The Almost Sisters(56)

“Good grief—Mrs. Mack, is it? Your Cody is a morbid fellow,” Rachel said. Her height let her peer over Birchie’s shoulder. “Gravestone rubbings? That sounds like the world’s worst Pinterest board.”

It was weak, but at least Rachel still had a pulse.

“Are you going to give us a bulletin?” I snapped at Gayle Beckworth. “Birchie needs to go sit down.”

I’d broken into a thin, slick sweat myself, and it wasn’t only from being held captive in the early-summer sun. If Birchie had come here to take the town’s temperature, then she was sure getting her answer. It was hot, and getting hotter. She’d let Martina’s accusation stand unchallenged, and now it was growing Southern Baptist–hellfire hot.

“But why didn’t you bring his body home?” Martina asked so very loudly. “You Birches are like our very own First Family here,” and she couldn’t help letting a little Mack bitterness be present in those words. I wanted to step in harder, but I was scared. I had no idea how reliable her information was.

If the bones belonged to Ellis Birch, then had Birchie . . . ? My mind balked, unwilling to go down that road. But I needed to say something. I was genuinely scared of what the Lewy bodies might have Birchie do if Martina kept pushing. I risked a glance at my grandmother and saw that her nostrils had flared delicately. Stress made Birchie worse, and oh, but this was stressful. Around us I could hear people whispering in a wind of breathy words.

Martina stepped in closer still, cleared her throat, and said, “Your daddy is the only Birch not in your family crypt right here in Birchville.”

Wattie had Birchie’s arm, and I could see her hand tightening, both a reminder of her presence and a warning. Birchie gave Wattie’s hand a reassuring pat and smiled her sweetest.

“I am a Birch,” my grandmother said, loud as Martina but in a brave, clear tone. “I am a Birch, and I am not inside that crypt.”

She didn’t say, Not yet.

She didn’t have to say it to remind everyone that she was sick. More than sick. Dying. And here was known jackass Martina Mack making her stand out on the stairs with the summer sun already beating down upon her head.

“Let her in!” said Mrs. Partridge, stern, but no one else spoke.

“Come on,” Wattie said, soft in Birchie’s ear.

Wattie moved them forward in tandem. Martina backstepped in a little skip that defied her age, and Wattie had to stop again. It was either stop or push a small, old, vicious lady backward onto her ass.

“Don’t you dare herd me,” said Martina Mack to Wattie in a tone she never would have dared to use on Birchie. Her cold amphibian eyes scraped over Wattie, the way a stick scraped at gum stuck to a shoe. “Don’t you herd me on the steps of my own church!”

“This is her church as well,” Birchie said. “Every other week.”

But it wasn’t. I could feel it wasn’t. Especially not today. I could feel the ripple of movement and negation that ran through the crowd.

“Oh, Miss Wattie, your poor knees! Come inside and sit down. Miss Birchie, you need to get out of this sun!” Polly Fincher said, shoving her way through to us, breathless. She had abandoned both her kids with her husband and come charging up the stairs from the other side. She shot a withering glance at Martina Mack and added, “Aren’t you supposed to be handing out the bulletins?”

Cody Mack appeared in the doorway beside Gayle. He was stuffed into a shiny, turd-brown suit instead of his uniform. He stared at us from just inside the narthex, and then he came joggling forward, pushing his way through people, saying, “Gran! Gran!”

He took Martina’s arm and pulled her away, practically shooing her on into the sanctuary ahead of us. She went, eyes downcast. He was overflustered, and I realized I ought to be grateful that Martina Mack was such a vicious old crow of a lady.

The cops had found some evidence or gotten some information from the forensic anthropologist that let them draw a line between the bones and Ellis Birch. We weren’t supposed to know this, but Cody hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut, and now Martina had tipped their hand.

Gayle held out a bulletin toward us, two of her fingers pinching the corner, as if she were passing rancid meat to a pack of foul animals.

Birchie fixed her with a gimlet eye and said, “Thank you, dear.”

We passed into the narthex. Today the red walls seemed so garish, bordello bright, and the long teakwood tables by the entries had a green cast to them, almost venomous, and I couldn’t stop asking myself, was it true?

Birchie had insisted that I already knew who was in that trunk.

I told you the first night you were here, she had said. I told you at dinner.

I hadn’t had a clue what she was talking about, not then. But now? Martina Mack’s insinuations were causing connections. My first night, over the Cornish game hens and the ripe tomato salad, I had asked if Birchie wanted me to take down Ellis’s portrait.

You think it would be that easy to take my father out of this house? Birchie had asked me. You could burn that portrait, but he would still be present.

Sweet God, had she meant it? Literally? If that was Ellis Birch inside the trunk, then she’d been very right; getting him out had taken all three of the male Darians, a stolen car, and the police. I was shaking my head in an inadvertent no.

Polly Fincher was practically dragging us through the narthex toward the sanctuary now. People we’d known for years milled and morphed in a herd, some trying to get away from us, some trying to get closer to look at us. It was like slogging through upset human mud.