Now and then - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,1

and brought out a printed sheet of paper. He put it on the desk beside her photograph.

“Her teaching schedule,” he said. “Concord College, you know where it is?”

“I do.”

“Her office is in Foss Hall,” Doherty said. “English department. It’s on the schedule.”

“How about you,” I said. “How do I reach you?”

“I’ll give you my cell phone,” he said.

I wrote it down.

“Where do you work?” I said.

“You don’t need to know that,” he said. “Cell phone will get me.”

I didn’t press it.

“You want regular reports?”

“No. When you know something, tell me.”

“If she’s doing anything out of the ordinary,” I said, “it shouldn’t take long to catch her.”

He nodded.

“I don’t think she’s having an affair,” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

“When can you start?”

“I’m away for a couple of days,” I said. “I’ll start Tuesday.”

He didn’t move. I waited.

“She’s not . . .” he said finally. “I can’t see her having an affair . . . she’s not that interested in sex.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

He nodded and turned and headed for the door. The way his jacket fell, he might have been carrying a gun behind his right hip.

2.

It was late september on Cape Cod, and the summer people were gone. Susan and I liked to go down for a couple of nights in the off-season, before things shut down for the winter. Which is how we ended up on a Sunday night, eating cold plum soup and broiled Cape scallops, and drinking a bottle of Gewürztraminer at Chillingsworth in Brewster.

“When someone says that their mate is not interested in sex,” Susan said, “all they can really speak to with authority is that their mate is not interested in sex with them.”

“I’ve never made that statement,” I said.

“And with good reason,” Susan said.

“It sounds like sex to me,” I said.

“And it sounds like he fears that it is,” Susan said.

“He fears something,” I said.

“And he’s reticent about himself,” she said. “Didn’t want to tell you where he lived. Won’t tell you where he works.”

“Lot of people are embarrassed about things like this,” I said.

“Are you?” she said.

“No more than you are, shrink girl.”

She smiled and sipped her wine.

She said, “We both uncover secrets, I guess.”

“And chase after hidden truths,” I said.

“And people are often better for it,” she said.

“But not always.”

“No,” she said. “Not always.”

We ate our plum soup happily and sipped our wine.

“You don’t like divorce cases, do you?” she said.

“Make me feel like a Peeping Tom,” I said.

Susan smiled, which is a luminous sight.

“Is that different than a private eye?” she said.

“I hope so,” I said.

“You feel intrepid, chasing bad guys,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“And sleazy, chasing errant mates.”

“Yes.”

“But you do it,” she said.

“It’s work.”

“It’s good work,” Susan said. “The pain of emotional loss is intense.”

“I recall,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “We both do. Half my practice comes from people like that.”

“Despite similarities, our practices are not identical.”

“Mine requires less muscle,” she said. “But the point is, you can rescue people in different ways. Leaping tall buildings at a single bound is not the only way.”

“I know,” I said.

“Which is why you’ll work divorce cases,” she said, “even though they make you feel sleazy.”

“Heroism has its downside,” I said.

“It has its upside too,” Susan said.

Susan’s eyes had a small glitter.

“Speaking of which . . .” I said.

“Could we maybe fi nish dinner?” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “The upside is patient.”

“And frequent,” Susan said.

3.

Iknew Doherty’s name and address. It would not be very hard to find out more about him. He had not, however, hired me to find out anything about him. So I decided to find out about his wife.

Concord College was not in Concord. It was in Cambridge. Three recent high-rise buildings with a lot of windows, just across the Longfellow Bridge in Kendall Square. A software tycoon with a streak of vestigial hippie-ness had endowed the place with a sum larger than the GNP of several small countries. And the college, perhaps respectful of its financial base, was an exfoliating swamp of unusual ideas. It cost about $40,000 a year to go there.

I went into Foss Hall, which was the middle high-rise, and up to the fourth floor. Aside from my adulthood, I was too neat to be mistaken for a student. Most of them wore very sloppy clothes that had cost a lot. Chronologically, I could have passed for faculty, but once again the neatness factor gave me away. The faculty was no neater than the students, but their clothes had cost less. Hoping to pass anyway, I