“I mention sex and she’ll run here faster than a jet. But I can’t see Aunt Sara and that...that man together. Not like that. I mean, they’re...”
“Old?”
“I guess so, but that’s not very PC of me.”
Sara didn’t look down at Sheriff Flynn as she told him to move.
“He can sit over there.” The sheriff sounded petulant.
“Now. Go.”
With an eye roll, the sheriff got up and gave his seat to Chet Dakon.
Curious, Kate leaned across her aunt to look at the man. He smiled at her but said nothing. As for Sara, she was staring straight ahead, looking at no one. “I’m Kate. This is Jack.”
“So I assumed,” Chet said. His voice was deep and rough.
Kate leaned back in the pew and whispered to Jack, “If Aunt Sara doesn’t want him, I’ll take him.”
Jack’s groan was covered by the pastor speaking into a microphone. While they’d been giving their attention to the sheriff and the newcomer, chairs had been set up behind the pulpit. Seven people sat there, including the four who’d gone to Sara’s house after the murder.
The pastor said it was a time to remember the good of a person’s life, not the bad that had ended it. He stepped aside to let Megan Nesbitt take her place by the microphone.
Megan had note cards with her and she read a highly edited story of the kindness of Janet Beeson. She left out the part where her brother had described Janet as what a witch looked like. Megan made the story of painting “Witch” on the garage sound like the innocence of children. It was just play. She ended with “But Janet forgave them.”
Kate drew in her breath. That was the opposite of what Megan had told them. “Janet never forgave her brother,” she whispered to Jack.
He turned to her with a frown and nodded. He also saw the change.
Next came the three teenage girls. Again, it was a different story. This time around the girls were humble, taking all the blame onto themselves. No bragging about Britney’s talent at mimicry.
Britney said, “I felt so bad that I didn’t want to live anymore.”
The girls looked at the audience, then put their arms around each other.
“But Mrs. Beeson saved her,” Ashley said. “She saved all of us.”
What they said and the way they presented it was so well-spoken, so well played, that Jack and Kate turned to Sara.
“Everett Gage,” Sara said in disgust.
At the same time, in the same tone, Chet Dakon also said, “Everett Gage.”
In delight of their words spoken in unison, the two older people looked at each other as though they might start giggling.
Jack and Kate leaned back against the hard oak pew. “Now I wish he’d go away,” Kate muttered.
“Get in line,” Jack said.
The next person up was Valerie Johnson. They hadn’t met her but the guards had spoken of her. She’d won the local crocheting contest. “I gloated,” she said. “I had the sin of pride and I played it up to dear Janet.” She looked at the audience. “Later, when my studio burned down, it was Janet who helped me. In spite of everything I did, she was a good friend to me.”
It was then that the sobbing began. Loud, deep, soulful sobs. A broken heart was showing itself in tears. And it came from one person.
The four of them turned to look. Two rows behind them, Everett had his head on the back of the pew in front of him and was crying hard and loud. It was genuine misery.
“He sees his father-in-law’s furniture catalog before him,” Jack said.
Chet whispered something to Sara, then she whispered to Kate and Jack. “No one else is crying.”