Page 47 of Hello, Summer
Skelly was right, Conley thought. Walter Poppell really wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree.
“I’m wondering what caused the crash in the first place. There were no other cars around when we arrived.”
“Right. Yeah.” He shrugged. “Maybe if I hear something, I’ll give you a call.”
“That’d be great,” Conley said. She put the key in the ignition andwent to fasten her seat belt, but Poppell did not remove his hand from the door.
“Maybe we could grab some dinner, have some drinks, something like that,” Poppell suggested, giving her his winningest smile.
Was he hitting on her? “I’m pretty busy with this story right now and helping take care of my grandmother,” Conley said, trying to be tactful.
“But you gotta eat, right? We’ve got a kick-ass pizza place just opened here in town. Sal’s. The owner’s a real Italian guy from New York and everything.”
“Sounds great,” Conley said. She pulled firmly on the door, and he reluctantly loosened his grip.
“Sure thing,” Poppell said. “And I’ll keep my ears open, in case I hear anything good.”
16
The white-clapboard Victorian house was one of the most gracious buildings in town. It had twin turrets with red tile roofs that had always reminded her of little elves’ caps, and gleaming black shutters, stained glass bay windows, and lush landscaping with flower beds bursting with white petunias that looked like lace cuffs on a green velvet dress.
But Conley’s throat tightened as she approached the front door of the McFall-Peeples Funeral Home, her palms damp with sweat, her heart pounding. She averted her eyes, as always, from the quaint, antique, black funeral carriage which would have once been pulled by a team of horses parked on the grass near the curving brick driveway.
Don’t be such a baby. It’s just a building. Shit happens. People die, and their friends and family need rites and rituals to mark their passing. The circle of life and all that.
She forced herself to climb the wide, white brick steps. The front porch was picturesque too, with a row of rocking chairs and hanging baskets of ferns. The front door was slightly ajar. Should she ring the doorbell? Conley wasn’t sure.
Before she could consider the question further, a small child exploded through the doorway. Conley didn’t know a lot about kids, but this one looked to be somewhere between two and four, with a headfulof blond ringlets. One thing she knew for sure was that this small person was a girl, because she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
“Graceanne! Get back in here. Graceanne?” A petite woman with the same blond ringlets ran out onto the porch, bumping squarely into Conley.
“Excuse me!” the woman said. “But I seem to have misplaced my kid.”
The child peeked out from behind a rocking chair and giggled.
“About this tall?” Conley asked, holding her hand knee-high. “Blond hair, no clothes?”
“That’s my demon, all right.”
Conley pointed toward the rocking chair. The child dashed forward and was promptly scooped up into her mother’s waiting arms.
“I’m so sorry you had to see this,” the woman said. “Not exactly the image of caring, compassion, dignity, and discretion we usually try to project around here. May I help you?”
“No worries,” Conley said with a laugh. “Funeral homes kind of stress me out, so your daughter was a welcome distraction.”
“A disaster is more like it,” the woman said, slinging the naked child over her shoulder. “Come on inside, won’t you? I’ll just throw some clothes on this little imp, and then we can talk. I’m Kennedy McFall, by the way.” She held out her hand.
“And I’m Conley Hawkins.”
The woman tilted her head and smiled wider. “I’d heard you were back in town. But I guess you don’t remember me, do you?”
“Should I?” Conley studied the younger woman, who was barefoot and dressed in a sleeveless pastel Lilly Pulitzer dress.
“Not necessarily. I mean, you were two or three years ahead of me in school.”
Conley followed Kennedy through the foyer of the funeral home, pausing each time the other woman stooped to pick up a tiny pair of underpants, shorts, a T-shirt, and finally, a pair of sandals, all of which were scattered like bread crumbs down the length of the long hallway.
“In here,” Kennedy said, nodding to an open door that led into a small, sunny office. The space was at odds with the gloomily formalpseudo-colonial décor in the rest of the funeral home. Kennedy’s desk was a slab of glass set on chrome sawhorses. Framed family snapshots and cheerful crayon scribbles covered the pale pink walls.
