It was difficult to judge when the service actually started. People continued to light candles and walk down in front near the coffin. But at some point a couple of guys dressed in suits got up and began their strange chanting at a raised platform over on our side of the church. There was a microphone there for them, and their tenor voices echoed in the church as the talking and movement ceased.
I had been raised without reverence, and yet in that simple little church, watching these people perform rituals that dated back hundreds of years, I could not help but think of Zale’s questions. Where was Nick? What did I believe? In a way, I envied these people who seemed so sure in their beliefs. They reminded me of the Haitian voodooists I had met the year before. They didn’t seem to live with my unanswered questions.
About fifteen minutes after the service started, three very large men entered through the main door at the rear of the sanctuary and many heads turned to stare, then bent to the side as they whispered to their neighbors. The men crossed to the far wall and stood with their feet spread shoulder-width apart, their hands clasped in front of them. There was something decidedly military about their bearing. I looked at Jeannie, my eyes asking the question.
“Russians,” she whispered.
“Kagan?” I asked quietly.
She shook her head. “His henchmen. Kagan’s out of the country. Conveniently.”
After what seemed like hours of singing, standing, sitting, and standing some more, and nothing being said or sung in English, the priest stepped forward and began talking about Nick. In English. He went on about what a great father, entrepreneur, and humanitarian he had been. After the priest’s eulogy, Leon Quinn got up and, with his large gestures, bouncing moustache, and tears he dabbed with a handkerchief, he described what a fine friend Nick Pontus had been, and how he seemed to have a golden touch when it came to business. At a certain point I wanted to gag. The Nick Pontus I knew had been no saint.
Next, though, one of the fellows in work clothes with a broad handlebar moustache came forward and told a story of how Nick had loaned him money when he wasn’t sure how he was going to feed his family. Nick had even set him up with a franchise sandwich place and made it possible for him to own his own business and be his own boss. A woman went to the front and told us how Nick had paid off the mortgage on her house when her husband, a cook in one of Nick’s restaurants, had died of cancer. She wept as she explained how he had helped her keep her children in their familiar home. Others came forward with similar stories, and I began to realize that there had been a side of Nick Pontus that I had never known. Maybe that was what Molly had seen. Maybe that was how she had been able to leave Pit and choose Nick for a husband.
The priest came back out again with a brass incense burner on the end of a bunch of chains, and he clanked it all around the coffin, all the while chanting in that foreign language. The air—which was close already, with what must have been over three hundred people jammed into that tiny church—became doubly difficult to breathe. I was looking around the chapel, trying to figure out some excuse to leave, when I saw Molly’s head turn. Our eyes met. She tipped her head forward ever so slightly. We’d always been able to say more to each other with a glance than most people can say with words, and in that moment, I was glad I’d come.
When it was finally over, Leon Quinn led a group of men in dark suits who came forward and carried the coffin out, the family following behind in a procession. As we stood and inched our way to the back door, I saw that we were going to have to pass by Molly and Zale and Leon and Janet, who were thanking the mourners as they left the church. I looked all around.
“Isn’t there another way out?” I asked Jeannie, looking longingly across the church at a door on the far side.
“Hush,” Jeannie said, and she gave me a shove in the small of my back.
But when I got there, I found I needn’t have worried about what to say to Molly. B. J. was the first of us to reach her, and he enveloped her in a hug that was so powerful and lasted so long that a big gap opened up in the exit line ahead of him. I knew the people behind us were probably as anxious to leave as I was, so I walked around him, stepped up to Zale, and shook his hand.
“If there’s anything I can do for you guys, just call me. I mean it, okay?”
He nodded solemnly. His eyes were unfocused, and I remembered what it was like as a kid having to stand there while adults told you that everything was going to be okay and you knew they were lying.
At that moment, B. J. released Molly and she looked at me. I reached out and our fingers touched and intertwined. I could not speak. I nodded to her and she nodded back, her eyes filled with the first tears that I’d seen her cry that afternoon. I released her hand and turned, hurried past Quinn, mumbling how sorry I was, and then I was standing in front of Janet. When she saw me, her face went flat and slack. For a moment she looked like some horrible wax imitation of a beautiful woman. Then she turned to B. J. and her face lit up like some Disney mechanical mannequin, and she looked beautiful and alive again. Finally, I found myself outside, squeezing through the crowd, dodging around the hearse, desperate to be alone, running.
I was standing in the late afternoon sunlight, leaning against a tree not far from the El Camino, trying to catch my breath, when B. J. walked up.
“Jeannie said to say bye.”
I bounced the toe of my shoe against a root that protruded from the dirt. “It was all that incense. It was making me sick. I couldn’t breathe in there.”
“That’s what it was, huh? The incense?”
I nodded, still focused on scraping the dust off my shoe. He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me softly on the lips. “I think what you need is some food in your belly.”
When we walked through the doors of the Downtowner, the TV over the corner of the bar was showing the intro for the six o’clock news, and the lead story was—surprise—the Pontus funeral. Pete was behind the bar and Nestor and several of the other charter boat captains turned to greet us as we walked in. I nodded and turned away from them, headed instead for a booth in the back where we would be able to avoid the regulars who would want to chew on the gossip. They’d know we’d been to the funeral and, especially since I’d been an eyewitness to the murder, I knew they’d be eager to pump me for details.
Tonight I wanted to talk about anything but the Pontus family. Especially after that long and tight clinch B. J. had delivered to Molly on our way out of the church. What was that about?
I ordered a half pound of peel-and-eat shrimp and asked Terry, the waitress, to bring me extra garlic bread along with a draft beer. B. J. went for the New River Salad and ordered his tuna rare. I shivered at the thought.
“How can you eat that fish all pink and raw like that? It’s disgusting.”
He smiled at me and didn’t take the bait. We’d been friends long before we became lovers, and he knew when I was fishing for an argument.
“You still haven’t told me what you want to do for your birthday,” he said.
Five days. In five days, on Monday, I was going to turn thirty. At times it felt like a big deal, but really, it was just a number. Three. Zero. The world out there had certain expectations for a woman my age, but I had decided a while ago that I wasn’t going to let that rule my life.
“I don’t know, B. J. The only thing I know I don’t want is a surprise party. I do want to do something to make the day memorable, though. I mean it’s halfway to sixty. And when I turn sixty, I’d like to be able to look back and remember exactly what I did on the day I turned thirty.”
I took a welcome drink of the beer the waitress had just brought, and when I looked back at him, B. J. was staring across the room. I followed his line of sight. There, on the TV screen, was a close-up of Molly. She was standing outdoors and, from what little I could see of the background, it must have been at the cemetery. Long wisps of her dark hair had escaped the mound on top of her head, and instead of it making her look disheveled, the
tousled, gaunt look only made her look more beautiful. It was so late in the evening that the TV people had their camera lights on and she was shielding her eyes from the brightness. Quinn stepped in front of the camera then and motioned for the press to move back. He opened the door to a limousine. Molly’s lips moved as she climbed in, then Zale got in after his mother. Quinn shut the door and climbed into the front, by the driver. If the sound on the TV was not muted, it wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the bar music and laughter. I wondered what she had said.
I looked back at B. J. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the TV screen.
When I first met B. J., and during those early years we were friends, I had watched from the sidelines as he dated a string of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen. I was working as a lifeguard on Fort Lauderdale Beach and helping Red out sometimes on jobs aboard Gorda. B. J. and I, we’d run into each other around town from time to time. He’d be with some tall, lithe thing in a tube top, miniskirt, and little strappy high-heeled sandals while I’d be standing there in my flip-flops and gray sweats with Fort Lauderdale Lifeguard stenciled across the front, my nose peeling and my salty hair in wind tangles.
I was attracted to him from the very first, but I was determined never to be one of those flings of his. Even if he did always seem to part on friendly terms with them, the problem was he always did part with them. No relationship lasted longer than six months. And not only that, B. J. was an amazing, sexy, smart, attractive man, and I’d learned early on that men who looked like B. J. were not interested in women who looked like me. Flash attracted flash, and flashy I’m not. I’d started that education back in high school as Molly’s best friend. The only time the good-looking guys ever talked to me was to ask me if I knew where Molly was.
The TV went to a commercial, but B. J. was still someplace far, far away, his eyes unfocused, staring at something across the bar and yet not seeing. How had it happened? How had this man come to want me? And with women like Molly in the world, how much longer could it possibly last?
When our food arrived, I was glad to get busy with shelling the shrimp just to have something to do. Soon my fingernails were stained red from the Old Bay Seasoning, and I was concentrating on getting the last little bit of shrimp out of each tail. B. J. had been right about one thing—I had needed to get some food in my belly. As I washed down the garlic bread with a second beer and reached for another shrimp I felt the edge of my uneasiness evaporate.
B. J., who always ate with tiny methodical bites, still had another half hour to go before he would finish his raw fish salad, and between bites he had started telling me a story about the job he had begun that morning remodeling the galley cabinets on a Shannon 50. The owner was six-foot-six, and B. J. couldn’t talk him out of having forty-five-inch-high countertops installed, in spite of the fact that it would seriously impact the resale value of the boat. The average woman would be chopping parsley under her chin.
“Not me,” I said. At five-foot-ten, I usually found boat galleys far too small, the counters too low.
“No one ever called you average, Sey,” he said.
“Damn right.”
So, we were comfortable together, and if he could still look at me like he did at that moment when I was up to my elbows in shrimp shells, what did I have to worry about?
By the time B. J. had ordered hot tea for both of us, I reckoned I smelled like I’d spent a week working on board a Gulf Coast shrimper. I was sliding out of the booth, ready to head back to the washroom, when I saw Jeannie step into the bar and look around, the worry lines etched deep in her forehead. I waved my hand and she hurried over to our booth.
“I hoped I’d find you here,” she said, panting, leaning on the table with one hand, the other holding her side.
“What’s the matter?” As a single mom, Jeannie almost never went out in the evening. I knew that something serious must have happened to bring her out searching for me. I immediately thought of her kids. “Are the boys okay?”
“Yeah, I called my mother. She came right over as soon as I heard.”
“Heard what? What are you talking about?”
“It’s Molly.”
“Molly?” I asked. “Oh my God, is she all right?”
“She’s not hurt,” she said.
“We saw some of the footage from the cemetery on the tube. Couldn’t hear what they were saying, though.” B. J. put his hand on my forearm. “Sey, let her talk. What’s happened, Jeannie?”
Jeannie pulled a chair over and sat on the outside of our booth. She was panting, but then a brisk walk could make her short of breath. “When she and Zale got back to the house, the cops were there. They asked her to go down to the station with them for more questions. They both went. And like some other people I know,” she said, looking directly at me, “she didn’t have the good sense to call me first. When they got there, they put Molly in an interrogation room, asked a few more questions, and then arrested her. For Nick’s murder.”
“What? Molly?”
B. J. said, “They really think Molly did it?”
Jeannie dipped her head in a fast nod. “Yup. That’s when she finally called me. Told me to bring you, too, Seychelle. She didn’t sound good—kind of like she was out of it. I told her it might take me a while to find you, but she said it didn’t matter. She insisted. So that’s why I’m here. Let’s go.”
“I’ve got to go wash up,” I said, holding up my reddish, greasy, smelly hands.
“There’s no time,” she said, tossing me a paper napkin and picking my purse up off the booth.
I looked at B. J. and shrugged as I wiped my fingers. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Go on,” he said. “She needs you. Tell her that if I can do anything for her, anything, she just needs to call.”
“Yeah,” I said as I chased Jeannie out the door, wondering just how far that meant he would go.
X
At the Fort Lauderdale police station, Jeannie spoke to the lady in the glass booth, explaining that we were there to see Detectives Amoretti and Mabry, and she told us to sit on the plastic chairs and wait. Finally, the door next to the booth opened, and a young, dark-haired, uniformed policewoman told us to follow her.
I expected her to lead us up to the detectives’ office cubicles on the second floor, but instead we wound around on the ground floor until she came to a door, where she motioned for us to go inside.
Molly was there, sitting at a table in the center of the small room, still wearing her dark funeral clothes. Mabry was sitting on the only other chair in the room, and Amoretti was slouching against the wall looking like he’d just come in off the golf course in snug-fitting khaki Dockers and a lime-green Polo shirt.
“D’ya mind if we speak to your friends outside for a minute, Miz Pontus?” Mabry asked.
Molly nodded without making eye contact with us. She had her head turned to face the far wall. She looked as though she had been slapped, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Was it?
Detective Mabry braced his hands on his knees to help lift his body to a stand in a way that reminded me of Jeannie. He led us to what looked like the police briefing room, a big hall with lots of chairs and bulletin boards covered with notices bearing sketches of unsmiling, mean-looking men. Mabry wore a wrinkled piss-colored short-sleeved shirt and a Looney Tunes tie that he had pulled loose at the knot. I assumed that it was the same tie he’d worn at the funeral that afternoon, but he’d been too far away for me to notice. Odd choice for a funeral, I thought.
“Ladies, this’ll just take a minute, so I guess this is as good a spot as any.” Mabry stopped alongside the last row of chairs and attempted to tighten his tie. “Pardon my lack of manners. How are you ladies doing this evening?”
Amoretti rolled his eyes and smirked as Mabry attempted to pull back a chair for Jeannie, and she yanked it out of his hand.
“This isn’t a social call, Detective,” she said. “I’m not looking to settle in for a visit. We’re
here to find out what the hell’s going on and to talk to Molly Pontus. What’s this bullshit about your charging her with murder?”
Mabry ducked his head a little when Jeannie let the curse words fly. But he examined her, hungry-looking, as though he were looking at a sumptuous banquet. “Well, Ms. Black, I’m sorry to see you’re so upset, but I’m afraid things aren’t looking too good for your friend. The evidence is there. We didn’t have to do any fancy footwork to get the arrest warrant. Prosecutor told us to bring her in for questioning, and that was that.”
“What evidence?” Jeannie asked.
“Well, ma’am, right now I’m not at liberty to say. That’s up to the D.A. But suffice it to say you’ll need to get busy ’cuz the case against her is pretty tight. I wish it wadn’t. I like the lady, but it’s not up to us, you see, to decide who’s guilty and who isn’t.”
I wanted to bury my fist in that watermelon-sized gut of his. “Mabry, you are out of your friggin’ mind if you think Molly could have killed anybody. This is insane.”
Jeannie put her hand on my forearm. “Seychelle, enough. They’re just doing their jobs.”
He looked at Jeannie and his face split into a broad smile. “Glad you see it that way, ma’am.” He reached back and pulled a box of Good & Plenty out of his back pants pocket, shook a couple of candies into his open palm, and then held up the crushed box, offering us some. I shook my head, but Jeannie refused to acknowledge him. That surprised me. It was the first time I’d ever seen her turn down sweets.
Bitter End (Seychelle Sullivan #3) Page 9