Had to be Sissy’s sister.
Guess he was a personal friend of the family’s.
“Excuse us,” someone said from behind her.
“Oh, sorry.” Cait moved aside so that a woman with a stroller could get by.
When Cait glanced up again … the janitor was gone.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Sissy only half heard the words, and what did register was filtered through some kind of echo-chamber effect, the syllables repeating endlessly, overlapping one another until she wasn’t sure exactly what had been spoken.
Standing on the lawn of the great cathedral, she felt like the ghost she was, the few stragglers who were arriving for her funeral not noticing her presence—or that of the angel who stood beside her.
She had debated whether to come or not. When Chillie had pitched the newspaper on the front porch this morning, she’d had no intention of reading it—but when she’d unwrapped the thing, she’d seen her own picture below the fold.
And learned the when and where of her own funeral.
Adrian had insisted on coming with her, and she’d been glad, actually. The ride on his Harley had done a lot to clear her head—although all that improvement had gone right into the crapper as soon as they’d pulled up to the church she’d gone to most every Sunday of her life. And then she’d started to recognize the people who were coming up the broad walkway to the front entrance: Her old babysitter with her husband and her baby in a stroller. Her choir teacher from elementary school. The people who lived across the street.
She’d thought that seeing her parents and her sister would be the worst part. And that was probably the truth—so how much harder was this going to get?
“I want to go in,” she said. Except her feet didn’t move.
“Here.” A huge forearm butted into her peripheral vision. “I’ll walk with you.”
Sissy ended up holding on to the angel’s huge biceps for dear life as the two of them entered through the open doors.
“My pictures …” she whispered, looking around.
About a dozen pieces of her art were mounted on easels in a semi-circle around the foyer, the pastels and ink drawings and oil paintings all ones she had done as part of her art major.
“Oh, my God, I remember doing this last fall.” Walking over, she stood in front of a depiction of the Caldwell bridges that she’d painted in the rust-colored hues of autumn. She’d completed it right on the shores of the Hudson, had sat there in the sunshine for two hours with the canvas and her palette and a conviction that life lasted forever—and wasn’t that a good thing.
A sudden flare of organ music suggested the service was about to get started.
Pressing on, she overrode a strange terror and walked through the narthex’s double doors into the body of the church. Everything was just as she remembered, which was a shock of sorts. Regardless of what the calendar said, she was still convinced she had been gone for centuries.
From that moment on, autopilot took over, some inner metronome driving her footsteps forward, left, right, left, right. When she got to the front, and saw her parents and her sister, she stopped.
“Here, take this,” Adrian said gruffly.
As a red do-rag was pressed into her hands, she wondered why she needed it—but that was when she found out she was crying: Tears were streaming down her face, falling to the floor of the church.
“You can go sit down if you like.”
Sissy wheeled around, expecting to see some late arrival hustling for a seat and the person at the end of the nearest pew moving aside to accommodate them. Instead, it was a janitor she didn’t recognize, an old guy in a dark green jumpsuit.
And he was looking directly at her.
“Go on, there’s a seat over there for you.”
“How can you see me?” she blurted.
“Because you’re here,” he answered gently, like that was self-evident. “Go on now, and sit.”
She looked over to where he was pointing, and immediately shook her head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t—”
“It’s there for you, Sissy. Sit.”
The chair he wanted her to use was the gold leafed one that was set between the Virgin Mary’s side chapel and that of John the Baptist. Raised up on a pedestal, it had a red velvet cushion, and filligreed woodwork, and was the closest she’d ever gotten to any kind of throne.
Ever since she was a young girl, she had always wanted to sit down in it—even if just for a heartbeat. But of course, there had always been a wide satin ribbon tied across that seat, a clear warning to all that it was a work of art, not something functional.
Certainly not for a little girl. Or a big one, at that.
Today there was no ribbon tied between the curling arms.
“It is for you.”
The janitor put his hand on her shoulder, and instantly the most incredible sense of calm came over her, every painful nuance of this dissipating … replaced by a profound sense of love for all the people who had come for her and her family.
So much love, forming the foundation of the agony within the congregation, but also providing the only uplift that was available.
Following the janitor, Sissy went over and stepped up onto the platform. As organ music crescendoed, she sat in the chair, placing her hands gently on the golden arms. And it was strange, in a way … this felt proper, not foreign.
Turning to look at the janitor—
He was gone, as if he’d never been … nowhere in the crowd, not walking away down an aisle, not standing off to the side. It was as if he had just disappeared into thin air—and yet, Adrian was nodding his head as if he approved of something someone was saying to him.
Looking away from the angel, she focused on the altar, and it was at that moment that the organ let out another powerful surge of harmony … and a guy she vaguely recognized, who had a ponytail and was wearing a black suit, walked out from behind the velvet curtains.
Her only other thought, as he began to sing strong and true … was that he had a halo, too.
Chapter Fifty-one
Duke was so done with the silent-type peanut gallery that was riding shotgun next to him. The son of a bitch just sat there in the passenger seat, lighting up every once in a while, as they went from park to park.
All without saying a f**king word.
Ah, hell, it could be worse, Duke supposed. Someone with a chatty streak would have done his nut totally in.
“Last one,” he said, talking mostly to himself.
Pulling in between the cast-iron gates of Pine Grove Cemetery, he checked the clock on the dash: three thirty. Good.