Beach Strip by John Lawrence Reynolds Page A

himself with his own gun.”
    Mel stood up. “We’ll send the bullet that the coroner took out and another one from Gabe’s gun to forensics, and the paraffin test from his hand. We’ll get the results back next week.”
    “Won’t prove a thing.”
    “Hey.”
    I looked up at Mel and was reminded how good he looked when he was angry. Some men are like that.
    “If it makes it easier to believe somebody murdered your husband,go ahead and believe it,” he said. “But the rest of us, the people who have to deal with this stuff every day, we know a suicide when we see one. And I’m sorry if it’s painful for you.” He walked to the gate opening onto the boardwalk. “The technician should be here this afternoon. I’ll tell him to knock first.”
    After Mel left, I went inside and had a slice of Maude’s banana bread with a spoonful of her marmalade on it. It made me feel so much better that I had another one. I had resumed eating. I had not ceased crying.
    I answered the messages from friends who had called, beginning with Hans and Trudy, building their German castle on the beach strip as though it were on the Rhine. Gabe and I had enjoyed their company the few times we got together. Hans likes the same kind of jazz as Gabe, and Trudy bakes a killer strudel, which she always brought along. What wasn’t to like? “You come by, have strudel and tea,” Hans said in something between a command and an invitation. I promised I would.
    Debbie, a friend from my days at the veterinary hospital, called from Toronto, inviting me to stay with her in her high-rise condo on Bloor Street, thirty-six floors above the muggers. I politely declined.
    I called Dewey Maas, the last man I dated before I met Gabe. Dewey burst into tears at the sound of my voice. He had heard the news about Gabe and called once, but didn’t want to bother me by calling again until … well, until I called him. Dewey is a sweetheart of a guy for whom I felt every attraction but sexual. I have never fully understood that. Neither has Dewey, whose name is actually Byron, which is silly enough to make a nickname like Dewey preferable.
    I met Dewey while working at a veterinary office, as receptionist and bookkeeper. Dewey was an animal groomer, working out of a storefront beneath his condominium. In the morning, people brought Dewey their dogs to be washed, trimmed, brushed, andmanicured, and Dewey spent his day talking to animals and listening to opera. Most people assumed Dewey was gay, which made some of the older women warm up to him in ways they wouldn’t if they believed he was straight. Dewey was neither gay nor straight. He dated both sexes, which made him more interesting but, as far as I was concerned, somehow less appealing. I mean, a divorced woman in her thirties has enough competition as it is from her own gender. Why double the odds against you?
    Dewey had cried on the telephone when he heard I was marrying Gabe, which was the last time I had heard from him, and he cried into my ear now that Gabe was dead. “Please tell me you’ll let me help you through this,” he said between sniffs.
    I told him I would.
    “I’ll come and see you whenever you say,” he added.
    I explained that my sister was on her way, and that she would be all the company I needed. Then I thanked him for his concern and said goodbye.
    Humans engage in a lot of silly things, but platonic relationships between two single people of similar ages and different genders has to be among the silliest. Or maybe just the most uncomfortable.
    THE FORENSICS TECHNICIAN ARRIVED after three o’clock, an overweight man with a fringe of hair that, in his dreams, might have been as thick as his moustache. I led him around the house to the shed. He snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, scraped the floor in front of the window, sealed the shed door with a strip of plastic tape with crime scene printed all over it, and left me alone to face Tina.

7.
    T hat afternoon I made tea and walked