Randy White - Deceived

As I drove toward the cemetery, anything was better than thinking about the funeral, which I dreaded, so recent conversations pinged around in my head, vying for attention: Joel Ransler discussing Brenita and commenting on what Mica had said, telling me, With few exceptions, there’s no statute of limitations on federal income tax evasion.

Same as murder. Joel didn’t say it, but I knew it was true because of our conversation on the dock where Dwight Helms had died.

Loretta’s voice, and her odd behavior, soon displaced Joel. She had sounded nervous on the phone earlier that morning, telling me, The girls and me are taking the courtesy bus, so no reason for you to come to the services, sugar. Or even the cemetery. A woman’s not dead until her last friend is buried, so Pinky’s doing just fine.

Strange. My demanding mother had excused me from an obligation-something she’d never done before. Clearly, she didn’t want me at the funeral, and I shuffled through possible reasons but came up with only one: someone she didn’t want me to see or meet might be there.

Crystal possibly? More likely Crystal and Mica. Loretta had to have known they were out of prison, yet she hadn’t said a word to me.

Something else very odd was the comforting way she had said, A woman’s not dead until her last friend is buried, so Pinky’s doing just fine. What did that mean? Even before her stroke, my mother had chastened me with cryptic remarks, then reveled in my confusion, but now it was impossible to separate nonsense from wisdom, let alone an utterance that had the ring of divine insight.

On the other hand, maybe Loretta was just being sneaky again and laying a false trail.

I was thinking, Maybe it’s true what Mica said. Loretta really was involved with pot hauling… on the sales end, possibly. Y es… selling the stuff because she hates boats, and no one in their right mind would trust Loretta to drive a truck loaded with weed .

But then I reminded myself that Loretta wouldn’t have had to depend on her secret lover for a nice car and clothes if she’d had money. Arnie, she had called him.

I was mulling that over when something new shot into my mind: the oddity of Birdy Tupplemeyer saying, When I go back there… if I find even a shard of bone.

Why had she said I , not we ?

Then I remembered her telling me she wasn’t staying at Dinkin’s Bay late enough to see me when I came to meet the dog. She hadn’t explained why, but I now knew the reason… suspected anyway.

Immediately, I grabbed my cell and called. I got her voice mail and left a message. “Don’t you dare go back there tonight alone,” I said. “Call me as soon as you get this.”

I hung up and tried Tomlinson’s cell, which went immediately to his new voice mail recording: I know why you’re calling and your suspicions are correct. A message would only murk matters… BEEP!

Talk about cryptic! I was so taken aback, I stumbled and stammered but finally said, “Have Birdy call me, don’t let her do anything stupid,” which sounded nonsensical, but that was okay because it was Tomlinson.

From the parking lot of Kirby Funeral Home, I tried Birdy’s number one more time, then turned off my phone and went inside.

THE TWO DOZEN PEOPLEwho had attended services for Rosanna Helms were now reassembling at the cemetery, a modern place designed to accommodate lawn mowers rather than celebrate the dead who lay beneath plaques that didn’t exceed the height of the grass.

Dwight Helms was there, and I was careful to step over him before taking my place next to Loretta and her three bingo-playing friends. The ladies were dressed in their finest black and wore hats with lace veils. They had been whispering back and forth until I appeared, then went silent but for their sniffing. Loretta, however, was cried out and had no trouble saying to me, “This place is nothing but a strip mall for undertakers. Bury me here, I’ll come back and haunt you.”

She wasn’t trying to lighten the mood, my mother was serious. To prove it, she lifted her veil and shook her head at the indignity being forced upon Rosanna Helms. Her best friend’s coffin was elevated beneath a blue awning, fresh flowers around it that would soon be replaced by plastic-cemetery rules.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re too ornery to die, and I wouldn’t come back here if you did.” Then I asked a question I couldn’t ask during the service: “Who’s that man?”

Loretta knew exactly who I meant: a tall man with wide shoulders who appeared to be in his eighties but still had a sheen of silver hair combed slick and wore a gray suit that was tailored to fit, a quarter inch of white sleeves showing and a blue hankie. Her veil couldn’t hide the fact that she had traded looks with him more than once during the service. Now he was staring at her again… or at me, although that was unlikely.

“What man?” Loretta asked, then shushed me when I tried to answer, saying, “The preacher’s ready, no talking, dear.”

I stepped back and let my mother have her way. Watched her and her best friends join hands: Epsey Hendry, Becky Darwin, and Jody Summerlin, all from old fishing families. Together, they became a single unit, four women who had weathered a lot of life together and who were set apart by their unity even in a circle of people who had all known Rosanna Helms. At that instant, the remark A woman’s not dead until her last friend is buried took on new meaning. I realized the three women knew my mother better than I ever would. They had shared their private lives together and knew Loretta’s secrets, the things a mother can’t tell a daughter. Pot hauling, selling weed was possibly one of those secrets, although I didn’t believe it, but I had a strong suspicion they all knew the silver-haired man. He was Arnie, I suspected, Loretta’s lover until one or both of them got religion and ended their affair-he was the real reason she had offered me an excuse not to attend.

I understood now. Surrounded by so much death, their past intimacy was-if I was right about the man-still important to Loretta and him, too, which no longer struck me as tawdry. To be loved and loving, whatever the circumstances, was worth the risk and more valuable than the wobbly tower that is morality. It caused me to feel softer toward my mother and reminded me to value my own friends and to revel in love while I could because the years were ticking past.

“Nice service. Are you staying to eat?”

The man had whispered the question, but I jumped anyway, unaware that someone had slipped up behind me. It was Joel Ransler, wearing a black sports coat and a tie that set off his eyes. He hadn’t attended the earlier service, and I hadn’t seen him arrive.

I shook my head No and touched a finger to my lips, which was unnecessary. The minister had finished praying and was making people laugh by telling anecdotes about “Pinky,” so it seemed okay when Joel cupped my elbow and walked me to a spindly tree held straight by gardening wire. We could talk there if we kept our voices low.

“How’s your mother holding up?”

“She baked two pies and a ham this morning, then threatened to haunt me if I buried her here,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Would you have baked something? I’ve never seen you dressed up before.”

I was wearing a tan sleeveless dress from Chico’s and black heels, which Joel’s expression told me looked pretty good even at a funeral. I said, “Mica’s over there-see him? But Crystal didn’t show up. He told me she was sick, but I got the feeling he was lying.”