Daniel to MC: So would you like to see the traps we use for the coyotes? I have some in my garage. Then maybe grab some dinner?
MC to Daniel: Sure.
I smiled and wandered to the police conversation.
Matt on a chair, with Berger leaning over him: I guess he [Alex Simpson] thought he’d walk MC out the door with a gun held subtly to her back and … who knows? Make an issue of the fact that he wasn’t going to surrender easily?
Berger to Matt: Gallen was an even stranger guy. I saw him after the D and D stint. He told me he considered himself a failure because he never got to kill anyone. He wanted to kill Forman at the Beach Lodge that night, before Forman could get to MC, but when he got there Forman was already dead. Of course, now we know that Simpson killed Forman. Gallen said he wanted to kill Powers, but Simpson beat him to that, too.
Matt to Berger: Can’t arrest anyone for talking. So it looks like Simpson was in Revere for a week or so, not on his dude ranch.
Matt to Berger: Yeah, I guess he didn’t completely trust his errand boy.
Elaine and my cousin Mary Ann were at the buffet table together, filling lovely china plates with salads and calzone from Rose’s grandmother’s recipe, which called for both pepperoni and sausage.
Mary Ann to Elaine: I’ll be glad when they’re married and not living … well, whatever they call it these days.
Elaine to Mary Ann [scooping polenta onto her plate]: They call it fun!
At the other end of the room, the two morticians talked shop.
Frank Galigani to his son and partner, Robert: The aspiration process has nothing to do with the flow, so I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Robert to Frank: I know, Pa, but this guy at the conference said aspirate for only five minutes unless the case is really bad, you know, if the bowels …
I left quickly.
Rose still had questions about MC’s near miss at Tomasso’s, and stopped at Matt’s chair to inquire about the efficiency of the RPD.
Rose to Matt: Why did it take the police so long to get to the Coffee Annex? Gloria got there first and there must have been a police car closer, don’t you think?
Matt to Rose: They were waiting for a fax from Houston PD with a photo of the guy they were looking for.
Matt sent a glance in my direction to remind me I was never one to let something like lack of description of a perp get in my way.
Andrea arrived early to help set the tables. Peter came later but behaved like her date, a pleasure to see.
Peter: I’m so happy for you and Matt, Gloria. Things always work out well in the end, don’t they?
Me: They certainly seem to.
Andrea: [smiling hugely, sighing audibly, no words necessary].
Back to the funeral directors.
Robert to Frank: They found the guy’s horse, you know. Farther up toward Saugus. I looked into what they do with them.
Frank to Robert: With what?
Robert to Frank: Dead horses.
Frank to Robert: Oh yeah? What?
Robert to Frank: They call it a tallow works factory. They process dead farm animals into byproducts.
Frank to Robert: Like what?
I left again.
Robert’s wife, Karla, had picked up Mrs. Cataldo, who’d taught both MC and me chemistry, albeit in different decades. MC took pains to explain to Mrs. Cataldo that not all Texans were evil, that she’d made many wonderful friends there.
Mrs. Cataldo, on the couch, to MC and me, standing: Do you ever use your chemistry, dears?
MC: All the time, Mrs. Cataldo.
Me: Now and then, and when I do I think of you.
Mrs. Cataldo: Do you ever do that amazing trick with the banana and the liquid nitrogen?
Matt passed by just in time to hear Mrs. Cataldo’s question. He looked at me. “Don’t tell me. Nitrogen is after carbon on the periodic table.”
I nodded and gave him my best smile, fiancée to fiancé.