Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic Church was filled to the sills of the stained-glass windows with mourners who’d come to pay their final respects to Bridget O’Malley. Surveying the funeral crowd, I couldn’t think of anyone from the island who wasn’t in attendance. Gigi, my father, and I were sitting in the fifth row, on the right, just as we did every Sunday. Catholics are all about routine, you know. Woe to the unsuspecting visiting Protestant who might sit in the wrong pew. It threw off the entire hierarchy. Emily, Chloe, and Ryan were sitting in front of us, and over to the left, I spotted Gloria Persimmons. At thirty-one years old, she was typically a study in tie-dye, neon, and sparkly accessories, but today she wore a very subdued black dress, although it was adorned with pink dots that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be little iguanas. Her mammoth boyfriend, Tiny Kloosterman, sat patiently beside her as she dabbed at her nose with a tissue. Tiny was the foreman of my sister’s construction crew, and the quintessential version of a menacing-looking guy who was actually an overstuffed teddy bear.
At the organ, Delores Crenshaw’s nine-year-old great-granddaughter was hammering out a medley of Bridget’s favorite tunes with far more gusto than talent. Because nothing says welcome to the afterlife like hearing “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover” banged out by a nearsighted third grader. The sounds reverberated around the lousy acoustics of the historic church until even the statue of the Virgin Mary started looking impatient and uncomfortable.
At last Father O’Reilly took his place near the altar and offered up some prayers and a wonderfully brief but heartfelt speech about a life well lived. He gamely glossed over some of Bridget’s less-than-stellar qualities. Like that thing about the adultery. The eulogies were brief as well. Percy O’Keefe talked about how Bridget liked to make him meatloaf because he took care of her yard. Maggie Webster told a story about Bridget teaching her to crochet when she was a little girl, and Dmitri told a very engaging, if somewhat off-color, story of how Bridget once caught him hanging laundry out to dry when he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. The stories were sweet but lacked substance, and I began to realize that, since most of her peers had long since preceded her to that great big Fudge Shoppe in the sky, those of us who were left didn’t remember that much about her. It made me sad to think she’d left so shallow a mark, but with no family there was no one to claim her legacy.
Gloria sniffled loudly, and it was oddly comforting. Some reassurance that there was someone who seemed to be taking this hard. In fact, judging from the noise, Gloria appeared to be quite distraught. I’d known they were friends, and that it was often Gloria who’d brought Bridget to Sunday services, so her grief made sense. Even so, she was pretty damned emotional. Then again, Gloria never did anything halfway. She was all in, all the time.
Delores Crenshaw seemed to be taking it hard, too, clutching a lace handkerchief to her red nose. “I tried to offer her a macaroon,” she told Gigi and me as the service ended and we all filed out into the churchyard. “I thought she was just being passive-aggressive. You know, ignoring me because everyone knows my macaroons are tastier than hers, so I gave her a tough little nudge on the shoulder. Damned if the poor woman didn’t tip right over and fall to the floor. Now I feel terrible. I’d just had that rug cleaned.”
Technically it wasn’t Delores’s fault, but maybe she should have felt terrible. I mean, it’s bad enough to have someone keel over in your house without anyone noticing, but to be the person who knocked the body to the floor? Yeah, that’s awkward.
“There, there, Delores,” Gigi responded with a consoling pat on the back. “We all know it’s Midge Clairmont who makes the tastiest macaroons. Yours are very gummy.” This, of course, only sent Delores into another fit of tears.
“Nice going, Gigi,” I whispered as we stepped away to make room for the pallbearers. They looked somber in their dark suits. Dmitri, with his hair pulled back into a ponytail; Harvey Murdock, who owned several fudge shops; Brian Murphy, our local judge and frequent drinking pal of my father’s; and enormous Tiny Kloosterman, who, in all honesty, could have hoisted the pine box onto his shoulder all by himself and jogged with it all the way to the burial site. Instead, they walked slowly and deliberately from the front of the church, gently loading the casket onto the funeral carriage.
The weather was appropriately gloomy and overcast, but the carriage still gleamed. I stared at it, noting that in some ways it was beautiful, all glossy black with gold accents, but of course, I could never see that thing without remembering the day I’d walked behind it, holding hands with ten-year-old Emily and five-year-old Lilly as it carried our mother away. She’d died very unexpectedly from a heart defect that no knew she had until it was too late. Our father had walked ahead of us that day, head down, never once looking back to see if we were okay. That kind of set the stage for the next twenty years: me taking care of my sisters, and my father assuming we’d handle things without his intervention. It wasn’t that he meant to be neglectful. Even at fourteen, I understood that he was lost without my mother, and clueless about raising daughters. Gigi was around, of course, but I decided pretty early on that I’d rather just take care of things myself.
With Bridget O’Malley loaded into the back, the carriage driver clucked at the horses, and the processional slowly wended its way along Lake Shore Avenue, down Big Pine Lane, past the newly remodeled Clairmont Hotel, and on to Croton Hill, where the Wenniway Island Cemetery was located. Gravestones from as far back as 1764 dotted the landscape, some so old and weathered that the names and dates had long since worn away. As the casket was lowered into the ground, Stan MacPherson and his two sons played “Amazing Grace” on their bagpipes, and I felt unexpected tears prickle behind my eyelids.
“Bridget would have loved this,” Gigi said with a sigh, gazing up at the pale sky. “She always did love a good funeral. She said black made her look taller, and damned if it didn’t.”
“She loved sparkly pinks, too,” Gloria whispered loudly from behind us. Her voice trembled, and Tiny pulled her closer to his beefy side. They’d been dating since last summer, ever since my sister had encouraged Tiny to invite Gloria to a square dance. Ever the attentive boyfriend, he dutifully took Gloria’s wadded-up tissue and handed her a new one. “I really loved that old bitch,” she gurgled, and burst into a full-blown sob. The bagpipe music moaned to a pitchy halt, and Clancy McArthur called out, “First drink at the Palomino Pub is on the house! Time for a right proper wake.”
Like thirsty lemmings, we followed. We were the world’s least organized parade, or perhaps the world’s least threatening gang. Somewhere near the corner of Perkins and Main, someone started singing “O Danny Boy,” and so it went as we strode purposefully to the pub. Bridget O’Malley was most certainly sitting on a cloud right above us, singing along.
“Why, hello, Madam Mayor,” Leo said, smiling broadly as I walked into the pub a few minutes later and wound my way up to the bar. His presence caught me off guard. With all the funeral and mayor-ing stuff over the past few days, I’d kind of forgotten about him, but one look at that face and it all came back to me. Handsome, helpful Leo Walker who now worked at Clancy’s pub, and who looked right at home with his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows and a beer in each hand. Trigger the fluttering.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
Realistically there were a couple of different answers I wanted to give him. Seduce me. Marry me. Help me forget that everyone on this island seems to be having sex except for me, including my grandmother and the ancient O’Douls. But I opted for a straightforward and non-flirtatious response instead. “I’ll have a vodka tonic, please.”
“Coming right up.” He quickly filled a glass with ice and pulled a bottle from the shelf behind him. “Take a seat. Talk to me for a bit.”
I suppose it’s the least I can do, what with him not having any friends on the island. I am the mayor, after all. “Okay.” I settled onto a stool and watched as he expertly filled the glass. Not that filling a glass is all that complicated, but he held the bottle up high and then gave it a little flip when he was done. This is not a skill that is remotely useful unless you are a bartender, but still, I was impressed.
Someone jostled me and Dmitri appeared, nudging a few people aside to settle himself on the barstool next to mine. He’d attended the funeral service without his beekeeping hat, but now it was back in place, with the netting pulled up around the brim. He’d taken off his dark suit coat and replaced his dress shoes with hiking boots. An odd pairing with his dress slacks, but I’d seen him in stranger outfits.
“So, tell me about this FBI agent you and Shari talked to,” he said. His voice was loud over the din of the crowd, and Leo turned to stare.
“FBI agent?” Leo said.
I shook my head at them both. “He wasn’t an FBI agent at all. He was some skeevy private investigator from Florida with some ridiculous story about a jewel thief hiding out on this island.”
“A jewel thief?” Leo’s brows rose with interest as he set my drink down in front of me on a little cardboard coaster.
“Gin and tonic, kid,” Dmitri said, then turned to me. “What makes you think it’s so ridiculous?”
“It’s ridiculous because we know every single person who lives on this island, and we know the regulars who just come for the summer, and not a one of them is a jewel thief.”
“How do you know?” Leo asked, scooping ice into a glass.
I resisted rolling my eyes. “I just do.”
Dmitri leaned forward, toward Leo. “Well, I’ve heard some things. Some mighty interesting things.”
I took a gulp of my drink. “Of course you have, Dmitri, but that doesn’t make any of them true.”
Actually, the only thing I knew to be true at this moment was that Dmitri was always hearing mighty interesting things, and he wasn’t above embellishing a story just to make it even more interesting. He was a professional rumor mill on an island full of people eager to encourage him.
“What kind of things?” Leo asked. He seemed intrigued, but I guess that was to be expected. I mean, the concept of a criminal on the island was exciting, but I’d need to warn him to take everything Dmitri said with a block of salt. And follow it with tequila and a lime.
Dmitri adjusted his hat. “Well, I don’t like to kiss and tell, but I’ve been known to have a dalliance here and there with gals who work up at the Imperial Hotel.”
“You mean like hookers?” Leo’s eyes widened.
“We do not have hookers on Wenniway Island!” This time it was my voice that carried, but fortunately no one seemed to be paying any attention to me. As usual.
“No, no. Not hookers,” Dmitri said. “Housekeepers, waitresses, cashiers. Working girls but not, you know . . . working girls. Anyway, I had a lovely little interlude with a maid two summers ago, and she told me about some very interesting items she’d once seen in a guest’s room.”
“Such as?” I demanded.
“A bag full of identification badges. Driver’s licenses and passports with the same photo but different names. And some tools that she didn’t recognize, but when she described them to me, I told her they sounded like lock-picking tools.”
“Seriously?” I looked at him intently, trying to discern if this was honest-to-goodness fact or his unique brand of fiction. “Dmitri, if that’s true, she should go talk to my dad.”
“Alas, she’s gone. She left the island at the end of that summer, and I haven’t spoken to her since. This may sound cavalier, but I can’t recall the dear thing’s last name. It was a brief yet passionate affair.” He took a big gulp from his drink.
“And you never told my dad? Or hotel security? How is that even possible?”
“She was afraid she’d lose her job if anyone found out that she’d gone through a guest’s belongings. Apparently, the items weren’t left out in the open. They were zipped up inside of a suitcase. I didn’t tell anyone, because I was protecting a dear friend.” He gave me a sideways glance as if to remind me that he was indeed capable of keeping a secret. He’d been keeping one for me for quite some time now.
“That’s wild,” Leo said, seeming to be fully engaged. “Did she say what name he was checked in under? Or the names on the other ID cards? Maybe it’s some jewel thief we would have heard of. Like somebody famous.”
As much as I hated to be any part of this discussion, I found myself drawn in. “The private investigator said one of his names was James Novak.”
Dmitri set his glass down. “He said James Novak?”
I nodded. “Yes, and the pictures he had were from the eighties. Sound familiar?”
He stared at his drink as if deep in thought. “No. I’ve never heard of a James Novak, and I don’t remember my friend mentioning any names, either. Wait. Maybe she said he was checked in as a Michael Jones?”
Leo leaned closer still. “Michael Jones. There’s got to be a million of those around. Did she tell you what the guy looked like?”
Dmitri took a slow sip from his glass, eyeing Leo over the brim. “I don’t recall, exactly. Maybe she said he was short and stocky? And swarthy. You saw pictures, Brooke? What do you think he looked like?”
“Grainy and pale. The pictures were pretty much useless. But seriously, Dmitri, you need to share this with my dad. If you are, indeed, telling the truth.”
He had the nerve to look affronted, as if we didn’t all know his propensity for exaggeration. It would be just like him to insert himself into the drama just for the fun of it, and my dad would not want to be bothered with some tall tale from bored, overly imaginative Dmitri. But if what he said was true, then my father definitely needed to know.
“Of course I’m telling the truth. What possible reason could I have for making that up?”
“No reason at all,” I said, as both an agreement and a warning.
“Exactly.” He stood up. “And now you have insulted me and besmirched my good name. I shall leave in a huff.” He wasn’t actually insulted. I knew him better than that. He was leaving because he’d already told me his little anecdote about the maid, and now he wanted to hurry off and tell someone else. Hopefully one of those people would be the chief of police.
“Huff away,” I said as Dmitri flung himself into the crowd.
“So, what do you think about that?” Leo said, eyebrows raised. Like Shari from the post office, he seemed more excited than distressed. Was I the only one who thought having a criminal on the island was a bad thing?
“I think that Dmitri likes to make things up, and any story he tells needs to be corroborated by at least two more reliable sources.”
“You don’t think that stuff the maid found was from the jewel thief?”
I wanted to say no, of course not, but if Dmitri was being honest, then that certainly opened up a whole host of possibilities. “I don’t know what to think. Except that I think I’d like to have another drink.”
Leo smiled, and I wondered if he knew just how good-looking he was. It seemed unlikely that he hadn’t noticed. He had some facial scruff today, and I wondered if it would be prickly or soft. I wanted to reach over and touch it, but that just wasn’t something the mayor could do. Such a shame.
“You know what you need, besides another drink?” he asked.
For you to take off your shirt? “No, what?”
“Dinner. With me. And don’t tell me that you have to work, because I haven’t even said which night yet and you can’t possibly have to work every single night.”
I’d spent the last few days regretting having turned him down the last time. I didn’t think I had the resolve to say no again. I couldn’t ignore the attraction I felt. Especially considering the scruff. And so what if people wanted to talk? Gigi moving in with Gus was far more exciting than boring old me having a casual dinner date with the cute new bartender. And everyone would be far more focused on the jewel thief. And so what if I hadn’t had time to do any background checking to see if there were unsavory tidbits from his past that I should know about. It’s not like we were going to jump into bed. It was just dinner. I could handle it. Because the truth was, Leo Walker was a hot commodity. Emphasis on the hot, and if I didn’t go out with him soon, someone else would most certainly scoop him up. Local shop owner Eva Culpepper had been eyeing him since the moment she’d arrived at the bar. This invitation might be my last chance.
“Okay,” I said. “How about tonight?”
His eyes lit up. “Perfect. I’m done here at six.”
I was about to respond, but before I could say more, a commotion in the corner captured our attention. It was Gloria.
“Everyone? Everyone? Could I have your attention for just a quick second?” She’d stepped onto the small carpeted stage in the corner where live music was performed on Saturday nights. She gripped the microphone tightly in her pudgy fingers, although it wasn’t on. She didn’t need it for volume, and I really, sincerely hoped she was not about to sing something in honor of Bridget. If she did, dogs all over town would start howling.
“Everyone? Hello!” she bellowed again. “If I could have your attention for just a teensy, weensy sec, I have something I’d like to share.”
The room quieted, ice clinking in glasses the only sound as the crowd turned toward the stage.
She pushed a strand of bleached-blonde hair from her pink cheeks and smiled. “Hi, everybody. As most of you know, Bridget was a special friend to me. When I was little, she taught me how to swear in German.” Laughter circled the room. “She taught me how to make pie crust, although I could never get mine to be as flaky as hers, and I seriously suspect she left out an ingredient every time just so mine wouldn’t be as good. I often sat by her at Sunday church services, and let me tell you, that woman could speed through a rosary like nobody’s business.” Gloria’s voice broke, and Tiny reached up and handed her a fresh tissue. She clung to his hand for a moment, and he nodded at her, smiling.
She took a big, deep breath, blowing it out in a nervous huff. “Okay, well anyway, we are here today to celebrate her life and her wonderful spirit. I don’t want to take anything away from that, but I think Bridget would be okay with what I’m about to say.” She took another big breath and shouted, “Tiny and I are having a baby!”
The room was silent for a speck of a second, then erupted with well-wishers shouting well wishes. Gloria giggled and bobbed, and waved her hands, shushing them. “Wait, there’s more. There’s more. This dear man of mine . . .” She gazed lovingly at Tiny, all three hundred muscle-bound pounds of him, and dabbed at her tears. “When I told Tiny that he’d knocked me up and was going to be my baby daddy, well, this handsome fella didn’t hesitate for a second. He dropped right down on one knee and he said, ‘Glo-glo, baby, what the hell. Let’s get hitched.’ So, we’re getting hitched!”
The second round of cheering was even louder and more raucous than the first.
“So, if you’re not busy Friday after next at four o’clock,” she shouted over the din, “my fiancé and I will be over at the courthouse making it all legal-like, and then we’ll be having a reception someplace. I don’t know where yet, but you’re all invited.”
Laughter and cheering circulated around the bar once more, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. Shots were poured, toasts were made. The sadness of Bridget O’Malley’s passing gave way to the celebration of a new family being formed. I felt that pesky pang of longing as I saw the way Gloria and Tiny gazed into each other’s eyes. I wanted what they had. Well, not exactly what they had, because those two were unique in some rather unflattering ways, but I did want to experience the kind of love they obviously felt. Someday.
I smiled over at Leo as he passed a tray of drinks to Clancy. “That is a match made in some weird alternate universe heaven,” I said. “But I think they’re going to be very, very happy.”
“I hope so,” Leo said, shaking his head. “But that is going to be one huge baby.”