Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak

ashram? It's not the kind of place to send someone who's mentally ill. At least, not that kind of mentally ill.”
    â€œYeah, but if this new medication is working—”
    â€œOh, they all work, to some extent, until he starts to feel better and decides he doesn't need pills, and stops taking them, at which point the delusions start again, and the wanderlust, and it's a nightmare for Uncle Theo and me, losing him for months—”
    â€œYeah, okay. Don't think about it now, not until you talk to him and see what the story is. Tell me more about these walk-ins.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    W ITHIN THE HOUR , I was talking to P.B. Which was not the same as P.B. talking to me.
    â€œIncoming information only,” he said. “No outgoing. You speak.”
    â€œWhy can't you speak?” I spoke softly, mindful of the family of customers walking into the shop. “Didn't you get the aluminum foil?”
    â€œI did my ears, not my teeth. We're going to lunch.” Applying foil to teeth was a tedious process, not worth doing before meals.
    â€œOkay. Remember what you said last night, about what was in the driveway there? The body,” I whispered. “How did you know about the body? Is it something you witnessed, or—” I paused, hesitant to ask my brother if he'd murdered someone yesterday.
    â€œWhat's that?” he said sharply, in response to a short beep.
    â€œCall-waiting. Hold on.” I tried to click in to the other call, but kept returning to P.B. Call-waiting was annoying when it worked, and worse when it didn't; either way, it upset him.
    â€œOkay, they must've hung up,” I said, clicking back to him a third time. The family of customers trooped out of the shop. I raised my voice to a normal level. “I need to know everything you know about this murder, not that I think you had a hand in it, but if you did, I'm sure you had your reasons and I'm sorry I was so distracted yesterday when you tried to tell me about it, and—” I stopped, getting a funny feeling in my stomach. “P.B.?” I asked.
    Silence. Then a voice nothing like my brother's said, “And who is P.B.?” I hung up and backed away from the phone. What had I just said?
    And who had I said it to?

chapter eleven
    T he horror of that phone call remained, killing my appetite for shrimp fried rice.
    Joey, Fredreeq, and I had a standing Saturday lunch date at the table in front of the shop, going over the classified-ad guys for the upcoming week in between bites of Loo Fong's takeout. My journal was in front of me, open, awaiting my entries for the previous week's men, but I couldn't even look at it. Fredreeq was describing a new date she cryptically referred to as Rex Stetson, her chopsticks waving in the air to illustrate her points. I nodded as though paying attention, dying to blurt out that someone had just heard me invite my brother to confess to murder. But Fredreeq was not Joey. If she heard any part of the story, she'd demand to know all of it, and wouldn't like any of it. Her personal attire notwithstanding, Fredreeq was straitlaced about a lot of things. Felons, for instance. Dead people.
    Who had been on the other end of the phone?
    The cops, Mr. Bundt, or Mr. Bundt's industrial spy: these were the worst-case scenarios. The fact that I hadn't recognized the voice meant little. Four words weren't much to go on. I'd considered pressing *69, but what would that accomplish? So I'd stood there waiting for him to call again, at which point I would have answered in Spanish. He didn't call.
    â€œMorgue,” Joey said.
    Fredreeq and I turned to her. A gust of wind sent Joey's red hair swirling around her, Medusa-like. Her green eyes had a faraway look.
    â€œMorgue?” Fredreeq said. “What do morgues have to do with anything?”
    Joey's eyes snapped into focus. “Pork. I said pork.”
    Fredreeq looked suspicious. “What about