In the distance the fax machine started its primordial screech. The phone continued beeping. Myron had no fear that they'd be interrupted. Big Cyndi had worked for years as a bouncer at an S &M bar; when the situation called for it, she could be as nasty as a rabid rhino with a bad case of piles. Er, even when the situation didn't call for it.

“Why do you want to know?” Bonnie asked.

“Because Esperanza didn't kill him.”

“That's becoming something of a mantra for you, Myron. Say it often enough and you start to believe it, right?”

“I believe it.”

“So?”

“So if she didn't kill him, someone else did.”

Bonnie looked up. “If she didn't kill him, someone else aid” she repeated. Pause. “You weren't just bragging before. You really do have a background in this”

“I'm just trying to find out who killed him.”

“By asking about our marriage?”

“By asking about anything turbulent in his life.”

“Turbulent?” She let out a stab of a laugh. “This is Clu we're talking about here, Myron. Everything was turbulent. The hard thing to find would be patches of calm.”

“How long were you two together?” Myron asked.

“You know the answer to that.”

He did. Junior year at Duke. Bonnie had come bopping down to the frat house basement dressed in a monogram sweater and pearls and, yep, ponytail. Myron and Clu had been working the keg. Myron liked working the keg because it kept him so busy he didn't drink as much. Don't get the wrong idea here. Myron drank. It was pretty much a college requirement in those days. But he wasn't a very good drinker. He always seemed to miss that cusp of fun, that floaty buzz between sobriety and vomiting. It was almost nonexistent for him. Something in his ancestry, he assumed. It had actually helped him in recent months. Before running away with Terese, Myron had tried the old-fashioned approach of drowning one's sorrows. But, put bluntly, he usually threw up before reaching oblivion.

Nice way to prevent alcohol abuse.

Anyway, Clu and Bonnie's meeting was pretty simple. Bonnie walked in. Clu looked up from the keg and it was as if Captain Marvel had zapped him with a thunderbolt. “Wow,” Clu muttered, the beer overflowing onto a floor so coated with beer that rodents often got stuck on it and died. Then Clu leaped over the bar, staggered toward Bonnie, dropped to one knee, and proposed. Three years later they tied the knot for real.

“So after all these years what happened?”

Bonnie looked down. “It had nothing to do with his murder,” she said.

“That's probably true, but I need to get the full picture of his life, travel down any possible avenue-”

“Bullshit, Myron. J said it had nothing to do with the murder, okay? Leave it at thai.”

He licked his lips, folded his hands, put them on the desktop. “In the past you've thrown him out because of another woman.”

“Not woman. Women. Plural.”

“Is that what happened again this time?”

“He swore off women. He promised me that there'd be no more.”

“And he broke that promise?”

Bonnie didn't answer.

“What was her name?”

Her voice was soft. “I never knew.”

“But there was someone else?”

Again she didn't answer. No need. Myron tried to put on his attorney skin for a moment. Clu's having an affair was a very good thing for Esperanza's defense. The more motives you can find, the more reasonable doubt you can create. Did the girlfriend kill him because he still wanted to be with his wife? Did Bonnie do it out of jealousy? And then there was the missing money. Wouldn't the girlfriend and/or Bonnie have known about it? Couldn't that be an added motive for murder? Yep, Hester Crimstein would like this. Throw enough possibilities into a trial, muddy the waters enough, and an acquittal is almost inevitable. It was a simple equation: Confusion equals reasonable doubt equals a not-guilty verdict.

“He's had affairs before, Bonnie. What was different this time?”

“Give it a rest, Myron, okay? Clu isn't even in the ground yet.”

He pulled back. “Tm sorry.”

She looked away. Her chest rose and fell, her voice fighting to stay steady. “I know you're just trying to help” she said. “But the divorce stuff… it hurts too much right now.”

“I understand.”

“If you have other questions…”

“I heard Clu failed a drug test.” So much for backing off.

“I only know what I read in the papers.”

“Clu told Win it was a fix.”

“What?”

“Clu claimed he was clean. What do you think?”

“I think Clu was a marvelous screwup. We both know that.”

“So he was taking again?”

“I don't know.” She swallowed and locked eyes with him. “I hadn't seen him in weeks.”

“And before that?”

“He seemed clean, actually. But he was always good at hiding it. Remember that intervention we tried three years ago?”

Myron nodded.

“We all cried. We all begged him to stop. And finally Clu broke down too. He sobbed like a baby, said he was ready turn his life around. Two days later he paid off a guard and sneaked out of rehab.”

“So you think he was just masking the symptoms?”

“He could have been. He was good at that.” She hesitated. “But I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Wishful thinking, I guess, but I really thought he was clean this time. In the past you could almost see he was going through the motions. He was playing a part for me or the kids. But this time he seemed more determined. Like he knew this trade was his last chance to start fresh. He worked at it like I've never seen him work at anything. I thought he was beating it too. But something must have pushed him back off…”

Bonnie's voice tailed off, and now her eyes filled. She was wondering, no doubt, if she had been that push, if Clu had indeed been clean and if she had thrown him out of their house and plunged him back into the world of his addictions. Myron almost told her not to blame herself, but good sense kept the grating cliche at bay.

“Clu always needed someone or something,” she went on. “He was the most dependent person I ever knew.”

Myron nodded, encouraging her.

“At first I found that attractive, that he needed me so much. But it got weary.” Bonnie looked at him. “How many times did someone pull his ass out of the fire?”

“Too many,” Myron admitted.

“I wonder, Myron.” She sat up a bit, more clear-eyed now. “I wonder if we all did him a disservice. Maybe if we weren't always there to save him, he would have had to change. Maybe if I had dumped him years ago, he would have straightened himself out and survived all this.”

Myron said nothing, not bothering to point out the inherent contradiction in her statement: She finally did dump him and he ended up dead.

“Did you know about the two hundred thousand dollars?” Myron asked.

“I heard about it from the police.”

“Do you have any idea where it might be?”

“No.”

“Or why he might have needed it?”

“No.” Her voice was far away now, her gaze drifting over his shoulder.

“Do you think it was for drugs?”

“The papers said he tested positive for heroin,” she said.

“That's my understanding.”

“That would be ^ new one for Clu. I know it's an expensive addiction, but two hundred thousand seems extreme.”

Myron agreed. “Was he in any trouble?”

She looked at him.

“I mean, besides the usual. Loan sharks or gambling or something like that?”

“It's possible, I guess.”

“But you don't know.”

Bonnie shook her head, still looking off at nothing. “You know what I was thinking about?”

“What?”

“Clu's first year as a pro. Class A with the New England Bisons. Right after he asked you to negotiate his contract. Do you remember that?”

Myron nodded.

“And again, I wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“That was the first time we all banded together to save his ass.”