Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards

on. “At least she wanted to be, that is.”
    “You said she was saving money so she could get custody again?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I don’t mean to be rude, but does Don’t Go There pay that well? It doesn’t look like the kind of place where the tips are huge, even if you do a little dancing.”
    Keely didn’t seem to take offense. “Heck no. I can barely pay the rent unless I make a little something on the side.”
    I did not want to know how she accomplished that. I scrambled silently to change the subject.
    “See, I paint birdhouses,” she said, before I could open my mouth. “To look like people’s houses, you know? I go through town and draw pictures, then I take plain old wooden birdhouses from the craft store or build them myself and paint them so they match. I add little touches, you know, then I give them to the owners for whatever they want to pay me.”
    “Oh.” I figured I would need at least fifteen minutes meditation time to ask forgiveness.
    “Jennifer had some problems with a customer or two, so her tips weren’t that great,” Keely said. “But she had options.”
    I prayed that the Weiss-Bitman director would continue to cater to the more affluent mourners in the other room. “Options?”
    “Last week she told me things were looking up. Pretty soon she’d have the money she needed, then she was going back east, get some kind of office job to make the people at child welfare happy, and get her kids back.”
    “That sounds pretty sudden.”
    “Yeah. I asked her, and she said it was some kinda inheritance. The money was practically in her bank account. She said she damned well deserved it, too.” She lowered her voice. “Of course, she didn’t want Rico to know. She said he’d get his hands on it somehow. Too bad she didn’t live to get the money, isn’t it?” Keely’s baby blues widened sadly, and it was clear that a connection between the money and Jennifer’s death had never occurred to her.
    It certainly occurred to me.
    The assistant to the assistant funeral director came in to conduct what passed for a service. At lightning speed he read from the Bible, raced through two prayers, asked if anyone had anything to say, then sped on to the benediction before anyone could draw a breath. Jennifer’s send-off was accomplished in record time.
    Keely and I stood, and I glanced in Rico’s direction, but he was already gone. Since Jennifer was scheduled for cremation, there was to be no graveside service.
    “Gordy couldn’t come. We’re still closed, on account of the fight. The place got pretty wrecked. Sax, he didn’t want to come,” Keely said. “Says funerals are stupid.”
    “Sax is a bit of a philosopher.”
    “I don’t want to end up like Jennifer, you know? Nobody here to say good-bye to me, except strangers and a man who beat up on me.”
    I felt a wave of sympathy. “I live over behind the Consolidated Community Church. If you paint a birdhouse, I’ll be happy to buy it. You come, and we’ll have coffee.”
    Keely smiled, but I doubted I would ever see her on my doorstep.

    This was a day of new beginnings. At noon, Bob Knowles, the owner of Book Gems, picked me up at the parsonage to drive to Cleveland to attend a children’s book trade show. My very first day as a bookseller.
    Bob only got the bright idea to include me when he remembered I had kids. Yesterday he had started his telephone pitch with “trade show,” morphing belatedly into “children’s books” in time to cut short my impending panic attack. I don’t think Bob needs help choosing literature for the “little room” that’s upsetting so many of the Emerald Springs citizenry, but I was relieved to find I would be spending my afternoon with Lemony Snicket and Captain Underpants.
    Although, let’s face it, if that last title wasn’t already taken, some X-rated author could have a field day with it.
    When I got into the car Bob was smoking what must have been one of a long line of