Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [98]
“Unfortunately?”
“Like I said, she’s . . . extraordinary.”
“I see.”
“Maybe you do. Anyway, I’d like to discuss this with her, see if she has any insights. Okay with you?”
“Okay. But don’t pull in the FBI, Evan. I’m not ready to throw in the towel.”
“Since only you can bring them on board, you don’t need to worry. I’ll make certain Anne Marie understands that. In the meantime, I’ll give my old partner a call and get them moving on that Channing file. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
“No doubt I will. Thanks.”
“Hey, when you see my sister, tell her to hang in there, okay?”
“Will do.” Sean disconnected the call and sat at his desk for a long time, staring into space, wondering if he should be doing something else to move this investigation forward. Should he put in a call to the FBI? Should he be asking for help? Was he putting others in danger by not calling in the feds?
He glanced at the clock over the door. Greer had hung it the day he was named chief. It was a silly squirrel whose tail moved back and forth with every tick of the second hand. It drove him crazy so most times he refused to look at it, but today he couldn’t seem to look away.
He’d review the file from Lyndon on this Curtis Channing, then he’d decide what his next move would be. If it seemed like the FBI was the right choice, that would be his next call. Whether he personally liked it or not.
Dolores Hall was a mess. Here she was, in the front row of chairs set up at the funeral home, and she just could not stop crying. And forget about approaching the coffin, which Connie’s two sisters had wisely left closed. They’d come to bring the body back to Illinois to be buried with their parents in an old family plot, but agreed to have a viewing here in Carleton on Tuesday night for all of Connie’s devoted following.
“It’s only right,” Nancy, the oldest sister, told Dolores. “She’s been doing hair here in Carleton for sixteen years.”
“Half the heads in town,” Dolores had sniffed.
“Then we’ll do a little something here at one of the local funeral parlors. Can you suggest one? Who do you think does the best job?”
“McCardle’s,” Dolores had said without hesitation. “They always call us in to do . . . you know . . . heads. We didn’t especially like the work, but we thought of it as, you know, a public service. . . .”
McCardle’s first floor was jammed with mourners on the night of Connie’s viewing. Dolores stood side-by-side with the sisters, introducing them to the many who’d come to pay their respects to the deceased. Vince stood in the background and watched, amazed at the size of the crowd.
His gaze roamed the room, trying to pick out the undercover police, knowing that they would be in attendance. It was no secret that killers often attend the funerals of their victims, so it followed that the Carleton P.D. would be hanging around, looking for suspects. For this reason, Vince made a point of chatting with the mourners—a lone figure was much more likely to become the object of speculation—and went from time to time to stand by Dolores’s side as if he were an important part of the proceedings.
Which in a way, he was.
He just couldn’t wait until the sisters took the box away and Connie would be gone from his life forever. Then he could get on with things—move in with Dolores on a permanent basis, move out of that dinky little room he was in. He much preferred the comfort of Dee’s bed to the lumpy little thing he’d been sleeping on. Of course, with Dee in such grief and shock these days, he’d barely left her side. Which was just fine with him. It was helping him to solidify his place in her life, move their relationship along.
“Vinnie, you’re my rock,” she’d cried the night before. “I don’t know what