Chapter 19

I SEE IT ALL THE TIME in my patients,” Susan said. “There is a way to save themselves and they won’t take it. Can’t take it.”

We had a table by the window at Sorellina. Susan was sipping a martini, up with olives. I had a Dewar’s and soda. I was sipping, too. It was just that my sips were much bigger than Susan’s.

“Hell,” I said. “If their fears are realized, he’ll lose the nomination anyway.”

“It’s too bad,” Susan said. “They seem to have achieved a life many people wish they could have. They have, apparently, a stable, loving relationship and sex lives that fulfill them.”

“So they say.”

“You don’t believe them?” Susan said.

“I don’t believe them or not believe them,” I said. “We’ll see.”

“Well, say they are telling the truth,” Susan said. “They’re together. They have enough money.”

“Yep.”

“The American dream,” Susan said. “Or one version of it.”

“Yep.”

“But because it’s a variation on the traditional dream,” Susan said, “this man has the power to destroy them.”

“It’s a power they’ve given him,” I said.

“What would you do?” Susan said.

“I’d call a press conference. Tell everybody everything, and if they didn’t like it they could vote for my opponent.”

“But you wouldn’t run for political office anyway,” Susan said.

“ ‘If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve,’ ” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“How about you?”

“Would I confess to save the life we have?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Absolutely.”

“And should we live separate sexual lives?” I said.

“Do you want to?” Susan said.

“No.”

“Me, either,” Susan said.

“So let’s not,” I said.

“Okay.”

She picked up her menu. I had a large sip of my scotch, which emptied the glass. I asked our waiter for more.

“I been reading Gary Eisenhower’s folder,” I said. “I got it from Quirk. He was blackmailing a woman named Clarice Richardson. They’d had an affair, same MO, pictures, audiotapes.”

“Married with a rich husband?” Susan said.

“Married,” I said. “But not to a rich man. She was the president of a small liberal-arts college in Hartland. I think it’s all women.”

“Outside of Springfield?” Susan said.

“Yeah. She was afraid she’d lose her husband, for whom she cared. And her job, for which she cared.”

“I think I’ll have the raw tuna,” Susan said.

“But she didn’t have enough money to keep making her payments.”

“So she went to the police?” Susan said.

“And Gary did three in Shirley.”

Susan had put her menu down.

“So what happened to her?” Susan said.

“I thought you and I could go out to Hartland and find out.”

“You and I?”

“Yeah.”

“Will we visit the Basketball Hall of Fame?” Susan said.

“Sure.”

“How about the Springfield Armory?” Susan said.

“Absolutely.”

“Anything else?”

“When we weren’t investigating, and sightseeing,” I said, “we could frolic naked in our motel room.”

Susan stared at me for a while.

“I am a nice Jewish girl from Swampscott,” she said. “I have a Ph.D. from Harvard. Do you seriously think I would wish to frolic naked in a motel room outside of Springfield?”

“How about Chicopee?” I said.

Susan looked at me in silence for a moment while she took another sip of her martini. The she nodded her head slowly and smiled.

“ Springfield it is,” she said.

Her smile was like sunrise.


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