1 Breakfast at Madeline's (6 page)

9

Well, I guess I should leave intuition to the feminine half of the species, because whoever had busted my head was definitely not at the funeral home. There were only two people there: Virgil Otis, who owned the joint and had to be there, and his nineteen-year-old daughter Molly. The father was too fat to have been my burglar, and the daughter was too short.

It was odd that we w
ere the only people at the view
ing. I mean, it seemed like the entire population of Saratoga Springs was intrigued by this guy, so how come nobody came?

Before I ventured into the room where Penn's body lay, I stopped and chatted with Virgil for a while. I knew him from befor
e, had interviewed him while re
searching corpses for my killer gas movie. Virgil was a friendly guy, an easy
interview. My guess is that fu
neral home directors have such a ghoulish reputation that Virgil tried to be
extra friendly in order to over
come it.

"So who's paying for Donald Penn's funeral?" I asked.

"The county. They couldn't find any next of kin."

I looked through the open door to the viewing room and shivered inside. I wasn't ready to go in there yet.

Virgil was still talking. "Happens every year or so. They'll find some guy, froze to death on the street, had
a heart attack in the library bathroom, whatever, and he's got no relatives, no friends, nobody. Nobody but us, that is."

Looking at Penn's
corpse couldn't be any more de
pressing than listening to this. I went into the viewing room.

Hidden track lights were giving off dim lighting, and hidden speakers were giving off dim classical music. When I die I want them to play Frank Zappa at my funeral. At the front of the room was Donald Penn's casket. I walked up to it.

I was pleasantly surprised. I'd expected his casket to be some kind of splin
tery plywood thing, but it actu
ally looked respectable. And not just because of the lighting. The wood was a rich, dark brown, and draped over it was an embossed cloth that even had some style to it.

I looked down at Donald Penn's face.

Again I was sur
prised. He looked good—much bet
ter than when he was alive. They'd trimmed his beard and hair, and they must have put on some kind of makeup because his face had lost its gray pallor. He looked pleasantly tanned, like he'd just come back from a beach vacation.

His eyes were closed. Hell, maybe he was just taking a nap. Maybe when he woke up, he wouldn't be a crazy, lonely, blocked writer anymore. Instead he'd be what he looked like now: a wise man, a thoughtful man, a man you'd be glad to have as your grandfather.

"Donald," I whispered, and got all teary-eyed. I stood there for a moment, then tried again. "Donald, it's a great preface," I lied. "Really. Very Joycean."

Had Penn read Joyce? Had he rooted for the Mets? Had he ever loved anyone?

"Listen, Donald, I'm getting it published, just like
you wanted. I hope you'll be happy with my editing job. I'll do my best."

Over the hidden speakers Beethoven came in soft and sweet, not sounding dim anymore, but more like a bunch of angels jamming. I continued on.

"Hey, Donald, one more thing. There's somebody out there who's so interested in what you wrote, they burglarized my house and attacked me and my son, trying to find it. Do you have any idea who that might be?"

Was it my imagination?

Or did I really hear Donald Penn chuckle?

I rode to the county cemetery in the hearse, along with Virgil, Molly, and Penn's casket.

"What religion was he, do you know?" Virgil asked, as we turned onto Route 50 and the casket rattled in the back.

"No, I don't."

"Well, we'll give him the standard nondenominational funeral.
I've got a Presbyterian minister meeting us at the cemetery. The money the county gives us barely covers our expenses, but it's important to us to do an honorable job."

It must be a drag, wor
king at a funeral home and al
ways having to convince people you're really a nice guy, not some sicko that gets off on dead bodies. Virgil droned on, detailing all of the many preparations that go into an honorable funeral job. I glanced over at Molly, who was staring out the window, her face a blank. Molly was one o
f those five-foot-two, eyes-of-
blue types, but withou
t the perkiness I would have as
sociated with her cute-as-a-button looks. Was she naturally unperky, or
was her perkiness just temporar
ily missing in action? I wondered what it was like to be a teenage girl, eager
to embark on life's grand adven
tures, but always surrounded by death. Your dad comes home every day smelling of formaldehyde. Do you become sullen a
nd withdrawn, lying around play
ing solitaire? Or do you get really into kinky sex, sneaking into the funeral home with your boyfriend at midnight and making love inside the caskets?

I felt guilty having such fantasies about this young girl who was just minding her own business, looking out at the gloomy day. It had started to rain and the sky was an endless dirty gray. The windshield wipers were relentless, and so was Virgil's voice. I interrupted him. "So, Molly," I said conversationally, "you help out your dad with the business?"

"You kidding?" Virgil answered for her. "She hates the business. Always has, ever since she was a little kid. Now she's studying arts administration over at Skidmore. Any money in that?"

The truthful answer would have been no, but I didn't want to get in the middle of any father-daughter arguments. "Sometimes. God knows the world needs good arts administrators." That part, at least, was true.

Molly looked away, clearly not in the mood to chat. But I was curious. "So how come you're going to this funeral?"

She turned and spoke to me for the first time that whole day. "I knew him," she said.

"Really? How?"

Her eyes went back to the window, looking far away again. "I made him a cup of coffee every morning."

I was puzzled for a moment, but then it came to me. "Oh, you work at City Hall in the mornings."

Now it was her turn to be puzzled. "No, the Arts Council."

Huh?
"The Arts Council?"

She nodded, getting a little more animated now. "I intern there from nine to eleven, and he always came
downstairs for free coffee. He lives right above there. I mean, used to live."

Amazing. This guy
seemed to get free coffee every
where. I wondered if it was free at Madeline's too.

"Did you make him Ethiopian?" I asked.

She eyed me curiously. "How'd you know?"

"Wild guess."

After that we rode in silence for a while, thinking about the dead man. Saratoga's suburbs gave way to a dark spruce forest, which turned into a series of video rental stores and fas
t-food outlets that somehow man
aged to look glum despite their garish colors. The windshield wipers beat out their lonely rhythm. Ahead of us was the cemetery.

Then Molly spoke
again. There was something dif
ferent in her voice this time, a kind of quaver. "Did you hear about his application?"

"Molly,"
her fath
er said warningly.

"What application?" I asked.

"The one where he said someone was threatening to kill him."

10

"No, I hadn't heard about that," I said, when I could get my mouth working again.

"Molly,
enough
. Let the man rest in peace."

I put my hand on the girl's shoulder. "Who was threatening to kill him?"

She bit her lip. "Dad's right. I shouldn't talk about it."

"About
what?"

"Jacob, forget it—" Virgil began, but I stopped him.

"Damn it, Virgil, come on. I was the man's only friend in the world. Except maybe for you," I added, turning to Molly.

Virgil was driving fast and angry. "Who cares what the guy thought? Face it, he only had one oar in the water."

That was true, of course. Probably no one had ever threatened to kill P
enn—and certainly no one had ac
tually done it. He died of a heart attack, right?

But still, something strange was going on here. I tried another tack. "What kind of application are you talking about, Molly?"

"Nothing," she said nervously, "just a NYFA grant. He applied every year." Virgil caught her eye in the rearview mirror, and she clutched at her hair with a fist. "I promised I wouldn't say anything."

"Who did you promise?"

Suddenly Virgil turned the wheel sharply. We veered into the cemetery, tires squealing on the wet road, and the car fishtailed. Penn's casket banged into the side of the hears
e, and the casket lid sprang up
ward.
Molly looked back there and gave an earsplitting scream.

Donald Penn's eyes had been jarred open and he was staring straight at us.

My heart stopped. Molly screamed even louder.

Virgil jumped from the hearse, opened the rear door, and slammed the li
d back down. He shot me a hate-
filled look—probably picturing me naked and full of embalming fluid.

I'm sure he would have preferred for someone else to help him carry the casket instead of me. But the gravediggers were on lunch break, the ninety-year-old Presbyterian minister wasn't exactly up to the job, and nobody else had
showed up for Donald Penn's fu
neral.

Nobody.

So Virgil and I lugged the casket up a hill to the gravesite, with Virgil in the rear giving laco
nic direc
tions and me in front walking backward. The rain had turned into a sad little drizzle, just enough to fog up our glasses and add that extra dollop of misery. We trudged past several rows of graves marked only by small aluminum gravestones. Molly was ahead of us, out of hearing range.

I lifted the casket higher, trying to get comfortable, and took a deep breath. "Virgil, I'm not trying to get your daughter riled up or anything, I just want to find out—"

"Look, Penn had a vivid imagination, that's all. And unfortunately, so does my daughter."

"Why don't you tell me about it yourself? Then I won't bug her anymore."

Virgil suddenly
sped up. Since I was going back
ward, his quick movement shoved the casket into my hips, knocking me off balance. I fell in the mud. The casket fell too, landing with a hard thud about an inch from my knee.

Virgil stood over me, furious. "Are you making me some kind of threat?"

I scrambled to my feet, equally furious. Fighting a fat man in the cemetery in the rain is not my idea of a good time, but still. "Did you just knock me down on purpose?"

He jabbed a finger at me. "Look, this internship is an important career opportunity for Molly. You better not screw it up."

I got in his face. "How could I screw it up? What are you so scared of?"

But Virgil just gave me a disgusted grunt and wouldn't say any more. We picked the casket back up and slogged silently up the muddy hill. We had to stop a couple of times to rest. Virgil was sweating profusely, and my headache was back.

I read the names and dates on the small aluminum gravestones,
meryl
renee
danvers, 1998. raoul cis
neros, 1997. unknown, 1996
.
I found names going back to 1993. Older than tha
t, though, the aluminum had cor
roded and the names were illegible. I resolved to dip into my
Gas that Ate San Francisco
nest egg and buy The Penn a proper gravestone.

When the funeral service finally began, I feared the worst. The nonagenarian Presbyterian minister was so frail he looked like he might keel over any minute himself. But he had a surprisingly powerful voice, and it cut through the rain r
ight into the heart of our lone
liness. He told us that the least among us are known intimately to God, just as if they were presidents or
kings instead of derelicts. God was waiting with open arms to receive Donald Penn.

I haven't figured out yet if I believe in God, and I guess I never will. B
ut despite my doubts, a good fu
neral speech always hits the spot.

When he was finished, the minister asked me if I would like to say a few words. I wanted to say no, but of course I couldn't, so I cleared my throat and began.

"Donald Penn," I said, "was an artist. A true artist. He devoted his whole life to his art."

Then I got stuck. I didn't know what else to say about the man, except that a couple of people seemed to like him or at least pity him enough to give him free coffee.

What I said out loud was, "God bless him."

Then I stepped down, the minister said amen, and that was that. The gravediggers lowered The Penn into his grave and covered him up, and the rest of us walked back through the rain to our cars.

Figuring I'd worn out my welcome with Virgil and Molly, I hit up the minister for a lift home. But first I went over to tell them good-bye. Virgil nodded gruffly and got in the hearse, leaving Molly and me alone for a moment.

She looked up at me anxiously. "Please don't tell Gretchen I mentioned the application."

Gretchen?
"Why not?"

"She said it could real
ly get the Arts Council in trou
ble."

I was dying for details, but Virgil rolled his window down and yelled at Molly to hurry. She got in the hearse, and they sped off.

The minister tottered up. "She's too young for you," he said with a lewd wink that looked odd coining from his wizened old face.

What was Gretchen Lang trying to hide? Could sweet, middle-aged Gretchen be the one that Penn said was threatening to kill him?

And what was in
that NYFA application, anyway—
and was it somehow connected to my burglary?

As we got into the minister's white Cadillac—"a dying man's last car," he told me—the minister began expounding on his sex-and-young-girls theme. " 'Course, folks in the Bible never used to worry about a girl being too young," he said, as he locked the doors and zoomed off down the highway. "You know how old Rachel was when Isaac fell in love with her at the well?"

And then I saw it. A face, peering furtively at us from behind the McDonald's sign across the highway. Not a whole face,
though, more like a pair of sun
glasses and a baseball cap. Just as effective as last night's mask.

The face ducked behind the sign. "Stop the car!" I shouted at the minister.

"Three. Rachel was
three,"
the minister continued.

"Let me out!" I yan
ked frantically at the door han
dle. But it was locked—luckily for me, since we were now doing fifty.

The minister chuckled. "And Isaac gets all pissed off because Rachel's father won't let him marry her until she's
ten!"

"Please let me out!"
I screamed.

"Sorry. Forgot to pu
t in my hearing aid." The minis
ter proceeded to put it in while driving sixty miles an hour. "Hate the darn thing, gets more feedback than a rock 'n' roll concert. Now what were you saying?"

I watched the McDonald's sign go out of sight around the bend. We were at least half a mile away by now, and back in the spruce forest. The next place to
turn around wouldn't be for another mile at least. I shook my head, frustrated. "Never mind."

The minister patted my arm. "Don't sweat it, kid. Funerals are tough, you never know how you're gonna react. Like one time a few years back I was doing this funeral, and afterward the widow asked if she could ride in the car with me. Well, of course I said yes, not thinking anything about it. But as soon as she got in the car, oh boy, let me tell you
...
"

Who the hell was that behind the McDonald's sign? The same person who bashed my head open last night? Was someone following me?

Or following Molly?

Or watching the fune
ral from a distance, out of mor
bid fascination? But why? Because he was Donald Penn's killer?

Wait a minute, that was insane. My head started to spin. I needed some damn aspirin.

Heck, as fuzzy as I felt, maybe I just hallucinated that face.