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Excerpt from Sweet Cream Ladies, Ltd. with Modifications to Create "Stand Alone" Short Story.
December 20th and the weather was acting as if it were Halloween. Beautiful, abundant sunshine; with temps hovering on the good side of sixty. Even the trees at the Peaceful Shades of Harmony Cemetery located just outside of Hoboken, New Jersey were flashing colors that had no business being seen after November the First anywhere north of Georgia.
Babs glared at a particularly bright evergreen that was living up to its name. “Blech. Bad enough it’s a gorgeous day. Why does this look like a Technicolor romantic movie set? It should be pounding rain and sleet and possibly large pieces of hail piercing that ridiculously wasteful mahogany casket holding the dear departed as he’s lowered to what will doubtless be his reward way Down Under and I don’t mean Australia.”
“Shssh. Durn, Babs. He was a slime but I suppose some respect should be shown at his funeral. Not to mention if Detective Laramie hears you, we won’t get to listen to the choir sing How Great Thou Art, which I'm sure Afterlife Clayton Harrison believes applies to him.”
She snorted. “You’re right about Laramie. As to respect? Clayton is just lucky his only daughter is at a stage of pregnancy where the docs say ‘no flying’, so I’m her proxy. And the choir would be better served doing a little ‘You’re so Vain,’ or ‘Before He Cheats.'"
I nodded. “That last one is perfect. I mean, ‘Before He Cheats’ is an awesomely wonderful song, but a bit of a misnomer with the word ‘before’ since Clayton Harrison started cheating on you—when? About five days after you were married?”
“Try the day after. We had to wait to go on the honeymoon because Mr. Miser Harrison Esquire got a better deal for the week after we were married. So, we went to a downtown Atlanta hotel, where my maid of honor decided not to act honorably and hooked up with the new groom while I was out shopping for bikinis I didn’t want to don anyway.”
She lowered her voice when a well-dressed woman who looked about twenty-three glared at her. “Ah. Miss Tammy Tarantella. The latest in a long line of bimbos.”
“Wait. Did you say Tarantella? Like the dance? Seriously? I did the tarantella as part of a pirates’ crew in a musical version of Peter Pan in summer stock about six years ago.”
Babs right eyebrow lifted. “I’m going to ignore that. But, Ms. Tarantella is definitely a mover. She’s just lucky Clay died before she could marry him, since he was relatively decent to women before they walked down an aisle with him. Then again, I’ve heard tales that Miss Tammy was out to marry anything with a pulse and a bank account, so they might have been perfect for each other.” She sighed. “I shall try to refrain from informing everyone here about what a total abusive, cheating, lying toad the soon-to-be nasty, rotting worm-food truly was.”
“Honey, with that air-tight casket and the make-up job he doubtless got at the funeral home, he’ll look better than the bimbo in twenty years.”
I couldn’t help staring at Tammy Tarantella. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the perfect figure, i.e. thin except for boobs that must be fake to be that high and perky. Dressed in a black sheath dress with a black lightweight long jacket, designer black shoes and a very large black lace hat that screamed, “garden party Mississippi 1860.” She was staring at us. No, actually, she was only staring at Babs. Her expression was less-than-pleasant.
“Why is she glaring at you? You and Clay haven’t been married for years.”
“Oh. Isn’t it obvious? She’s heard I’m the one responsible for feeding Clay to the jaws of the mechanical shark at the special effects museum, thereby hastening his appearance before St. Peter, before she got her wish to become the fifth Mrs. Harrison. Or is it sixth? I lost count after three since I was so thrilled with never having to share a home, dinner, or anything else with the man. Yippee!”
“Sshh.”
We grinned at each other, which drew more frowns from the crowd gathered around the draped coffin holding Clayton. We immediately drew on years of acting classes and dramatic productions to plaster appropriately somber expressions on our faces. Tammy sent one more searing, scowling look our way, then hid her face in an enormous lace handkerchief that was only eclipsed by the gargantuan black lace hat perched on her head.
“I love her hat, “I whispered. “I want it. But I wouldn’t waste it on funerals. I’d wear that sucker down to the deli whenever I was in the mood for a nice pastrami on rye. Or simply stroll down Fifth Avenue for hours.”
“Sounds good right now. The pastrami; not the walk. Okay. I’m getting bored. Are they ever going to get Clayton into the ground so we can get out of here? Bad enough listening to this preacher, who’d obviously never had the pleasure of meeting Clayton Harrison the Third in person, wax far too eloquently back at the church about the sorrow he assumed everyone was feeling, but I swear the good reverend has now hit every psalm and proverb translated. I want food. I want alcoholic beverages. And somehow I can’t see Tammy trotting over to invite us to her after-funeral shindig.”
“Ya think?” I glanced away from the heartbroken histrionics currently on display by Clay’s latest, and ultimately last, mistress. “I don’t even care about chowing down. I just want out before we’re hauled in for another interrogation marathon instigated by Detective Sebastian Laramie. That is one suspicious cop. He keeps looking this way. I can’t believe he made the trek to Jersey so he could watch our reactions to all the ridiculous lies told about what a wonderful person Clayton was. We’d already told him we couldn’t stand the man. Is he waiting for a confession or something?”
Babs nodded but kept the motion small to keep other mourners from noticing at least two members of those gathered to wish Clay a fond farewell (us) were not behaving with proper decorum. “I'm still convinced Laramie likes you—as a woman and not a suspect and that’s why he’s here. Of course, he has plenty of reasons to be suspicious—at least of me.”
“I don’t know, Babs. I’m looking around here and I see more than one face less than devastated about Clayton’s demise. Since your ex was . . . “
“The meanest, lyingest, cheatingest, pond-sucking scumbag in the entire Northeast and Mid-Atlantic?”
“Pretty much. “I paused, then grumbled, “Uh oh.”
“Hmm?”
“Laramie is headed this way. Either he’s going to arrest us for bad manners at a funeral or he believes we’re returning to the scene of the crime and is going to haul us in.”
“This isn’t the scene of the crime, Bootsie. That was a fake shark tank with lethal teeth and jaws on display at Hollywood FX.”
I waved her off. “Semantics. You know what I mean.”
“I do. Look, let’s book it. I’ve done my duty to my daughter. I can tell her I went to the church and prayed for her father’s soul, which needed more redemption than a few Hail Mary’s even with my best bud Bootsie the occasionally-practicing Irish Catholic chiming in. I’m not sure why we came to the cemetery anyway.”
“Because we got a ride from Jason Leder, who is standing solidly waiting for the last hurrah to be hurrahed and we can’t leave unless we want to walk about fifteen painful miles to the nearest transit to Manhattan,” I stated.
“Betcha Detective Laramie would give us a ride back.”
The man himself arrived by my side as Babs was musing about the prospect. He nodded to both of us, then quietly said, “I would be more than happy to provide you ladies with transport back to the city.”
“Ah, but at what price?” I muttered.
“No charge.”
“Other than grilling us as we wind our way through the Holland Tunnel?”
“Now, now. Would I take advantage of the grieving widow and her loyal companion at a moment like this?”
I narrowed my eyes while Babs tried not to snort too audibly. “I have several responses to that comment, Detective, but out of respect for the folks visiting loved ones at Peaceful Shades of Harmony I shall not raise my voice to the heavens and shout them at you.”
Babs added, “I’m not his stinkin’ widow anyway. He married at least four more times after we divorced.”
“Any of the other Mrs. Harrisons here?” Laramie inquired.
“No way. They hated him as much as I did. I’m only here since Clay’s only child, who also happens to be my only child, couldn’t come. But…you want motive? Check with one or more of the other Harrison widows. Or for that matter ask Jason Leder. Who was Clay’s law partner for the last thirty years and who doubtless will make a potful off of the insurance from Clay’s death and who despised his partner personally but stayed in the partnership because Clay was a far-too-brilliant attorney and made their entertainment firm an indecently enormous amount of money. Which, I might add, neither I, nor the other Mrs. Harrison’s ever saw. Or ask his male paralegal whose wife Clay was clandestinely adding to his rotation of women on a regular basis. All viable suspects.”
Sebastian glanced at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t look at me, Detective Laramie. Thankfully, I was never married to Clay Harrison. He was a mean miserly s.o.b. who barely allowed me into their home to see Babs before they split.”
Sebastian stared at me. “Sounds as if Babs isn’t the only member of your small club to have detested Harrison and wanted to see him dead.”
My eyes widened and my jaw literally dropped. But it wasn’t in response to Sebastian’s comment.
“Oh. My. God.”
Sebastian and Babs both stared at me. “What.”
I pointed. Sebastian and Babs turned.
I was facing the area underneath the tent where the minister, Tammy, Jason Leder, and the five other pallbearers “privileged” to be part of Clay Harrison’s funeral party stood, which was a few feet away from the white-cloth draped coffin that held the deceased. The preacher and most of the crowd were intoning the 23rd Psalm with mouths of the living moving and heads bowed.
Except for one. The mouth was moving, but not in prayer.
A pudgy, very cute, very lively ,red squirrel had made its way to the top of Clay Harrison’s coffin. He held a small acorn between even smaller paws and was in the process of gnawing while eyeing the humans around him with an air of someone whose lunch was being disturbed with all this durned speechifying.
What could be described as mildly comic rapidly turned into sheer farce.
Tammy Tarantella started it. She raised her head and aimed a piercing look at the squirrel clearly meant to command, “move it or lose it."
The squirrel returned the look with one of sheer antipathy.
Tammy’s lips pursed. Using her black prayer book she attempted to unobtrusively motion the squirrel to remove its offensive presence from the top of the coffin before it either spread nut crumbs or made little squirrel poopies on the expensive white fabric covering the mahogany finish.
The squirrel calmly bit into the acorn. It paused. A light came into the dark eyes. With what appeared to be total malice aforethought, it raised its paws and threw the acorn directly at Tammy. Tammy shrieked right in the middle of “thou annointest my head with oil.” The squirrel snickered, then began to scamper from one end of the coffin to the other.
By this time everyone who was in attendance at Clayton Harrison’s funeral was following the action with great interest and varying degrees of amusement.
Tammy angrily removed her black lace hat and the silver hatpin anchoring it to her head. Holding the pin in her right hand like a Bowie knife, and her hat in her left like a shield, she stalked toward the coffin.
The squirrel stopped at the south end of the expensive casket, then casually turned its back on the big mean human. Its bushy red tail rose high into the air as it leaned down and mooned her. Tammy threw her hat to the ground and began shouting obscenities at the furry rodent who’d brought a stash of acorns with him when he first decided to use Clay’s coffin as a lunch counter. Acorns flew with deadly accuracy at Tammy who rapidly lost control of herself and the situation and pounced on top of Clay’s coffin, jabbing wildly in an attempt to commit scirusicide with a hatpin. Which was when the squirrel jumped up, landed on Tammy’s head, and tugged at her hair.
Before Tammy could lose all her lovely blonde curls, Jason Leder, the preacher, and three stalwart pallbearers joined the fray by lunging across the coffin. They succeeded in stripping the white cloth off the coffin and banging their knuckles on the hard wood. One of them disentangled the squirrel from Tammy’s head.
The squirrel leapt to the ground. Tammy saw her chance. She removed one of her five-inched stiletto pumps and threw it at the squirrel. Missed by a good two feet. The squirrel grinned and swished its tail.
A now truly enraged— and possibly deranged—Tammy removed the other shoe and attempted to drive a spike through the squirrel’s head. She tripped on the white cloth the pallbearers had dislodged from the top of Clay’s casket and ended up sliding like a runner stealing home perilously close to the open hole awaiting that coffin. The squirrel pranced over to her and stared down into her face. He seemed to focus on Tammy’s black lace hat. Ignoring his chance to bite, spit or do other physical damage to his new enemy, he grabbed the hat in his two tiny paws.
He ducked under the hat. He sped off.
Fifty people watched a black lace garden hat dart from headstone to headstone. All that could be seen under the hat was a swishing red tail.
My ribs were in pain from the laughter I’d unsuccessfully attempted to stifle. Sebastian’s lip was bleeding where he’d bit it to contain his own merriment.
Babs flashed a beatific smile, then solemnly proclaimed, “I now have the epitaph for Clayton’s headstone.
‘Behaved like a white shark in life. Eaten by a mechanical grey shark in death. And upstaged at his own funeral by a chubby red squirrel in a large black lace hat.’”
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Flo Fitzpatrick
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