As it turned out, we needed Frank’s help anyway. Even though the morgue is open twenty-four hours a day for receiving bodies, the normal “viewing” hours were 8:00A.M. to 5:00P.M. If Frank hadn’t pulled some strings, I would have been the one to tell the Monroes they’d made the drive for nothing. I’m sure that would have gone over big with Lucas’s brother.

We were almost twenty minutes early. I decided to wait outside; a vain attempt to not think about what went on inside of the building.

I looked up to see a woman quietly and resolutely making her way toward us on a younger man’s arm. She was a fine-looking woman, a woman who took care with her appearance without becoming a lacquered mannequin. Not afraid of a few wrinkles or the gray in her short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Something both old-fashioned and yet lively about her.

When the man walked into the light as they drew nearer, I felt a moment of unsettling recognition. Had Lucas Monroe never lived on the streets, I thought, he would look very much like the man standing before me. I quickly amended the thought-had he stayed off the streets and grown to hate me, he would look like this man.

The woman looked at me, then glanced at Rachel, but quickly let her gaze come back to me. “You’re more upset than this other one,” she said. “I think you must be Irene.”

CHARLES LOST THE VERY BRIEFargument that would have allowed me to wait with Rachel while they went in to see the body. I wish he had won.

I do not ever again want to be in the county morgue, not unless I am dead. I do not want to stand at the side of a mother who must say of a video image of a body pulled out of a drawer, “Yes, that’s my son.” June Monroe did not carry on loudly, did not sob or wail. She swayed a little, and so ferociously bit the hand that flew to her mouth in a balled fist, that she drew blood from it. Charles folded her to him, setting aside the glare to make a silent request. I acknowledged it and excused myself. Reed followed me out of the room, and asked me to wait for the Monroes in a small conference room across the hall. He kept the door open, and watched for June and Charles Monroe. I spent some time dodging his questions about how I had located Lucas’s mother. He wasn’t very happy with me.

After a while the Monroes came out into the hallway. Reed asked her a few questions about when she had last seen Lucas. She told him that he had come to Riverside a little over two weeks ago for a brief visit. It was the first time she had seen Lucas in several years.

Reed carefully worked his way toward asking, “What did he talk about on that visit?”

She caught him at it anyway. “Nothing that would concern the police,” she said, then seemed to change her mind. “He asked my forgiveness and he got it. He had it before he arrived.”

“Just working his twelve steps, that’s all,” Charles said.

“My son Charles thinks that the fact that his brother went to AA somehow made that apology less sincere. I don’t. Lucas wanted and received my forgiveness.” She folded her arms across her chest in a gesture that said that would be that.

“When was the last time you saw your brother?” Reed asked Charles.

Charles didn’t answer.

“He hasn’t seen his brother since Christmas,” June said, ignoring Charles’s glare. “Charles came down to Las Piernas every year, as a favor to me.” She paused, then added, “Not to speak to Lucas, just to let me know if he was still alive.”

“Guess I ought to be grateful,” Charles said. “Lucas has gone and saved me from making that trip again.”

I saw June Monroe stiffen in her chair. She pursed her lips together, as though to hold back a retort. She pointedly turned her back to Charles and began to ask questions of Reed Collins. Her son was a young man, too young to have a heart attack. What did the police know about his death?

Reed was straightforward in his answers, if not detailed. He told her that although Lucas’s college ring was missing, so far there was no evidence that he had died anything other than a natural death. He told her again that tests were being done just to make sure. I wondered if all of this was going right past her; she seemed numb. But she merely thanked Reed and then drew a breath and asked for time alone with me. After protests from Charles, they left us alone in the small conference room.

“Mrs. Monroe,” I began, but she waved my sympathy aside before I could offer it.

“Nothing can hurt him now. I have faith, Irene Kelly. Faith. My faith sustains me. I know my son was a good man, a good, good man. I know the Lord will take care of him. Charles, he doesn’t believe. He tells me he lost his faith in Vietnam, but I don’t know if that’s so. This will be much harder for him, I’m afraid.” She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing another deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she gave me a look that was so no-nonsense, she could have X-rayed me with it.

“Are we going to work together, Irene Kelly?”

20

YOU CAN HELPmy son,” she said when I hesitated. “He wanted your help before he died, and you can still give it to him.”

“You know what he wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes. His reputation.”

“Oh,” I said.

Her mouth set into a thin, tight line. “Don’t tell me I was mistaken. I told you I would trust you. Don’t tell me that you’re no better than that detective-Collings? Was that his name?”

“Collins. Reed Collins.”

“Well, Lucas was just a bum as far as that man is concerned. I could see that from the moment he met us. Mr. Collins has other work to attend to, I’m sure. And Lucas wouldn’t count for much around here, would he? So this Mr. Collins, he’s just ready to just wash his hands of this whole mess.”

“It’s hard to tell,” I said. “Reed has been following up on some things he might ignore if he just wanted to take the easy way out of this.”

“Be that as it may, I’m asking you if you think Lucas was just a-a nothing, a nobody.”

“Of course not. Look, Mrs. Monroe. I don’t know what happened to Lucas, or how he ended up on the street-”

“That’s easy. He drank. He drank and drank and drank. His father drank-drank himself to death. They say alcoholism sometimes might be genetic. I don’t know if Lucas got it from his father or what. It’s an illness, that’s all. Some folks, well, to them, it’s a name you call somebody. Alcoholic. Like that settles something.”

She shook her head. “Well, none of that matters to me now. All I know is that my son spent the end of his life sober. And I know he had this idea, this dream of his. It was a quest, you might say.” She paused, then added, “I think you had something to do with that. He saw you, and he saw a way to get back something he had lost.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what it was he-”

She didn’t wait for me to finish. “Do you like the nameLucas?”

“Well, yes, it’s a fine name.”

“Lucas Monroeused to be a good name. That’s what he lost, and that’s what he wanted back. His good name. He told me he would come home, you see, but first he-”

She was interrupted when the door opened. Charles started to enter, caught her look of disapproval, and stayed in the doorway. He frowned back at her. “How long you gonna be?”

“You need eyeglasses?” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“Did you see me walk out of that door?”

“I have to get back home.”

“Go on, then,” she said. “Go.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Oh yes you are. Just get my bag out of your car. I can get a taxicab to a hotel. You go on back to Riverside.”

“I’ll wait,” he said in martyred tone.

She cleared her throat. “Excuse us for a moment, Ms. Kelly.”

I stood and moved toward the door. Charles was blocking it.

“Charles Monroe,” I heard her say behind me.