Michael was about to terminate the meter when Laurie spoke up: “Would you mind waiting for me?” she asked. “I’m certain I’ll only be a few minutes, and I imagine it would be hard catching a cab from here.”

“Sure, Lady,” Michael said. “No problem.”

“Would you mind if I left my briefcase?” Laurie asked. “There’s absolutely nothing of value in it.”

“It will be safe just the same,” Michael said.

Laurie got out and started up the front walk, feeling unnerved. She could remember as if it were yesterday the case Dr. Dick Katzenburg had presented at the Thursday afternoon conference five years earlier. A man in his twenties had been essentially embalmed alive in the Spoletto Funeral Home after having been involved in throwing battery acid in Pauli Cerino’s face.

Laurie shuddered but forced herself up the front steps. She was never going to be completely free from the Cerino affair.

The people smoking cigarettes ignored her. Soft organ music could be heard through the closed front door. Laurie tried the door. It was unlocked, and she walked in.

Save for the music there was little sound. The floors were heavily carpeted. Small groups of people were standing around the entrance hall but they conversed in hushed whispers.

To Laurie’s left was a room full of elaborate coffins and urns on display. To the right was a viewing room with people seated in folding chairs. At the far end of the room was a coffin resting on a bed of flowers.

“May I help you?” a soft voice enquired.

A thin man about Laurie’s age with an ascetic face and sad features had come up to her. He was dressed in black except for his white shirt. He was obviously part of the staff. To Laurie, he looked like her image of a puritan preacher.

“Are you here to pay respects to Jonathan Dibartolo?” the man asked.

“No,” Laurie said. “Frank Gleason.”

“Excuse me?” the man enquired.

Laurie repeated the name. There was a pause.

“And your name is?” the man asked.

“Dr. Laurie Montgomery.”

“Just one moment if you will,” the man said as he literally ducked away.

Laurie looked around at the mourners. This was a side of death that she’d experienced only once. It was when her brother had died from an overdose when he was nineteen and Laurie was fifteen. It had been a traumatic experience for her in all regards, but especially since she’d been the one who had found him.

“Dr. Montgomery,” a soft, unctuous voice intoned. “I’m Anthony Spoletto. I understand you are here to pay respects to Mr. Frank Gleason.”

“That’s correct,” Laurie said. She turned to face a man also dressed in a black suit. He was obese and as oily as his voice. His forehead glistened in the soft incandescent light.

“I’m afraid that will be impossible,” Mr. Spoletto said.

“I called this afternoon and was told he was on view,” Laurie said.

“Yes, of course,” Mr. Spoletto said. “But that was this afternoon. At the family’s request this afternoon’s four p.m. to six p.m. viewing was to be the last.”

“I see,” Laurie said nonplussed. She’d not had any particular plan in mind concerning her visit and had intended on viewing the body as a kind of jumping-off place. Now that the body was not available, she didn’t know what to do.

“Perhaps I could just sign the register book anyway,” Laurie said.

“I’m afraid that, too, is impossible,” Mr. Spoletto said. “The family has already taken it.”

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Laurie said with a limp gesture of her arms.

“Unfortunately,” returned Mr. Spoletto.

“Would you know when the burial is planned?” Laurie asked.

“Not at the moment,” Mr. Spoletto said.

“Thank you,” Laurie said.

“Not at all,” Mr. Spoletto said. He opened the door for Laurie.

Laurie walked out and got into the cab.

“Now where?” Michael asked.

Laurie gave her address on Nineteenth Street and leaned forward to look out at the Spoletto Funeral Home as the taxi pulled away. It had been a wasted trip. Or had it? After she’d been talking with Mr. Spoletto for a moment, she’d realized that his forehead wasn’t oily. The man had been perspiring despite the temperature inside the funeral parlor being decidedly on the cool side. Laurie scratched her head, wondering if that meant anything or if it were just another example of her grabbing at straws.

“Was it a friend?” Michael asked.

“Was who a friend?”

“The deceased,” Michael said.

Laurie let out a little mirthless laugh. “Hardly,” she said.

“I know what you mean,” Michael said, looking at Laurie in the rearview mirror. “Relationships today are very complicated. And I’ll tell you why it is…”

Laurie smiled as she settled back to listen. She loved philosophical taxi drivers, and Michael was a regular Plato of his profession.

When the cab pulled up outside Laurie’s building, Laurie saw a familiar figure in the foyer. It was Lou Soldano slouched over against the mailboxes, clutching a bottle of wine in a straw basket. Laurie paid Michael the fare along with a generous tip, then hurried inside.

“I’m sorry,” Laurie offered. “I thought you were going to call before you came over.”

Lou blinked as if he’d been asleep. “I did,” he said, after a brief coughing spree. “I got your answering machine. So I left the message that I was on my way.”

Laurie glanced at her watch as she unlocked the inner door. She’d only been gone for a little over an hour, which was what she’d expected.

“I thought you were only going to work for another half hour,” Lou said.

“I wasn’t working,” Laurie said, as she called for the elevator. “I took a trip out to the Spoletto Funeral Home.”

Lou frowned.

“Now don’t give me extra grief,” Laurie said as they boarded the elevator.

“So what did you find? Franconi lying in state?” Lou asked sarcastically.

“I’m not going to tell you a thing if you’re going to act that way,” Laurie complained.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Lou said.

“I didn’t find anything,” Laurie admitted. “The body I went to see was no longer on view. The family had cut it off at six p.m.”

The elevator opened. While Laurie struggled with her locks, Lou curtsied for Debra Engler, whose door opened against its chain as usual.

“But the director acted a little suspicious,” Laurie said. “At least I think he did.”

“How so?” Lou asked as they entered Laurie’s apartment. Tom came running out of the bedroom to purr and rub against Laurie’s leg.

Laurie put her briefcase on the small half moon-shaped hall console table in order to bend down to scratch Tom vigorously behind his ear.

“He was perspiring while I was talking with him,” Laurie said.

Lou paused with his coat half off. “Is that all?” he asked. “The man was perspiring?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Laurie said. She knew what Lou was thinking; it was written all over his face.

“Did he start perspiring after you asked him difficult and incriminating questions about Franconi’s body?” Lou asked. “Or was he perspiring before you began talking with him?”

“Before,” Laurie admitted.

Lou rolled his eyes. “Whoa! Another Sherlock Holmes incarnate,” he said. “Maybe you should take over my job. I don’t have your powers of intuition and inductive reasoning!”

“You promised not to give me grief,” Laurie said.

“I never promised,” Lou said.

“All right, it was a wasted trip,” Laurie said. “Let’s get some food. I’m starved.”

Lou switched the bottle of wine from one hand to the other, allowing him to swing his arm out of his trench coat. When he did, he clumsily knocked Laurie’s briefcase to the floor. The impact caused it to spring open and scatter the contents. The crash terrified the cat, who disappeared back into the bedroom after a desperate struggle to gain traction on the highly polished wood floor.

“What a klutz,” Lou said. “I’m sorry!” He bent down to retrieve the papers, pens, microscope slides, and other paraphernalia and bumped into Laurie in the process.