"Well, worry about her.She's marrying a defrocked RV salesman," I say, "and that's also happening on my birthday."

"She certainly sounded happy, Jack."

"Just for that, I'm sending you one of his cheesy novels. But here's some sunny news: I'll be off of obituaries soon."

"Oh?" My mother warily awaits more information before offering congratulations. I carry the phone into the kitchen in case Emma awakes.

"When will this happen?" my mother asks.

"No date's been set."

"But you'll continue to work at the newspaper."

"Not exactly, but I'll still be involved. It's an unusual set of circumstances."

"Can't you tell me more?"

"In a nutshell, Mom, I'm waiting for a crazy old coot to die."

My mother says, "That's not the least bit funny."

"It is and it isn't. The guy's eighty-eight years old and he's got a helluva plan."

"Yes, I'm sure he does. Jack, have you thought about going back to see Dr. Poison?"

Shortly after Anne moved out, I falsely promised my mother I would consult a shrink. I lifted the name "Poison" from a Montana road map, and awarded my fictitious psychiatrist an array of lofty credentials from Geneva, Hamburg and Bellevue. I pretended to attend two private sessions a month, and in bogus updates I assured my mother that the man was brilliant, and that he regarded my lightning progress as phenomenal.

"I would gladly go back to Dr. Poison," I tell her, "if he wasn't lying in ICU at Broward General."

"What?"

"The details are sketchy, but evidently a deranged patient assaulted him with an industrial garlic press. It's very tragic."

A familiar frostiness creeps into my mother's voice. "I wish you could hear yourself from where I sit. Surely there's someone you can talk to, someone who could help ... "

"There issomeone," I say. "You, Mom. You could tell me what happened to my father."

An inclement pause, then: "Goodbye, Jack."

"Bye, Mom. Good luck with the Dave crisis."

By nine Juan is gone and Emma's soaking in the tub. I'm scrambling eggs while listening to another installment of the Exuma sessions. The title of the current track eludes me, but my concentration has been slipping. Screening the material take-by-take has lost its eavesdropping novelty, and now I'm just slogging along in hopes of lucking into a clue.

Somebody had a reason for stashing the master recording aboard Jimmy's boat, but the more I hear of it, the more baffled I am about why it was worth hiding—or killing people for. Some of the cuts are polished and quite good, some are so-so and a few of them are unendurable. The cold cruel fact remains that the problem isn't the music so much as the market. If indeed Cleo Rio is homicidally driven to acquire her dead husband's recordings, the stupefying question is why. The teenagers who buy the vast bulk of the planet's compact discs weren't yet potty-trained when Jimmy and the Slut Puppies broke up. Assuming a loyal remnant of the band's former audience could be found and fired up, there's slender evidence of an untapped public appetite for a kinder and gender Jimmy, dead or alive. Once a screamer, always a screamer in the hearts of the fans. Who'd pay money to hear David Lee Roth try to sing like James Taylor?

It's incomprehensible that Cleo could view her dead husband's album as either a potential platinum windfall, or unwanted competition. Sales of a new Jimmy Stoma release would be paltry compared to those that the willowy widow will rack up when her CD comes out, hyped day and night (pubes and all) on MTV.

So, regarding the death of James Bradley Stomarti, I'm still stumped for a motive. And while I've gotten no word from Janet Thrush, I've found myself hoping she was right—that Cleo hadn't any plausible reason to kill Jimmy, so there's no blockbuster story here after all. Because that would mean Janet is most likely alive; that the trashing of her place and the burglary of mine had nothing to do with each other; that it wasn't an impostor who phoned the sheriff's substation and Charles Chickle's law office, but Janet herself. What fantastic news that would be.

I love a juicy murder mystery as much as any reporter does, but the fun quickly goes out of the hunt when innocent persons start turning up dead. Maybe it's because I want to believe Janet's all right that I'm more receptive to the possibility that her brother's drowning was accidental; that Jay Burns's death was unconnected, the randomly squalid result of booze, dope and bad company; and that the concealment of the hard drive aboard the Rio Riodoesn't prove anything except that Jimmy Stoma, like many musicians, was obsessed with keeping his project safe from studio rats and pirates. God only knows where Prince hides hismasters.

Over breakfast I run this scenario past Emma, who says, "But what about all the lies?"

She's perched at the dinette, buttering a piece of wheat toast. Her breakfast attire is a T-shirt with a parrotfish silk-screened on the front—my only souvenir, besides the credit card receipts, from the Nassau trip. The nape of Emma's neck is still damp from the bath.

"Whenever you were pushing for this story," she says, "you'd remind me how the wife gave out different details about the diving accident. And how she said her husband was producing her new record when his own sister said it wasn't true. And don't forget Burns. You said he lied to you about the recording sessions in the Bahamas."

"He surely did."

It was just Jimmy by himself, the keyboardist had told me; Jimmy picking away on an old Gibson. No side players or singers, he'd said.

"Jack, people don't lie unless they're covering something up." Emma announces this with a world-weary somberness I find endearing.

"Doesn't mean it's a murder," I say. "Doesn't even mean it's a newspaper story." Over the whine of the electric juicer I tell her that people lie to reporters every day for all types of reasons—spite, envy, guilt, self-promotion.

"Even sport, Emma. Some people think lying is fun."

"Yes, I've known a few."

A comment like that should be stepped around as carefully as a dozing viper. I turn my attention to straining the seeds and pulp out of Emma's orange juice.

"Jack, have you ever been married?"

"Nope."

"But you've thought about it."

"Only when the moon is full."

Emma has put on her wire-rimmed reading glasses to better appraise my responses. She says, "I was married once."

"I didn't know that."

"College sweetheart. It lasted two years, two weeks, two days and two hours. AndI was twenty-two at the time. Not that I believe in numerology, but it makes you wonder. What happened was so strange. One night I woke up shaky and drenched in sweat, and suddenly I knew I had to leave. So I kissed him goodbye, grabbed Debbie and took off." Debbie is her cat.

Now I'm sitting next to Emma at the table, so close that our arms are touching.

"He was a nice guy," she says. "Smart, good-looking. Great family, too. His name was Paul." She smiles. "I've got a theory. I think Paul and I peaked too soon."

"That's a good one," I say. "It's much better than 'growing apart,' which is my usual excuse. You ever miss him?"

"No, but sometimes I wish I did."

I know what she means.

"Just to feel something," she says.

"Exactly." I figure now is as good a moment as any. "What about last night?"

"You first," Emma says.

"I thought it was wonderful."

"The sex or the cuddling?"

"Both." Her directness has set me back on my heels.

Emma says, "For me, too."

"I was worried, you got so quiet."

"I was busy."

"Yes, you were. So, now what?"

"We tidy ourselves up and go to the office," she says, "and act like nothing ever happened ... "