• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I’d introduced Laura to everyone as a DEA agent I was currently working with, Savich and Sherlock as FBI agents who were here to help us look into things. What things? Who had tried to kill Laura? I’d been as vague as possible as I’d smiled into Alyssum Tarcher’s face with that news. It was an I’ll-get-you-later smile and I’d swear he knew exactly what I was thinking.

Charlie Duck held the place of honor in the nave of the church, his beautifully carved silver urn set in the center of a circular piece of glass balanced on top of a hand-carved rosewood pyramid at least five feet tall. I couldn’t tell how that round piece of smoky glass balanced on that pyramid point.

While we sat waiting for the service to begin, I gave them all a running commentary on the people I’d met.

Paul came in, but he didn’t sit down beside me. In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge me or Laura. He looked tired, his face gray, harsh shadows scored deeply beneath his eyes. More than that, he looked scared.

I looked around to see that every pew was filled. There were at least a hundred folk, a good two dozen more lining the back of the church. Everyone had left work and come here. All of a sudden conversation stopped.

Alyssum Tarcher, dressed in a black suit that quietly announced English bespoke, strode to the pulpit, which really wasn’t a pulpit, but rather a long, thick mahogany board set atop marble pillars. The interior of the church was all like that—a mixture of styles and materials, announcing all sorts of possibilities but nothing specific, like an onion dome or a menorah.

Alyssum Tarcher cleared his throat and raised his head. Sunlight poured through the high windows and flooded over him. The air was perfectly still. There wasn’t a sound.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod. Bagpipes sounded, low and raw and savagely beautiful. No one seemed surprised, evidently used to this. The pipes played a wrenchingly sad set of chords, then grew more distant, softer, leaving only echoes.

“Charles Edward Duck,” Alyssum Tarcher said in a rolling, powerful voice, “was a man who lived a full and rich life.”

I tuned him out, studying Paul’s face in profile. What was going on?

“He was a police detective in Chicago until he retired to Edgerton to live with his aging parents, now deceased, some sixteen years ago. We will miss him. He was one of us.”

I heard the scrape of bagpipes again, minor chords sliding into one another, then nothing. Alyssum Tarcher, the patriarch, returned to sit in the first row.

Elaine Tarcher rose next. She looked slim and well groomed and rich. Her dark suit was elegant, somber. She wore pearls. When she spoke, her voice was full and deep with emotion. “I first met Charlie Duck at our annual New Year’s Eve party back in the late-eighties. We were having the party that year at The Edwardian. Charlie played his guitar for all of us. Good-bye, Charlie.”

A dozen townsfolk followed, the first representing the Anglican Church. It was Rob Morrison. He spoke briefly of Charlie’s good nature, his acceptance of others, his tolerance.

Miss Geraldine, the leader of the town League, mayor of Edgerton, represented the Jewish religion. She spoke of Charlie’s lack of anger toward anyone, his gentleness.

It appeared that everyone had seen Charlie Duck differently.

The final speaker was Mother Marco, ninety-three, who owned the Union 76 station. She was small and frail, and her pink scalp showed through soft, sparse white hair. “I don’t represent any religion,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Well, maybe you could say I represent old age and the brink of death. I feel older than the rocks on the shore below Edgerton.” The old lady grinned out at us all, showing big, very white false teeth. “And I’m proud of it. I knew Charlie Duck better than any of you. He was smart, was Charlie. He knew a bit about everything. He liked finding things out. If he didn’t understand something, he dug and dug until he found his answers. Because he was a police detective in Chicago, he didn’t have a high opinion of anybody. He wasn’t blind about