the dead yard

  Chief Joseph looked down over the cemetery. Great Salt Pond glittered in the morning sun. Still not many boats in the harbor. Too early in the season. Even with the drug busts and beach parties, the bike wrecks and drunk and disorderlies, he was kind of looking forward to season. It was, frankly, boring in the winter with nothing but the occasional domestic or overdose—and all of those fraught because he knew everyone. For weeks he had nothing to do but paperwork.

     He had parked his car on a dirt road behind a strip of trees, so it was unlikely anyone at the funeral would notice him yet. The press had seen him drive up. They had staked the place out first thing in the morning, when the chairs were being set up. He should have known they would be there. People were already calling it “The Nailgun Murder.” It wasn’t, according to the autopsy report. Death had been caused by a bullet through the eye and one through the heart. Bullets from a gun like the Glock that had been found at Bobby’s  shack. The tests would soon show whether it was that Glock. At a guess, it would be.

     He had offered his mother a ride, but she said she preferred not to be associated with the police presence. The first wife had apparently showed up without telling her kids. Fishy, he thought. Here to make sure he was dead? Crow over the body? Well—ashes. Make sure her children got what was coming to them in the will? He wished he knew what was in that will. Hadn’t been submitted for probate yet. Lot of money there. Too much. Though he’d seen families fight over a coffee pot. Didn’t really matter how much there was, it was the love they were fighting over. His wife Katie’s family, now. Good example. Might be better to have only one kid. That way when you die there’s no question of who gets grandma’s china. Well, unless you married a younger woman like this rich guy did. And big money could lead to big problems. Like, maybe, murder.