Free Lye in Wait by Cricket McRae

wetly.
    "It must have been expensive," Meghan said.
    I joined them. Up close, I saw Debby was older than I had first
thought, probably in her late fifties. Hard to tell with the mascara
streaking down her face. She'd kept most of her figure, but her
blue-black hair came from a bottle, and the years had engraved
a healthy set of lines. The extreme pallor seemed to be her natural coloring, and I wondered for a moment whether her real hair
color had been red or even a whiter blonde than my own.
    "Yeah," I said. "That's a nice ring. Must have set Walter back a
bit."
    Debby nodded. "He said he wanted to get me a big diamond,
and then he went and actually did it." She said it like she wasn't
used to people following through on what they said.
     
    "Well, at least you got that, Debs. You got that t' remember him
by." Jacob's words had a bitter edge to them. His face held sorrow,
but as he gazed at the woman beside him on the sofa there was
something else as well. He reached out and brushed a strand of
hair out of her face. She pushed his hand away.
    "We're so sorry," Meghan said.
    He nodded and fished a crumpled bandana out of his pocket,
handed it to Debby. She honked into it.
    "I don't know how to ask this," I said, "so I'll just come right
out with it. Do you know anything about the investment Walter
made that turned out so well?"
    "Investment? Oh!" Jacob's smile looked tired. "The money.
He'd call it that sometimes, if he talked about it at all."
    Meghan and I waited.
    "OF Walter won the lottery a few years back. So's I guess the
investment he told you 'bout would be the ticket."
    "Well, it's nice he spent some of it on that beautiful ring," I said,
trying to bring Debby back into the conversation. All it earned me
were fresh sobs, which Meghan's glare told me I deserved for trying to extract information from a grieving fiancee.
    "He spent precious little, I dare say. Gave it all away to strangers, when he coulda done some good with it amongst people right
here." Jacob looked at Debby as he spoke.
    She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and hiccupped.
"He didn't like anyone to tell him what to do with his money."
    "How much did he win?" Meghan asked. Okay for her to do it,
I guess.
    "Don't know for sure. A whole shitload. And then he went and
started giving it all away," Jacob said.
     
    "All of it? Wow," Meghan said.
    He looked away and shrugged, his eyes darting to the woman
beside him again. "Don't know if he was scrapin' bottom yet, but
he was workin' on it."
    "Any idea why?" I asked.
    Debby turned her wet face to me. "What do you care?"
    "Just surprised, I guess. He still did work for us on a regular
basis and for other people in the neighborhood. From what I can
tell, he didn't really have to, or he wouldn't have had to if he'd kept
his winnings."
    Neither of them spoke. The silence lengthened. Meghan broke
it.
    "There will be a memorial service at Crane's Funeral Home on
Monday at two o'clock."
    A stubborn expression crossed Debby's face. "Moved kinda fast,
didn't you?"
    Meghan sat down beside her on the sofa. Our eyes met and an
unspoken understanding passed between us. "Not really. He died
on Thursday. We didn't know you'd want to be involved, and his
mother wanted to go ahead with the service."
    Debby snorted. "His mother. Right. Didn't care much when he
was alive, did she?"
    "Will you come?"
    "'Course we'll come," Jacob responded for them both. "Debby
here's just a little overwhelmed by all this. We wouldn't miss Walter's send-off for nothin'."
    Meghan scanned the woman's pale face. "Debby?"
    "I'll be there. It would have been nice to have a say in things, is
all, seeing as how I was his fiancee"
     
    "Well, there are a few details to work out yet. For example,
we haven't chosen hymns yet, and no one has selected a cinerary
urn.
    "Hymns. Right. Like I know anything about hymns. And what's
a ciner ... cin ... whatever you said?"
    "It's where you keep the ashes