At the end of the service, the pallbearers lifted the coffin off the fabric-draped dais and carried it out of the church on their shoulders. The family stood and, led by Kat and Amanda, followed the coffin down the aisle. Her arm linked through her daughter’s, Kat looked wan, her normal vivacity drained away. She was wearing a tailored white pantsuit over a black silk blouse that I hadn’t seen before. I wondered if she’d bought it for the occasion. As Kat approached the pew where Todd and I were sitting, I tried to catch her eye. But she either didn’t see me or didn’t want to acknowledge that she had.
Kat’s mother and father, Eleanor and Thomas Wyeth, followed their daughter and granddaughter. Thomas was somber but pleasant, shaking hands with people as he passed. Eleanor looked austere, and other than the occasional gracious nod for a favored few, she kept her chin high and her eyes fixed straight ahead.
“What’s next?” Todd murmured. “Is there a reception after?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t make an announcement. Maybe it’s by invitation only.” I nodded toward the line forming to exit the church. “It looks like they’re having a receiving line. I’ll ask Kat.”
My pulse quickened at the thought that I’d finally get a chance to talk to Kat, if only for a moment. It was obviously not the time or place for an in-depth conversation, but at least I’d be able to get some sort of read on what was happening.
“Mrs. Campbell, how nice to see you again.”
I turned and saw John Donnelly standing there. He looked especially dapper in a dark gray suit and pale yellow tie. He held out his hand and I shook it.
“Mr. Donnelly, this is my husband, Todd,” I said. Then, turning to Todd, I explained, “Mr. Donnelly is the attorney who helped me out the other day.”
I hadn’t told Todd that the attorney had offered me what was, for all intents and purposes, a bribe if I agreed not to further cooperate with the police investigation. Todd was already worried about the entire situation. I didn’t want to add to his anxiety.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Donnelly said cheerfully, shaking hands with Todd. “I thought the service was very well done. For a funeral, that is. Despite my line of work, I’m not a big fan.”
“I don’t know that anyone is,” I remarked.
“You never met my aunt Tilly,” Donnelly said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “She was a true aficionado. Never missed a funeral in the neighborhood if she could help it. She loved nothing more than coming back and telling anyone who would listen that the priest was a windbag or that the widow had chintzed out on the coffin.”
“She sounds like a pistol,” Todd said.
“Yes, well, you didn’t have to spend Thanksgiving with her,” Donnelly quipped.
Todd and I laughed politely, and Todd said, “It was nice to meet you.”
But before we could turn and join the receiving line, the attorney stopped us. “Why don’t you leave this way?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
Donnelly gestured toward a side door at the back of the church, which had an exit sign hanging over it. “This way out is faster. You’ll skip right by the crowd.”
I glanced at Todd. He looked confused.
“Thank you, but we’d like to give our condolences to Kat and her family,” I said, not sure why I had to explain this.
“Let me put it this way—the family would prefer it if you left through the side door.” Donnelly shrugged and spread out his hands. “Don’t make me be the bad guy here.”
“Bad guy? What’s he talking about?” Todd asked me.
Without taking my eyes off the lawyer, I replied, “I believe what Mr. Donnelly is saying is that Kat, or more likely her father, doesn’t want us to go through the receiving line.”
“Why?” Todd asked.
“Care to answer that, Mr. Donnelly?”
“I don’t want to make a scene,” the lawyer said.
“Neither do we,” Todd retorted.
I glanced in the direction Detective Demer had been sitting during the service, hoping that he had already left. He hadn’t. Instead he was standing, watching us. When he caught my eye, he raised his eyebrows. I felt a twinge of unease. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t benefit any of us to have the detective involved.
“Hello, Alice.” Thomas Wyeth had appeared behind his lawyer, looking as genial and good-natured as he had been the night of the Christmas party. Mr. Wyeth was wearing a navy blue suit, but the jacket was open and his hands were stuck jauntily in his pants pockets.
“I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Campbell that it might be easier for them if they left through the side door,” Donnelly explained.
“Ah. Why don’t I take it from here? I just saw Marilee. She was looking for you,” Mr. Wyeth said.
John Donnelly affected a look of pretend horror. “My wife,” he said, turning back to Todd and me. “I better go join her before she gets it into her mind to become the third ex–Mrs. Donnelly. That’s something I certainly can’t afford.”
Donnelly turned and left through the same door he had been urging Todd and me to sneak out. Mr. Wyeth watched his attorney leave, then turned back to look at me. I tensed, feeling a bit like my namesake when she fell through the rabbit hole. I braced for whatever was coming next. I didn’t know if I should expect outright hostility or more of this polite weirdness.
Thomas Wyeth’s expression was benign. He smiled and looked at Todd.
“May I borrow your wife for a moment, Mr. Campbell?” Mr. Wyeth asked.
“Please, call me Todd.”
“All right, then, Todd. Would you mind? I’d just like to speak to Alice privately for a few minutes. This is a difficult time for our family. I think it would help Kat tremendously if Alice would hear me out.”
Todd glanced at me worriedly, but I nodded at him. I had no idea what Kat’s father wanted, but I was a firm believer in getting as much information as possible. Even though I knew that Mr. Wyeth was playing on my loyalty to Kat, he was smart to do so. I did want to help Kat, even if I still didn’t know what was going on or why she wasn’t speaking to me. She was my friend, my best friend, no matter what had happened over the past week. Even if she had lied to me about her daughter’s relationship with Howard. And anyway, maybe it hadn’t been an intentional lie. Maybe it had been wishful thinking, a hope that their inevitable divorce wouldn’t negatively affect her daughter. But whatever the truth was, I certainly didn’t want to cause Kat any distress on the day she buried her husband.
“It’s fine,” I said, laying a placating hand on my husband’s arm. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“You really want me to go out the side door?” Todd asked incredulously.
I glanced at Mr. Wyeth, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod accompanied by a slight shrug of his shoulders. It’s for the best, he seemed to be saying. It occurred to me that Thomas Wyeth must be in his seventies, although despite the white hair and weathered face, he certainly didn’t seem that old. He had a youthful vitality about him.
“I’ll be right out,” I promised. Todd nodded reluctantly, but he turned and exited through the same door John Donnelly had used a few minutes earlier.
“Shall we?” Mr. Wyeth asked. “The courtyard is beautiful. There’s a koi pond.”
I followed him across the nave, to a door on the far side that led out to the church’s courtyard. Mr. Wyeth was right. The church’s gardens were lovely. The koi pond was actually a long rectangular tiled pool, anchored on one end by a fountain and surrounded by walls of geometrically cut shrubbery. A grassy bridge arched over it, creating both a decorative touch and a footpath. As we drew closer, the koi swarmed toward us.
“Aren’t they something?” Mr. Wyeth said. “I think they’re hoping we’ve come to feed them. Do you have any idea what they eat?”
“No,” I said. “My daughter had a goldfish once, but she just fed it fish food we got at the pet store. It was a lot smaller than these fish.”
Mr. Wyeth chuckled. “I imagine it was. Do you think they’re related? Are koi just goldfish on steroids?”
“I think it might be a little more complicated than that.”
“Most things are.” Mr. Wyeth smiled. “I thought the service was quite nice.”
I nodded. “The poem Amanda recited was beautiful.”
“She picked that out on her own. That girl is something. I love all my grandchildren and I’m proud of every last one of them. But Amanda has always been special.”
“She’s an impressive young woman.”
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I wanted to speak with you.”
I nodded and waited. He glanced around as though wanting to make sure we were alone. Other than the fish, we were.
“I think it’s best if you and Kat don’t communicate. At least for a while,” Mr. Wyeth said.
His tone was mild, but his words were chilling. I finally had confirmation, if I needed it, that Kat was actively avoiding me.
“May I ask why?”
“It’s a difficult time for Kat, as I’m sure you can imagine. Howard’s death was sudden, and now the police have gotten it into their heads that it wasn’t an accident. On top of everything else Kat has had to deal with, the police keep asking her all kinds of invasive and upsetting questions.” Mr. Wyeth shook his head as if he thought the police’s investigation was in bad taste. “Everyone knows Howard had a problem with the bottle. He obviously had too much to drink that night and fell off his balcony. Instead of just accepting that, they want to turn this into some sordid crime. They’re probably hoping that it will make them famous, that they’ll end up being interviewed on the Today show.”
“Mr. Wyeth, I understand this has been a difficult time for Kat. But I don’t understand what that has to do with me or why you don’t want me to speak with her.”
“I believe the police consider Kat a suspect in Howard’s death.”
“She was out of the country,” I pointed out needlessly. “As far as alibis go, that’s about as foolproof as it gets.”
“We both know that doesn’t necessarily clear her.” Mr. Wyeth stared moodily at the fish, his customary bonhomie gone. “And I know you spoke to the police.”
The sudden change in his manner unnerved me.
“They interviewed me, but I certainly didn’t say anything to implicate Kat,” I said carefully.
“You told them Howard was having an affair,” Mr. Wyeth said. I stared at him, wondering how he knew this. He again seemed to be reading my thoughts. “The Jupiter Island Public Safety Department is hardly the FBI. You couldn’t possibly have thought that what you said to them would remain confidential.”
I actually was annoyed at how naive I had been. But at least I finally knew why Kat wasn’t speaking to me, at least in the days since I’d spoken to the police. My telling them about Howard’s affair was problematic for her in two ways. One, it established a clear motive for why she might want Howard dead. And two, it now looked like she had been hiding her knowledge of the affair from the police. Which, of course, was exactly what she had been doing. That still didn’t explain why she had been avoiding me before the police had interviewed me.
“I had to tell them about the affair because Kat told the police that her housekeeper and I were the only two nonfamily members who knew how to access the spare key and house alarm. That made me a suspect.” I knew I sounded defensive.
“I’m sure that wasn’t Kat’s intention,” Mr. Wyeth offered.
“Of course it wasn’t. I know that.” I struggled to regain my composure. “But the fact is that there was at least one other person, possibly more, who might have had access to their house. Howard might even have let his girlfriend in that night. It seemed like a pretty important piece of information for the police to have.”
“To protect yourself.”
“Of course I want to protect myself.”
“And therein lies our problem.”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “Mr. Wyeth, I appreciate you’re worried about Kat. I’m worried about her, too. And I’ll do whatever I can to help—”
“I don’t want you to help her,” he cut in. “I want you to stay away from her. Kat wants you to stay away from her. Is that clear enough?”
Thomas Wyeth and I stared at each other for a few long beats.
I was suddenly reminded of a favorite toy I had as a child, an old-fashioned kaleidoscope. It looked like a spyglass. At least, that was what I’d liked to pretend it was. I’d look through it and see a colorful pattern made up of tiny glass pieces. But all I had to do was rotate it—click, click, click—and the first pattern would disappear, to be replaced by a different pattern made out of the same pieces. The affable man, beloved father to my best friend was gone, replaced by a formidable, ruthless man.
“Fine,” I finally said. “I won’t contact Kat if she doesn’t want me to. But I’d like to hear that from her directly.”
Mr. Wyeth’s expression darkened. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“We’ve tried to deal with you pleasantly,” Mr. Wyeth growled. “Donnelly made you a very generous offer.”
“He tried to bribe me into not cooperating with a police investigation! What exactly was I supposed to have found pleasant about that?”
“In my experience, there are two main ways to achieve a goal,” he said. “One involves a carrot. The other involves a stick. Which would you prefer?”
Mr. Wyeth took a step toward me so that he was suddenly standing far too close. I was very aware that we were alone, apart from the freakishly large fish staring up at us from their watery prison.
“Are you threatening me?”
Mr. Wyeth’s smile was chilling. “Take my recommendation however you’d like.”
Before I could respond, we were interrupted.
“Is there a problem here?”
We both turned and saw Detective Demer walking toward us. Relief flooded through me.
“Not at all, Detective,” Mr. Wyeth said, his tone suddenly back to its usual conviviality.
Demer looked at me, his dark eyes concerned. “Is everything all right, Mrs. Campbell?”
I nodded. “Yes, it’s fine. Mr. Wyeth was just showing me the koi pond.”
“It’s an incredible sight,” Mr. Wyeth said. “If you’ll both excuse me, I need to rejoin my family. This has been a difficult day for all of us.”
He nodded at the detective and then smiled at me. His pleasant mask was back in place, but I could see something cold and hard behind his eyes.
Detective Demer and I watched Thomas Wyeth walk away. The detective gave a slight shake of his head before turning back to me.
“They are an interesting family,” he remarked. “What’s that old saying about the rich being different from you and me?”
“I used to think that wasn’t true,” I said. “Or at least, I thought it wasn’t universally true. I assumed good and bad people come from all walks of life, and it’s not useful to make generalizations.”
“You don’t believe that anymore?”
I considered this. “I don’t know. That’s the problem with my line of work. People are more complicated than logic allows. They certainly aren’t reliably consistent.”
“It’s not too late for you to cooperate with our investigation,” the detective said.
I glanced up at Demer, who was looking as rumpled as ever. I couldn’t read his expression. I’d had the sense since our first meeting that he wanted to help me. Or, more accurately, that he wanted to cause the least amount of disruption to my life possible. I think he believed I might be someone with information about a possible crime, but not a criminal myself. Still, it would be naive to believe that he was on my side, especially since Thomas Wyeth had just told me that someone had leaked the contents of my interview with the police.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied. Then I turned away and walked out of the garden.