Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) by Elizabeth Zelvin

Jr., investment banker, deceased. Died of a heart attack at age seventy-three. History of alcohol or other drug abuse or dependence, denied. Mother: Augusta Brandon. She wrote, “God’s parents—cousins?” Fundraiser, deceased. Died at age sixty-one, car accident. Took prescription pills for “nerves.” That usually meant anxiety or depression. Darryl hadn’t asked the next logical question, whether she took the pills as prescribed. It would be interesting to know if God’s mother had abused medication. She could have been an addict, however respectable, and that, in turn, would have affected the whole family. Three sisters were listed: Lucinda Kettleworth, Emily Brandon Weill, Frances Augusta Standish. Lucinda might be single or too feminist to change her name. Emily had evidently married out of the WASP enclave. Frances must have married a Mayflower descendant. Bruce might know more about the sisters.
    God wasn’t the family’s only substance abuser. Both grandfathers, a maternal uncle, and two uncles on the father’s side all had alcohol problems. He had also mentioned couple of drug-addicted cousins. God’s father might have been the family hero, the one who achieved while the others screwed up. And God was the only son. In a blue-blooded patriarchal family, he might have been considered a disgrace but still gotten all or much of the money. Barbara put down the pen, stretched her fingers, and rubbed at her scalp, wondering how on earth they were going to find out about the family finances. Even if they managed to track down and meet the sisters and other family members, the Kettleworths would not show them their income tax returns. Jimmy and his Internet skills would provide their best chance to learn what they needed. Jimmy took the honesty and integrity that AA considered essential to sobriety too seriously to be an actual hacker, but it was not for lack of ability.
    Barbara skipped over the goals and objectives for the future that God was now not going to have and turned to the progress notes that documented every counseling session or activity, including medical care. Besides Darryl’s, she recognized several distinctive handwritings, including Charmaine’s and Sister Angel’s. Sylvia had written a whole page documenting his death. Even in the computer age, those who worked in a health care facility of any kind became very familiar with the handwriting of everyone they worked with. All this documentation was how the team communicated. Everyone needed to know what was going on. As Carlo in the Bronx put it, “Everybody’s job is harder if you write lousy notes.”
    This team’s notes varied in both legibility and expressiveness. Boris spoke English fairly well but spelled creatively, and he formed some of his letters as if he did not quite believe everything he had been taught about the Latin alphabet. Darryl’s writing looked as if he had some kind of learning disability. If so, he had done a good job of compensating well enough to pass the counseling credential exam. He knew how to write clinically, in that the focus of most of his sentences was the client, not himself. As Carlo said, “‘The client opened up to me real good’ is not a clinical note.” But Darryl’s anger and dislike of God, fully described by Bruce, came through. “Client is resistant to group process. Client still in denial about his addiction. Client displays hostility to staff and grandiosity toward his peers.” The doctor, true to the profession’s reputation, had an unreadable scrawl. Sister Angel had the clearest and most disciplined penmanship.
    Barbara skimmed, not sure what she was looking for. Every note mentioned the drinking: either some detail of his patterns and the progression to high tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, loss of control, and the general falling apart of his life or something he said that indicated how self-aware he was or how open he seemed to changing. But Charmaine and Sister Angel, especially,