Long, black, sleek, moving slow, one behind the other. They came to a stop near Whitehead’s Mercedes and another half dozen upscale vehicles a short distance from the memorial plot. When the dust settled, uniformed drivers got out, one from each car, and opened the rear doors. Five women emerged, two from the first limo, three from the second. The women—all in conservative dark suits, wearing black gloves and hats, and little or no jewelry or makeup—advanced, looking elegantly at odds with the windblown plains and the locals from Dallas and Houston. There were two newly erected headstones inside a twenty-by-twenty foot black-iron enclosure with spear-pointed spindles, also newly erected. Whitehead had the memorial constructed hastily, probably in an attempt to present himself in a more positive light to Maude, her family and friends. Good luck with that, Harley thought. In fact, Harley thought it all a little odd, considering that no bodies would be interred here. Buddy had blown himself into irretrievable bits, and, as Whitehead had complained earlier, Mavis’s ashes would be going back to Pennsylvania with Maude. One of the women carried a single flower wrapped in tissue, a porcelain urn clutched to her bosom.
