Page 45 of Dead to Rites

Because it was so crowded, I could only stand way in the back, where I couldn’t see much. I caught a glimpse of Father Frank’s casket up on the dais, with a white pall draped over it and a candle burning nearby, but that was about all I could see.

Father Esteban wasn’t presiding today. Instead, the program I’d picked up on the way in told me that the bishop from the diocese in Phoenix was guiding the service, and the front pews were filled with priests in white vestments.

No wonder there wasn’t anywhere to sit.

But even though my view was obstructed, I could tell this service was very different from the one I’d attended on Sunday. That had been intimate, for members of the parish and the other locals who’d known Father Frank, while this felt like something the Church with a capital C was putting on, a service that focused on the sacrament of priesthood and the way Francis Brennan had given his life to it.

Well, I wasn’t here to pay attention to the service. I was here to observe the people attending it.

Right away, I saw Meg Lindley’s silver head in one of the front pews, right behind where all the priests in white were sitting. Her grandson Wes sat next to her, his arm around her black-clad shoulders, and Diane was on her other side, also dressed in black.

About five or six rows back from them, Hal Pruitt sat on the aisle. As far as I could tell, he didn’t have anyone with him, but I noticed the way he remained in his pew when everyone — well, almost everyone except for a few heathens like me — went up to receive communion. He just sat there, head bowed.

Nell Whitaker was in a pew near the back, sniffling and dabbing her eyes through the entire service. She got up with everyone else to take communion, but because she was sitting so close to where I stood, I could see the way her hand shook when she made the sign of the cross.

Grief…or something else?

And I also saw Bob Anselmo, his pinstriped charcoal gray suit probably a bit louder than the occasion warranted. He was sitting in the middle of the pews with his wife Joanne next to him. She looked cool and composed, her highlighted hair pulled into a sleek twist and diamond studs winking from her ears.

Aunt Hazel would probably have had something to say about that.

But Bob looked almost haggard, dark bags showing under his eyes when he got up to take communion with everyone else.

What was going on there?

I continued to scan the crowd. No sign of Terry Gallego, as far as I could tell. I supposed it was possible she hadn’t been able to find a babysitter, although she’d brought her son to the vigil. Well, that had been a shorter, less formal kind of service. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to risk him acting up at an event that would have so many church dignitaries in attendance.

And I saw Jude, too. He was in the second-to-last pew on the other side of the church, obviously alone. Like Hal, he didn’t get up to take communion, and I found myself wondering about that. Had he left the church entirely, not just the priesthood?

I honestly couldn’t say for sure. What I didn’t know about the Catholic church would have filled, if not an ocean, then at least a good-sized lake.

After what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to two hours, Father Esteban got up and blessed the casket with incense and holy water. The pallbearers — four men in dark suits and two priests — lifted the casket and carried it out of the church. All around me, people were singing in Latin, something I obviously didn’t know, although I thought I caught the word paradisum.

Paradise.

I stood there and let the church empty out around me, figuring I’d slip outside after almost everyone else had gone. Even as I left the house that morning, I’d decided not to go to the reception this time; I didn’t feel like facing Diane today, and I knew the lunch would probably go on for hours.

Just as I was making my way down the steps, Jude approached me. I was a little startled, since I hadn’t seen him following me out and had assumed he must be going to attend the lunch with everyone else.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. In the bright sunlight, I could see the shadows under his eyes and the faint lines at their corners. He didn’t look like he’d slept very well, either. “Frank would have appreciated it.”

“I wanted to come,” I replied. For a moment, I hesitated. Jude had enough on his mind already, and he probably didn’t need me adding to his troubles.

And yet I somehow knew he’d be more upset with me if I didn’t say anything, if he heard about the break-in from someone else.

So I told him, as quickly and dispassionately as I could. He listened with increasing alarm, and when I was done, he shook his head.

“Someone’s watching you,” he said, his voice quiet but urgent. “Or watching the bar…or both. I find it hard to believe that it was a coincidence that this happened on a night when you hadn’t been working.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. Did the killer know I’d been making inquiries, and therefore was trying to avoid me?

But the bar had been closed. Even if I had been working, I would have left almost an hour before the break-in.

None of this seemed to make much sense.

Neither Jude nor I said anything for a few seconds. He gazed across the parking lot to the spot where a small clump of mourners was clustered around Meg and her grandson.

The bright sun caught warm little lights in Jude’s dark hair and found the sharp, chiseled edges of his profile. Then he looked back at me.