“Look,” he said to Arthur Pommerant, “could you do us a favor? Could you find out whether the suit we had sent over ever arrived.”
“I know it arrived,” Arthur Pommerant said. “I unwrapped it myself.”
“Fine. Wonderful. What about the sheet music?”
“I don’t know what you had to have sheet music for,” Caroline snapped. “Daddy didn’t like music. Daddy was tone deaf.”
“The sheet music is in the hands of our organist,” Arthur Pommerant said. “We all thought the selections were quite nice. Very nice indeed. A truly spiritual offering.”
“What about the menu for the wake?” James was feeling desperate. “You said you’d handle that. I’d like to know what—”
“Oh, it’s a little too early for that yet,” Arthur Pommerant told him. “We’ll have a full workup on the menu by tomorrow. And I want to assure you that we have been quite careful about all the arrangements. There shouldn’t be any difficulty at all arising out of the unusual delay we have had here in taking charge of the deceased for burial.”
“Oh, my God,” Caroline said.
Arthur Pommerant had a look on his face that James would have called beaming, except there was no smile to it. It was as if he had just played a very difficult game and won. For the first time in his life, James was inclined to credit the conspiracy theories his father and his sister had always been so fond of. He was also inclined to tell Arthur Pommerant that he would give the service at the wake himself, and that that service would be a Druid ritual, complete with the blood sacrifice of a bull.
“Well,” Arthur Pommerant murmured. “Maybe I should leave the two of you alone for a moment or two, to talk things over…”
“Yes,” James said, relieved. “Maybe you should.”
“All you have to do if you need me is to ring,” Arthur Pommerant said. “Or you can come along to the back and knock on my office door. Aren’t you waiting for someone else?”
“My sister Alyssa,” James said.
“She wouldn’t come near this place,” Caroline pointed out. “She said she would show up only to get us waiting around, fretting about her. It’s how she reassures herself that she’s still important to the family. It’s—”
“I know,” James said quickly. “It’s a kind of abuse.”
Caroline’s face got red. “Don’t patronize me,” she said. “I’m a fully adult human being who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions.”
“Why don’t you just make the decision to shut up?”
“I’ll be right in back in the office,” Arthur Pommerant said. “Really. It’s no trouble at all to get in touch with me if you need me. Just ring. Or come on back. I’m always on call.”
“Necrophiliac,” Caroline said.
Arthur Pommerant disappeared.
The Pommerant Funeral Parlor was on a city street that looked almost residential but was probably mostly deserted. Through the window of the reception room, James could see a hole-in-the-wall deli on the other side of the street with a red heart trimmed in white paper lace in the window. It was the first time it had penetrated to James’s consciousness that they were very close to Valentine’s Day. Maybe they should bury Paul on Valentine’s Day. Maybe that would say something.
James sat down in the nearest chair and looked up at Caroline. “Now,” he said, “start from the beginning and get it over with. You’re angry at Alyssa. That’s fine. Get angry at Alyssa once and for all so you can stop throwing tantrums in public.”
“I’m not throwing a tantrum, James. I am expressing my feelings.”
“If everyone went around expressing their feelings the way you do, civilization would come to an end.”
“She took that copy of Jacqueline’s will that Daddy had made. She took it out of Daddy’s shoe tree.”
“So what? The will is on file down at the lawyers’ offices, Caroline. Alyssa could have taken a look at it anytime she wanted to.”
“Alyssa didn’t go to the lawyers’ offices. She went sneaking around in Daddy’s room. She went looking in secret. She didn’t want us to know.”
“She was curious on a Saturday night when she didn’t have any other way to satisfy her curiosity. The lawyers’ offices were closed. She didn’t want to face one of your inquisitions.”
“I don’t hold inquisitions.”
“Daddy’s will divides his possessions pretty evenly among the three of us, Caroline. Alyssa has just as much right to look through his things as you have.”