“I hear you,” the receptionist said. “Familiar with the hospital layout?”
“Unfortunately, no. I just landed this job.”
She looked the lean man up and down. Handsome, not pretty. She liked that. No man should look better than the woman on his arm. Great build. Palms hashed with long, fine lines, like he’d worked for a living. Hair more brown then black, with a light in his blue eyes that hinted at mystery. Or more.
Whether it was a good more, she couldn’t tell. He gave off both vibes.
She pointed a long, gold fingernail down the corridor. “Take this to the end. Turn right to Room 407.” She put a finger across her lips. “The poor kid can’t sleep at night, so he’s probably napping. You won’t wake him, will you?”
“Cross my heart,” the Executioner said, tugging his fake goatee.
2:31 p.m.
“Lovely service,” Annie said, wiping smudges off her sword.
Emily nodded. A line-of-duty funeral, with its starched uniforms, white gloves, patent leather shoes, parade caps, sabers, bagpipers, politicians, howling sirens, and hundreds of saluting cops - many from other states, coming at their own expense to salute a fallen comrade - was a grand mixture of The Unknown Soldier and P. T. Barnum. Somehow, it worked. The comfort it bestowed on survivors, blood and blue, was indescribable.
“Ray and I had our differences,” Emily said, astonished to feel herself blinking. “But he didn’t deserve to die that way. Ray was one of us. He was-”
“Racist, sexist, lazy, and dumb,” Annie said, unrepentant.
Emily giggled as she wiped a tear. “You really should be kinder, Lieutenant,” she chided. “The man did get shot.”
Annie’s expression said she wished she’d pulled the trigger. Rayford Luerchen’s cowardice two years ago had nearly gotten her best friend killed. She neither forgot nor forgave.
Something Emily found as comforting as Marty’s smile. Friends were family without the genealogy.
She spotted him pacing near a limestone mausoleum that resembled a sixteenth-century castle, complete with crenellation. She started to wave, then saw he was on the phone again. He looked angry. He was slapping the golden limestone and practically barking his replies. What on earth is going on with you, Marty? she wondered, throat closing, legs weakening. What kind of trouble are you in? Are you dumping me for this Alice? How do I get you to open up-
“Dum-da-dum-dum,” Annie said.
“What?”
“Bereaved at nine o’clock.”
Emily turned to her left to see The Widow Luerchen walking directly toward them, determination chiseled into her heavily rouged face.
2:32 p.m.
Johnny Sanders blew thirty-five years of dust off the clothbound, manually typed journal.
“Executions, State of Illinois, 1972,” the cover read.
“Once more unto the breach,” the historian said, diving in.
2:33 p.m.
“You are Emily Thompson, are you not?” Cheryl Beth Luerchen asked.
“I are,” Emily said. “I mean, yes, I’m Emily. My deepest condolences on your loss.”
A regal nod of broad-brim hat. “Thank you. Rayford’s passing has shaken this community to its foundation,” she said. “He was a gifted policeman, and a magnificent man.”
Annie bit her lip.
“Ray was one of a kind, all right,” Emily managed.
Cheryl Beth’s smile cracked the foundation around her Kewpie mouth. “It’s gracious of you to say so, dear. I was hoping you’d be here today.”
“Why?” Annie said.
Small eyes shifted. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure?”
“This is Annabelle Bates,” Emily said. “Lieutenant with the Naperville Police.”
Annie put out her hand.
“Oh, of course,” Cheryl Beth said. “You were the girl who became so frightened in the library that Rayford had to assume command. He told me all about it.”
“I’m . . . sure he . . . did,” Annie said, slowly pulling her hand back.
Another regal nod.
“What did you want to see me about, Mrs. Luerchen?” Emily said.
Cheryl Beth toyed with her leather purse, which was the same midnight black as her hat. It was genuine Coach, Emily noted, not a Canal Street knockoff like hers.
“My husband told me about that terrible row you had two years ago,” she said. “At the cemetery where that body was found. You called him a goat, I believe?”
Emily wasn’t about to deny it - her exact phrase was, “If you and a goat were the only males left on earth, Ray, I’d hump the goat” - but there was no point in making a widow feel worse. She split the difference by shrugging.