Faithful Unto Death

by Stephanie Jaye Evans

  He was standing between two distinguished-looking men—presumably William and David, the stepbrothers Graham had been so anxious to equal.

  Grief had eaten at Dr. Garcia. He looked thinner and his face was shadowed. His elegant dark suit looked as if it had been tailored for a bigger man. I thought there was a tremor in the hand he held out to me, and I took his hand in both of mine. I wanted to hug him, but it would probably have made him uncomfortable, and anyway, his two sons flanked him like bodyguards.

  Dr. Garcia introduced his sons to Detective Wanderley and they swelled, their faces solemn and protective. Wanderley shook Dr. Garcia’s hand. He had the good sense not to offer his hand to the brothers Garcia.

  Dr. Garcia said, “Detective Wanderley, Honey tells me you’ve cleared Alex? He is no longer a suspect? I am so grateful. Of course, I knew you could never really have thought the boy could … that he could …” His eyes brimmed over and he fumbled for a handkerchief.

  The older of the two men, William, took his father’s elbow.

  “Come on, Pops. Let’s sit down. David, get Dad a glass of water.”

  Wanderley said, “Dr. Garcia, after the funeral, if you could give me a few minutes, I wanted to clear up …”

  William hurried Dr. Garcia off.

  David lingered long enough to give Wanderley a warning look. He leaned in to him and said, dropping his voice so Dr. Garcia wouldn’t overhear, “Listen. You want information, you come to me or Will. Dad’s not doing so well. This has been too much for him. He’s an old guy, you know? Graham was his ‘Joseph.’ But we’re not the jealous brothers, so don’t go in that direction. Graham was good to Dad. He was good for Dad. You find out who did this. If it wasn’t the crazy old man. Which I doubt.”

  David thrust two business cards into Wanderley’s hand.

  The man strode off.

  I said, “You cleared Alex?”

  Wanderley reached into his pocket and pulled out a black plastic guitar pick. He popped it into his mouth.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Then why would Honey—”

  He shook his head. “Bear, the waters run deep here. The waters run deep.”

  A door off the foyer opened. Margaret Butler from the funeral home walked out, and at the same time three or four cars pulled into the parking lot. Wanderley and I shook hands with Butler, signed the book she held out for us, and positioned ourselves near the front doors.

  A ten-year-old Continental pulled in behind Honey’s Escalade. An old man got carefully out of the Lincoln and walked around to open the passenger door of the Continental.

  Wanderley leaned over to tell me. “That’s Honey’s Uncle Ralph. Doing HD’s job for him. Since HD is still wearing an orange jumpsuit.”

  Ralph reached a hand into the car and drew out a tall, frail woman. Beanie. Or Belinda, rather. Honey’s mother looked like a Belinda—I don’t know how HD could ever have called such a gracious woman “Beanie.” She took a minute gathering her purse and sweater and a Bible, took the old man’s arm, and began walking slowly with him over to the church.

  The doors to the Escalade were still shut. Honey was probably still sitting in the car, taking the time to touch up her makeup, I thought.

  Finally, the Escalade’s side door opened and Jenasy got out and joined the old couple. They both embraced her. The man took Jenasy’s face in his hands, bent her head down, and kissed the top of her head as though he were bestowing a benediction on his best loved. Cruz opened the driver’s door and clambered out. She smoothed down a navy suit and settled a navy pillbox firmly on her head. She leaned back into the car and said something.

  Another minute passed before Honey Garcia opened the front seat passenger door and stepped down from the SUV. Black chiffon drapery and an overelaborate hair arrangement made her look like a Hollywood widow from a dated movie. Ralph took Belinda’s arm, and escorted her, along with Honey, toward the door. Jenasy walked with her arm hooked into Cruz’s. The group was stopped by a couple who had arrived at the same time and had been patiently waiting by the door.

  “Wanderley,” I said, snatching my chance, “how tall was the person who struck Garcia? Do you know? Could they have been as short as, say, Jo?”

  He swung back to me. “Bear! That’s what I was talking about! You’re Father Browning it!”

  “No, no, I only—”

  Wanderley turned to the door and studied the group outside.

  “I don’t know how tall the murderer was. That’s mainly TV stuff, knowing the murderer’s height, weight, and the color of the eyes, all from the angle of the blow,” he said without looking. “I haven’t had any word that would tell me someone Jo’s height could not have delivered the blow that killed Garcia, but forgive me, Bear, you’re a sick puppy to even think that. Your own daughter—”

  “Wait,” I said. “No, I mean, I never thought Jo—”

  “So why did you ask me? If you didn’t think it was Jo? Do you have something to tell me?” He studied me.

  “I … no! I was wondering, that’s all. You see things on TV …”

  But he had dismissed me. Honey and her group were coming through the doors, and more people were pulling up and getting out of their cars. Wanderley pulled back to a corner of the room where he could watch unobtrusively. I started the handshaking, back-patting thing.

  Belinda and Ralph were looking grieved and a little puzzled at Honey’s manner—she was over-enunciating everything she said and walking with a care that her three-inch heels couldn’t account for. Honey had evidently fortified herself for the occasion with some more of her doctored lemonade.

  If Honey didn’t already have a full-scale drinking problem, she soon would if she kept up like this. I would have to find someone to have a talk with her.

  The room was filling up. Lots of people from our church were there, lots of other people who I assumed were from the Catholic church, and a group of about twenty men and women with good haircuts and even better dark suits, who I thought must be from Graham’s law firm; something about the way they kept surreptitiously checking their phones and texting.

  I wondered which of the dark-suited crew was the lying dog. I wondered if all of them were. Then I made a mental mea culpa for that kind of prejudice.

  I was greeting Honey’s Uncle Ralph, saying all the expected things. I didn’t see Annie Laurie come in, but suddenly she was by my side, breathless and tugging at my arm.

  “Bear …”

  Ralph was talking, I had no idea what he was saying, but of course, I was pretending to listen, giving every appearance that he had my full attention, and patting Annie Laurie’s hand to let her know I’d be with her in a moment.

  “Bear …” she said again. But then I saw them.

  Alex Garcia stood in the door of the building. He had on dark Ray-Ban sunglasses. I don’t know if they were real Ray-Bans; they could have been Walgreen’s five-dollar knockoff. They looked like Ray-Bans. He wore a black jacket and charcoal slacks and his thick blond hair was tied into a nub of a ponytail at the nape of his neck. I took all that in, which surprises me, because all I really remember seeing was the woman on his arm. Not a woman, a girl. She only looked like a woman. My Jo.

  Jo was wearing one of Annie Laurie’s dresses, a black jersey wrap that Jo had pulled tight enough to fit her slimmer frame. When Annie Laurie wore the dress, it hit right at the knee; it fell to midcalf on Jo. She wore black pumps on her feet and small pearl earrings dangling from her earlobes—the earrings were another present from my mom—and had wrapped her long dark hair into some kind of loose updo. I don’t have any idea what you’d call such a hairstyle, but the sum total effect was that Jo looked like a twenty-eight-year-old woman, not a fourteen-year-old girl.

  Am I making it sound like Jo was tarted up? She wasn’t. She had on almost no makeup, and except for those pearl earrings, no jewelry. I hadn’t given her back her locket.

  She didn’t look like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes, ei
ther. She looked like a mature woman of twenty-something and she looked … heart-crashingly beautiful.

  I felt a terrible fear. I can’t tell you why. Why am I so frightened for this child of mine? Why does Jo tear at my heart in a way my lovely Merrie never has? I cannot catch hold of her. I am so afraid of losing her.

  Annie Laurie picked up the conversation I had let fall, and linked her arm through mine—short of physically shaking her off, I couldn’t free myself to go confront Jo. Exactly Annie’s intent, of course.

  And what was I going to say anyway? I had laid down the law that Jo couldn’t see Alex; Jo had been clear that she wouldn’t stop. I had no idea what to do. I had never openly defied my father when I was a kid. Naturally, I had disobeyed him on a number of occasions, but I had taken precautions to keep that from him. See, I think that’s a sign of respect, not being open about it.

  Had I known what to do, there wouldn’t have been time anyway. Before I could catch Jo’s eye, I saw the Asian woman from the golf course.

  She passed right by me, a light, bright citrus scent trailing her. Up close I could see that she was closer to forty-five than thirty-five. The black sheet of hair I had seen hanging to her waist the night she was at the golf course was now knotted in a sleek chignon at the back of her slim neck. She was wearing a fitted black-skirted suit—the only soft touch was a pink and gray silk scarf tucked into the neckline. Three-inch-high heels put her at all of five-two, five-three. Barefoot, she would stand an inch shorter than Jo.

  The woman wasn’t beautiful. Handsome, yes. And definitely attractive. But she was no stunner. I glanced over at Honey. This woman was Honey’s physical opposite. In my experience, men who have affairs often choose younger, prettier versions of their wives. You know, the John Derek marriage model.

  Honey was tall, full-bosomed, and round-hipped even at her reduced weight. She was naturally soft and pillowy. The woman who was making her unobtrusive way through the crowd had the body of an athlete, lean and toned and tiny. Honey’s touched-up red hair and blue eyes could not have contrasted more with this woman’s dark eyes and inky hair, slightly silvered at the temples. Honey’s face was flushed with emotion and cosmetics. And drink. This woman was pale under her darker skin, and her makeup was muted.

  If Graham Garcia had gone in search of a woman who was as dissimilar from his wife as nature allowed, he couldn’t have done better than the woman who slipped into the aisle seat of the last row.

  “You all right?” my wife asked.

  I brought myself back.

  “I’m fine. Where’s Jo?” People were moving toward the auditorium and we followed.

  “She’s with Alex. She’s sitting with the family.”

  “For crying out loud, Annie Laurie, what is she, his fiancée? Do you think that’s appropriate, Jo sitting with the family? I can’t think that’s going to go down well with Honey. I don’t like this one iota.”

  Annie Laurie stopped short of the sanctuary door, veered to the right down an adjacent corridor, and kept walking. I waited a second but she didn’t come back. I had to trot after her and take her arm before she stopped.

  “What?” I said. I could hear soft organ music. Annie didn’t say anything. She didn’t turn around. I pulled her around to face me.

  “What is it?” I couldn’t understand her behavior, and if we didn’t hurry, we were going to be Standing Room Only. The auditorium was filling fast. A crowd had turned out for Garcia’s funeral.

  Annie took a big breath. She pushed my hand off her arm and smoothed her sleeve. I hadn’t crumpled the fabric.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Annie shook her head at me and I reached out to smooth back a stray strand of her soft, blond hair but she caught me by the wrist.

  “You never mean to, Bear. You tromp all over people’s feelings, brush aside anything that doesn’t fit in with your way of thinking, and if anyone gets in the way and gets hurt, well, you didn’t mean to. You know what, Bear? You’re too big. You take up more than your fair share of oxygen.”

  “Annie, all I said was—”

  “I heard what you said. I heard what you said because I listen to you. You said you didn’t like Jo sitting with Alex and his family.

  “Bear, today isn’t about you or what you like. We are here to pay our respects to Graham Garcia and to comfort his family. Jo is a comfort to Alex. That is the beginning and the end of the story and you aren’t in this story.”

  “Sweetheart, I didn’t want Honey to—”

  “Honey is two drinks away from falling flat on her fanny. Whatever clear-thinking part of her there is will be grateful as hell that her boy can take comfort somewhere, anywhere at all today.” Annie had tears in her eyes and she dug in her purse for a tissue.

  “Well, all right then, let’s go on in—”

  “No!” Annie blew her nose and sniffed and shut her purse with an emphatic click. “I want to know why everything Jo does is wrong! Did you see our daughter walk into this church? How you can keep from perishing with pride every time you look at her is a dark mystery to me, Bear. What the hell more do you want from her?”

  “Annie!”

  “Bear, you are the only adult in the whole state of Texas who thinks it’s a sin to say ‘hell.’ It’s not a curse; it’s not even a vulgarity, and I’m your wife, not your child, so don’t you dare correct my speech.”

  “All right, then, fine. Can we please settle down and go—”

  “Bear! Don’t you ever tell me to settle down, not after some of the fits I’ve seen you throw. And no, we can’t go in, not until you’ve answered me.” She had her hands on her hips now, and that is not ever a good sign in a woman even if the hips in question are Annie’s very comely ones.

  I looked around for someplace to sit but there weren’t any benches down this hall and I don’t know the Catholic church well enough to go trying doorknobs.

  I said, “First off, you’re entirely wrong about everything. Didn’t I say she could go to New York? Didn’t I say I’d pay the six thousand dollars?”

  “No, you said it would come out of her college fund. Which my parents have generously contributed to and I put almost as much money into those accounts as you do.”

  “Are you saying that we should have taken six thousand dollars out of our savings so Jo could go to a fancy-pants rich-kid summer camp?”

  “If Merrie had been good enough at volleyball for the Olympics, you wouldn’t have thought twice about spending that money. About spending twice that much money.”

  I would have, too, because twelve thousand dollars is a lot of money, and in any case … “This isn’t the Olympics.”

  “It is the Olympics, Bear. For a classical ballerina, the American School of Ballet is the goddamn Olympics!”

  I had no clue what had gotten into my women, but this new thing with the language was not going to fly. “Okay, now, Annie, you’re out of line here. I’m not going to discuss this with you right now; it’s neither the time nor the place. Let’s quiet down, and go take our seats.”

  Annie started to say something; she closed her mouth. I put my hand on her waist and we walked back toward the door of the sanctuary. When we got there, she kept walking across the lobby. She went over to the guest book, signed her name, and then walked out of the church. I watched her get into her car and drive away.

  Twenty-eight

  It wasn’t my finest moment, letting Annie Laurie drive off; I know that. I should have gotten in my car and followed her and made things right, even if I wasn’t in the wrong. That’s what I should have done. Or maybe not, the way things turned out. Or maybe so, the way things turned out.

  While I stood there debating whether to go into the sanctuary for the rest of the funeral, or go after Annie Laurie and mend what needed mending, the sanctuary door swung open and the mystery woman slipped out. If she saw me, and I’m hard to miss, I didn’t register on her. She had a hand in her glossy leather
purse and she pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses and a crystal key ring shaped like a Nike running shoe. The glasses went on before she stepped outside, tears streaming from under the lenses; she had her key at the ready. If my stride weren’t twice as long as hers, I would have had to trot to catch up. I was doing that a lot today.

  “Miss, miss!” I sounded like an importunate waiter.

  She glanced over her shoulder, saw me, scanned the rest of the parking lot, which was full of cars and empty of people, and decided that, yes, the big man lumbering after her was calling her. She stopped.

  If women still wore gloves, and if the mystery woman had conveniently dropped one in the foyer, well, that would have given me an opening. But women don’t wear gloves anymore unless they’re golfing or gardening.

  Instead I said, “I saw you at the golf course last night. Near where Graham was killed. You’re a friend of Graham’s, aren’t you?” Clear, direct, to the point.

  She spun around, sprinted away on those high heels, and held her key fob out to a cream-colored BMW sedan. The locks popped open. Stilettos are not good sprinting shoes. I outpaced her easily and put my hand on her door before she could open it.

  I looked down at her and tried hard not to look menacing—that’s tricky when you weigh more than twice what the woman does and you are blocking her from her car.

  “His son saw you. That night. With Graham. Alex misunderstood the situation and he’s in a lot of pain about it. I really need to talk to you.”

  There it was. I’d done it. Without a thought, I’d broken my promise. The moment I realized it, I slapped my head. Shame rose up in me like a flash flood.

  If I was wrong, and this woman was not Graham Garcia’s lover, then I had just let a total stranger in on a very, very personal secret, and I would need to be taken out and shot.

  When I opened my eyes, she was studying me.

  “You okay?”

  I flushed again.

  “Yes.” If a promise-breaking idiot can be said to be okay, then yes, I was fine. For a fat-mouthed jackass, I was triple peachy keen.