Bad Business

23

I was in my office, thinking, when Marlene Rowley came in. Today she was wearing big sunglasses and a low-cut red linen dress. I was relieved to see her. Thinking is hard.

"I'm on my way to the Gainsborough exhibit," she said, "and I thought I'd stop by and get a report."

"Would you settle for a few questions?"

"I did not employ you to ask questions," she said.

"Didn't we already go through this?" I said.

She sat down across the desk from me and crossed her legs, sort of immodestly, I thought. Maybe we were getting more intimate. Last time it had been only kneecaps.

"So, may I assume that you have no new information on my husband's death?"

"I have information all over me," I said. "But I don't know what to do with it."

"Do you know who killed Trent?"

"Not yet."

"Have you enough information to exonerate me from any possible complicity?"

"No."

"Well, for God's sake," she said. "What have you been doing?"

"Suffering fools gladly," I said.

"Well ... may I assume that I am exempt from that remark?"

"Sure," I said. "Did you know that you were being followed?"

"Followed?"

"Yep. Guy named Jerry Francis, from a small agency named the Templeton Group."

"Detective agency?"

"Yep."

"I was being followed by a private detective."

"You were."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"I caught him," I said. "I had reason to think someone was following you and I went out and waited for him to show up and when he did, we talked."

"You did that for me?" she said. I smiled winningly.

"Part of the service," I said.

"You watched over me."

"We never sleep," I said.

She would have been making me uncomfortable if I weren't so sophisticated.

"My God, that's so sweet," she said.

"You have thoughts on who might hire a detective to follow you?"

She stood suddenly and walked around my desk and bent over and put her arms around my neck. I realized she was going to kiss me and moved my face enough so she got me on the right cheek. She stood back.

"Most men kiss me back," she said. "On the mouth."

"I don't blame them," I said.

"Why didn't you?"

"Regretfully," I said, "I'm in love with another woman."

"That Susan what's her name," she said.

"Silverman," I said.

"I didn't know she was Jewish."

"No reason you should," I said.

"And that means to you that you may respond to no other woman?"

"It means I shouldn't act on the response," I said.

"Are you and she married?"

"Not exactly," I said.

"And yet you cling to this modern superstition?"

"About monogamy?"

"Yes."

"We do," I said.

"Only in circumstances where love is unbidden," Marlene said, "by law or convention, can it truly be given and received."

"I've heard that," I said.

"It's a truth that goes back to the ancient poets of Provence," she said.

"So the best way to be in love with her is to have sex with somebody else?"

"To be free to love someone else," she said. "Only if you can choose others, can your choice of her be uncoerced."

"By God you're right," I said. "Enough with the love talk, off with the clothes."

"Here?" she said.

She glanced around the office. "On that couch?" she said.

"Actually I was just trying to lighten the moment with a bit of roguish wit," I said.

She began to cry.

"You are making fun," she said.

"Only a little," I said.

She sat suddenly on the couch and put her hands in her face, sort of dramatically, I thought.

"No one understands me. I can't count on anybody," she said. "I have so much to give, so much love."

I couldn't think of anything to say.

"But I'm strong," she said after a couple of sobs. "I don't need anyone."

She was quiet for a time while she got her crying under control. I offered her a Kleenex from my bottom desk drawer. She took it and dabbed at her eyes. She looked straight at me.

"I'm sorry, but being a widow is very difficult."

"You okay now?"

"In a manner of speaking," she said sadly.

"You have any thoughts on who might have had you followed?" I said.

She stood and stared at me, horrified.

"You go right back to questioning me, you bastard," she said. "You heartless bastard."

She turned and left. I went to my window and stood looking out at Berkeley Street, thinking about courtly love, and the Provençal poets. In a minute she appeared on the sidewalk, and turned right to Boylston, walking purposefully, and right again, onto Boylston and out of sight.