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THE DAY OF Stu Ruskin’s funeral was one of dazzling sunshine and above-average temperatures for mid-May, in stark contrast to the dismal proceedings at Whispering Willows Cemetery. I was able to dispense with a coat over my customary funeral attire of gray skirt suit, white blouse, black pumps, and faux pearls.
Stu’s younger brother and executor, Gilbert, had chosen to commemorate his only sibling’s passing with an abbreviated graveside service. No viewing, no church or funeral-home service, no post-funeral reception, no flowers, no clergy, no hymns, not even a eulogy. Gilbert himself officiated, with an assist from his sour-faced wife, Darla.
Obviously, the parsimonious Gilbert Ruskin never considered wasting money on a professional Death Diva to coordinate that which required little coordination. I was attending as a civilian. The more I learned about Stu, the more intrigued I became—the most intriguing question, of course, being how he’d ended up in the Gabbling Goose’s backyard hot tub with a ventilated cranium. I thought perhaps his funeral would give me a little insight into Stu Ruskin the man.
Dozens of looky-loos were on hand, people who’d never met the deceased and were motivated strictly by morbid curiosity. These vultures jostled for position near the open grave, straining for a glimpse of the cheap casket Gilbert had selected for his brother: fiberboard covered in blue cloth.
And lest you think that was a criticism, let me assure you there’s nothing wrong with cheap caskets. I myself happen to be a fan of them and am gratified on the rare occasion when a client chooses the proverbial plain pine box over thousands of dollars’ worth of mahogany or bronze. Over the years I’ve turned down several under-the-table payoffs from funeral directors trying to get me to coerce my grieving clients into spending far more dough than they needed to. Those establishments get blacklisted.
My attitude regarding funeral spending clearly puts me in the minority in this affluent town, which is home to more than its fair share of snooty, judgmental people. I stood on the outer edges of the crowd, barely able to hear Gilbert’s rushed rendition of the Twenty-Third Psalm over all the snickers and sarcastic whispers.
We were in the newest and least desirable section of the cemetery, far from the entrance and nowhere near the coveted (and pricey) historical precinct where Crystal Harbor’s founding family and assorted local luminaries had been laid to rest, including several of Stu Ruskin’s ancestors. No gentle hills or shade trees broke up the monotony of this low-rent subdivision, where even the grave markers were required to be flush with the ground.
Stu had not died destitute. As I understood it, his business as a cookie rep had been thriving even before he chose to augment his legitimate earnings with the sale of a purloined recipe. There’d been more than enough money for a traditional funeral, with plenty left over for Gilbert, his sole heir. Apparently Stu had two grown children from an early marriage, but had been estranged from them for years. They must really have despised their father to boycott his funeral.
I could only assume Stu’s brother held the same low opinion of him—with good reason, as I’d learned—and saw no reason to waste money on the bells and whistles that accompanied most funerals in this town.
“Did you know him?”
It was my ex-husband, Dom Faso, coming to stand beside me. He looked painfully handsome in a dark-blue suit that caressed his six-two frame as if it had been sewn right onto him. Which it kinda had been, considering that almost all of Dom’s clothing is custom-made. Yeah, he’s rich, as in filthy, stinking rich, thanks to his successful chain of Janey’s Place vegetarian cafés.
Right about now you’re guessing he chose the name of his business before our divorce eighteen years ago. How clever of you. As for your other question: I am not, nor have I ever been, a vegetarian. Dom, however, has shunned animal flesh since before we met in Mr. Bender’s eighth-grade Spanish class. For the longest time he held out hope I’d come to my senses and turn veggie. But, I mean, bacon.
Janey’s Place started out as a lone food truck way back when. There were now more than thirty locations in the Northeast, and I happened to know Dom was casting his gaze toward the West Coast. Both the flagship store and corporate headquarters were located right there in Crystal Harbor.
I took his arm and steered him some distance from the crowd as Gilbert stumbled in his reading, so intent on reaching the end of the psalm that he skipped an entire verse and had to backtrack. You need to preparest that table, Gilbert. That cup’s not gonna runneth over by itself.
Well, of course I know the Twenty-Third Psalm by heart. Look who you’re talking to.
I answered Dom’s question. “I never met Stu, but I’ve been chatting with people who did, and it’s made me want to know more. What about you? Did you know him?”
Dom nodded. Both his thick, wavy hair and his eyes were a deep, dark brown that never failed to remind me of espresso. “Every time our paths crossed,” he said, “Stu treated me to the hard sell. He wanted Janey’s Place to carry some of the lines he repped.”
“What, you mean cookies and pastries?” I asked. “In a health-food café?”
He shrugged. “He was a salesman, and I have thirty-four stores. I guess he figured if he could get one item in to start, we might eventually become a lucrative account. I respected his efforts, but it just wasn’t for us.”
I looked toward Stu’s gravesite, where Gilbert had blessedly finished butchering the psalm. His wife, Darla, had commenced reciting a stern Old Testament passage, in a loud, shrill voice. When she got to the part about stealing and lying, she became even louder and shriller. Honey, I wanted to tell her, you can holler all you want, but your brother-in-law is past the point of redemption. Likewise, I was fairly certain her hectoring was wasted on the assembled vultures.
I said, “What do you think of this scaled-back funeral?”
“If it serves the family’s emotional and spiritual needs, it’s not up to me to judge,” said Dom, the nicest guy in the world. “This is for them, Janey. They’re the ones who are grieving.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Are they, though? I get the feeling Gilbert and his wife think Stu got what was coming to him.”
“You can never know what’s in someone else’s heart.” He glanced around as if to ensure our conversation was private.
“But...?” I prompted. “Come on, Dom. Spill.”
He lowered his voice. “What I heard is that Gilbert was looking into other options. Before he read Stu’s will.”
“Other options? What do you...? Oh.” Death Diva Jane understood what options meant when it came to the disposal of human remains. Death Diva Jane had seen it all. “So he was looking into cremation? Obviously Gilbert wanted to keep costs down, and cremation is a fine, economical alternative.”
“I don’t have to tell you what’s even more economical, Janey.”
“Ah. Well, medical science needs bodies, Dom. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve facilitated quite a few anatomical bequests.” At no charge to the family, I might add. “But Stu had other ideas? You mentioned his will.”
“He specified that he was to be buried in this cemetery, following a funeral. I’m assuming he had a more elaborate service in mind.”
“And he couldn’t have anticipated all these curiosity seekers.” I peered into the crowd. “Is that Nina?”
Dom followed the direction of my gaze. “It is indeed. Are you surprised?”
“Can’t say I am, no.”
Pretty, petite Nina Wallace was one of those snooty, gossipy types I mentioned, but she was oh, so much more. A ruthless, entitled backstabber, she’d employed every dirty trick in the book to beat Sophie in the recent mayoral election. Thankfully, the Town Council caught on, overturned Nina’s sham victory, and reinstated Sophie for another three-year term. As I watched, Nina bent her head to the woman standing next to her, the pair of them making little effort to stifle their giggles.
I continued to scan the crowd and spied a few more people I knew. A gray-haired man detached himself from the cluster of so-called mourners and headed toward the exit.
Dom was watching me watch him. “He looks familiar,” he said. “I think I’ve seen him around town. Do you know him?”
I nodded. “That’s Ty Collingwood. He owns The Gabbling Goose. I’m surprised to see him here. He and Stu Ruskin weren’t what you’d call best buds.”
“Speaking of the B&B, I heard you were the one who found Stu’s body.” He placed a big, comforting hand on my back and leaned in close. “How are you dealing with that, Janey? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I mean, it was a shock when it happened, of course, but it’s not like I’ve never seen a dead body before.”
“Yeah, but a violent death like that is different.” After a moment, he added, “So, what were you doing at The Gabbling Goose? Was Collingwood looking to hire you for some Death Diva thing?”
I could always tell when my ex was making an effort to sound casual. Plus he was nibbling his bottom lip, a lifelong tell that meant he wasn’t being completely upfront. He was worried that I’d been at the B&B for some purpose that had nothing to do with my Death Diva business and everything to do with Martin McAuliffe.
I had zero intention of confirming his suspicions. For one thing, it was simply none of his business. But mostly, I had no desire to cause Dom pain. A few weeks earlier he’d declared his love for me, along with a bone-deep need to marry me again and give me the babies we should have had long ago. He’d been working hard to woo me ever since, though with no encouragement on my part.
And yeah, I know that after all those frustrating post-divorce years of watching Dom commit himself to a string of other women, and become a father three times over, I didn’t owe him a darn thing. But I also didn’t need to rub his nose in my newly resurrected love life. If indeed it was resurrected. The jury was still out.
I scanned the crowd as I attempted to change the subject. “Ty has no use for my services, as far as I can tell, except perhaps—get this!—to help exorcise the inn’s resident ghost.”
Which was Dom’s cue to say, Ghost? What’s all this about a ghost? Instead he said, “Then what were you doing at The Gabbling—”
“Is that Howie?” I said. The tall, dark-skinned man striding on the fringes of the crowd had his back to me, but I’d been friends with Detective Howie Werker long enough to recognize him just from his walk. “It is Howie. Which means Cookie’s probably around here somewhere.”
“What reason would the detectives have to work the funeral of a suicide victim?” he asked. “Howie was probably friends with Stu. That’s why he’s here.”
“You knew Stu,” I said. “Can you picture him and Howie tossing back a couple of cold ones at Murray’s Pub?”
Dom tipped his head in a way that said he was forced to agree.
The crowd showed signs of restlessness as Darla flipped pages in her bookmarked Bible, finding one dire passage after another with which to condemn her deceased brother-in-law to the everlasting torment of the damned.
“There she is.” I pointed to the other side of the throng, where Detective Cookie Kaplan ambled in our direction while scrutinizing the crowd, her sharp gaze moving from face to face. “Does that look like someone just paying her final respects?” I asked.
He frowned. “I thought they decided it was suicide.”
“That was the initial assumption, but there are some lingering questions.”
He stared at me. “How do you always manage to get in the middle of stuff like this?”
“Who says I’m in the middle of anything? Sh! She’s coming this way.”
“Funny running into you here, Jane,” Cookie said as she joined us. Her curly brown hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She wore burgundy-framed eyeglasses and funky earrings made from an old animal-cracker tin. “You told us you didn’t know Stu.”
“If you’re going to arrest everyone who showed up out of curiosity, I don’t think you brought enough handcuffs.” I didn’t want her thinking I was one of the tittering vultures, so I added, “And for the record, Stu and I had mutual acquaintances. So I almost kinda knew him.”
I didn’t notice Howie sneak up behind me until he said, “Who are these mutual acquaintances?” He and Dom nodded hello.
Oh brother. “Have I ever told you I hate it when you go all cop on me, Howie?”
He gave me a scary-looking scowl. “Are you going to answer the question or do I have to take you downtown and beat it out of you with a rubber hose?”
“Not fair,” Cookie said. “It’s my turn to beat it out of her with a rubber hose.”
“Sounds kinky,” Dom said. “Can I watch?”
I said, “I’ve been to your cop shop, Howie. There’s nothing ‘downtown’ about it. But just to humor you, I’ll answer your question. The mutual acquaintances are Ty Collingwood and Georgia Chen. Ty was here earlier, but Georgia’s a no-show.”
“Her ex is here, though.” Cookie tossed her hand toward the crowd. “Henry Noyer.”
I brightened. “Really? What does he look like?”
Howie glowered at his partner. “We’ve talked about this, Cookie. We do not give information to Jane Delaney. Jane Delaney is going to get herself killed one of these days sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.” He turned to Dom. “You have anything to add to that?”
“Nope,” Dom said. “I think you covered it.”
I smacked Howie’s shoulder. “Listen to you, you big kidder. As if I don’t share useful information with you when I have it. What we have here is a symbiotic relationship.” I made a back-and-forth gesture. “Give and take. You scratch my back, I scratch—”
“I forbid you to involve yourself in this case.” Howie crossed his arms. “Is that clear?”
“Oh yeah,” Dom drawled, “that’ll work.”
“I mean it, Jane,” Howie said. “Leave the snooping to—”
“So you’re thinking it’s murder, right?” I said. “You’re talking about this case as if it’s a, well, a case. As in homicide, not suicide.”
Cookie chuckled. Howie turned to Dom. “Do you have any influence with her?”
My ex gave me the kind of slow, sensual smile that used to turn my innards to pudding. And okay, so it kinda still worked, despite my best efforts to resist. “Janey’s always been her own woman,” he said. “That’s one of the things I love about her.”
My heart stuttered. It was one thing for my ex to use the L word when it was just the two of us, but a more or less public statement like this was... well, I didn’t know what it was.
Yes, I did. It was confusing. I mean, I was officially over Dom. This was an established, unambiguous fact that required no further reflection. It certainly didn’t require the warmth I felt creeping into my cheeks, or the difficulty I was having constructing a coherent thought.
What were we talking about again?
The crowd was beginning to thin out as Darla Ruskin continued browbeating everyone within hearing. I almost envied the guy in the econocasket, who was beyond his sister-in-law’s biblical scolding. To my knowledge, Stu had never stolen an ox or a sheep, but if it turned out he had, her audience now knew the appropriate punishment.
I turned to Cookie, who was always more appreciative than her partner of that give-and-take thing I mentioned. “You do think it was murder, don’t you?”
She preempted Howie’s objection with an I’ve got this gesture. “We’re still investigating, Jane. Standard procedure in situations like this.”
“Did the gun belong to Stu?” I asked.
Howie surprised me by answering for her. “Yes. It was legally registered. So if you’ve convinced yourself it was homicide, you can see it’s not so cut-and-dried.”
“Did he buy the gun while Martin was still his bodyguard,” I asked, “or after?”
This was news to Dom, I could tell. His imagination started filling in the blanks, and not in a good way. He said, “McAuliffe was mixed up with that thief Stu Ruskin? Why am I not surprised?”
Cookie seemed to know where I was going with my question. “Stu bought the gun five months ago, shortly after Martin quit.”
“And did he hire another bodyguard to replace the padre?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Five months seems like a long time to work up the nerve to kill yourself,” I said. “So either he wasn’t in any particular hurry to get the job done, or he bought the gun for self-protection, once he found himself without a bodyguard.”
Cookie and her partner exchanged a look. It was clear they’d already had this discussion.
“There’s something else that’s probably already occurred to you,” I said, “but let me throw it out there anyway. Do you guys consider it at all strange for someone to use a silencer when committing suicide? Especially when the person has got to know his body will be sitting outside all night if no one hears the gunshot. Exposed to, you know, the elements.” Some of which possessed fangs and hearty appetites.
“It depends,” Howie said. “That’s one of those seeming inconsistencies we seasoned detectives are accustomed to dealing with.”
That “seasoned detective” thing was a running gag between us, usually deployed whenever I got too nosy. I wasn’t about to bring up the other inconsistencies, the ones Sophie had learned from Dr. Temple, the medical examiner. They were told to me in confidence, and Howie wouldn’t be too pleased knowing that the results of Stu’s autopsy were being dissected, so to speak, over quiche and a fancy grilled cheese.
I asked, “Did you find fingerprints on the gun?”
Howie raised both palms. “That’s enough, Jane. My patience is—”
“Did he leave a suicide note?” I asked. “He didn’t, did he, or you wouldn’t be working it as a potential homicide. Which we all know you are, so spare me.”
“Since you’ve answered your own question,” Howie said, “I won’t bother responding, except to remind you that suicide notes can be faked. You going to trivia Wednesday?”
Murray’s Pub held a trivia contest every Wednesday night. Sophie and I were semi-regulars, and so were the detectives. Dom, however, had no particular fondness for trivia. Plus, Martin would be behind the bar. Speaking of things Dom had no particular fondness for.
“I’ll be there,” I said, “unless something comes up. You guys want to partner with me and the mayor?”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll get there early and grab a table.”
Cookie tapped her partner’s arm and nodded toward the gravesite, where only a handful of people lingered—actual friends and relatives of the dearly departed? I supposed it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Gilbert had managed to pry his wife’s dog-eared Bible out of her hands and was clearly preparing to hightail it out of there.
“We need to have a word with the brother,” Cookie said. “See you Wednesday, Jane. I’ll come up with a good team name.”
I chose our team name last time: A Mayor, a Death Diva, and Two Cops Walk Into a Bar.
Dom watched them walk away, then said, “I have to go, too, Janey. I have a meeting.” He leaned down and kissed me on the lips before I could do anything about it. Because, you know, I would’ve stopped him, but I guess he was too quick. Or something.
Oh, don’t start. You’d be conflicted, too. Don’t deny it.
“Listen. Before you leave.” I squinted toward the people ambling away from the open grave. “I have no idea whether Henry Noyer is still here. Have you met him? Do you know what he looks like?”
“Why do you want to talk to him?” Dom’s dark eyebrows pulled together.
“Who said I want to talk to him? Maybe I just want to see what he looks like. I mean, I’ve heard so much about him.”
The look he gave me reminded me he can read my mind. “I don’t know what the guy looks like, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Howie’s right. Leave this mess alone.” He checked his watch—some hideously expensive Swiss thing—then pointed a stern finger at me. “You hear me, Janey?”
I laughed. He shook his head in exasperation and walked away. I watched him stride toward the cemetery’s gate, all masculine grace and self-assurance. That self-assurance extended to his relationship with me, though not obnoxiously so. While he seemed confident we’d end up together, he didn’t take it for granted.
Dom had asked me out on several romantic dates, all of which I’d politely turned down. He continued to invite me to family events, most recently Easter dinner and his mom’s birthday party. I couldn’t exactly say no to those since I’d always attended in the past. And the fact was, I liked his kids and his parents. I even liked his other two ex-wives, Svetlana and Meryl. Yeah, I’m gonna say it. Dom has good taste in wives.
He’d invited himself over a few times to watch movies we both loved, or to binge-watch a favorite TV show, always bringing wine or beer and delicious homemade snacks. Well, that’s not exactly a date, is it? The snacks, by the way, were of both the vegetarian and meaty persuasions. That alone should tell you how serious he was.
And lately he’d been showing up at places where he knew, or just guessed, I’d be. Didn’t it strike you as odd that he’d taken time out of his busy workday to attend the funeral of a cookie rep he’d probably met a handful of times? One he himself had described as “that thief”? Dom knew me. He knew I wouldn’t be able to resist checking out Stu’s funeral, unrepentant snoop that I am.
He was waging an impassioned battle to win me back, and I’d be lying if I claimed I was immune to it. If nothing else, it was intensely flattering, especially after all those lonely years I’d pined for him. It didn’t mean I was going to acquiesce now, when I was finally over him.
Which I was. I was definitely over him.
I looked toward the gravesite and saw the detectives talking with Gilbert and Darla. The last few funeralgoers were wandering away. The show was over, having provided ample material for Crystal Harbor’s gluttonous gossipmongers.
As I headed for the nearest walkway, my path began to converge with that of a man dressed too casually for a funeral, in my humble opinion. And okay, so my opinion isn’t all that humble. Guilty as charged. I mean, would it have killed this guy to throw on a sport coat over his T-shirt, or at least swap it out for a shirt with buttons and no logo? He was there to pay his respects to a deceased individual, after all, not to mow the grass. And a ball cap? Really? Harrumph harrumph.
In the next instant I gave thanks to Saint Flipflops, patron saint of inappropriate funeral attire. The man was about fifteen feet away when the yellow design on his navy-blue tee finally registered: the words The Cranky Crumb, complete with a whimsical cartoon image of a cookie wearing a suitably irascible expression and shedding crumbs. His navy ball cap sported a smaller version of the same logo.
The man himself appeared to be in a pleasant enough mood. He was of medium height, with a slim build and heavy-lidded dark-blue eyes, now directed at the walkway we were both headed toward. He had not noticed me noticing him.
“Henry!” I called.
He halted and looked around, his amiable expression turning suspicious as I jogged up to him. “Do I know you?” His voice was pleasingly raspy.
I extended my hand and held it there, more or less forcing him to shake it. “I’m Jane Delaney. I was hoping to run into you here.”
“Sorry, I’m not talking to the press.” He walked swiftly away, making it difficult to keep up with him. But keep up, I did.
“I’m not the press,” I said. “You might’ve heard of me? Folks around here call me the Death Diva.” What the heck. My weird moniker had been known to open doors before. Or at least intrigue people long enough to make them hear me out.
Henry frowned as his pace slowed. “Yeah, I heard of you. Can’t remember where.”
“Maybe Georgia mentioned me. Your wife and I kind of had lunch together yesterday.”
He stopped walking and faced me. “Ex-wife. And she didn’t mention you because the two of us don’t sit around chatting about how our day went. We don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary. What do you want?”
“I just...” What did I want from Henry Noyer? I opted for honesty. “I know what Stu Ruskin did to you, to you and Georgia. The more I learn about him, the more questions I have. Frankly, I find it hard to believe he committed suicide.”
“What’s your stake in this?”
“My stake?”
“Were you and Ruskin friends?” he asked. “Lovers?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I said. “I didn’t know him.”
He treated me to a disdainful once-over. “So you’re just another rubbernecker fishing for gory details you can impress your friends with over wine spritzers at Murray’s Pub. You should be ashamed.”
As Henry started to leave, I blurted, “I’m the one who found him. In the hot tub.”
Slowly he turned to face me. “I remember now. That’s where I heard your name. Your nickname. Someone told me it was you that found him.”
“Yeah, well, the whole town’s talking about it.” My tone did not convey pleasure, and I sensed I’d passed some test, judging by the softening of his expression.
Henry stared off into the distance for a while. Finally he said, “Come on,” and led me across the walkway to the cemetery’s ritzier neighborhood, marked by rolling hills, elegant plantings, and feathery weeping willow trees, already in leaf. Not to mention a profusion of upright granite. We sat on a stone bench under one of the trees.
He said, “So you don’t think Ruskin ate his gun.”
“The jury’s still out,” I said, “but there are too many unanswered questions to just assume it was suicide.”
“What kind of questions?”
I hesitated, wondering how much to reveal. Not the autopsy stuff, certainly, but I knew I wasn’t the only one wondering about the silencer and the fact that Stu Ruskin had employed a bodyguard—for a few months, anyway. I shared those details with Henry, who seemed to give them some thought. He struck me as a sober, contemplative person, unlike his ex-wife, Georgia, with her hot-and-cold-running emotions. Well, don’t they say opposites attract?
That thought brought to mind the padre and our kinda sorta relationship. I hoped he and I weren’t too opposite. At least when it came to questions of ethics, morals, and criminal tendencies.
“I didn’t know his gun had a silencer,” he said. “I did know about the bodyguard. Ruskin always was a pretentious jerk.”
“So you don’t believe his life was in danger?” I asked.
“I know he said it was. He claimed someone tried to kill him. That’s what Georgia told me. If you ask me, it was BS.”
“So you and Georgia were still talking after she left you?” I asked.
He looked at me as if trying to decide how much of a blabbermouth I was.
“Anything we discuss stays between us,” I said. “It’s part of the Death Diva code of honor.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “Are we doing Death Diva business here?”
I smiled, too. “I can invoice you if you like. It’s ingrained in me, the confidentiality thing. My lips are sealed.” Unless I learned something of an illegal nature, in which case they’d get unsealed faster than I can say, I’m not a priest or a lawyer, so next time keep your big yap shut.
He sighed. “Georgia never slipped around or lied to me. That’s not her style. Once she became involved with Ruskin, she came right out and told me. As gently as she could, but still. It was the worst day of my life.”
I recalled Martin telling me how badly Henry wanted her back. At first. “Had she ever done that before?” I asked. “Um...”
“Been unfaithful?” He shook his head. “Never. Me neither. We were married for twelve years. And they were good years.”
I thought about Stu Ruskin, about everything I’d learned about him. “How does a man like that manage to...?” I shook my head.
He watched me trying to make sense of it. “Steal a woman like Georgia?”
Or any previously faithful wife, I thought. Obviously Henry still considered his ex to be pretty special. The admiration was mutual. Just yesterday, Georgia had called Henry her “dreamboat.” Clearly an eye-of-the-beholder thing.
“You never met the guy,” he said. “He could be... well, I guess the most accurate term is ‘charismatic.’ Especially when it came to women, but it didn’t hurt his business either.”
A charismatic salesman. Yeah, I could see how charisma might be a valuable personality trait for someone in that line of work.
I said, “So he had some kind of special hold over Georgia. Until she found out what he’d done.” After a moment I added, “You thought she was in on it. Selling your trade secret to Conti-Meeker.”
“That’s what Ruskin told me at the time.” He stared into the distance.
“But now you know she had nothing to do with it,” I said.
“How could she have been so careless?” It was the most animated I’d seen him, his face flushed, his features hard.
“But she didn’t know he was—”
“She should have!” he said. “They were together for months. How could she not have figured it out by then?”
What could I say to that? I sensed Henry struggling to rein in his emotions. He took a deep breath, yanked off his ball cap, and ran his fingers through his brown hair, which appeared in need of a trim.
He sounded subdued, almost defeated, when he said, “I was devastated when Georgia left. It almost killed me. I would’ve taken her back. For the longest time, I kept waiting for her to come to her senses, to see that bastard for what he truly was. She wouldn’t listen to me. Georgia... she tends to see only the good in everyone.” He grimaced. “Until it’s too late.”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed activity at Stu’s gravesite. Gilbert and Darla had left, and cemetery employees had begun to close the grave.
“Your turn. Why did you come here today?” I indicated Henry’s Cranky Crumb T-shirt and cap. “To make some kind of statement? I hate to tell you, but the creep in the casket is past caring.”
He glanced down at his shirt. “I have a bunch of these. They’re all that’s left of a bakery I owned for sixteen years. Started it when I was just twenty-six. A kid. I put everything I had into that business.”
“What about Georgia?” I said.
“What about her?”
“Did she put everything she had into it?” I asked. “While you two were together?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, she did.”
“So why did you come here today?” I asked.
“I could say it was to make sure he was dead, but without being able to peek inside the box...” He shrugged. “Did anyone bother to drive a stake through his heart?”
“Take my word for it,” I said. “Stu Ruskin is no more.”
“That’s right.” He looked at me. “You saw him. After.”
“Just one more thing that can be counted on to jolt me awake in the middle of the night,” I said.
“I saw you talking to those cops,” he said. “The tall Black dude and that woman with the glasses and curly hair.”
“Howie Werker and Cookie Kaplan,” I said. “How do you know they’re police detectives?”
He gave me a look that said, You’re kidding, right? “They weren’t exactly trying to blend in.”
“Maybe they were being deliberately conspicuous,” I said. “Hoping someone would approach them with information.”
“So, what do your cop friends think about Ruskin’s so-called suicide?” he asked.
“The official line? Too early to tell. They’re still investigating.”
“And unofficially?” he said. “You must’ve gotten a sense of which way they’re leaning.”
The detectives’ very presence at the funeral told me which way they were leaning, but I was uncomfortable having this conversation with a near stranger—one who had every reason to despise the deceased. “Not really,” I said. “We’ll just have to wait.”
Henry’s expression told me I wasn’t fooling him, but all he said was, “When they find out who did it, I hope I get a chance to shake his hand.”