death by nail gun

The President of the Garden Club checked herself in the rear view mirror. The white hat with its black grosgrain ribbon looked right and went nicely with the black and white print linen dress and spectator pumps. She wondered if maybe the wisp of black veil wasn’t a little too too. Oh well. And she damn well wasn’t going to wear the sunglasses the cataract surgeon had said not to leave home without. So rude, to cover your eyes. Especially at a funeral.

    There was a packet of Kleenexes in her purse—not that she expected to weep for this man she had had one conversation with. But she could weep for poor Kate and her brother, who didn’t yet know that they’d lost not only their father but their own sense of immortality. They were still too stunned by the violence and the suddenness of it all.

     Unless, of course, one of them was responsible. The brother, now, he was a bit of narcissist and angry with his father. And the girl—hard to know with girls. She seemed to love her father but had insisted on taking up with Bobby against his wishes. A rival father figure. Love could get twisted. She could have hired someone. She could be in need of money. Well, that could go for the boy, too. Or Kat. One thing she’d learned about people over all these years: one never knew.

    She’d better get going. Never pleasant, these events. And there seemed to be more and more of them all the time.  She dropped the key to the SUV CK into the glove box and got out, smoothing her skirt to make sure it wasn’t hiked up over the derriere.

     Oh, and there was a man with a TV camera over by the triangle in the road. He’d set up on a tripod, and a young blonde woman was checking her makeup. Of course, thought Merideth. The last time TV people had flocked to the island was when one of the Kennedys got married at the Catholic church. Now it was Death by Nailgun, as Islanders were calling it. Though it hadn’t been, of course.