Double Booked For Death

A few rows back, she finally spied the agent. Hillary Gables had pinned back her hair into one of those eyebrow-lifting buns on top of her head and wore a black skirted suit with a white blouse. As Darla watched, Hillary dabbed at her eyes and nose with a tissue, the gesture of courteous grief. She didn’t notice Darla, perhaps because she had leaned in the opposite direction to whisper into the ear of a man old enough to have been her grandfather.

Except Darla was pretty certain that no decent grandfather allowed his granddaughter’s hands to linger where Hillary was letting them wander.

Darla didn’t see Koji anywhere. Apparently, the publicist hadn’t made the cut, either. Or maybe he had, Darla wryly thought, and right now he was pounding the pavement looking for a new job instead of—as Jake had put it—hobbing with the nobs.

It was with relief that she finally slipped into a seat. On her right was a thirty-something man large enough to be a linebacker for a major league team, and judging by the abundance of diamond jewelry on his hands and earlobes, likely was. On her other side was a woman in her eighties who had bucked the black trend by wearing what appeared to be a vintage Chanel suit in deep forest green. Balanced on her spindly knees was a purse that Darla recognized from a recent newspaper article on fashion as retailing for four figures. Both pew-mates gave her polite nods as she settled in, but Darla could feel their mutual if unspoken question: How did she get in here?

As unobtrusively as she could, Darla pulled her cell phone out of her bag and typed out a quick text to Jake.

Snuck in with VB’s bro. Ur not going 2 believe who he is!

Darla hit send; then, as she tried to think the best way to explain the situation in text speak—Mavis = Morris = Val’s bro?—a sharp poke in her side made her gasp. The poker was the elderly woman beside her, who’d apparently noticed her etiquette transgression of texting in church and did not approve. As Darla rubbed her bruised ribs and contemplated battery charges, the woman pierced her with a condemning look and gave an audible tsk.

Darla gave her an equally condemning look in return. “I beg your pardon, I’m a surgeon,” she lied in a stern stage whisper. “I have to check in with the hospital. I’ve got a transplant patient waiting on me.”

The old woman appeared mollified by this explanation, for her sour expression thawed slightly. Satisfied she had gained herself a bit of credibility, Darla settled back in the hard wooden pew and put her phone away without sending another message. She still needed time, herself, to wrap her brain around the apparent fact that Mavis the makeup artist and Morris the grieving brother were one and the same person.

What took her aback more than anything else was the fact that his introduction of himself had been straightforward, with no indication that they’d met before. Thus good manners, if nothing else, kept her from blurting out that she definitely recalled him—or, at least, Mavis—from that unfortunate event. But surely he remembered her from the bookstore, especially since she had given him her name. She’d expected a wink or a knowing smile. Instead, he’d acted as if they were strangers meeting for the first time.

Or were they?

Now that a few minutes had passed, doubts began to assail her. She was certain she hadn’t been mistaken the night of the signing when she realized that Mavis—for all her flawless makeup and fashionable dress—was actually a male in women’s clothing. Of course, no one else had made mention of their suspicions that Mavis was something other than what she appeared to be, though that might simply have been good manners on their part. But to tell the truth, so artful had his Mavis persona been, she might never have made the connection had she not recognized his ring.

But she had to be right. The baritone voice she remembered from that night, so similar to Morris’s, was proof enough, while the large hands were another giveaway. And surely she wasn’t imagining now the striking resemblance between the Botoxed-looking Mavis and the equally smooth-faced Morris.

While she struggled with those questions, the last of the mourners passed the casket. Now, two of the funeral-home staff closed the lid and draped a white cloth over it. Darla felt relieved that Valerie was safely tucked away and not likely to rise from the dead anytime soon.

A young, movie-handsome clergyman in full vestments took the lectern. The reverend was a trained orator, and the sprightly organist who played between the formal prayers could have sold out a concert hall. Even churchgoing was an event in the Hamptons, Darla decided as she joined the rest of the mourners in gustily singing along with those hymns she knew.

At the conclusion of the formal service, the reverend spoke for a few solemn moments on the brief life of Valerie Vickson Baylor. Then he relinquished the lectern to the same older man whom Darla had noticed heading into the church with his impossibly thin consort. She was surprised when he introduced himself as Howard T. Pinter, owner and publisher-in-chief of Ibizan Books.

“We discovered Valerie Baylor,” he proclaimed in suitably doleful tones as he took a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket, “and she, in turn, brought glory to Ibizan Books.”