CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It rained again during the night and the morning dawned gray and cold. I skipped breakfast and then drove by Jim Rutherford’s house to take him to the funeral. We arrived at the cemetery about ten minutes before it began. There were around fifty mourners present, most clustered around a half dozen chairs that had been set up for the family under the funeral home’s tent. A plain gray steel coffin with bronze handles sat on a catafalque over the grave. The service was short and simple and dignified. A young Baptist preacher read from the Bible, then gave a brief eulogy in which he spoke of the tragedy of such an untimely death. Thankfully, he knew when to stop and didn’t belabor the point. Then a tall, slim young woman he described as Madeline’s best friend stepped forward and did a magnificent job of singing “Amazing Grace” in a crystal clear soprano voice. After a short prayer it was over.

I asked Rutherford to introduce me to Madeline’s parents. They were a tired-looking, graying, sixtyish couple who looked like they hadn’t slept in days. “I’m Virgil Tucker,” I said. “And I’m deeply sorry this happened.”

The woman nodded and shook my hand then buried her face in her handkerchief and turned away.

Madeline’s father said a quiet, “Thank you for trying, Mr. Tucker,” that came close to breaking my heart.

“I’m going to do more than that. I plan to do my best to find out who was behind this.”

“Do you have any idea…?” he began, only to let his voice taper off.

There was no reason they shouldn’t know. “She witnessed a murder a few nights ago. I think she was killed to silence her.”

“Was it Henry DeMour’s killing, by any chance?”

I nodded.

He shook his head sadly. “I told her she was involved with the wrong sort of people when she first started seeing that Dunning boy. Young people don’t listen, do they?

Not knowing how to respond, I muttered something I hoped sounded decent and got away from them as gracefully as I could. Glancing around, I spotted the soprano headed for a small Ford coupe that was parked about fifty yards away. Moving swiftly, I caught up with her and gently took her arm. “Is your name Alma, by any chance?” I asked.

She stopped and turned and peered at me with guarded eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I’m Alma Copeland.”

“I’m Virgil Tucker. Is that name familiar to you?”

She was dressed in a pair of well-tailored wool slacks and a matching coat. Her hair, which had been bobbed at ear-bottom length, was combed simply to one side and she wore only a little pink lipstick. She paused a moment before she answered my question, then gave me a hesitant nod and whispered, “Yes.”

“Then you know I’m the man who was trying to help Madeline?”

Chameleon-like, her mood changed and she pulled away from me. “You obviously weren’t very good at it,” she spat and turned and began hurrying toward her car.

I caught up with her just as she was opening the door and pushed it gently shut with the heel of my hand. “No, I suppose I wasn’t,” I said. “But then it wasn’t really a paying job, now was it?”

“Oh, I’m sure you extracted enough from her to make it worth your while.”

I stared right into her eyes for a few seconds before I spoke, then I said gently, “Isn’t that just another way of saying your friend was promiscuous? Or that you knew she wasn’t above using her body to get what she wanted?”

Her mouth fell open in amazement. “Why, why…,” she sputtered. “How can you say such things about—”

“About the dead?” I asked, interrupting her. “That’s always puzzled me. That business of not speaking ill of the dead, I mean. If you say something bad about someone who’s alive it could conceivably hurt them. But criticism has never damaged a corpse that I know of.”

“You’re hateful,” she spat.

“And you’re being childish. If you’d think for a moment you’d realize that I didn’t have to help her in the first place. And if I didn’t care what happened to her, would I be standing out here in this drizzle right now?”

She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Then will you help me?”

“I don’t see how I can.”

“I just want to ask you a few questions.”

She stared off across the cemetery until I thought I’d lost her.

“Miss Copeland…”

She turned and gave me a curt little nod. “Let’s get in the car where it’s warm,” she said.

Once we were inside the Ford she cranked the engine and turned on the heater. “What do you want to know?”

“She told me there was a girl with her at the Snake Eyes the night Henry DeMour was killed. Was that you?”

She shook her head.

“Then who could it have been?”

“I don’t know. She never said.”

“But you do know about DeMour?”

She sighed a long sigh. “Yes, and I wish I’d never heard the man’s name.”

“Tell me about Madeline. What was she really like?”

“She was my best friend, and she was a nice girl. A little confused, maybe. Looking for love, like everybody. And looking for a good time.”

“Had you known her long?”

She nodded. “Since grade school.”

“Okay, then what about Nolan Dunning?”

“A bastard of the first order.”

“So you don’t like him?”

“No, I don’t, and I told Madeline he was worthless when they first started dating. But she was taken in by his looks.”

“I see,” I mused. “But she’d recently broken it off with him, hadn’t she?”

“Yeah. Say, do you have a cigarette?”

I pulled my Chesterfields from my coat and lighted us each one. “Thanks,” she said, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. “I’m trying to quit. My doctor thinks it’s bad for people.”

“He’s probably right,” I said. “But back to Dunning. She told me he was a real caveman. Tried every way in the world to get her back, including intimidation.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think he might have killed her?”

She shook her head. “I can’t see it. I really believe he was too nuts about her.”

I stared at her for a few moments. Something didn’t fit. Her voice was strained and the whole conversation seemed somehow awkward. Reluctant to meet my eyes, she kept looking off across the cemetery. Finally I said, “I had her safely lodged with some reliable people up near Palestine, but she bolted and took a bus to Huntsville. She was supposed to get a Greyhound connection there for Beaumont, but she never made it. Somebody must have picked her up at the bus station in Huntsville. You wouldn’t have any idea who that might have been, would you?”

She shook her head absently.

“Is there anything you can tell me that might help me?” I asked. “After all, she was your best friend. Please believe me when I say that I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“No, nothing,” she replied in a soft voice.

“After she broke up with Nolan, did she start seeing anybody else?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “She was a pretty girl, and I can’t see her being by herself for very long. I just thought that maybe—”

She shook her head. “Nobody.”

I watched her thoughtfully for a moment, convinced that she was lying on that one point at least. Maybe about other things as well. I felt like slapping the hell out of her. Instead, I took one of my cards from my pocket and wrote Jim Rutherford’s number on its back. “If you think of anything else,” I said, “either tomorrow or a month from now, please call. This man can get a message to me.”

“Okay,” she said in a bare whisper.

I opened the door and climbed from the car. Then I leaned down and looked at her once more. “Madeline didn’t tell me the whole truth,” I said. “And we both knew it at the time. I believe in my heart she would still be alive if she had. That’s something you should think about.”

She gave me a nod without meeting my eyes, and once I’d closed the door she put the car in gear and was gone. I stood and watched the little coupe as it made its way out of the cemetery, convinced that I was no nearer to the solution to the puzzle than I’d been when I first saw Madeline Kimbell in the barroom of the Weilbach hotel. I was wrong.