States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

of death, I will fear no evil…” chants the crowd, an onyx wave of sorrow, sniffling, and muffled sobbing all around.

Amens said, the Price family files out of the front pew, led by the minister. Serena’s mother, a slender woman in a black dress and pearls, propped up by her husband who’s blinking back tears. Mrs. Price couldn’t be much older than I am, but the loss of her daughter is aging her in front of all of our eyes. A silent throng follows, row by row, heads bowed.

Outside, Serena’s parents are receiving condolences from a long line of mourners. I choose a spot under the thick canopy of a gumbo limbo tree, its tangled, leafy limbs offering cover from which to observe the crowd milling around on the sidewalk. Hugs are exchanged, tissues dug from pockets. A group of younger children flies across the street to play in a park beside the New River, their bright, open faces untouched by the day.

“I remember when my Joey died,” Vinnie says, his voice shaky. “I couldn’t understand why life, why everything, just kept going on around me as if nothing had happened. The world should have stopped. He was a boy, my boy. That should’ve counted for something.”

I hook my arm through his and rub his sun-spotted hand. “Death knows not justice nor fairness,” I tell him, the phrase I used in anger at the memorial services for my fallen squadron mates. If I had to look their wives in the face and explain why their husbands, my brethren, were not coming home, why they were blown to bits by an IED on a dusty highway in Fallujah on the way to pick up Easter decorations, and why I was the only one of us to come home alive, then I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to be angry at God. At the world.

I push the memory from my mind and turn my attention to a young man wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, surrounded by a throng of teens. He’s handsome, not in the teen idol way, but in the way that portends good looks once he’s grown into himself. His sandy hair is parted on the side, but his curls are having none of it, drooping this way and that, all over his face.

“The center of attention and upset. I bet you this month’s rent that’s Joe.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t pay rent, remember?” Vinnie wipes his nose on a handkerchief, the old-fashioned, fabric kind.

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

He closes one eye. “And you never will. Not as long as I’m still breathing.”

A few latecomers jockey for position to get close to Joe.

“Funny how people get some weird kind of enjoyment from being close to suffering,” I say. “Maybe it’s a ‘But for the grace of God’ thing. Me, I want to get as far away as possible from it.”

He holds a finger in the air as if he’s seeing which way the wind is blowing. “Schadenfreude,” he says, clearly amused at himself.

“You’re kidding me?”

“It means you like to watch others squirm, see them—”

I pinch him in the side. “I know what schadenfreude means. Yale then Columbia, remember? How about you?”

He dusts some non-existent debris from the shoulder of his jacket. “Hey, I read.”

“You never cease to surprise me, Vin.”

“It’s what I live for.”

A duck boat overflowing with tourists docks on the far side of the park. “Over there, in that mega mansion designed to look like Versailles, is where Walter Hall lives,” the tour guide announces over the PA system. “He used to be in the garbage business, founded Waste General and 24 Hour Video. And he owns part of the Dolphins.” The tourists crane their necks and ooh and aah.

“Only in South Florida,” I say. “Death with dignity is no match for tourism.”

We wait in the shade for several minutes until the crowd disperses, some into waiting limousines, others their own cars.

“You wait here,” I tell him, and trail Joe to a black Land Rover.

“Excuse me.”

The young man pivots slowly to reveal bloodshot eyes.

“Are you Joe Harper? I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

A look of recognition flashes across his face. “Hey, I saw you on TV. You’re Zoe’s lawyer.”

“Grace Locke,” I say, pressing one of my business cards into his hand.

He stuffs the card in his pocket.

“Joe, were you with Zoe the morning Brandon Sinclair was killed?”

He squirms a little inside the ill-fitting dark suit likely bought for this, and only this, occasion. “Yeah, I was. I wondered when someone was going to come around asking about that.”

Stunned, I take a step back. “You were? You were actually with Zoe?”

He shifts from one foot to the other. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Ah, well, yes…It’s just— Well, that’s what Zoe said.”

“I figured she would, but when no one came to speak to me. I figured she told the cops but they didn’t believe her, or something like that. Or maybe they just hadn’t got around to it yet.” He casts an arm in the direction of the hearse, its cargo hidden from view by black curtains. “And then this happened, and I started thinking maybe she did kill Sinclair somehow, that the cops got the time it happened wrong.”

“Come on. Given what you just told me, that Zoe was with you, do you really believe she could have killed them both?”

“They were both killed the same way. And the guns had her prints on them, for God’s sake. At least, that’s what they said on the news.”

I bite my lip and let him talk.

“Then there’s the fact she’s a little crazy, and she sure as hell is the jealous type. She went ballistic when she found out I was with Serena.” He climbs into the Land Rover. “I have to go.”

I barricade myself between the door and the car. “Joe, I’m not here to argue the facts with you, but, assuming Zoe did want Serena dead for whatever reason, why