The sad thing was that w.i.l.l.y admired his brother for keeping his life together, for not letting the factors that had derailed w.i.l.l.y affect him. Bob's wasn't an exciting life. He hadn't done anything that would merit comment on a plaque or stimulate a rousing memorial speech. But he'd been stalwart and honest and faithful and responsible and had created a life w.i.l.l.y could only envy.

Not that w.i.l.l.y would ever tell him even part of that.

He did sit beside him on the bench, though, and lightly punched his shoulder as he said, "Some speech, Bobby."

Bob swung his head around to glance at him and give him a sour smile. "You are such an a.s.shole."

w.i.l.l.y laughed. "Don't I know it. How's Mom?"

Bob straightened and sat back, sighing deeply, his hands in his lap. " 'How's Mom?' he asks. You called her house to talk to me. You could have asked her yourself, you know? There's another woman you abuse and who still thinks you're the perfect son. I visit her every week, bring Junie and the kids by on a regular basis, have her up to the house for weekends during the summer. All she talks about is you. What the h.e.l.l is it about you that makes people care so much?"

w.i.l.l.y had been staring straight ahead, waiting for Bob to finish, until he noticed his brother was looking right at him, actually expecting an answer.

"Give me a break, Bob," he said.

After a telling pause, Bob let out a small laugh of defeat. "Who am I kidding? You have no idea what I'm talking about. Even I love you, and you're probably the most unpleasant person I know."

"Thanks," w.i.l.l.y responded. "So, how's Mom?"

"She's got emphysema, a bad ticker, and her hip hurts so bad she can hardly walk, but she won't go for replacement surgery. Other than that, she's great. She's still as domineering, short-tempered, and impatient as ever, and still knows everything about everything, even when she's dead wrong. You ought to drop by and see her. The two of you might kill each other and let the rest of us get on with our lives."

w.i.l.l.y smiled. "Gee, Bob, you've become quite the sentimentalist in your old age."

"Yeah."

They sat side by side for several minutes in silence, staring at the enormous bridge and its steady burden of anonymous humanity, surrounded by the muted sounds of the city enveloping them.

Finally, Bob asked, "Why'd she do it? She talked like life was getting better."

w.i.l.l.y thought back to some of the things his brother had accused him of, and of how it had never occurred to him to deny them.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out. It may be too little, too late, but that much I can do."

Chapter 6.

The Re-Coop didn't open until midafternoon, which, given most of its clientele, was still probably early. When w.i.l.l.y appeared across the street from its entrance, recognizing it not just from the sign but from the photograph he'd removed from Mary's apartment, it looked empty.

Of course, all the other buildings on the block looked empty, too. The Lower East Side was distinctive that way, one block being a bustling bazaar, merchandise spilling out onto crowded sidewalks already festooned with clothes and fabrics hanging from overhead signs, while the very next street was silent, closed up, and virtually lifeless.

Unlike w.i.l.l.y's old Washington Heights stomping grounds, though, the Lower East Side had been a catchment area for the poor and the dispossessed since its birth. And yet, perhaps for that very reason, it had also once thrived with life and creativity, with thousands of families jammed into single blocks, fomenting radical thinkers, social activists, and talents like the Gershwin and Marx brothers, Jimmy Durante, and Al Jolson.

But not lately. Nowadays, minus the spark of sheer numbers, that contradictory clash of creativity and despair had melted into something more numbing. While the occasional bustling street still flourished, especially on weekends, the overall neighborhood seemed locked in a permanent funk of poverty, drug abuse, and hopelessness.

The Re-Coop, in other words, was truly a product of its environment.

w.i.l.l.y crossed the street and walked through the door under the brightly painted sign-the only thing distinguishing this entrance from any of its equally dark and brooding neighbors.

That, thankfully, was where all comparisons stopped, however. Once inside, w.i.l.l.y was pleasantly surprised at the light and cheerful atmosphere that greeted him. The walls were colorfully painted and decorated, plants and flowers plentiful, and toys and children's books piled in the corners. It reminded him of an upbeat day-care center in some well-heeled suburb.

"How can I help?" a young woman asked from behind a reception counter. The only doors in the room, other than the one he'd just used, were located behind her on either side, and the front windows, so blank from the street, he saw now had been painted in, further ensuring privacy.

"Yeah. I'd like to talk to someone about Mary Kunkle." He did the routine with the quick flip of the badge.

"What was that supposed to be?" she asked, just as quickly.

He went to Plan B without a pause, pulling the badge back out of his pocket with a feigned sigh of exasperation and laying it on the counter before her. "It's a badge- Vermont Bureau of Investigation. No one's ever heard of us. I usually don't even bother showing it, but I thought you'd like to know who I was."

She peered at it carefully, patently unimpressed. "I bet. Looks real flashy. Why don't you wait over there?" She pointed to a chair near the front door. "I'll get somebody to talk with you."

She slid off her chair and disappeared through one of the back doors. w.i.l.l.y sat down and studied the room carefully, eventually finding the small surveillance camera he'd been expecting. Drug rehab centers came in all shapes and sizes, from the dreary dumps that made shooting up seem like a friendly alternative, to the cold, clinical, hospital look-alikes that reduced everyone in them to the status of a lab rat.

This place was the happy medium, had obviously been set up with serious cash, and would logically have a security system to protect itself. w.i.l.l.y waved at the camera.

Five minutes later, a black woman in her fifties with her hair pulled back in a bun appeared behind the counter. She was solidly built, dressed in no-nonsense, practical clothes, and didn't look as though she appreciated having her time wasted. w.i.l.l.y recognized her as one of the smiling people in the photograph-the one standing in the group's center.

"You were asking about Mary Kunkle?" she asked.

He stood up. "Yes. I used to be her husband."

She studied him silently for a few moments. Suddenly the front door opened and a pale, scrawny young man stepped in, stopped nervously in his tracks, and looked at them both. The older woman's face broke into a wide smile. "Hey, Tommy, good you could make it. Let me tell Dave you're here."

She then gave w.i.l.l.y a hard look, although she kept her voice artificially bright. "Why don't you come with me?"

w.i.l.l.y followed her through to a back hallway lined with closed doors and muted lighting. She stopped at one of the doors, stuck her head in, and said, "Tommy's here," before leading w.i.l.l.y to what was apparently her own office halfway down the corridor. Again, the environment was soothing, upbeat, pleasant, and well paid for.

"You guys must be pretty good fund-raisers," w.i.l.l.y commented.

The woman pointed at a comfortable armchair facing her desk. "Sit."

She circled the desk, settled behind it, and steepled her fingers just below her chin, so that she was looking at w.i.l.l.y as if he'd been pinned under gla.s.s.

"One call to the police department about that little trick with the badge and I could have you arrested."

"It's real," he said without emotion.

"It's also irrelevant, and it was used to intimidate. I don't like that."

"Okay."

"What do you want?"

"I wouldn't mind knowing who you are, for starters," he said.

She made no apologies. "I'm Rosalie Coven, the center's director."

She left it at that, letting the ensuing pause suggest that her question had been left unanswered.

He got the hint. "I'm trying to find out why Mary killed herself."

Coven's eyes narrowed slightly. "I was told it was accidental."

"Might have been. She still killed herself."

"Point taken. Why do you care?"

"Because I was married to her. Because I'm the only one they could find to identify her at the morgue."

"You also abused her when she was most vulnerable."

Was there anybody in this city who didn't know about that? he wondered. "Most vulnerable compared to what?" he asked instead. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, but I was pretty messed up, too."

"The devil made you do it?" she suggested sarcastically.

He saw where this was going, and knew he'd get nothing in return if he continued. "No," he conceded. "I did it all by myself, and while it sounds pretty lame right now, I've lived with it ever since."

Rosalie Coven stared at him for a few moments before asking, "What happened to the arm?"

"Job-related. I was shot."

"Long ago?"

"About ten years."

"Soon after you two broke up, if my memory's right."

"It's right."

For some reason she wasn't about to reveal, that seemed to thaw Rosalie Coven ever so slightly. The hands unsteepled and she pointed to a metal carafe and some cups on a filing cabinet by his side. "Pour yourself some coffee. It should be pretty hot."

He took her up on the offer, dexterously manipulating the process with his one hand. Coven watched him work, as if grading a test.

"You have doubts about how Mary died?" she finally asked.

"Don't you?" he countered. "So far, people I've talked to said she was on the mend."

Coven shook her head. "I've been doing this way too long to think that means much. You're an alcoholic. You should know."

"Still," he insisted.

She yielded. "I was surprised. I thought she was further along."

He felt the blood rise slowly to his neck and cheeks. "That's it? You had her on the wrong place on the graph? Too bad, but s.h.i.t happens?"

The woman opposite him leaned forward and rested her forearms on the desk, staring at him intently. "Don't give me that, you little toad. You helped put her on that graph. You don't ever get to be self-righteous."

He held up his hand as if to stop her coming over the tabletop at him. "Okay, okay. Enough with the who's holier c.r.a.p. Maybe I sent her down this road, and maybe you missed the signs and let her hit the ditch. So, we're both feeling guilty. Who cares? I just want to find out if it's true."

To pay Rosalie Coven her due, she took w.i.l.l.y's dismissal of her outburst in stride and seriously considered his last comment.

"She was one of the few I thought would make it."

"Were there any signs at all she was heading downhill?" he asked.

Coven shook her head. "Nothing. Everything was pointing in the opposite direction."

"Was there anyone here she was tight with? Someone besides you she might have confided in?"

"Louisa Obregon, everyone calls her Loui. They were very close. But I asked her about Mary, and she was as stunned as the rest of us." Coven looked at him sourly before adding, "Not that that'll stop you from pestering her anyhow."

He merely smiled back at her. "What's her address?"

"She lives in the neighborhood, like most of us." She scribbled the location on a piece of paper and handed it to him. "Here. It's probably a waste of time telling a cop this, but go easy with her, okay? She took this hard. She left work right after we heard and hasn't been back since."

w.i.l.l.y glanced at the address and slipped the note into his breast pocket.

Coven gave him a stern look. "I've done you a favor I normally never do, giving you that. You better not disappoint me."

w.i.l.l.y rose to his feet and crossed to the door. "Little late now, isn't it?"

The address Rosalie Coven gave w.i.l.l.y Kunkle led him to a slightly improved version of Mary's building: more modern, less run-down, and on a street that didn't look so much like a depopulated, hundred-year-old daguerreotype. In fact, just standing in the lobby with his finger on Louisa Obregon's doorbell, w.i.l.l.y found the surrounding sounds of kids shouting and the smell of food on the stove a crucial vital sign, and a big difference from the stale silence of Mary's place.

"Yes? Who is it?"

"Is this Louisa Obregon?"

The slightly accented voice dropped a note into wariness. "Who is this, please?"

w.i.l.l.y chose his wording carefully, knowing he probably had only one shot at gaining entry. "I'm a police officer, Ms. Obregon. Rosalie Coven at the Re-Coop gave me your address. It's in connection to the death of Mary Kunkle."

There was no response, but the door lock buzzed him through.

He took the elevator to the fifth floor, stepped into the corridor, and heard the same voice call out, "Turn right. About halfway down."

He walked up to a barely open door and saw through the crack both a thick, taut chain and the dark, suspicious eye of a woman checking him out.

"You have identification?"

He put on his best manners while he reached into his pocket. "Yes, ma'am. I should warn you, though, I'm from Vermont. That's where I'm a cop." He held out his ident.i.ty card and shield so she could read it, keeping one fingertip over his last name.

"The Vermont Bureau of Investigation?" she asked. "What do you have to do with Mary's death?"

"She was from there, as I'm sure you know. The nature of how she died has raised some questions we'd like to have answered."