Клэр Донелли - Last Licks

“Leave off the roman numerals at the end,” the man boomed, “for heaven’s sake.”

“Chappie may look respectable, but he’s been known to pull some political skullduggery when it has to be done.” Mike grinned.

As introductions flew around her, Sunny lost the last names of the two women who accompanied Chappie. They seemed to be called Tavvie and Phoebe. Frankly, Sunny had trouble telling one from the other. Both had graying blond hair cut short, and both wore dark dresses with pearls.

Tavvie nodded toward the urn in the place of honor. “It was rather a surprise, Alfred doing that to his uncle.”

“Just a taste of where the old boy was going to,” Chappie joked.

“Perhaps it’s better than an open casket,” Phoebe said. “I’d spent the night half afraid that Gardner would suddenly jump up and shout, ‘Surprise!’”

Tavvie’s pale eyebrows rose on a face from where wrinkles had apparently been banished. “He could still come leaping in through the window. Gardner always had such a lamentable sense of humor.”

“He must have,” Phoebe murmured. “I understand he went out with you for a while.”

Tavvie’s pale blue eyes glinted with malice. “Before he ran around with you—and well before your divorce.”

Sunny noticed Helena following the byplay with interest. Luke just looked uncomfortable. Will had a faraway look, as if he appeared to be ignoring it all, but Sunny suspected he was paying more attention than it seemed.

Chappie continued to chat with Mike. “How did you come to know Gardner? He doesn’t seem like one of your sort—I mean, I don’t think Gardner ever voted in his life.”

“Would you believe music?” Mike told the story of the Cosmic Blade, omitting how the band broke up. “Gardner still had an interest in music, though. That’s how he met Luke here. He’s a music therapist at Bridgewater Hall.”

“Music therapist?” Chappie echoed.

“But he’s a real musician,” Mike went on enthusiastically. “I saw him play last night. You should have seen how he faced down the crowd at O’Dowd’s.”

“O’Dowd’s? Really?” Sunny could see that Chappie was trying to be polite, but it was also obvious that there was no point where his life and Luke’s even intersected.

Tavvie touched Chappie on the arm. “They’re about to start. I think we should find some seats.”

She was right on the mark. No sooner had the crowd started sitting down than the funereal flunkey led an elderly man in clerical clothing up to the lectern and introduced him.

“They got Bishop Sawyer,” Phoebe murmured. “Very impressive.” Perhaps, but from the flow of platitudes, Sunny quickly surmised that the churchman had probably never even met Gardner.

Next came Dr. Henry Reese, introduced as Gardner’s best friend. He was a bit more personal, telling some funny stories. But Reese mainly dwelt on the boyhood he and Gardner had shared. “Perhaps that’s what I think of when it comes to Gardner because to me he never aged. That might sound like a strange admission for a doctor who runs an old-age home, where all too often we bid farewell to an aged resident.” He looked over at the urn. “But with Gardner, somehow I never expected that to happen.”

The final speaker, representing the family, was Alfred Scatterwell, who came up to the lectern in a sober black suit . . . and with a glass in his hand. Apparently, he’d been fortifying himself at the bar.

“This could be interesting,” Chappie murmured.

Sunny silently agreed. That’s the problem with social lubricants—they can get very slippery.

Alfred looked over the assembled mourners, a sardonic smile on his face. “I suppose a good number of you came this evening to see if the old place had fallen down. Well, you can easily spot that we had to paint in here. Does that make this a whited sepulcher, Bishop?”

He turned to Dr. Reese. “And thank you, Hank, for the wonderful memories you shared. Personally, I wish you’d have talked about the road trip you and Uncle Gardner took after Yale. He always said it made a man of you.” Alfred smiled as he spoke, but Dr. Reese stiffened.

Alfred turned back to his audience. “And now it falls to me to say a few words about my uncle. Gardner Scatterwell was well traveled and well liked by all his acquaintances. As for his family, we knew him all too well. You’ve all heard stories. I, of all people, shouldn’t have to go into them. Instead, I’ll go back to something that Hank said, about how it seemed that Uncle Gardner never aged. Perhaps that’s because we saw him so rarely. He was always going, and now he’s gone.”

Alfred turned to the urn and raised his glass. “And so, we’ll drink your liquor and use your house, and I think you’d probably like that.” He shrugged. “And if you don’t, it’s too late now.”

He stepped away from the lectern as the crowd burst into muttering, and then he came back, gesturing toward the bar. “Feel free to accept some Scatterwell hospitality. After all, it’s what Uncle would have done.”

“Hmmmmm, quite an interesting performance,” Chappie said as the crowd began murmuring again.

Mike turned to the back of the room. “I notice it’s not stopping some people.”

Sunny glanced over her shoulder. The bar now had people lining up to wet their whistles.

“What did you expect, after what Gardner did with Alfred’s fiancée?” Phoebe sniffed.

“They found them right upstairs, in the guest bedroom,” Tavvie said. “She had to leave town.” She gave a low laugh. “And, of course, so did Gardner.”

They rose from their seats, and stood in a small group with Mike, Helena, Will, and Luke. “Do you want to go?” Sunny asked.

“It’s a terrible thing to admit”—Helena at least had the grace to look embarrassed—“but I’d like to hear some more stories.”

So they circulated through the crowd, getting an earful of Scatterwell scandals, all of them starring Gardner.

And then they found themselves facing Alfred.

“What are you doing here?” he asked loudly with a slight slur to his voice. The conversations around them grew quiet as people turned.

Mike wasn’t about to take that comment lying down. “I knew your uncle before you were born.”

“Oh, yes, the townie boy playing in that half-assed band,” Alfred said. “Did practicing in Piney Brook get you a better class of groupie?”

He peered at Helena. “Now, back in the day, Uncle might have been interested in you.” He rounded on Sunny and Will. “And the gallant investigators. Have you found out the obvious yet? Besides being dead, my uncle is gone.” He laughed. “In a puff of smoke.”

And you’re stinking drunk, Sunny thought. Not that you’ll regret anything when you’re sober.

Alfred then looked Luke up and down with such scorn that the guitarist’s face, already flushed from the heat, went a bright red. “And what are you doing in my uncle’s house?”

But in spite of the heat, the shaggy hair, the mismatched clothes, Luke had a certain dignity as he said, “Gardner was my friend.”

But Alfred wouldn’t have any of that. He gestured with his drink, sloshing some on the carpet. “My uncle could be pleasant, genial, what you might call friendly. Why wouldn’t he be? You were giving him what he wanted for free. But most of the people in this family—in this room—knew how he could get if he wanted something you didn’t want to give. And I’ll tell you this. He was no friend, no uncle . . . not much of a human being.”

15

For a second,Sunny thought that Luke Daconto was going to grab Alfred Scatterwell and break his storklike, potbellied body over his knee. Instead, Luke turned on his heel and strode off.