A Murder Misstery Aloft

suddenly a stretch limo pulled up to the curb, and out stepped my mother, looking so much older than I remembered her, with one of my brothers on each arm. I pressed my hand against the plate glass window as if to reach out to them, trying to muster the courage to get up and join them...instead, I just sat there, rooted to my chair, ashamed of myself for all that I had put them through, and afraid to show them the person who I had become.

Good thing! Further down the street, a gray sedan with two men in it caught my eye. One of them seemed to be using binoculars, and even at a distance they looked awfully familiar...of course! Mutt and Jeff, the FBI agents who had pursued me from Chicago to Barcelona, were staking out my father's funeral. Which could mean only one thing: they never bought my fake suicide, and they were still looking for me!

I crouched down in my chair and tried to keep from hyperventilating. Thank God for my week knees, which were shaking under my dress. I would have been arrested the moment I stepped outside the Corner Bakery, in full view of my family, turning my father's funeral into a farce...and that would have been only the beginning. My trial would have been a media sensation, turning me into a freakish celebrity as the man who changed his sex to stay out of prison. By the time I got there, probably with a life sentence, the boys would have been waiting for me, and I'd have spent the rest of my life as the plaything of vicious criminals.

I blessed my decision to cross the border on a casino bus, wondering how I'd ever be able to make it back across to Canada, and France. The memorial service for my father was all but forgotten as I plotted my escape, and it wasn't until I saw the mourners begin to walk down the steps from the cathedral that I realized it was over. I felt ashamed and very, very sorry for myself as I watched my family, for the last time, hugging and kissing before they drifted off.

Then things happened very fast. As the crowd disbursed, the FBI agents gave up and pulled away.