my ribbon. “Are you aware that there are only two boxes of votive candles in this room?” she said. “Hardly enough. Can you see to it?”
“Right away,” I said, feeling like I’d flunked a blood test, and guessing that I wouldn’t be delivering any tissues to her chair.
Not that I was judging her grief. People mourn in different ways, I knew, and I had the feeling that all of Frances Whitestone’s would be done in the privacy of her boudoir. My own relatives had preferred to express their suffering by throwing themselves, wailing, onto the casket of the departed loved one.
I desperately wanted to ask Mrs. Whitestone some questions, and had to clench my jaws and fists to keep from reading her my mental list. Had she heard the hit-and-run car drive away? Had she seen any suspicious-looking cars in the neighborhood that day? Who else knew what time Margaret would be arriving? How soon had she gone out to investigate the noise? I was aggravated that Matt hadn’t even told me the basics yet, like who found the body.
The sight of Robert Galigani across the room reminded me that I was supposed to be working. I triedto figure out who was responsible for the votive lights and decided to take it to the top, or next to the top, to Robert himself. In the precomputer days, when people knew what carbon copies were, that’s what we would have called Robert, so like his father in manner and looks. Unlike his journalist brother, Robert wore his hair in a neat, short cut, and except for minor glitches in vocabulary, like “cool,” had a professional manner at all times.
I noted with dismay that Robert was already starting to bald, and I had a moment of regret that I’d missed the childhood of Rose and Frank’s children. I’d managed to keep a special connection with Mary Catherine, my godchild, but mostly through presents and phone calls. The longest time I’d ever spent with her was one summer when she stayed with me in California, during her antimother teen years.
These reflections were a small lapse in the otherwise great progress I’d been making since my return to Revere, controlling twinge-of-regret moments, replacing them with moments of excitement at new adventures, like dating and police work.
“Mrs. Whitestone would like to have more votive candles at the ready,” I told Robert. “If you tell me where they are, I’d be glad to get them.”
“Thanks, Gloria,” he said. “They’re in the storage closet in the basement, next to the prep room.”
“Oh,” I said, with a grimace that Robert seemed to recognize immediately. The whole family must know, I thought, that I was inordinately squeamish about going into the basement where the embalming processwas carried out. I’d even started to take my dirty clothes to an outside Laundromat rather than use the washer and dryer in the room next to the prep room. It’s a testimony to my fear that I preferred the spectacle of pulling up to a coin-operated facility and dragging my dirty laundry out of a new Cadillac.
“I’ll send Tony,” Robert said. “The boxes are heavy anyway.”
So far , I thought, I’ve arrived at work late and reneged on my first chore. It’s a good thing I retired from my old job with a healthy pension .
“Thanks,” I said to Robert, and looked around for a less intimidating duty.
To my disappointment, there was not much action to this role of mortuary staff person. Although there were more guests than chairs, and the overflow spilled into the lobby, all of the visitors seemed self-sufficient and not very interesting, as far as what I’d come to call The Hurley Case.
I still hadn’t laid eyes on Brendan Hurley, Margaret’s brother. I thought it strange that he wasn’t in charge of his sister’s funeral services.
Although I kept checking the guest register, pretending to be tidying up the table, I’d seen no record of a visit by Vincent Cavallo from the Charger Street lab, or Patrick Gallagher, Margaret’s ex-fiancé.
“Right away,” I said, feeling like I’d flunked a blood test, and guessing that I wouldn’t be delivering any tissues to her chair.
Not that I was judging her grief. People mourn in different ways, I knew, and I had the feeling that all of Frances Whitestone’s would be done in the privacy of her boudoir. My own relatives had preferred to express their suffering by throwing themselves, wailing, onto the casket of the departed loved one.
I desperately wanted to ask Mrs. Whitestone some questions, and had to clench my jaws and fists to keep from reading her my mental list. Had she heard the hit-and-run car drive away? Had she seen any suspicious-looking cars in the neighborhood that day? Who else knew what time Margaret would be arriving? How soon had she gone out to investigate the noise? I was aggravated that Matt hadn’t even told me the basics yet, like who found the body.
The sight of Robert Galigani across the room reminded me that I was supposed to be working. I triedto figure out who was responsible for the votive lights and decided to take it to the top, or next to the top, to Robert himself. In the precomputer days, when people knew what carbon copies were, that’s what we would have called Robert, so like his father in manner and looks. Unlike his journalist brother, Robert wore his hair in a neat, short cut, and except for minor glitches in vocabulary, like “cool,” had a professional manner at all times.
I noted with dismay that Robert was already starting to bald, and I had a moment of regret that I’d missed the childhood of Rose and Frank’s children. I’d managed to keep a special connection with Mary Catherine, my godchild, but mostly through presents and phone calls. The longest time I’d ever spent with her was one summer when she stayed with me in California, during her antimother teen years.
These reflections were a small lapse in the otherwise great progress I’d been making since my return to Revere, controlling twinge-of-regret moments, replacing them with moments of excitement at new adventures, like dating and police work.
“Mrs. Whitestone would like to have more votive candles at the ready,” I told Robert. “If you tell me where they are, I’d be glad to get them.”
“Thanks, Gloria,” he said. “They’re in the storage closet in the basement, next to the prep room.”
“Oh,” I said, with a grimace that Robert seemed to recognize immediately. The whole family must know, I thought, that I was inordinately squeamish about going into the basement where the embalming processwas carried out. I’d even started to take my dirty clothes to an outside Laundromat rather than use the washer and dryer in the room next to the prep room. It’s a testimony to my fear that I preferred the spectacle of pulling up to a coin-operated facility and dragging my dirty laundry out of a new Cadillac.
“I’ll send Tony,” Robert said. “The boxes are heavy anyway.”
So far , I thought, I’ve arrived at work late and reneged on my first chore. It’s a good thing I retired from my old job with a healthy pension .
“Thanks,” I said to Robert, and looked around for a less intimidating duty.
To my disappointment, there was not much action to this role of mortuary staff person. Although there were more guests than chairs, and the overflow spilled into the lobby, all of the visitors seemed self-sufficient and not very interesting, as far as what I’d come to call The Hurley Case.
I still hadn’t laid eyes on Brendan Hurley, Margaret’s brother. I thought it strange that he wasn’t in charge of his sister’s funeral services.
Although I kept checking the guest register, pretending to be tidying up the table, I’d seen no record of a visit by Vincent Cavallo from the Charger Street lab, or Patrick Gallagher, Margaret’s ex-fiancé.
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