“I’m here to pay my respects,” she said quietly. “And to show everyone I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t hurt Bethany.”

You did hurt a lot of animals, I thought, and might have wanted to hide that from this group—and your behavior was certainly something to be ashamed of. But that wasn’t what she meant. Since I’d already promised myself I’d try to learn the truth about Bethany’s death, and hoped that Mamie wasn’t the killer, I should have felt happier to see her there. She was right, wasn’t she? Showing up at Bethany’s funeral was a positive gesture and a moment of holding her head up instead of slinking away in guilt.

Maybe.

I glanced around. People had begun wending their way into the chapel. A couple I recognized from the hoarding meeting at Bethany’s glanced our way, and Mamie, obviously knowing who they were, nodded a solemn greeting to them.

“Are they members of Pet Shelters Together?” I asked her.

“Yes, poor things.”

We joined the throng heading for the service. “I’d like for you to introduce me to them later,” I said, “if the opportunity arises and you don’t feel uncomfortable talking to them.” Even though she might not know all the members of PST, I figured I could count on her more than on Darya to introduce me to those she was familiar with.

“Why would I feel uncomfortable?” She looked puzzled.

Because they’re animal rescuers, and you’re a known hoarder, I thought but didn’t say it out loud. Apparently my concerns about her discomfort were unfounded.

“No reason,” I lied. “But if you happen to see anyone else you know, I’d like to meet them, too,”

“In case one of them killed Bethany?” Her voice sounded eager. Although she kept her eyes down as we walked, she glanced sideways at me. She might have no sense of reality about her hoarding, but she otherwise appeared fairly astute at times.

“We’ll see,” I answered.

I stayed with Mamie for the service in the small, crowded chapel, with its arched ceiling and gorgeous chandeliers. We found seats in a row of pews near the back of the room.

It was most likely the kind of rite Bethany would have wanted, except for the lack of celebrities. But she was eulogized by a whole bunch of pet rescuers who’d signed their facilities up as part of PST. I still wanted Mamie to introduce me to them, but as I sat in the pew, I wrote down names of the people and the shelters they ran so I could follow up later.

The chairman of the board of directors of the group who’d bought Better Than Any Cosmetics from Bethany also praised her—her creativity, her foresight, her business acumen, and her generosity of spirit for selling out and taking on pet rescue as her cause.

Miguel Rohrig spoke, too. As he had before when we’d talked briefly at the restaurant, he truly appeared to mourn Bethany’s loss. He talked about how sweet and generous she was. And how, to the extent he could, he would try to continue her work.

Cricket Borley echoed those thoughts. She was certainly in a better position to do so, given that she was Bethany’s apparent successor as the head of Better Than Any Pet Rescues and Pet Shelters Together. She waved some photos she said were of dogs and cats for whom Bethany had recently found new homes, and tearfully chatted about Bethany’s high pet adoption rate, talking about how the animals would miss her most of all. I found my eyes tearing up, too.

Mamie must have noticed. “I admit she did some good,” she whispered, “but she made other shelters in her network take in a lot of the older or otherwise less adoptable animals, so her own record looked good.”

I glanced at her. This was something I needed additional information about, but not just then. “I want to hear more later,” I whispered back.

“I guess her exes aren’t going to say anything,” Mamie murmured later as the service drew to a close.

“Are they here?” I asked in a low tone, surprised by the possibility.

“Sure. There’s John Jerremiah and there’s Sam Legroote.” Mamie pointed off to the left, to two guys sitting not far from one another toward the front rows of pews. “I’ll bet they’re here to cheer her passing.” She spoke right into my ear. “But knowing Bethany and her love of publicity, she probably left them something in her will if they showed up at her funeral. If so, she’d have told them in advance.”

I wished it was appropriate for me to set up interviews with all the people here who I thought might have disliked Bethany, but it was, after all, her funeral.

Even so, when the service was over and Bethany’s remains were placed in a vault in an ornate structure nearby, I looked around. Miguel, instead of being surrounded by fawning women, was now talking with Bethany’s ex-husbands. I found that interesting. Were they comparing notes about the exes’ divorce settlements, and how they stacked up against anything Bethany had left Miguel? Had Mamie guessed correctly, and they were being paid to show up?

Had she left anything to Miguel—like, enough to constitute a motive to kill her?

And what about the shelter administrators she’d recruited into PST and then, perhaps, used to suit her own blatant needs?

I had a feeling that my speculations and more might get answered—correctly or not—on some of those celebrity-following TV shows, since the media reps were snapping pictures from the fringes of the crowd still milling on the cemetery grounds.

The LAPD detectives kept looking in our direction, and I believed they were scoping out Mamie and what she was doing here.

I did get some of my wishes fulfilled when Mamie took my arm and led me toward where a group of pet rescuers milled around. Cricket was there, and Darya Price and her husband, plus others I recognized from Bethany’s hoarding discussion and the visits to Animal Services centers to see, then pick up, some of Mamie’s animals. Mamie walked right up, joining them as if she was a member of their group.

“Lauren,” Cricket said, ignoring Mamie. “Thanks so much for coming. Do you know everyone here?” At the shake of my head, she said to the group, “This is Lauren Vancouver, administrator of HotRescues. She may be interested in joining our network.”

The group, mostly women and nearly all dressed in dark colors, seemed to each start talking at once, welcoming me, thanking me for coming, and also pretending that Mamie wasn’t there. Interesting. Whatever authority Bethany had exerted over the heads of the rescue groups in her network, Cricket had apparently taken it over easily. Too easily?

At least I didn’t have to count on Mamie’s introduction to these people. They mostly introduced themselves. I was glad I’d jotted down some of their names and shelter affiliations, since I wouldn’t remember them all, even the ones I’d seen before. Now, though only a few names sounded familiar, a lot of their rescue organizations’ names jogged my memory, such as Redondo Rescues, Amazing Animal Rescues, Pet Home Locators.

“Thank you all,” I said. “I appreciate the invitation to join. I’d love to hear more about the organization, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be in touch with some of you soon.”

Everyone seemed to welcome that possibility. And if I managed to ask a few subtle questions about Bethany, how everyone liked her, and who might not have adored her quite so much and why—well, I’d just have to see how that went.

In a short while, I walked outside the cemetery with Mamie and stood beside her at her car. “Did you figure out, from all the people who showed up, who might have killed Bethany?” she asked.

We’d been shadowed here. A couple of the suits I’d noticed before stood nearby and weren’t subtle about watching us.

“I think the police still suspect you.” I nodded in their direction.

She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again, her expression blazed. “It wasn’t me. How about . . . Cricket? She had a good reason. Why aren’t they after her?”

“I don’t know that they aren’t,” I said. “If they thought they had enough evidence, they’d have arrested you by now, I’d imagine. That may mean they’re still checking into other people, too. Just like you, Cricket’s an obvious choice—although taking over a shelter and organization like she did? That might be a reason to protect someone’s life instead of taking it.”

There was no humor in Mamie’s laugh. She got into her car. “I’m going home now,” she said sadly. “My empty home. The place I hope I can keep living, instead of prison.” She closed her door and started driving away.

“Lauren?”

A flash from a camera blinded me for an instant when I turned to see Miguel, and behind him some of those damned paparazzi. They must have followed him to take his picture, and now I was memorialized, too.

“Hi,” I said. “It was a lovely service, Miguel.”

“Yes. Thanks.” His handsome actor’s face scrunched into a grimace of a smile. “Even Bethany’s ex-husbands were impressed.”

“It’s great that you get along,” I prompted. “And also very nice that they came to her funeral.” Okay, I was getting tired of following rules of etiquette—I wanted some answers. “Why did they come?”

“Money,” he said briefly. “My dear Bethany put in her will that they, and I, would get paid to appear at her funeral, if she passed before we did. She made sure to tell us all—although it wasn’t enough for any of us to kill her, of course.”

I was flabbergasted—not only that Mamie had guessed that possibility, but that it was true and that Miguel disclosed it.

“Before you accuse us of anything, they both assured me they didn’t kill her. And I know I didn’t.”

But I didn’t really know that. I couldn’t cross the others off my list because of what they might, or might not, have said to Miguel. And just because he’d seemed to really grieve for Bethany didn’t mean he hadn’t killed her.

“So,” he continued, “are you going to make HotRescues a part of Pet Shelters Together? I just heard from some of the members that you’re considering it. That would be great. And smart.”

His tone, when he said the last, made me wonder what his underlying meaning was. Would I somehow be in danger if I chose not to sign up HotRescues?

Enlisting wasn’t my intention. But using the possibility as an excuse to ask a lot of questions was.

“So you’re still affiliated with Pet Shelters Together?” I blurted that out without thinking.

“It’s part of Bethany’s legacy,” he said. “So, yes, I still intend to help out in any way I can.”

Did that mean he considered it his mission, in memory of Bethany?

Or, like being here, was he going to be paid by her estate to stay involved?

Yes, I still had a lot of questions.

And, no, I hadn’t yet eliminated anyone from my list of murder suspects.

Not Mamie. Not Miguel. Not Bethany’s exes.

More research to come.