Free Jaine Austen 1 - This Pen for Hire by Laura Levine Page A

Stacy’s parents, stood at the minister’s side, grim and dry-eyed. The woman was an older, faded version of Stacy. She had the hard-bitten look of a truck-stop waitress. I could tell she’d been a beauty once, but those days were a distant memory. Stacy’s father was a bloated man with an intricate web of veins on his nose and a gut that threatened to pop his shirt buttons. Neither of them showed any discernible emotion.
    Were they struggling to hide their despair? Or was there simply no despair to hide? Was it possible that Stacy’s parents weren’t all that crazy about their own daughter?
    Standing next to Stacy’s parents was Daryush Kolchev, the manager of Bentley Gardens. Unlike Stacy’s parents, Daryush was full of emotion. Tears misted his raisinette eyes, and periodically he dabbed at them with a none-too-clean hankie.
    The other mourners were all young and good-looking. Undoubtedly Stacy’s wannabe actor friends. They stood in a semicircle around her grave, dressed trendily in black. I felt like I was at an actor’s workshop, and the class assignment had been “Grief.” Lots of deep sighs. And downcast looks. Hands demurely crossed. None of it rang true. Except maybe for the guy standing next to me, an ebony-haired hunk with a tasteful gold hoop in one ear. He was crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down his cheeks and glop running from his nose. It wasn’t pretty, but I had a feeling those tears were genuine.
    The minister went on fighting the roar of the freeway, shouting out nice things about a young woman he probably didn’t know.
    Somewhere between the eulogy and the Lord’s Prayer, I happened to glance over at a nearby oak tree. Standing there, apart from the crowd, was a well-dressed man in a raincoat and sunglasses. I could have sworn I’d seen him someplace before. And I had. It took me a minute or two to figure it out, but then it came to me. It was Andy Bruckner.
    What was Andy Bruckner doing at Stacy’s funeral? Surely he’d want to try and keep a low profile where Stacy was concerned. Maybe he was crazy in love with her and came to pay his respects. Or maybe he killed her and came to make sure she was really dead.
    The possibilities buzzed in my head like flies in an outhouse. This detective stuff was hard work. I was beginning to wonder how Kinsey Millhone ever managed to make it to the letter B, when suddenly the sobbing young man next to me whirled around and shouted, “You killed her!”
    He was pointing straight at me.
    Everyone was staring at me. I felt like a thug in a police lineup.
    “I assure you, I had nothing to do with Ms. Lawrence’s death—”
    But the hunk didn’t hear a word I was saying. Instead, he stormed past me, over to where Andy was standing.
    I breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been pointing at me, after all. Tears still streaming down his cheeks, he lunged at Andy, shouting, “You sonofabitch! If it weren’t for you, Stacy would be alive today!”
    I turned to one of my fellow mourners, a pretty young thing with purple hair and a diamond stud in her left nostril.
    “Who is that guy?” I asked her.
    “Devon MacRae,” she said. “Stacy’s ex-boyfriend.”
    Aha. Probably the hunk Cameron had seen with Stacy at the Bentley Gardens swimming pool.
    Several of the black-clad actor wannabes now sprang into action and pulled Devon away from Andy. Andy picked up his sunglasses, which had fallen to the ground in the scuffle. He put them on and turned to the rest of us, trying his best to look as if he hadn’t been scared out of his wits.
    “Drunk,” he said dismissively of his attacker.
    It was true. I’d gotten a whiff of Devon’s breath. There’d been enough gin on it to make a pitcher of martinis.
    By now The Vale of Peace security guards had come on the scene and had Devon MacRae in custody.
    Very interesting, I thought, as they dragged him away, still screaming curses at Andy. Stacy’s ex-boyfriend was a violent man. With a bad temper. And