In-Laws and Outlaws Read Online Free PDF Page A

Connie made them out to be; she didn’t always know everything that was going on. I’d have to ask one of the others tomorrow.
    Tomorrow. A day I’d like to excise from the calendar. I’d come here thinking I’d be attending one funeral when in effect it would be the same as four. Bobby, Lynn, and Ike—I’d never had a chance to mourn their deaths. And now Raymond’s name had been added to the list. The thought of all of them dead was just too much to cope with.
    I asked Connie to show me to my room. I needed to take a sleeping pill and blot it all out for a while

3
    On the morning of the funeral, Connie Decker had already gone into her vague-and-distant mode by the time I got down to breakfast. She was there but not there, present in body but not in spirit. She didn’t want to talk about anything to do with the funeral, nothing at all. I didn’t push her; this was Connie’s notion of self-control, her way of bracing herself for the ordeal to come. Besides, the glazed look in her eyes suggested she’d taken something to calm her down.
    The family had decided on a brief ceremony to be held in a private cemetery—no church, no funeral home, and an Episcopalian minister who’d do no more than lead a prayer at the end. The twins, Rob Kurland, and Oscar Ferguson would speak at the gravesite. While that was going on, a team of caterers would move into Connie’s house and prepare a buffet for the callers who would be stopping by later. Connie was nervous about that part; her housekeeper didn’t like having caterers around. The twins had arranged it.
    For some reason I couldn’t get warm. I woke up chilled to the bone and was still feeling the occasional shudder when Annette Henry came by to pick us up. I was nervous about this first meeting and stood watching through a window as a chauffeur opened the door of a gray Rolls to let out a tall woman dressed in black, the top half of her face hidden by the brim of the hat she was wearing. She seemed to be alone. “Where’s Tom?” I asked Connie.
    â€œOh, didn’t I tell you?” she answered absently. “They’re getting a divorce.”
    A divorce . So Annette had to contend with the collapse of a marriage on top of everything else … I fought down another shudder and composed myself the best I could to greet my sister-in-law. When she came in, she first murmured something to Connie and then turned to me.
    I was looking at an impeccably groomed woman who was even more attractive now than she’d been ten years ago. Annette and her twin sister both had immense presence; they would have been dynamite on a theater stage. Just by walking into the house on Mt. Vernon Street, Annette had taken charge of it. Her eyes had deep shadows under them and her face wore the same pinched look as Connie’s; but where Connie seemed on the edge of succumbing to hysteria or depression or worse, Annette was still in control. Four family deaths in quick succession were enough to make anyone a little nuts—anyone except a Decker born and bred.
    Annette took my hands and said, “I always thought you’d come back.” She spoke with the same cool deliberation she’d used on the telephone the night before. “I’m only sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”
    â€œSo am I,” I answered sincerely, strangely grateful for her … forgiveness? For her understanding. “I’d have come earlier if I’d known about Ike and the other two.”
    â€œIke’s dead. Nothing can be done about that now.” She forced a little smile and said, “I’m glad to see you again, Gillian. You’re looking good. Where are you living now?”
    I told her where I was living and what I was doing there; it didn’t take long to bring her up to date. “You really didn’t know where I was?”
    She raised an elegant eyebrow. “You didn’t