I blinked against a sting of tears.
Eleanor slid along the pew to sit on my other side. “You okay, Daisy?” she whispered. She wore a designer black cashmere sweater with smart dress pants and black boots.
I swallowed and stared into her gray eyes. “It’s just that this is all happening so quickly,” I murmured, softly enough that Joe wouldn’t be able to hear me. “I’m wondering if I should have done more. Asked Serrano for an autopsy, a toxicology report, something.”
She shook her head. “Autopsies aren’t allowed according to the Jewish religion. Unless it’s a criminal case, of course.”
I sighed and leaned against the hard seat, looking around the modern chapel. The backs of the pews were a brilliant blue, and the white beams radiating like a sunburst from the raised platform in front of us soared up into the ceiling. There were no flowers, only the simple wooden coffin draped in black.
Eleanor pointed to the raised platform in front of us. “That’s the Ark, where the holy Torah scrolls were kept.”
I stared at the highly decorated cabinet in front of us that was flanked by two columns. The pulpit stood off to one side.
“How come you know so much about the Jewish way of life?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Lots of friends in the film business, I suppose. As a matter of fact, some of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life were for thirteen-year-old boys.”
I smiled at her. Eleanor had worked as a costume designer for years before she moved to Millbury. She had even been on some of the same film sets as our daughter, Sarah, who lived in New York and worked as a script supervisor.
I tried to save a spot for Cyril and Martha, but the church was filling up and we had to keep sliding down the pew. Where the heck were they? Martha was usually the first to arrive at any kind of event, not wanting to miss a moment.
The place was packed. Obviously there were many people who remembered Stanley as fondly as I did. Amazing that so many were here, especially on such short notice.
Ruth was sitting in the front row now. I spotted most of my fellow store owners, other members of the Historical Society, and the local newspaper reporter, PJ Avery, who was slinking around the edge of the room. The Bornsteins didn’t have any children, but they were both involved in so many philanthropic endeavors that they had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. The cream of Philadelphia society and the upper echelon of city government were also in attendance.
“There’s that creep Beau Cassell,” Eleanor muttered, nodding toward the builder who planned to destroy our village if we didn’t stop him. He was a well-built man in his forties, sandy-haired and strangely tanned for this time of year, wearing a tweed jacket with a black turtleneck underneath and dark pants. With his vigorous good looks, he could have been a politician himself.
A well-dressed couple walked down the center aisle, the man extending a hand in front of the woman as if parting the waves for her. She swept the folds of her ermine coat close to her body as she slid onto the pew.
“And there’s Nancy Fowler, and her milquetoast husband, Frank,” Eleanor said.
Nancy was currently a commissioner for Bucks County, but it was rumored she had ambitions of becoming Pennsylvania’s governor some day. Frank was our township solicitor.
I glanced over in surprise at the fervent disdain in Eleanor’s voice. “What’s the matter with them?”
“How many defenseless animals do you suppose died for that woman’s coat?”
I nodded. “Ah, I see.”
Eleanor had been quite the radical back in her day. I’d seen photos of her at various political events and sit-ins, usually wearing a psychedelic scarf around her head and chained to a railing, protesting the use of performing animals in circuses or the clubbing of baby seals or some such cause.