The Secret Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page A

tomorrow.”
    At that point, Joshua came out of his room, more or less dressed, and we went on about our day.
    *
    It helped that Saturday was our family chores day. With Joshua always present and so much to get done, Jonathan didn’t have the time to spend on worry. I knew he was saddened and upset by Bement’s death, but he was very careful not to be anything but upbeat around Joshua.
    In addition to the chores, there were several phone calls—by me, since Jonathan wasn’t in a very social mood—to the gang and to Cory and Nick about Sunday’s get-together. It was to be a potluck, and Jonathan had planned to make potato salad, but Cory volunteered to bring it, so we opted for the buns and chips and dips, which was probably just as well under the circumstances.
    We also arranged to meet Cory and Nick at the MCC. Though Jonathan usually drove to and from church, I decided I could take them, and when I picked them up, Nick and Cory could follow us to Bob and Mario’s.
    *
    The barbecue on Sunday was, as always, a great success. Jonathan seemed to be emerging from the initial and understandable shock of Chester Bement’s death. As I suspected they would, Nick and Cory fit right in.
    Mario, I found out for the first time in all the time we’d known him, had a deaf cousin and was fairly fluent in sign. Tim worked with a deaf lab technician at the coroner’s office and also had picked up a fair amount of sign, and two of Jake’s construction employees were deaf. I found it amazing that not only had so many of our friends had contact with the deaf community but that I’d been completely unaware of it. Cory was, as expected, spectacularly good in effortlessly carrying on a running interpretation of everyone’s conversation.
    While the grown-ups talked, Joshua alternated running around the yard looking for the tortoise Mario and Bob had found alongside a road some time before, trying to play with Pancake and Butch, their two cats (Pancake was pretty cool about it, but Butch wasn’t at all sure he wanted to be harassed by a five-year-old boy), and frequent trips to the main group for attention and something to eat. We’d made a rule before we arrived: he had to clear all food and drink requests through Jonathan to prevent a “no” from one of us sending him running over to try to get a “yes” from the other—usually, I have to admit, me.
    *
    We checked the TV news when we could, but there was nothing more about Bement’s death. The newspapers all carried small items but had no information other than the death was an apparent suicide and that there would be no formal funeral, only a family memorial. 
    So, on Monday, as I’d promised, I called Marty Gresham at police headquarters to ask him what he knew about Bement’s death. Luckily, I caught him in.
    “Clarence Bement?” he asked. “Did you know him?”
    “No,” I said, “but Jonathan worked for him, and he is absolutely convinced Bement would never have killed himself. I was just wondering if there’s any possibility he might be right.”
    Marty sighed. “A lot of people think their friends could never kill themselves, but they do,” he said.
    “But how many eighty-nine-year-olds kill themselves?” I asked.
    “True,” he admitted, “and all suicides are considered possible murders until proven otherwise, though a lot more people kill themselves than are murdered. So, unless there’s some reason to suspect otherwise, the investigations are not as extensive as they are in obvious murder cases. Dan and I don’t have the case, and I don’t have any information, but I can check for you, if you’d like.”
    “I’d really appreciate it, Marty.”
    “No problem. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    *
    He called back shortly before lunch. Having friends in the police department definitely has its advantages.
    “I’ve got a copy of the report on Bement’s death right here,” he said.” His housekeeper said he had been in ill health for