Widow’s Walk

CHAPTER SIX

It was almost May. The azaleas were blooming. The swan boats were active in the Public Gardens. The softball leagues had begun across Charles Street, on the Common. And, in the Charles River Basin, the little rental sailboats skidded and heeled in the faint evening wind.

“You’re working for that hussy again,” Susan said.

“Rita?”

“Miss Predatory,” Susan said.

“I like Rita,” I said.

“I know.”

“Are you being jealous?” I said.

“Analytic,” Susan said. “Rita is sexually rapacious and perfectly amoral about it. I’m merely acknowledging that.”

“But you don’t disapprove.”

“Professionalism prevents disapproval,” Susan said.

“So the term ”hussy“ is just a clinical designation,” I said.

“Certainly,” Susan said. “She has every right to wear her skirts as short as she wishes.”

“She wears short skirts?” I said.

“Like you didn’t notice.”

“So do you like Rita, Ms. Professional?”

“Red-haired floozy,” Susan said.

“I so admire professionalism.”

Susan and I stood on the little barrel-arched bridge over the lagoon and watched Pearl the Wonder Dog as she tracked the elusive french-fry carton. Her face was gray. She didn’t hear well. Her back end was arthritic and she limped noticeably as she hunted.

“Old,” Susan said to me.

I nodded.

“But her eyes are still bright and she still wags her tail and gives kisses,” Susan said.

“Me too.”

“I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the tail wagging,” Susan said.

Pearl found a nearly bald tennis ball under the island end of the bridge and picked it up and brought it to us and refused to drop it. So we patted her and Susan told her she was very good, until Pearl spotted a pigeon, lost interest in the ball, dropped it, and limped after the pigeon.

“She hasn’t got long,” Susan said.

“No.”

“Then what do we do?”

“If she has to be put away, can you do it?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Because you can’t?”

“I don’t know about can’t,” I said. “But if you can do it, I’ll let you.”

“I thought you were fearless,” Susan said.

“I am, but it’s embarrassing for a guy as fearless as I am to cry in the vet’s office.”

“But it’s okay for me?”

“Sure,” I said. “You’re a girl.”

“How enlightened,” Susan said.

Pearl came back to check where we were. Since her hearing had declined she was more careful about checking on us. Susan bent over and looked at her face.

“But not yet,” Susan said.

“No.”

Susan put her arms around my waist and pressed her face against my chest. I patted her back softly. After a while she pushed away from me and looked up. Her face was bright. The shadow had moved on.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“I have cold chicken and fruit salad,” I said. “And I could make some biscuits.”

We had to wait until Pearl looked at us and then gesture her to come. When she arrived Susan snapped her leash back on and we headed slowly, which was Pearl’s only pace, back toward Marlborough Street.

“Do you really think Mary Smith didn’t do it?” Susan said.

“I’m sort of required to,” I said. “Ah, professionally.”

Susan gave me a look. “But when you’re not being professional,” Susan said. “Like now.”

“I wish there was another explanation for how Nathan Smith got shot to death in a locked house with his wife downstairs, and she didn’t hear a thing.”

“So why do you think she didn’t do it? Other than professionalism.”

“It just doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t feel right. If she did it, wouldn’t she have a better alibi than I was downstairs watching Channel Five?”

“You said she wasn’t very bright.”

“She appears to be very dumb,” I said. “But wouldn’t she have at least faked a break-in? Window broken? Door lock jimmied? Something? How dumb is dumb?”

Susan smiled. “I would say that there is no bottom to dumb.”

“You shrinks are so judgmental,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said. “But some of us are sexually accomplished.”

“Nice talk,” I said. “In front of Pearl.”

“Pearl’s deaf as a turnip,” Susan said.

“And a blessing it is,” I said.