, a pair of black patent Mary Janes, and one sock.
Mike’s shutter continued to click as the hearse drew up, followed by another limo. “That’s the governor,” he said. “Why don’t you go inside and grab us some seats. I’ll finish up out here.”
“I’ll be on an aisle, halfway up,” she said. She tucked her head down and her elbows out as she moved determinedly through the throng snaking toward the church doors.
She’d grown up going to services in this church. It was an elegant, pre–Civil War building with thickly veined marble floors, mahogany pews, and a soaring ceiling supported by twin rows of fluted columns.
A harpist and string quartet were stationed on the right side of the altar, with the harpist accompanying the church organist, playing something she vaguely recognized as Mendelssohn.
Michael tapped her shoulder, and she scooted in to let him join her in the already packed pew, earning her an angry glare from the middle-aged woman sitting to her right.
“What’s it looking like out there?” Conley whispered.
“Total crazy-town. I just saw a sheriff’s deputy arrest a lady for parking her handicapped-access van on the sidewalk. Like, seriously on the sidewalk. He told her she’d have to move it, and she took a swing at him with her pocketbook.”
“You got that, right?”
He grinned and held up the Nikon. “Shot the shit out of it.”
People were still streaming into the church as white-gloved ushers shoehorned them into every available space.
From the pew behind hers, Conley heard a small gasp. Turning, she watched while Hank Robinette, dressed in an ill-fitting sport coat, escorted Toddie and Rebecca Robinette up the aisle toward the front of the church. She recognized both from Toddie’s photo.
She glanced at Mike, who had the Nikon in his lap. “That’s Toddie,” she whispered. “I don’t care how you do it, but we need that shot.”
He spun around in the pew, clicked off half a dozen frames as Toddie and her children passed, then turned back and put the camera on the pew between them. “Got it.”
“Boom,” Conley said.
She felt a light tap her on shoulder and looked up to see G’mama walking up the aisle with her hand tucked into Skelly’s arm.
Lorraine was dressed in a simple buttercup-yellow linen dress and her favorite turquoise beads. Her grandmother had always had an uncanny sense for wearing classic fashions that never went out of style, and she never wore black because, as she always said, there were so many beautiful colors in nature. Conley realized with a start that it was the same dress G’mama had worn to her father’s funeral.
A few minutes later, the large wooden outer doors to the vestibule closed, and the church’s massive pipe organ began booming the opening notes to “A Mighty God Is Our God.” The church pastor, Dr. Phipps, processed down the main aisle, followed by the black-robed choir, followed by six pallbearers and a rosewood casket containing the earthly remains of C. Symmes Robinette.
Vanessa Robinette came next, on George McFall’s arm, followed at a safe distance by Charlie and Kennedy McFall, with a now-docile Graceanne holding their hands.
The service started, but the pastor’s voice seemed to Conley to be coming from far away. Despite the air-conditioning in the church, she felt warm, suffocating even. Her palms grew damp, her face flushed, and she felt light-headed.
She didn’t realize that she was breathing hard until Michael nudged her. “Are you all right? You look kinda sick.”
“I’m okay,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and tried to meditate. This church, these funeral rituals, all brought her father’s own service rushing back into her memory.
The pastor was a kind-faced, benevolent presence. He yielded the lectern for a brief eulogy from the governor of Florida, who said he’d been a freshman state senator during Symmes Robinette’s last term in the Florida Senate and that Robinette had always been a source of strength and inspiration.
The governor yielded to Charlie Robinette, who was already masterful at public speaking—charming, self-deprecating, funny, and touching. If you didn’t know him. His voice gave Conley a sour taste in her mouth. He was still the Little Prince. To the manor born.
“I always wanted to be like my dad,” he said, placing both hands on the lectern. “But the truth is, nobody could ever fill Symmes Robinette’s shoes. And I mean that literally, because my father wore a size 6 shoe. It was a miracle that a man of his height—he was six two in his stocking feet—and weight—which he never divulged to anybody, not even my mother—could stand erect on such tiny, toddler feet.”
Gentle laughter rippled through the congregation.
“But as small as his feet were, my father had a heart for everyone. He wasn’t a perfect man, and he would be the first to tell you that. Well, actually, my mom would be the first to tell you that, because she is the only person I ever met who could cut Dad down to size with one meaningful glare.”
Conley craned her neck and could just see the top of Vanessa’s head. She was sitting erect, her shoulders tensed. The widow, she thought, was not amused.
“You know, we all thought Dad would live forever. He thought it too. But last fall, we received the devastating news that he was suffering from cancer. Dad was adamant that he didn’t want his condition made public. He said he didn’t want to be a poster boy for cancer, and he didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him, because he’d lived a long, productive life. He had work to do in Washington, and he knew that the time he had left was short.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Knowing that, my dad took stock of his life. We had a lot of good talks these last few months. What a tremendous gift that was, for both of us. During one of those late-night talks, Dad divulged to me that he had one big secret, one big regret, something he was deeply ashamed of, and he asked me to help him make things right.”
Vanessa’s head bowed, and the rest of the congregation sat up, waiting to hear the rest.
“Dad revealed to me that he had what he called a secret family, one that I knew nothing about. He told me that he’d been married before he’d met my mother, and he’d had two children with his first wife.”
Charlie chuckled ruefully and paused for effect.
“Damn, he’s good,” Mike whispered, gazing around the church at the rapt faces of all the mourners. “He’s got this crowd in the palm of his hand.”
“Trust me. It’s all an act,” Conley whispered back.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” Charlie said, affecting the folksy accent of a local yokel. “And it turns out that most of my life, that secret family—including my half brother, Hank, and half sister, Rebecca—lived less than an hour away from the spot where I’d spent most of my growing-up years.”
Another ripple of murmurs and whispers washed through the room.
“It turns out that in the process of making things right, you sometimes make waves. Sometimes you have to make decisions that will make people you love uncomfortable, even unhappy. I was willing to do that for him. So these last few months, I did what I could to help my dad reconnect with his first family.”
Conley scanned the faces around her. Every eye in the cavernous church seemed riveted on Charlie Robinette—except Vanessa’s; she seemed to be staring down at her lap.
“It had been more than twenty years since Dad had seen his children. Amazingly, they found it in their hearts to forgive his absence and to accept his apology and his love, however belated it came. Hank and Rebecca and Toddie are here in this church today. I know that they mourn my dad’s loss as much as the rest of us do. But I also know that their presence here today would make my dad proud and happy.”
Charlie took another deep breath. “I’m not a preacher; I’m just a simple country lawyer.”
“Country lawyer, my ass,” Conley muttered.
“But I believe there’s an object lesson that we can all take in my dad’s last months on earth. If there is someone you feel you’ve wronged or hurt in some way, don’t pass up the opportunity to try to make things right. I know I speak for all my family when I say thank y’all for coming today to celebrate the life of my dad.”
A bagpiper accompanied the choir and congregation in “Amazing Grace” as the family and pallbearers filed down the center aisle.
“Go!” Conley told Michael, who managed to slither past the other worshippers in their pew to race toward the side exit.
She was almost to the rear door when she spotted a familiar figure, still sitting in the very last pew, dressed in her customary white shirt and black pants. Conley sat down beside her.
“Winnie?”
The housekeeper looked up, grim-faced but resolute. She saw the question in Conley’s eyes.
“Had to see it for myself. When she was on her deathbed, I promised Nedra I would see Symmes Robinette dead, and now I have.”
“Okay,” Conley said. “I gotta get back to work.”
By the time she exited the church, there were still knots of people standing around on the church lawn.
Buddy Bright was set up in the shade of a magnolia tree, near a van with the radio station call letters, doing a live remote and interviewing any politicos he managed to buttonhole.
Conley found the NBC camera crew on the opposite side of the church lawn. She introduced herself and pointed out the key players in the day’s drama, including Toddie, Hank, and Rebecca. But Tressa, the reporter, had been in church during most of the service and had already zeroed in on both of Symmes Robinette’s wives and all his children.
“You know where the Baptist church is, right?” Conley asked, pointing across the street at the imposing redbrick structure. “The reception is there. Maybe you’ll get lucky and manage to get all the family in the same frame.”
She returned to the front of the church in time to see G’mama emerge, again on Skelly’s arm.
“Hey, you two,” she said. “G’mama, how did you manage to score such a handsome date?”
Lorraine scowled. “Winnie absolutely refused to drive me here today. Said she had ‘other fish to fry.’ And of course, as the outgoing president of the altar guild, I couldn’t very well not show up. So I called Sean, and he said he was going and he even volunteered to be my chauffeur.”
Conley didn’t mention seeing Winnie at the back of the church.
“Skelly is our knight in shining armor once again,” Conley said. “Are you two going over to the reception?”
“I feel we should at least put in an appearance,” G’mama said, giving Skelly a meaningful glance.
“Okay by me,” Skelly said. “I’ve got my high school girl working until four.”
“I might see you over there,” Conley said. “But I think Rowena’s actually going to be working the crowd, taking notes, and misspelling people’s names.” She touched Skelly’s sleeve. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
He shrugged and followed her a few yards away.
“Thanks for being so sweet to G’mama,” Conley said. “I know you’re mad at me, but I really appreciate that you’re not taking it out on her.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Skelly said, his expression mild. “Maybe it’s all for the best that you made it clear you’re not interested.”
“It’s not that I’m not interested,” Conley protested. “If we were both in the right place at the right time…”
“But we’re not,” Skelly finished her sentence. “And I’ve been through this already. Go do your job,” he said wearily. “I’ll take your grandmama home after the reception. And I’m not doing it as a favor. I’m doing it because that’s what neighbors do.”
“Okay,” she said.
He was standing at the edge of the crowd, hands in his pockets, dressed in a sport coat and tie, trying to blend into the landscape, but the wraparound aviator sunglasses, military bearing, and spit-shined, lace-up shoes gave him away as law enforcement.
“Sheriff,” she said, sidling over to him.
“Miss Hawkins.”
“I did ask you to call me Conley.”
“So you did.”
“What are you doing here today?” she asked.
“Can’t a fella pay respects to his congressman at his homegoing celebration?”
“Of course. But I’m getting a vibe that there’s more to your visit than that.”
“Who am I to argue with a vibe?” Merle Goggins asked. “Whatever that is.”
“I think you owe me, Sheriff. And I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“There’s a lot I’m not at liberty to tell you, even if I wanted to, this being an ongoing investigation.”
“What if you told me off the record?”
His eyes looked straight past her, and she saw that he was watching Vanessa and the rest of the family climb into limos for the short ride to the reception. He seemed to be weighing a decision.
“I had a call from the medical examiner’s office late yesterday,” he said finally. “We’re completely off the record, right?”
“That’s right.”
“He told me Symmes Robinette was already dead when that deer hit his windshield.”
“So I was right! He did hit the deer.”
Goggins nod was barely perceptible.
She waited to see if he would explain, but he was still watching the crowd on the church lawn. “How can they tell he was already dead?”
“There wasn’t much bleeding from his head injuries. If he’d been alive and his heart had still been pumping, you’d have seen way more blood.”
“So what did kill him?” she asked.
The sheriff’s smile was enigmatic. “Are we still off the record?”
“Yes, damn it. Quit stalling. Are you going to tell me or not?”
“The medical examiner tells me he had elevated levels of fentanyl in his blood. And a blood alcohol level of .06. Pretty toxic combination.”
“I talked to a friend who’s an oncology nurse. She said cancer patients using a fentanyl patch can tolerate much higher levels of opioids because they metabolize it at a different rate. Are you saying it was an accidental overdose?”
“I’m not saying anything at all,” Goggins said. “Because we didn’t have this conversation. Have a nice day, okay?”