This time, he patted my arm. “Aunt Marjorie was a big believer in law and order, and so am I. I have faith that the police will find the real murderer. Until then, all we can do is wait, and hold Marjorie in all our hearts.”
Actually, there was something else we could do. “Speaking of that . . .” I hoped I wasn’t stepping into something I couldn’t easily get out of, and braced myself in case Nick started babbling on about the long-gone president and I had to make a quick exit. “I was at Marjorie’s the other night, and she has all that memorabilia and—”
“Of course! Aunt Marjorie told us all about that commemoration she was in charge of for the cemetery, didn’t she, Bernadine?” His fiancée’s nod was a reflection of his. “I just told Mrs. Silverman . . .” He looked back to where Ella was chatting with the minister. “None of her collection means anything to me. I don’t want any of it, and we certainly don’t have room for it, do we, Bernadine? I’ll be liquidating every bit of it as soon as I’m able. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” The minister had turned toward his car and I knew Nick had to catch up with him so I backed off. Good thing I did, too, or I would have missed out on the most interesting thing that happened that day.
Well . . .
I remembered Jack, and now that the funeral service was over, I allowed myself a smile at the same time I corrected myself. This was the second most interesting thing that had happened that day.
Because just as I turned around, I saw Ray head toward his car.
And as soon as his back was turned, I watched as sweet, fluffy Doris kicked dirt on Marjorie’s grave.
Just for the record, one o’clock is a lousy time for a funeral. By the time it was over, it was too early to head for home, and too late to get much accomplished back at the office even if I was inclined to go over there. My wisest course of action seemed to be to head back to the memorial. After all, it was officially closed for the rest of the day, and that meant I could officially take my time, free of the gawkers, and try to get a line on my investigation.
I parked and walked around to the front of the building, and it wasn’t until then that I second-guessed my plan. But then, that’s when I noticed a movement in the huge rhododendron bushes over on my right. And that’s when I remembered the creepy guy with the baseball cap and the chilling gaze.
As if he was looking at me right then and there, I froze, watching the branches of the bush twitch. My heart in my throat and my knees already starting their morph into Silly Putty, I thought about how alone I was, and gauged the distance back to my car. I’d already taken a step in that direction when the rhododendron branches parted and Jack walked out.
He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
“I’ll bet this looks weird, doesn’t it?” He strolled up to me and poked a thumb over his shoulder and back toward the bush. “I wasn’t doing whatever you think I was doing.”
“Since I can’t imagine what you were doing . . .” Baffled, I shrugged. “What were you doing?”
His answer was simple enough. “Communing with President Garfield.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or worried. If Jack and I shared a Gift and he really was talking to the president, it would save me the trouble of maybe someday having to explain the whole I-see-dead-people thing to him. That being said . . .
I glanced around.
I didn’t see any sign of President Garfield.
Which meant maybe I should be worried that Jack was as weird as the weird guy who’d weirded me out earlier in the day.
Something told me Jack could read the cascade of worries and doubts that filled my head. He laughed. “Communing with the president. Up there,” he said, and because from where we stood I couldn’t see what he was talking about, he grabbed hold of my hand and gently pulled me to the side of the building. “I was trying to get a better look at the bas-relief sculptures.”
Bas-relief. It’s one of those terms I should have learned when I got my degree in art history. Since I didn’t, I had to learn it when I started taking visitors around the cemetery. Bas-relief describes a sculpture that’s made from chipping away stone so that the picture stands out from the background. In the case of the memorial, there are five of them, high up on the walls. Each one shows a different aspect of the president’s life: Garfield as a teacher, a soldier, a congressman, the president, and at his death. The figures on each of the reliefs are life-size.
“I was trying to get a better look,” Jack explained. “And then I realized that from down there . . .” He glanced toward the bushes. “I was just trying to see the sculpture from a different perspective. I know it’s hard for you to understand. You’re surrounded by all this incredible history all the time.”
I think that’s the first we both noticed that we were still holding hands. My brain flashed back to Ray and Doris at the graveside. My body was focused on something else. Like the heat that intensified when Jack tightened his hold on my fingers and grinned. Still hand in hand, he led me over to one of the nearby picnic tables and we sat down.
“I’m so impressed with this place, I can’t even begin to tell you,” he said. “I just can’t get enough of it. That’s why I hung around, even after you closed up the memorial and left for the funeral. How was it?”
I’d been so busy staring up into Jack’s incredible blue eyes, funerals were the last thing on my mind. I shook myself back to reality. “Funerals are never fun. And when the person getting buried is a murder victim, it’s even worse.”
“Was the family very upset?”
I thought back to everything Nick had said about his aunt, and mumbled, “Delusional more than upset,” but when Jack didn’t catch what I said and asked me to repeat it, I told him it was nothing.
It was just as well since he was staring up at the Garfield sculptures again. On the relief he was looking at, the president was posed just like the statue inside, with one arm bent and his head high. He was surrounded by other figures. Some of them looked like the men I’d seen around the table when I got a glimpse of the ghostly cabinet meeting.
“It’s the kind of beauty money can’t buy,” Jack said on the end of a sigh, and I was all set to bat my eyelashes and make some half-baked protest about how I’d been blessed by good genetics and a better-than-average understanding of skin cleaners, moisturizers, and really good sunscreen, when I realized he wasn’t talking about me, he was talking about the monument.
I was appropriately peeved, but I didn’t let on. After all, he was a history teacher, and from Indiana to boot. Maybe he just didn’t know any better.
Or maybe he did. When he looked back at me, he grinned, and whether he meant it as an apology or not, I decided to cut him some slack. He was too cute to get pissed at. At least this early in our relationship. “It doesn’t seem right to even be talking about money in a place like this,” Jack said. “Garden View is so impressive and so historic. It’s incredible, and they’re lucky to have a woman as classy as you on staff. Something tells me . . .” He cocked his head and gave me a slow look that spread fire every place his gaze touched.
Of course, I couldn’t help but think about Quinn. I mean, what woman in her right mind who’d been sleeping with the sexiest detective in town wouldn’t? Hot-as-hell smiles tend to do that to me.
Unlike Quinn, who was all about smoldering looks and pent-up emotions, Jack was much more aboveboard. He was open and honest and said what he was thinking. There was a concept that would throw Mr. Sexy Detective for a loop! It all made me think that, in addition to being as hot as a firecracker, Jack might also be a whole lot of fun.