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“Thanks for letting me into his room. It made me feel . . . close to him.”

“My daughter's on her way home,” he said. “She left work early.”

“Oh, uh, that's good. Um, well . . .” I needed to leave. I really had no desire to explain my visit all over again, especially with someone much less understanding than Charles.

“She's going to rent the room out.”

So the sign out front was accurate. “I'm sorry you lost your checkers partner,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “Jerome was leaving anyway.”

“He was? I didn't know . . . ?”

Of course, he was also planning on getting married.

“Do you play checkers?” he asked hopefully.

I started to maneuver my way to the front door. “Uh, no . . . sorry. But maybe your daughter . . . ?” I slid out the front door. “Thanks again.”

He looked so mournful, I couldn't help myself. I gave him a quick hug and scurried to my Metro. At the top of the street, a white, late-model sedan was barreling down Ellison. I took off.

I
brushed my teeth, slipped into a funeral-appropriate outfit, black skirt and sweater, and nibbled on a piece of toast—coffee would have to wait until after the service. Lola's Lexus turned into my driveway so I grabbed my purse and keys and flew out the door. A few fluffy clouds skidded across the deep blue sky: a beautiful day for a funeral. I shut the passenger-side door and had just barely clicked my seat belt when Lola passed me a Coffee Heaven take-out paper cup.

“Decaf caramel macchiato, hold the foam,” she said, looking sophisticated and serene in her black suit and pearls.

“Lola, you are my hero.” I popped up the lid and inhaled. “To what do I owe this generosity?”

“I just thought it might be nice to be nice.”

I smiled at her. “What can we expect this morning?”

“Jerome's sister isn't springing for anything beyond the bare necessities. A simple service and coffee in the undercroft.”

“I'm sure Jerome would have appreciated your efforts,” I said.

“I did my best. Of course, Walter had a hand in everything. The pallbearers, the eulogy—”

“I went to Jerome's place yesterday.” I took a sip of my coffee. “You're not going to believe what I found.” I described my visit to Ellison Street, including Charles Waters's loss of his checkers partner and the diamond ring.

“An engagement ring! So Jerome
was
stepping out,” Lola said, stunned.

“More than stepping out. According to Charles, he was planning on leaving soon. Maybe to get married.”

“I don't understand. Why did none of us know about her?”

“Jerome wanted to keep things under wraps?”

Lola turned left into the parking lot. A sizeable crowd had gathered in the churchyard of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church—people Jerome had come to know over the years as a beloved high school teacher, along with the ELT folks and the local press. Organ music wafted out of the vestibule as the undertaker appeared and began to direct people into the church.

“Where's Walter?” I asked.

Lola craned her neck as we filed into a pew halfway down the aisle. “I'm sure he's in the vestibule with the other pallbearers,” she said nervously.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

“Just wait.”

I'd read enough mysteries and thrillers to know that, next to stakeouts and surreptitious photography, a funeral was a good friend to an investigator: who came, who didn't come, who broke down. At the left rear of the church, Chief Thompson leaned against a pillar, a good position from which to inspect the assembled parties. Opposite him, on the right side of the nave, sat Officer Suki Shung. Both of them out of uniform, expressions neutral.

“Show time,” a voice hissed in my ear, and I jumped.

“Penny,” I said, my heart banging around in my chest. “You're going to kill me.”

“I hear the police did a biopsy.”

“You mean autopsy,” I said.

“Whatever.”

“I think that's standard procedure when someone dies a violent death,” Lola said calmly.

“You're looking good, Lola. Walter's giving the eulogy, right? I mean, after all, the ELT was Jerome's home,” Penny said.

Lola nodded. “Maybe you should get a seat, Penny. The service is probably going to start soon.”

The organist began to play “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.” It was my fondest wish.

Penny jerked her head over one shoulder and nodded. “Here he comes to take his final bow.”

I turned in my seat and saw the pallbearers and coffin in place at the back of the church.

“OMG, Lola?”

“I know,” she whispered hoarsely, staring straight ahead. “It was Walter's idea. I tried to talk him out of it but he thought it was . . . appropriate?”

Aligned along both sides of the casket were six guys, all ELT members, and Walter. The six were dressed in Elizabethan garb: tights and capes and frilly shirts. Walter, in modified Elizabethan costume with just the shirt and cape, stood at the rear of the casket.

“How did he convince them to dress like that? To wear that stuff to a funeral?”

Lola shrugged. “They're actors.”

The organist started the chorus again, and we all stood as Jerome was wheeled down the aisle. The undertaker led the processional, and Walter pushed from the back of the coffin. In between, the six actors steered the casket. I had to stifle laughter, like, no doubt, many of the pews' occupants.

The minister began the service. There were prayers for Jerome's soul and a few words about his kindness and generosity. Heads nodded throughout the church. And then Walter rose and somberly approached the pulpit. He flipped the ends of his cape over his shoulders and withdrew a sheet of paper from the inside of his flowing white shirt. He cut a surprisingly striking, if odd, figure: grave and somewhat timeless. He cleared his throat. “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Most of the crowd certainly recognized Shakespeare's hand in this. If Walter had ended there and just said a few words about Jerome and the theater, we could have called it a funeral. But this was a performance.

“Jerome was our friend, part of the Etonville Little Theatre family. It is therefore only fitting to remember him and his last role in our circle of light and to wonder what his future in the theater might have been had he . . .” Walter took a dramatic beat. “. . . lived. ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question . . . '”

No one could confuse murder with suicide, including Walter, but the line was too good to pass up. He described Jerome's sense of humor and listed all of the various duties he had performed at the ELT. A baby started to wail, but Walter soldiered on, building to the climax of his oration. “Friends and mourners, lend me your ears, I come to bury Jerome,
and
to praise him.”

His mashup of
Julius Caesar
and
Hamlet
had left the crowd totally confused. “And so I remind us all that ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.' ”

He ended to thunderous silence. Then some members of the ELT, forgetting this was a memorial for Jerome, started to applaud. Everyone else looked around as though searching for permission before joining in. Walter bowed slightly and the minister announced prayers in the church cemetery, followed by refreshments in the church basement.

Walter rejoined the pallbearers and they rolled Jerome down the aisle, all of us filing out of our pews behind him. When the organist started in on “The Strife Is O'er,” I saw Chief Thompson and Suki Shung still with neutral expressions, probably in shock from the whole affair. As far as the investigation was concerned, the strife had just begun.

* * *

After the prayers, we left Jerome's casket in St. Andrew's cemetery and moved into the church for refreshments.

I brushed a bit of apple strudel off my sweater as I observed the crowd; some were huddled around the dessert table noodling over their options while others, in groups of twos and threes, chatted in hushed tones. Occasionally, someone would let out a honk of a laugh and the place would go silent for a few moments before the general level of noise would ratchet up again.

“Jerome had a lot of friends,” Chief Thompson said at my back.

I spun around. He was even more handsome in a suit than in uniform, his pale blue shirt and matching tie accentuating his eyes. I had to pull myself away from his stare. “Yes, he was well-loved.” Was now the time to mention the engagement ring?

“Dodie, I think I'm ready to leave.” Lola turned to face me. “Hi, Chief Thompson.”

“Hello. Mrs. Tripper, right?” he said.

“Yes. Lola please.”

There was some commotion over near the dessert table. “What's going on over there?” Lola said.

“Probably a run on the pecan Danish,” I said.

Lola turned away again and did a double take. “Oh my. No. It couldn't be. . . .”

“Lola?” I watched her, zombie-like, approach a cluster of ELT folks, insert herself into the center of the group, and fall into the arms of a man I'd seen before, in the
Etonville Standard
photo with Jerome and Walter.

“Who's that,” the chief asked, suddenly alert.

“His name is Elliot Schenk. He was a member of the Etonville Little Theatre until he just up and disappeared two years ago. According to Lola, he and Jerome were best friends and had been in touch recently.” Lola leaned comfortably into the arm he put around her shoulders.

He must have been about sixty, tall, with perfect white teeth, streaks of gray at the temples of his black hair, and prominent cheekbones. Elliot was a more dapper, less sunburned version of George Hamilton. The newspaper photo didn't begin to do him justice. “Now that is a handsome man,” I said, probably a little more enthusiastically than I'd intended.

“I wonder how he heard about the funeral?” the chief said, ignoring my comment.

“Good question. Maybe you should—”

“—have a talk with him. I was thinking the same thing,” he said wryly.

“Good idea.”

“You're in the theater a lot?” he asked.

“I will be more than usual in the next few weeks, helping out.”

“Do me a favor, okay?”

My heart did a loop-de-loop. He'd actually asked me to do him a favor?

“Keep an eye out over there.”

“For what?”

He shrugged. “Anything that strikes you as suspicious. Anything out of the ordinary.”

I'd been around the ELT long enough to know that much of what happened over there was out of the ordinary. “You think someone knows something?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Will do.”

Lola waved me over, and Chief Thompson followed.

“Dodie, I'd like to introduce you to Elliot.” Beaming, Lola snaked her arm through his. “Dodie and Jerome were good friends.”

“We shared reading habits,” I said.

Elliot flashed a blinding smile. “It's so nice to meet you. I wish it were under other circumstances.” He took my hand and shook it warmly.

“And this is our new police chief, Bill Thompson,” Lola said.

Chief Thompson grasped Elliot's hand firmly. “Hello. Are you in town for long?”

Elliot gazed at Lola. “I'm not sure.”

“Well, if you are, I'd appreciate five minutes of your time.” He handed Elliot his card. “We're interviewing anyone who knew Mr. Angleton for the investigation.”

Elliot nodded politely. “I understand. I'll give you a call.”

“Thanks.”

Elliot rejoined some theater folks, the chief said good-bye, and Lola had a final word with Walter.

* * *

“This way,” I said to Lola when we reached the foyer, pointing to a side exit that would open directly onto the parking lot. “You didn't tell me that you and Elliot were ... ?”

“Just friends,” she said, her face flushed.

“I'd say pretty good friends.”

Lola swatted me teasingly on the arm. “We went out a few times.”

“What did Walter have to say about it?”

“Walter wasn't on my radar then,” Lola said pointedly.

“Did Elliot tell you why he left town?”

“Something about a business opportunity. What's important is that he came back. For Jerome.”

“No wife?”

“Divorced. Like Walter.” She sighed. “Maybe it's my destiny.”

We crossed the vestibule and pulled open the side exit door.

I almost bumped into someone who stood on the outside, a massive and thick-necked man with powerful shoulders.

I caught my breath. “Sorry. I didn't see you.”

He brushed past us without a word.

* * *

The Windjammer was packed for lunch. Many folks simply trotted over to the restaurant from Jerome's funeral. Henry's homemade tomato basil soup sold out. I had one eye on the few remaining customers and one eye on my watch. Henry was busy in the kitchen experimenting with a parmesan cream sauce for the broccoli on the dinner menu, and it was nearing my three o'clock break. I had already decided how I was going to spend the next hour or so.

“Benny, I'll be back soon.” I searched my purse for my car keys.

He looked up from behind the bar, where he was ensconced cleaning the fountain taps, and eyed me thoughtfully. “You're doing a lot of running around these days,” he said. “You're not applying for other jobs, are you?” There was a hint of panic in his voice.

I laughed. “And leave you and Henry? Nah. It's like a marriage here. More trouble to get out of than to get into.”

Benny nodded. “I know what you mean.”

There had to be a way to find out whom Jerome was seeing, in whom he had invested a decent chunk of money. He was retired and, I assumed, living on a fixed income so where had he gotten the funds for a diamond ring? If I could speak with the person who'd sold him the ring, maybe he or she would remember something he'd said or done that would give me a clue. I intended to turn the ring over to Chief Thompson, but first I needed to satisfy my curiosity about its purchase.

The inside cover of the ring box was gold-stamped with
Sadlers Fine Jewelry
, which was located in Creston. Last year, I bought my mother birthstone earrings there, and she loved them. Creston was four miles away but seemed like a different universe. Population twenty thousand, it lacked the charm of Etonville but had all of the features that made it a necessity from time to time: a big-box store, doctors who specialized in various body parts, and fast food places.