However, I left the funeral arrangements to his aunts. My cousin named me his executor, a duty that was bound to absorb a lot of energy. I knew he would not care how he was buried, whereas the little excitement in his aunts’ lives came from weddings and funerals. They made sure we spent several hours over a full-blown mass for the dead, followed by an interminable procession to the Sacred Heart cemetery on the far South Side.

After the interment Bobby Mallory fought through the crowd to me in his lieutenant’s dress uniform. I was on my way to Boom Boom’s Aunt Helen, or maybe his Aunt Sarah, for an afternoon of piroshkis and meatballs. I was glad Bobby had come: he was an old friend of my father’s from the Chicago Police Department, and the first person from the old neighborhood I really wanted to see.

“I was real sorry about Boom Boom, Vicki. I know how close you two were.”

Bobby’s the only person I allow to call me Vicki. “Thanks, Bobby. It’s been tough. I appreciate your coming.”

A chilly April wind ruffled my hair and made me shiver in my wool suit. I wished I’d worn a coat. Mallory walked with me toward the limousines carrying the fifty-three members of the immediate family. The funeral would probably eat fifteen thousand out of the estate, but I didn’t care.

“Are you going to the party? May I ride with you? They’ll never miss me in that crowd.”

Mallory agreed good-naturedly and helped me into the back seat of the police limo he’d commandeered. He introduced me to the driver. “Vicki, Officer Cuthbert was one of Boom Boom’s many fans.”

“Yes, miss. I was real sorry when Boom … sorry, when your cousin had to stop playing. I figure he could’ve beat Gretzky’s record easy.”

“Go ahead and call him Boom Boom,” I said. “He loved the name and everyone used it … Bobby, I couldn’t get any information out of the guy at the grain company when I phoned him. How did Boom Boom die?”

He looked at me sternly. “Do you really need to know that, Vicki? I know you think you’re tough, but you’ll be happier remembering Boom Boom the way he was on the ice.”

I pressed my lips together; I wasn’t going to lose my temper at Boom Boom’s funeral. “I’m not indulging an appetite for gore, Bobby. I want to know what happened to my cousin. He was an athlete; it’s hard for me to picture him slipping and falling like that.”

Bobby’s expression softened a bit. “You’re not thinking he drowned himself, are you?”

I moved my hands indecisively. “He left an urgent message for me with my answering service—I’ve been out of town, you know. I wondered if he might’ve been feeling desperate.”