Kathryn slipped a handkerchief under the black netting of her veil and wiped a crocodile tear from her cheek as the priest said his final amen. Smitty was at her side, supporting her elbow, and she was the picture of grief as she stood among the grandiose tombstones of the nineteenth century rural cemetery and blended in with the swarms of mourners and curious onlookers. It was an overcast day, gray and dramatic, like her performance.
They’d traveled three hours from Manhattan to attend services in Forrester’s upstate hometown. The important and the wealthy filled the English country Gothic-style stone church, and sufficiently sated with tales of Marcus Forrester’s good deeds and God’s blessing, they walked the few hundred yards across the manicured lawn to his final resting place, between an old Civil War general and the city’s ancient founder.
Kathryn lingered respectfully off to the side, while Forrester’s widow sat front and center before the industrialist’s calla lily-draped black coffin.
Alice Forrester was without emotion as she stared at the spray of dozens of white lilies before her. The priest closed his book and stepped forward to offer his condolences as the crowd dispersed. The robed clergyman patted her hand as he tendered his words of comfort, and she nodded and lowered her eyes, looking like she wanted it all to be over.
A line of well-wishers passed between the widow and the coffin, but Kathryn didn’t move from her spot. She loved the spiritual solitude of cemeteries, but she hadn’t attended a funeral in one since her mother’s, thirteen years ago. It was a day much like this one, with the sun showing its respect by refusing to shine.
She became lost in the memory of the lanky girl of fourteen, standing motionless as her father, overcome with grief, threw himself across his beloved wife’s casket and sobbed uncontrollably. Her brother, Clayton, dropped her hand and helped friends physically drag their distraught father from the service to their waiting car.
She was left alone by her mother’s side, too numb to comfort her father, and too dazed to comprehend that a pretty box adorned with flowers would be the last she would see of her mother. She plucked a red rose from the spray on the lid, her mother’s favorite, and slowly stepped back as six burly groundskeepers, three on each side, picked up the thick straps at their feet and, hand under hand, lowered the casket slowly into the ground. She instinctively reached out as the coffin descended, but she was hesitant to touch the cold, hard surface, afraid to forever associate it with the body inside. The coffin reached its final resting place, and the gravedigger passed her a handful of dirt.
“Go on, honey,” he said with a compassionate smile. He looked at the flower in one hand and the handful of dirt in the other and motioned toward the hole in the ground. “Pay your last respects to your momma.”
Kathryn looked at him like he was crazy. She pulled the flower protectively to her chest. It was hers to treasure always. She’d be damned if she was going to help bury her mother. She put the dirt in the pocket of her best Sunday coat and walked silently to the family car. The dirt had since disappeared, spread lovingly into her mother’s prized rose garden in the backyard, but the flower she still had on her bookshelf at home, pressed into her mother’s large volume of Shakespeare’s plays.
Smitty kept a close eye on her as he watched real tears paint her cheeks. She clutched the white handkerchief in her black-gloved hand and pressed it against her quivering lower lip. He knew she didn’t weep for Forrester, but the tears obviously afforded her some kind of cleansing, so he let her go on, her eyes staring blindly ahead, her head at an aimless tilt.
Duty soon called, however, and Smitty tightened his grasp on her elbow to bring her out of it. Kathryn blinked herself back to the present to find Alice Forrester standing before her with a white calla lily held reverently in her hand.
“Miss Hammond.”
Kathryn was stunned for a moment, positive that Emily Post had never set a precedent for such an awkward confrontation, and merely stammered, “Mrs. Forrester. I’m … I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The small, middle-aged woman smiled in appreciation of the sentiment, but said, “Marc and I had separate lives for many years. It is I who am sorry for your loss. He spoke fondly of you.”
Kathryn hardly knew what to say. It certainly wasn’t the confrontation she would have expected. In fact, it was no confrontation at all.
“Thank you. He spoke fondly of you as well.”
The widow left no time for an uncomfortable silence. She touched Kathryn’s gloved hand and handed her the lily with a bittersweet smile. She acknowledged Smitty with a nod and quickly turned and walked away, taking the arm of a somber-looking distinguished gentleman they knew to be her companion.
Kathryn and Smitty stood silent for a moment and then looked at each other in curious bewilderment.
Kathryn turned to the flower in her hand, and Smitty raised his brow and shook his head.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Kathryn took one last look at Forrester’s casket and put her memories away. “Yeah,” she replied as she wiped her cheek. “Let’s get out of here.”
As they walked toward the car, parked on the gravel access road, a young clergyman approached from behind, calling Smitty’s name.
“Mr. Smith?”
He turned. “Yes?”
“There’s an urgent phone call for you, sir.” He pointed over his shoulder at the back of the church on the hill. “You can take the call in the rectory. First door on your left as you pass through the loggia.”
Smitty thanked him and scanned the surroundings suspiciously.
“Go on,” Kathryn said. “I’ll be all right from here to the car.”
Smitty weighed the danger, no less paranoid for Forrester’s passing, and before he could render his decision, the priest had offered his arm to Kathryn for support.
“I’ll escort the lady to her car, sir.”
Kathryn smiled and sent Smitty on his way with a cock of her head.
“I’ll have the driver meet you in front of the church.”
Smitty threw a wave over his shoulder as he launched into a wounded jog up the knoll to the old stone building.
Kathryn folded herself into the back of the large black sedan as her young escort went on his way. She instructed the driver to follow the lake road to the front of the church.
Mourners were slowly filtering to their cars, but her driver didn’t move. He focused on one man in particular, walking a few yards ahead on the opposite side of the road.
“Is there a problem?” Kathryn asked, eager to get out of there.
The driver waited until the short man he was watching got into his car. He then turned and passed a small blank envelope over his shoulder.
Kathryn eyed him warily and opened it. Inside was a handwritten note in a familiar hand—Thierry Bouchaule’s.
My dearest Kathryn,
As always, you look stunning in black.
Kathryn looked up to where the driver’s curious mourner was pulling away in his large black car.
“Did he give you this?”
The driver nodded.
“Follow him.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am—”
“Follow him!” she commanded.
“I can’t!”
The driver lifted his hands and pointed to the empty ignition switch, from which his keys had been taken at gunpoint.
With an exasperated exhale, Kathryn exploded out of the car, with the note still clutched in her hand, and pulled the black netting of her hat away from her face to get a good view of the license plate, at least. The car drove away and made a U-turn onto the tree-lined road parallel to theirs. The sedan was heading in her direction, but all Kathryn could do was stare across the roof of her car, as time stretched into measured moments of clarity and she saw Bouchaule’s face in the backseat, above the blur of headstones, as he passed. She reached out to him in vain and mouthed his name, and he responded with a regretful hand pressed to the window glass, like the closing scene of some tragic love story.
Bouchaule’s car disappeared into the distance, and Kathryn’s eyes narrowed as she quickly scanned the churchyard for Smitty. He was nowhere in sight, just as Bouchaule had planned. She looked around for another car to commandeer, but they were alone on the side of the hill. She slammed her fist onto the roof in frustration.
“Damn it!”
She looked at the rumpled note in her hand and read the remainder of the message. She shifted her focus to the empty road at the top of the hill and leaned on the roof with her elbow as she covered her eyes with her hand.
“Damn it,” she said again—for so many reasons.