FIFTEEN

“My God,” I whispered. The lieutenant snapped his head up, barked an order for an ambulance into the phone, and headed for me. Too late to shut the door and pretend I hadn’t been there, so I stepped out onto the back stoop. “Who is it?” But I knew who it was even before I got too close. Spencer Kane. He wouldn’t be reporting—or photographing—anyone for a long time. If ever.

Lieutenant Hawthorne was all business, as usual. “Georgie, do you have some kind of corpse-dar? Go back inside.”

“Is he . . . dead?” My guts were twisted up and tears threatened to breach the banks of my eyes. Would the killing never end?

“The ambulance is on its way,” Lieutenant Hawthorne said. “But it doesn’t look good. Clive, take Georgie back inside. Don’t let anybody leave until my backup gets here to take names.”

During the next hour the normally subdued funeral home was abuzz with activity. Clive herded all the mourners into another room out of respect for Doreen. I made additional pots of coffee and refilled cookie trays until they were gone. The trooper made short work of taking names, and the funeral home emptied out pretty quickly.

I helped Clive clean up, since his wife was on the same leaf-peeping slash gambling trip Sophie was on, and then turned to Melanie, who was parked in a wingback chair and looking like a zombie. “You two will stay with me at the Bonaparte House tonight.”

Caitlyn looked like she was about to protest, but she clammed up when Melanie nodded. “Do you have room for us? I wouldn’t want to be any trouble.”

I stifled a snort. There’d been nothing but trouble since she’d come back into my life. “There are two extra bedrooms. And this way you’ll be in town early for the funeral tomorrow morning.”

“I think I feel a migraine coming on,” Melanie said. “Caitlyn, did you bring my medication?”

Caitlyn looked slightly affronted. “Of course. That’s my job.”

Migraine my foot. I gave Melanie a sharp look. “Don’t even think about trying to beg off tomorrow. You’re going to attend the funeral and the luncheon, and then you are going to give me some answers.” I was getting tired of saying that.

After we gave our statements to the police—extremely brief all around, since nobody had seen anything—we piled into my car and headed back to the Bonaparte House. I got Melanie and Caitlyn settled into Spiro’s and Cal’s rooms, respectively, each of them claiming they were going directly to bed. I went out the kitchen door.

It was a lovely night. I sat at the employee picnic table and looked up at the stars.

A shuffling noise sounded over by the Dumpster. Brenda came toward me.

“Hey, Brenda. Nothing here for you till the weekend.”

“I didn’t come for that. I came to see you.”

Me? “Sit down. Want a snack or something to drink?”

I was glad when she refused because it seemed like a very long walk back into the kitchen, even though it was only a few yards.

“The girl. She was at the funeral home tonight.”

“Caitlyn? Yes, she was there.”

Brenda zipped her hoodie up a little higher. “She was in the alley arguing with Spencer tonight.”

I rewound the evening in my mind. Caitlyn had disappeared at one point, for quite some time. But arguing with Spencer and bludgeoning him were two different matters.

“Did it get physical?”

“Not that I saw. Like I told the cops, I finished my rounds and came back later. The girl was sitting in your car, fiddling with her phone. While Spencer was bleeding out in the alley.”