She passed me another folder. I removed the brackets and flipped through it, looking for papers of unusual sizes, or POUS's, that would jam the copier. As she spoke, she crossed her arms under her large chest and leaned a hip against the copy machine. "Yeah, we dated for a while. So?"
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Ask him. He broke it off."
"Why?"
"You ask a lot of questions," she said.
"It's a compulsion," I said. "I should probably see a shrink about it."
Her eyes brightened a little and she nearly smiled, but then she got a handle on herself and remembered she didn't like me. "He said things were moving too fast for him. That he had lost his wife not too long ago and he wasn't ready for something serious."
"When did his wife die?" I asked.
"A few years ago. I don't know." She shrugged. She didn't know, and she clearly didn't care.
"Are you still angry with him?" I asked.
She shrugged and looked away and clammed up the rest of the night. Yeah, I think she was still angry.
We finished copying all twelve files, many of which were nearly a foot thick. Maybe within one I would find a suspect or a clue or something. At any rate, the files would give me something to do during the wee hours of the night, especially since I had recently finished Danielle Steel's latest novel, Love Bites, about two vampires in love. Cute, and uncannily dead on.
So Sara and I loaded up the files into a box and as I carried the entire thing out to the elevator, the young assistant watched me with open-mouthed admiration. I get that a lot.
"Jesus, you're strong," she said as we stepped into the elevator.
"It's the Pilates," I said. "You should try them."