"I saw this thing about reincarnation, it was on the Psychic Network," she's saying, "about how some people think it doesn't work so good without the actual body in a grave. And the more I thought about it, I wanted Jimmy to have a chance, you know? At least a chance to come back as a dolphin or a flying fish. Whatever he's supposed to be."
"Janet, what are you saying?" I feel Emma's fingers tighten on my elbow.
"See, Cleo knew.She knew Jimmy wanted to be cremated."
"Convenient for her, as it turned out."
"Jack, I love my brother and I respect his wishes, but I wasn't ready. Cleo was pushing so hard to get the cremation over and done, I just knew somethin' wasn't right. Plus I wasn't ready to say goodbye.' Janet's hands are fluttering, like she's tossing a Caesar salad. "And Cleo, she didn't give a damn how I felt. She wouldn't even return my phone calls."
Mildly Emma says, "So what did you do?"
"Something real bad." Janet takes a deep breath, shuddering as she exhales. Sadly she glances over her shoulder at the headstone of Eugene Marvin Brandt.
"I switched the burn tags," she says.
"You did what?"
"That day at the funeral home, when you almost fainted and we went outside for some air? Well, afterwards I went back to put the Doors album in Jimmy's coffin—that's when I switched the burn tags. After Gene's service was over they moved him to the back room, right next to Jimmy. I had it all planned out. Isn't that terrible?"
It is terrible. I want to hug her, it's so terrible. I want to go waltzing through the tombstones, Emma on one arm and Janet on the other.
"Jack, what's a burn tag?" Emma asks.
"It's what the funeral home attaches to coffins that are going into the crematorium."
"Ugh-oh."
Janet says, "I'm in deep shit, huh?"
Collectively we turn to stare at the name on the gravestone. We are shoulder to shoulder under the high August sun, and our shadows look like three pigeons on a wire. The back of my shirt is damp, and the lenses of Janet's sunglasses have fogged from the heat. Only Emma looks cool. I am holding her hand; no, squeezingher hand.
"Now, let's be clear on this." It's a struggle to keep the glee out of my voice. "Eugene Marvin Brandt, God rest his soul, isn't really buried in this plot."
"Nope," Janet Thrush admits dolefully.
"So this would be your brother"—I motion with what I hope is somber reserve—"lying here beneath us. James Bradley Stomarti."
"Yup," says Janet. "It's been over two weeks, I figure that's enough time."
"For?"
"Him to get reincarnated, safe and sound."
Emma says, "But is it enough time for you?Are you ready to let go?"
Jimmy's sister nods. "Yeah. I am. After what you guys told me about Cleo, I'm more than ready." She blows a peach-sized bubble and pops it with a glittery fingernail. "I feel so bad. Poor Gertie's gonna have a cow."
Emma is holding up like granite—must be that nursing-school training. "What would you like us to do?" she asks Jimmy's sister.
"Help me nail that pube-flashing tramp for murder. Then put it in your newspaper." Janet mutes an angry sniffle. "Jack, you told me before but I forget—who is it I'm supposed to call?"
"For an autopsy?"
"What else." She manages a laugh. "My brother's famous for his encores."
Epilogue
Jimmy Stoma's anaconda tattoo got ruined by my friend Pete, the pathologist. This was almost a year ago, after the grave of Eugene Marvin Brandt was opened up with a judge's order and a two-ton back-hoe. In the hole was Jimmy's coffin, just as his sister had promised.
Over the frothing objections of Cleo Rio's attorneys, an official autopsy was ordered. The elaborate Y-shaped incision did a job on Jimmy's snake-humping temptress. "A thing of beauty," Pete later told me, ruefully. "I felt like I was taking a machete to a Monet." Dutifully he went spelunking through Jimmy's body cavities, gathering sashimi-style tidbits for the lab. The liver is where he struck the mother lode: Benadryl, a common over-the-counter cold and allergy remedy. Two capsules put the average adult into a deep sleep. Cleo wasn't taking any chances. She emptied no less than twenty caps into Jimmy's grouper chowder, enough to zonk a buffalo. Then she called him up to the deck for lunch. Afterwards he strapped on his dive tank and jumped off the boat. Pete said he probably passed out within twenty minutes, a cataleptic slumber that left him drifting in the currents across the sandy bottom.
The Benadryl capsules had been purchased—with a roll of Sweet Tarts and a bottle of platinum hair bleach—at a drugstore in Silver Beach, two blocks from Jimmy and Cleo's condo. At first she claimed somebody had forged her signature on the credit card receipt. Her tune changed after the prosecutor, Rick Tarkington, offered to produce a handwriting expert and the sample of a recent signature on a deli menu. The singer had autographed it to a fan known only as "Chuck," posing as a delivery boy.
To my surprise, Cleo called me one night before she got indicted. She was hanging out alone at Jizz. For giggles—and a witness—I took Carla Candilla.
The widow was half in the bag when we arrived. Gone was the silky pop-star glow. Her pageboy had been weed-whacked into some sort of unisex mop, and her face looked blotched and gaunt. Under the strobes her neglected tan took on a sickly greenish hue. It's no day at the spa, being the target of a murder investigation.
We followed her to one of the club's private rooms, where Cleo bummed a Silk Cut cigarette off Carla and said, "My lawyers'd shit a brick if they knew I was here."
"Why? Are you going to confess?" Eagerly I slapped my notebook on the table.
Cleo wrinkled her nose and leaned closer. "What's that you got on?"
"Your favorite cologne."
It was called "Timberlake." Carla and I spent an hour sniffing samples at the men's counter in Burdines until we found the right one.
"All your fellas wear it," I said to Cleo. "Loreal. Jerry the gorilla. You even doused it on Jimmy in his casket."
"I like what I like," she said, "but on you it would gag a maggot."
Carla hooted. I deserved no less.
Listing slightly to starboard, Cleo said, "I gotta know, Tagger. Was it really you who did this to me? All by your lonesome?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just a tired old obituary writer."
"As if," she snorted.
Here Carla cut in: "Cleo, honey, your sleeve's in the salsa."
"Shit. This is a Versace."
The bartender sent a club soda, and Cleo went to work scrubbing on the stain. I asked if it was true that the record label had canceled her contract. She said so what, it was a chickenshit outfit anyway. "After the trial I'm getting an incredibly sweet deal. My new manager's talking mega."
"Awesome," I said, which seemed to please her. "Hey, have you found a new producer yet?"
Cleo's response was to pulverize an ice cube with her molars.
"Or a new bodyguard?"
"That's not funny, man. When this is over," she said, "I'm gonna sue your newspaper for about twenty million bucks."
"When this is over, Cindy Zigler, you'll be in prison."
"Yeah, right."
Carla couldn't help but notice the wane of bonhomie. "Cleo, before we say goodbye, I gotta ask—in the video, was that you or a body double?"
The widow perked up. "It was all me. Every curly little hair."
Her arrest was bannered on the front page: Singer Charged in Death of Rock-Star Husband.That was the headline. Here was the byline:
By Jack Tagger Staff Writer
For the first time in four years I sent a clipping to my mother. I also saved a copy for Anne, at her request. She and Derek were in Italy where he was researching a new spy novel, The Bishop's Chambermaid.Anne mentioned it, with a gently appropriate joke, in a postcard.