Tomb With a View

Grumbling at the thought that whoever wanted me must have wanted something to do with a cemetery tour, I punched in my code, and waited. According to the computer voice that kicked in right before the message started, the call had come in the night before, right about the time I’d left Marjorie’s.

“Ms. Martin? Marjorie Klinker here.”

I cringed.

“Ms. Martin . . .” Marjorie huffed and puffed, trying to catch her breath. “There are so many Martins in the phonebook, I don’t know which number might be yours. Otherwise I would have called you at home. Or on your cell phone. That, of course, is a very good idea. Remind me to bring it up with Ms. Silverman tomorrow. Volunteers should have employees’ cell phone numbers, so that they could call them day or night in case of an emergency.”

I rolled my eyes.

“That is what this is, of course. An emergency. I certainly wouldn’t have called you . . .” She put just enough emphasis on that last word to make me feel as insignificant as she intended. “. . . if it wasn’t. Ms. Martin, I must see you in the morning. The instant you get to Garden View. First thing. It is extremely important. Please!”

Hearing Marjorie say please was a little like finding out a goldfish can talk. I gave the receiver a questioning look at the same time I deleted the message.

“The instant you get to Garden View!” I repeated the words in the same overly dramatic tone of voice Marjorie had used and made a decision right then and there: Marjorie Klinker wasn’t the boss of me. Just so she wouldn’t forget it, I took my good ol’ time. I called that teacher and scheduled a tour for the next week, and since just thinking about spending a couple hours with fourth graders made me weak in the knees, I knew I had to fortify myself with a cup of coffee. Since it was Friday and Ella usually brings donuts in on Fridays, I was hoping for a bit of a sugar high, too.

Donuts weren’t the only things I found in the break room. Ray was there, too, and I tried to make small talk mostly because I wanted to find out what he and Marjorie were going at it about the night before, but he would have none of it. He looked up long enough to say hello when I walked in, but that was it. He was preoccupied with the newspaper open on the table in front of him, though since he kept turning the pages and never once stopping to read any of the articles, I don’t know why.

I grabbed my coffee and a glazed donut and took it back to my office. When I was done with both, I was also out of things to do so I gave up and headed for the memorial. Marjorie’s black Saturn was parked on the road that circled the monument, but there was no one else around. Too bad. At least if there were tourists to keep Marjorie busy, she’d have less time to annoy me.

Determined to show her who was in charge and that it wasn’t her, I left the box of Garfield memorabilia in the trunk, fully intending to tell her that if she wanted it, she could make the long trek down the memorial steps and out to the car for it. All about attitude, I went into the memorial.

The lights were still off.

“Hello!” I stepped into the entryway and looked around.

Even in the semidarkness I could see that Marjorie wasn’t in the office, and I remembered that the last time I stopped in, she’d been upstairs. No way I was walking the narrow, winding steps. It would be far easier to head into the rotunda and call to her from there, so I did. I flipped on the lights—and stopped cold.

Marjorie lay at the foot of the statue of the president. There was a pool of blood behind her head, and her arms were thrown to her sides. Her legs were twisted in ways legs are never meant to move. She was wearing one tall, tacky black-and-white patent leather sandal. The other one was on the other side of the marble dais, its two-inch alligator green platform split in two.

I looked up at the railing surrounding the balcony above the rotunda.

I looked down at Marjorie’s crumbled body.

It didn’t take a genius to see that she had fallen, and that she was dead.

And honestly, I couldn’t help myself. All I could think was that it was no big surprise.

Marjorie never should have worn those weird, high shoes to work.

By the time she got over to the monument, Ella was in such a tizzy, I made her sit at the desk in the office, put her head down as far between her knees as she was able, and take a few deep breaths. She tried her best to regain the self-control she hadn’t had since I called and told her what I’d found. I stood at her side and watched a couple uniformed police officers bustle into the rotunda while the paramedics who’d arrived just before the cops stowed the equipment they realized there was no reason to use. There was no use even trying to revive a victim who was as dead as a doornail.