I Hate Funerals

I don’t want to ever lose a friend again. I don’t want to have my heart pulled out through my throat again. I don’t want to watch them die again. Please, God, is that too much to ask?

8:00 p.m.

I feel so miserable. It’s not enough that I had to go say goodbye to Angel, I had to deal with all the drama, too.

The funeral was at 1:00. I guess they set these times so people can take a late lunch and still get back to work for most of the afternoon. I went into the office with Maizie after stopping for a cookie for her at Tovoni’s. Cinnamon was already at her desk, dressed in the same black dress she wore to Dag’s service. I was hardly in the door before she was up and hugging me. It’s been so stressful lately that we really haven’t connected at the office. First the mad dash halfway around the world, then Angel getting Brenda and Cinnamon into the condo and Brenda and Angel going off the roof. I thought I’d healed when we took Dag’s ashes to Deception Point, but then we still had to deal with Angel’s service.

Cinnamon and I talked for a long time after we got our eyes dry this morning. It was comforting to focus on business and get an employment agreement signed. She’s been working for me for three weeks and we’ve only been in the office together about three hours. What a great job she did repairing and redecorating after those bastards trashed the place. At the same time, it seems sad that it’s almost like it was never Dag’s office. That said, as long as we can keep from trying to date the same guy, Cinnamon and I will get along just great. And I can afford to hire her. That’s what really amazes me.

We tried to eat lunch, but neither of us was all that hungry, so we dropped Maizie back at my apartment and went to the funeral home out in Kirkland. Why is it that I never thought about Angel having parents and siblings? My God! they were everywhere. And everyone of them was six feet tall and blonde. Cinnamon and I slipped in and sat in the back after we paid our respects. It wasn’t long before Delta, Traci, and Jasmine joined us. Half a dozen of the other girls from the Condo showed up eventually. None of the men who went to the condo showed up, of course, except Geoff. He said the other members of the committee were all attending Brenda’s funeral which had been set to coincide with Angel’s. Geoff figures his cover is pretty well blown now anyway, so he didn’t feel an obligation to join the execs. Then Davy came in. He was pretty broken up. Those were real tears. I don’t know how they managed their relationship with Angel and Simon being an item, but he was definitely mourning.

The preacher had just begun (apparently Angel’s family belong to some ultra-fundamental church) when Simon walked in. I think I was the only one who noticed him for a minute because he stood right beside me looking at the front. He didn’t look that good, either. I didn’t know what to think. His wife was being buried in Madison Park and he was here on the other side of the lake at his mistress’s funeral. Then Davy saw him. The guy came tearing down the aisle and tackled Simon—drove him all the way through the door of the chapel and started beating on him. Simon didn’t even raise a hand to protect himself. It was like he was wanting somebody to punish him and Davy was only too happy to be the one. Geoff and a couple of others finally pulled them apart. Then Angel’s two brothers came down the aisle. I tell you, they are as fierce as Davy. One of the grabbed Davy by his belt and collar and threw him out the front door of the chapel. The other got hold of Simon, who could barely stand, and gave him a shove toward the door as well.

“Stay out!” one of the brothers shouted at them.

Then they turned around and marched back up the aisle and sat beside their mother. I figured somebody better look after Simon, so I pulled out my cell phone to call 911, but I saw that Geoff was standing outside with him and already had his phone out. So, I just sat back down and watched the service.

It’s funny, but from that point on, I was so completely detached from what was going on that I couldn’t tell you word one that the preacher said. And he said a lot more than word one. By the time he was done talking I’d forgotten why we were there. A choir sang and everyone in the chapel got up to file by the casket and greet the family. The casket was closed, thank God. I saw Angel’s dead body from 14 stories up. She wouldn’t want anyone to see her that way.

We left the funeral. Cinnamon surprised me by saying she was going to go to the cemetery for the burial and she had a ride with Delta. I declined to go (I think Cinnamon knew I would), and got in my car, complete with its shiny new tabs on the license plate. I turned my phone on and saw that I had four messages. The first was from Geoff saying that Simon had been taken to Evergreen Hospital. The next three were from Simon. His first just said, “I’m so sorry.” The next two asked me to come to the emergency room at Evergreen and get him out of there. Please.

I don’t like Simon. I don’t like what he stood for or how he abandoned Angel. But the guy paid me a million bucks last month and I figured the least I could do was collect him from the hospital and take him home. His home.

“I never liked that punk,” Simon said as soon as I saw him. They’d patched up his face, including a dozen stitches around his left eye. He moaned as he got off the table and tried to put his coat on. He finally let me settle it over his shoulders and hobbled out to the desk. It took him some time before he got things squared away with the payment desk, but he finally turned and followed me to my car. Maybe I’m just cold, but I didn’t offer to let him lean on me. Some part of me had been cheering Davy. Don’t get me wrong, I’d have cheered Simon if he’d landed a few on the ex-Marine. I haven’t forgotten that Davy was partly responsible for my imprisonment in the condo.

“I need some soup,” he said when we were in the car. “I won’t be able to eat anything else for days.”

“Don’t you have any friends besides me?” I asked. I was being a bitch, but I couldn’t really understand why he would call me to take him home.

“No one I trust,” Simon said. “Did you know that Geoff Gilliam works for FINCen?” Well, that settled it. Geoff’s cover was definitely blown. “I was sure he was one of my wife’s minions. Now he’s telling me I should turn myself in. I gave Jordan Grant all that he wanted from me, and then some. There’s no reason for him to be interested in me anymore, but I guarandamntee you if I hadn’t got out of the hospital when I did, some Fed would be coming around to ask questions about something.”

“If you are setting me up to aide and abet a criminal, I’m headed for the police right now,” I said.

“If the police wanted me, Gilliam wouldn’t have left. I think he just wanted me to go away.”

“Why did you come back?” I asked. “They’re both dead. There’s nothing left for you here.”

“Now there’s a question for you. When I stripped my company and gave away all my money, I left a solid asset base for Brenda to live on,” he said. “Now it seems that I’m her only heir, and she had as much squirreled away that she never told me about as I left for her. I’ve got to dispose of all that now.”

“Oh. The curse of privilege.”

“Two million of undeclared assets in your name is a kind of privilege as well.”

That shut me up. Just a few days ago, Angel brought me one hundred $10,000 cash cards to pay for services to Simon. I locked them in the vault. But how did Simon know that Dag left me a million in a Swiss bank account? Of course. It’s what Simon paid Dag. All of a sudden I felt like a whore.

“Look,” Simon said. “What you’ve got you deserve. I was thankful to you and Dag loved you.” I jerked my head around toward him. “Maybe like a daughter. Anyway, I’m not asking for anything in return for that. As far as I’m concerned, you were on the clock when you got me out of that hospital, and you’re still on the clock if you get me some soup and drop me off at the W. Dag charged $1,000 a day plus expenses. Between the funeral and carting me around, I figure I owe you a day and about $50 for gas. That’s the extent of what I want from you. Someone I can trust to do work if I need work and who gets paid a fair wage for it.”

“I went to the funeral because I liked Angel. I came for you because you were Dag’s friend. I know he would have done it. You don’t need to pay me. Let’s just get your soup and get you out of my life.”

I stopped at a high-class grocery store that had a selection of eight different soups and Simon got something he could eat. I dropped him off at the W Hotel in downtown Seattle with a fervent wish that I’d never see him again.

I pulled away from the curb and headed back toward Queen Anne. That’s when I saw the 11 hundred dollar bills lying on the seat.