Page 21 of The Woman at the Funeral

“I did,” I admitted. “I’m sure Blair was going to. But Ronny took it over.”

“What about the wedding?”

“Blair had no family but wanted to pay to get things how she wanted them.”

“She didn’t, though, did she?”

“Matt said it felt emasculating to have her pay.”

“But it wasn’t emasculating to have you pay? Out of curiosity, her ring…” The answer was clear on my face. “Jesus, Nico. Don’t get me wrong, I love that you’re a solid man, that you’re generous and give people the benefit of the doubt, but holy shit.”

“We both know I had the money.”

“And we both know that’s not the point.”

“I don’t want to talk about Matt like this, man. He’s dead.”

“Yeah, he is. And it seems like you’re feeling guilty about that for some reason.”

“Dunno if I will stop feeling that way until we know who gunned him down. He was coming from my place that night.”

“That late?”

“He was crashing with me.”

“His wife finally wised up?” He held up his hands at the look I shot him. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m a dick. But at least I’m honest.We both know a woman like that didn’t belong with a user like Matt. I mean, she has to be making bank, right?”

“Between her three business models now, yeah. On the low end, four hundred k. But it could go up to a million a year.”

“And he didn’t bleed her dry?”

“I think she was probably smart enough not to give him access to everything.”

“Smart and gorgeous. Sounds like your type.”

“Smart and gorgeous is everyone’s type.”

“Have you seen her since the service?”

“I went over the day that Ronny and her whole crew were descending on their place. To go through Matt’s belongings.”

“And pocket a few of Blair’s?”

Not while I was watching. But I wouldn’t have put it past Danny and the aunts to have walked off with something they shouldn’t have before I started watching over them. I didn’t want to think that way about Ronny. She’d been the only maternal figure in my life. And while the woman certainly had her flaws, I wanted to believe she was better than stealing from her son’s widow.

“How did she deal with them?”

“Honestly, she just let them steamroll her.”

“She probably figured it was easier than fighting them. Besides, can you imagine what she put up from them throughout her marriage?”

I wish I didn’t know some of the things I did about that, actually.

I’d never seen any of it firsthand, but Matt would tell me about some of the things his mother or aunts said about Blair. Things, it seemed, they saidin frontof his wife. And he said nothing about it. In fact, he even seemed to side with his family on a lot of it. As fucked up as that was.

“At least she’s free of them now.”

“We’ll see,” I said, remembering her barely contained frustration and the slice of pain she displayed when they’d been in her house, touching her stuff, talking shit about her pajamas.

---