Poppell glanced over his shoulder at the department’s front door. “The sheriff didn’t talk to you?”
“He talked, he just didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
“Like what?”
“Like the cause of death, for starters.”
Poppell snorted. “The dude fried to death! You were there.”
Skelly was right, Conley thought. Walter Poppell really wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree.
“I’m wondering what caused the crash in the first place. There were no other cars around when we arrived.”
“Right. Yeah.” He shrugged. “Maybe if I hear something, I’ll give you a call.”
“That’d be great,” Conley said. She put the key in the ignition and went to fasten her seat belt, but Poppell did not remove his hand from the door.
“Maybe we could grab some dinner, have some drinks, something like that,” Poppell suggested, giving her his winningest smile.
Was he hitting on her? “I’m pretty busy with this story right now and helping take care of my grandmother,” Conley said, trying to be tactful.
“But you gotta eat, right? We’ve got a kick-ass pizza place just opened here in town. Sal’s. The owner’s a real Italian guy from New York and everything.”
“Sounds great,” Conley said. She pulled firmly on the door, and he reluctantly loosened his grip.
“Sure thing,” Poppell said. “And I’ll keep my ears open, in case I hear anything good.”
16
The white-clapboard Victorian house was one of the most gracious buildings in town. It had twin turrets with red tile roofs that had always reminded her of little elves’ caps, and gleaming black shutters, stained glass bay windows, and lush landscaping with flower beds bursting with white petunias that looked like lace cuffs on a green velvet dress.
But Conley’s throat tightened as she approached the front door of the McFall-Peeples Funeral Home, her palms damp with sweat, her heart pounding. She averted her eyes, as always, from the quaint, antique, black funeral carriage which would have once been pulled by a team of horses parked on the grass near the curving brick driveway.
Don’t be such a baby. It’s just a building. Shit happens. People die, and their friends and family need rites and rituals to mark their passing. The circle of life and all that.
She forced herself to climb the wide, white brick steps. The front porch was picturesque too, with a row of rocking chairs and hanging baskets of ferns. The front door was slightly ajar. Should she ring the doorbell? Conley wasn’t sure.
Before she could consider the question further, a small child exploded through the doorway. Conley didn’t know a lot about kids, but this one looked to be somewhere between two and four, with a headful of blond ringlets. One thing she knew for sure was that this small person was a girl, because she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
“Graceanne! Get back in here. Graceanne?” A petite woman with the same blond ringlets ran out onto the porch, bumping squarely into Conley.
“Excuse me!” the woman said. “But I seem to have misplaced my kid.”
The child peeked out from behind a rocking chair and giggled.
“About this tall?” Conley asked, holding her hand knee-high. “Blond hair, no clothes?”
“That’s my demon, all right.”
Conley pointed toward the rocking chair. The child dashed forward and was promptly scooped up into her mother’s waiting arms.
“I’m so sorry you had to see this,” the woman said. “Not exactly the image of caring, compassion, dignity, and discretion we usually try to project around here. May I help you?”
“No worries,” Conley said with a laugh. “Funeral homes kind of stress me out, so your daughter was a welcome distraction.”
“A disaster is more like it,” the woman said, slinging the naked child over her shoulder. “Come on inside, won’t you? I’ll just throw some clothes on this little imp, and then we can talk. I’m Kennedy McFall, by the way.” She held out her hand.
“And I’m Conley Hawkins.”
The woman tilted her head and smiled wider. “I’d heard you were back in town. But I guess you don’t remember me, do you?”
“Should I?” Conley studied the younger woman, who was barefoot and dressed in a sleeveless pastel Lilly Pulitzer dress.
“Not necessarily. I mean, you were two or three years ahead of me in school.”
Conley followed Kennedy through the foyer of the funeral home, pausing each time the other woman stooped to pick up a tiny pair of underpants, shorts, a T-shirt, and finally, a pair of sandals, all of which were scattered like bread crumbs down the length of the long hallway.
“In here,” Kennedy said, nodding to an open door that led into a small, sunny office. The space was at odds with the gloomily formal pseudo-colonial décor in the rest of the funeral home. Kennedy’s desk was a slab of glass set on chrome sawhorses. Framed family snapshots and cheerful crayon scribbles covered the pale pink walls.
She plunked herself onto an overstuffed lime-green settee and started to dress the still-squirming child. “Graceanne!” she said sternly. “Do you want to go back to time-out?”
“No!” the child exclaimed.
“Then hold still and let me get you dressed before your grandfather comes home and puts the both of us in permanent time-out.”
When she’d succeeded in clothing her daughter, Kennedy reached behind a sofa cushion and pulled out an iPad. The little girl grabbed it and retreated behind the sofa, where she was soon giggling at a cartoon show.
“Call the mom police,” Kennedy McFall said with a sigh. “I’m using a screen to shut my kid up.”
“Whatever works,” Conley said, shrugging.
“You’d better tell me what I can help you with before she gets her second wind,” Kennedy said, nodding in the direction of her daughter.
“I was actually looking for George McFall. Is he your dad?”
“So they tell me. He’s out right now. Anything I can help with?”
Conley hesitated. “I’m working on a story about Symmes Robinette.”
“Ohhhhhh.” Kennedy nodded. “For the Beacon, right? There’s not much I can tell you. Anyway, Rowena came by a little while ago and picked up the funeral notice.”
“Rowena?”
“Yeah,” Kennedy said, running a hand through her unruly curls. “I was kind of surprised to see her. I mean, funeral notices aren’t exactly her job. Usually, we just email them into Lillian in your office.”
“No,” Conley said, remembering what Rowena had said earlier in the day about her own story. “It’s not Rowena’s job. I think she might have gotten her wires crossed.”
“You think?” Kennedy winked. “I think it’s kinda cute that Grayson has let the old girl keep her column all these years, and I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but she gets spacier by the minute.”
“We know,” Conley said ruefully. “But she’s an institution around here, or so I’m told.”
“I’m over that evil little mutt of hers,” Kennedy said. “He actually snapped at Graceanne today!”
“So sorry,” Conley said. “I’ll pass that along to my sister. In the meantime, I really do need to talk to your dad about Symmes Robinette.”
“He’s actually gone out to the house to speak to Vanessa about the arrangements. This promises to be quite an event. Dad says it’ll be the largest service he’s ever handled. People are flying in from all over the country.”
“When is the service?”
“Next Saturday, we hope. There’s going to be some kind of official memorial in D.C. at the Capitol on Tuesday. The whole family is flying up there for that. And then, fingers crossed, there’ll be the service here in town, with the funeral at the Presbyterian church and, afterward, a reception in the church parlor. Visitation hour here the night before.”
“That’s a lot,” Conley said, remembering what had seemed like the never-ending ordeal of her own
father’s rather simple funeral six years earlier. “It must be very difficult for his poor wife.”
“For Charlie too,” Kennedy agreed. “And it doesn’t help matters that the medical examiner hasn’t released the body yet. Vanessa is totally beside herself about that.”
“Oh?” Conley tried to sound casually disinterested.
“Can you believe it? I mean, it was an accident, right?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“So what’s the big deal? Dad says there’s some kind of law, that there has to be an autopsy because of the circumstances, but still. You didn’t hear it from me, but Vanessa has been raising holy hell about it. She’s called everybody from the governor to the White House, trying to pull strings to get that body released and the death certificate issued.”
“And?”
“Last I heard, nothing had changed. I think Charlie’s doing his best to get her to chill out, but if you know Vanessa, you know that ain’t happening.”
“Right,” Conley said noncommittally. Her brief interactions with Vanessa in the past had been intense and unpleasant. Intensely unpleasant. “You know Charlie?”
“We’re, uh, kind of dating. Actually, more than kind of.” Kennedy smiled and changed the subject. “Wow, you really have been gone from here a long time, haven’t you?”
“Pretty much,” Conley agreed.
“I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a total loser,” Kennedy confided, blushing slightly, “and I don’t want you to think I’m a stalker, but I’ve kind of been following your career for years now.”
“Really? Why?”
“You were a hotshot eighth grader when I was in fifth grade,” Kennedy said. “All the teachers used to talk about what an amazing student you were and how you were going to be an important writer someday. I was a nerdy little bookworm who aspired to being a famous writer someday, so you were sort of my hero.”
“Mama?” Graceanne poked her head out from behind the sofa and held out the iPad. “More.”
“Just one more,” Kennedy said, tabbing over to an icon and pressing a key to restart whatever video the child was watching, before handing it back.
Conley found herself blushing now. “I think that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me. I was such a loser in middle school. I wanted desperately to hang with the cool kids like Grayson, but I didn’t fit in anywhere. It was almost a relief when my grandmother insisted on sending me away to boarding school in Virginia.”
“I was the exact opposite,” Kennedy said. “I was one of the cool kids in high school, unfortunately. Cheerleader, homecoming court, all that crap. No more nerdy bookworm for me.”
“But you went to college, right?”
“Kinda. All my friends were going to Florida State, so that was a no-brainer, as far as I was concerned. I pledged the right sorority, dated the right jocks. Got a degree in advertising and followed my college boyfriend to Orlando. Got a job with an agency, married the boyfriend.”
“What brought you back to Silver Bay?” Conley asked.
Kennedy yanked a thumb in the direction of Graceanne. “This one. My husband split. Just walked out on us. I tried the whole solo single-mom thing, but it’s so damn hard! I don’t know how women do it without family. My mom finally talked me into moving back here, and I have to say, it’s been a huge relief.”
“I’ll bet,” Conley said.
“You probably think it’s weird, raising a kid in a funeral home,” Kennedy said.
“You live here?” Conley didn’t bother to hide her surprise.
“Upstairs. My dad’s parents raised him and my aunts and uncles here, and they turned out okay. The whole second story is one huge apartment. Way more room than we ever had in our crappy little rental in Orlando. And it’s free, so the price is right. My mom watches Graceanne while I’m working, and she spoils her rotten.”
“But what do you do here? I mean, you don’t actually…”
“What? Embalm bodies?” Kennedy chuckled. “God, no. I do all the marketing, some of the bookkeeping, anything that doesn’t involve mortuary science.”
“That’s what it’s called?” Conley was intrigued, despite herself.
“Yup. My grandfather and my dad graduated from a mortuary school in Atlanta. Dad made noises about sending me, but I said hell to the no.”
“And you like it? Working in the family business?”
“Yeah,” Kennedy said, sounding surprised at her own answer. “I actually do. What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. What’s it like, coming home and working for your family business after working for a big-deal daily newspaper?”
“This is only a short-term thing,” Conley said. “I’d taken a job with another publication, but things didn’t work out as planned. So I’m back in town, staying out at the beach with my grandmother, sending out résumés.”
“And working at the Beacon,” Kennedy said. “Must be kind of a letdown, huh? The last scandal we had around here was when the high school football coach left his wife for the girls’ basketball coach. Nobody would have cared except that he had a losing season that year. Nothing exciting ever happens in Silver Bay.”
“We’ll see,” Conley said. “I’d better hit the road. But before I do, could I get another copy of the Robinette funeral notice?”
“Give me your business card and I’ll email it to you,” Kennedy said.
Conley scribbled her contact information on a page of her notebook and handed it over. She stood up and peeked behind the sofa, where the little girl was busily stripping off her shirt and shorts again. “Bye, Graceanne.”
“Bye-bye.” The little girl waved her tiny panties as a farewell gesture.
“I’ll walk you out,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got to start setting up for a service this afternoon.” She glanced behind the sofa and sighed. “Oh Lord. What am I gonna do with this child? Stay right there, Graceanne,” she said sternly. “And put those clothes back on. Right now, before you give some old fart a heart attack.”
Conley stared straight ahead as Kennedy steered her toward the funeral home’s front door, but she still had flashbacks of standing in a never-ending receiving line inside one of the reception rooms just off this hallway, dressed in a starchy black dress, pantyhose, and heels, as somber-faced well-wishers grasped her hand and murmured condolences after her father’s funeral.
“Doesn’t it ever bother you, living with all this death, constantly?” she asked.
“Guess I don’t think of it like that,” Kennedy said. “There’s sadness, yeah, but like my dad always says, we’re helping families say goodbye to their loved ones. That’s not a bad thing. And I get to raise my kid here and work with my family. You get that, right, working in your own family’s business?”
“Have you met Grayson?” Conley grimaced. “Not so much. There’s a lot my sister and I don’t see eye to eye about.”
“How is she?” Kennedy asked. “I’ve been so busy with work and the kid, I haven’t made it over to the Wrinkle Room in what seems like ages.”
“The Wrinkle Room? What’s that?”
“You know. That’s what we call the bar at the country club. We’re usually the only people in there under the age of sixty.”
“Ohhh. Good one. Grayson’s fine. I guess.”
“Tell her I said hey,” Kennedy said. “And I’ll let Dad know you dropped by.”
17
She was on the way back to the Beacon office when Grayson called. “Where are you?” she asked, skipping, as usual, any niceties like a greeting.
“Just leaving the funeral home,” Conley said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the office. We just got an emailed press release from Robinette’s office about the funeral arrangements, with some canned statements from a bunch of political types. Want me to email it to you?”
“You can, but I’m on my way to the office now, so I’ll look at it when I get there,” Conley told her.
When s
he arrived at the Beacon, she found Grayson at her desk, working her way through a stack of bank statements. The bedding and clothes she’d seen earlier were gone, and so was the rest of the staff. Grayson was dressed in a faded Griffin County High Marlin’s tank top and blue spandex bike shorts. Her arms were tanned, but shockingly thin. Grayson had lost weight. A lot of weight.
Standing over the desk and looking down at her older sister, Conley noticed the number of silver streaks in Grayson’s hair, and with Grayson’s reading glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose, she looked like a feminine version of their father at that age.
It struck her then that Grayson was exactly the age their father had been when Melinda pulled her first of many vanishing acts.
“What happened to Lillian and Michael?” Conley asked.
Grayson shoved the bank statements aside, covering them with page proofs of the IGA’s next display ad. “I sent ’em home. I can’t afford to pay overtime. Lillian worked late last night, and Michael’s covering a minor-league baseball game in Apalachicola tonight.” She pointed at a desk in the outer office. “I had Lillian clean off a work space for you. I printed out the press release from Robinette’s office.”
“Thanks.”
“You getting any good stuff about Robinette?” she asked.
“Depends on how you define good. According to Kennedy McFall, there’ll be a ceremony to honor Robinette in D.C. on Tuesday at the Capitol, then the actual funeral is next Saturday, pending the medical examiner’s release of the body. I’ve also got some juicy stuff courtesy of my session with Rowena this morning.”
“How’d that go?”
“The old bird’s definitely got the good dirt,” Conley said. “Listen to this—she told me Robinette got Vanessa pregnant while Symmes was still married to his first wife.”
“You mean with Charlie? No shit? Are you sure? I mean, consider the source.”
“Rowena claims she saw the baby’s birth certificate with her own eyes. Charlie was born three months before Symmes Robinette’s divorce from his first wife was final. Symmes and Vanessa got married the day after the divorce was final—in the House chapel in D.C.—by the House chaplain.”
Hello, Summer Page 13