None of this he told Ott Pickney. Being a private detective isn’t so bad, is what he said, and the pay’s good. “It’s just temporary,” Decker lied, “until I figure out what I want to do.”
Ott managed a sympathetic smile. He was trying to be a pal. “You were a fine photographer, R.J.”
“Still am,” Decker said with a wink. “I waltzed out of that newspaper with a trunkload of free Ektachrome.”
The funeral was like nothing R. J. Decker had ever seen, and he’d been to some beauties. Jonestown. Beirut. Benghazi.
But this was one for the books. The L. L. Bean catalog, to be exact.
They were burying Bobby Clinch in his bass boat.
Actually, part of the boat. The blue metal-flake hull had been sawed up and hewn into a coffin. It wasn’t a bad job, either, especially on short notice.
Clarisse Clinch thought it a ghastly idea until the Harney County Bass Blasters Club had offered to pay the bill. The funeral director was a dedicated fisherman, which made it easier to overlook certain state burial regulations concerning casket material.
R. J. Decker resisted the urge to grab an F-l and shoot some pictures. The last thing he needed in the viewfinder was a shrieking widow.
The thirty-acre cemetery was known locally as Our Lady of Tropicana, since it had been carved out of a moribund citrus grove. The mourners stood in the sunshine on a gentle green slope. The preacher had finished the prayer and was preparing to lay Bobby Clinch’s soul to rest.
“I know some of you were out on Lake Jesup this morning and missed the church service,” the preacher said. “Clarisse has been kind enough to let us open the casket one more time so you boys—Bobby’s fishing buddies—can pay your eternal respects.”
Decker leaned over to Ott Pickney. “Which one is Lockhart?”
“Don’t see him,” Ott said.
A line of men, many dressed in khaki jumpsuits or bright flotation vests, a few still sloshing in their waders, filed by the sparkly blue casket. The undertaker had done a miraculous job, all things considered. The bloatedness of the body’s features had been minimized by heavy pink makeup and artful eye shadows. Although the man in the casket did not much resemble the Bobby Clinch that his pals had known, it could easily have been an older and chubbier brother. While some of the fishermen reached in and tugged affectionately at the bill of Bobby’s cap (which concealed what the ducks had done to his hair), others placed sentimental tokens in the coffin with their dead companion; fishing lures, mostly: Rapalas, Bombers, Jitterbugs, Snagless Sallies, Gollywompers, Hula Poppers, River Runts. Some of the lures were cracked or faded, the hooks bent and rusted, but each represented a special memory of a day on the water with Bobby Clinch. Clarisse made an effort to appear moved by this fraternal ceremony, but her thoughts were drifting. She already had a line on a buyer for her husband’s Blazer.
Ott Pickney and R. J. Decker were among the last to walk by the casket. By now the inside looked like a display rack at a tackle shop. A fishing rod lay like a sword at the dead man’s side.
Ott remarked, “Pearl Brothers did a fantastic job, don’t you think?”
Decker made a face.
“Well, you didn’t know him when he was alive.
“Nobody looks good dead,” Decker said. Especially a floater.
Finally the lid was closed. The bier was cleared of flowers, including the impressive spray sent by the Lake Jesup Bass Captains Union—a leaping lunker, done all in petunias. With the ceremony concluded, the mourners broke into small groups and began to trudge back to their trucks.
“I gotta get some quotes from the missus,” Ott whispered to Decker.
“Sure. I’m in no particular hurry.”
Ott walked over and tentatively sat down on a folding chair next to Clarisse Clinch. When he took out his notebook, the widow recoiled as if it were a tarantula. R. J. Decker chuckled.
“So you like funerals?”
It was a woman’s voice. Decker turned around.
“I heard you laugh,” she said.
“We all deal with grief in our own way.” Decker kept a straight face when he said it.