Tomb With a View

Thank goodness, before I had a chance to consider it for long, Ray went right on. “A couple times, I’ve had to make excuses to this other woman about why I couldn’t see her. You know, because Marjorie had me going here or there with her. I was too embarrassed to just tell my new lady friend the truth. Now . . .” This time when he sighed, it was with relief. “Well, now at least I don’t ever have to lie to her again. So you see, kid . . .” Ray looked at his watch again, and this time when he slid out of the booth, I knew it was because he had to get back behind the grill. “That whole thing about me and Marjorie fighting, well, it was just me standing up for myself finally. It doesn’t have anything at all to do with her dying.”

“Of course not.” It was an incredibly corny comeback, but I didn’t have time to question him further, and besides, my head was suddenly spinning with possibilities. After I downed the rest of the fries, I headed to my car, thinking about everything he’d told me and wondering about that get-rich-quick scheme of Marjorie’s. Could the money have anything to do with her murder?

Or was there more to Ray than the sweet, old guy he pretended to be?

Like a man who was tired of being Marjorie’s love monkey and who’d had it up to his eyeballs? Sure he was angry at having her string him along. Angry enough to meet her at the memorial and give her the heave-ho off the balcony?

And then there was that new woman in Ray’s life who he’d mentioned. Could she have been jealous? Was it possible she didn’t want to share him with Marjorie?

Could there be enough passion in an old-people romance to account for murder?

8

My gut told me Ray didn’t kill Marjorie, but my gut had been wrong before. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the murderers without a scorecard.

Still, even though I was sure Ray was lying about something (and even though I couldn’t figure out what that something was), I just couldn’t imagine a nice old guy like him tossing Marjorie over that balcony. Believe me, I was in the right place to try to picture it. The following Monday, I was standing in the rotunda of the memorial doing my best to look like the expert-in-residence. The why is no mystery: without Marjorie there to be the Garfield know-it-all, Ella needed someone to handle the day-to-day duties over at the memorial. Naturally—at least to Ella’s way of thinking—she turned to me.

Back in the day, I wouldn’t have minded. At least not too much, anyway. But then, back in the day, James A. Garfield wasn’t exactly a tourist magnet. The memorial had a couple visitors now and then, but for the most part, the place was quiet and empty. Quiet and empty I could deal with. In fact, it would have suited me just fine. Then maybe I would have had a chance to sort through what I knew about my case. But it’s funny, isn’t it? And not in a ha-ha sort of way. Murder adds notoriety to a place, and the memorial was no exception. What with the publicity Marjorie’s murder had generated in the media—local, national, and sensational tabloid—it was no wonder that there was a line waiting to get inside the memorial even before I unlocked the door.

“So this is where it happened, right?” A woman twice my age and half my height had the nerve to step into my path. “Where was the body? Was she beaten and battered? Was there . . .” The woman shuddered. “Was there a lot of blood?”

“No hablo inglés

,” I told her, and left her to figure out why if that were the case, I was wearing the standard-issue khakis and the yellow polo shirt with GARDEN VIEW embroidered over my heart. Before she could question me, I backed away from her and sidestepped a group of teenagers who were wondering if the memorial was haunted. If they only knew!

I slipped into the office, but even there I found no peace. There was a man standing near the desk with his back to the doorway. He was middle-sized and average height, and even when he turned around, I couldn’t see his face clearly. That was because he was wearing a baseball cap tugged low over his eyes. Something told me I wasn’t missing anything. He was fifty, maybe, and as bland as an outfit right off the rack at WalMart.

As much as I didn’t feel like it, I put on my cemetery employee face. “May I help you?”

“Pepper!” The man’s cheeks were pale and doughy. His chin was weak, his hands were plump. He fingered the unpatterned gold tie he wore with a blue shirt and faded black pants, and even though his eyes were shaded by the brim of his ball cap, I could feel his stare. Everywhere it touched me, I felt a chill. “I saw you,” he said, and I swear, he must have run up every single one of the couple dozen steps that led to the monument’s front doors. He was breathing that hard. “On TV.”