The Starring home was on a sliver of a street off a dead end. I had to circle the area a couple of times before I noticed it. None of the houses on the street looked as if they’d been noticed for a long time. Actually, calling them houses stretched the point: they were more cottage than house, workers’ housing of another era. I wondered which factory made its bones on the people who lived here.

The door was opened halfway by a woman who looked like she had seen too many difficult years, and stared at me like I just brought another. Maybe I had.

“Officer Jacobs?”

“Detective, ma’am, and it’s Jacob, without an s.” I smiled, “Everybody adds the s.”

Her mouth returned the smile and she opened the door the rest of the way. We walked through a small, dim living room cluttered with stacks of clothes, N.R.A. magazines, and other signs of indoor life. Mostly male. Somehow I didn’t think it was Ernie who kept it neat. I didn’t spot baskets of flowers or cards or anything else suggesting a recent death in the family.

There was very little daylight throughout the house and I almost tripped on a small, frayed throw rug that lay just before the kitchen entrance. I followed her into the kitchen over to a gray formica table surrounded by three unmatched chairs. When she turned and faced me in the lamplit kitchen, I got my first real look at her.

She was a tall gray-haired woman who looked sixty-five but might have been a decade younger. The hard-knocks impression I’d had at the door was reinforced by deeply etched wrinkles crisscrossing her face. In another economic bracket her face and bearing might have become elegant and wise; here she just looked tired and old.

“Please sit down. We can talk here, Ernie won’t disturb us.”

I didn’t ask why.

“He’s not a terrible man, really,” she launched into a practiced monologue. “He just doesn’t relate to strangers. His retirement has not gone well.”

“Has he retired recently?” I asked politely.

She waved her hand in reply. “I’m sure you don’t want our entire history.” She turned away. “Would you like some tea, Detective Jacob?” She recaptured my eyes and smiled wearily.

Watching her stand there, friendly, almost open, in a kitchen that catapulted me back to my own youth, left me unable to lie. “Mrs. Starring, I’m not from the police.”

She looked at me warily and put her hands in her neat gray housecoat. “Aren’t you Detective Jacob?”

“Yes I am, but I’m not with the police. I’m a private detective, licensed by the State of Massachusetts. The police don’t know I’m here,” I finished lamely.

She pulled her hands from her pockets and dropped them to her side. She clenched and unclenched her fists. Her eyes alternated between fear and anger.

“I’m not here to bring you more trouble, I’m really not. I meant what I said on the phone.”

“Why do you want to know about Joe?” She put her hands in front of her body and rubbed them together anxiously. They looked red and raw, as if she’d done too many dishes or spent too much of her life worrying. Both were probably true.

“I’m working on something that might be related to his death. It’s unlikely, but if I didn’t check, I’d be cheating the woman who hired me.

“You don’t want to cheat her, so you lie to me.” Her voice sounded bitter and resigned. She’d heard my story, or some variation, too many times to be impressed with it now. “I’m not surprised. She is paying you, and I’m not.”

“It isn’t the money. She’s a friend. I’m sorry about the lie. If I told Ernie or you the truth, I was afraid you wouldn’t see me.”

“If you had told Ernie the truth he would have hung up on you. He almost did anyway.”

Before I could answer the tea kettle whistled and she turned her attention to fixing our tea. I had a cupful of time to plead my case.

Her graciousness overcame her hostility and, when she turned back to me with the cups in her hands, she nodded for me to sit. “You came a long way. I suppose there is no harm in having tea with you.”

I smiled in return. “Thank you.”

We sat down and she pointed to the sugar on the table. I helped myself.

“Is Detective Jacob your real name?”

“Yes. My name is Matthew Jacob. Please call me Matt.”

“You have two first names.”

“They thought it would be easier to get me coming and going.”

She chuckled and some of her tension seemed to ease. “I think I prefer to call you Mr. Jacob.”

I swallowed some Red Rose and nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Mr. Jacob, what is this visit about?”

“Pretty much what I said. Do you mind if I smoke?”

She stood and walked to a cabinet over the sink and returned with an ashtray. I offered her a cigarette and was surprised when she accepted. I lit the two of them and said, “I’m really only doing a background check.”

Her eyes welled up with tears. “Why do you need a background check? He’s dead, Mr. Jacob. Joe is dead.” She extracted an oversized handkerchief from her pocket and pushed at her eyes.

I waited until she finished before I continued, “That’s just it, Mrs. Starring. I don’t understand why he died.”

Suspicion replaced the tears. “The police said it was a drug deal. Joe was killed in a drug war. What is it you don’t understand?”

I sidestepped the question. “You don’t seem shocked by what they told you.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “I don’t know if I should talk to you. How do I know what I say won’t come back to haunt me?”

I pulled my wallet from my pocket and showed her a copy of my license. “Mrs. Starring, what you tell me is confidential. That’s why I can’t be more specific about my client and my work.”

“What about talking to the police? Does your confidentiality extend that far?”

She surprised me again but I had a sudden idea. The lie lined up right behind it. “It might relieve you to give me a dollar.”

She looked confused.

“If you give me a dollar I would be working for you. What we say would be completely protected. If I talked to the police it would be the end of my career.” I told myself that some of what I’d said was true, and that she really wanted to talk. Then I told myself the truth; I really wanted her to talk.

She shifted gears. “Do you work for criminals, Mr. Jacob?”

I looked into her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

She stood and walked toward the door. For an instant I thought she was going to show me out, but she kept walking into the hall. She returned a moment later with a dollar bill in her hand. She handed it to me and sat back down. I stuffed the money into my pocket.

“Sometimes to survive you have to look the other way.” Her eyes stared down at the table top as she struggled with herself. “I’m really more worried about Ernie finding out than the police.” She glanced up at me. “All they could do is put me in jail. Sometimes I think that would be a relief.”

She wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t beat up on her or Joe. I wasn’t going to do either.

“Mrs. Starring, the police are often correct but, from what I understand, Joe was a recent arrival in Massachusetts. I’d be surprised if he could make contacts quickly enough to be involved in a drug war.”

I was shoveling, but I hoped I was on target. I flashed on Clifford pulling up to Starring’s apartment building, then knew I was right. Unfortunately, Mrs. Starring wasn’t ready to give her blessings to my instinct.

“Mr. Jacob, Joe sold drugs in Perth Amboy.”

I managed to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “How do you know?” I asked gently.

She didn’t meet my eyes, but she began to talk in a hushed, shaky voice. “Amboy has been hit pretty hard for quite a while.” She looked at me, “There’s a story that back in Colonial days they flipped a coin to see whether New York City or Perth Amboy would be used as the major dock.” A small smile stole across her face. “New York won.” The smile vanished into a frown and her eyes went back to the table. “It’s been hard times for a long time around here.”

She was talking about the town and her family.

“Ernie was forced to retire. For a long time I worked, but it drove him crazy. That’s when he started on Joe.”

“Started on?”

“Picked on Joe, unmercifully, Mr. Jacob. Ernie never had much affection in him, but when Joe couldn’t find work, Ernie really let him have it.” She grimaced as a flood of memories crossed her eyes. “It was terrible. He would say anything, even call him a bastard. If Ernie was in the wrong kind of mood or was angry drunk, he’d beat on Joe.”

I thought of the tight row of bungalows that lined the block. “The neighbors never intervened?”

She deflected the question. “We don’t see much of the neighbors, people mind their own business around here.”

I didn’t think she meant it as a jab. “This began after Ernie lost his job?”

“That’s when it got really bad.” She looked at me as if I could help her forgive Ernie. “He couldn’t accept retirement. Ernie was never a perfect husband but without work he was a nothing in his own eyes. He took it all out on Joe.” She shook her head sadly. “It’s hard to understand.”

Not really. I was the Joe in my family. I kept quiet, though, and gave her room to continue.

“I asked Joe to move out many times, but he wouldn’t leave me alone with Ernie.” She stared at her hands in front of her. “If I had made him, all this might not have happened.” Her voice had the hoarse whispered tone of the guilty.

“Why, Mrs. Starring? Why wouldn’t this have happened?”

There were hints of desperation in the way her hands rubbed each other. “You see, Mr. Jacob, Joe couldn’t find a job but the only way he could get Ernie off his back was to bring home money. He said he had a job, but I knew better, and Ernie never bothered to check. Joe knew he wouldn’t.”

“How did you know it was drug money? Did Joe tell you?”

“I just knew.”

I persisted. “But he never told you?”

She looked back up at me with some annoyance. “He didn’t have to tell me.” She watched her hands as though they belonged to someone else and blurted, “I made him swear he would never sell to children or sell hard drugs.”

“And he agreed?”

She bowed her head. “Yes.”

The word hung there like a lighthouse beacon mocking my detective instincts. I wanted to get up and leave the woman alone. But the thought of driving home with nothing more than the salted wounds of a lonely, grieving old lady forced me to continue. I asked if there was any more tea. Mine had grown cold in the cup.

The request and the familiar tasks associated with it seemed to ease her ache. She stood at the stove while the water reheated and fished two new teabags from the box. She gathered our cups and poured the water just as the kettle was ready to sound.

When she returned to the table she asked me for another cigarette. “Ernie complains about money for tobacco, so he never buys the kind I like.” I could hear the frayed edges of the “Ernie is a good man” routine.

After we both had a sip of our tea and smoked a little, I asked, “Why did Joe finally leave?” But before she could answer I stepped on my question with another. “Mrs. Starring, did you ever see any equipment that Joe might have used to, uh, do his work?”

She looked at me dourly. “You are being polite. You mean drug paraphernalia, don’t you?”

I nodded. She looked like she was trying to remember but she just shook her head. “The only thing I can think of is, he once asked me where I bought my scale.”

“What kind of scale?”

“Just a regular baking scale.”

It wasn’t much but it breathed a spark into my seriously sagging hopes. Maybe the boy kept his promise to his mother. If he had, it would be pretty damn unusual to get dead in a drug war over pot.

“Why did Joe leave? What changed his mind?”

“I didn’t know he had rented an apartment up there until the police called. I thought he was going on a short trip.”

“So you didn’t think he’d be gone too long.”

“No I didn’t.” She glanced away.

“But you thought something?”

She nodded. I remained quiet.

“I thought he was going away to do something illegal.”

“More drugs?”

“Yes.”

“You thought he went back on his word. You believed he was selling more than pot.”

Her hands gripped the edge of the table. “No! That’s not it at all. He didn’t want to tell me that he was going to sell marijuana in another state, that’s all. He didn’t leave here to sell hard drugs, Joe wouldn’t go back on his promise. He swore.”

It was all the faith she had, and I wasn’t going to take it from her. Or me. “What did he tell you? What reason did he give for leaving?”

She shook her head rapidly, really wanting me to like her kid. To think differently of him than Ernie had.

“You’re afraid he lied to you. Well, maybe he didn’t, Mrs. Starring. Can you remember what it was that he told you about leaving?”

It was an idea she hadn’t really believed, despite her love. A life like hers lent itself to harsh limits on optimism. “Not really, Mr. Jacob. Joe talked mostly nonsense when he told me he was going.”

“Even the nonsense might help.”

“He said he had a deal that would get both of us away from Ernie. But that he had to go out of state. That’s when I asked him if it had to do with drugs. He just laughed. He said he was done making just enough money to keep us here.” A shadow crossed her face.

“What is it, Mrs. Starring?”

She seemed reluctant, but talking to me helped so she continued, “That’s when he began to talk nonsense.”

“What did he say?” I asked softly.

“He started talking about how Ernie finally gave him something useful.”

“Do you know what he meant? Was it a car?”

She looked completely puzzled. “A car? What car?” She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t know anything about a car. Joe was talking about a fight he and Ernie had. Ernie always had a story about how if he had a kid of his own the kid would be a somebody. He used to scream that at Joe all the time.”

“What was Joe like during Ernie’s tantrums?”

“Tantrums. That’s a good word for it. Joe was always quiet. That’s what made this fight different. Joe was baiting him. Like kidding Ernie about not having a kid of his own, questioning his, uh . . .”

“Virility?”

“Yes. I thought Ernie would kill him. Ernie was so mad he was shaking.” Mrs. Starring was beginning to tremble at the memory. “Finally Ernie started screaming that he did have a child. That it was the same age as Joe and a hell of a lot better than Joe would ever be.”

“What did Joe say? Did he laugh at him?” Somehow I had an image of a bully yelling “I can too, I can too.”

“No, Joe didn’t say anything.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“What did Joe look like when Ernie was yelling that?”

She looked bewildered as she recalled, “He looked pleased.”

My head was spinning and my system felt like Fd just mainlined adrenaline. I knew Fd just gotten what I came for, even if I didn’t yet understand it. I forced myself to settle down. “What did you think about what Ernie said?”

“I thought it was hysterical garbage,” she said flatly. “Some foolish way to save face.”

I could see she had already rejected the other possibility and I wasn’t going to rub her face in it. But if I couldn’t bite into the steak, I could cut away at the fat. “Mrs. Starring, did Joe sell drugs by himself or was there someone else he worked with?”

She squared her jaw. “I can’t believe I’ve talked this much. I’m not going to involve anyone else.”

“I’m not asking you to. Look, like I said, the police are probably right about all this. I just want to make sure. I have no intention of doing anyone damage. I only want to talk to them.”

“You are asking me to trust you quite a bit, Mr. Jacob.”

“Yes I am.”

She worked it over in her mind. “Joe had a close friend named Toby Rudnow.” She stopped, troubled by her disclosure. “I don’t know if he was involved or not, but they were close.”

I began to gather up the social debris. Mrs. Starring looked relieved.

“Leave everything, please. It will give me something to do.”

I put my cup back on the table and pushed my luck. “Is there any place I might find this boy?”

“He’s not a boy,” she said with a scowl. Mrs. Starring did not like Rudnow but that still didn’t make it easy. “He spends his time downtown at Warren’s Tavern.”

I stood up to leave. She remained seated, eyes on the table.

“Mrs. Starring, I have just a couple more questions.”

She met my eyes. “Isn’t it enough already?”

“Almost. Did Joe say anything else to you before he left?”

She shook her head. “Just what I’ve told you. That he was going to New England, and was going to get even for the abuse he’d taken from Ernie.” Something new crossed her face.

“What is it, Mrs. Starring?”

“A few days before he left he pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like some official paper, like a birth certificate, and he laughed.” She paused and I could almost see her looking at her Joe. The room was filling up with an unbearably sad emptiness. Mrs. Starring didn’t want to know from birth certificates, but I did.

“Did he say anything about this paper?” I was pushing her further into her depression and felt ashamed of myself. Her face twisted and she spat, “Only that Ernie was too stupid and too drunk to remember he even had it.” She sat there stuck to her seat.

“Had what?”

“The paper. Now this is enough, Mr. Jacob.”

“One last thing. What year was Joe born?”

“1953.” Her hands were twisting and squeezing, “Mr. Jacob, I must get ready for Ernie. Please, would you mind leaving now?” She didn’t rise and I started down the hall. I was about halfway to the door when I heard a loud whisper.

“Mr. Jacob.”

I turned and walked back to the kitchen door. She was still sitting stiffly, tears filling the creases in her face, her hands wringing furiously. “Even though I gave you that dollar I don’t ever want to hear from you.” She bit her lip. “No matter what you discover.”

I started to say something about keeping our conversations private but she shook her head. “No matter what you discover. It’s better that way.”

I nodded, turned, and stumbled the rest of the way out.