by Sofie Kelly
“The news will be in tomorrow’s paper,” I said. It wasn’t a question. Bridget would have been looking for the story in Mike’s death.
“I’ll be surprised if it’s not,” Marcus said. He and Bridget had a cool, slightly prickly relationship. He and Mary, on the other hand, were friends. They seemed to have an unspoken agreement not to talk about Bridget.
“There’s no way it could have been an accident?” I asked. It wasn’t that I doubted the skills of the medical examiner. I just hated the idea that someone—anyone—had deliberately ended Mike Bishop’s life.
Marcus was shaking his head before I got the words out. “I wish there was. I agree with the medical examiner, based on what I saw. Mike hit his head on the fireplace mantel and bled into his brain. Based on the location of the wound, there’s no way it could have happened accidentally.” His hand briefly touched the back of his head. “Between you and me, he was punched in the face right before he hit his head. I think he was moving away from the person who threw that punch. There was nothing on the floor he could have tripped over and nothing he could have slipped on.”
Hercules looked at me, tipping his head to one side and narrowing his green eyes. “If Mike had tripped while he was moving away from whoever had hit him, wouldn’t he have fallen forward, not backward?” I asked.
Hercules immediately looked at Marcus, as though he wanted to hear the answer to the question as well, as though I’d asked what he’d wanted to know—which wasn’t as unlikely as it seemed.
Marcus shrugged. “He could have been backing up.”
“So Mike fought or struggled with some unknown person, and that person hit him and then pushed him or hit him again, which sent him into the mantel.”
“That’s one of the possibilities.”
Hercules looked expectantly at me again. Was there something else he wanted to know? “But that suggests what happened wasn’t premeditated, that it was most likely an accident. So why didn’t that person call for help? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. Mike Bishop was universally liked. I don’t think you could find anyone in town—or in this part of the state for that matter—who had a bad word to say about the man.”
“So why is he dead?” I said.
Marcus shrugged. “Right now I don’t know.”
* * *
It felt as though the entire town showed up for Mike Bishop’s funeral on Saturday. That was one of the things I liked about living in a small town, this small town—everyone knew everyone else; everyone cared about everyone else.
It was more than four years now since I’d arrived in Mayville Heights. The head librarian position I’d come for was supposed to only be a temporary eighteen-month appointment, with the main part of the job being to supervise the refurbishment of the library in time for its centennial. I had applied on a whim, looking to get away from Boston after a relationship had fallen apart. The building had been beautifully restored, the collections had been reorganized and the computer system brought more or less into this century, but when the time was up, I found myself wanting to stay. I had Owen and Hercules. I had friends. I had a life I loved. I was lucky that the library board had wanted me to stay as well. As much as I sometimes missed my family back in Boston, Mayville Heights was my home now. Now I felt that sense of community very strongly.
Marcus and I sat with Eddie and Roma at the service. Roma had known Mike for years and she had taken his death hard. She had been pale but composed when she and Eddie pulled into Gunnerson’s parking lot, but when I’d hugged her, she’d held on a little tighter and a little longer than usual.
I had closed the library an hour early because all of the staff wanted to attend the funeral.
“I was leaving one night after my shift and Mike asked me what I was listening to,” Levi had said to me when he’d asked for the time off to attend the service. “I told him ZZ Top. About a week later, he comes in and says he has something for me. It was a concert T-shirt from the band’s El Loco tour. I said I couldn’t take it and he laughed. He patted his gut and said it didn’t fit his needs anymore, and if I didn’t wear it, the shirt would just sit in a drawer.”
The service was being held at Gunnerson’s Funeral Home. Daniel Gunnerson Senior was at the front door, shaking hands and directing people. He was a short and solid man with deep blue eyes and a head of thick white hair. He wore a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a blue tie. The smaller rooms, which could accommodate several services, had been opened up to make one large space, and even so I wondered if there would be enough room for all the people I was expecting would come.
We took a seat about five rows back. Jonas and Lachlan were standing together at the front of the room with a bearded man I didn’t recognize. Lachlan looked subdued. Jonas seemed even more serious than usual, his face pale. Their small family had gotten even smaller.
Roma looked around as though she was trying to find someone.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I don’t see Eloise,” she said.
Eloise was the only other Finnamore cousin left. I’d met her when she’d come to town for her mother, Leitha’s, funeral.
Marcus had heard our conversation and he leaned toward us. “She isn’t coming. I spoke to her on Thursday. She had surgery on a broken leg a few days ago. She’s not allowed to fly.”
Roma nodded. “Thanks. I knew there had to be a good reason she wasn’t here.”
The man with the beard turned out to be a Unitarian minister and a college friend of Mike’s. He led the service, sharing his own memories of Mike’s sense of humor and his kind heart.
Jonas and Lachlan talked about how Mike had kept them together as a family. “He loved to cook, make music and bring people together,” Jonas said. “He’d organize these Sunday meals, timed so that Eloise and the girls could join us from California over Zoom. We’d have dinner and they’d have lunch and the distance didn’t matter because we were still all together like we’d been when we were kids.”
I had to swallow back tears when Harry walked to the front of the room. He looked so somber in his dark suit. Roma was already holding Eddie’s hand. She reached, wordlessly, for mine, squeezing it hard.
“Mike and I had been practicing for what turned out to be our last show for over a month,” Harry said. “He loved the idea that we were going to surprise everyone. It was one of the best nights of his life, he told me after the concert. And according to Mike, he had a lot of those.” Harry raised an eyebrow. A lot of people were smiling. Mike had been a charmer.
Harry let out a slow breath. “When someone dies, we always talk about what a great person they were when a lot of the time they were really a jerk, but Michael Bishop was not one of those people. Everyone loved him and he was a dentist. How many people love their dentist?”
“Endodontist,” Lachlan called out.
Across the aisle from me, I saw Mary wipe away a tear.
Harry smiled and nodded his head. “Right. Endodontist.” He looked skyward. “Sorry, my friend.” His expression grew serious again, and his gaze shifted to the pewter urn to the right of him under the photo of Mike playing his bass at the Last Bash concert. The polished container seemed too small to contain Mike’s big personality. “The world was brighter with Mike Bishop in it and it’s a little darker now that he’s gone.”
Johnny spoke last. “When Mike came to audition to join the Outlaws, he was dressed just like Sonny Crockett—Don Johnson—from the TV show Miami Vice: pleated pastel blue pants and a matching jacket with shoulder pads, a white T-shirt, loafers with no socks, shades and, because it was Mike, a mullet.” He smiled at the memory. “I just knew from looking at him that he was the wrong fit for the band, so I asked him to play with Harry and do the bass line from Heart’s ‘Magic Man.’ I figured there was no way he’d know the song. He was wearing a pastel suit for heaven’s sake!”
There were a few ripples of laughter around the room.
“I was so sure h
e wouldn’t be able to play it but he did and he played his part perfectly, in his own way, not a copy of anyone else. That was Mike.”
Johnny had to pause for a moment and clear his throat. “People of a certain age will remember when Principal Haney canceled the senior class sleigh ride because he wasn’t happy with the class average after Christmas exams. He got to school the next morning and his office was filled floor to ceiling with bales of hay.” He glanced over at the urn and smiled. “He suspected Mike from the beginning but Mike had an alibi. He had spent the evening before calling bingo at the senior center like he did every Thursday night. Or so they all said.”
There was more laughter.
“That was Mike.”
Beside me Roma was nodding.
Johnny continued, “What most of you don’t know is that when Mike was in college, he used to play stand-up bass for a Baptist church band, which meant he would be out playing at a bar with us until two a.m. and then he’d put on his white shirt, slick back his hair and be at the front of the church at nine thirty. He did that because the group’s regular bass player—who also happened to be Mike’s chemistry professor—was undergoing cancer treatment. That’s also who Mike was.”
He cleared his throat again. “Jonas and Lachlan asked us to sing something for Mike. We talked about it and we just couldn’t sing anything that was sad because it just didn’t feel right.”
Harry and Paul had gotten to their feet. They joined Johnny while Ritchie moved to the piano set off to one side.
“Mike learned this one from those Baptists, and when he wanted to get under my skin, he’d start pushing to make it our encore. Please join us if you know the words.” Johnny looked over at the urn one last time. “Safe travels, my friend.” He clasped his hands in front of him and began to sing the poignant words of the old hymn “I’ll Fly Away.”
Jonas and Lachlan stood up and everyone else rose as well. One by one, throughout the room, I heard voices begin to join in. It was profoundly sad and somehow uplifting at the same time.
Outside, a fine, soft rain was falling. As I stood under the umbrella Marcus held over us and watched Daniel Gunnerson carefully set all that was left of Mike Bishop into the hearse, I thought of something I’d heard my mother say: Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on.
I hoped it was true.
chapter 4
The interment at the Finnamore family crypt was private and would be taking place at a later time. At the beginning of the service, Daniel Gunnerson had made an announcement that there would be a reception immediately after and most people did stay to pay their respects and talk about Mike.
“It seems like half the town is here,” I said to Marcus. I was hoping to tell Harry how sorry I was but hadn’t seen him since the service ended.
Everett Henderson joined us. “Kathleen, may I steal Marcus from you for a moment?” he asked. He was wearing a perfectly tailored black suit with a patterned gray silk tie that I knew Rebecca had bought for him because I’d been with her when she had.
“Of course,” I said.
Marcus caught my hand and gave it a squeeze as he moved past me. “I’ll only be a minute.” He and Everett moved to a spot closer to the windows where there were fewer people.
I felt a hand touch my shoulder and turned around to find Harrison Taylor standing there. His suit was gray, his shirt and tie blue. He’d trimmed his hair and his beard. I hugged him.
“You look nice,” I said. It struck me that Mike would get a kick out of everyone all dressed up. I’d only ever seen him in scrubs or jeans.
“Thank you,” he said. “I wish it was for a better reason.”
I nodded. “How’s Harry?” I asked.
“Pretty much how you’d expect. It’s a damn sad day.” He ran a hand over his beard. “I know it’s late notice, but I was hoping you could come for supper tomorrow night.”
“I could,” I said. Marcus and I didn’t have any plans. A couple of Eddie’s hockey buddies from his NHL days were coming to spend a few days teaching at the hockey school and Eddie had invited Marcus to join them for dinner. “I don’t want to put Harry out, though.” Generally, when I had dinner with Harrison, it was his son who did most of the cooking.
“You won’t be,” the old man said.
I suspected he was going to ask me to see what I could learn about Mike Bishop’s death. I’d gotten involved in that kind of thing before. People were more likely to talk to me than they were to the police. In that way being a librarian was a lot like being a bartender, I’d discovered.
We settled on a time and then Harrison excused himself to go speak to Daniel Gunnerson. I turned around to look for Marcus, and Jonas Quinn caught my eye. He held up one hand, indicating that he wanted to talk to me. He said something to Lachlan, who was standing next to him, and then started across the room.
“Kathleen, thank you for coming,” he said as he joined me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Mike was a good person. I’m glad I got to know him.”
Jonas nodded. “Yes, he was. Him being dead is just so wrong and it should never have happened.” He looked around. “You know, he would have liked this, all these people here in one place talking about him.”
I smiled. “Mike was a people person. He’d come into the library and it would take him half an hour to get started on his research because he knew everyone and he kept stopping to talk.”
“That research is why I wanted to talk to you,” Jonas said. He adjusted his dark-framed glasses with both hands. “The last time I spoke to him, Mike mentioned that you had unearthed more information about the Finnamore family.”
“Some census information for this area,” I said. “Mike was trying to close a gap in the family tree. I thought it might help.”
“Would it be possible to get a copy of it?” he asked. “I think Mike’s research on the family is something Lachlan—and maybe Eloise for that matter—might want at some point. Not just because it’s their family heritage, but because it was something Mike was working on. I don’t want everything to get lost in the shuffle. There’s a lot to take care of right now.”
“I understand,” I said. “I can make copies of the census records for you and you can come in next week and get them. There’s also a copy of a map showing land grants for this part of the state that’s coming from another library in our system. Would you like that as well?”
He nodded. “Yes, I would.”
I told Jonas I’d call when the map arrived so he could make just one trip to pick up everything.
He thanked me again. “I need to get back to Lachlan,” he said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I watched him make his way over to his nephew and put one arm around the boy’s shoulders. I knew from some of the things Mike had talked about that there was a lot of tragedy in the Finnamore family history. I hated that Mike himself was now part of that.
I looked for Marcus. He was still talking to Everett. I was guessing their conversation had something to do with the girls’ hockey team. There had been rumblings that their funding might be reduced.
The room suddenly felt closed in and clammy. I was only a few steps away from a set of French doors that led out to the overflow parking lot. No one would notice if I stepped outside, so that was what I did.
The rain had stopped. The air was fresh and a little cooler. I remembered that there was a teak bench next to a small flower bed at the end of the building. I’d sit there for a couple of minutes and then go back inside, I decided.
I turned the corner to discover someone was already sitting on the bench. And she was crying.
She looked up at me. Her eyes were red and her makeup had smudged. I pulled a couple of tissues from my bag and handed them to her. She wiped her face. “Thank you,” she said in a shaky voice.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “A cup of tea, maybe?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I could swallow it.”
“I know what you m
ean,” I said. “I was carrying around a cup inside just so people would stop offering me a drink.”
She almost managed a smile. “You must have been a friend of Mike’s.”
I nodded. “I like to think so. I’m Kathleen Paulson.”
“You’re the librarian. Mike mentioned you. He said you’d been helping him with the family tree.”
I nodded.
“I’m Tracy,” she said. “I’m Mike’s ex-wife.” She held up a finger. “The first one.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
She moved sideways on the bench. “Please, sit.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
She shook her head. “You’re not. I was in there listening to people talk about him and I thought what a kick he’d get out of this—everyone dressed up, sharing stories. You know, I think the only time I ever saw him in a suit was actually at a funeral.”
She’d had just the same thought as me. “You didn’t have a fancy wedding?” I asked.
Tracy’s lips twitched. She seemed to think my question was funny. Mirth gleamed in her dark eyes. It was better than sadness. “Good grief, no!” she said. “We were nineteen and madly in love. We eloped. Turns out, we were really just madly in lust. The marriage didn’t last six months but the friendship did.”
“That sounds like the Mike I knew.”
“Every few months he’d call me or I’d call him, just to catch up. It was nice, having that connection back to when I was a dumb kid.” She smiled. “I just talked to him a couple of weeks ago. He told me all about the research he was doing into his family’s past. He was trying to work out when the so-called Finnamore green eyes entered the family tree. I teach high school biology. I told him he was wasting his time. There are too many factors that influence eye color. It’s not as simple as something like hair texture or whether or not someone thinks cilantro tastes like soap.”