Chapter 6 #2
“Do you think I’ll go to hell?” she whispered, hugging her puffy purple coat around her.
“I don’t think you’d go to hell even if it wasn’t self-defense,” Rosa said. “Which it was. I know.”
“It was.”
“I know.”
“I think of him like a tumor,” Christine said. “You have a tumor, you get it removed. You take it out for the good of the rest of the body. That sick fuck was a tumor.”
“Shhh.” Diane looked around as if to see if they’d been overheard.
Bonnie did too, because people might think Christine had been referring to her old friend Tommy.
The minister spoke. The widow and some young men who might’ve been Tommy Johnson’s adult sons, accepted condolences.
The girls paid their respects and then wandered toward the parking lot where everyone else was going.
But partway there, Rosa inclined her head toward a tree-lined path and whispered, “Over here.”
The four of them broke away from the herd and onto a walking path that wound through the cemetery amid shrubs and trees. It was punctuated by benches, statues, and a birdbath with a bubbling fountain in its center.
“We’ll sleep better if we stay to see that hole filled in,” Rosa explained in reply to Bonnie’s curious look.
Bonnie nodded. “You’re right, we will. It should happen as soon as everyone’s cleared out.”
They found a pair of benches across the path from each other, out of sight of the grave, and sat down.
“Did any of you sleep?” Bonnie asked.
“I got two solid hours,” Christine said.
Diane raised her hand. “Hour and a half for me.”
Rosa said, “Forty-five minutes. How about you, Bonnie?”
Bonnie just shook her head. She hadn’t closed her eyes. Every time she’d tried, she’d felt those hands on her neck again and seen the frying pan hitting his head. Blood had spattered high, she realized when it replayed in her mind.
They’d cleaned the mantel where his head had hit, and the floor all around him. But they hadn’t cleaned the ceiling.
Should they go back?
And what about his car? Would the police believe Mr. Terrence had left his Porsche behind and taken his final journey on foot?
But no. You never returned to the scene of the crime. Never, ever.
That had been the pattern of her thoughts when she’d tried to close her eyes. They hadn’t ceased now that she was out of bed.
There was the low cough of a diesel motor starting up. The girls all looked at each other, then rose and walked along the path back toward the grave.
“Don’t let them see us,” Christine said. “They’ll stop work if they see us. I’ve seen it happen. They don’t like filling graves in front of mourners.”
“This is close enough.” Rosa parted the fronds of a large weeping willow, and they all peered through nature’s beaded curtain.
The casket, inside its accompanying cement vault, was lowered slowly into the hole, right on top of Mr. Terrence.
Bonnie watched it disappear from sight. The excavator rumbled closer with an entire bucket of dirt.
The bucket tilted and the dirt poured into the hole.
Then the machine went back for more. Its bucket held a lot of dirt, so it didn’t take too many trips.
When the hole was filled and then some, the operator drove the machine all the way to the road on the far side of the cemetery, where a flatbed trailer was waiting. He drove right up onto the trailer, then proceeded to fasten the machine down with chains.
Meanwhile a groundskeeper with a rake went to the grave and began smoothing the dirt over it and cleaning up the ground around it. He raked loose dirt from the grass, to join the mound atop the grave, then smoothed and patted it with the back of his rake.
He paused in his patting, bent down and picked something up. A pen.
“Ohmygod,” Diane whispered. “That’s my pen.”
Bonnie’s heart skipped a beat.
“He’s not gonna make anything of it,” Rosa said. “It’s just a pen. Anyone could’ve dropped it.”
“It was our company pen. Cortland Concrete, Harry and Diane Maisy Proprietors.”
“Is it a pen, or a novel?” Christine asked.
“But you sold the company,” Bonnie said.
“And what difference does it make anyway?” Rosa asked. “You don’t even work there anymore.”
“I need it back,” she said. “I need it back! It can be linked to Harry. I still go in every week to help out with the older customers. And it probably has my fingerprints on it, too, and—”
“Easy, Diane.” Christine put a hand on her shoulder, but her gaze touched Bonnie’s and then Rosa’s.
Bonnie knew why. It wasn’t like Diane to panic that way. Any one of the other three might panic, but not Diane.
“If we want that pen back, all we have to do is pay attention,” Christine said. “He’s just a guy. Kind of cute, actually.”
They all leaned in as the groundskeeper slid the pen into his breast pocket, raked a little bit more, and then turned and walked across the cemetery with the rake over his shoulder.
“I’ve got this,” Christine told Diane. “You trust me on this, okay? I’ll get your pen.”
Bonnie’s phone pinged, and because they were trying to surreptitiously tail a groundskeeper, she almost jumped out of her skin.
She dug into the depths of her bag, and pulled the phone out fast, flipping the button to silence it.
Then she looked at it anyway, because it had to be Sam or one of the grandkids.
Anyone else who ever texted her was currently with her.
Sam: Hey, Mom. Surprise! We’re coming for a visit. We’ll be on your doorstep tomorrow. There’s even bigger news, but I want to tell you in person. See you soon.
Bonnie widened her eyes and looked at her friends. “Sam and the fam are visiting.”
“That’s okay, we’ve got this,” Diane said. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Christine released a strangled laugh, hand over her mouth, and when everyone speared her with their eyes, said, “What? I’m sorry, this is crazy. Her son the cop coming for a surprise visit, while we’re out here covering up a murder. You don’t see the irony?”
“See it,” Rosa said. “Just don’t find it all that frickin’ funny.”
The phone buzzed. A second text, probably, Bonnie thought, because she hadn’t yet responded to the first. She pulled up the phone—but the new message wasn’t from Sam. It was from an unrecognized number. She tapped the screen.
Unknown sender: I SAW WHAT YOU DID.
Bonnie screamed and clapped a hand over her mouth at the same time, so all that emerged was an abbreviated squeak. The others looked at her and she held up the phone, turning it to face them. Even while they stared, their eyes widening, it vibrated in her hand as a second text came through.
“What the frick, Bonnie?” Rosa asked, and the others repeated the question with their eyes.
Her hands shaking, Bonnie turned the phone around to read what it said.
Unknown sender: I WANT WHAT YOU TOOK