Free Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery by Christine Wenger Page B

Silver Bullet didn’t pass Marvin’s inspection,” she said, her voice raised. It crossed my mind that she was playing to the audience of mourners. “Two weeks ago, it was in the
Sandy Harbor Lure
, for heaven’s sake. She had it in for him.”
    She pointed her finger toward my boobs, and it took all my self-control not to squash her like a bug.
    “And you are an editor at the
Lure
, are you not?” Ty asked.
    “That doesn’t have anything to do with this!” she said, stepping closer to me. I feared for my hair, thinking that she was going to grab it and start yanking. I would put up a good fight as I needed to keep every strand of it.
    Ty stepped between us. “Ms. Cummings, Trixie is here to pay her respects. If she had something to hide, do you think she’d come here?”
    She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “As soon as Marvin is buried, I’m going to make it my mission to see that no one eats in your diner ever again, Miss Matkowski.”
    She spit out my name as if each syllable burned her tongue.
    I stepped back beyond her reach and said aquick prayer in front of Mr. Cogswell’s closed casket. On the casket was a grainy photo of him that looked like his high school yearbook picture. I figured that it had to be at least thirty years since he had graduated from high school. He wasn’t bad-looking back then, but I wondered what he looked like now…er…before he’d died.
    I was ready to scoot out the door when I saw Ty signal to me to take a seat. I whispered, “Are you nuts? I want to get out of here.”
    He jerked his head toward a folding chair. “Sit.”
    Taking a deep breath, I sat.
    His hand hovered over mine. For a second, it looked like he was going to take my hand, but then he changed his mind and lowered it onto his thigh.
    I didn’t know what to make of that. He was either feeling sorry for me or wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to bolt.
    Why was I here, again? Oh yes, looking for some kind of clue with Ty—looking for something strange or out of the ordinary.
    Roberta Cummings was strange, and the only thing out of the ordinary was me.
    I sat perfectly still as she shot me scathing looks. Several more people appeared, including Mayor Tingsley, then left almost immediately. Soon, the only ones left in the room were Roberta, Ty, and I. And of course, Mr. Cogswell.
    The funeral director/coroner, Hal Manning, came into the room and announced that we were going to say some prayers for the soul of Mr. Cogswell.Ty and I turned to page fourteen of the blue prayer book as instructed.
    I guess it was the least I could do.
    So I prayed for the happy repose of the soul of the health inspector at the Happy Repose Funeral Home.
    Finally, the service was over, but Ty made no move to exit. Then I realized that he was waiting for our names to be called for the procession to the cemetery.
    Oh no!
    “Mr. Ty Brisco and Miss Beatrix Matkowski,” announced Mr. Manning.
    We were the only ones in the room now! He could have just waved us over. If that wasn’t strange enough, we were driving the only ordinary car in the funeral procession. There was the hearse, a limo carrying Roberta Cummings and the black-coated guys, and then us in Ty’s humongous black SUV.
    An overwhelming wave of sadness for Mr. Cogswell washed over me. Here was a man whose life was unexpectedly cut short, and, besides his girlfriend, only a deputy sheriff and I were there at the cemetery. I was glad that I had attended the service after all.
    After more prayers at the cemetery, where it seemed that Roberta was more interested in glaring at me than praying, we drove back into town.
    “Did you pick up any clues, Ty?”
    “Not really. I was just surprised that morepeople didn’t attend. I mean, Marvin Cogswell inspected every food place in town; I would have thought that more people would have paid their respects.”
    “Maybe he wasn’t liked,” I suggested.
    He shrugged. “I heard in the wind that he ate his way around the county, and