Chapter 13: A Funeral
A drive through Glasstown was a drive to the end of the Rainbeaux family. There was the print works heard about at the will reading, there was the fought-over newspaper office. Across from the police station, the family mansion Iridium, rose like a white mausoleum with a New England cupola awkwardly perched on top. The whole thing looked like a wedding cake with a cupcake hat, thought Jacquetta. And now she was hungry. Hungry, and sadly missing that never-happened lunch. At the moment, lunch was definitely worth more to her than six hundred thousand dollars or a tractor trailer of old books.
The funeral home was on the way out of town, a low, rambling stuccoed building whose sole claim to beauty was its many stained glass windows. Jacquetta felt she could guess their provenance.
Opposite the double doors, a poster sized photograph of Beatrix Rainbeaux beetled its eyebrows at the mourners while an endless loop of family photos played across a white-screen.
Jacquetta signed the guest book and drifted up the aisle behind Dettler, feeling as if she was attending a particularly sorrowful wedding. How she wished funerals came with that signature moment when attendees are invited to object: a much more appropriate reaction to a death than a marriage.
The Powells were ranked along the front row, sitting equidistant apart like birds on a telegraph wire. With the horror of a nightmare Jacquetta suddenly realized where Dettler was taking her, right up to the front, where mourners filed past an open coffin. It was too late to get out of it now; the crush was powerful behind her; she would just have to shut her eyes, dim her senses, and submit.
But in the end, she didn’t need to protect herself from shock. The tiny body lying exposed could have been a child disguised in a Groucho Marx nose and glasses for a prank. Death was so difficult to believe in! There were no messages here because Beatrix Rainbeaux was gone. Sadly, Jacquetta moved on.
Now was the moment to escape from Dettler as he greeted the Powells. She swerved around him and sat on a side bench next to a shriveled old black lady in a massive hat. No one else seemed willing to sit beside her and the snub was too unbearable.
“How do you do,” hissed Jacquetta, “Are you Hortense McGivern?”
“I am,” wheezed the old lady as if her lungs were gone. “Do you think they’d mind if I smoked in here?”
“I’m sure it’s illegal,” panicked Jacquetta, unable to believe this poor old lady had ever waited on anybody or even that she was still alive.
“I’m just out of the hospital,” said Hortense. “Got out special to make this day. Isn’t this just the saddest thing?”
With her maid in the hospital it would have been child’s play to drug Beatrix’s food or drink, secretly if the murderer was suspected, right up front if he or she were a trusted family member.
“It is very sad,” said Jacquetta, offering her hand. “I’m Jacquetta Strike. What do you think of this suicide theory they’re all telling?”
“Miss Bea she weren’t no quitter,” said the little old lady decisively. Jacquetta was relieved to finally locate someone who genuinely mourned the fierce old lady.
Of all people, George Cleese gave the eulogy. Maybe it was because he was so used to public speaking.
“A mighty oak has fallen,” he intoned while Jacquetta rolled her eyes. But she couldn’t share the moment with Hortense, who had clutched her hands together and screwed up her eyes in prayer.
“Can’t just wasn’t in her vocabulary,” said George.
“Amen, father!” shouted Hortense so loudly everybody jumped. Maybe I should have let her smoke, thought Jacquetta.
“Knew how to bring out the best in the community,” said George while Hortense shouted, “Enfold her in your loving arms!”
Jacquetta began to feel like she should contribute, but after carefully choosing a life of silence she didn’t feel she could begin shout-praying now. She began humming “Amazing Grace” while Avalon looked daggers in her direction.
“She never could stand that man,” hissed Hortense, whose prayer was apparently was over. “She called him a harlot.”
“George Cleese?” Jacquetta was unable to keep the delight out of her voice.
“She had plenty to say about these here folks. But she had a soft spot for family. Family could do no wrong.”
I wonder, thought Jacquetta. Was a change on the horizon? And yet she’d made a final will without cutting the family share. Did that mean the sociopath was an outlier?
“She’s laughing at us from the afterlife,” said Hortense. “The beloved dead is around us always.”
At least sixteen more people spoke, each duller than the last. Determinedly nondenominational, there was no mention of God, much less Jesus.
“Oh, well, the better the life the worse the funeral,” said Miss McGivern philosophically. Jacquetta thanked the Almighty – silently – for seating her next to this lady. And the hymns of praise continued when Hortense produced a flask to counteract the day-glo punch and day-old cookies offered by the caterers.
“A transition requires strong drink,” said Hortense. And Jacquetta said, “Amen.”
Alysse Aallyn 
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