Grave Surprise Page 0,38

I grew more relaxed by the moment, and I was laughing when there was a knock at the door. Tolliver looked at me, surprised, and I shrugged. I wasn't expecting anything or anyone.

A bellman was there, holding a vase of flowers. "These came for you, Ms. Connelly," he said.

Who doesn't like to get flowers? "Put them on the table, please," I said, and glanced at Tolliver to see if he had the tip. He fished out his wallet, gave me a nod, and handed the bellman some bills. The flowers were snapdragons, and I didn't think anyone had ever sent me snapdragons. Actually, I didn't think anyone had ever sent me flowers before, unless you counted a corsage or two when I was in high school. I said as much to Tolliver. He pulled the little envelope from the plastic prongs in the foliage and handed it to me, no expression on his face.

The card read, "You have given us peace," and it was signed "Joel and Diane Morgenstern."

"They're very pretty," I said. I touched one blossom lightly.

"Nice of Diane to think of them," Tolliver said.

"No, this was Joel's idea."

"Why do you say that?"

"He's the kind of man who thinks of flowers," I said positively. "And she's the kind of woman who doesn't."

Tolliver thought this was foolishness.

"Really, Tolliver, you've got to take my word on this," I said. "Joel is the kind of guy who thinks about women."

"I think about women. I think about them all the time."

"No, that's not what I mean." I tried to think of how to put it. "He doesn't just think about wanting to fuck women, when he looks at them. I'm not saying he's gay," I added hastily, since Tolliver was looking incredulous. "I'm saying that he thinks about what women like." That still wasn't quite it, but it was as close as I could come. "He likes to please women," I said, but that wasn't exactly right, either.

The phone rang and Tolliver picked it up. "Yes," he said. "Hello, Diane. Harper just got the flowers; she says she loves them. You really shouldn't have done it. Oh, he did? Well, thank him, then." Tolliver made a face at me, and I grinned. He listened for a few moments. "Tomorrow? Oh, no thanks, we'd feel like we were intruding..." Tolliver looked acutely uncomfortable. "That's too much trouble," he said next. His tone was carefully patient. He listened. "Then, all right," he said reluctantly. "We'll be there."

He hung up and made a face. "The Morgensterns want us to come to their house tomorrow for lunch," he said. "They've had a lot of people bringing food by, they can't eat it all, and they're feeling guilty that we're stuck in Memphis because of them. There'll be other people there," he assured me when he saw my face. "The focus won't be on us."

"Okay, good. That would have crossed a line, after the flowers. There's such a thing as overdoing the gratitude. After all, it was an accident. And we're getting the reward. Joel said so. You should have asked me before you said yes. I really don't want to do that."

"But you see that we pretty much have to."

"Yes, I see that," I said, trying not to sound resentful. I thought that my brother wanted to see Felicia Hart again.

Tolliver nodded, a sharp gesture to close the subject. I wasn't quite sure I was through whining, but he was right. No point in discussing it any longer. "You ready to go back to the cemetery?" he asked.

"Yes. How cold is it?" I stood up, experimentally stretched the leg. Better.

"The temperature's dropping."

When we were all bundled up, I called downstairs to have our car brought around. A few minutes later, we were making our way back to St. Margaret's. The weekday nighttime traffic in downtown Memphis was not heavy. Nothing was going on at the Pyramid, and Ellis Auditorium looked dark, too. We drove east through depressed areas, shopping areas, and old residential areas until we got to the streets around Bingham College. The few people on foot were bundled up like urban mummies.

I began to recognize a few landmarks from the morning before. This time we didn't take the main drive through the college, as we had previously. Tolliver drove around the campus to reach a small road at the back of the college property. It had those white barriers that you pull back across the entrance, and yesterday they'd been pulled shut but unlocked, he'd