The Dearly Departed by Elinor Lipman Read Free Book Online

up a cord and followed it to its grip. “See this? It brings a nurse in five seconds and I’ll tell her you’re harassing me.”
    Mrs. Loach looked around the room. “Your uniform. Where is it? Can I mend it?”
    Joey’s mouth formed a tight, grim line. He shook his head. “The FBI gets the uniform.”
    Mrs. Loach backed up to the visitor’s chair and sat down heavily.
    Joey tried again. “I think visiting hours are just about over. Besides, it’s polite to give the patient privacy when he wants to get out of bed and his ass is hanging out of his johnny.”
    His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Why does the FBI need your pants if you were shot in the chest?”
    â€œFor lab work. Ballistics. Powder burns. You know the drill.”
    â€œI wish I didn’t!” she cried. “I sit around hoping I’ll never get a phone call from the emergency room, and then it happened, like my worst fear come true.”
    He sidled out of bed and walked backward to the bathroom. “It
wasn’t
your worst fear, though, was it, because I’m fine. The vest worked. I’ve made those phone calls to mothers—‘There’s been an accident, and I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith or Jones, but your son didn’t make it.’
That
’s someone’s worst fear. This is nothing. Day before last, I had to call the son of the man who died at Margaret Batten’s house. And then Sunny. She’d have been thrilled if her mother was merely in the hospital with the wind knocked out of her.”
    â€œMargaret Batten,” murmured Mrs. Loach. “What a terrible thing.”
    â€œYou’re right about that, and it gets worse. Her daughter heard it secondhand from Finn’s son. I called him because she wasn’t home. But that didn’t bother
him:
He left a message on her answering machine. That’s how she found out.”
    It had the desired effect: Mrs. Loach’s features reset themselves for a new course of misfortune. “That poor girl,” she cried.
    Joey closed the bathroom door behind him.
    â€œThere was just the two of them,” she said. “And I always admired the way her mother fought for her. I hope I told her that. I must have at some point.”
    â€œNo doubt,” said Joey.
    â€œWere you nice to Sunny?” his mother called.
    â€œOf course I was.”
    â€œSometimes you can be brusque over the phone.”
    â€œTo you.”
    â€œDid she go to high school with you or with Marilee?”
    â€œMe.”
    â€œShe was the girl who golfed, right? Wasn’t there some hysteria about her playing on the boys’ team?”
    â€œThey had to let her play. They didn’t have a girls’ team and she was better than all of the boys.”
    â€œIt’s because of where she lived,” called his mother. “If you grow up next to a mountain, you learn to ski, and if you live next to a country club, you learn to golf.”
    â€œWhat?” Joey yelled.
    â€œBad luck, as it turned out, that house by the golf course. And you know what makes it worse? They fixed the furnace in a half hour. Maybe less.”
    â€œWho did?”
    â€œHerlihy Brothers Fuel just showed up—not ten minutes after they read about it in the
Bulletin.
Sean and Danny both.”
    â€œWho let them in?”
    â€œ
I
did! When no one answered at the station, they came by the house.”
    â€œBut, Ma—”
    â€œNo charge. They donated their services.”
    â€œWhat about the police tape no one was supposed to cross?”
    â€œThe door was open. They know their stuff, believe me. They wear gas masks or whatever they’re called these days.”
    â€œMa! How many goddamn times do I have to tell you that you can’t let every Tom, Dick—”
    â€œI’m leaving,” she said, “but only because you sound like yourself and can walk and do your business. Just