“The only person you could ever talk with is your wife,” I said, “and she’s the issue, so you can’t talk to her.”
He kept looking at me and then slowly nodded.
“You know,” he said.
“I do.”
“You’ve been through it.”
“I’ve been through something,” I said.
He looked at Susan’s picture.
“With her?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’re still together.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re all right?” Doherty said.
“Very.”
With his elbows on the arms of the chair, he clasped his hands and rested his chin on them.
“So it’s possible,” he said.
“Never over till it’s over,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
I waited. He sat. Then he opened the thin briefcase and took out an 8?10 photograph. He put the photograph in front of me on the desk.
“Jordan Richmond,” he said.
“Your wife.”
“Yes,” Doherty said. “She kept her name. She’s a professor.”
“Ah,” I said, as if he had explained something.
I try to be encouraging.
“I think she thought it was low class,” he said. “To have a name like Doherty.”
“Too ethnic,” I said.
“Too Irish,” he said.
“Even worse,” I said.
“I don’t mean she’s snobby,” Doherty said. “She isn’t. She just grew up different than I did. Private school, Smith College.”
“Kids?” I said.
“No.”
“Where do I come in?” I said.
He took in a big breath of air.
“I want you to fi nd out what she’s up to,” he said.
“What do you think she’s up to?” I said.
“I don’t know. She’s out late a lot. Sometimes when she comes home I can tell she’s been drinking.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“That?”
“You think she’s fooling around,” I said.
“I don’t think she’d do that to me,” he said.
“Maybe it’s not about you,” I said.
“What?”
I shook my head.
“So what do you think?” I said.
“I don’t know what to think, it’s just not going well. She’s out too much. She’s sort of brusque when she’s home. I don’t know. I want you to fi nd out.”
There were a few questions I wanted to ask, but they were more shrink-type questions. And he wasn’t hiring me for my shrink skills.
“Okay,” I said.
“What do you charge?”
