Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3) by Susan Russo Anderson Page B

so long, I thumbed through Whiskey’s notebook and came across some interesting information about her brother, two entries in this book alone. He must have been an important part of her life. Cookie told me as much many times, but she’s got five siblings. Me, I’m a single child, a brat, without any inkling about brothers or what good they are.
    I’d just settled back for a read when Lorraine returned with the box. From the corner of my eye, I saw her place it by her chair and disappear into the deeper parts of the apartment, probably to clean up after Robert and Maddie. Since Cookie was busy texting, I succumbed to the temptation of Whiskey’s journals, going over to the box and stuffing all four of the books into my satchel, opening one, and beginning to read.

    A Sunday in September
    I grew up in Brighton Beach, messed up by my ma, abandoned by the man who fathered me. Notice I didn’t say my father because I think of myself as a fatherless child and a one-off at that.
    “I can do without men. Dogs if you ask me,” Ma said, and she said it on more than one occasion—when she was sauced, when she was hung, or just plain maudlin and inscrutable.
    My brother, Warren, who was older and graced with the right kind of name. I mean, Warren, it has the ring that goes good with business of whatever shade of grayish yellow. But he didn’t think so, and quick as a South Brooklyn Boy in July, he changed it, not the Marsh part, but the Warren bit. Changed it to Tommy Marsh. Sounded more lawyerly, he said. Sounded more used-car salesman, I thought.
    “Change your name? Over my dead body,” Ma said.
    Tommy said she might as well save dying for something important because there’d be lots more stuff she wouldn’t like. I thought I’d like to see that happen, her death, I mean. I shudder to write it now, it makes my head rumble. But a second later I slapped my face for even thinking it. Ma was Ma after all was said and done, better than a No Ma, didn’t I find out.
    The next week Tommy came home looking like a greased pole dipped in ink. That’s what Ma said, because he’d gone and dyed his hair black. Two weeks later it was red at the roots. You might say Tommy had a problem, and you’d be right. He had a problem by the name of Ma. Same as me. Maybe that’s what would kill me in the end, my mind and its inability to crawl away from my Ma problem and be done with her once and for all. But not me, I keep running back to all the Ma Substitutes in my life. And there have been many, believe me.

    A Wednesday in February
    My brother is a lawyer, a few years older than me. He took me under his wing.
    “You should become a paralegal. I’ll get you a good job. I know three lawyers opening up their own shop.” The sun shines in Brighton Beach and sends its shards streaming from my brother’s glasses as he’s talking to me.
    “Why won’t you get me a job where you work?” I ask.
    “Not your type of place, sis. We chase ambulances.”
    “Who cares, I can run after them. Anyways, what kinda brother are you?”
    “The kind that knows the men who work in my office. Trust me.”
    Did you ever meet a lawyer who didn’t say “trust me”?

    I was interrupted in my read by the arrival of Whiskey’s brother. After introductions were made, Tommy Marsh sat on the edge of the sofa holding his head, wads of dyed blue-black hair poking through red fingers. Poor guy was in agony.
    “I never thought she’d wind up like this, never. How could she abandon Maddie?”
    “What do you mean, ‘like this’?” Lorraine asked.
    “Gone. Whiskey’s gone, can’t you feel it? I can. Geez, you read about this happening all the time. Am I the only one who can feel it? She’s vanished. Got too much for her mind to handle or something.”
    “Still alive?” I asked. I held my breath waiting for his reply.
    He sat back on the sofa and Lorraine asked if she could get him something, a glass of water, a beer or maybe some brandy. She stood