The dark-haired lady beside the older woman must be quite a bit younger, most likely the mother of the little girl with big brown eyes who, for the most part, looked confused. Poor little thing probably would have rather been home playing in a kiddie pool or watching cartoons on television than sitting at a funeral in the middle of a Texas heat wave.
An empty chair separated that group of three from an older woman with gray hair sitting beside a very pregnant red-haired woman, maybe in her late twenties. The pregnant lady moaned and sobbed into a white hankie as the other woman patted her shoulder. At least Conrad had one acquaintance who would cry for him, or—Kate eyed her mother carefully—had Teresa paid a mourner to come to the funeral and weep over that man’s body for appearances?
Kate leaned to the left and whispered, “Do you know those people?”
Teresa shook her head.
“Did you pay that redhead to cry?”
“Hush,” Teresa hissed. “I would never do that. But he’s dead, so we need to show respect.”
Eight people at the funeral.
It all went to show that a con man did not have real friends. Were those women related to Conrad? He’d never mentioned sisters or cousins, but then if he had, she wouldn’t have believed him. Not after she’d found out exactly what he was. She should have given him the divorce and the million-dollar settlement he wanted, and then she wouldn’t even have had to be there that day with sweat trickling down her ribs. That young one, who evidently sincerely mourned the bastard, could have buried him and maybe even put flowers on his grave. A settlement would have been well worth the money if it had gotten Kate out of planning and attending the funeral.
She glanced down the row again. The little girl held her red rose as if it were a piece of delicate china. The expression on the face of the woman beside her left no doubt that she wanted to get this whole thing finished as much as Kate did. The pregnant girl had wrapped her wrinkled handkerchief around the stem of her rose and now wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.
“Let us pray,” the preacher said.
Praise the Lord, Kate thought as she bowed her head, but she did not shut her eyes. She stared straight ahead at the shiny black casket with the reflections of the mourners, real or obligatory, right there before her. Their faces distorted in the casket’s curvature, but what she saw was sorrow, disgust, confusion, acceptance, and something akin to indifference.
“Amen!” the preacher said, and Kate mouthed the word even though she had no idea what he’d petitioned God for that afternoon. He could have begged the Lord to open up the ground and swallow Conrad Steele’s wife right there on the spot, or he might have read that week’s grocery list, but she could definitely say, “Amen,” if it got her out of the heat.
The preacher nodded toward her. “And now, Mrs. Steele, do you have any last words or something you want to say before we conclude the service?”
She shook her head, stood up, and hoped her slim skirt wasn’t stuck to her sweaty thighs as she took the red rose the funeral director had handed her when she arrived and laid it on the top of the casket.
“Yes, I have something to say.” The pregnant girl laid one hand on her baby bump and pushed up out of the chair. “Conrad was an amazing husband, and I cannot believe he’s gone.” She burst into another round of deep sobs.
“Sweet Jesus!” Surely the heat had fried Kate’s brain cells. That kid couldn’t be married to Conrad, and yet the scenario didn’t change, no matter how many times Kate blinked.
The older woman quickly stood up and wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s all right, Amanda, darlin’. Just give your flower to Conrad and please stop crying.”
“I can’t. He was such a good man, and now he’ll never see our baby grow up,” she wailed.
Kate’s eyebrows shot up so high that it gave her an instant headache. Conrad had married without divorcing Kate and the woman was pregnant? She was still staring at the lady when the Hispanic woman popped up and her hands knotted into fists.
“You can’t be married to Conrad! I am his wife.”
Kate inhaled and let it out slowly, but then couldn’t make herself suck in more air. Her chest ached and her hands went clammy as the scene played out in slow motion.
“You are lying!” Amanda threw off the older woman’s arm and stomped up to the other woman until she was nose to nose with her. “I married him seven months ago. You might be his ex-wife, but you are not his wife today.”
“I have the marriage license showing that I’ve been married to him for seven years. With no divorce, so if he married you last year, kiddo, you aren’t even legally married. This child right here is his daughter.” Her dark eyes flashed.
Kate’s mother sighed. “I told you he was bad news.”
“Holy smokin’ hell!” Kate finally gasped.
“Okay, ladies.” Detective Waylon Kramer stepped between them. “You can both take a step backward. Neither of you are legally married to Conrad. This lady right here”—he pointed to Kate—“is his legal wife of fourteen years.”