A LINE OF DARK-CLAD people moved slowly up the sidewalk toward Duck Creek’s community center, site of Leslie Harper’s memorial.
Julia, who hadn’t been to such an event since her husband’s funeral, tamped down twin urges to run away and throw up on the spot. She motioned so many people ahead—legislators and lawyers, cops and social workers, curious strangers and even the county medical examiner—as she wrestled her memories into submission that the program had already started by the time she slipped through the door and found one of the few seats left in the back row.
As usual, she couldn’t see over the heads of everyone in front of her. But in this case, a wide screen on either side of the room broadcasted the proceedings, which launched with a brief laudatory speech by the governor.
Julia, so agitated moments earlier, very nearly smiled at the sight of his pinched features, the sourness curdling his tone as he delivered the mandatory praise of the woman who’d publicly termed him “the sort of man who would snatch a crust of bread from a starving orphan and feed it instead to his dog.”
The governor was a far-right Republican who’d succeeded years of Democrats in the job, and he’d promptly set to work vetoing the few bills that Harper had managed to get passed, along with any others that hinted at increases in social services in a state that routinely ranked near the bottom for such. “If he’d been the Tin Man and the Wizard had given him a heart, he’d have eaten it raw,” Harper had once said of him. Again, on the record.
Now he stood at a podium, his bald head and tiny twitching mustache glistening with sweat as he mouthed begrudging platitudes about Harper’s years of service and the deep regard she inspired among her fellow lawmakers—neglecting, of course, to mention that this affection had emanated only from Democrats. The Republicans, even the formerly moderate among them now marching in cowed lockstep with the governor, thought her the Antichrist—a favor she’d returned by calling them “the party that once had a spine.”
“Naturally, Representative Harper and I disagreed on a few things,” the governor said with his huckster’s grin, to chortles from some of those present and stone silence from the rest. He yielded the podium with an obvious mixture of relief and resentment to the previous governor, who spoke with such genuine warmth that the packets of Kleenex placed thoughtfully on each chair rustled as people extracted their contents.
“She knew what needed fixing in this state and was unafraid to call out those who stood in the way of our citizens’ needs,” he said, his glance flicking the man who’d defeated him in the last election. Rumors ran rampant that the two would face off again, this time with a U.S. Senate seat as a prize, and Julia took his remarks to be a warm-up of sorts for his pending stump speech.
Likewise with Li’l Pecker, who rose to tout Harper’s accomplishments and point out that the justice system reforms she sought would actually reduce crime—exactly the sort of thing a man planning to run for judge would say.
So it went as speaker after speaker rose, somber-faced legislators slyly scoring political points over a body not a week cold. Julia imagined Harper would arrive in her grave already spinning.
People began to fidget. Julia guessed she wasn’t the only one who found the predictable posturing tedious. A couple of sheriff’s deputies in the row in front of her stifled yawns. Another, the department’s lone woman, sat apart from them, blinking repeatedly as though trying to force back tears. Julie hoped she’d be successful. Being the only woman was bad enough, but crying would set the timetable for hiring the next woman back a good five years.
She shifted from side to side until she found an angle that gave her a view of Claudette, several rows ahead. She could tell by the set of Claudette’s jaw and the barely concealed quiver of her ramrod posture that she seethed with fury at the deepening pool of political pablum.
Julia wondered whether Claudette, too, would succumb to the opportunity to subtly remind people of the advantages of having a prosecutor who hewed to Leslie Harper’s vision. Or would she let loose with the tongue-lashing so clearly seeking release?
But Claudette sat still as carved marble when the legislative aide tasked with keeping things on track asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and people had begun to stir in their seats when a woman in the front row rose and spun on a pointy-toed pump to face the packed room.
Her ash-blond hair—the color that women of means adopted when they went gray—was pulled back in a true chignon, not the messy bun that Julia sometimes attempted, and she wore a black suit dress cut so expertly it managed to look both dignified and chic.
Julia assessed the hair, the clothing, the understated gold at her earlobes and wrists, and sized her up as Not From Around Here. Informality reigned in the mountain West, even in courtrooms, where lawyers got away with blazers rather than full suits and the best restaurants saw jeans as acceptable attire. The suits many people wore today had the hastily steamed appearance of being retrieved from the backs of closets. A faint odor of mothballs hung in the air.
“Ma’am.” The aide gestured toward the podium. She waved him off.
“I’m Leslie Harper’s sister,” she said, her voice cracking, but nonetheless strong enough that even Julia, squirreled away in the rear of the vast room, could hear. Julia half rose from her seat, trying to find a resemblance between this woman, so sleek and polished, and Harper, who’d settled into the aging hippie look favored by so many women in Duck Creek, her silver hair as long and flowing as her swirling skirts.
The woman lifted her chin and fixed a severe eye on those before her, and finally Julia saw the resemblance: just as Harper herself, this woman was accustomed to commanding attention.
“My sister hated injustice, as many of you have so boldly noted.”
Ouch. Even some of the Republicans had trotted out that line, although only the Democrats had continued with details.
“So let’s talk about the elephant in the room.”
Several people looked around, as though expecting to see an actual elephant, trunk high, testing the trepidation in the air. The aide cleared his throat and made a vague gesture, one that someone else might have interpreted as a hint to dial it down. Leslie Harper’s sister ramped it up.
“Let’s talk about the real injustice: the fact that my sister’s death is being portrayed as some kind of tragic accident. Let me be clear. My sister was focused on the future, her future, the people’s future. There have been suggestions—oh, yes, I’ve heard them—that she was discouraged by the change in administration, in this state’s priorities.”
The look she shot at the governor would have shriveled even a stronger man in his shorts.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. Leslie relished nothing so much as a good fight, and she saw this as the fight of her life. So why would she walk away from it? I leave you with that question. I hope to have an answer. Soon.”
And with that, she strode up the center aisle and through the double doors, letting them bang shut behind her.
The room buzzed with equal parts shock and outrage, along with a tinge of admiration. Julia wondered if everyone else had correctly interpreted the message that—to her ears—Harper’s sister had delivered as clearly as a clanging cathedral bell.
If Leslie Harper hadn’t died of an accidental overdose of pills and alcohol, if she hadn’t killed herself, then that left only one explanation:
She’d been murdered.