"Oh, Barb, say you're joking."

"Only when I said 'I do,'" she assured her with another sniff. "And let me be the one to tell you that the only police work Victor's interested in is strip-searching that trashy little dispatcher he ran off with."

"What a guy."

"Oh, yeah." Barb made it a point to smile and wave at the police officer, who didn't seem quite so sanguine about it. "He doesn't understand why I don't want my kids visiting with that tramp there, who calls my baby girl a mongoloid, the bitch. 'Get used to it,' he says.^'She loves me.' She loves his eight-inch dick."

"He has an eight-inch dick?" Cindy demanded, squinting in his direction as if she could actually see it.

"You don't want to go down that road," Barb warned her.

"You coming in?" one of the mortuary guys asked, since they were the last ones standing outside. "We're about to start the final prayers."

"Which better begin with 'Pass the marshmallows, it's gonna be a hot one tonight,'" Mattie offered as she tugged her church dress more smoothly over her backside.

Timmie was about to pass through the faux-granite walls when Alex stopped dead in his tracks to her left.

"If they aren't here to investigate something," he said, his attention back toward the street, "what's he doing here?"

That effectively stopped forward progression all over again. This time, even the mortuary guy took a look.

"It's just the reporter," Timmie said, seeing him picking his way along the line of trucks, notebook in hand.

"Reporter?" Mattie asked. "What reporter?"

"Daniel Murphy," Alex said with a bemused expression. "The man from the horse show."

"He probably ran out of people to save," Barb suggested. "Which means he has to do his job. Isn't this his job?"

"A funeral?" Alex retorted with no little disbelief.

"He reports for the Puckett Independent," Barb reminded him. "The Independent doesn't exactly cover trade embargoes. This is probably the most exciting thing he could find to do."

"Daniel Murphy cover just a funeral?" Alex demanded with a laugh. "I don't think so. That man has two Pulitzers."

This time Timmie's attention was caught. "He's that Daniel Murphy?"

Actually, she should have figured it out when she'd seen him before. There was something familiar about him, something about the way he walked and talked and looked that reminded her of the hardcore guys who used to cover L.A. Sexy as hell with his just-shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and hound-dog eyes, but tired and battered and faded at the edges. Clad in his army's uniform of shapeless old tweed jacket and jeans that were as worn as a battle banner nobody saluted anymore. As burned out as the cops he'd covered.

So there was a multiple Pulitzer winner in a town the size of Puckett. Alex was right. Timmie wondered what it meant. And why he'd come to this particular funeral.

"He's headed this way," Cindy said, patting at her stiff crest of hair. "What do you think we should do?"

"Anybody here have something to hide?" Timmie asked.

Every hand went up. Even the mortuary guy's. By the time the reporter reached the steps to the Eternal Rest Chapel, there was no one left to greet him.

* * *

Debriefing probably would have been a lot more fun if the waitress who was serving them at the Rebel Yell Bar and Grill hadn't also been Billy's first cousin on his mother's side. Other than that, it was a typical hospital party, with Travis Tritt on the jukebox and steins of beer on a constant slide down the Formica bar to where the hospital crew had assembled in the Jeb Stuart party room.

"I... hate funerals," Cindy moaned, her face almost in the salsa. She'd had three beers, and her hair was already flat.

"I hate Richard Simmons," Mattie retorted.

"I hate family court," Timmie chimed in.

Everybody cheered and lifted glasses. The SSS had made a strong showing at the bar, along with other hospital staff who had smelled a celebration and showed up before their shift. Even Alex had come along for one drink, although truth be told, his scrubbed-cheek appearance did put a bit of a damper on the celebration.

"What would your father say?" Cindy asked, veering her attention toward Timmie like a Yugo skidding on ice.

"About what, family court?" Timmie asked. "He hated it, too."

"No..." She waved, her gesture exaggerated. "Death."

"Ah." Timmie considered it. Lifted her glass, which held only 7-Up with a twist. Cleared her throat. "He would say..."

"Yes?" four people urged.

"Fuck it. The guy's dead. Let's drink."

She got an even greater cheer. She also got half a glass of beer over her head from the mourning cousin.

Timmie sputtered and wiped. The cousin cursed. "You wouldn't'a thought it was funny if it was your cousin that was dead. 'Specially if it shouldn't'a never happened ."

"Hard to avoid in the long run," Timmie philosophized, accepting a bar towel from the outraged bartender, who was trying to pull the cousin away.

"He was only forty-four!" the cousin screeched, her heels skidding in beer as the bartender yanked her back.

Timmie paused for a moment as she blotted foam from her only decent dress. "Yeah," she said. "He was only forty-four."

"He woulda been okay if he'd gone in like I told him three weeks ago," the cousin insisted. "He'd'a got saved."

Timmie blinked. "Three weeks?" she asked. "He was only sick for four or five days."

"He was sick for a month!" the girl yelled, pulling away from her restraint and bearing down on them again. Everybody grabbed their beer glasses in self-defense. "Pukin' and gettin' numb and itchin' and feelin' bad. But that bitch of a wife of his told him he was makin' it up so's he didn't have to pay no child support. What the fuck did she know? He was sick!"

Only Timmie was really listening. "But nothing showed up on the tests."

The cousin snorted. "Like you really give a shit."

"Get outa here, Crystal," the bartender demanded. "Cool off."

Crystal got out.

A month, Timmie couldn't help but think. Sick a month. Like the flu. With numbness and itching.

That niggling thought about testing ashes resurrected itself right there in the middle of the bar. God, if only she weren't so distracted and tired, she knew damn well she'd be able to make sense of it.

"Don't even go there," Mattie warned.

Timmie swung her own attention wide. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Uh-huh. You in town one month and you got dead flowers in you locker and beer in you hair. Girlfriend, I think you askin' for trouble."

"Dead flowers?" Alex immediately asked. "What dead flowers?"

"It's nothing," Timmie assured him with a warning glare at Mattie, who was sitting right next to Cindy as Cindy regaled one of the unit nurses with tales of Johnny's funeral in Chicago.

"The line of cop cars went on for miles," she insisted. "Miles. He was a good cop."

"He was a cop?" Timmie echoed instinctively.

"Yeah," Barb said. "Didn't you know?"

Timmie shook her head. "No... I sure wish they hadn't dry-roasted him."

"Cindy's husband?"