Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) by Elizabeth Zelvin

Find out where they are, what they do, what their financial position is.”
    “He talked about his sisters,” I said. “The one he liked was Emma. Emmie.”
    “Emily,” said Barbara, looking at her notes.
    “He called her Emmie. She might not have been speaking to him. He said everyone in the family was pissed off at him.”
    “She’d still be upset that he died. Especially if she’d been mad at him. I know I would.” Barbara riffled through her notes. “Did he talk to you about women?”
    “Other than his sisters, no. I told him I was going to see Laura on my pass. But he didn’t come back at me with any reciprocal confidences.”
    “According to his psychosocial, he’d never been married, wasn’t in a relationship, and hadn’t been with anyone for very long. Any chance he was gay?”
    “No way. And why wouldn’t he have told the counselors? They ask about it at least three times, the way they ask about everything.”
    “Just because everybody we know who’s gay is out, it doesn’t mean that everyone is out. Jimmy, if you were gay, would you want to tell a nun about it?”
    Jimmy shuddered.
    “I may be lapsed, but I’m still an Irish Catholic.”
    “That Sister Angel in the detox is not exactly your typical nun,” I said.
    Barbara grinned.
    “Yeah, she’s pretty cool, isn’t she.”
    “Tough,” I said. “Savvy. And gets the information out of you with a scalpel if she needs to.”
    “Besides,” Barbara said, “she’s not the only one who worked with him.”
    “If I was gay,” I said, “I’d rather tell Sister Angel about my love life than some of the counselors there. You know Darryl?”
    “He was the one who interrupted me while I was looking at God’s chart,” said Barbara. “I don’t know what he was doing there in the middle of the night. Not exactly sweetness and light, is he. Did he give you a hard time?”
    “I managed to stay away from him. He and God had one or two big blowups, though. Mutual antipathy, to say the least.”
    “Rumor says he was a big dealer. Do you think it’s true?”
    “Probably. He didn’t do five years in the slammer for selling Girl Scout cookies. Doesn’t mind talking about it, either. One of his routines is Done Harder Time Than Thou.”
    “Yeah, he was like that when I did my internship there. At the time, it kind of impressed me. You know, the glamour of living on the edge.”
    “I hope that’s worn off, now that you’re making a living off us bums and desperadoes,” Jimmy said.
    “The big question on the ward about Darryl,” I said, “was, Is he dealing now?”
    “A counselor selling drugs?” said Jimmy. “Now you shock me.”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
    “So Jimmy checks online—”
    “Family, finances, known addresses. I’ll get on it tonight.”
    “Tomorrow morning,” Barbara said. Jimmy would be up and online all night every night if he lived alone. “And I’ll take the sisters.”
    “I met a couple of folks who knew him at the meeting,” I said. “This woman Mo, this guy Gary. I’ll see what else I can find out. Hot on the trail of justice. And not even tanked.”
    “At least you won’t get bored.” Barbara always has to have the last word. At least she didn’t say the rest of it. If I didn’t get bored, maybe I wouldn’t drink again.
    *
    I spent the next day making the rounds of temp offices. To my relief, not all of them remembered me. When I couldn’t stand any more of it, I went over to Jimmy and Barbara’s.
    Jimmy greeted me in his characteristic way.
    “Did you know that Frederick the Great used a lot of snuff and got it all over his clothes? He wasn’t noted for fastidious personal habits. He wrote some nice flute music, though.”
    “Yes, dear.” I used Barbara’s line. Jimmy had never wanted to live in this century. Sometimes we just had to let him be. Luckily, Barbara came bounding in before he told me even more about Frederick the Great than I wanted to know.
    Barbara stays in