Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

devoted husband, loyal brother, philanthropist.”
    At that point a young man in the front row stood. The speaker came around to the side of the podium, bent his head to listen, then returned to his place and cleared his throat.
    “Harry Knowlton Dietrich,” he said, “was, in everyone’s estimation, a good man.”
    There was some throat clearing and a few coughs, people trying hard not to laugh.
    Whoever the speaker was, he certainly hadn’t known Harry. Still, overcome with grief, he removed the handkerchief from his pocket, took off his aviator bifocals, and dabbed at his eyes.
    “A life of giving, not of taking, a life of searching for answers, for others rather than himself, a life of devotion to the memory of his beloved sister, this was Harry Knowlton Dietrich.”
    Feeling secure that I’d absorbed the pattern and the theme of the eulogy, enough so that if any of the relatives gave a pop quiz on the way out, I could pass it with flying colors, I tuned out the booming voice as best I could and began to look around the room. I was sitting in the last row, all the way to the left. From there I could see just about everyone in my half of the assembly.
    The woman in the front row wearing designer mourning clothes, a dark gray suit with a pale gray blouse, was also dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, only hers seemed to have a lace trim on it. She had to be Arlene Poole, Harry’s sister-in-law. At her left sat a thirty-something woman in a black cloche hat. I couldn’t see much of her face, but I could see the utter perfection of her blond hair and just about a thousand dollars worth of her pearl necklace. To Arlene’s right was her son, the young man who had corrected the speaker’s error, seated again now. A shock of his blond hair kept falling into his eyes, and he’d periodically swing his head to knock it back into place. He didn’t have a handkerchief in his hands, but when he turned toward his mother to catch something she was whispering, I saw that his lips were pursed in annoyance. Hey, he might have given up a tennis date for this, and it wasn’t as if Uncle Harry could even appreciate, or reward, his sacrifice.
    Or perhaps his lips were pursed for another reason. Perhaps Bailey Poole was impatient to inherit what would have been his had the original will not been superseded by a later version, a substantial amount of money—enough, I’d say, so that he’d never have to miss a tennis date again.
    Of course, all was not lost. The new will left Bailey one of Harry’s cars, the beautiful racing green Jag that probably spent half its life at the shop getting its timing adjusted, but hey, you got a Jag, that’s to be expected. Which may be why Harry had several other cars.
    Oddly enough, there had been no chauffeur waiting out front the last day that Harry had headed home, the day he was hit by a bicycle and never got to walk over to Fourteenth Street, hop on the subway, and ride to his apartment on the Upper East Side.
    And Janice Poole, I wondered if her lips were pursed too. Instead of inheriting a trust fund that would let her spend her summers in France and might inspire her next husband, should there be one, to retire before he reached his fortieth birthday, Janice was getting some of the lovely antique furniture from Harry’s apartment, French pieces that might not even be to her taste. C’est la vie.
    But I didn’t think they knew that yet. Just as I didn’t think Eli Kagan knew what was in the new will. I was only sure that one other person here had read the will, the person who had hired me because she thought her life might be in danger. A good guess from where I sat, still angry over her sin of omission.
    I looked around for the Kagans, but I couldn’t see Samuel, so I assumed they were on the other side of the room. What would they be thinking if they knew what I knew? Even if all three of them turned out to be saints, I didn’t think they’d be particularly happy with the new arrangements for Harbor View, those putting Venus White in charge of operations, those requiring Eli Kagan, when he needed something, to have to get approval from a former employee.
    The eulogy was coming to a crescendo, the stentorious voice even louder than it had been at the onset, the talk more about the eloquence of the speaker than the accomplishments of the deceased and, as far as I was concerned, much too annoying and much too long.
    Everyone was standing, so I stood too, just hanging back