Gypsy Sins by John Lawrence Reynolds Page A

desk.
    McGuire agreed it was a nice day.
    â€œYou must be the gentleman for the reading of the Godwin will,” the woman said, setting the folders on a corner of her desk. “I’ll tell Mr. Leedale you’re here.”
    She tapped gently on the door behind her desk and opened it just far enough to lean inside and speak to someone, balancing on her forward foot by stretching one leg behind her.
    It was, McGuire noted, a very attractive leg.
    The door opened wider and, to McGuire’s surprise, June Leedale emerged.
    â€œHello,” she said without enthusiasm. She wore a cotton top and denim skirt and very little makeup, and her eyes seemed to have withdrawn deeper into the darkness beneath them. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.
    McGuire told her he had.
    â€œWould you like some coffee?” June Leedale asked.
    â€œSounds good,” McGuire said.
    â€œHow do you take it?” asked the receptionist, leaping to her feet.
    â€œBlack will be fine.”
    â€œAnd one for me please, Laura,” June Leedale called as the younger woman disappeared into the stock room again.
    â€œParker . . . my husband . . . will be ready in just a few minutes,” June Leedale said. She settled herself on a flowered-print sofa against the wall. “He asked me to, um . . .” A smile appeared and vanished in the same instant, like a blink. “To keep you company while he gets things prepared.” She wrapped one hand in the other, and they moved together as though comforting themselves. “We’re . . . I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”
    McGuire shrugged and smiled. “Nothing else to do.”
    Her eyes were red-rimmed and there was a downward cast to her mouth. “We saw . . . Did Bert get the car running? We saw his truck pull up as we left and . . .” She shrugged. “We assumed it would be for Cora’s car.”
    â€œIt’ll take a couple of days,” McGuire answered.
    Laura clicked across the floor in suede pumps, a white porcelain mug in each hand, her eyes on their contents. “There, didn’t spill a drop,” she beamed, handing one to McGuire and the other to June Leedale. “Whoops, there’s the phone.”
    The coffee was hot and strong.
    â€œThank you for visiting us yesterday after the service,” June Leedale said to McGuire over the lip of her cup.
    McGuire nodded. Looking back at her, her knees tightly together, her legs crossed at the ankles, her posture stiff and upright, he could not recall seeing a sadder woman in a very long time. It was more than the temporary sadness of a day when nothing goes right, or the melancholia that floods the mind with the realization of time and opportunity lost. More even than the tragic anger of Barbara when he first met her, a woman abandoned and alone. June Leedale bore her sorrow like a physical weight, a burden that pinned her dreams to the ground, forbidding them to take flight.
    â€œI appreciated the hospitality yesterday,” McGuire said.
    â€œYou didn’t enjoy very much of it.” Another quick smile, distant lightning across a dark sky.
    â€œI was a little tired.”
    The door behind the receptionist’s desk opened without warning and Parker Leedale stood in the opening, looking curiously from McGuire to his wife and back again.
    â€œI guess we’re ready,” June Leedale said, rising abruptly.
    McGuire rose to follow her past the receptionist, who was reciting a series of legal phrases into the telephone receiver from an open file on her desk. Crossing in front of Parker Leedale he noticed the lawyer, as he closed the office door, cast a warm smile at the receptionist.
    â€œIs everything clear to you?” Parker Leedale asked, looking up after reciting the details of Cora Godwin’s will aloud in a flat voice. He pulled at his mustache as he spoke, then dropped his hand from his upper lip to the desktop where it joined the other, palm