“A year ago, actually,” Sheliah said, “but compared with everybody else, I’m still the new kid on the block. Are you one of the MIT crowd?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said, wondering how many tales of glorious college living she had heard. She looked a year or two younger than the rest and was blond and very cute. I wondered what Philip had thought of her.
“So, Laura,” Vincent said, with that air of forced joviality I remembered from college, “how are things at your firm? GDS, isn’t it?”
“GBS,” I said. I don’t know who it was who decided that computer companies should go by initials, but half the places in Boston were named out of a can of alphabet soup. “Going pretty well. I’m doing a lot with PC interface design these days.” I told myself that I’d have to explain that bit of jargon to Thaddeous later on.
“Really? We’ve got some plans along those lines in the new release of StatSys. If you’ve been considering making a change, we’d be happy to have you on board.”
“I hadn’t really thought about leaving GBS,” I said.
Inez came in with, “Vinnie, this is a wake, not a job fair. Laura doesn’t want to talk about business now.”
“Just making conversation,” Vincent said.
“Ha!” was all Inez said, and Vincent excused himself to go to the men’s room. To me, she said, “That man has no blood in him, Laura, no heart.” Then she added, “Speaking of not having a heart, here comes the grieving widow.”
I had to admit that Colleen wasn’t exactly dressed like a widow. Her dress was black, but it was also short, and snug across the bosom. I knew that she and Philip had been estranged, but I’d have thought she’d want to show respect, if not grief. Then again, maybe it was the only black outfit she had. I certainly wouldn’t have felt like going shopping for new clothes at a time like that.
“That’s Philip’s wife,” I said to Thaddeous. “We should go speak to her.” Thaddeous nodded, but nobody offered to join us.
Colleen took a quick look at the coffin at the end of the room, then turned away and went as far as she could in the other direction.
“Colleen?” I said.
It took her a moment to recognize me. “Laura?”
“Hi, Colleen. Thaddeous, this is Colleen Dennis. Colleen, this is my cousin, Thaddeous Crawford.”
“Nice to meet you, Thaddeous.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Thaddeous said solemnly, and I knew Aunt Nora would have approved.
“Thank you.” Then, to me she said, “I hear it was at your place that Philip died.” I must have winced, because she added, “Sorry. Jessie told me he was found behind your apartment.” She looked over at the SSI contingent. “Jessie’s the only one who bothered to call me.”
“The group always did rely on Jessie to take care of the social amenities,” I said diplomatically.
“Yeah, right. They’re all so self-righteous now because I made Philip leave and he ended up in that alley. It’s like they’ve forgotten all about trying to kick him out of his own company.” Then, as if realizing how that sounded, she said, “I’m sorry, I know I sound like a bitch. I’m having a tough time with this.”
“I understand,” Thaddeous said, though I didn’t think he did. “If y’all don’t mind, I think I’ll step outside and smoke myself a cigarette.”
As he went, Colleen said, “I guess I shocked him. I’m not exactly your typical widow.”
“Thaddeous knows that you and Philip were estranged,” I said.
“That’s putting it mildly. The fact is, I’d made up my mind to get on with my life, and his dying doesn’t affect me. Not much, anyway.” Then she shook her head. “Who’m I trying to kid? I feel awful.” She pulled a ragged tissue from her purse and jabbed at her eyes angrily.
I thought about putting my arm around her shoulders, but circumstances with Philip being what they were, she had never been a particular friend of mine. Instead, I just said, “It’s okay, Colleen. I know it’s awkward—everybody knows it. And everybody deals with grief in his own way.”
“I wanted Philip out of my life, but not like this. I didn’t want him dead.”
“Nobody thinks you did.” When she didn’t respond, I added emphatically, “I know you didn’t.”
She took a deep breath. “Thanks.” Then she looked at the entrance. “Oh, jeez, here they come.”
“Who?” I turned and saw a couple in their late fifties, accompanied by a younger man who looked vaguely familiar. “Who are they?”
“Philip’s parents, and his brother, Dave.”
“Really?” Now I realized why the younger man looked familiar—he favored Philip. They weren’t at all as I’d imagined them. From the way Philip had talked, I had expected furs and silk, not wool and cotton. They were as pale as the rest of us who lived in sun-starved Massachusetts, even though Philip had joked about their Palm Springs tans. I felt oddly angry at him. He had made fun of my family, but from the looks of his, they didn’t have a bit more money than mine did.
“I have to say something to them,” Colleen said. “It’s just so damned weird.” She hesitated. “Would you come with me?”
It was weird for me, too, both because I had dated Philip and because I had never met these people, but I said, “Sure.”
“Thanks!” She took hold of my elbow, maybe to keep me from changing my mind.
“Hello Mom Dennis, Dad Dennis,” Colleen said. She gave them quick hugs that they returned just enough to be polite. The look Dave gave her made it plain that he wouldn’t put up with even that much.
Colleen pushed me forward. “This is Laura Fleming. Philip must have told you about her.”
“Hi,” I said, holding out my hand. “I knew Philip in college.”
Mrs. Dennis took my hand and clasped it for a moment. “I remember Phil talking about you. I hadn’t realized you still lived up here. I thought you went back to the plantation in North Carolina.”
I swallowed. Apparently what Philip had told his parents about me was about as accurate as what he had told me about them. I couldn’t wait to hear what my folks would say about our home place being referred to as a “plantation.”
“I just fell in love with Massachusetts,” I said, which was honest enough. “I’m so sorry about Philip.”
Mrs. Dennis nodded, her brow wrinkling in pain. “I never would have guessed he’d go like that. Out in the snow, like some poor homeless person.”
Colleen flinched, and I didn’t blame her.
“Couldn’t you have left him enough money to get a hotel room, Colleen?” Dave asked loudly.
Colleen’s cheeks got red. “Look, Dave, this is hard for me, too. Your brother and I hadn’t been getting along for a long time, and you know it. But when I asked him to leave, I made sure he had money in his pocket.”
“You listen to me, you—” Dave started to say, but his father put a hand on his shoulder.
“Now is not the time, Dave. Why don’t you take your mother to see Phil?”
Dave looked like he wanted to argue with his father, but he relented and took his mother’s arm to go toward the coffin.
Colleen said, “Excuse me,” and strode angrily away, leaving me and Mr. Dennis standing there.
“I’m sorry about that,” Mr. Dennis said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I know people aren’t at their best at a time like this. If it means anything to you, I do think Colleen feels terrible about what happened.”
“I’m sure she does. She’s not a bad woman, and I can’t blame her for Phil’s and her problems. It’s just that the timing was so …”
“Awkward.” That seemed to be the right word to describe the whole evening.
He nodded. “Dave is feeling a fair amount of guilt himself right now. He and Phil argued the last time Phil came to visit, and they never made up. That’s probably why Phil didn’t come to us when he was in trouble.”
I had wondered about that. My family were the first people I’d turn to if I eve
r needed help. “Philip came over to my apartment that last day, wanting to stay with me,” I confessed. “I’m afraid I had to turn him down. I’m married now.”
I was afraid that he’d get angry, but he just patted my arm. “Colleen explained it all when she called. You don’t have to justify yourself to me, dear. It was very nice of you to come tonight.” Then he went to join his wife and son.
What he had said should have made me feel better, but instead I felt worse. Maybe I didn’t have to justify what I had done to him, but I sure wished I could justify it to myself.
With the coast clear, Colleen came back. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I just don’t know what to say to them.”
It had been a dirty trick, but considering the stress she had to be under, I was willing to let it go. “I take it you and they don’t get along.”
“They treated me all right, I guess, but we were never crazy about one another. Philip said they tried to talk him out of marrying me, and it was hard for me to forget that.”
Knowing Philip, I had to wonder if he hadn’t just made it up to cause trouble, but it didn’t seem like a good thing to bring up at his wake.
“Then,” she said, “when I called them to tell them about Philip, Dave got on the phone and wanted to know what I was going to do about the money.”
“What money?”
“Philip’s share of our money. Only now it’s my money, because we were still married. We hadn’t talked to lawyers or anything. Dave wanted to know if I was going to give them half of everything. Like I’d even had a chance to think about it.”
“It does sound like he was rushing things,” I said.
“What do you think? Should I?”
“I can’t answer that, Colleen.” In fact, I wouldn’t touch the question with a ten-foot pole. Money is always a ticklish issue, and I didn’t have a clue as to what would be appropriate or fair under those circumstances.
“I’d be within my rights to keep it all, wouldn’t I? If the company goes public, like Philip said it was going to, we could be talking about a lot of money.”
“All I can say is that you might want to take some time and think it over before you make up your mind.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said, and looked over as somebody came in. “Well, look who’s here,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d come.”
“Who?” I said, looking at the man she was glaring at.
“Didn’t you hear who they brought in to take Philip’s job? Don’t you remember him from college?”
I looked at him harder, and then it dawned on me. “Is that Neal?” I hadn’t seen him since college, but he didn’t look all that different, just grown up. He had been almost a child prodigy when he came to MIT, enrolling at age sixteen and well on his way to a doctorate by twenty-one. “Excuse me, Colleen. I want to say hello.”
Neal was talking to Vinnie when I came up. “Neal?” I said.
He turned, and after only a short hesitation, smiled and said, “Laura?” He gave me a quick hug, and said, “You look great.”
“Thank you. You look pretty snazzy yourself.” His head had looked just a touch oversized before, but he had grown into it and filled out elsewhere as well. It was the first time I had ever seen him in a suit, and I was glad to see that he had traded in his black plastic-rimmed glasses for more stylish wire frames. “I had no idea you were back in town.”
“We brought him back,” Vincent said. “Neal is going to help bring SSI back into step with the industry.”
Neal looked embarrassed. Being brought in to take over for Philip in the company Philip had cofounded must have been difficult for him, even before Philip’s death. Philip and Neal had been college roommates.
“Is this your husband?” Neal asked, looking at Thaddeous, who came in then to join us.
“No, this is my cousin, Thaddeous Crawford. My husband is spending the month in England.”
They shook hands.
“What have you been up to, Neal?” I said.
“This and that,” he said. “Nothing spectacular. How about you?”
I briefly caught him up on the past few years and we chatted for a few minutes. Then Neal excused himself to speak to Philip’s family and Vincent went with him.
“He seems like a good fellow,” Thaddeous said, kindly not adding that he was considerably more pleasant than the rest of the MIT crew.
“I always liked Neal,” I said. He had been troubled but nice. I’d have to tell Thaddeous the story of how Neal had left MIT before finishing his doctorate. He had been putting the finishing touches on his dissertation when his hard drive crashed. Hard. Somehow his backups had been corrupted, too, and though he was probably the best programmer I ever met, he couldn’t get his data back. This was before viruses were widely known, but all of us at MIT knew about them. All we could ever figure out was that some hacker had created something deadly, and somehow it had gotten onto Neal’s system.
If Neal had been a little older, or maybe more mature, he might have been able to roll with it. As quickly as he’d done the work the first time, surely he would have been able to repeat most of it before the deadline MIT sets on doctoral students.
But he wasn’t very mature, despite his brilliance. Rocketing through MIT in about a third of the time it usually took had cost him. I had often wondered how it would have turned out had he come to one of us for advice or support, but Philip was out of town when it happened and Neal didn’t tell any of the rest of us what he was planning. He just packed up his things and went home to California. I hadn’t seen him since, and as far as I knew, nobody else had, either. I’d have to ask Jessie how they had found him. In fact, there were a whole lot of things I was going to have to ask Jessie.
After all the other surprises I had had that night, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the next person to come in the door was Detective Salvatore. “Thaddeous, look who’s here.”
“Isn’t that that policeman?”
“What policeman?” Jessie asked, as she came up behind us.
“Detective Salvatore, the one who questioned us about Philip,” I said. “Didn’t you talk to him?”
“Only over the phone,” she said. “What does he want?”
“Maybe he’s just paying his respects,” I said, but I had a hunch that that wasn’t all. Chief Junior Norton in Byerly doesn’t go to the funerals of people who die there unless she knew them or their deaths were suspicious. And Salvatore hadn’t known Philip.
Thaddeous must have been thinking the same thing. “I guess he’s doing a little investigating.”
“Philip’s death was an accident, wasn’t it?” Jessie asked.
I said, “As far as I know.”
“Then why is he here?”
I didn’t have an answer for her, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have had time to give it to her before she said, “I have to tell Vincent,” and walked quickly away.
“Why is she so upset?” Thaddeous asked.
“Beats me,” I said. “Maybe she’s afraid this will cause bad publicity for SSI.” It was probably rude of us, but Thaddeous and I couldn’t help watching as Salvatore spoke to the Dennises for several minutes, and afterward, to Colleen. Then he turned and saw us, and came our way.
“Mrs. Fleming, Mr. Crawford. How are you enjoying Boston, Mr. Crawford?”
“Nobody calls me Mr. Crawford,” Thaddeous said. “I’m Thaddeous. And I’m having myself a big time. This is one fine city. You’ve got some fine-looking women, too.”
I’d have to repeat that comment to Michelle. “I’m kind of surprised to see you here,” I said to Detective Salvatore. “Does this mean—?”
“It doesn’t mean a thing, Mrs. Fleming. I’m just being nosy. I’ve been a cop for a while now, and this case is kind of unusual. We get people who die of exposure every winter, but usually it’s derelicts, not successful computer programmers like Philip Dennis.”
“I guess I was his last resort.” I really hated having to
say that, but it looked as if it was true.
Salvatore said, “Wouldn’t his family have taken him in? They’re in Worcester, but he could have gotten there somehow, or they could have come to get him.”
“His father said that he and his brother had been fighting, so that might be why he didn’t call them.”
“Maybe,” Salvatore said.
“Detective Salvatore,” Thaddeous said, “you sound like a man who needs convincing.”
Salvatore chuckled. “I guess you’re right, Mr.—Thaddeous.”
“Philip’s death was an accident, wasn’t it?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to hear his answer. “That’s what you said it looked like.”
“It still looks like it.”
“Had he been drinking?”
“Definitely beyond the legal limit,” he said.
“And he hit his head?”
“Absolutely.”
I looked at him. “So what am I missing?”
“Maybe you’re not so much missing something as I’m seeing something that isn’t there. He’d been drinking, but not enough to pass out.”
“Might be it was enough to make him slip and hit his head,” Thaddeous said. “Especially with the snow and all.”
“That’s probably what happened,” Salvatore agreed. “Only that blow to the head bothers me, too. I just wish I knew what he hit his head on.” He was looking at me closely when he said that, and I suddenly realized he was being awfully chatty. I’ve known Junior Norton for years, and I don’t think she’d have told me that much unless she had a darned good reason.
I lowered my voice. “Do you think Philip was murdered?”
“Why would I think that?”
The logical next question would be did he think I’d done it, but I didn’t ask that one because I didn’t want to hear his answer.
Salvatore kept looking at me, and I made myself look right back at him. Then he kind of nodded. “So who are the people from the company where Mr. Dennis worked? I’d like to meet them.”
I hesitated at first, feeling like a stool pigeon. But then I decided I was being silly. He was a cop—he could find out who was who pretty quickly, with or without me. I pointed out Vinnie and Jessie, who were talking urgently, and gave him their names. Salvatore thanked me and headed in their direction.
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