Read Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel) for Free Online Page B

Quickly, she changed the subject. "You sounded great this morning, Burton."
    "Thanks," he said, shuffling and spilling a few drops of coffee on his shoes.
    Annie pretended she didn't notice and looked past Burton at Peg Moffat, who was talking to a group across the room. Their eyes met and they smiled.
    Annie said, "Will you excuse me? Thanks for the coffee."
    She threaded her way through some people to join Peg, who broke away from her group and met Annie halfway.
    "Good sermon, Annie. You never fail to give me something to chew on all week."
    "Thanks."
    Peg was Annie's age, thirty-three, and married to Tim Moffat who had his own small advertising firm. They had two children Karen, ten, Beth, three. Sunday mornings Tim stayed home with the girls. Annie and Peg had been friends from the start, discovering they both liked Mahler and the Rolling Stones. Physically they were opposites. Where Annie was tall, thin, and blond, Peg was short, chunky, and dark. But otherwise they were similar, liked the same people, books, movies, music. Food, too. Sometimes they'd drive down the island together and pig out at a Friendly's Ice Cream Shop. Peg loved butterscotch sundaes; Annie, Swiss chocolate almond. Once they'd each had two and groaned all the way home.
    "Feeling better today?"
    Annie nodded. She'd called Peg the night before, told her what had happened.
    Peg said, "That's all anybody can talk about today."
    "I know."
    "What really burns me are the innuendos."
    "Meaning?"
    "Oh, you know, the usual 'she asked for it' bullshit."
    "Not really?"
    "Yes, really."
    "I guess some things never change," Annie said. "Can you stay for awhile?" Often, on Sundays after the others left, Peg stayed and they had a half hour or so before she had to get home and Annie had to go to dinner at one parishioner's or another.
    "I can't. Tim's mother's coming to dinner. In fact, I better make tracks. Where are you going today?"
    "The Smiths'."
    "Oh, that's not bad."
    "Roast chicken, mushroom stuffing, white asparagus, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie." She smiled, blue eyes almost disappearing.
    'Every time?"
    "Yup. But it's good."
    "Well, enjoy. Talk to you tomorrow."
    They kissed cheeks and Annie watched her go. She was unusually sorry that Peg couldn't stay, and wondered why as she said goodbye to the others while making her way to the back door. She didn't have to stay until the bitter end.
    Crossing the lawn to the parsonage, she felt her mood alter, the euphoria she experienced after delivering a good sermon receding. It was always the same, this half hour or so between the gathering in the parish hall and when she left for Sunday dinner. This was the time she missed Bob the most. It was crazy because they'd never shared this time. He'd died before she was ordained.
    But she'd fantasized what Sundays would be like, and it was this time she'd imagined sitting with Bob in some rectory, reviewing her sermon, sharing anecdotes about parishioners, sipping a sherry, laughing, holding hands.
    A flash of anger rushed through her. She was surprised, believing that the rage she'd felt about Bob's dying was over; it had been five years. But maybe it never left you.
    Opening the back door she went into the kitchen and immediately loneliness, like something alive, engulfed her. Her eyes misted and the fury came back again, stronger. In the dining room she went to the sideboard her mother had given them as a wedding present. The decanter of sherry stood on a crystal tray—another wedding present, she forgot from whom.
    Annie poured herself a small glass and took it with her to the living room. Bob would have loved the room—oak woodwork, high ceilings, two rose wing chairs, and a comfortable gray velvet couch, good for napping. And the old ice chest with the brass fixtures, a wide oak coffee table, flowered curtains. It was Bob's kind of room; hers, too. Oh, damn him.
    She took a sip of the sherry, wondering what her congregation would think if they saw