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assumed was required before cremation. Her first search returned just three mortuaries with a McAllen address. She dialed the first number.
    “Calderon Funeral Home,” the male voice answered.
    “Do you do cremations?” Andy asked.
    “We can arrange for that, if you’d like.”
    “Yes, well, I’m actually trying to find out when and where my—a friend of mine was cremated recently.”
    “And you think we arranged the cremation?”
    “I’m not sure, but I wondered if you could check.”
    “How recently?” the man on the other end asked.
    “Well, within the last two or three weeks.”
    “Which is it, ma’am, the last two or the last three weeks?”
    “Three weeks. Could you check the last three weeks?”
    “What’s the name?”
    She could hear the sound of keystrokes. “Kornacky. Mark Kornacky. K-o-r-n-a-c-k-y,” she spelled out, as her pulse picked up its pace. Finally, warm-blooded assistance. So much better than meandering around online in the digital darkness.
    “Kornacky. Kornacky,” he repeated and lapsed into silence.
    Not much of a talker, she realized. Still, he had a pulse. Another two minutes and he said, mechanically, “Still checking.”
    Okay, even Siri had more personality, she admitted.
    Finally, the verdict was in. “No, no Kornacky. Sorry.”
    “You checked back three weeks?”
    “That’s right.”
    After so much failure this morning, Andy’s endorphins finally took a dive; she slumped back in her chair. “Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it,” she managed. Then, loathed to let go of an asset who was both sentient and local, she asked, “Ah, and before I hang up, can you tell me who else in the area handles cremations?”
    “Almost any funeral home can provide the service, ma’am. And Mr. Kornacky could have been cremated in a nearby town like Pharr. Or Mission.”
    “Oh.” Andy contemplated the prospect of adding another column of names to the list of potential human incinerators in the Lone Star state.
    “And then, of course, there’s always Reynosa,” he said, in a tone that was anything but robotic.
    “Reynosa?”
    “Across the border.”
    “People go to Mexico for cremations?”
    “People go to Mexico for almost anything, ma’am. You know what it’s like there.”
    Time to stop with the questions, Andy determined, because she didn’t know what it was like in Mexico. Right now it was hard enough figuring out what it was like in Texas. “Okay, well, thank you,” she said, adding, “I mean it. You’ve been really helpful.”
    The voice perked up.
    “I have?”
    “You have. So thank you.”
    “Ah, shucks,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
    She realized it was the only time she’d smiled all morning. She hung up the phone and ruminated on how to say cremation in Spanish. Cremacion?
    “I just finished the Antichrist . You want to read it?” Harley was hovering over her, having wandered into her loft office from his bedroom down the hall.
    “No, thanks. I’m more the Bhagavad-Gita type,” she answered, putting down the phone and surrendering to the invasion.
    “Huh?”
    “Never mind. It was a joke.”
    “If you say so,” he said, as if he knew what funny was and that wasn’t it. “So what are you doing?”
    “I thought I’d try to get a copy of my former husband’s death certificate. You know, to find out the cause of death.”
    Harley sat down on the small sofa near her desk and looked dangerously close to settling in for a chat. “You mean, the medical examiner’s report.”
    He’d forgotten to put it in the form of a question. Or worse, he hadn’t meant to. “I do?”
    “I don’t think a death certificate would be as helpful.”
    “Really? How do you know this, Harley?”
    “I watch a lot of TV.”
    “Hmm,” she replied. “I guess that explains it.” The real question, of course, was ‘how did she not know this?’ After all, she watched a lot of TV, too. Hell, she wrote a lot of TV. The truth was she did know this; she just