Scratch the Surface

finished composing and dispatching this piece of correspondence, Quinlan Coates’s casket was being carried down the aisle. People rose and began to file out. “Are we going to the cemetery?” Janice asked brightly. “The interment is private,” said Felicity, who had no idea whether or not it really was. “Excuse me. There’s someone I need to speak to. I’ll be right back.”
    By then, the women were outside the church, where clusters of people were lingering. The hearse and one black limousine were at the curb. Felicity rapidly made her way toward the limousine and thus toward William Coates, who was gazing at the gray November sky while moving his feet back and forth on the concrete as if trying to scrape something off the soles of his shoes.
    Felicity introduced herself, but sensing that William Coates wouldn’t return a handshake, did not offer one. “I’m very sorry about your father.”
    “I’m not,” he said.
    “Well, in case you’re concerned about his cats, I wanted you to know that they’re safe. I have them.”
    “Keep them. He treated every cat he ever owned a lot better than he treated me.”
    It occurred to Felicity that if Quinlan Coates had hated cats, he might have been the perfect match for her mother. Now was not, however, the time to organize a support group for adult children whose parents didn’t like them. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.
    “Were you a friend of his?”
    “I never met him.”
    “You didn’t miss much. Well, thanks for coming.”
    “You’re welcome,” she said.
    As she walked away from William Coates, she experienced a disconcerting sense of gratitude toward her mother, who had had the decency to insist on good manners. Preoccupied, she nearly bumped into Detective Dave Valentine, who wore a dark suit and looked well groomed in some male fashion that Felicity couldn’t identify: Had he had a haircut?
    Fresh from her encounter with William Coates, she exclaimed, “What a rude man!”
    “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Valentine said.
    “I felt as though I should come.”
    “It was nice of you. Look, this is an awkward time, but there’s something I need to ask you about your uncle and aunt. The Robertsons.”
    “Yes?”
    “You told me they were killed in a car accident.”
    “They were.”
    “By a drunk driver.”
    “Yes.”
    “There was a little something you didn’t mention.” Felicity silently gazed into Valentine’s eyes, which the cloudy sky had turned an especially attractive shade of blue.
    “The little something,” Valentine continued, “concerns the drunk driver.”
    “Yes.”
    “The driver in question was Robert Robertson.”
    “Yes,” Felicity agreed, “the drunk driver was Uncle Bob himself.”
     

 
    The funeral left Felicity in a foul mood. As she changed out of her blue suit and into corduroy pants and an old sweater, she glared at her unmade bed and cursed herself for having skipped the housework to concentrate on her appearance. For all the good it had done to fuss with her hair, her makeup, and her outfit! Rather than inviting her out to dinner, or at least flirting with her, Dave Valentine had caught her in a stupid lie. Furthermore, he’d seen her with Janice and Sonya, and he’d probably overheard the silly whispering of women acting like schoolgirls. William Coates had been horrible, particularly because his antagonism toward his father had reminded her of hers toward her mother. As material for a writer, the church and the priest had been useless.
    The funeral had been brief and nearby, and it was only quarter of twelve. Still, the bed should have been made by now, and the presence of both cats on the rumpled comforter was uncomfortably reminiscent of the dishevelment of Quinlan Coates’s apartment. Was it slovenly to let cats sleep on the bed? Felicity felt incapable of shooing them off. When she removed the pillows and yanked the top sheet and blanket toward the headboard, Brigitte, as if recognizing the start of a delightful game, began tearing around the room, leaping off and on the bed, and diving under the sheet. The large and stolid Edith, however, remained where she was, in the exact center of the bed, and her weight made it almost impossible to straighten the covers. Felicity, who was too intimidated to remove Edith, settled for pulling hard on the covers with both hands. She then plumped and replaced the pillows, but when she neatly folded over the top of the comforter,