Chapter Thirty-Five

Once I said a few words over Ethel's casket and started for my car in tears, the cemetery was nearly deserted. Deserted of those among the living, that is. Allen was gone. So was Angel and Joe.

I started to get into my car, but changed my mind. I thought I should have a look at the fresh grave Angel and Joe visited, even though I was certain it belonged to Thomas. My mind was so polluted with unanswered questions that I could feel an approaching migraine.

For starters, I was mad at myself again. I was getting old. What else explained the absence of the once admired quick thinking puzzle solver I'd been known for. I should have figured something wasn't right the minute Joe told me Angel was his daughter. Because by then, Mitch had already told me Angel lived on North Front Street a few months before taking up residence at Joe's. If she'd been in town all that time, how come it took so long to tell Joe he was, as Allen had put it, a papa?

When I stepped up to Thomas's gravesite, another question I had forgotten about returned. What was Angel doing at Thomas's funeral yesterday? That question alone was responsible for piling on a half dozen more.

By the time I staggered back up the hill to my car, my head felt like it was about to explode. I rooted around in the glove compartment for the bottle of pain killers I had stashed in there for emergency's like this one. I found the bottle and popped three of the pills in my mouth and swallowed them without the benefit of water.

As I was stuffing the bottle back inside the glove compartment, the opened pack of cigarettes fell out onto the floor. I eyed them for several seconds before I closed the compartment door. I picked up the pack of smokes and tossed them out the window next to me. A decision had been reached. It was now or never. I had chosen now. And in doing so, was perfectly willing to cough up the three hundred dollar fine for littering if I was caught breaking the law.