“I know quite a few. I majored in English.”
“Where?”
“No place as fancy as Princeton.” Another reminder that she looked into him. “Washington College in Chestertown.”
Why hadn’t he found a woman like this, Gerry thinks. Someone who reads, but is capable and down to earth. Such broad shoulders—she’s probably very strong. She should be his nurse.
“I’m thinking of ‘Torch Song.’ The woman who shows up when men are dying. I think that’s why Margot is always being … jettisoned by her men. She’s quite beautiful. She can be good company. But she always seems to be waiting—”
He did not want to finish his own thought.
“For men to die? Is she a black widow? Does she have a string of dead men in her past? Does she inveigle her way into people’s wills?”
“No, no, of course not. She’s harmless. Relatively.”
The PI sighs, although not in a mean way. “Look, I could take your money. I like money. I always need money and you seem well fixed. But, alas, I’m too ethical to take on a job where I don’t think I’m going to get any real results.”
“There must be something you can do—”
“I could generate some reports on your second wife, or this Margot—get their financials, check around to see what they’ve been up to recently—it would be more than you’d get from a Google search, but not that much more. Or I could sign you up for the big ticket, surveillance. Maybe twenty-four/seven security, which is costlier still. But—this building is pretty secure. I don’t know what kind of security system you have in here, but there’s a front desk and the elevator has a camera. No one’s coming and going here without being seen.”
“Do you believe me? About the calls, the letter?”
“Sure,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
Because my mother had hallucinations before she died of dementia and I could be headed down the same path. But Gerry, having presented such a physically depleted self to this woman who radiates health and competence, does not want to reveal that his mind could be going, too.
“The missing letter, the lack of proof that the first two calls happened at all.”
“Technology is imperfect. Still, I’m going to give you a technological solution: You order this piece of equipment, a very basic recorder that works on any phone. Attach it to the landline here next to your bed. Technically, it’s illegal to tape people in Maryland without their consent, but it won’t matter as long as you don’t try to use the tape. Right now, it’s my sense that you want the peace of mind that these calls are actually happening. Right?”
“Right.” It’s a relief to feel understood.
She takes out her phone, shows him a website called the Spy Store, points to the model that she recommends. A solution, but it feels like a letdown. He likes her company. He would be happy to be under her warm, watchful eyes. He wants to hear her laugh.
“Even if you think I don’t need it—what if I did want to hire you for surveillance?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“No?”
“It’s not that I don’t like you”—his heart soars a little—“I’ve worked for lots of men I don’t like. Comes with the territory.” And now his heart thuds down, down, down; he could be sixteen again, listening to Mary Ellen King’s earnest assurances that she liked him as a friend. “And it’s not that I think you’re paranoid or delusional. It’s just that—you’re sixty-one years old. You’ve been married three times. Dated quite a bit. I mean, the most basic Newspapers.com search unearths lots of information on your, um, social life. Yet you look back over the last twenty or so years and you can think of only two women who might want to upset you. I’m sorry, but if you think you’ve gotten to the age you are, lived the life you’ve lived, without having more potential enemies than that—you’re not delusional, but you’re not very self-aware. Obviously, the relationship between a PI and a client never works if the client lies to the investigator. But over the years, I’ve learned it also doesn’t work if the client is lying to himself.”
“I can make a more complete list, if that’s what you want.” He says this stiffly, wanting her to know his feelings are hurt, but even as he does, his mind expands and he reconsiders the various candidates. Lucy became convinced he had cheated on her, she was that paranoid. He had cheated on Sarah, but only once, a one-night stand that barely mattered. There were the assistants who worked for him between Gretchen and Sarah, who always ended up in bed with him, but they had pretty much demanded his sexual attention. If anyone was the victim there, it was him. Tara? Their last conversation, so many years ago, had been a little fraught. Yes, maybe the list was longer than he knew.