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“What?”

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I guess I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”

And it had. I’d had a good time with Adam at dinner, but if I’d known I was going to have to be on my toes like this afterward, I would have ordered a single glass of wine and not split a bottle.

Roz gave a brief, distracted nod. I could tell her thoughts were already elsewhere, most likely figuring out who she could call at this hour to come and board up the mangled kitchen door.

I’d meant what I’d said to Father Frank, though. None of this was his fault…and I was going to prove it. Maybe my instincts were all wrong, but I somehow felt in my bones that the intruder and the killer were the same person.

Chapter 11

Closed Doors

Another day, another crappy night’s sleep. I didn’t get back to the house until nearly two, since I waited with Roz until her sleepy-eyed husband showed up with some sheets of plywood to fix the broken kitchen door. We’d have to have someone come out and perform a proper repair during the day, but at least it wasn’t an open invitation for people to wander inside and take whatever they wanted.

It would have been nice if my body had taken pity on me and let me sleep until at least seven, but no, my eyes snapped open a little after six, and I realized there wasn’t any point in rolling over and trying for another hour or so, not when Father Frank’s funeral was at ten and I needed to be there looking more or less put together.

So I got out of bed and helped Chauncey to the floor. Then I checked my phone and saw that Roz had left me a message saying she was going to have Wes Lindley come in later that afternoon to fix the door. Well, at least that part seemed to be handled.

I wandered downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that an infusion of caffeine would be enough to return me to the world of the living. Hazel was waiting by the kitchen table; I hadn’t seen any sign of her the night before when I came home, but I guessed she’d thought she should leave me alone to get what sleep I could.

That hadn’t worked out so great, but it definitely wasn’t her fault.

“Someone broke into the bar last night,” I told her as I measured out a scoop of Italian roast. Good thing I’d ground enough beans earlier in the week that I had enough to last a few days.

Her eyes flared with alarm. “Was anything taken?”

“No,” I replied. “But there were scuff marks by that sealed-off door in the hallway, like someone was trying to get in. Mack says the intruder was a tall person, but he couldn’t tell much more than that because they were wearing a hood and gloves.”

She listened to all of this and was quiet for a moment. I could tell she was thinking hard, even though she didn’t seem quite ready to share whatever was going on in that head of hers.

“You need to be very careful,” Hazel said at length. “That door has been sealed for two years. Whoever tried it knew it was there, and that isn’t a lot of people.”

No, it wasn’t, or at least, I didn’t think it was. The building had been there a long time, though, and plenty of people had gone through its doors over the years. Also, I guessed the plans for that entire block of structures on Whiskey Row could probably be accessed at City Hall, so it wasn’t as if they were a state secret or anything close to it.

But I didn’t have a lot of time to ponder the problem. No, I needed to drink my coffee, have some toast, and then go straight back upstairs so I could shower and make myself presentable for Father Frank’s funeral. I couldn’t even say exactly why I was going, since I’d already attended the vigil, and I was running on a sleep deficit that a quiet, restful day might help to restore, if even a little bit.

Except that watching people at the reception had given me a lot more information than I’d previously had, and attending the funeral would only help me build on what I’d already learned. Staying home wasn’t really an option.

Since I’d washed my hair the day before, I didn’t have to worry about that. All it needed was a good brushing to restore the waves I’d set in it with curlers, and maybe some combs to hold part of it away from my face.

A dead-simple black sheath this time, one with a modest scoop neck and long sleeves. I emerged from the walk-in closet to see Hazel watching me with approval.

“A good choice,” she said. “But I’d leave off the pearls this time. Funerals are for restraint. There are some jet earrings in the upper right-hand corner of the dresser in my closet.”

Sure enough, the earrings were just where she’d said they were, small buttons of faceted black stone in simple silver settings. They weren’t nearly as fancy as most of her other jewelry, and I wondered why she had them.

But they worked for the occasion, so I fastened them on my ears and left off any other ornamentation except a vintage silver Hamilton watch Celeste had given me for my twenty-fifth birthday.

“Thanks for the earrings, Hazel,” I called out as I descended the staircase.

Time to go to a funeral.

Sacred Heart felt entirely different that Wednesday morning. The place was packed to the rafters, and since I’d naïvely assumed I’d be able to arrive about ten minutes before the service like I had on Sunday, I got there fairly late, only to discover that the parking lot was full and I had to leave the Mercedes on the street more than a block away.

Vans from various local TV stations in Phoenix were taking up valuable space in the parking lot, but it seemed that whoever was giving the directions had told the reporters they had to wait outside. It felt strange to go past that gauntlet as I headed into the church, although it didn’t seem at all interested in me.

Thank God.