Gone But Knot Forgotten by Mary Marks Page B

flew around her face like fairy wings.
    Lucy stood over six feet tall in her black leather heels. When we entered the mortuary, she draped a black lace mantilla over her orange hair.
    I spotted Mrs. Deener, the funeral planner, and walked over to her. “Is everything ready?”
    She nodded and her wig shifted slightly. “Yes, everything is taken care of. Rabbi Adler will officiate, and I’ve printed your uncle’s address and directions to his house to hand out to the mourners. Will you be delivering the eulogy?”
    I nodded. “One of them. I’m sure there are others who’d like to say something about Harriet.”
    â€œI’ll let the rabbi know.” She looked at her watch. “The service is scheduled to begin in half an hour.”
    Dark wood paneling covered the walls of the chapel, and plain wooden pews sat on thick blue carpeting. A bronze sculpture mounted on the front wall depicted an eternal flame formed by Hebrew letters. Harriet’s plain pine casket sat on a bier in front of the wall. The shomer, the guardian of her remains, sat discretely on one side of the room, reading from a small prayer book.
    Lucy and Birdie sat in the front row near Harriet’s casket while I stood next to them and watched people drift into the chapel. Abernathy showed up with his assistant, Nina, and another woman. He reached in a wooden box next to the door and put on a white silk yarmulka. His hand shook again. Definitely a neurological problem. Old football injury? He came over to me and introduced the smartly dressed Bunny Friedman, fund-raiser for Children’s Hospital.
    â€œYou’ll want to talk to Bunny when you’re ready to settle the estate,” Abernathy said.
    The poised Bunny handed me her business card. “Call me anytime, Mrs. Rose. I’m eager to help you finalize Mrs. Oliver’s bequest to Children’s Hospital. I know we both want to see her dream of the Jonah David Oliver wing come true as soon as possible.”
    Bunny must be the one responsible for persuading Harriet to donate thirty million dollars to Children’s. Under ordinary circumstances, her bequest might not have become available for another thirty or forty years, but Harriet died prematurely. Of course Bunny would want to expedite the transfer of funds. Scoring such a large contribution would ensure her a place in the fund-raisers’ hall of fame. Would Bunny’s desire to sit at the big boys’ table be enough motive for murder? And just how tight were she and Abernathy in all this?
    I shook her well-manicured hand. “Thank you.”
    Crusher walked in with Uncle Isaac and his friend Morty, followed by a troop of several men in their seventies and eighties. They wore suits, prayer shawls around their necks, and their own head coverings. They shuffled to the front of the chapel, ready to take their positions as part of the minyan, the quorum of ten Jewish men. Uncle Isaac smiled and patted my hand. “You see, faigela ? I promised you a minyan, and I brought you one.” He gestured toward the others. “There are nine of us. The rabbi makes ten.”
    â€œI knew you’d come through. And thank you for offering your home for the reception afterward.”
    â€œWell, you said the police locked you out of Harriet’s house. I remember her as a nice little girl. It’s the least I could do for the daughter of my old friend Herschel Gordon.”
    I looked at the group of old men, most of them long past driving. “How did you all get here?”
    â€œThe senior center provides a shuttle.” He stroked the side of his face. “We come here a lot.”
    Crusher hovered near me, wearing a crocheted white head covering and a black suit. He let the collar of his white shirt gape slightly open without the constraints of a tie. He hung his tallit a fine white woolen prayer shawl, like a huge blanket over his shoulders and down his back. “You