The Helium Murder(17)

“I’ll send Tony,” Robert said. “The boxes are heavy anyway.”

So far, I thought, I’ve arrived at work late and reneged on my first chore. It’s a good thing I retired from my old job with a healthy pension.

“Thanks,” I said to Robert, and looked around for a less intimidating duty.

To my disappointment, there was not much action to this role of mortuary staff person. Although there were more guests than chairs, and the overflow spilled into the lobby, all of the visitors seemed self-sufficient and not very interesting, as far as what I’d come to call The Hurley Case.

I still hadn’t laid eyes on Brendan Hurley, Margaret’s brother. I thought it strange that he wasn’t in charge of his sister’s funeral services.

Although I kept checking the guest register, pretending to be tidying up the table, I’d seen no record of a visit by Vincent Cavallo from the Charger Street lab, or Patrick Gallagher, Margaret’s ex-fiancé. Thanks to Rose, who sneaked looks at the tabloids in the supermarket, I was up-to-date on their headlines: Dead Congresswoman Dumped Boyfriend for Job in D.C., and Woman Rep Mocked Brother in Public.

I didn’t even have the pleasure of seeing Matt again that evening, since his partner showed up instead. Berger came over to me and I was at least grateful that we now seemed to be friends.

“I thought this would be a good chance to see the family,” he said, “since I’m a little behind on this case. Haven’t been getting much rest.”

“Cynthia?” I asked.

Berger grinned his new-father grin again, and told me a few stories about Cynthia’s cute sounds and movements.

I wanted to question Berger about the case—what was everyone’s alibi, for example, and who were the leading suspects? Matt as much as admitted to me that they were thinking in terms of deliberate homicide and not random hit-and-run anymore. I decided not to disturb the delicate truce Berger and I had reached. I was relieved when he moved away to work the crowd, afraid that I might either inadvertently reveal how bored I was with his baby stories, or blurt out something intelligent like, “Do you think her spurned fiancé was angry enough to kill her?”

When Father Tucci, the pastor of St. Anthony’s, finished the rosary, I made a fuss over him, because there wasn’t much else to do. I served him coffee in the small downstairs office Frank and Robert used for seeing clients. The main offices on the second floor, where Rose and Martha carried out the bookkeeping and management operations, were off-limits during wake hours, as, of course, was the third floor, which housed only my apartment. I listened to the old priest’s reports on the Christmas cake sale and the funding drive for the new rectory.

I was beginning to think that funeral-home employees spend most of their time standing around, listening to dull tales, when a general stirring of the population occurred. After the rosary, deliberately or not, Margaret Hurley’s brother, Brendan, finally arrived, with a group of four men who made Tony and Sal look like kindergarten teachers.

“Hey, Buddy,” I heard often as he walked into the parlor, shaking hands and bestowing small hand-waves on the crowd, his men around him like the Secret Service around the President. You’d think he was the politician, I thought, rather than his sister.

Buddy looked “dark Irish,” as we on the Italian side of town used to call them. Unlike his fair-skinned sister, Buddy had almost-olive skin and dark brown hair. Only his green eyes and the enormous shamrock tie pin he wore gave away his ethnic background.

Buddy was made much of by everyone except Mrs. Whitestone. I remembered the casual remark Frank made about the bad feeling between Buddy and Frances Whitestone, and I felt I was seeing it firsthand. I wished I knew more, and plotted a way to find out. After all, he was on my list of duties, caring for immediate family. What care I could give Buddy, strutting boldly and powerfully toward his deceased sister, I couldn’t imagine.

I zigzagged my way to Buddy and his group, now assembled around the casket, lighting candles and making sweeping signs of the cross in the vicinity of their enormous foreheads and chests.

When they’d turned back to the crowd, there I was, a head shorter than the shortest of them, ready to care for them.

“I’m Gloria Lamerino, Mr. Hurley,” I said, my fingers brushing the Galigani ribbon, my heart beating a little more loudly than usual, I thought. “I’m sorry about your sister. If there’s anything I can do ...”

“Thanks,” he said. I thought I heard “danks,” but chalked it up to my imagination and my stereotyping of men in dark shirts and white ties, which was what Buddy and his crew were wearing.