He ushered them instead into a changing area designed to make his customers feel like English lords. Along with the standard dais surrounded by mirrors, there were leather armchairs, side tables, reading material, a wall of unread books with fancy leather bindings, and a silver tea set on a sideboard. The lighting was tasteful and intimate, and the rug deep enough to tickle your ankles.
Bob invited them to sit, which they all did, before asking, "Is Willy all right?"
"We think so," Gunther answered matter-of-factly. "That's one of the reasons we're here. Have you heard from him?"
Bob nodded. "A few days ago. We met near where our mom lives. He told me about Mary. What a shock."
Sammie was comfortable enough being away from the city and the odd kind of diplomacy they'd been practicing there to speak up as she might have back home. "What was the reason for your meeting? You two aren't all that close, are you?"
Gunther looked at her in surprise, thinking her approach had been overly direct, but it had the right effect on Bob. He laughed sadly. "Yeah, you could say that. I've had enemies I spend more time with." He paused briefly and then answered the question. "He wanted to know what I could tell him about Mary."
"Why would you know about her?" she asked.
"She started calling about six months ago. I don't know how Willy knew that, but he wanted to know why. I told him I thought she was just reaching out after cleaning herself up-and wanting to know how he was doing. I wasn't very helpful, I'm afraid. After he told me she'd died, I got angry at him and the conversation sort of ended."
"As brother's go," Joe Gunther commented, "he must be a little high-maintenance."
Again, Bob let out a short laugh. "You kidding? He's no maintenance at all. It's his way or the highway, and you get to do all the lifting." He ran his palm across his bald pate in exasperation. "I can't blame him, though. When it came time to hand out the bad luck, Willy was first in line. I don't know that I could've dealt with half the shit he has. I mean, I know he's a pain and a bully, but he's a real straight shooter, you know? Mary's dead by her own hand, from what he told me, but he's still going to find out why. It's just his way."
"Is that what he told you?" Sammie asked.
Bob looked over at her but didn't seem to have heard. "He hasn't talked to our mom in years, he's insulting to my wife, and he's never even met my kids, but if I were in a jam, he's the one I'd want to come after me. He's like a bulldog that way."
Sammie smiled at the description. Over the last several days, she'd done her best to keep her own emotions to one side, being Joe's faithful sidekick and Willy's steady colleague. But she loved Willy Kunkle, and was being torn apart by what he was going through, and it was all she could do not to cross the room and give his brother a hug. He'd fallen under Willy's truly bizarre charm just as she and Joe Gunther had. Either that or only they had recognized the value of not heeding his tremendous ability to reject people. In point of fact, Bob's sketch of Willy's stubborn tenacity alone might as well have been used on Joe Gunther, and, now that she thought of it, herself as well.
"Did he say anything at all that might help us find him?" she asked.
He gave her a hapless expression.
Gunther cleared his throat softly. "Bob, you said Willy questioned you about Mary. What had she been up to?"
"Basically putting her life back together. She got a job at a drug rehab place near her home called the Re-Coop and she was trying to put some money away."
"She was taking birth control pills," Sammie said. "You know why?"
Bob flushed red. "I didn't ask her things like that."
"What about right after she and Willy broke up?" Gunther asked. "Were you in touch with her then?"
"A little bit, at first. She was hurt and confused, and pretty frightened. Willy really went over the top with her, I guess. She told me he'd hit her, just once, but that was enough. He was in a pretty bad way back then, drinking hard and acting strange. I heard later it might've been posttraumatic stress disorder or something-maybe had to do with what he did in Vietnam. But he never talked about that, and I was always too scared to ask."
Sammie understood what he meant. The Willy she knew was further from the edge, but that particular topic was still hypersensitive. "What was she up to down here?" she asked him.
"Escaping, I guess is the best way to describe it, although I had my doubts she knew what she was doing. If I was in her condition, the last place I'd come to start over would be New York. Unless you have someone to turn to, it can be the loneliest place on earth."
"Was there a someone?"
"Eventually, yeah. His name was Andy Liptak-an old war buddy of Willy's. I only met him once, and he seemed nice enough, but I guess he had other things on his mind than taking care of Mary. He was out to make a buck, and I think she kind of drifted off, in a way. You know, got into things she shouldn't have."
"You mean the drugs?"
"Well, yeah. Once she started with them, it was like Willy had been with the booze. Kind of ironic, when you think about it. That she ended up like he'd been. Anyhow, she and Andy broke up. No surprise there."
Joe Gunther was picking up something in his voice, just a hint of evasiveness, as when someone moves solely to avoid becoming a target.
"Bob," he asked, "you told us Mary called you right after she and Willy broke up, and about six months before she died. Both times in which she was going through a quantum change. Were you and she good friends when she was married to Willy?"
Bob looked at him nervously. "We were friendly, the few times we met. I mean, she was up there in Vermont, and they only came down one time so she could see the city. She always struck me as a nice person."
"A person who could have done better than your brother when it came to husbands?"
Bob was fidgeting with his fingers, intertwining them in various ways. He flashed a false smile and said, "Well, that's probably true for any woman who'd marry Willy. Not that he's a bad man, of course. But he's tough to live with. I sure know that much."
"So, you sympathized with Mary."
"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't?"
"Which is why you visited her when she called you after the breakup."
Bob glanced at Sammie and then back at Joe. "I… ah… gosh, I might have. I forget. Long time ago. I remember the phone calls, although, like I said, she talked to Junie more than me. You know, girl stuff, I guess."
"Junie's your wife?"
His eyes widened. "My wife? I told you-"
Gunther hardened his tone, driving a wedge into the gap he'd opened by pure chance. "You didn't mention Junie to us, Bob. Maybe you used that line on Willy. Do they get along-Willy and Junie?"
"No."
"Then it's unlikely they'd compare notes. How many times did you go to see Mary, Bob?"
Bob's voice was thin and tight. "I told you. I don't remember."
"First it was never, then once, now so many times you can't remember."
"You're twisting my words."
Sammie ganged up on him from her side, now fully aware of what Gunther was after. "Bob, it's not a crime what you did, not that we can't treat it like one-check your phone records, look for witnesses who saw you together, talk to your wife about any unexplained trips."
Bob stared at them for a moment of absolute silence, and then burst into tears, covering his face with his hands.
Gunther got up and handed him a handkerchief from his back pocket, making Sammie wonder incongruously how many men still carried such items.
"Bob," Gunther said kindly, "it might help to get it off your chest. Chances are it won't go any further than this room."