Carl Hiassen - Basket Case

If the years should add up to forty-seven, so what.

Happy Birthday to me.

It hammers everybody in different ways, at different times. Seventeen days after Jimmy Stoma's death, the awful reality has overtaken his sister. Janet is kneeling on a patch of fresh sod in front of a gleaming new headstone.

Emma seems puzzled but it's beginning to make sense to me. Jimmy's gone, every mortal trace of him, and there's no place where Janet can mourn.

She says, "You remember him, Jack? Such a sweet little man."

"Of course."

The name on the headstone belongs to Eugene Marvin Brandt, the medical-supplies salesman who was laid out smartly in his favorite golf duds, spikes and all. "My Gene," his wife had called him.

At the time I'd thought it was flaky of Janet Thrush to crash the viewing at the funeral home. And undeniably I was creeped out when she asked me to join her at the side of the old man's open casket.

Looking back, though, the scene doesn't seem quite so twisted. Soon her brother would be ashes, and Janet knew she'd be grieving over thin air. She wanted a special place to go, a surrogate gravesite, so she adopted Eugene Marvin Brandt. I believe I understand.

Or maybe not.

"Aw, Jack, I've done something terrible!"

She breaks down in seismic sobs. Emma takes her by the shoulders.

"The worst ... thing ... I ever ... did ... in my whole ... damn life!" Janet stammers wrackingly.

"It's all right," Emma says.

"Oh no, it's not. Oh no."

I stoop beside her. "Tell me what's the matter."

"I feel so bad for Gertie."

"Who's that?" Emma asks gently.

I nod toward the headstone. "Mrs. Brandt," I whisper.

Emma leans closer to Janet. "You're both hurting, you and Gertie. You've both lost someone dear."

"You don't understand. Jack?" Janet turns to me, her cheeks shining with tears. "Jack, I did a really bad thing."

Now I'm puzzled, too. Jimmy's sister gets up off the grass, discreetly tugging the wedgie crease out of her bikini bottoms.

"I saw this thing about reincarnation, it was on the Psychic Network," she's saying, "about how some people think it doesn't work so good without the actual body in a grave. And the more I thought about it, I wanted Jimmy to have a chance, you know? At least a chance to come back as a dolphin or a flying fish. Whatever he's supposed to be."

"Janet, what are you saying?" I feel Emma's fingers tighten on my elbow.

"See, Cleo knew. She knew Jimmy wanted to be cremated."

"Convenient for her, as it turned out."

"Jack, I love my brother and I respect his wishes, but I wasn't ready. Cleo was pushing so hard to get the cremation over and done, I just knew somethin' wasn't right. Plus I wasn't ready to say goodbye.' Janet's hands are fluttering, like she's tossing a Caesar salad. "And Cleo, she didn't give a damn how I felt. She wouldn't even return my phone calls."

Mildly Emma says, "So what did you do?"

"Something real bad." Janet takes a deep breath, shuddering as she exhales. Sadly she glances over her shoulder at the headstone of Eugene Marvin Brandt.

"I switched the burn tags," she says.

"You did what?"

"That day at the funeral home, when you almost fainted and we went outside for some air? Well, afterwards I went back to put the Doors album in Jimmy's coffin—that's when I switched the burn tags. After Gene's service was over they moved him to the back room, right next to Jimmy. I had it all planned out. Isn't that terrible?"

It is terrible. I want to hug her, it's so terrible. I want to go waltzing through the tombstones, Emma on one arm and Janet on the other.

"Jack, what's a burn tag?" Emma asks.

"It's what the funeral home attaches to coffins that are going into the crematorium."

"Ugh-oh."

Janet says, "I'm in deep shit, huh?"

Collectively we turn to stare at the name on the gravestone. We are shoulder to shoulder under the high August sun, and our shadows look like three pigeons on a wire. The back of my shirt is damp, and the lenses of Janet's sunglasses have fogged from the heat. Only Emma looks cool. I am holding her hand; no, squeezing her hand.

"Now, let's be clear on this." It's a struggle to keep the glee out of my voice. "Eugene Marvin Brandt, God rest his soul, isn't really buried in this plot."

"Nope," Janet Thrush admits dolefully.

"So this would be your brother"—I motion with what I hope is somber reserve—"lying here beneath us. James Bradley Stomarti."

"Yup," says Janet. "It's been over two weeks, I figure that's enough time."

"For?"

"Him to get reincarnated, safe and sound."

Emma says, "But is it enough time for you? Are you ready to let go?"

Jimmy's sister nods. "Yeah. I am. After what you guys told me about Cleo, I'm more than ready." She blows a peach-sized bubble and pops it with a glittery fingernail. "I feel so bad. Poor Gertie's gonna have a cow."

Emma is holding up like granite—must be that nursing-school training. "What would you like us to do?" she asks Jimmy's sister.

"Help me nail that pube-flashing tramp for murder. Then put it in your newspaper." Janet mutes an angry sniffle. "Jack, you told me before but I forget—who is it I'm supposed to call?"

"For an autopsy?"

"What else." She manages a laugh. "My brother's famous for his encores."

Epilogue

Jimmy Stoma's anaconda tattoo got ruined by my friend Pete, the pathologist. This was almost a year ago, after the grave of Eugene Marvin Brandt was opened up with a judge's order and a two-ton back-hoe. In the hole was Jimmy's coffin, just as his sister had promised.

Over the frothing objections of Cleo Rio's attorneys, an official autopsy was ordered. The elaborate Y-shaped incision did a job on Jimmy's snake-humping temptress. "A thing of beauty," Pete later told me, ruefully. "I felt like I was taking a machete to a Monet." Dutifully he went spelunking through Jimmy's body cavities, gathering sashimi-style tidbits for the lab. The liver is where he struck the mother lode: Benadryl, a common over-the-counter cold and allergy remedy. Two capsules put the average adult into a deep sleep. Cleo wasn't taking any chances. She emptied no less than twenty caps into Jimmy's grouper chowder, enough to zonk a buffalo. Then she called him up to the deck for lunch. Afterwards he strapped on his dive tank and jumped off the boat. Pete said he probably passed out within twenty minutes, a cataleptic slumber that left him drifting in the currents across the sandy bottom.

The Benadryl capsules had been purchased—with a roll of Sweet Tarts and a bottle of platinum hair bleach—at a drugstore in Silver Beach, two blocks from Jimmy and Cleo's condo. At first she claimed somebody had forged her signature on the credit card receipt. Her tune changed after the prosecutor, Rick Tarkington, offered to produce a handwriting expert and the sample of a recent signature on a deli menu. The singer had autographed it to a fan known only as "Chuck," posing as a delivery boy.

To my surprise, Cleo called me one night before she got indicted. She was hanging out alone at Jizz. For giggles—and a witness—I took Carla Candilla.

The widow was half in the bag when we arrived. Gone was the silky pop-star glow. Her pageboy had been weed-whacked into some sort of unisex mop, and her face looked blotched and gaunt. Under the strobes her neglected tan took on a sickly greenish hue. It's no day at the spa, being the target of a murder investigation.

We followed her to one of the club's private rooms, where Cleo bummed a Silk Cut cigarette off Carla and said, "My lawyers'd shit a brick if they knew I was here."

"Why? Are you going to confess?" Eagerly I slapped my notebook on the table.

Cleo wrinkled her nose and leaned closer. "What's that you got on?"