Blowout

grinning from ear to ear with seven pizza boxes piled up to his nose. Callie, charmed by that grin, gave him a big tip.
    Bitsy St. Pierre said between mouthfuls of her anchovy pizza, “This is delicious. Eat, Margaret, I don’t want to have to tell you again.” The other three women nodded. Ben watched them, his head cocked to the side. He was eating with six women, five of them his mother’s age, something he couldn’t remember ever doing before in his life. He decided he liked it.
    Margaret took a small bite, chewed on it forever before finally swallowing it. Bitsy said matter-of-factly, “We buried Stewart today. It was a grand send-off. The President spoke, the Vice President spoke. You dealt magnificently with the media, Margaret. We’ve given Stewart a wonderful toast with his favorite champagne. He would have made one of his decision matrixes and concluded he was proud of you. Now, eat.”
    He’d heard them say such things to Margaret at least three or four times that evening. Did it help? Evidently so. Margaret Califano took a bigger bite of pizza and actually looked like she might be enjoying it.
    Janette Weaverton appeared to be the quietest of the five women, although he hadn’t found her reticent or shy at all. It was just that the others seemed more forceful in their opinions, bigger in their laughter. She seemed preoccupied. Yes, that was it.
    Ben said, “Will you ladies be staying here tonight?”
    Five sets of eyes turned to him. “Oh no,” said Anna Clifford. “Our families are patient, they understand, but they want us back home. Since Callie’s here now, we’ll leave when it’s time for Margaret to go to bed.”
    “Your husband, Mrs. Clifford, what does he do?”
    “He used to be a banker, but now he’s a venture capitalist.” She paused a moment, chewed some pizza. “Most people don’t really understand what that means, exactly, but to me it sounds mysterious, maybe dangerous, like laundering Mafia money.”
    That drew a round of laughter, but Margaret said, in a serious voice, “There’s nothing illegal in what Clayton does, Anna. He simply invests his own and other people’s money in individual entrepreneurs or start-up companies that interest him. He’s good at analyzing their growth potential, their planning skills, and deciding if they’re worth the risk.”
    Anna smiled as she said, “Come on, Margaret, you know very well Clayton says it’s like deciding whether or not to buy Boardwalk in Monopoly.”
    Bitsy said, “Eat more pizza, Margaret. Those chunks of pepper will bring back your sense of humor.”
    Margaret dropped her slice of pizza back on her paper plate. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. “You don’t know what I did!”
    “Mom, whatever it was—”
    “Stewart wanted to be cremated. I didn’t follow his wishes. It was the President, you see, and all the protocol experts. Everyone expected a big church service, Stewart in a coffin in front of celebrity mourners. I ignored his wishes and buried him.” Margaret put her face in her hands and wept. “I buried him.”
    “Oh, Mom, don’t.” Callie put her arms around her mother and rocked her. The women gathered around, patting her hair, her shoulders, her arms. “It doesn’t matter, Mom. Stewart wasn’t there. That magnificent service was for all his friends, for the President, for all those people who admired him. It was for everyone there to say their farewells to him. And the burial itself was so beautifully done. He wouldn’t have minded, truly.”
    Ben had never felt so useless in his life. If he could have disappeared in that instant, he would have.
    Then the storm of tears was over. Margaret gave a small laugh. “Poor Detective Raven. I’m sorry for that. You poor boy, stuck among all us women, but you’re doing very well, isn’t he, Juliette?”
    “Very well indeed.”
    Ben said, “You said that we hadn’t gotten much done, ma’am. Well, actually that’s not true. The FBI think they know who the assassin is. He calls himself Günter Grass, or just Günter.”
    Margaret said, puzzled, “The writer? The man who murdered Stewart is a German?”
    “We don’t know what nationality he is. Günter Grass is the name he uses. He’s been inactive, supposedly for at least fifteen years now, until this. He’s known to speak four languages fluently, including English. He could very well live among us. He could even be living locally, and the person who wanted Justice