The Last Coincidence

Twelve

“The funeral will, of course, be a travesty,” Wolfe observed dryly as I was halfway out the office door. “But you know as well as I do that these barbaric ceremonies serve as magnets for all sorts — including murderers.”

“Yes sir. You may even be able to catch portions of the travesty right here in the office,” I told him, nodding toward the television set. His answer was a scowl.

The service was in one of the big Protestant churches on Fifth Avenue. The day was pleasant, and I had almost an hour so I walked, spotting the travesty from two blocks away. Police barricades were up, limiting traffic to just two lanes, to allow for the funeral procession and the TV stations’ mobile units, of which I counted four. Knots of people, many of them shoppers, had begun to form behind ropes on the sidewalk in front of the church, gawking at the celebrities.

Uniformed police manned the ropes, but they did not stop those wanting to enter. I went up the steps, took a leaflet from a somber-looking man with a small, droopy flower in his lapel, and slid into a rear pew on the right side of the old church. I was fifteen minutes early, but already the sanctuary was about three-quarters full, and it could probably hold at least six hundred.

I made a pretense of studying the leaflet, which turned out to be a program for the service, but my eyes moved over the crowd. I spotted the Gazette man right away, Clint Thomas, the paper’s best feature writer. I also thought I recognized a woman from the Times, but wasn’t sure. As for the TV people, they weren’t allowed inside — or at least their cameras and lights and sound gear weren’t, although several of the video reporters themselves, reduced to using writing implements, undoubtedly were seated.

As the organ began playing, I could feel eyes boring in on me from the left and, sure enough, on the far side of the big room, there was Sergeant Purley Stebbins, standing against a wall and frowning in my direction. I smiled and nodded, getting a deeper frown in reply. I silently mouthed the words “Lighten up, Purley,” to which he turned away and continued surveying the assemblage.

I followed suit. It was a well-dressed crowd, as you would expect. Mostly middle-aged, many of them friends and business associates of the parents, although there was a scattering of young men and women of Sparky Linville’s generation. At twelve-twenty-five the family filed into the first pew from a door up front, where the closed casket was. I recognized Linville’s mother and father from the newspapers and television. There was a lot more family, too, enough to fill several pews. A group of eight young men, the pallbearers, marched in from the other side at the front. Halliburton’s white hair made him stand out despite his size.

The crimson-robed, curly-headed minister, who seemed surprisingly young, opened with a prayer promptly at ten, and then we rose for a hymn. After that, the minister sermonized, struggling to explain how such an inexplicable event as murder can occur in God’s world. There was another hymn, another prayer, and then the pallbearers wheeled the casket down the center aisle and hefted it out the door.

The scene in front of the church was American journalism at its worst. The TV Minicams crowded in so close to the hearse that the pallbearers had to muscle them aside just to roll the casket in. Print reporters shouted to Linville’s parents as they moved toward a limousine, trying to get comments, but the uniformed police made like the Giants’ offensive line, and in one instance a reporter shoved back, only to get a whack with a nightstick that sent him staggering and muttering about police brutality.

It took fifteen minutes to get all the VIP guests loaded into the dozen or so black limos that were lined up behind the hearse. As I stood on the church steps surveying the debacle, I spied none other than Edward Pamsett. Clad in a light blue blazer, he was standing toward the rear of the crowd down on the sidewalk, eyes fixed on the hearse. I wondered if he had been inside.

As the entourage, led by siren-wailing police cars and six motorcycle escorts, pulled away from the curb, I took another look at Pamsett, who apparently hadn’t seen me, and I slipped away in the opposite direction. I turned into a side street to where a yellow cab bearing a familiar number and with a familiar face behind the wheel idled in a no-parking zone, its OFF-DUTY sign lit.

“Right where you’re supposed to be,” I said, sliding into the back seat.

“You’re surprised?” asked Herb Aronson, the most dependable taxi driver in the five boroughs. “This is where you said to be, and when you said to be here. Question: In twenty years, have I ever failed you? Answer: No. Next stop, Long Island, right?”

“Right,” I said, and settled back as we headed for the cemetery.

The media circus at the cemetery out on the island was a little more subdued than the midtown chapter. There were as many TV mobile units and reporters as before, but they were quieter, maybe because of the natural setting. I had Herb drop me about a hundred yards down the road from the burial site, which was covered by a green canopy. We’d made good time; the procession of limos and other cars — and a few cabs — was still pulling up. I donned my sunglasses and positioned myself inconspicuously, or so I hoped, at the edge of the standees who were gathering.

Again I searched for familiar mugs. Purley was here too, of course, but he didn’t even bother to acknowledge me this time. As the graveside service began, I blinked. There, toward the back of the standees on the opposite side of the grave, Edward Pamsett had materialized, and was watching the proceedings intently; he must have had a speedy hack driver of his own. Once again I felt sure he hadn’t seen me. And I wasn’t about to give him another opportunity. Satisfied that there were no others there of interest, I eased away from the gravesite and the mournful droning of the minister and went back to where Herb was parked, reading the Daily Racing Form.

“Back to the land of the living?” he asked, and I nodded grimly. I’d had my quota of cemetery visits for the year.