Free Final Sail by Elaine Viets Page B

said.
    “My daddy’s dead,” Violet said, her voice filled with wonder. “He’s not coming back. I knew he was dead, but I really felt it at the funeral when I saw his casket.”
    “That’s how grief works sometimes,” Margery said, patting Violet’s hand.
    “It hurts,” Violet said. “I miss him so much. It’s like a physical pain.”
    “It may take a while,” Margery said. “But you’ll start remembering all the good things you did together. Then his loss won’t hurt so much.”
    “It will stop hurting when that woman is in jail for Daddy’s murder,” Violet said.

CHAPTER 10

    A rthur Zerling’s polished casket was slowly lowered into the yawning grave by a machine. Instead of a hymn sung by the mourners, the machine hummed softly while Helen read a verse from Saint Paul. She wondered how many times his Epistle to the Philippians had been read at a burial in Evergreen Cemetery.
    “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,” she read, “whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
    Violet kept her head bowed. Helen hoped she was remembering her father, but suspected she was plotting revenge against Blossom. Arthur’s widow also kept her head bowed, but tension radiated from her slender form.
    A stone angel watched from a nearby grave, wings folded in sorrow. Arthur would rest under a cool shade tree, next to his first wife, Honeysuckle. Helen hoped that Fort Lauderdale’s oldest cemetery would not see one more family feud.
    “Please grant Arthur Zerling eternal rest,” she said. The casket mechanism stopped. “Give him peace.”
    Deliver us from the two warring women at his grave, Helen thought.
    Violet stayed calm, though her hands were clenched and her body was rigid in its shiny black cocoon. Margery stood resolutely at Violet’s side, poised to prevent a fight. Arthur’s surviving golf partners lined up beside Violet’s purple-clad guard.
    Across the gulf of the open grave was Blossom, the grateful ranch hand and his rescued wife, Leann. The woman Arthur had helped save sniffled into a tissue. The housekeeper was not at the burial, but Helen had no doubt Fran was mourning the loss of her employer.
    Four dark-suited undertakers stood discreetly behind lichen-covered tombstones. They had strict orders to head off Uncle Billy if he barged into the burial service. Helen didn’t think they’d have to look hard to spot him. Billy’s shirt was loud enough to wake the dead.
    The funeral director handed Blossom a single white rose. She delicately tossed it into the grave. The rose landed soundlessly on the shiny casket lid. Next, the funeral director solemnly presented Violet with a sheaf of flowers the size of a shrub. Helen studied the tendrils escaping from the ribbon-wrapped bundle and realized this was a huge bouquet of honeysuckle and violets.
    Violet would never be accused of subtlety.
    She dropped the flowers into the grave. The heavy bouquet landed with a graceless thud, smothering Blossom’s single rose.
    Helen thought if Violet could have fallen on Blossom and squashed her, she would have. Margery must have felt the same way. She laid a restraining hand lightly on Violet’s arm after the bouquet toss.
    “We will conclude the burial service with the Twenty-third Psalm,” Helen said. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… .”
    As she recited the comforting words, another, secret burial in herhometown of St. Louis flashed through her mind. Helen couldn’t block out that awful scene. Death stared her in the face, reminding her of her own sins.
    Helen knew that obsession, greed and blazing hatred led to misery and untimely death, but she couldn’t tell anyone, not even Margery or Phil. An innocent person’s future depended on her silence.
    “He maketh me to lie down in green