of lies about what a great guy Lloyd had been.
Ross didn’t buy any of it. He had disliked the man from the day he married Frannie, when she was only eighteen. Even though she had tried to put on a bright face and play the role of a regular bride, Ross had sensed something in her eyes even then that seemed to indicate she wasn’t thrilled about the marriage.
He had tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t listen to him, probably because Cindy had pushed so hard for the marriage.
When Josh showed up several weeks shy of nine months later, Ross had put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured Lloyd had gotten her pregnant. Frannie was just the sort to try doing what she thought was the right thing for her child, even if it absolutely wasn’t the right decision for her.
In the years since, he had watched her change from a luminous, vivacious girl to a quiet, subdued society matron. She always wore the right thing, said the right thing, but every ounce of joy seemed to have been sucked out of her.
And all because of Lloyd Fredericks, the man who apparently was heading for sainthood any day now, judging by the glowing eulogies delivered at his memorial service.
Ross wondered what all these fusty types would do if he stood up and spoke the truth, that Lloyd was just about the lousiest excuse for a human being he’d ever met—which was really quite a distinction, considering that as an ex-cop, he’d met more than his share.
In his experience, Lloyd was manipulative and dishonest. He cheated, he lied, he stole and, worse, he bullied anybody he considered weaker than himself.
Ross couldn’t say any of that, though. He could only sit here and wait until this whole damn thing was over and he could take Josh home.
He glanced around at the crowd, wondering again at the most notable absence—next to Frannie’s, of course. Cindy had opted not to come, and he couldn’t help wondering where she might be. He would have expected his mother to be sitting right up there on the front row with Lloyd’s parents. She loved nothing more than to be the center of attention, and what better place for that than at her son-in-law’s memorial service, with all its drama and high emotion?
Cindy had adored her son-in-law, though Ross thought perhaps he’d seen hints that their relationship had cooled, since right around the time Cindy had been injured in a mysterious car accident.
Still, even if she and Lloyd had been openly feuding, which they weren’t, he would have thought Cindy would come.
He was still wondering at her absence when the pastor finally wrapped things up a few moments later. With the autopsy completed, Lloyd’s parents had elected to cremate his remains, so there would be no interment ceremony.
“Can we go now?” Josh asked him when other people started to file out of the funeral chapel.
Ross would have preferred nothing more than to hustle Josh away from all this artificiality. He knew people likely wanted to pay their respects to Lloyd’s son, but he wasn’t about to force the kid to stay if he didn’t want to be there.
“Your call,” he said.
“Let’s go, then,” Josh said. “I’m ready to get out of here.”
As he had expected, at least a dozen people stopped them on their way to the door to wish Josh their condolences. Ross was immensely proud of his nephew for the quiet dignity with which he thanked them each for their sympathy without giving away his own feelings about his father.
They were almost to the door when Ross saw with dismay that Lloyd’s mother, Jillian, was heading in their direction. Her Botox-smooth features looked ravaged just now, her eyes red and weepy. Still, fury seemed to push away the grief for now.
“How dare you show your face here!” she hissed to Ross when she was still several feet away.
Chapter Five
Several others at the funeral stopped to watch the unfolding drama and Ross did his best to edge them over to a quieter corner of the chapel, away from the greedy eyes of the crowd.
“My nephew just lost his father,” he said calmly. “I’m here for him, Jillian. Surely you can understand that.”
She made a scoffing sort of sound. “Your nephew lost his father because of your sister! If not for her, none of us would be here. He would still be alive. You have no right to come here. No right whatsoever. This service is for family members. For those of us who…who loved Lloyd. You never even liked him. You probably conspired with your sister to kill him, didn’t you?”
It was such a ridiculous thing to say that Ross had no idea how to answer her grief-induced ravings.
“I’m here for Josh,” he repeated. “Whatever you might think about my sister right now, and whatever the circumstances of Lloyd’s death, Josh has lost his father. He asked me to come with him today and I couldn’t let him down.”
Though he had let him down, Ross thought. And he had let his sister down, over and over. He hadn’t been able to get Frannie out of her lousy marriage. He had tried, dozens of times, until he finally gave up. But maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough.
“I want you to leave. Right now.” Jillian’s features reddened and she looked on the verge of some apoplectic attack.
“We’re just leaving, Grandmother,” Josh assured her and Ross was proud of his nephew for his calm, sympathetic manner.
At that moment, Lloyd’s father stepped up and slipped a supporting arm around his wife’s shoulders. “That’s not necessary. You don’t have to leave, Joshua. Come along, Jillian. The Scofields were looking for you a moment ago.”
Cordell gave Ross a quick, apologetic look, then steered his distraught wife away from them. Ross watched after him, his brow furrowed. He hadn’t seen Lloyd’s father in a few months but the man looked as if he had aged a decade or more. His features were lined and worn and he looked utterly exhausted.
Was all that from Lloyd’s death? he wondered. He knew the Fredericks had always doted on their only son and of course his death was bound to hit them hard, but he hadn’t expected Cordell to look so devastated.
Maybe Lloyd’s death wasn’t the only reason the man seemed to have aged overnight. Ross had been hearing rumors even before Lloyd’s death that not all was rosy with the Fredericks’ financial picture. He had heard a few whispers around town that Cordell and Lloyd had been late on some payments and had completely stopped making others.
It wouldn’t have surprised him at all to learn that Lloyd had been the one keeping Fredericks Financial afloat. Maybe Cordell was terrified the whole leaky ship would sink now that his son was dead.
He made a mental note to add a little digging into their financial records to the parallel investigation he had started conducting into Lloyd’s death.
“Follow the money” had always been a pretty good creed when he’d been a cop and he saw no reason for this situation to be any different.
“Sorry about that, Uncle Ross,” Josh said when they finally stepped outside into the warm afternoon, along with others who seemed eager to escape the oppressive funeral chapel. “Grandmother is…distraught.”
Poor
