Page 71 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

He shrugged. “No promises, but the ME told me off the record that she’s leaning toward calling it a suicide. I think showing her this letter to Misty Sinclair is going to clinch the deal.”

The smile got broader. It wasn’t the little trick his father taught him to throw people off. It was the real deal. A victory smile.

Twenty-four hours later, the medical examiner signed Minna’s death certificate.Cause of death: Drowning. Manner of death: Suicide.

Two days after that, my doctor told me I had four to six months to live.

FORTY-TWO

The banner was stretched across the entire length of the bar. There was a sparkly silver-and-green shamrock on one end, the flag of Ireland on the other, and in the center, in big bold Celtic lettering, it read:

The Party of 9/10ths of the Century:

Happy 90th Birthday, Mike

It was Saturday, the tenth of June, and McCormick’s was celebrating Grandpa Mike’s Big Nine-Oh. The food was on the house—mountains of sandwiches and salads, platters of fruit and cheese, and baskets of sweets were laid out on the groaning board like a grand old Irish picnic. Drinks were at 1930s prices, and just in case you didn’t have exact change, there were bowls of nickels on the bar.

Gifts were encouraged. Grandpa posted a list two weeks earlier—clothes (men’s or women’s, any size), toys (new or in good condition), and cash (crisp or crinkled)—all of which would go to St. Cecilia’s. In bright red at the bottom of the list he’d scrawled,If you bring anything for Mike you’ll be thrown out on your arse. The whole town was invited, and by late afternoon the place was packed to the gills, and the gift table was piled to the rafters.

At 6:00 p.m., Misty showed up, all smiles. We had reconnected when my kids were born, and at this point, we were part of the fabric of each other’s lives. But with both of us working crazy hours and living sixty miles apart, too much of our daily contact was by phone, text, or email. That was about to change.

“I haveawesomenews,” she said, as soon as we found a semiquiet booth in the back.

“You finally stopped overusing the wordawesome,” I said. “Oh no, wait. That can’t be it.”

“There are two other words I also haven’t stopped using,” she said. “One is a verb; the other is a pronoun. You want to hear them?”

“I’ll pass. Just tell me the awesome news.”

“I just got a call from my broker. They accepted my offer. I’m moving into the house on Old Carriage Road.”

“Oh my God,” I said, leaning across the table and squeezing her hand. “That actually is awesome.”

When the hospital started interviewing interior design firms for the trauma center, Misty was in charge of her company’s pitch. They got the win, and Misty, knowing she’d be project managing the job for the next year and a half, decided to keep her apartment in New York and buy a second home in Heartstone.

“And now that I’m about to become a taxpayer in your fair city,” she said, “I’ve got question for you, Madam Mayor. Why did your chief of police call me?”

“The chief called you?”

“Don’t play dumb, Maggie. He called and asked if I’d had contact with Minna Schultz recently. I told him I’d been house hunting in Heartstone over Memorial Day weekend. My broker and I were coming out of a place on Cromwell Road just as Minna was heading in. She saw me and ran for the hills. He asked if I’d heard from her since then, and I said no. What’s going on?”

“She committed suicide.”

“I know. But why did he callme?”

“I have no idea. It was a suspicious death. The cops were investigating. They called a lot of people.”

“Suspicious, like maybe someone murdered her?”

I shrugged.

“Did he thinkIkilled her?”

“Of course not.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Absolutely.”

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