Free Cold Winter Rain by Steven Gregory Page B

family, and the service began.  From my position on a slight rise a little apart from the crowd, the mourners’ backs, a mass of dark suits, raincoats, a few umbrellas, seemed to absorb the weak daylight. 
    A former president of the American Bar Association, the silver-haired named partner of a big downtown Birmingham firm, gave the eulogy.  From what I could hear, he told the mourners that he and Kramer had been enemies in the courtroom but comrades at the bar.
    Bill Woolf spoke briefly, most of his words, directed, it seemed, to the family, and inaudible to me.
    Kramer’s priest read the burial service and closed with a prayer.  A cemetery worker touched a switch on the chrome-plated frame holding the bronze casket, and it began descending smoothly into the grave.
    Some of the mourners near me began drifting toward their cars.  Close family sat, still as statues, in the portable chairs set up by the funeral home.
    A breeze flapped the cornices of the burial tent.  The priest stood over Susan Kramer, offering soft words to her and the family.  At last, he nodded and moved to the other side of the tent to speak to some of the people from the law firm who had lingered.
    The family members stood.  The funeral director spoke to Susan Kramer, taking her hand in both of his.
    Some of the workers rolled away the green carpet, uncovered a pile of earth.  Shovels appeared, and they began to fill in the grave.
    Paul Kramer suddenly moved away from his mother and toward one of the workers.  He said a word or two to the man, who nodded slowly and stepped back.
    The man’s shovel was now in the boy’s hand.  Paul Kramer filled and emptied the shovel with an economy of movement I would not have expected, lightly tossing the earth into his father’s grave.  Although I was too far away to see clearly, his face appeared wet in the uncertain light.
    “Slate?”  Leon Grubbs stood a pace away on my right.  I had not seen him earlier.
    “ Captain.”
    “ Sad funeral,” Grubbs said.
    “ I’ve never seen a happy one.  Pretty soon after the death, don’t you think?”
    “ Maybe.  I got the coroner’s office moving.  Autopsy occurred early in the morning after the family was notified.  Wake was last night.  Mass early this morning.  Next day burial.  Part of the culture in the Jewish and Islamic traditions, though not necessarily the Catholic.”  He shrugged.  “Anyway, I think you know more about all this than you’ve told me so far.”
    “ Maybe I know less than you think.”
    “ Right.  Since it’s you, that possibility occurred to me as well.”  He shook his head.  “If you know anything, you need to share it.  Understood?”
    I nodded.  “I understand.”
    Grubbs turned and started walking toward his car, then turned back to face me.  “Slate,” he said.
    “ Yeah?”  I traced his steps, and we stood two feet apart.
    “ I’m going to give you some free information so you don’t waste your time,” Grubbs said.  “Kramer had not arranged a meeting with any kidnappers, at least not to pay a ransom.  We’ve reviewed all his bank and brokerage accounts.  Nothing.  No cash withdrawals, no wires, no unusual transactions at all.”
    “ All right,” I said.  “Thanks.  At least I don’t have to ask Mrs. Kramer about that.”
    Grubbs nodded.  “Another reason to tell you now.  Besides, reporters are calling my office so often I had to put an administrative assistant on press duty full time.  A morning press conference at which I have nothing to report has become a part of my day since the day after Kris Kramer was reported missing.  Her father’s death will increase the number of reporters in my briefing room exponentially.  Some of these facts will be in my statement to the press pool tomorrow morning.  You heard it here first.
    “See you around, Slate.”
     
     
     
    It was almost noon.  Don Kramer’s burial service was over, the family getting into the limousines, the