Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (15 page)

The temperature in the church rose quickly in spite of extra fans gently moving the air. With the outside door closed and the interior doors left open to allow overflow seating in the vestibule, there was simply no way the air-conditioning could prevent it from progressing from hot to hellish. The heavy, sweet scent of the carnations mixed with the aromas of a variety of deodorants and body powders. Someone seated nearby must have showered in heavy perfume. Theo swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. One after another, beads of sweat rolled between her breasts and pooled on her belly.

She couldn’t breathe.

The service was moving into the final hymn by the choir. Gretchen’s classically trained contralto voice soared above the rest. Her eyes closed in rapture as she belted out an upbeat hymn. Just as she hit the high notes on “Dear Jesus,” the front door crashed into the wall as if hit by a bus. Another member of the choir screamed, a bloodcurdling noise sending shivers down Theo’s spine.

Dark spots danced before her eyes and something seemed to be muting the sounds around her as she lost consciousness.

Propelled by instinct, Tony surged upward at the startling
thud
produced by the wooden front doors opening wide and crashing into the church’s exterior wall. Every head turned to face the back of the church. From his half-upright stance, Tony had a clear view of the doorway.

The sound of the impact produced a muffled shriek from one elderly member of the congregation, awakened from a nap.

“She’s alive!” Horror laced each syllable that fell from the organist’s lips before she fainted, falling forward, her face crashing onto the keys. The instrument heaved a minor chord that continued, echoing through the sanctuary.

Tony glanced at Theo. He wouldn’t have known his wife had fainted if he hadn’t seen her eyes. As she began to fall sideways, he pulled her into his arms, lifting her so she could get some air.

A member of the choir dragged the organist from her bench, silencing the instrument.

Absolute calm held for a moment.

The whisper of tiny footsteps on carpet made Tony’s skin crawl. He didn’t want to believe his eyes. Striding down the blue carpet path between the rows of pews was none other than Doreen Cashdollar.

A furious Doreen Cashdollar.

Tony felt stunned, like someone had slammed his face into a steel hatch. He heard, more than witnessed, Calvin fall. From the corner of his eye, he saw the mayor go down like a shallow-rooted tree in a high wind, crashing onto the altar steps.

The congregation erupted into a cacophony of screams and maniacal laughter.

Stretched out next to the floral arrangements surrounding his wife’s coffin, Calvin sobbed uncontrollably, his face buried against a broken spray of bloodred gladiolas.

Immediately on the heels of his shock, Tony felt a mixture of anger and confusion. His thoughts slammed together and bounced in all directions like the brightly colored balls on a billiard table.

If that was Doreen striding toward them wearing a stunning blue dress and matching very high-heeled sandals, then whose autopsy had taken place? Why had a stranger been in the museum office? Did the killer know it wasn’t Doreen?

Most importantly, whose body were they about to bury?

Without realizing he had moved, he found himself in front of Doreen bending forward. She was a good foot shorter than him. With her high-heeled shoes and his attitude, they stood almost nose to nose.

“Where the hell have you been?”

The moment he opened his mouth, silence fell on the congregation and his softly spoken words carried to the farthest corners of the church. A couple of ladies on the second row, semi-professional funeral attendees, gasped with shock. Tony’s fleeting glance at the avid expressions on their lined faces convinced him it was a sham. They were not offended by his language; they were thrilled to be present.

Doreen Cashdollar managed to look down her nose at him from her disadvantaged height. “Not that it’s any of your business, I’ve been on a little trip to San Francisco.”

“Who? Who?” Calvin stuttered owlishly from his position in the flowers. “Who?” A bony index finger pointed at the casket.

“An excellent question, Mayor.” Tony hadn’t taken his eyes away from Doreen. Almost forgetting he still held Theo in his arms, he tightened his grip on his wife. “We had your car towed.”

“So that’s what happened to it.” Doreen stamped her tiny foot and pointed toward the back of the church. “I started filling out a police report at the airport and then the next thing I know, this baby-faced cop is driving me here. He kept mumbling something about my being murdered and today being my funeral.”

She whirled and stomped back up the aisle and grasped part of the cop’s arm as if she planned to lead him somewhere. It was only then she appeared to notice where she was and what was going on. Reality hit her, and she turned slowly and faced the pulpit. Her eyes focused on the flower-bedecked mahogany casket for the first time. Her lip curled.

“Pink carnations! That’s simply hideous, Calvin. You know I hate pink carnations.”

Turning her back to the sight, she dragged her oversized police escort and left the church, slamming the heavy door behind her.

Dead silence lasted four long seconds. Then the babbling and laughing by the members of the congregation began. Above it all, the continuous, heart-wrenching sound of Calvin sobbing. The commotion threatened to remove the roof from the building. No one turned to follow Doreen.

Tony took a breath, torn between going after her and opening the coffin.

Before he could move, the door swung open again and all heads turned. The cacophony stopped in mid-breath. Silence reigned. Fascinated, Tony, like the rest of the congregation, watched Doreen stride toward Calvin and the casket.

She swept aside the offending blanket of carnations and unlatched the coffin.

No one moved. Tony couldn’t even feel his own heart beating. The sweet scent of the discarded flowers wafted in the warm air.

If she were a taller woman, Doreen might have been able to open the coffin with a flourish. As it was she staggered slightly, teetering on her high heels as she lifted the lid.

As one, the congregation leaned forward, trying to see over her shoulder.

Tony had the advantage of both his height and the fact he was standing. He could see the deceased clearly. Even allowing for the subtle facial changes accompanying death, it looked like Doreen in the box to him.

Doreen studied the body for only a moment before she let out a shriek any self-respecting banshee would envy. She slammed the lid even harder than she had slammed the front door.

Tony thought even her fiercest enemies would be sympathetic to a woman seeing herself at her own funeral. It would be just so damned disturbing.

His considerate thought vanished in a heartbeat when Doreen rounded on her husband. Calvin struggled and managed to pull himself into a more-or-less standing position by using the pulpit as a support. His narrow chest heaved with sobs and he wiped his nose on a large, white handkerchief.

“How dare you!” Doreen advanced on the hapless man.

The congregation settled back onto the pews like a well-behaved group at the theater. All eyes were glued to the action on the stage. Hands pressed together in excitement rather than in prayer. If the first two acts set up the action, Act Three promised to be a real barnburner.

Abandoning the handkerchief, Calvin wrapped his long arms around the pulpit and lowered his face to the slanted surface and moaned. The pitiful sound raised goose bumps on the back of Tony’s neck.

“My favorite dress!” Doreen pulled back her leg as if to deliver a kick. “How dare you give this little tart my favorite dress!”

Theo wiggled, reminding Tony he still held her in his arms. She whispered his name. Tony tilted his head to listen to her without removing his eyes from the melodrama.

“She knows who it is.”

Tony nodded. Mesmerized by the action, he studied the expressions on the Cashdollars’ faces. Doreen’s was full of fury and disgust. Calvin sobbed, his face contorted with grief and terror.

Theo whispered again. “I don’t think Doreen’s sorry the woman’s dead, either.”

“I guess I’d better go up there.” Tony suspected his voice lacked conviction. In truth, he didn’t want to miss any of the show.

Before he could move a muscle, all hell broke loose.

Sonny Cochran leapt from his spot between his wife and mother and charged the tableau.

“Daddy?” Doreen’s arms opened wide to greet him. “Help me.”

He slipped past her screaming, “My baby! You’ve killed my baby!”

Still seated on the pew, Bathsheba sobbed. Her tears fell faster, now that Doreen had returned from the dead.

The Queen Mother, Mrs. Sonny Cochran, rose to her feet and followed her husband to the aisle. The moment her feet touched the royal blue carpeting, she turned sharply to the right and marched toward the rear of the church with the same speed and determination her daughter had exhibited minutes earlier when she entered. If her expression meant anything, Sonny was in deep, deep trouble at home.

Clearly bewildered, Calvin straightened but did not release his hold on the pulpit, clinging to it like a lifeline. Tears streamed down his homely face as he watched his furious wife and his distraught father-in-law screaming and wailing over the casket.

Tony thought a look of such confusion could not be feigned and felt somewhat relieved at least one other person in the congregation was as confused as he was himself.

Theo poked his shoulder. “You can put me down.”

Her words snapped him out of his paralysis. He looked into her face. She still looked a bit pale, but her eyes were clear and focused. “You fainted.”

“It’s over a hundred degrees in here. I couldn’t breathe.”

He set her on her feet and made his way to the pulpit and held up a hand for silence. It took a minute to stop the voices.

“Mike? Wade?”

The deputies moved forward. Tony said, “I want everyone except the immediate family to go with Mike.”

“Where should I take them?”

“Why not let them have the planned refreshments?” Tony glanced around. “Make a list of who’s here and then let them go home. Wade, I want you to bring Doreen’s mother back in here. Hog-tie her if you have to. But get her.”

Wade vanished in an instant.

It took Mike a bit longer to get the attendees on their feet and out the door. Like a well-trained sheep dog, Theo helped the deputy herd them through the doorway and onto the lawn. Some of the “mourners” required more pressure than others.

Tony considered this obvious reluctance on the part of the congregation to be absolutely understandable. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave, either. Tony simply stood and watched until all except the family exited the sanctuary and Wade returned with Doreen’s mother.

Tony arranged the bereaved family in the front row. He had lots of questions. He decided to start with the most important. “Who is in the coffin?”

The overwhelming problem to Tony was one he couldn’t ask and none of them would likely have an answer to. “Was Doreen the intended victim or was she?”

Calvin looked bereft. If he thought he had killed his wife, only to find her still alive and bitchier than ever, he might confess just so he could go to prison. Somehow Tony doubted Doreen’s mood would improve when she discovered Calvin had boxed her belongings for a charity.

Sonny was in tears.

Bathsheba was in tears.

Doreen was pissed. Her obvious fury would not abate any time soon. Tony didn’t want to talk to her. The display she had made over the selection of flowers was just the tip of this angry iceberg. He didn’t want the family members talking to each other.

Actually, he thought, that didn’t look like a problem.

Lined up on the front pews like first-time flyers, none of them looked at the others. No one touched another. Doreen and Calvin sat at opposite ends of the left pew. Bathsheba and Sonny sat on the front pew on the right side. Mrs. Sonny, having been forcibly returned to the church, sat behind mother and son. Her expression threatened to ignite the oak furnishings.

Wade stood slightly behind them to prevent anyone from leaving.

Facing the unhappy group, Tony stood in front of the closed coffin and it felt like the weight of it rested squarely on his shoulders. Calvin sat, twisting his hands together, and Tony couldn’t help wondering if it would be long before one hand came completely off.

“Who is she?” Tony moved to face Sonny, ignoring the rest of the merry band for the moment and pointed toward the coffin. “You seemed to recognize her.”

Sonny’s face showed the effects of true grief. The man had been crying continually since his stricken outburst. He took a shuddering breath and looked into Tony’s face. “She’s my daughter Patti. Patti Yager.”

Tony frowned. “I was under the impression Doreen is an only child. Isn’t that what you told me the last time we talked?”

“Well, yes.” Sonny seemed fascinated by the pattern he was creating by rubbing his toes across the worn carpeting.

“Officially,” Mrs. Sonny spoke. The woman looked like she wouldn’t mind if her husband fell through the floor and into a tank of starving piranhas. Her collagen-perfect lips curled back from her beautifully capped teeth. “My husband,” she said, her hissed words sending droplets of spittle through the air. “My husband has several extra children.”

Sonny swiveled to face his wife and then turned back as if he realized nothing he could say would make it worth his opening his mouth. His head bobbed up and down as if it was attached to his body by a spring and not the usual selection of bones, tendons and muscle. “I’ll admit I’m a weak man.”