Free The Sniper's Wife by Archer Mayor Page A

do you want?”
    “I wouldn’t mind knowing who you are, for starters,” he said.
    She made no apologies. “I’m Rosalie Coven, the center’s director.”
    She left it at that, letting the ensuing pause suggest that her question had been left unanswered.
    He got the hint. “I’m trying to find out why Mary killed herself.”
    Coven’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I was told it was accidental.”
    “Might have been. She still killed herself.”
    “Point taken. Why do you care?”
    “Because I was married to her. Because I’m the only one they could find to identify her at the morgue.”
    “You also abused her when she was most vulnerable.”
    Was there anybody in this city who didn’t know about that? he wondered. “Most vulnerable compared to what?” he asked instead. “I’m not asking for forgiveness, but I was pretty messed up, too.”
    “The devil made you do it?” she suggested sarcastically.
    He saw where this was going, and knew he’d get nothing in return if he continued. “No,” he conceded. “I did it all by myself, and while it sounds pretty lame right now, I’ve lived with it ever since.”
    Rosalie Coven stared at him for a few moments before asking, “What happened to the arm?”
    “Job-related. I was shot.”
    “Long ago?”
    “About ten years.”
    “Soon after you two broke up, if my memory’s right.”
    “It’s right.”
    For some reason she wasn’t about to reveal, that seemed to thaw Rosalie Coven ever so slightly. The hands unsteepled and she pointed to a metal carafe and some cups on a filing cabinet by his side. “Pour yourself some coffee. It should be pretty hot.”
    He took her up on the offer, dexterously manipulating the process with his one hand. Coven watched him work, as if grading a test.
    “You have doubts about how Mary died?” she finally asked.
    “Don’t you?” he countered. “So far, people I’ve talked to said she was on the mend.”
    Coven shook her head. “I’ve been doing this way too long to think that means much. You’re an alcoholic. You should know.”
    “Still,” he insisted.
    She yielded. “I was surprised. I thought she was further along.”
    He felt the blood rise slowly to his neck and cheeks. “That’s it? You had her on the wrong place on the graph? Too bad, but shit happens?”
    The woman opposite him leaned forward and rested her forearms on the desk, staring at him intently. “Don’t give me that, you little toad. You helped put her on that graph. You don’t ever get to be self-righteous.”
    He held up his hand as if to stop her coming over the tabletop at him. “Okay, okay. Enough with the who’s holier crap. Maybe I sent her down this road, and maybe you missed the signs and let her hit the ditch. So, we’re both feeling guilty. Who cares? I just want to find out if it’s true.”
    To pay Rosalie Coven her due, she took Willy’s dismissal of her outburst in stride and seriously considered his last comment.
    “She was one of the few I thought would make it.”
    “Were there any signs at all she was heading downhill?” he asked.
    Coven shook her head. “Nothing. Everything was pointing in the opposite direction.”
    “Was there anyone here she was tight with? Someone besides you she might have confided in?”
    “Louisa Obregon, everyone calls her Loui. They were very close. But I asked her about Mary, and she was as stunned as the rest of us.” Coven looked at him sourly before adding, “Not that that’ll stop you from pestering her anyhow.”
    He merely smiled back at her. “What’s her address?”
    “She lives in the neighborhood, like most of us.” She scribbled the location on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Here. It’s probably a waste of time telling a cop this, but go easy with her, okay? She took this hard. She left work right after we heard and hasn’t been back since.”
    Willy glanced at the address and slipped the note into his breast pocket.
    Coven gave him a stern look. “I’ve