At First Sight

Chapter 31

A FLASH OF LIGHTNING LIT THE DARKENING AFTERNOON sky. Chick looked small as he stood at graveside in his black pinstriped suit. When he finally spoke, his voice was so weak I had to lean forward to hear him.

"As I stand here, looking across this casket, I am shocked that such a small container could be the final resting place for somebody so important in my life."

More lightning, this time followed by the distant roar of thunder. I saw Chick hesitate. His shoulders slumped. Silence followed the rumbling of the storm. Then he straightened and seemed to gain enough strength to continue.

"Eighteen years ago, Evelyn and I agreed to be a team, a partnership. Agreed to share our lives together. She was the visionary, I was the student. Through the years, that never changed. As I stand here today, it seems all wrong that I should be the survivor and she the departed. Why did God take the teacher and leave the struggling student behind?"

Distant lightning flashed, more thunder, and then the rain started. This weather was uncharacteristic for L. A. in the fall, but the storm had blown in overnight, unannounced. People opened umbrellas and inched in closer around the grave to get under the tent that had been set up to shade five rows of wooden chairs from what the mortuary had assumed would be another sunny California day. The mourners turned up their coat collars and waited, their eyes turned on Evelyn's grieving husband. Chick's daughter, Melissa, stood on the edge of the crowd. She was wearing jeans and didn't seem to be paying any attention to her father.

I stood halfway down the gravesite, on the west side, just under the canvas tent. I felt a gust of wet wind blowing moisture onto my legs. As Chick struggled to get through the eulogy he seemed close to tears.

"Words are not adequate to carry the emotional weight of this day. I know what I want to say, but I find myself struggling to find ways to communicate it to you. My vocabulary just isn't adequate. Words cannot express my horrible sense of loss. But words are all I have so I have been trying to choose the right ones.

"There are five that seem especially relevant. Five words to try and mark the gravity of this moment. The first, of course, is 'loss.' You see, I've lost my best friend. I've lost my rudder. I've lost my teacher. I've lost the meaning for my life. I keep trying to believe it hasn't happened. I keep trying to deny it. You see, I've lost just about everything but my beautiful daughter, Melissa, so 'loss' is the first word."

I saw Melissa look down at her shoes and frown. Chick started to sob. Then with great effort, he pulled himself back together. It was a monumental struggle, which, after almost two minutes, he finally won.

"Loneliness," he began again, "a word that describes an emptiness so desperate that my mind reels above its dark caverns. But then when I least expect it, loneliness is pushed aside and suddenly it's replaced with anger. The anger frightens me because it seems the wrong emotion in the wake of Evelyn's passing, but it's there nonetheless, redefining the way I must now deal with myself. So like it or not, 'anger' is the third word."

He paused and looked very small, very fragile. I remembered having these same feelings of anger at Chandler's funeral. All of this was discussed in the book on grief I had with me. The five stages of grief were denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. I made a mental note to give the book to Chick.

'Memory,'" he said softly. "I remember all the things she did, all the examples she set, all the ways she taught me to be stronger. My memory tortures me. It depresses me. It will not release me from this pain I feel."

He started to choke up again and had to wait for almost a minute more before continuing. "As I look across this casket, all I want is to crawl inside and be with her. I want to go where she is going because, from now on, I know my life will be little more than a pale shadow of what it once was. As I stand here I can't even begin to contemplate the horror of going on without her."

And now, for some reason, Chick looked directly at me. "You all loved her as I loved her," he said. "You saw her gentleness and caring. You saw Evelyn the teacher, or Evelyn the leader. You saw her strength, her good deeds. You saw her devotion to life and to her friends. So the last word is 'promise: You were her dear friends, so as her friends I make this solemn promise to you all."

He stopped and swung his gaze away from me, looking at each face gathered before him. "I promise to be a better man. All of my choices will be nobler, more giving, more aware. I will struggle to do more for others and worry less about myself. I know I am forced to live on, but I will never be the same. Pray for me as I take this path. Pray for both our spirits as we both begin our new separate journeys. Pray for Evelyn Sheridan Best as she goes to a better place, and pray for me as I must find a way to continue on earthbound and alone."

When he finished, he was crying. I felt Chandler in those words. Like Chick, I was unable to fill the hole Chandler had left in my life and in my heart. I had also looked at his coffin and had thought, "He was so much larger than that. How did he fit in there?"

After the funeral the rain cleared and we all followed the mortuary limousine over to the Best's house in Beverly Hills. At least a hundred people from the funeral showed up. Waiters in white coats passed champagne and finger foods. Chick was in one corner of the living room, surrounded by friends.

Later, a short, muscular man in a form-fitting T-shirt and black sport jacket descended on me unannounced. "You look like you work out."

I winced at that overused line. "I'm a marathon runner," I replied, wondering how to get away from him.

"Ever lift?"

"No. Could you excuse me for a minute?" I tried to step around him, but he didn't move. He had me trapped in the corner.

"I used to train Evelyn. I'm Mickey DePolina. Everyone calls me Mickey D." He stuck out his muscular hand and shook mine. "You ever want, we could get together and work up a fitness routine-aerobics, even yoga. I do it all. I train over at Gold's in the Valley."

"I'm not from around here. I live back East. I really need to speak to somebody over there. Could you excuse me?"

I finally managed to get around him and find a more protected backwater where I could observe the party without being hassled. The crowd was attractive and upscale, the mood subdued.

I saw Melissa over by the door, keeping to herself. I couldn't help but think that Melissa Best was heading for a big crash. Looking at her, I could see a lot of danger signs. The body piercings, the purple hair. The constant angry scowl.

Then Chick made his way over to me.

"Your words at the funeral were beautiful," I told him.

He nodded and looked around the room. "These people all mean well. I know they want to help, but it feels like I'm putting on a show here. I have to try and be what they want. It's like an obligation." "It gets better," I said.

"You know what I'd like?"

"What?"

"After this is over, I'd like us to just sit in the backyard out by the pool and talk. You've been through this. I really need help getting my head around it."

I didn't answer. Something told me staying after the reception would be a mistake, so I was looking for a polite way to duck him.

"And then tomorrow I've got to go up to our mountain cabin and get some of Evelyn's things out of there for her sister," he continued. "I can't tell you how much I'm dreading that project. That was… that was the place where… where we… " and then he put his hand up to his eyes and just stood there.

"Oh Chick, I'm so sorry," I said, feeling a wave of guilt. "Look, if it will help, I'll stay for a little while after your other friends leave. Melissa, you, and I could just sit and talk."

"I think Melissa has some plans for tonight." Then he shook his head. "I feel like such a putz, breaking down, crying all the time. I gotta get a grip on myself. I'm not usually such a weepy guy?'

"There's nothing wrong with crying, Chick. Please don't apologize:'

He nodded, and then someone was spinning him around-the bodybuilder in the black T-shirt and jacket. He was saying something about wanting to buy gym equipment, so I moved off.

I wandered around for a while but I didn't know any of the other people and basically kept to myself. A little while later I went outside to get some air. I noticed a man looking at a gold Mercedes parked behind the garage. I guessed it was Evelyn's car. The one she was murdered in. It seemed sort of macabre having it parked back here. I walked up and looked over the man's shoulder. He sensed me standing behind him and turned around.

"Hi," he said. He was remarkably handsome, olive skin, square jaw, complete with a deep cleft in his chin. His blue suit fit him perfectly, set off by a yellow shirt and striped blue and yellow tie. His shoes were blood-red Oxfords, buffed to a high shine.

"Hi." I hesitated and then asked him, "Was this the car?" "Yep."

"Don't the police hold a car where a murder was committed until after the trial?" I said. "Isn't it part of the crime scene or something?"

The man put out his hand. "I'm the detective assigned to the murder. Apollo Demetrius, LAPD."

"Paige Ellis, friend from out of town." I shook his hand.

"Once our forensic and print teams are finished and our chain of evidence is intact, the courts don't need the car. We could have kept it in impound if it was a junker, but with an expensive rig like this, we'll often cut it loose. Chick wanted it back. I think he's going to sell it."

"I heard you got the guy," I said.

"Yep. Delroy Washington. We ought to get that brain-dead banger on America's Dumbest Criminals. He left prints all over the car, all over the murder weapon, left the gun right where he ditched the vehicle after he stripped it. Bunch of carjack priors, all violent. At worst, it's a special-circumstances, murder-one, death-penalty case. At the very least, life without parole."

"My husband was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Charlotte, North Carolina, earlier this year. They still haven't solved it." It just came out. I didn't even know why I said it.

"You have to get a little lucky sometimes. But this guy Delroy was so sloppy he might as well have mailed me an invitation to the murder?'

"It's really helped Chick, I think, that you caught him."

"Chick seems like a good guy. At first, I wasn't so sure. But I've been around him a lot the past few days and he seems okay."

Then the detective smiled at me. "Since you've just been through the same thing with your husband, maybe you can help him."

"Maybe so," I finally said.