Probably was, Amanda thought, making a note to tell Charley her thoughts later, including the cremation regret. For the time being, all she could do was scowl at him while Irene sobbed softly into a tissue. Herbert slipped a consoling arm about his wife's shoulder, his own eyes moist.
Finally the service ended, and Amanda started out of the church with the family while Charley entertained himself by telling her all the "secrets" of the people around them.
"Big bald guy over there, Hayden Marshall, drinks a couple of beers every Sunday morning before he goes to the Baptist Church with his wife. Can't blame him. Look at his wife. She never shuts up. That tall blond over there? She's not a natural blond. Want to know how I know?"
"Charley!" Amanda gasped involuntarily.
Irene slipped an arm around her waist. "I know, Amanda. I can't help calling to him myself sometimes. I keep expecting him to come around the corner, smiling, telling us it was all one of his practical jokes."
Amanda clenched her teeth and glowered at Charley.
"Hey, I was just going to tell you I dated a hairdresser who did her hair. What did you think I was going to say, Amanda?" Charley's laughter died abruptly. "It's Kimball. He's here."
In spite of her reassurances to herself that all this Kimball stuff was nonsense, Amanda tensed at the genuine fear in Charley's voice.
A tall man with immaculate brown hair, wearing an immaculate dark suit and an immaculate expression of condolence approached with his hand extended. "Herbert, Irene, I wanted to come by and pay my respects. I'm so sorry about your loss." He grasped each of their hands in turn. Both Herbert and Irene were polite but stilted in their responses.
The man was good-looking in a smooth, movie-star way, a way that would compel the attention of others from across the room. But up close, there was something disturbing in his eyes. They were large and brown and should have called up images of puppy dogs. Instead they sent a shiver down Amanda's spine. This man's gaze was not a warm brown. His eyes were cold and hard like a frozen pool in an underground cave where sunlight never had and never would reach.
The owner of those cold eyes reached for Amanda's hand. "And this must be Charley's widow. I'm Roland Kimball, mayor of our little town." She reflexively drew back. Not that she really believed this small town official had murdered Charley. Certainly not that she believed he was a threat to her. It was just those eyes. If she touched him, she might be sucked into their frigid depths and never return.
"Yes," she said, forcing a smile and trying to act as if she weren't deliberately ignoring his outstretched hand. "I'm Charley's widow."
"Be careful!" Charley whispered.
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Randolph. How long will you be staying in our little town?" His voice and his smile were warm and compelling. Only his eyes gave him away, turning his words into a veiled threat.
"Tell him you're leaving tomorrow!" Charley ordered.
She wanted to leave right now, this minute. Push through the crowd, get to her motorcycle and ride away from this man as fast as she could. "I'm not sure," she said defiantly. "I may stay several days with my…my husband's family. Get to know everybody." She emphasized the last word, returning his veiled threat…if, indeed, such a threat existed.
"She's going to be staying as long as we can keep her," Irene confirmed, smiling at Amanda.
"No!" Charley protested, waving his arms frantically. "You gotta get out of here! Go home! Buy a gun! Move in with The Judge!"
"I hope to see you again while I'm here," Amanda said sweetly.
"I can't believe you said that!" Charley shrieked. "Are you nuts? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"I'm sure that can be arranged." For a fleeting instant, Amanda thought Kimball was responding to Charley's question about getting herself killed. Of course he had replied to her comment that she hoped to see him again. Nevertheless, his words chilled her. Perhaps the meaning was the same as if he had replied to Charley.
Kimball continued to smile beneficently. "Good day, Irene, Herbert…Mrs. Randolph." He turned away, offering his immaculate condolences to other members of the family.
"That guy gives me the creeps," Irene said.
"Ah, you just don't like him cause he's rich," Herbert drawled.
"You don't like him, either."
"No, I reckon I don't," Herbert admitted.
"Why?" Amanda asked.
Herbert shrugged.
"I won't gossip at my son's funeral," Irene said primly, then added, "We'll talk later."
"Way to go, Amanda!" Charley exclaimed. "You want rid of me? You're never gonna get rid of me! I'm supposed to help you, but I can't help you when you won't listen to me. You're gonna die and be with me forever and we're both going to be stuck here. No white light. No forever after. What were you thinking, egging Kimball on like that, telling him you're staying here, that you'll see him again?"
Amanda wasn't sure of the answer to that question. Obstinacy, perhaps, thwarting Charlie's orders. A determination to prove that Charley was lying. Or maybe that Charley was telling the truth.
Somebody had tried to kill her. Now that she'd seen the Kimball character in the flesh, she wasn't so certain Charley had made up the whole story.
"Amanda!"
She whirled at the note of increased stress in Charley's voice.
"I…uh…you need to…" he stuttered, waving his hand vaguely toward the front of the church.
"Look, Herbert, there's Sunny and her mother," Irene said, and Amanda turned again, this time in the direction Irene was pointing.
Across the room, she met the wide gaze of a tall, slim woman with barely tamed red hair pulled back from a porcelain face. Beside her stood an older, slightly-stooped woman with short white hair who was also looking in Amanda's direction. The younger woman seemed vaguely familiar, but before Amanda could place her, she averted her gaze, spoke to the older woman, and both turned and walked out the door.
"That was nice of them to come," Herbert said.
"Who is she?" Amanda asked, as the woman disappeared into the crowd outside. "The woman with red hair."
"Sunny Donovan. She's a lawyer. Nice lady. Takes care of her mother, helps a lot of people around town. Helped Charley when he got in some trouble a few years ago."
Behind her, Charley groaned. Like he thought she'd be surprised to hear he'd been in trouble before they met? She'd have been surprised if he hadn't been.
"What kind of trouble?" she asked, more to make conversation than because she really cared about the answer. She was still trying to remember where she'd seen Sunny Donovan. Irene said the woman was a lawyer, so perhaps she'd met her through her father. Or maybe, judging from Charley's apparent desire that she not see Ms. Donovan, she and Charley had been involved in more than her helping him with legal issues. That wouldn't be surprising, either.
"Drugs," Irene said.
"It was just a little pot." Charley moved up beside Amanda. "No big deal. Let it go."
"He got in with a bad crowd," Irene continued.
Her husband snorted. "He started the bad crowd."
Charley grinned. "I always was a leader."
"Now, Herbert. Everybody does foolish things when they're young."
"Wasn't any younger than you and I were when we got married." Herbert's blue eyes twinkled as he spoke the words, and Amanda realized he was teasing his wife.
"And some would say that was a foolish thing," Irene replied, taking her husband's arm and gazing up at him fondly.
To the best of her knowledge, Amanda's parents had never teased each other, and she couldn't imagine her mother gazing at her father with such an open, loving expression.
A tall man wearing an ill-fitting suit moved out of the crowd and draped a long arm around Irene's shoulders. Son Hank, the carpenter, a younger version of his father. "We need to leave for the cemetery, Mama," he said softly. Still clutching her husband's arm, Irene turned to her oldest son and nodded, her features crumbling at the reminder that
they would soon be burying one of her children.
"The cemetery?" Charley exclaimed. "That place is creepy. I'm not going there."
Impulsively, Amanda stepped forward and took Irene's hand. "That's not Charley in that casket," she blurted. "He's still here." Oh, great, she thought as she realized what she was saying. That'll comfort her a lot. Tell her Charley's a ghost and let her think her new-found daughter-in-law is nuts. "I mean—"
But Irene patted her hand. "I know what you mean. Charley will be with us in our hearts as long as we have his memory."
"Damn straight," Charley said. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Certainly not to that cemetery. Hey, what if I suffocate when they put my body under all that dirt? Come on, Amanda. Let's get out of here."
"I believe there's a tradition," Amanda said, "that someone close to the deceased drops the first bit of dirt onto the casket after they put it in the grave. If you don't mind, I'd like to have that honor."
"Of course you can," Irene said, smiling through her tears. "If Charley's watching from heaven, I'm sure he's real proud that you want to do that."
"I feel certain he's watching and knows."
"That's low, Amanda," Charley said, "really low."
Amanda gave him a brief smirk as she joined the rest of the family, heading for the cemetery.
***
The after-funeral event was an occasion for family members, friends and neighbors, and the little house was even more packed with people and food than the first evening. They filled the house, the front porch and much of the yard.
Amanda piled fried chicken, fried okra, fried squash, Crowder peas, fried potatoes with onions and a slice of smoked ham onto a plate painted with purple flowers, then grabbed a fork with bent tines and a fruit jar filled with iced tea. She could get used to this. Perhaps it was a good thing Charley hadn't introduced her to his family. The thought of losing these wonderful people with their wonderful food would have made it a lot harder to divorce his sorry ass.
Pushing through the crowd, she found an unoccupied chair in a corner of the living room and sat down to enjoy the food.
"Wish I could still eat," Charley said, sitting cross legged on the floor. One of his knees passed through an elderly woman's stocking-clad leg.
"I wish you'd go away." Amanda bit into a crunchy drumstick, savoring the moist chicken.
"Mrs. Kemp probably killed that chicken this morning. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Might if that chicken's ghost was haunting me, but it's not." She took a bite of the okra. "Mmmm! This is so good!"
"You can be a cold woman, Amanda."
"Excuse me? I don't think the okra suffered."
"I'm talking about that huge clod of dirt you threw on my coffin. And you threw it with so much force. I'm surprised you didn't break the coffin."
"That was my intention. Break the coffin and throw the dirt in your face. Tell me about Sunny Donovan."
Charley's eyes widened, his face went distinctly pale, even for a ghost, and his gaze slid to the side. All these reactions belied his casual shrug. "Nothing to tell about Sunny. She does a lot of free legal work. She got me out of a scrape once. A little pot. No big deal."
"You're lying to me, Charley."
His eyes lifted to meet her gaze. "I'm not! I told you I can't lie."
"And I'm supposed to believe that, why?"
"Because I can't lie. Ask me a question and I'll try to lie and you'll see."
Amanda realized Charley's assertion made absolutely no sense, but it was worth a shot just in case he might burst into flames or be sucked away into a void should he try to lie. "Did you sleep with Sunny Donovan?"
"No!" he responded indignantly. "I can't believe you'd even ask me something like that."
"She's beautiful."
"She's old."
"Did you try to sleep with her?"
Charley opened his mouth, and his face contorted as if the muscles were battling with each other. "N-n-n-yes." He drew in a deep breath and glared. "I hope you're happy now."
"There you are." Irene came up, and Charley moved away. "I've been looking for you. I see you got some food. If you haven't had dessert yet, you have got to have some of Dorothy Crawley's pecan pie. She's got a tree in her back yard and shelled the pecans herself this morning."
Amanda let Irene lead her across the room though she would have liked to question Charley further about Sunny Donovan. Being rejected by a woman didn't seem enough to explain the way Charley acted about her. That, added to the fact Amanda was certain she'd met the woman before, aroused her curiosity. Before she left Silver Creek, she was going to find some way to meet Sunny Donovan.
A shiver darted down her spine as she recalled the other person in Silver Creek she needed to find out about. Mayor Kimball. If half of what Charley said about him was true, if he had stolen the gun that could prove her innocence, she would have to somehow get that gun back. After meeting the man, looking into his eyes, Charley's stories didn't seem so ridiculous.
"He's outside!" Charley hissed, as if reading her mind. She could only hope that was not one of his special ghost abilities.
"Are you going to start that again?" Amanda whispered, turning her head toward Charley, away from Irene.
"I swear he is! He's out there jacking with your motorcycle!"
Based on past experience, Amanda seriously doubted that Kimball was outside, but it could be that some drunk was urinating on her bike.
"I'm going outside for some fresh air," she said to Irene.
"You go right ahead. It is getting awful hot and crowded in here."
Amanda made her way to the front door. Stepping out onto the porch, she saw her motorcycle and a man standing beside it, looking down.
"I told you!" Charley gloated.
"What are you doing?" she demanding, running toward the man.
Kimball lifted his cold gaze to hers and smiled. "Nice bike."
She stopped in her tracks, a chill sliding over her in the warm night. It was him. Charley was right. Not some distant cousin admiring her motorcycle, not some vagrant thinking about stealing it or urinating on it. Next to her bike stood the man who, according to Charley, had tried to kill her by sabotaging her other motorcycle.
"Yes," she said. "It's a nice bike. What are you doing to it?"
He lifted his hands in a gesture of innocence and moved away from the bike, walking toward her. "Just looking at it. I ride a little."
She took an involuntary step backward, away from him. "Why are you here?"
"I came to pay my respects to the grieving family. Why are you here?"
"I'm a member of that grieving family," she replied indignantly. "I have a right to be here."
"Oh? Two weeks ago you'd never met these people and now you're a family member? That's why you're here? That's the only reason?" He was no longer smiling, and his dark gaze held her as surely as if his hands gripped her. Then suddenly the smile returned and he looked past her, over her shoulder. "Hello, Irene."
Amanda spun around to see her mother-in-law standing in the open doorway.
"Hello, Roland. How nice of you to drop by." Irene was saying the polite words, but she didn't sound like she meant them. "Do come in. We have plenty of food and iced tea."
Kimball moved past Amanda, up the porch steps and into the house.
Irene remained on the porch. "You okay, Amanda?"
Amanda drew in a deep breath, steadying herself. "Yes. Fine. I'll be there in a couple of minutes."
But she wasn't fine. She was freaked out and a little frightened. That's why you're here? That's the only reason? What had he meant by that? Since a normal person would expect her to be at her ex-husband's funeral festivities, was Kimball asking if she was there to expose him for his crimes?
She shivered then forced herself to walk over to her Harley. "What did that monster do to my bike?" she asked Charley.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? You said you saw
him doing something!"
"I saw him standing there. He'd already done it, or maybe he was thinking about doing it."
"So you didn't really see anything?"
Charley's amiable features became suddenly serious. "I saw the way he looked at you. I heard what he said to you. He thinks you're here because of him. He's scared of you, of what you know, and that makes him dangerous. You need to go back to Dallas tonight."
"Go back to Dallas? You think I'll be safe there? You didn't think so when you were finding poison in my coffee and attempted murder in my dry rot. Why are you so anxious to get me away from here?"
The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost) Page 11