Read The Death Agreement for Free Online Page A

sister,
Tiffany. He is survived by his grandfather, Howard Taylor of
Williamsport, PA. A service will be held on Friday, March
15 th , at Hardesty's
Funeral Home in Annapolis, MD.
    ***
    Mary Stallings of the Baltimore
Sun newspaper sat across from me, shaking her head.
    "How does that sound?" I
asked.
    "It sounds kinda—"
    "Kinda what?"
    "Emotionless. Sterile. Why don't
you liven it up, say something about him as a person?"
    "I mentioned he liked to
coach."
    "Don't you want to say something
substantial, Mr. Randon?"
    I took a deep breath and looked
around her office. Two Excellence in Journalism awards, one from
2008 and the other from 2010, hung on the wall next to her diploma
from Louisiana State University. All three plaques were caked with
a layer of dust.
    "I told you a dozen times, I'm not
talking about the case. The only reason I'm here is for the
obituary."
    She frowned.
    For the past three years, Mary
Stallings had been the police liaison. Her primary job was to
collect information for the Crime
Beat section of the paper.
    When she came poking around, I
flat out refused to talk to her. That did nothing to stop her
resolve. She kept coming back, day after day, trying new ways to
pique my interest. In the end, it wasn't Mary's persistence which
changed my mind; it was The Death Agreement.
    Taylor had needed an obituary.
Funeral homes usually take care of that kind of thing once payment
is made and all the documents are in order. I didn't have the money
to pay out of pocket right then, and the military was dragging
their feet with Taylor's paperwork. Without his will, no one, not
even the funeral homes, would help me with anything involving
Taylor's estate. The one exception: Mary Stallings.
    I had agreed we could talk but told
her there was a big If attached. My terms were simple. She would help me write the
obituary, and maybe I would tell her about Taylor. Of course that's the official
reason why I had gone to see her. Unofficially, my life had
unraveled past the point where I could pull it back together alone.
Yang was alright, but I needed someone to talk to other than the
police.
    "Jon," she said and brushed her
wavy auburn hair away from her brown eyes. "You asked for my help,
remember?"
    "I know."
    "So let me help."
    I met her eyes and admired the
pale freckles across the bridge of her nose. I nodded, and wondered
if she was sincere, or if she only saw me only as a meal ticket.
Even if that's all I was to her, it wasn't so bad.
    I knew the story would get out
sooner or later. Fact is, the only reason it hadn't hit the
newsstands was because Mary had left Taylor's case out of the crime
section of the Baltimore Sun. At that point, all that anyone knew
was the family had died.
    "All right. If you want to help,
tell me about those." I said, nodding to the wall.
    "Okay. What would you like to
know?"
    "For starters, how did you go from
an award-winning reporter to sloshing through piles of police
reports?"
    Her jaw clenched shut and her
stare turned to daggers. I lowered my gaze to the papers scattered
across her desk. "I didn't mean to be insulting. I'm
sorry."
    Her shoulders fell and she relaxed
against her chair. "It's okay. Let's call it office politics. The
editor in chief and I butted heads once too often and now I'm
here."
    "Sounds like the Army."
    "Is your commanding officer a
loud-mouthed son-of-a-bitch?"
    "His name is Colonel Litwell, and
yeah, he is, actually."
    Mary laughed and it was the
sweetest sound I had ever heard. I might have fallen in love right
then. In another time or place I would have acted on the feeling,
but the moment of relief had only lasted a second. Suddenly, I
wondered what Taylor would think of her, wondered when I could
introduce her to him. Then reality crashed down and the family of
corpses weighed heavily on my conscience once more.
    "The police still consider me a
suspect," I blurted out.
    In a serious, yet nonjudgmental
tone, she asked, "Are you involved?"
    "No."
    "Why do you