“Money and maybe something else. Sounded like some kind of recipe for a variation of meth. I know there’s some Canadian dudes who’re really interested in it and would pay big money to have it.”

I was still wrapping my head around the fact that a kid I used to play football with was dead. This was tough to swallow and started me thinking about how it could’ve been Natty. I saw Pete’s mom every once in a while and knew I wouldn’t be able to face her if I didn’t get involved. More than that, I had to give her some closure.

Natty said, “There’s one other thing I should tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“You know how Pete was married?”

“Yeah, but I never met her.”

“She’s a beautiful girl named Katie. She wasn’t involved in his business and still doesn’t know exactly what he did for a living.”

“Yeah, so?”

Natty said, “I think I’m in love with her.”

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

THE FIRST THING I wanted to do was get a look at the scene of the murder. That also got me away from the bar where my brother did business. His life depressed me.

I knew the streets of Newburgh pretty well because I’d lived in Marlboro most of my life. Newburgh is a bigger town that is visually interesting, with grand brick buildings and a downtown that could’ve been a background for movies about small-town America.

Now the city has seen some rough times and the only neighborhoods that are livable, at least if you have kids, are in the suburbs. The three-story brownstones have blue tarps on the roofs and duct tape patching cracks in the windows.

Route 9 or, as we call it in the city, South Robinson Avenue, weaves through a mixture of industrial, commercial, and residential areas that no longer give the impression of a prosperous city.

Natty told me Pete had been shot Friday night in front of a well-known drug house on North Miller Street near Farrington Street. It was just a block east of Downing Park, which covered a little bit of the inner city in a blanket of green peppered with some baseball fields. I guess you could call it their version of Central Park.

My ten-year-old station wagon, with its shocks that’d been worn out from carrying bundles of newspapers in the back all the time, sounded like an old diesel trawler as I puttered through the city. I parked more than a block away so I wouldn’t attract attention.

Two boys, around six, with a small black dog stared at me as I stepped out of the car. I smiled and said, “Hey, boys.”

As I stepped onto the sidewalk, their dog trotted over to me and started sniffing my leg. “He smells my dog on me.”

“Where’s your dog?”