The funeral director, spiffy in his traditional black suit and as waxy-faced as one of his own clients, worked the room with patting hands and sober eyes. Eve thought she’d rather have a corpse sit up and grin at her than listen to his platitudes.
“Why don’t we go talk to the family together?”
It was hard for him, but Feeney nodded, set the untouched coffee aside. “He liked you, Dallas. ‘That kid’s got balls of steel and a mind to match,’ he used to tell me. He always said if he was ever jammed, you’d be the one he’d want guarding his back.”
It surprised and pleased her, and it simultaneously added to her sorrow. “I didn’t realize he thought of me that way.”
Feeney looked at her. She had an interesting face, not one he’d have called a heart-stopper, but it usually made a man look twice with its angles and sharp bones, the shallow dent in the chin. She had cop’s eyes, intense and measuring, and he often forgot they were a dark golden brown. Her hair was the same shade, cut short and badly in need of some shaping. She was tall and lean and tough-bodied.
He remembered it had been less than a month since he had come across her, battered and bloodied. But her weapon had been firm in her hand.
“He thought of you that way. So do I.” While she blinked at him, Feeney squared his hunched shoulders. “Let’s talk to Sally and the kids.”
They slipped through the crowd jammed together in a room oppressed with dark simulated wood, heavy red draperies, and the funereal smell of too many flowers crammed into too small a space.
Eve wondered why viewings of the dead were always accompanied by flowers and draping sheets of red. What ancient ceremony did it spring from, and why did the human race continue to cling to it?
She was certain that when her time came, she wouldn’t chose to be laid out for study by her loved ones and associates in an overheated room where the pervasive scent of flowers was reminiscent of rot.
Then she saw Sally, supported by her children and her children’s children, and realized such rites were for the living. The dead were beyond caring.
“Ryan.” Sally held out her hands—small, almost fairylike hands—and lifted her cheek to Feeney’s. She held there a moment, her eyes closed, her face pale and quiet.
She was a slim, soft-spoken woman who Eve had always thought of as delicate. Yet a cop’s spouse who had survived the stress of the job for more than forty years had to have steel. Against her plain black dress she wore her husband’s twenty-five-year NYPSD ring on a chain.
Another rite, Eve thought. Another symbol.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Sally murmured.
“I’ll miss him. We’ll all miss him.” Feeney patted her back awkwardly before drawing away. Grief was in his throat, choking him. Swallowing it only lodged it cold and heavy in his gut. “You know if there’s anything…”
“I know.” Her lips curved slightly, and she gave his hand a quick and comforting squeeze before turning to Eve. “I appreciate you coming, Dallas.”
“He was a good man. A solid cop.”
“Yes, he was.” Recognizing it as high tribute, Sally managed a smile. “He was proud to serve and protect. Commander Whitney and his wife are here, and Chief Tibble. And so many others.” Her gaze drifted blindly around the room. “So many. He mattered, Frank mattered.”
“Of course he did, Sally.” Feeney shifted from foot to foot. “You, ah, know about the Survivor’s Fund.”
She smiled again, patted his hand. “We’re fine there. Don’t worry. Dallas, I don’t think you really know my family. Lieutenant Dallas, my daughter Brenda.”
Short, with rounded curves, Eve noted as they clasped hands. Dark hair and eyes, a bit heavy in the chin. Took after her father.
“My son Curtis.”
Slim, small boned, soft hands, eyes that were dry but dazed with grief.
“My grandchildren.”
There were five of them, the youngest a boy of about eight with a pug nose dashed with freckles. He eyed Eve consideringly. “How come you’ve got your zapper on?”
Flustered, Eve tugged her jacket over her side arm. “I came straight from Cop Central. I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
“Pete.” Curtis shot Eve an apologetic wince. “Don’t bother the lieutenant.”
“If people concentrated more on their personal and spiritual powers, weapons would be unnecessary. I’m Alice.”
A slim blonde in black stepped forward. She’d have been a stunner in any case, Eve mused, but having sprung from such basic stock, she was dazzling. Her eyes were a soft, dreamy blue, her mouth full and lush and unpainted. She wore her hair loose so that it rained straight and glossy over the shoulders of her flowing black dress. A thin silver chain fell to her waist. At the end of it was a black stone ringed in silver.