I was sitting at the kitchen table, remembering that smile, when I sensed someone coming through the garden from the beach, as Gabe might have, and I held my breath until he reached the door. It was Mel. He wore his blue police windbreaker over a white cotton T-shirt that wrapped around his chest like skin on an apple, tight jeans, and white Reeboks. He stood staring at the garden shed, his hands on his hips, and I opened the door before he could knock. We looked at each other, not speaking. I was wondering how Tina knew Mel’s eyes would be blue.

“How’re you doing?” Mel asked finally.

“Surviving. My sister’s here. From Vancouver.”

Mel looked over my shoulder.

“She’s sleeping,” I said. “You want some coffee?”

“No, it’s all right. I’m on my way to the station. Just dropped in to see how you were. And I’ve got news.”

Two people going by on the boardwalk stopped and leaned toward each other, watching us and whispering. There’s the widow, I could imagine them saying. I didn’t want them seeing or saying anything about me.

“Come in,” I said, walking back to the kitchen table.

Mel closed the door and leaned against it, inside the house but not in the kitchen. “I called the station this morning,” he said. “The lab says that’s definitely semen from the floor of the garden shed. They’ll do a DNA analysis for identification purposes in case they come up with a suspect.”

I didn’t want a suspect for perversion. I wanted a suspect for the murder of my husband. More than that, I wanted the murderer himself. I wanted Mel to help me find him and help me kill him. I honestly had that thought, staring across the garden at the boardwalk and the beach beyond, where Gabe had died.

“Is it possible …” I began. I started over. “Is it possible that whoever killed Gabe—”

“Josie—”

“Let me finish. Is it possible that whoever killed Gabe might have hidden in the shed and followed him to the beach, into the bushes?”

“The guy whose semen we found?”

I shrugged.

“First, we don’t know if anybody was in there at the time. And second, Josie, Gabe did it. It’s clear as hell—”

“No, he didn’t.”

Mel looked up at the ceiling, rolled his eyes, and spread his arms in a gesture of defeat. “There’s something else,” he said. “The body … Gabe is being released today.”

I sat staring at the wall, my chin on my hand.

“They need to know what you want to do, Josie,” Mel said. “Have you made arrangements for burial? Have you chosen a funeral parlour, an undertaker?”

“No.”

“You have to.”

“I’ll wait for Tina. My sister,” I added when he stood scratching an eyebrow and looking puzzled. “One of us will call later. Who do we talk to?”

Mel removed his notepad, scribbled a name and telephone number on the top sheet, tore it off, and walked to where I sat, placing the paper in front of me. “I’m worried about you,” he said.

“Good.” I reached for his hand. “So am I.”

Mel said nothing. Then, “I’ll call later,” and he walked to the back door.

“Do we need that damn yellow tape around the garden shed?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “You want me to take it off?”

I nodded and followed him into the garden.

Pulling the tape from the door, he called over his shoulder, “Walter Freeman’s arranging a ceremony for Gabe next week.”

I told Mel I didn’t want one.

“Doesn’t matter.” He carried the yellow tape to the trash pail. “A cop dies, there’s a ceremony for him. You can do what you want about a funeral, but cops like to have a ceremony.” He brushed his hands together and looked at me. “Even when it’s a suicide.”

I told Mel it wasn’t a suicide.

“I wish you’d see it that way. Anyway, he’ll want you there. For the services.”

I told him to tell Walter if I wasn’t there he could start without me. Then I turned and went back into the house.

I didn’t need a place to visit Gabe. I didn’t need a block of marble in a cemetery to tell me who and where and what he was. And I didn’t need an undertaker selling me a five-thousand-dollar coffin either. There would be no ceremony with me present. Walter Freeman could do whatever the hell he wanted. I would have Gabe cremated and scatter his ashes on the lake.

TINA CAME DOWNSTAIRS AN HOUR LATER wearing a peach-coloured robe and L’Air du Temps. She walked to me without a word and placed her arms around me, more of an embrace than a hug.

“You missed Blue Eyes,” I said when she straightened up and poured herself a coffee.

“Who?”

“Mel. He was here this morning. Gabe’s body is …” I swallowed the lump and started again. “They’re releasing Gabe’s body today. They want me to choose an undertaker. How the hell do you choose an undertaker?”

Tina set her coffee cup down and asked where my telephone book was.

I chose the funeral parlour nearest to the police morgue. That way, they wouldn’t have to drive very far. Maybe hearses have meters. I figured the shorter the distance, the lower the fee. It might be a silly reason for choosing an undertaker, but it was the only one I could think of.

Tina was appalled. Tina likes ceremonies, including funerals. They are an opportunity to wear new clothes. I didn’t tell her what I planned. She heard it for the first time after driving me to the funeral home and listening to me inform the undertaker that I wanted Gabe cremated and the whole procedure done for the lowest price they offered. The undertaker, or at least the guy who took the orders at the office, was young enough to believe that his own mortality was merely a rumour. It was easy to picture him as the class nerd in high school, which was probably last year. He nodded, closed his eyes, and smiled when I said I wanted no ceremony, just cremation in a plain wooden box, and I could pick up the ashes myself if it saved a few bucks.

“Returning the remains to you,” he said with his eyes still closed, “is included in our services.”

I signed the order, used my credit card, and we left.

“You’re just going to …” Tina said as we drove away and, after waiting for the courage to say it aloud, “… cremate him?”

“He has no other family,” I said. “He was an only child and his parents are gone. I’m it. And I’ll remember him my way.”

“But he was a police officer. Won’t they want to do something for him? I mean, when a police officer dies on duty, cops show up from all over the country—”

“He didn’t die on duty. And the police have decided he wasn’t shot by somebody else. They’ll have some ritual. A bunch of out-of-town cops will show up, march around wearing white gloves and a serious expression, and spend the night at a Holiday Inn playing poker and telling dirty stories. Or maybe they’ll forget the whole thing, considering it was suicide.”

“So you also think Gabe killed himself.”

“No, I don’t. The cops do.”

“Shouldn’t you have a funeral anyway?”

“For you and me? Listen, Gabe and I talked about this last year, when an officer was shot while checking a warehouse. They really went overboard on that one, two thousand cops marching behind the hearse, tying up traffic all across the city. Gabe said if he was ever killed on duty I should comb his hair, dress him in a sweatshirt and jeans, and set him on a bench looking out at the lake.”

“Men can never talk about death seriously.” Tina folded her arms and glanced at me. “That’s why they have affairs.”

“To avoid discussing death with their wives?”

“No, because they’re afraid of dying. They want one more lay before they go, and they think the next might be their last.”

“You’re such a romantic.”

“It’s true.”

“Why do women have affairs?”

“Because their men let them down.”

That hurt. Gabe never let me down. Well, maybe once.

WE WERE OUT OF THE CITY and driving along the south end of the beach strip, the low-rent section studded with small cottages whose residents gathered at Tuffy’s Tavern on the days their welfare cheques arrived. Tina wrinkled her nose at the sight of people sitting on their front steps smoking and drinking beer out of long-necked bottles. “You really like living here?” she asked.