Pray for Us Sinners, a Cozy Mystery (A Ronnie Lord Mystery, #2) (The Ronnie Lord Mysteries)

by L. K. Ellwood

  A jab to the shoulder. Ronnie rubbed the sore spot and glared at Gina.

  ~ * ~

  By the time they reached the turnoff to Two Witt, the long driveway to the house was bloated with parked cars. Gina slowed to one side, triggered the turn signal, and waited.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Gina wailed. “We have to park all the way out here and walk to the house?”

  “Without shoes,” Ronnie reminded her. “On gravel. Both ways.”

  Gina huffed and shed her pumps.

  The lengthy driveway, upon closer inspection, had indeed become a makeshift parking lot. Ronnie removed the bolero jacket she wore and draped it over her arm for the quarter-mile walk so she would not look like she had stepped out of a sauna fully-clothed. Sharp gravel pebbles cut the soles of her feet, and white dust colored her hose as they hiked the distance, examining the cars. Some, she noticed, looking at the license plates, had driven all the way from Volusia County and Tampa to pay their last respects.

  Gina pointed to a yellow pickup truck, filmy with dust. “Fulton County, Georgia. How about that?” she said. “Somebody drove six hours from Atlanta to be here.”

  “Big deal. The Pope’s flying all the way from Rome to canonize Lorena.”

  “True,” Gina nodded, “but that’s hardly a solemn occasion.”

  “Game, set, match, Gina Hayes.”

  In the course of two days, Allayne’s home had morphed from pastel palace to a study in funereal black. Heavy black cloth concealed the large mirror situated above the living room mantel, covering also Allayne’s acting awards and whatever framed photos were interspersed between them. Another swatch was draped over the oil painting hanging on the perpendicular wall.

  Gina gestured to the oval mirror in the foyer, also concealed. “It’s customary to do this during the period of mourning,” Gina explained to her sister. “When you mourn, you’re not supposed to be concerned with your own vanity.”

  This Ronnie knew, and she moved closer to her sister, trying to ignore the odd looks from other guests as they took in her bare feet and rent bodice. “Why hide the painting?” Ronnie asked. “Are we not allowed to appreciate fine art, either?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get to do much research on the Net last night because Bill’s mother called and disrupted the connection. Kept him up until midnight talking about a town full of people he hasn’t seen in twenty years.”

  “Ah.” Ronnie elected to let the subject rest. Gina’s mother-in-law was always a sore spot. They needed to concentrate on right now.

  Easing through the throng of mourners filing in and out of the living room, foyer, and Allayne’s spacious dining room was Lew, a formidable sight in his dress blues. Ronnie felt her breath catch as she drank in the sight of him. He had shaved and trimmed the unruly edges of his mustache, which was peppered with a few gray hairs to match those on his sideburns. Under his furrowed brow, two brown eyes appeared bolder than Ronnie had ever seen them. Ronnie wondered if it was the uniform that enhanced his chiseled face and eyes, but as he approached she could clearly see his tightened jaw. He did not want to be there.

  “Ladies,” he greeted the sisters in a civil voice. “Was there a scuffle outside?”

  Ronnie realized he was looking at their torn garments and feet, and quickly explained that they had taken on the official mourning role.

  “We missed you at the funeral, Lew,” Gina said, offering the sheriff a good-natured pat on the shoulder. Lew appeared to warm to the touch, which annoyed Ronnie. Why not? Apparently he had long forgiven Gina’s refusal to hop in the sack with him.

  “That’s because I’ve been here for much of the morning,” Lew grumbled. “Seems that the Allayne Witt camp got it into their heads that the Ash Lake Police Department also doubles as personal security when the need arises. Miss Daily actually had Dwayne at the door, checking names.”

  “We didn’t see Dwayne when we were coming in.”

  “That’s because I put him back to work, protecting and serving,” Lew nearly exploded; his voice lowered after turning a few heads. “When they want to pay his salary he can take tickets and serve drinks, for all I care. Dwayne works for the town, and Miss Daily doesn’t even live here.”

  Ronnie nodded. That explained the gatecrashers in T-shirts and shorts now picking through the buffet table ahead of them. “And you’re still here because…?” she prodded.

  Lew sighed. “I compromised by agreeing to make my presence known for a while, but I won’t stay much longer. I liked Allayne, but I have a job to do, too.” With that, he stalked away, leaving Gina and Ronnie to look at each other with quizzical brows.

  “O-kay,” Gina said. “I get the impression something more than being treated as an overpaid gopher is bothering him.”

  Three guesses. “So, where do we sit?” Ronnie asked. Before leaving the synagogue, Lorraine had instructed the sisters that they would be obliged to sit with her on some low chairs set up for the occasion, in order to receive sympathies. Looking around the crowded house, Ronnie saw no such setup. “Perhaps it’s because the chairs are so low we can’t see them for the people,” she said to Gina.

  “Don’t get smart now,” Gina snapped. “Hopefully it will be okay to get food first. I’m starving.”

  They started for the dining room, where lavish arrays of food had been arranged on the main dining table and smaller tables. Ronnie recognized a number of faces from the service, as well as some veteran Southwest Memorial cast members who had enjoyed front burner stories when Ronnie was a more avid viewer. Hairstyles had changed, skin had either sagged or tightened, but all appeared weary and stricken underneath the cloud of their co-star’s passing.

  “Do you suppose—” Ronnie turned toward her sister, but found herself alone in the crowd. A quick glance toward the buffet told her that Lorraine had already spotted Gina and was guiding her back to the living room, presumably to sit and receive guests.

  Ronnie ducked behind a pair dressed in Brantwood and Bethany T-shirts, hoping not yet to be seen. She pushed her way gently to the main table but was stilled by a hand to her shoulder before she could select even one morsel of food. She craned her neck as a paper cup filled with soda crossed her line of vision. The sapphire in Danny Cushing’s college ring glistened in the overhead track lighting.

  “You look like you could use something stronger, but this is all we have,” he said with a grim smile.

  Ronnie gratefully took the cup. The soda was flat, but a welcome relief for her parched throat.

  “I never got the chance to thank you and your sister for agreeing to join Lorraine in her mourning,” he continued. “That was a very nice thing to do.”

  “Not a problem, and I thought you did a wonderful job with the Kaddish. You’ll have to forgive me, though. I had no idea you were Jewish.”

  “Half-Jewish, actually, on my mother’s side. My father was raised Baptist but leaned more toward Unitarianism, and he didn’t object to us going through Hebrew school and all that.”

  “I see. Well, I think Allayne would have been pleased.”

  “Allayne,” Danny chuckled. “Allayne would have wondered what the hell we were doing in that synagogue.” He waved his own cup around the room. “Somehow, though, she would have appreciated this chaos more. Anything that got under her mother’s skin, she relished.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it will be as bad as all that today,” Ronnie said. “From what I’ve been hearing since I got here, these people really adored her. They’re not going to tear up the house or steal things. I think they respect her memory too much to be destructive.”

  Danny appeared to agree, but sighed deeply and added, “I suppose it’s a small comfort to know that Allayne didn’t keep anything of value in this house, too. Lorraine had the entire upstairs sealed off, just in case.” He gestured back to the main staircase, which Ronnie noticed was cordoned off by a small privacy gate. Not exactly high-tech security, but she did see that nobody dared cross it.

&nb
sp; “Perhaps you should be more concerned about the downstairs toilet holding up.” Ronnie was unable to hide her smile, and she was relieved to see Danny respond in kind. The gesture took years off his countenance, and Ronnie wondered for a moment why the handsome blond gentleman chose a career behind the scenes rather than in front of the camera.

  “Thank you, I needed that,” he said politely. “I’ll see you back at the front?”

  “Yes.”

  Danny nodded and retreated toward the living room, stopping to converse with one of Allayne’s co-stars. A twinge of sadness and guilt flittered in Ronnie’s stomach as she watched him. There was no mistaking the unshed tears reflected in the man’s eyes, and Ronnie could not help but think if Danny’s relationship with Allayne had transcended business. She decided to think of a tactful way to broach the subject when they next spoke as she snatched a plate for the buffet.

  She ambled slowly in line, cherry-picking from a selection of raw vegetables, cheeses, and casseroles, when the charcoal suit in front of her broke free to reveal a familiar head of billowing red hair. The woman, her back still turned to Ronnie as she reached for a napkin, was sheathed in a form-fitting black dress that ended at her knees.

  Ronnie stepped forward, recognizing her former student… and Landon Dennis’s ex-girlfriend. “Jeanette?”

  Jeanette Holley turned slowly around, her somber expression widening into an elated grin. “Professor Lord, it’s so great to see you!” she squealed. Then, more quietly, “It’s too bad we had to meet up like this, huh?”

  Ronnie agreed. “I never expected to see you here. I thought you had gone to Nashville to work on your singing career.” Against the advice of many of her teachers, Jeanette had left FCCJ early to pursue her dream of country music stardom.

  “I did, and it’s coming along, slowly but surely,” Jeanette said, hope coloring her face. “I’m burning up the stage at the Wild Horse Saloon on Karaoke Night, anyway. Plus I’m working the front office desk at the Country Music Hall of Fame now. You wouldn’t believe the contacts I’m making.” She giggled as she reached into her purse. “And, I’m a card-carrying member of the Allayne Witt Fan Club, too. I’m staying with my friend Melissa in Fernandina, and heading back home tomorrow.”

  “Well, I hope everything works out for you, and if you ever decide to go back to school up there, let me know.” Ronnie’s smile was genuine. Jeanette had been one of her more memorable students, though not the best. Still, she had to admire someone willing to take such a risk to be happy.

  I’m certainly not one to talk, Ronnie thought.

  Jeanette rolled her eyes. “Oh, I would go back to school if I had the time, but there’s so much work at the Hall, and I’m taking voice lessons. You know, Faith Hill was working in an office when she was discovered, so why not…”

  The girl’s voice faded away, and she cast a puzzled glance over Ronnie’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” Ronnie looked around her. Had the looting begun?

  “Oh! Can you believe he showed up here?” Jeanette spat. “That boy’s never watched an episode of Southwest Memorial in his life, how dare he come here and mooch off Allayne’s mom.”

  “Who? Who’s here?”

  Jeanette, however, did not have to answer the question. Ronnie turned toward the hallway opening into the living room and saw the lanky youth clad in jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt, a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ball cap curled in one fist, the other clamped around a cup.

  “Well, at least the jeans are black,” Ronnie offered.

  Jeanette huffed; it was clear to Ronnie that the two had not mended their differences following Landon’s last brush with the law. “Whatever. Hey, Professor Lord, if I don’t see you again today it was really good talking with you. I just don’t want to deal with Landon right now, especially when he’s crashing Allayne Witt’s wake. I mean, how rude is that?”

  “Uh—” Ronnie began to tell her that they were at a shivah, not a wake, but never got the chance. Jeanette quickly turned and disappeared into the sea of black descending upon the buffet. Ronnie glanced back to the wide, scalloped archway and thought of fading into the background herself, but Landon spotted her and waved.

  “Would you look at all this food,” he said in awe of the platters and bowls before them. “Father Joel was telling me a little about Jewish stuff. Seems everywhere you go there’s always food. Man, he wasn’t kidding.”

  “Catholics aren’t much different in that respect,” Ronnie said uneasily as Landon topped off an already rounded plate with a healthy scoop of chicken salad. “Nothing wrong with food. God wouldn’t have made it for us, otherwise.”

  “Yeah, ‘cept maybe apples,” Landon said, distracted by the buffet. “We all know how that story went, huh?”

  “Actually, if you read Genesis, you won’t find the word apple. I don’t know how the apple came to be associated with the Tree of Knowledge. I’d think that particular fruit wouldn’t be found nowadays.”

  Landon laughed thoughtfully at that. “I’ll bring that up with Father Joel next time I’m at the church. He’s been helping me with that stuff. I just hope he don’t think I’m trying to cause trouble or nothing.”

  Ronnie bit back the urge to correct the young man’s speech, suppressing the English teacher within, and asked instead, “Why would you think that? Father actually enjoys a good debate.”

  Landon shrugged and shuffled the food around his plate with a plastic fork. “I don’t know,” he said, chewing, “I just remember when I was little and my mom got saved and all. She’d make us go to Sunday school. I’d try to ask the teacher questions about the Bible, like how there’d be so many people born if Eve was the only woman around. I mean, she couldn’t have had all those kids, right? And where did her grandkids come from? Stuff like that.” He shook his head. “Teacher just said that’s the way it was, and if I didn’t believe it I was going to Hell.”

  Ronnie laughed. “Well, I know from experience that Father Joel is not one to become unglued at every nitpicking question.” A memory of how the priest helped her craft some very eloquent responses to Ethan Fontaine’s scathing anti-Catholic e-mails bubbled to the surface of her consciousness. Whether Ethan had bothered to read them, she did not know.

  “He’s a good catechist, er, Bible teacher,” Ronnie added. “You’ll learn a lot from him if you’re really serious about going through RCIA.”

  Landon’s shoulder drooped as he set down his plate and rammed his hand in his pants pocket. Ronnie watched him nervously shuffle away from the table. He looked as if he was about to ask her to the prom.

  “I’m still thinking about it,” he said sheepishly. “I might have more incentive to go through with it.”

  “How so?” Ronnie tried to think of every girl Landon’s age who was a member of the parish. Surely one of them had to have caught his fancy.

  Landon’s face suddenly turned serious. “Could I ask you something?”

  “You just did.”

  He thought a moment, then chuckled nervously. “No, I mean, can I ask you something in private? I don’t want to say it in front of all these people.”

  “Oh, okay.” Ronnie stepped away from the table as she risked a glance into the living room. She could see Gina’s head as she sat in between Danny and Lorraine, trying to look attentive as a bawling woman vigorously shook her hand.

  The next thing she knew, she had allowed Landon to lead her across the dining room into the spacious kitchen, gleaming with white Corian countertops and stainless steel appliances. Caterers in white tuxedo shirts and black aprons circled the large butcher block, silently preparing refills on food, while Nora Daily chatted quietly on the wall phone by the breakfast nook. She cast a cursory glance at the interlopers and offered a cautious, confused wave before the voice on the other end regained her attention.

  Landon opened the far door and ushered Ronnie into a large laundry room the size of her master bedroom. The faint scent of fabric softener hung in the stifled air around t
hem, and bright sunlight exploded through the paneled glass windows on the door leading to the backyard patio. The area was free of dirty laundry and Ronnie imagined Lorraine or Nora had somebody clear it away before the shivah in the event some fans stumbled into the room by accident.

  She looked at Landon and suddenly became wary of the glow in his green eyes. “Uh, Landon,” she said as he quietly closed the door behind them. “How did you know to come in here? How well do you know your way around?”

  “Remember my friend Rick, who moved your couch with me and Father Joel? He works up here part-time doing the landscaping,” Landon said as he leaned against an industrial-sized washing machine that probably cost two of Ronnie’s paychecks. “A few months back I started working here, too, whenever they needed an extra hand planting stuff and cutting the grass.” He nodded to the far corner of the room by the outside exit. “Miss Witt had that shower installed for us to use. Her mom didn’t like for us to go tramping through the house all messed up.”

  “How considerate of her.” Ronnie now noticed the white stall, the opaque plastic curtain covering the entrance. Images of Landon’s lean, tanned body, freckled with potter’s soil and sweat, arched slightly as long needles of water drenched him, came unbidden, and Ronnie shook them away.

  Knock it off, she told herself. He could be one of your students. You’re not Mrs. Robinson.

  She forced herself to look at the young man, his drawling smile and his squared shoulders. “Okay, what is so important that couldn’t be heard by an entire shivah? If you’re worried about offending anybody, I don’t know much about Jewish death rituals myself to tell you what you would be doing wrong.”

  “Nothing like that,” Landon said, “but people might find it a bit inappropriate.”

  “Find what?” Ronnie did not like where this was going, wherever that was.

  With one bold stride forward Landon had both arms around Ronnie’s waist as he dove in for a kiss. His lips clamped against hers, his breathing quick and roaring in her left ear. Initially taken aback by the move, Ronnie tightened her jaw as Landon gently tried to pry her mouth open with his tongue. She had not been kissed in months, which seemed more like an eternity, and though Ronnie missed the abrasive itch of Lew’s mustache brushing against her upper lip, she guiltily welcomed the intimacy offered to her now.