Free In Plain Sight by Barbara Block

Dewitt after a mourner had inadvertently interrupted a drug deal taking place on the pavement outside and gotten shot. Gottlieb, who also ran a meat packing business, had reasoned that this kind of activity was bad for business. As he said, he didn’t need to make clients. He had enough of those already.
    I looked at my watch as I pulled off of East Genesee and followed the blacktop driveway around to the back of the building. It was nine-forty-five. According to the announcement in the paper, the funeral was scheduled for ten o’clock. Good. I had fifteen minutes to spare. I’d been afraid I was going to be late because I’d had to drop off a fifty-pound bag of dog food on my way over. I stubbed out my cigarette, parked the cab, got out, and walked over to the entrance.
    The door, all lead glass and wood, gave off an impression of substance; but when I pulled it open it felt light, and I decided it must be one of those new, cheap, hollow ones—the kind you get at a do-it-yourself store like Hechinger’s. A draft of cold air hit me as I stepped inside. Even though it was warm outside it was frigid in here. I guess I should have worn a long-sleeved shirt.
    I rubbed my arms as I looked around. The vestibule walls were paneled in oak and dotted with a few floral prints. A large dried flower arrangement sat in a porcelain vase. My feet sunk into the blue carpet. The pile on it was at least an inch thick if not more. I felt as if I’d just stepped into an exclusive men’s club and was waiting for the maitre d’ to seat me. Clearly this was no place for sobbing, maybe a single, tasteful tear rolling down the cheek but that was about it. The atmosphere in the place felt as phony as Marsha’s suicide, and while I was thinking about why that was, a thin, pale-faced young man materialized at my elbow and guided me to the chapel.
    The first eight rows in the plain white room were already filled. It looked as if Marsha had gotten a good turnout. People were chatting in the subdued way they often do when someone their own age dies. I immediately spotted Garriques sitting in the middle of the second row. I nodded to him as I walked by. He returned my gesture while continuing to talk to the woman sitting next to him. A few rows in back of Garriques I spied Brandon Funk, the school custodian I’d had the run-in with when I’d been looking for Marsha’s papers. He looked ill at ease in his frayed gray suit and yellowed shirt, and I got the feeling he’d have been happier among his mops and pails. The only other person I recognized was an old neighbor of mine from the housing complex Marsha and I had lived in. Her name was Shirley Hinkel, and she’d been Marsha’s best friend. I tried to catch her attention, but she was staring out the window and didn’t turn around. As I slipped into the ninth row I made a note to talk to her after the service was over.
    The man I was sitting next to looked familiar. A moment later I placed him. Don Eddison. He was a psychologist who ran Improvement Associates, one of those New Age centers that supposedly help you overcome your bad habits. There’d been an article about him in the local papers, and I’d briefly, + very briefly, considered going to him to stop smoking.
    â€œIt’s a shame, isn’t it?” Eddison said, pointing to the gleaming cherry casket in the front of the room. His receding hairline served to accentuate the vees his eyebrows formed.
    â€œYes it is,” I agreed.
    He looked down at the prayer book he was holding. “I never thought she’d do anything like this,” he murmured to himself. “I really never did.”
    I was just about to ask him why when Merlin came in and took his place in the first row. For all the expression his face contained he could have been wearing a latex mask. He was dressed in a cheap, ill-fitting navy blue suit and a white shirt with a too tight collar. His skin