Willy had never been a fan of Bessie Durkin’s. “She knew what she was doing. The judge only lasted eight years. Then Bessie got the house and a pension, invited Kate to move in, and Kate’s waited on her hand and foot ever since.”

“Kate’s a saint,” Alvirah said in agreement, “but of course the house will be hers now that Bessie’s gone, and she’ll have an income. She should be able to manage just fine.”

Cheered by her own optimistic statement, she glanced out the window. “Oh, Willy, don’t you love the Christmas decorations in all the windows?” she asked. “It’s such a shame Bessie died so near the holidays; she always loved them so.”

“It’s only the fourth of December,” Willy pointed out. “She made it through Thanksgiving.”

“That’s true,” Alvirah conceded. “I’m glad we were with them. Remember how much she enjoyed her turkey? She ate every bite of it.”

“And everything else in sight,” Willy said dryly. “Here we are.”

As their taxi pulled up to the curb, an attendant at the Reading Funeral Home opened the door for them and, in a subdued tone, told them that Bessie Durkin Maher was reposing in the east parlor. The heavy, sweet smell of flowers drifted through the hushed atmosphere as they walked sedately down the corridor.

“These places give me the creeps,” Willy commented. “They always smell of dead carnations.”

In the east parlor they joined a group of some thirty mourners, including Vic and Linda Baker, the couple who had rented the top floor apartment of Bessie’s townhouse. They were standing at the head of the casket next to Bessie’s sister Kate, and, like family, were accepting condolences with her.

“What’s that all about?” Willy whispered to Alvirah as they waited their turn to speak to Kate.

Thirteen years younger than her formidable sister, Kate, was a wiry seventy-five-year-old with a cap of short gray hair and warm blue eyes that were now welling with tears.