Part 12 (1/2)

I waited.

”I told you that maid of honor called Michaela several times and left messages apologizing for their fight. But I've remembered she called someone else.”

”Do you know who?”

”No, but she said something like, 'She's with Ray. Where do you think she is?' And then 'You need to come over here, right now.'”

Tony. It had to be. Add to it the evidence that his bed wasn't slept in that night and who else could it have been? But why would Lynn order Tony to come to the Snuggles? Wouldn't she have sent him out to look for Michaela and Ray?

”Did Lynn leave the inn that night?”

Fee pushed a hand through her short, gray hair. ”I don't know. Remember, I fell asleep in the chair.”

”So soundly you might not have heard the maid of honor going out or coming in?”

Fee blushed. ”Well, I didn't hear Michaela come in, did I? And yet there she was in the morning.” The older woman put a steadying hand on my shoulder and stepped back to admire her handiwork. ”Beautiful, isn't it?”

I looked across our front yard, which was dotted with irregularly shaped flowerbeds. In one, bright pink peonies blazed in contrast to cool purple irises. In the shade, astilbe bloomed among the variegated greens of hosta. In the sun, yellow day lilies reached for the sky and red roses climbed the side of the garage. When had all this bloomed? I'd been so heads-down busy and obsessively worried about the clambake, I hadn't even noticed.

”It's beautiful, Fee,” I said, giving her a little hug.

Now what had I come home for? Oh, yes, I was in a hurry to get to a funeral.

”Julia!” Michaela was at the back of the nondescript, 1960s Catholic Church when I entered for Ray's funeral. She threw her arms around me and hugged tight, confirming my suspicion that she really needed a friend. She led me to one of the very front pews, just behind the couple I took to be Ray's parents. I hadn't known Ray Wilson when he was alive, and I wouldn't have presumed to sit in such a prominent spot if I'd been on my own, but I was there to support Michaela, so I followed her lead. Not long after we settled into our seats, an elderly priest and an adolescent altar girl took their places on the dais and the organ began a slow, sad hymn.

The doors at the back of the church opened and six men entered, standing beside the flower-draped coffin. Tony was at the front right corner as they wheeled Ray Wilson's body slowly down the center aisle. I could tell at a glance Tony's suit was worth more than the total cost of what the other pallbearers wore.

As I stared back up the aisle, following the coffin's progress, I was surprised to see a woman I recognized scuttle into the next-to-last row. Marie Halsey, Sarah's mother. What is she doing here? I'd wondered just that morning if she and Sarah were from Bath. Marie's presence seemed to confirm it. I looked around to see if Binder or Flynn or even one of the local Busman's officers was there, but couldn't spot anyone.

The coffin made its slow progression to the front of the church where the pallbearers turned it over to the care of the priest. Some of them genuflected before they made their way to the front pew opposite Ray's parents, though Tony did not. The priest welcomed the mourners and we moved into the funeral ma.s.s. A young woman who may have been a cousin read some lines from the Bible. Next to me, Michaela snuffled and wiped her eyes. Beside her, Tony's mother sat with the same disgruntled expression she'd worn the morning of the nonwedding. She looked as if she longed to run up on the altar and explain to the priest what he was doing wrong. Tony's father sighed.

Tony ascended to the lectern to give the eulogy. He removed a folded piece of paper from his suit pocket, spreading it carefully in front of him, though once he started speaking, he never glanced at it. ”Ray Wilson was my best friend,” he began. ”He was my business partner, and my brother.” Tony's voice broke slightly.

I felt Michaela quiver beside me as she fought unsuccessfully to hold back her tears. She gripped my hand.

”We found each other in Mrs. Kearney's kindergarten cla.s.s right here in Bath. Ray came up to me on the first day and announced that we would be best friends and would play together at every recess. How did he know, at five years old, that we'd be able to accomplish so much, good and bad, together?

”On the good side of the ledger, there was the basketball champions.h.i.+p we finally brought home for the s.h.i.+pbuilders in our senior year, the college scholars.h.i.+ps we both earned as a result, and the successful business we built together.

”But there was also the trouble we got into. The time we snuck through the woods into the Pick Your Own Strawberries field and ate so many we couldn't run away when the farmer came to yell at us. Or the time we took two lovely ladies down to the beach to watch the sunset and got Ray's car stuck in the sand so badly, his dad had to come rescue us with a tow truck.”

The congregation laughed. In front of us, I watched Ray's father pat his mother's back as she wiped away a tear. Her profile turned to me, I caught the hint of a smile. Tony's mom continued to glower.

”Those are just the stories I can repeat here,” Tony said. ”Everyone saw Ray as the troublemaker. My parents blamed him. His parents blamed him. And the truth is, he was the instigator and the talker. The one who thought of the ideas and the one who tried to talk our way out of it when things went terribly wrong. But it took both of us to get into that much trouble, just like it took both of us to build our business. That's why I stand before you, feeling like I've been cut in half, like my own limbs are missing.” Tony's voice broke and the congregation quieted.

”Those of you who knew Ray well know his troubles didn't end when we were boys. He had his demons, and he did some things in his life he deeply regretted.” Tony words were thick with grief. ”That's the greatest shame in all this sadness. Ray tried for so long to be a better man, and at last he was succeeding. He'd cleaned up his life, and far from making him less fun, sobriety made him more fun, more enthusiastic. More eager to embrace life and live it for all it was worth. Ray had just begun what I am sure would have been the very best part of his life.”

Sobriety? Ray was drunk the night he was murdered.

At the lectern, Tony continued. ”And now, he'll miss it all. I won't be the best man at his wedding. Our children won't play together as we'd dreamed. We won't continue our cutthroat golf games until we're too old to hold a club, as we'd planned.” Tony was openly weeping as was almost everyone in the church.

I put my arm around Michaela and hugged her shaking shoulders.

Tony left the lectern and moved down to pat the wooden coffin lid. ”I love you, Ray,” he whispered.

The priest took the reins and somehow we stumbled through the rest of the ma.s.s. When we gave our neighbors the sign of the peace, I turned and looked back at Marie Halsey. She stood alone in the next-to-last pew. Behind her was someone even more surprising-Lynn, the maid of honor. What is she doing here? She didn't have a good word to say about Ray when he was alive. Is she here at last to support Michaela?

Finally, the ma.s.s was over. The priest invited everyone back to Tony's parents' house after the graveside service. The coffin, flanked by the pallbearers, rumbled up the center aisle.

Outside the church, the men from the funeral parlor loaded the coffin into the hea.r.s.e. The maid of honor went up to Tony's parents and hugged each of them warmly. It was not the greeting of relative strangers. There's history there, I thought.

A few people who weren't going to the cemetery approached Ray's parents. They shook hands, accepted embraces, and were gracious as two people could be in the circ.u.mstances . . . until Marie Halsey approached them. When Ray's mother saw Marie coming, she whirled around, turning her back. There was no mistaking Mrs. Wilson's intention. She meant to cut Marie Halsey dead.

And if that wasn't enough of a snub, Tony's mom's voice cut through the noise of the crowd. ”I can't believe you would even come here!”

Chapter 32.

I stayed through the graveside service and went to the reception at Tony's parents' house. Michaela was largely left alone while Tony and his family played host. Tony's mom served a fussy tea with little sandwiches and cakes, which seemed incongruous given Ray and Tony's high school friends, the fishermen and ironworkers who made up most of the guests.

I sat with Michaela on the deck of the neat ranch house, wondering where Lynn was. Once again, her maid of honor was AWOL when Michaela needed support.

I didn't intend to talk to Michaela about our interrupted conversation of the day before. The funeral had been tough enough for her. So I was surprised that she was the one who brought it up.

”I want to apologize for the way I acted yesterday when we talked about Ray,” Michaela said.

”It's nothing,” I said and meant it. If anything, I should have been the one to apologize for asking if she'd had an inappropriate relations.h.i.+p with the best man in her wedding party.

”No. I was rude. Overwrought. I'm just so emotional . . . with all that's happened.” Michaela spread her gorgeous, long fingers on her knees. ”I want to talk about my relations.h.i.+p with Ray. He's dead. Nothing I say will hurt him.” Her nails dug into the dark fabric of her skirt. ”Before you can understand about Ray, there are some things I need to tell you that you don't know about me.”

She paused for so long I wondered if she would go on. But she did. ”I started drinking in college, just the normal way normal people do. Except, I didn't know then, I'm not normal. I partied pretty hard, but so did everyone around me. After college, a whole bunch of us moved to Brooklyn, where we made more friends and kept going out. Every night I got drunk and every morning I woke up feeling terrible, but it was my life and I didn't question it.” She looked into my eyes, making sure I was getting it.

Nothing I heard surprised me. Most people drank too much in college and some people continued drinking hard into their twenties. That's where I'd first met Michaela years ago, in clubs around Manhattan.

She took a deep breath and went on. ”What I didn't notice was, the gang was breaking up. The others started having careers instead of jobs and didn't go out during the week. They had serious relations.h.i.+ps and got married and by then they were only going out on holidays and special occasions. But not me. I was still getting drunk every night and working at the same stupid retail job I found when I first went to the city. I'd had dreams of working in the fas.h.i.+on business, but got totally sidetracked.

”I went to the same neighborhood dive, drank my dinner, and stayed out way too late every night. The bar was a comfortable place where 'everybody knew my name.' But one night, I had a moment of clarity. I looked around and realized who 'everybody' was. People who were alone, working in dead-end jobs, if they worked at all, with no friends or sign of any life outside that barroom. I saw a woman about ten years older, who'd been drinking across the bar from me for two years, and it was like looking at my future self. The smudged makeup, the unsteady hands. It was terrifying.

”I left the bar and found a meeting. AA. It's been a huge struggle, but I haven't had a drink in three years. That's where I met Ray. It was his first meeting, too.” Michaela smiled at the memory. ”I know it's supposed to be anonymous, and that's why I didn't tell you yesterday when we talked. But actually, Ray was quite open about what he'd been through.

”We were drawn to each other immediately. Ray made me laugh. After I'd been sober a year, Ray introduced me to Tony, and that was it. Love at first sight. Since I'd gotten sober, I'd changed jobs . . . from clerk to a.s.sistant buyer, something with a future, and I was working my way up in my company. At last, I was ready for a serious relations.h.i.+p. Tony and I have been together ever since that first date.” Michaela's features softened, warmed by the memory of meeting Tony for the first time.

”Ray and Tony got more and more successful. Ray was the salesman, in charge of persuading the property owners to sell them the land, and then marketing the resorts to upscale buyers. Tony's the numbers guy and also oversees the planning and construction. Ray had been a college drinker like me, a little wild even as a kid, as you heard today. And then, as an adult, his job reinforced his tendencies. He was always wining and dining people. So it was hard for him to stop drinking. He had a much harder time of it than I did. There were lapses, some ugly scenes. He was a belligerent drunk. People judged him.”

Certainly Lynn, the maid of honor, had. How many times and in how many ways had she said to Michaela, ”Forget him. He's not worth it.”