Tomb With a View

bushes and pots of flowers. From the front yard, there was no way to tell it was there, but I imagined that whenever Marjorie’s neighbors—on this street or the one that backed up to it—walked out their back doors, it was the first thing they saw. Yeah, it was that hard to miss. Especially this time of the night when there was a spotlight shining right on it.

“It’s—”

“Ugly.” The woman spit out the word, dropped her cigarette, and ground it beneath the sole of one slipper. She switched the dog from one arm to the other. “That’s exactly what I told that crazy Klinker woman last spring when she had it trucked in here. Told her that statue was an eyesore. Told her it needed to be moved. Told her the neighbors weren’t going to stand for it.”

Like I needed to ask? I did anyway. “And Marjorie said . . . ?”

It was Gloria’s turn to harrumph. “Gave me a lecture about her rights as a property owner, that’s what she did. Told me to mind my own business. Just kept right on doing what she was doing. Put that statue right there and that was bad enough, but then last week she put up that spotlight. It’s too much. That’s what I told the city. I told them neighbors have to put up with some things. I understand that. But this? This is too much. Even little Sunshine . . .” She gave the dog a squeeze that made its already bulging eyes pop a little more.

“Sunshine won’t even walk out into our backyard to do her business. That’s how afraid of that statue she is. That’s what I told the city. Told them little Sunshine is terrified and that it’s just not right. You’d think they’d care. I’m a taxpayer, after all. You wouldn’t hear it from either of my ex-husbands, but I’ll tell you something else, honey: I’m a reasonable woman. And I’ve been reasonable. I’ve asked that crazy woman nicely. I’ve begged her. I’ve pleaded. When that didn’t work, I wrote letters to the newspapers and to the TV stations, and I’ve called my councilman. Nobody cares. That Marjorie Klinker acts like she’s better than everybody else.” Both Gloria and Sunshine aimed venomous looks at the house, and Gloria’s eyebrows slid up her forehead.

“You know what we do?” She lowered her voice and looked back at me, sharing the secret. “Every single night before we go to bed, Sunshine and me, we say our prayers. And you know what we ask for? We pray for Marjorie Klinker to die. Hasn’t happened.” She was disappointed; her shoulders drooped. “Nothing’s happened. The city doesn’t care. The TV stations don’t care. The newspapers don’t care. There are times I think I’m going to live until my dying day looking at that eyesore of a statue.” Disgusted, she shook her head. “I guess if anything’s going to change, it’s up to me. I’ll just have to kill her myself.”

It was hard to argue with logic like that, and I never had a chance, anyway, because Gloria turned and shuffled into the house next door.

Watching her, a shiver snaked over my shoulder. I didn’t pay any attention to it. What I did instead was load that box of junk into my trunk and get in my car. Right before I drove away, I took one last look at the house.

I was just in time to see Marjorie race across the living room, tossing books and magazines every which way.

I didn’t pay any attention to that, either, except to think that Gloria and Sunshine were pretty good judges of character: Marjorie Klinker was one strange cookie.

I wasn’t surprised to find Doris Oswald in the cemetery administration building the next morning. It’s not always easy to keep people happy, especially when they’re volunteering their time, but Ella has a magical gift for smoothing ruffled feathers. Of course she talked Doris out of quitting! What she’d talked Doris into, I didn’t know, but I saw that whatever project Doris was working on, it must have been overwhelming for the elderly woman. She was flustered and short of breath when I bumped into her in the hallway.

“Oh, Pepper!” Doris’s cheeks were rosy pink. “I was just . . . That is, I just . . .” Doris waved toward the copy room.

I suspected there was a problem with our cranky copier, and I so didn’t want to get dragged into it. I pointed Doris toward Jennine, who was way better at taking care of all things technical than I would ever be, and zoomed into my office before I could get waylaid by anyone else.

Once I had the door shut firmly behind me, I turned on my computer and checked my e-mail. I had a message from a suburban teacher who wanted to schedule her class for a tour, and since I had nothing better to do and knew that it was better to get these sorts of things over with than obsess about them, I picked up my phone to call her. It beeped, the way it does when I have a voice mail message.

My voice mail only kicks in when Jennine isn’t there to take my calls, and trooper that she is, Jennine is always there during business hours so this struck me as a little weird.

Unless Quinn had gotten a serious case of “I’m sorry” in the middle of the night.

My spirits rose. Yeah, I was still plenty mad at him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to cut him some slack. If he was appropriately penitent.

Anticipation buzzed through my bloodstream. Well, for a second, anyway. Until I reminded myself that if Quinn wanted to talk in the middle of the night, he wouldn’t call the office. He had my cell number.

Grumbling at the thought that whoever wanted me must have wanted something to do with a cemetery tour, I punched in my code, and waited. According to the computer voice that kicked in right before the message started, the call had come in the night before, right about the time I’d left Marjorie’s.

“Ms. Martin? Marjorie Klinker here.”

I cringed.

“Ms. Martin . . .” Marjorie huffed and puffed, trying to catch her breath. “There are so many Martins in the phonebook, I don’t know which number might be yours. Otherwise I would have called you at home. Or on your cell phone. That, of course, is a very good idea. Remind me to bring it up with Ms. Silverman tomorrow. Volunteers should have employees’ cell phone numbers, so that they could call them day or night in case of an emergency.”

I rolled my eyes.

“That is what this is, of course. An emergency. I certainly wouldn’t have called you . . .” She put just enough emphasis on that last word to make me feel as insignificant as she intended. “. . . if it wasn’t. Ms. Martin, I must see you in the morning. The instant you get to Garden View. First thing. It is extremely important. Please!”

Hearing Marjorie say please was a little like finding out a goldfish can talk. I gave the receiver a questioning look at the same time I deleted the message.

“The instant you get to Garden View!” I repeated the words in the same overly dramatic tone of voice Marjorie had used and made a decision right then and there: Marjorie Klinker wasn’t the boss of me. Just so she wouldn’t forget it, I took my good ol’ time. I called that teacher and scheduled a tour for the next week, and since just thinking about spending a couple hours with fourth graders made me weak in the knees, I knew I had to fortify myself with a cup of coffee. Since it was Friday and Ella usually brings donuts in on Fridays, I was hoping for a bit of a sugar high, too.

Donuts weren’t the only things I found in the break room. Ray was there, too, and I tried to make small talk mostly because I wanted to find out what he and Marjorie were going at it about the night before, but he would have none of it. He looked up long enough to say hello when I walked in, but that was it. He was preoccupied with the newspaper open on the table in front of him, though since he kept turning the pages and never once stopping to read any of the articles, I don’t know why.

I grabbed my coffee and a glazed donut and took it back to my office. When I was done with both, I was also out of things to do so I gave up and headed for the memorial. Marjorie’s black Saturn was parked on the road that circled the monument, but there was no one else around. Too bad. At least if there were tourists to keep Marjorie busy, she’d have less time to annoy me.

Determined to show her who was in charge and that it wasn’t her, I left the box of Garfield memorabilia in the trunk, fully intending to tell her that if she wanted it, she could make the long trek down the memorial steps and out to the car for it. All about attitude, I went into the memorial.

The lights were still off.

“Hello!” I stepped into the entryway and looked around.

Even in the semidarkness I could see that Marjorie wasn’t in the office, and I remembered that the last time I stopped in, she’d been upstairs. No way I was walking the narrow, winding steps. It would be far easier to head into the rotunda and call to her from there, so I did. I flipped on the lights—and stopped cold.

Marjorie lay at the foot of the statue of the president. There was a pool of blood behind her head, and her