Adventures in Funeral Crashing (11 page)

“Then we have nothing,” Ethan was
disappointed.

“It’s something, but just not enough. We
didn’t expect Suzie to give us much anyway. Still, maybe we can
find out the names of the other people in Olivia’s sewing class and
talk to them? She did have one the week she died. Maybe someone
other than Suzie remembers something weird,” I knew I was
stretching, but it was worth looking into if something else didn’t
pan out first.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I knew
Ethan was disappointed that I didn’t think Suzie’s testimony would
be enough to nail Troy for Liz’s murder. Still, we both now knew
that going to the police with anything short of absolutely solid
proof of guilt would be a waste of time.

“Did you get a chance to read Liz’s diary?”
Ethan asked quietly.

I had forgotten about that. I nodded, “Yes
and there was no mention of drugs or anything really interesting
until the last few entries.”

“What was it?” Ethan asked.

“Well, it’s more for the Troy file for sure,”
I said.

“What?” Ethan asked again.

“Okay, Liz said she got an email from a girl
who claimed to also be dating Troy. She never said who the girl
was, though. And, it’s the last journal entry, so I don’t know if
anything happened with her and Troy or her and the other girl after
that. Well, except that Suzie said that Troy and Liz were making
up, so maybe they worked it out,” I said. “Although, if there is
another girl, it actually makes things a little more
complicated.”

“Or not,” Ethan said. “Maybe Liz and Troy had
another fight about this girl, she threatened to break up with him
for good, and then he decided to kill her. The whole if I can’t
have you, nobody can scenario. It could be his thing. A girl wants
to break it off and he kills her.”

“Or maybe the other girl has something to do
with it or knows something,” I said, trying to be subjective.

“Or maybe the other girl is dead too,” Ethan
said.

I thought for a moment, “What if the other
girl was Vanessa Martin?”

Ethan looked thoughtful, “You mean the email
she sent Liz? Well, then it brings it back around to Troy being the
killer. It’s definitely something. Now we just need something
concrete to tie it all together.”

“Yeah, but where do we go from here?” I
wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“I think tonight will give us some better
leads. As morbid as it is, I’m really looking forward to funeral
crashing with you,” Ethan grinned.

I smiled back at him. It was definitely going
to be an interesting night. Me and Ethan, the most popular guy in
school, funeral crashing together. I never would have pictured that
in a billion, zillion years and yet, it was really happening. It
was almost like being in an alternate universe really, like on
Fringe
.

“Hey, E,” Dave Rickerson said, suddenly
standing at our table with Mike Finnegan.

I felt myself stare up at them in shock. What
were we going to do? I felt the sudden panic of any geek when
approached by the popular crowd for doing something socially
outside the box. Here it goes, I thought. They were going to say
something to Ethan and then he’d have to ignore me. It was the way
high school worked. Someone popular didn’t hang out with someone
who was unpopular.

“Hey guys,” Ethan said calmly, like it was no
big deal.

“So, are you eating with us today?” Mike
said, awkwardly.

I felt myself hold my breath. There was a
definite strange and tense silence. I knew what they were really
asking, but Ethan didn’t seem to care or maybe he didn’t
notice.

“Nah. I have some stuff to talk to Kait
about. Catch you guys in Spanish, though,” Ethan said.

Dave and Mike nodded and quickly walked away
without looking at me. I wondered what they were thinking. The
whole school was going to be talking about me and Ethan having
lunch now. They were all going to be wondering at his sudden
interest in me. I mean, he rejected his best friends for me. I was
the only one at our table who seemed to be thinking about this,
though. Ethan didn’t seem to care. He was eating his lunch like
there was nothing out of the ordinary in having lunch with me, even
though I was a total social pariah. They probably thought he had
made a bet or something. Like in
She’s All That
. That would
be okay with me. That movie had a happy ending anyway. Geeky Laney
Boggs got the popular guy. I could only hope for that outcome in my
dreams. I didn’t think Ethan would badmouth me or anything, though.
He was turning out to be the real deal – popular, good looking,
smart, and a nice guy. I almost wished that he wasn’t.

So, let the school talk about me. It’s not
like I hadn’t been there before. I didn’t like it, but they weren’t
my friends anyway. And, it’s not like our peers were ever going to
guess what we were really doing. That would really give them
something to talk about.

Just when I thought I was home free for the
day on the Ariel front, she found me. I was at my locker gathering
my things before I met Ethan at his car to go to Vanessa’s wake and
Ariel walked up to me demanding, “Did you and Ethan Ripley have
lunch together today fifth period?”

The gossip train had worked fast. I put my
Chemistry book into my backpack before I looked up at her. Ariel
was standing there, hands on her hips, trying to look haughty in
her designer, way too expensive for a school day outfit. I didn’t
have time for this today. Especially not when I was keeping Ethan
waiting at his car. Okay, I had read
The Rules
(for fun’s
sake only, I swear), so maybe it was good for him to wait a little.
Still, that didn’t mean I wanted Ethan to wait because I was being
forced to talk to Ariel.

I decided to answer simply, “Yes, we
did.”

“Why is Ethan Ripley having lunch with you?”
Ariel demanded. “Are you helping him with math or something?”

Ethan was smarter than I was at school. It
was a funny statement and I felt a smile forming on my lips,
“Because he wanted to have lunch with me.”

“What? Why would he want to have lunch with
you?” Ariel demanded, putting particular emphasis on the word “you”
to emphasize her distaste.

With that, I slammed my locker shut despite
the fact that I was supposed to bring my history book home to study
for a quiz, grabbed my backpack, and left Ariel staring after me
with her jaw open. At least, I hope her jaw was open. I was going
for effect after all and it would only be worth flunking my history
quiz if I really got to her. I think I did. At least I’m pretty
sure, since she didn’t even have the energy to follow me and ask me
more questions.

Ethan was waiting for me outside next to his
Honda Civic Hybrid. It was more blue than silver during the day. I
liked that he was environmentally conscious, what with the hybrid
and all. Okay, I’ll admit it, I was looking more at Ethan than his
car.

Ethan just always looked so good and yet, he
looked even better in the suit he was now wearing. He had changed
sometime after lunch into funeral garb, black pants and a white
button down, although I could see a black jacket lying in the back
seat of the car. It would be awesome if he started wearing suits to
school every day. He looked really sexy in them.

I looked down at myself, hoping he was having
an inkling of a similar thought about me. I was wearing a black
skirt and form fitting black lacy shirt that I had changed into
before last period. I had grabbed the shortest skirt I owned in
fact, trying to be a little more sexy, at least. And, I thought my
hair looked okay. At least it had in the bathroom mirror I managed
to look into before last period. I was hoping the bags under my
eyes had dissipated since this morning. There was no more cover up
I could put on them without looking super powdery.

“Hey, Kait,” Ethan said as I approached
him.

My stomach exploded with butterflies, but
somehow I managed to say, “Hey.”

Ethan opened the car door for me and I felt
my legs wobble a little as I got into Ethan’s car. What was wrong
with me? We were on a mission! Yet, I do admit that all of a sudden
this sort of felt like a date. It was the whole chivalry thing, I
thought.

I felt a little, no a lot, nervous all of a
sudden. This was funeral crashing with a twist. I really hoped
something would come out of it – major evidence or at least a clue
would be nice. And, as we drove out of the parking lot, I also
secretly hoped that someone, hopefully Ariel, would see me driving
away in Ethan Ripley’s car.

“I just threw
up chunks,” I told Anne via my cell phone as we drove to Worth
Hills Funeral Home, where Vanessa Martin’s wake was being held.
Anne sympathized as soon as I said the word chunks and told me not
to come in. I didn’t ditch much, but I know how even saying the
word chunks makes me feel, so I knew it would work.

I was ditching work for the funeral. I would
have given Anne more warning, but since I went to school with three
other Palos Video Store employees, I couldn’t afford to. I did not
have their loyalty. Again, I was risking my cushy part time job for
the sake of Ethan Ripley. It felt worth it, though.

We got to Vanessa’s funeral a little after 4
pm and I wasn’t surprised to find that Vanessa Martin’s funeral was
a somber affair. How could it not be? She was another nineteen year
old from Laurel Community College that had overdosed on heroin.
Only, I got the impression that her parents were trying to keep
everyone from talking about the h-word, but people were gossiping
about it in hushed tones anyway.

As we walked into the wake, I suddenly felt
Ethan’s hand wrap around mine. I felt my pulse speed up at the
touch of his hand. I hoped my palms wouldn’t start sweating or
anything really gross like that. My stomach started doing flips as
his hand grasped mine a little tighter. Then I felt him looking at
me. Oh yeah, we were supposed to be walking into the wake. I had
completely forgotten what I was doing in the extreme bliss of
holding his hand.

“You ready?” He asked.

“Uh-huh,” I managed to mumble, trying to get
my thoughts back into a coherent state.

It was all Ethan’s idea, not mine, I swear.
He wanted it to seem like we were dating. Yes dating, again, all
his idea, although I admit to being really happy about having his
warm, rugged hand clasped in mine…even if it was all just a
charade. I mean, it felt real enough even if he wasn’t doing it
because he like liked me. I would take what I could get. It made
sense actually, that we should be dating if we came to the funeral
together. Then we only needed one reason for being there…instead of
two.

The heart of funeral crashing is the entire
experience. You need to throw yourself into the funeral, but not
too much. After all, the goal is to crash the funeral without
getting caught. One of the main things to do is to solemnly walk up
to the casket and view the body. If one was a good actor, managing
a tear is perfect. If not, looking sad is definitely enough. Don’t
smile. And, you don’t want to wait and stare into the casket too
long either. This makes any anxious family members think you’re
having some kind of a breakdown and they may get the urge to come
over and hug you. If that happens, you better have a great story
ready. A casual friend doesn’t break down at a funeral and posing
as someone’s bff when you don’t even know them, is tough.

So, our plan was in full swing. We were
standing in front of Vanessa Martin’s casket and peering in to look
at her. She looked so young, with long brown hair cascading down
the pillow she was lying on. She still looked youthful and full of
life, just with her eyes closed. They did a great make-up job, as
morbid as that sounds. If her eyes had been open, my guess is they
would have been brown too. It was a sad waste. If only Ethan and I
could have saved Vanessa this moment. I thought of Detective Dixon
and his Styrofoam cup fetish and felt angry all over again. He
should have listened to us! Maybe Vanessa Martin’s death could have
been prevented if the police had even simply looked into the theory
we had given them. I mean, I had even shown them her email!

From the vantage point of the coffin, we were
able to clearly observe Vanessa’s immediate family. The immediate
family – parents, siblings, and close relatives, were almost always
sitting on the front couch in front of the casket. The woman that
appeared to be Vanessa’s mother was hanging on another woman,
possibly her sister since they looked a little alike and, carrying
on into her shoulder. Nobody else was sitting on the front couch.
Maybe Vanessa’s father wasn’t in the picture anymore. I didn’t see
any siblings yet.

The rest of the room was full of the rise and
fall of murmurs, as people carried on conversations in whispers.
These were the relatives, friends, and neighbors mingling. Maybe
one of them had some detail that would give us more to go on
regarding Vanessa’s death. There were a lot of them, though, and
we’d need to be very careful trying to glean information from them.
In no way, could we interrogate anyone. Nobody wants to be
interrogated at a funeral, especially if they’re in mourning. The
last thing we needed was a hysterical scene, so a lot of our
information gathering would have to be done by observation and
eavesdropping.

Ethan was pulling at my arm with his hand. I
had lost myself. Yes, it was time to move away from the coffin
before anyone took notice of us. My hand still in his hand, he led
me to some chairs toward the middle back of the room. It was a
perfect place to sit, relax, and unobtrusively listen in on the
whispered conversations happening around us.

I strained to hear the hushed whisperings. I
was only able to catch snippets here and there of people gossiping
about what went wrong with Vanessa. Another girl lost to heroin,
who didn’t seem the type to do drugs in the first place. That was
the general gist I got, at least, as I tried to listen in on
people. It wasn’t helping much with my concentration either that
Ethan was still holding my hand. He even started absently rubbing
my hand in his – like we were really going out.