The small funeral procession wound its way through the back streets of our little town. Unfortunately, Tim‘s Tavern was between our house and the cemetery, and as we approached, my daddy pulled in, put on the brakes, hopped out and proceeded to enter for a “shot and a beer” while the hearse and eight cars came to a screeching halt.

Later that morning, we sadly watched as our mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground.  I heard the minister chanting something about “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” and I elbowed Teddy a good one. “Whaddya want, twerp?” he growled.

“Why’s he talkin’ about our daddy’s cigarette ashes and mama’s dust cloth,?” I asked in my softest voice.   He glowered me back with a look so evil it crossed my mind that perhaps the wrong family member was being put in the ground. Well, white collar or no, it seemed to me that minister could’a showed a little more respect for our mama.

“Now I hope you three won’t be strangers to our little church,” he said to my dad, after the flowers had been thrown on top of the box and the dirt shoveled in. “Stop off at the rectory and pick up a packet of envelopes from my secretary.” He was well aware that my parents were not regular church-goers, and even less loyal contributors to the church coffers that afforded him the luxury of skimming some change now and then to purchase a trinket or two for the aforementioned Myrtle.

When my mother and daddy had a little bit left over from payday, they liked to spend an occasional Saturday night at Tim’s for some drinking and dancing. The evening of the interment , he pronounced: “Sunny and Teddy, I’m going out for a while with some friends to remember your mother.”

Although my heart was broken and confused, my father left us to join a few older relatives and folks for a night of alcoholic bereavement, and I was left to contend with my brother who spat out: “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pipe down and read one of your comic books. I’ll be in my room and don’t bother me or I’ll murder you before you know what Spider Man is going to do next.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice, because he often carried out his threats, like the time he took the scissors to my Raggedy Ann and then snickered “Isn’t that why she’s called ‘Raggedy’Ann?” During the night, I awoke to hear my dad stumble around the kitchen, drag out the big red chair, throw himself into it, and bawl his eyes out.

***

Our neighborhood was quite diverse: There were Italians, Irish, Poles, Chinese (who owned the laundry and had as many as a dozen relatives scurrying about on their softly-padded slippers, scrubbing grimy collars, hand-ironing men’s shirts, and all the while keeping rhythm at their scrub-boards with their high-pitched clickety-clack chatter, not unlike the tracks their forefathers had laid for us eighty years before.) There were Christians, Jews, red necks, young married folk just getting started, and many families like our own with two or three children, lower to middle class, just trying to make ends meet; however, there was one denominator that each of our houses had in common: you never knew what went on behind the closed curtains.

After my mother’s murder, the police made a few visits, fewer inquiries, and showed little interest in pursuing any leads. There were only three in our local police department at that time.  Mike Bullard, who legitimately came by the nickname ‘Bully’, was burly, rude and loudmouthed; but his grandfather, uncle, father and brother had at one time been on the force, so he was automatically destined to persue the law.  “So you say you didn’t hear anything? So you say you didn’t see anything? Well, I guess that must mean that you’re either deef or blind as a bat, huh?”

The newest kid to join the force was Tommy O’Riley, who was quite polite, but not too swift behind the ears. “Excuse me ma’am, I hate to bother you, and I can see you’re busy, so if this isn’t a good time, why don’t I just come back later.”

And then there was Sammy Quintano, whose only expertise was extracting information by way of pressure on the local business people. “Howdy there—if you know anything about that murder, I’d be obliged for information, and in return, you can count on me the next time you need any sort of protection.” He spent many an afternoon with a lonely housewife.

These three asked a few curt questions of the neighbors, who seemed to have convenient alibis, and a couple of weeks later, it was Sam who concluded before the chief that “we’ve talked it over and are pretty damned certain this was committed by a passerby. We doubt it would do any good to continue the investigation, as our funds, limited as they are, would be better spent elsewhere.” (“Toward our raises” was left unsaid, but certainly implied.) Within days, the crime went from front page news, to the second page, then lower case on the back page amidst the advertisements, and finally dropped off like a fish at the end of a pole—too small to be kept.

Now the nights were cool enough for blankets, the days began with the need for sweaters, and after a few weeks of household security, once again the doors were left unlocked, and we thought nothing of it.