Рита Браун - Tall Tail

Finally, the motorcade rolled down Monument Avenue as people lined the streets to say goodbye. Some knew him. Others remembered him from their youth, and for others, it was a good excuse to get out of work. A parade is a parade, even when the lead vehicle is a hearse. The overcast day could have been hotter, but it was hot enough.

Once out on I-64, cars pulled over as the police motorcycles preceded the funeral cortege. Some people honked their horns as a farewell. Most watched, and those who remembered his career felt the breath of time passing.

Two hours later, due to the slower pace, the line of vehicles had thinned out to twenty. The shiny black hearse pulled up to the graveyard. A tent placed by the open grave offered shade. Penny and her children and grandchildren sat under it. As childhood friends of Susan’s, Harry and Fair sat in the rear, along with some of Eddie’s old friends and Pauline’s. Oliver Wendell Holmes sat at Penny’s feet.

The graveyard service, the true Episcopal funeral service, was brief and dignified. It seemed a more-than-fitting goodbye to a war hero, a public servant, a man who made his mistakes in public, finally learning from them. Sam was a man who continued to serve, even out of office. Any historical group could depend on him. The Miller Center for Public Affairs benefited from his presence, as did the American Cancer Society, which he and Penny supported fully. Given the many eulogies spoken in Richmond, none were spoken here. The huge spray of lilac-tinged roses, Sam’s favorite flower, covered the walnut casket. Bound with gold and white ribbon, it was taken off and the casket lowered into the earth.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—”

A Navy honor guard fired volleys, and then, instead of taps, a bosun blew a ship’s whistle, which the governor had requested in his precise funeral instructions. He didn’t want eulogies, but given his status, there was no way to avoid that in Richmond.

Millicent Grimstead was on one side of her mother, Pauline Cunningham on the other; the three women walked slowly back to the house, where the parting reception would be held. Susan fell in behind her mother, as did Eddie, the spouses behind what Sam always called “my girls.” How alike they looked.

Harry had often noticed this, but it truly struck her at this moment.

When Harry’s parents were killed in an auto accident, she came home from Smith to find that Miranda Hogendobber had arranged everything. Susan had also come back from her own college to help. Millicent and Penny stepped in, too. Pauline had already moved out of state.

Looking around, Harry saw so many friends of Susan’s, from all over the country. As was the custom, in a time of crisis or sorrow your friends stand by you.

A TV camera rolled at a discreet distance. Sheriff Shaw, Cooper, and others on the force remained on the periphery. Other officers tended to traffic out on Garth Road.

Once inside the house, Harry found Mignon, a hat covering her bandaged head. The new part-time nurse, Rebecca Coleman, was also there. The place was bursting at the seams.

After an hour, Harry asked, “Susan, do you need anything?”

“No,” Susan replied. “It’s wonderful to see this tribute to G-Pop.”

“And G-Mom, too. People love your grandmother.”

“Harry, if only I knew why he went out to the Avenging Angel. It haunts me.”

“Don’t worry about that now.” Harry kissed her friend on the cheek. “We can think about it later. Do you think your mother or G-Mom need anything?”

“No. I thought Pauline’s tribute exactly what G-Pop would have liked, him throwing back the fish because she cried.”

“Yes. Even Eddie behaved,” Harry said.

“More or less. He did promise to carry on G-Pop’s legacy. He could have concentrated on G-Pop and not said a word about his sorry self.”

“Susan, there’s no such thing as a politician who cannot talk about himself. It’s a form of malaria—once bitten, it forever recurs.” She half smiled.

“I used to hate funerals. Now I understand it’s the respectful way to say goodbye.”

Harry agreed.

—

As Harry walked down the hall lined with ancestors she noted a grieving Wendell Holmes at the foot of the governor’s chair.

Walking in, she knelt down to pet the sad dog. “Wendell, you made him happy.”

“He was my poppy,” the springer spaniel moaned.

“You have to take care of Penny.”

“I will,” Wendell promised.

Harry stood up. The door connecting into Mignon’s tidy workspace was open. She heard rummaging. Going over and looking in, she saw a focused Mignon opening the long desk drawer, shifting papers inside.

“Mignon.”

The young woman, without looking up, said, “I’m remembering things. Ha! Got it.”

Mignon held up a thumb drive as Harry came over to her. “I put everything on this, including sensitive information which I didn’t put on the page. I wanted to talk it over with the governor.”

“Let’s get this to Cooper right away without calling attention to ourselves if we can.” The two women moved through the crowded rooms surreptitiously, until finally locating Cooper.

Mignon took the deputy’s hand, placing the thumb drive in it. “Found it. I remember I made it.”

Expression unchanged, Cooper slid her hand into her pocket. “Thanks. I hope this tells us what we need to know.”

—

Later that night, sitting on the sofa, cats around her, Tucker at her feet, Fair sitting across from her in the deep club chair, Harry said, “It was a good sendoff, wasn’t it?”

“Was. I expected more raking his political career over the coals in the media. I’m glad they didn’t. Nothing to be done about it now. It’s not like he was Governor George Wallace.”

“Governors have to deal with Washington’s messes, don’t they? I mean, if there are budget restraints, the federal tap is turned off, the states can’t print more money. The federal government can print whatever they want. Any Supreme Court decision, the states get it in the neck. No matter what that decision is, there are those for it and those against. To me the biggest difference between the president and a governor is the governor actually has to solve problems, has to look his constituents in the face. Presidents can add another layer of Secret Service people, plus the usual phalanx of flunkies.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but you’re not far off, I guess. But the president deals with foreign policy. If there’s a wing nut anywhere in the world, he or she deals with it. Well, some don’t, but then the next guy is stuck with an even bigger mess.”

“Maybe they’re all cowards. At least Governor Sam wasn’t a coward.”

“Honey, I know equine health. Politics, I don’t know anything anymore. It all seems crazy to me.”

“Crazy, I think that’s why I can’t settle myself. That man crawled out to the Avenging Angel, the last yards he crawled so he could sprawl over those two tombs. I think he was trying to tell us something.”

Fair wrinkled his brow. “I can’t imagine what.”

“There’s something in that cemetery. Why was his nurse Barbara killed? And Mignon hit over the head and her computer stolen? You know, well, you didn’t know, that Susan’s mother was taking the computer home at night. And why was Crozet Media broken into? Whatever it was, the governor figured it out.”

“Then why didn’t he just come out with it?”

“Maybe he didn’t know until it was too late. Whatever it was, someone else knew. Had to.”

“Never thought of that. What could be so dangerous? Fraud? Robbing state funds? Misconduct while in office, bribes, that sort of thing?”

“He may have been wrongheaded, but he wasn’t a crook. Samuel Holloway was an old-time politician, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, but he wasn’t a crook.”