Chapter 3

Opal read the page out loud.

"Eleventh. Last visit. He was failing then."

"I noted the color in his hands."

"Twelfth. Door barred at noon. Turned away."

She turned the page.

"Twelfth, nine at night. A telephone call from the house."

"He was gone."

The row went silent.

Nobody shifted.

Nobody even breathed.

Delphine let go of Joe's wrist.

"Paper gets lost," she said.

"Paper gets read wrong."

The sheriff came up the wet grass.

"Harlan," he said. "Step over here."

Harlan Meeks came with his hat in his hands.

"What day did the family bring the body to you?"

Meeks kept his eyes on the ground.

"The thirteenth."

"Say it again."

"The thirteenth. Thursday afternoon. Two o'clock."

Opal did not stop.

"The death certificate was filed on the twentieth," she said.

"It states the nineteenth."

Six days stood between the two dates.

Delphine lifted her chin.

"Silas died at home. On the nineteenth."

"I sat with him."

"You locked the door on the twelfth," Opal said.

Then Meeks spoke again, low.

"They said the family wanted it quiet. They told me to dress him and keep the room cold."

"I did what I was told. I have not slept since."

The sheriff held out his hand toward the back of the crowd.

"Sir. The folder."

The lawyer in the gray overcoat did not move.

The sheriff held his hand out a moment longer.

The folder changed hands.

The sheriff opened it and read the top page.

"The trust was amended on the twentieth."

He turned the folder toward the row.

"Josiah Wick is cut out of it."

"Signed the twentieth. Eight days after the man was already dead."

"That page is void," the sheriff said.

"Nobody changes a trust after they are dead."

Joe's name. Struck through. Eight days too late.

Delphine's mouth worked at nothing.

"The review was Monday," she said.

"The payment posted on the sixteenth."

"If it went to probate, everything went to probate. Everything."

She heard her own voice.

Her hand went to her pearls.

Then Joe spoke. Quiet. Not loud.

"You buried my grandfather early so the money would stay."

Delphine looked down at the open grave.

She had nothing left to say over it.

The sheriff took the key ring out of her hand.

"Delphine Wick," he said. "You will come with me."

Two deputies walked her down the grass to the road.

She did not look back at the grave.

Somebody pulled the chapel rope.

The old bell rang out over the bluff.

Harlan Meeks came to Joe with the ring in his open palm.

"I dressed him," he said. "I put this on the wrong hand, and I knew it was wrong."

He held it out.

Opal took it first and turned it once in the light.

Red stone. Plain gold.

Then she set it in Joe's hand.

Joe slid it onto his right hand.

It hung loose past his knuckle.

He closed his fist around it.

The bell kept ringing for a funeral ten days late.

They dressed the body in his suit.

They forgot who wore the ring.