Off to one side among the mourners, I saw Phil and Reva Bergen. He seemed upset, but she was impassive. Her gaze drifted from the minister's face to mine and she stared at me flatly. Behind them, I thought I saw Kelly Borden, but I couldn't be sure. I shifted in my chair, hoping to make eye contact, but the face was gone. The crowd began to disperse and I was startled to realize it was over. The minister, in his black robes, gave Glen a solemn look, but she ignored him and moved toward the limousine. Derek, in a show of good manners, lingered long enough to exchange a few remarks.

Kitty was already in the backseat when we reached the limo. I would have bet money she was high on something. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were feverishly bright, her hands restless in her lap, plucking at her black cotton skirt. The outfit she'd elected to wear had an outlandish gypsy air to it, the black cotton top composed of tiers of ruffles, embroidered in garish shades of turquoise and red. Glen had blinked lazily when she'd first set eyes on Kitty and an almost imperceptible smile had hovered on her lips before she turned her attention to something else. She'd apparently decided not to make an issue of it. Kitty's manner had been defiant, but with no resistance on Glen's part the juice had drained out of the drama before she'd even launched into the first art.

I was standing by the limo when I saw Derek approach. He climbed into the backseat and pulled down one of the collapsible camp stools, reaching to pull the door shut.

"Leave it open," Glen murmured.

The limo driver was still nowhere in sight. There was a delay while people took their places in the vehicles parked along the road. Others were milling around on the grass to no apparent purpose.

Derek tried to catch Glen's eye. "Well, I thought that went very well.'

Glen turned pointedly and peered out of the far window. When your only child has been killed, who really gives a shit?

Kitty took out a cigarette and lit it. Her hands looked like birds' claws, the skin almost scaly. The elastieized neckline of her blouse revealed a chest so thin that her sternum and costal cartilages were outlined like one of those joke T-shirts.

Derek made a face as the smell of smoke filled the backseat. "Jesus, Kitty, put that out. For Christ's sake!"

"Oh, leave her alone," Glen said, dully, Kitty seemed surprised by the unexpected support, but she stubbed out the cigarette anyway.

The driver appeared and closed the door on Derek's side, then moved around the rear of the limousine and slid in under the steering wheel. I moved on toward my car as he pulled away.

The mood was much lighter once we got to the house. People seemed to shrug death aside, comforted by good wine and lavish hors d'oeuvres. I don't know why death still generates these little tetes-a-tetes. Everything else has been modernized, but some vestige of the wake remains. There must have been two hundred people crowded into the living room and hall, but it all seemed O.K. It was filler, just something to smooth the awkward transition from the funeral to the bone-crushing sleep that was bound to come afterward.