The Undertaker

“Shut up! You were in the Army and then you went to work for something called Netdyne out in LA. Right?”

“Yeah, software and aeronautical engineering computer stuff,” I kept nodding as the feeling of stark terror was beginning to wear off. After all, he hadn't shot me yet.

“You moved here to Boston two months ago and you're living in that little suck-ass apartment over in Lexington? So where's your wife?”

“Where's my wife?” Now it was my turn to get pissed. I sat up and glared. “She's dead. She died a year ago back in LA.”

“Yeah? You freakin’ sure about that?”

“Yeah, I'm freakin’ sure about it!” The .45 or not, I'd had enough.

“Okay, Ace, then how do you explain this?”

He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a bad Xerox copy of an old newspaper story, and dropped it in my lap. One glance and I knew exactly what it was:

TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, died last Tuesday in a tragic automobile accident in Baja California. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and former lieutenant in the US Army Transportation Corps, he was a software engineer with Netdyne Systems in Long Beach and the husband of Theresa June Talbott who preceded him in death here last month following a lengthy illness. A memorial service will be held at the Montane chapel in Long Beach at 2:00 PM on Thursday.

“Oh, not this again,” I laughed and shook my head, recognizing the old obituary from the LA Times.

“You see something funny, smart guy?”

“That obituary, it was all a big mistake.”

“A mistake?” He raised the .45. “I'm all freakin’ ears.”

I tried to explain to him about the trip to Tijuana, the 350-Z, the semi, the dead Mexican kid, and the memorial service in Long Beach.

The guy sat and listened, as he said, he was all ears. When I finally finished, he sat there for a minute as if he was studying me. “Okay, then how do you explain Columbus?”

“Columbus?”

“Yeah, Columbus. In Ohio. You never heard of it?”

“Sure, I've heard of it.”

“So what were you doing there? Having more funerals for the hell of it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I‘ve never been there.”

“Never?” he glared, looking deep into my eyes. “What about that dip-shit accounting office of yours down on Sickles?”

“Accounting office? I'm a software engineer, a computer programmer; I don't know anything about accounting. Look, whoever you're looking for, I'm not him.”

“Okay, if that's the way you want to play it, how do you explain these?” he said as he dropped two other slips of torn newsprint in my lap.

They were two more obituaries. I picked the first one up and read:

TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. President of Center Financial Advisors. Formerly of Los Angeles. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and a lieutenant, US Army Transportation Corps. By authority of Ralph Tinkerton, Executor. (See also TALBOTT, THERESA JUNE, wife, accompanying). Funeral services for both at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Greene Funeral Home, 255 E. Larkin, Peterborough, Ohio. Internment, Oak Hill Cemetery, following.

“You making a fuckin’ hobby out of these?” he asked, but all I could do was stare at it. Coincidence? How many 1998 graduates of UCLA were there? How many were thirty-three years old and from Los Angeles? How many of those were alumni of the “Fighting” Transportation Corps, “an officer and a gentleman by Act of Congress” named Peter Emerson Talbott? Only one that I could think of. I had never heard of a company named Center Financial Advisors, much less owned one, and I had never heard of the Varner Clinic or a man named Ralph Tinkerton, either.

Worse still, I looked at the other one. It was the companion piece for Terri: