Free Death Will Help You Leave Him by Elizabeth Zelvin Page A

you’re going to fall at my feet and adore me.” Jimmy rocked back in his chair and beamed at her. “They put up a website.”
    “What?”
    “A website,” Jimmy repeated. “According to Dictionary.com, ‘a set of interconnected web pages, generally located on the same server, and prepared and maintained as a collection of information—’ ”
    “Clown,” she said.
    “A funeral website?” I said. “That’s creepy.”
    “Why? People do wedding and bar mitzvah websites. Everybody likes to see their name in print, everybody wants to know who came. People who didn’t make it get to see the pictures. They can post messages and send the family their condolences.”
    Come to think of it, it wasn’t half as creepy as the medieval tortures website.
    “They have pictures?” Barbara said. “Let me see.” She squeezed herself around behind Jimmy’s chair and clung to his back so she could look.
    Jimmy removed her arms from around his neck without comment. He was used to being draped in nice Jewish girl.
    “Yeah, there’s an online album. Pictures going back to Frankie’s childhood.”
    I squeezed in next to Barbara and looked over Jimmy’s shoulder. He zipped the mouse around and brought Iaconefuneral.com up on his twenty-eight-inch screen. He scrolled down the menu on the home page. Slideshow of family photos. Guestbook. Prayers.
    “Wow, this is good. You can actually read all these names and addresses.”
    “I’ll print it out,” Jimmy said. “If we cross-check the pictures and posts against the address list, we can sort a lot of these people out.”
    It was weird to see Frankie looking jovial, with his arms around a slimmer Netta and the little girl and boy we’d met.
    “This does not look like a guy who ever slept on the couch,” I said.
    “Hey, what if one of those Brooklyn-y women was in love with Frankie?” Barbara said.
    “Then wouldn’t she have been more likely to kill Luz? Or Netta?”
    “Not necessarily. These things can go all different directions. We have got to get to know these people better,” Barbara said, “or we’ll never figure it out.”
    “Maybe one of the women was in love with Netta,” I said.
    Jimmy and Barbara looked at me, then at each other.
    “Naaah,” they said simultaneously.
    “Okay, okay,” I said. “Not in Brooklyn.”
    “Or how about this,” Barbara said. “Could another man have been in love with Luz? She never told me about anyone else, but what if it was somebody she hardly noticed? Guys you’re not attracted to don’t count.”
    I winced.
    “Barbara, I love you, but some thoughts are better saved for your women’s group.”
    “What, you don’t want to know the secrets that lie in the heart of a woman?”
    “When I do, I’ll let you know.”
    “I really have to get to work,” Barbara said. She unglued herself from Jimmy and started back through the living room. “I’m going to be late as it is.”
    She gathered up the empty coffee pot and mugs, a couple of books, a sheaf of papers, and her handbag.
    “Oh!” She stopped dead in the center of the room, her arms full of stuff. “I just remembered. Luz knew one of the dealers. Isaac? Ezekiel? Ishmael!”
    “Barbara,” Jimmy said, “these are dangerous people.”
    “But if we’re careful— I mean
really
careful, Jimmy— it’s just talking.”
    He shook his head and spoke to me.
    “She doesn’t get it.”
    “She could talk to Luz about it,” I said. “If Luz wants to contact him— her life, her risk.”
    “If you’re going to start calling me ‘she’,” Barbara said, “I’m outa here.”
    “Give me a kiss first, pumpkin,” Jimmy said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ‘she’ on you. I get scared when you don’t realize what chances you’re taking.”
    She dumped the armful of stuff— on a table, not the carpet, and the mugs and pot rolled, they didn’t break— and ran back to give him a quick but fervent smooch.
    “Now I really have to run.” She was almost