The Professional - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,20

Until Susan spoke.

“And so it began,” she said.

Clarice nodded.

“We began to meet regularly at a hotel in Springfield,” she said. “Near the Civic Center. It was quite lovely for several months . . . except for the guilt.”

Susan nodded.

“And your husband?” Susan said.

“Eric is,” Clarice said, “or he was at that time, the kind of man who tends to hunch his shoulders, and lower his head, and wait for the storm to pass.”

“So no solace there,” Susan said.

Clarice nodded.

“No,” she said. “I imagine I would have felt better if he had been unfaithful, too.”

Susan nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry, but I need to ask. Is there anything in particular you remember about your relationship?”

“For a while it was a joy.”

“How about the, ah, sexual part.”

“What I remember most was that he seemed very,” she said, “very . . . forceful.”

“Cruel?” Susan said.

“No, merely strong and forceful.”

“And did things change?” I said.

“Sexually it didn’t, until it stopped,” she said. “Three months after we met, he showed me his pictures. He played his audiotapes.”

She stopped and sat silently for a moment, looking at nothing. I opened my mouth. Susan shook her head. I closed my mouth.

“After a time,” Clarice said, “he wanted money or he said he would ruin me. He was pleasant about it, just a simple business transaction, didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends, or”—she shook her head—“lovers.”

“Did you have money?” I said.

“Not enough,” she said. “He wanted me to embezzle from the college.”

“And you wouldn’t,” I said.

She shook her head.

“I had cheated enough,” she said. “I went to the police.”

“In Hartland?”

She smiled.

“No,” she said. “State police. They asked me to wear a listening device. I did, and they arrested him. There was some sort of justice, I think, in that. Like hoisting him upon his own petard.”

“Then what?” I said.

“Then I told my husband,” Clarice said. “And the college, and finally, at an open meeting, the students.”

“My God,” Susan said.

“I had bared pretty much everything else to a con man. I guessed I could bare my soul to the people I loved,” Clarice said.

“And they forgave you,” Susan said.

“My husband said it was time to get help . . . for both of us. I agreed. I offered to resign from the college. They suggested instead that I take a leave of absence while my husband and I worked on things.”

“And the students?” Susan said.

Clarice smiled with some warmth.

“I have found that girls of that age are both more and less judgmental than others,” she said. “Some were astounded that a woman over forty could have an explicitly sexual affair. Some were titillated by it. A large number, I think, sort of shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, yeah, you slept around. Doesn’t everybody?’ No one required me to wear a scarlet letter.”

“How did Gary Astor take it?” I said.

“He was really very nice about it. When the detectives were taking him away, he grinned at me and said, ‘For a good-looking broad, you got a lot of spine, Richie.’ That’s what he called me. He said Clarice was too European.”

“And he did three in Shirley.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever hear from him?” I said.

She flushed a little.

“His first year in prison he sent me flowers on my birthday,” she said. “I never acknowledged them.”

“Nothing since?”

“He wrote me a letter saying good-bye, that it had been fun while it lasted, that he’d always remember, ah, certain moments we’d had, and he wished me well.”

“Anything else?” I said.

“No,” she said. “He’s a very pleasant man, I think. But he seems to have absolutely no moral or ethical sense. It’s like someone with no sense of humor. There’s nothing really to say about it, except that it isn’t there.”

“You ever miss him?” Susan said.

“I never want to see him again,” Clarice said.

“And your marriage is stable?” Susan said.

“Eric and I spent two years in psychotherapy. Each with our own therapist. You remember Mr. Hemingway’s remark?” she said.

“It heals stronger at the break,” I said.

“You’re a reader, Mr. Spenser?” she said.

“Susan helps me with the big words,” I said.

Clarice smiled, with even more warmth in it.

“In retrospect, the entire incident was salvation for Eric and me. Each of us has come to terms with our demons. And we both had demons.”

“A troubled marriage,” Susan said, “nearly always has at least two.”

“Has any of this been useful, Mr. Spenser?”

“It’s been worth hearing,” I said.

“But useful?”

“Gotta think about it,” I said. “If any of my victims were willing, would you talk with them?”

She smiled again. This time with not only