"I'm not much of a talker," he said.

"Me either."

"Guess I could talk to the department shrink if I really need to."

"Couldn't hurt," I said.

"What about you, Mulligan? You got somebody you can talk to?"

"Matter of fact, I do."

I dropped a few bills on top of his, and we walked out of the bar into a bitterly cold night. He got into his Crown Vic and headed for state police headquarters, his work only begun. I got into Secretariat and drove to Swan Point Cemetery to talk things over with Rosie.

49.

Friday morning, Lomax plucked a McDonald's breakfast sandwich wrapper and an empty coffee cup from the corner of my desk, dropped them in my wastebasket, sat on the freshly cleared s.p.a.ce, and read from a printout of the obituary I'd just filed.

Raymond "p.i.s.ser" Ma.s.sey, 46, of 102 Plainfield Street, a reckless daredevil and rabid "Jacka.s.s" fan, died suddenly Wednesday evening after living longer than he had expected and twice as long as he deserved. His last words were, "Hey, Shirley! Watch this!"

"Pretty good, huh?" I said.

"No, it isn't," Lomax said.

"No?"

"It's inappropriate."

"I think I've captured him to perfection. This is the way p.i.s.ser would want to be remembered," I said, p.r.o.nouncing his name the Rhode Island way: "p.i.s.sah."

"But is it the way his family would want to remember him?"

"I gotta think it is. I got most of the details from his mother and sisters."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

"So we can go with it?"

Lomax scowled, removed his gla.s.ses, wiped the lenses with his shirttail, put them back on, and silently read the obituary through from beginning to end.

"All right," he said. "Let's do this. Take out the part about him living twice as long as he deserved. It's too judgmental."

"Fine."

"And remove the nickname. No way I'm printing 'p.i.s.ser.'"

"Will do."

"And take out all the references to public urination."

"You sure? p.i.s.ser took great pride in his ability to p.i.s.s twenty feet in the air."

"I don't care. Take it out."

"Okay. You're the boss."

He gave me a curt nod and shuffled off, leaving me pleased that my campaign to make the obituary page more interesting was making a little headway. It was past noon before I finished the day's obituaries and pointed Secretariat toward the little bayfront town of Warren.

"So who shot him?" McCracken said.

"Wasn't you, was it?" I asked him.

"No," the private investigator said, "but I don't plan on sending flowers to the funeral."

"Then it's gotta be the same people who hit the Chad Brown snuff film factory."

"And its customers in Wisconsin and New Jersey?" he asked.

"I think so, yeah."

"State cops got any idea who the shooters are?"

"Not a clue."

"How about you?" he asked.

"I'm beginning to get an inkling."

"Want to share?"

"Not yet."

"I wonder how the shooters knew what Wayne was mixed up in," McCracken said.

"I've been wondering that, too. Did you mention your suspicions to anybody else?"

"No. You?"

"Not a soul," I lied.

McCracken swiveled his office chair and studied the framed photos of the PC basketball stars on his office wall. Then he turned back to me and changed the subject. "Have you given any more thought to coming to work with me?"

"I've been considering it, yeah."

He checked his watch. "Come on. I'll buy you lunch, and we'll talk about it." So we walked to Jack's on Child Street and kicked the idea around over clam chowder and littlenecks.

"Way things are going, you'll probably clear eighty grand the first year," McCracken said.

"That much?"

"Uh-huh."

"More than I'm making now," I said.

"Yeah, I heard the paper cut everybody down to a four-day week."

"More than I was making before that," I said.

"Really?"

"By a lot."

"Ouch."

"So what's your medical plan?" I asked.

"Don't get shot."

"Dental?"

"Don't get shot in the mouth."

"Retirement?"

"Buy lottery tickets."

"Good plans. What about parental leave policy?"

"Don't have kids."

"I guess that about covers it," I said.

"So how about it?"

"I love being a reporter," I said.

"I know you do."

"But the paper is failing."

"So I keep hearing."

"I can't see myself working in TV."

"'Course not. You're not pretty enough."

"Not dumb enough, either," I said.

"Maybe you could start a blog or something."

"Know anybody who makes a living doing that?"

"No."

"Me either."

"Tell me again what you like about reporting," he said.

"I like sticking my nose in other people's business," I said. "And then I like telling everybody in the state what I find out."

"As a P.I.," he said, "you'd still be sticking your nose in other people's business, but you'd have to keep your mouth shut about it."

"Half the satisfaction for twice the money," I said. "Not a bad trade-off, I guess."

"Want to stick it out at the Dispatch a while longer?"

"I think so."

"Then let's revisit this in a few months," he said. "There's no rush."

"Thanks," I said. Before I left, I remembered to ask him if he'd talk to Parisi. He said he would.

It was after three by the time I hit the road for Providence. I'd just pulled onto the Wampanoag Trail when "b.i.t.c.h" started playing on my cell phone. I let it go to voice mail, but she called three more times in two minutes, so I pulled to the side of the road and dug the phone out of my pants pocket.

"Mulligan."

"Hi. It's Dorcas."

"I know who it is."

"How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"You sure? I've been reading your stories about all the murders. It must be horrible for you."

Dorcas being civil? This was new.