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5. Thursday
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
52 5 Thurs day Alice Jones was bur ied quickly and with lit tle fan fare. Fu neral ser vices were held in a mod est, cement-block ev an gel i cal church, a few blocks from the ship yards. The walls and ceil ing of the claus tro pho bic sanc tu ary were des per ate for a fresh coat of paint. And de spite the best ef forts of two tall ra di a tors that hissed quietly in the back ground, an aura of damp ness and mil dew per meated the air. The prompt ar rest of Petey Kin go vich sent a tan gible rip ple of re lief through Door County. Peo ple ra tion al ized that Alice—cheap, taw dry Alice—had con trib uted to her own doom. They re gret ted that her death had been so grue some but as sured them selves that they—being so un like her—were im mune to such hor ror. Barely re cov ered from the deaths of Wisby and Mack lin and now both wary of neg a tive pub lic ity and shamed by the bru tal kill ing, the lo cals were eager to put this trag edy be hind them. Even the min is ter talked eu phe mis ti cally of Alice’s pass ing, as if her death had been lit tle more than an un an tic i pated tum ble through a door way. The victim’s be lea guered par ents, faced with the daunt ing task of rear ing five younger chil dren, fum bled through the ser vice dazed 53 and re signed, un com fort able in the new at tire pur chased for the day. Besides the sib lings, who cried through out the brief cer e mony, there were few mourn ers, only a hand ful, scat tered amidst the scratched wooden pews: sev eral di shev eled young men, in worn denim jack ets, clus tered to gether, shar ing a mu tual hang over; two old-biddy neigh bors, smug and dis ap prov ing, whis pered con spir a to ri ally across from them. To one side, Alice’s posse of girl friends dabbed mascara-stained tis sues at their tears, un a ware that the out fits they wore, in deed their very best, were in ap pro pri ate fu neral at tire. Eloise had come, too, in open de fi ance of her husband’s wishes. Wrapped in a plain brown wool coat and with a beige scarf cov er ing her hair, she’d braved Beck’s wrath as well as the stiff north east wind that lam basted the pe nin sula and piled tall gray clouds up against the ho ri zon. Seated quietly to one side, she wit nessed the suf fer ing of this fam ily of strang ers, al lowed their pain to sup ple ment her own. Barry re mained at home, for bid den by his father to at tend the fu neral. Beck had al lowed his son to talk a sec ond time with Hal ver son about the mur der, again with the fam ily law yer present, and had kept the boy’s name out of the paper. Cu biak slouched in the rear of the bleak chapel. That morn ing John son had woken sick with flu, and the jun ior as sist ant had been del e gated to at tend the ser vice. He agreed to go only as a show of re spect be cause Alice had made her tran si tion—an other of the minister’s eu phe misms—in the park. It was worse than Cu biak had ex pected. Alice’s cas ket was white, like Alexis’s. Un set tled by the sight of the cof fin, he bore a look of such grim in ten sity that no one dared ap proach him. Af ter ward, as the other well-wishers fol lowed the pro ces sion through the front door, Cu biak ducked out a side en trance. He rushed full throt tle to ward the fresh liq uor bot tle in the back of his closet, but never made it past Pechta’s. In true Pav lo vian style, he swung into the drive way, only vaguely aware that the lot was empty and the...