Bette coughed and nervously fingered her speaker’s notes. She adjusted the microphone anchored to the front edge of the podium and angled it downward so that it pointed towards the base of her throat, instead of directly on her mouth. The crowd packed into the National Cathedral in downtown Washington, DC, stirred restlessly.

“Like the others who’ve spoken ahead of me,” she began, reading from her notes, “I, along with my family, mourn Peter’s untimely death, and, since he requested it in his instructions to Jackson,  thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to have the last word at his memorial. I won’t say that I’ll be as eloquent … or as funny…”

The crowd chuckled.

“As everyone else has been,” she said, and looked up to flash a tentative smile. She paused and looked around. Many in the crowd smiled back at her supportively. The previous speaker from one of the main foundations Peter had supported had spoken long and eloquently about Peter’s generosity, and had issued a plea to whoever would be handling his estate to continue that support. Bette had looked on noncommitally as he spoke. But after he’d finished and returned to his seat, she looked around and saw the crowd was growing restless. It had been a long service.

People had flown in from all corners of the globe, it looked like, and the crowd reflected the mix of business, society, political, and charitable luminaries Peter had either worked, socialized, or done business with. A sizable portion of the crowd had also known his father and grandfather; there were charities supported by his mother that had also sent representatives.

As she looked around from the podium, Bette couldn’t help but feel there may have been a few amongst them who didn’t really mourn Peter’s passing, or who may have even harbored a grudge or something towards Peter while he’d been alive. Or toward his family. They may have turned up as a matter of courtesy, perhaps, and they were probably the ones who kept checking their watches or smartphones.

Before the service had started, Bette also reflected that the true feelings of the core group of the gold collective’s leadership remained unclear to her.   This was particularly true about those who were increasingly insistent that Bette share what she knew about what she’d managed to figure out about the cache of gold they had been chasing.